Ashes In the Wind Page 7

  ‘Tomas Sullivan, from Drimnamore in County Kerry.’

  ‘Sullivan, is it?’ Looking up the name in a massive black ledger. ‘Sullivan’s to hang. Only near kin allowed to see him.’

  ‘I’m his cousin, all he’s got. His father’s dead, his mother’s too old for the journey.’

  The sergeant looks at John sceptically, decides saying yes is easier than saying no, and tells him to come back at seven the next morning. After filling in a lengthy form and getting it stamped and counter-stamped, John goes back to Trinity for the night.

  The next morning he is led through a maze of courtyards and corridors by the sergeant, searched by a warder in a small windowless room, and taken into the main wing of the jail. Three levels of cells rise up either side of a central well bridged by an iron walkway at each level. A huge skylight runs the full length of the wing and gives the place a strange symmetrical beauty, offset by a powerful smell of urine, rancid cooking oil and stale sweat. The silence is broken now and again by the clang of a cell door, a shout from a prisoner, a bellowed order from a guard. A voice begins to sing:

  O my dark Rosaleen,

  Do not sigh, do not weep

  and stops as suddenly as it began.

  At the far end of the ground floor a line of twelve cells is separated from the rest by a large door guarded by two sentries.

  ‘This lot are all for the gallows,’ says the sergeant. ‘The sooner the better, including your cousin. Do you know what he did?’

  John doesn’t answer. He is taken to the end cell; the warder opens the door, and there is Tomas sitting on his prison cot, shackled with leg-irons.

  ‘It’s your cousin from Kerry,’ announces the warder.

  ‘I have no cousin,’ says Tomas.

  ‘How would you know in County Kerry? When you aren’t shagging sheep...’ The warder, pleased with his wit, shuts and locks the door behind John.

  ‘Why are you here? I have nothing to say to you or your kind.’

  ‘Kind? Kind? We were friends enough when it suited you.’

  ‘We’re on opposite sides now.’

  ‘Were you there when my mother and William were murdered?’

  ‘They were executed for betraying an IRA column, passing information to the British Army and causing the death of thirteen Volunteers, on a warrant from the IRA divisional commander. And I have nothing more to say. I do not recognize the court that sentenced me or the government that holds me here.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Tomas, you’re to be hanged, and you’re talking to me as if I was a judge. I’m Eileen’s son.’

  Tomas looks away. ‘You know they executed five Volunteers in Kenmare. Patrick O’Mahony was twenty, taught by Josephine in Drimnamore, just like us. They had to tie him to a chair before they shot him.’

  ‘You were all soldiers – and you’d killed a few Englishmen first. My mother killed nobody. Were you there when she was shot?’

  Tomas stands up, clasps and unclasps his hands. ‘Three of us brought the warrant. I was in the firing squad.’

  There is a rattle on the door. ‘Five minutes almost up.’

  ‘She didn’t suffer. She wasn’t abused. She was a brave woman right enough. And I wish...’ His voice trails away, and for a moment he closes his eyes.

  ‘I wish,’ says John, ‘I wish I had died in her place. I wish you as quick a death as you say you gave my mother and William.’

  The door opens, he is ushered out, but not before he sees Tomas putting a sleeve to his eyes.

  10

  TWO WEEKS AFTER he has been visited by John in Kilmainham, Tomas’s leg-irons are taken off, and Dick Teeling, another member of The Squad, is moved into his cell.

  ‘We’re the elite,’ Teeling says. ‘This is the Murder Row. There’s only one way out, and that’s over the wall.’

  ‘Or in a coffin.’

  ‘No coffin for the likes of us, only a pit out the back full of quicklime. We might as well try the wall. I’d as soon be shot trying to escape as die by the noose.’

  The cells in Kilmainham have wooden floors and stone walls covered in flaking whitewash. High and low peepholes are cut into the door, which is secured by a massive bolt and lock on the outside. Old graffiti, a calendar with 231 days crossed out, a crude drawing of the Republican flag, an illegible name, an inscription ‘A few men faithful and a deathless dream’, remind Tomas that Kilmainham has been a jail since 1796. The cells are damp, unlit, lice- and flea-ridden; Tomas itches all over, but his bruises have almost gone, and he can walk. They are exercised in small groups of twenty in an outside yard for half an hour each day. Kilmainham is guarded by soldiers and the RIC; discipline has broken down, and the regime is less strict than at Mountjoy. Although the block is sealed, the cell doors are often left open unless an inspection by an officer is due. There are visitors, food parcels are allowed, and notes are smuggled in and out. It is easy enough for the prisoners to talk in the exercise yard or at Mass on Sunday.

  Teeling tells him one of the soldiers is friendly.

  ‘He’s from Limerick, and I’ve said we’ll look after him when the Republic arrives. Most of the English soldiers can’t wait to get home. The Irish are scared. They know they’ll have nowhere to go when this is all over. Collins and his men will try to get us out, but we’d best make plans to save ourselves. There’s no knowing when the hangman will come for us.’

  Tomas, for whom everything that has happened at Staigue Fort and after has seemed to take place in a strange and different world, cannot stop thinking about the hanging.

  ‘Where do they do it? Does it take long? Do we get any warning?’

  ‘This’ll be my first time,’ says Teeling, laughing. ‘They’ve got a separate block, the hang-house. They take you there, blindfold you, put a big thick rope around your neck, open the trapdoor and that’s you gone with a broken neck. It’s quick enough provided they’ve got the drop right, otherwise you strangle. The offer of a priest an hour before is all the notice we’ll get. The hangman comes over from England to do the business. We’ve tried to get him several times, but he’s guarded more closely than the Viceroy. He’ll be brought here to take a look at us through the peep-window, judge our weight for the drop.’

  They make a careful note of the prison geography – there are two yards between their cell block and a gate through the wall to the outside world. The second yard is the place where the leaders of the Easter Rising had been shot, including, Tomas remembers, Michael O’Hanrahan, Kitty’s father.

  ‘I’ve got a message to the fourth battalion that we need bolt-cutters and a revolver. They’re in touch with our Limerick man. I’ve told them we don’t have long.’

  A day later Tomas is taken to Dublin Castle.

  ‘You’re here for questioning,’ the Auxiliary tells him as he is pushed roughly into his cell, a narrow room with an arched ceiling, a stone floor, no light and two bunks. He is the only occupant.

  ‘This is the cell Dick McKee and Peadar Clancy were in. We shot them when they tried to escape, and we’ll do the same to you.’

  ‘You murdered them, and Conor Clune, in cold blood, we know that, and you’ll pay,’ says Tomas as the door clangs shut.

  The Auxiliaries in the castle are a strange mixture – journalists, clerks, some graduates, most of them mature men. They have all seen service, in France, Mesopotamia, Gallipoli or Russia, and they are all ranked and paid as officers. There are two Military Crosses, a DSO and a DFC among their medal ribbons. Tomas is exercised on his own in the castle yard, escorted by two soldiers.

  On his third day he is brought to the Intelligence Room and made to stand in front of a desk while he is interrogated by a heavy-set man in civilian clothes. Two soldiers carrying rifles stand either side of Tomas.

  ‘I’m Inspector McTaggart, Royal Irish Constabulary. I am going to ask you some questions – the soldiers here are for my safety, you won’t be hurt in this room. What’s your name?’ He has a strong, harsh Ulster accent.

 
‘Tomas Sullivan.’

  ‘Address?’

  ‘Drimnamore, County Kerry.’

  ‘Were you at the Staigue Fort ambush?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘We know you were there. Frank O’Gowan was captured last week. He was in charge, no?’

  ‘Why ask me if you know the answers?’

  ‘Look, if you cooperate with me you could earn a reprieve. And go free if you give us something useful.’

  ‘I don’t think touts last long outside these walls. And I’ve told you I don’t know anything about Staigue.’

  ‘You know the name well enough, I notice. Who was in charge of the operation on 21 September? Was it Collins? Was it Lynch?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Who else was living in the Summerhill Dispensary? Was Frank O’Gowan there?’

  ‘I don’t know, but as you’ve captured him he’ll be able to tell you.’

  After half an hour the interrogator closes his notebook.

  ‘You can go. The Auxiliaries won’t be so gentle. You’ll be going to your Maker soon enough. And you’ll have to answer His questions.’

  ‘What makes you think He’s on your side?’ says Tomas as he leaves.

  The next day he is taken to a cell by four Auxiliaries and given a savage beating. The men don’t bother to ask him any questions.

  ‘This is for Captain Newbury,’ one of them says. Tomas notices he has a Military Cross.

  ‘Is there a medal for this sort of work?’ Tomas asks as they set about him with truncheons. It is worse than the beating at Jury’s Hotel; Tomas covers his head, hears the grunts of the Auxiliaries as they laugh and lay into him, feels his ribs crack and passes out on the floor.

  Back in his own cell he lies in a pool of blood, urine and excrement for three days before he recovers enough to stand up and to walk to the foul-smelling latrines. He is escorted there by one of the two soldiers outside his cell; they take pleasure in pretending not to hear him ask. At night the gas lights in the cells go out at ten. The silence is regularly interrupted by a shout from a prisoner, a roar from a guard, high-pitched swearing, a banshee wail, a sudden song that never lasts more than a verse.

  Dublin Castle has become a garrison fortress rather than the seat of government. The British in Ireland are now beleaguered in castles, barracks, police stations, commandeered country houses and hotels. The IRA are moving about Dublin in daylight with a freedom unthinkable a year ago. The curfew in the city begins at midnight and ends at five. Only civilians stay indoors. It is clear from the conversations Tomas overhears that both Auxiliaries and soldiers are no longer convinced that they are on the winning side.

  After two weeks in the castle, Tomas is taken back to Kilmainham.

  ‘Can’t you make your mind up where to hold me?’ he says to his two escorts, both Auxiliaries.

  ‘We don’t hang people in the castle. And you’ve lost your chance of a reprieve.’

  He is put back in his old cell, relieved to see Dick Teeling is still there.

  ‘I didn’t think we’d meet again,’ Teeling says. ‘I thought they’d treat you like Clancy and McKee and Clune. They still haven’t brought us the stuff. They’ll need to get a move on.’

  Three days later the bolt-cutter and the revolver arrive in flour sacks stolen from the kitchen store, then hidden beneath a loose flagstone in their cell. The guards are two cells away, and spend their time playing cards or sleeping. That night they get past the guardroom and through the two yards easily enough, but the bolt-cutters cannot cope with the outer gate.

  ‘We need something three times as strong – this yoke wouldn’t cut through butter,’ Teeling says to the soldier from Limerick. ‘Tell fourth battalion to get a decent cutter, tell them to test it first on a two-inch-diameter bolt.’

  In the exercise yard there are rumours that the next wave of hangings is imminent. There is also news that the tout who betrayed McKee, Clancy and Clune is dead.

  ‘They tracked him down to the Five Lamps and plugged him while he was reading the Independent and drinking a bottle of stout,’ says Teeling to Tomas. ‘It didn’t take long to avenge the boys. I hope they finished the bottle.’

  The new cutter arrives in a clothing parcel uninspected by the guards. Dick Teeling looks at the two three-foot handles and the separate heavy-duty cutter head.

  ‘These look like they’ll do the business. If they don’t it’s the long walk and the short drop for the two of us.’ Tomas cannot joke about the hangman.

  On the following Friday night their cell door has been left unlocked by the Limerick man, and for the second time Tomas and Dick Teeling walk quietly along the unlit passage in stockinged feet, their boots around their necks. Teeling has a hand on Tomas’s shoulder as he runs his fingers along the rough stone wall to keep his bearings in the darkness. Tomas feels sick, his heart pounding loudly at this chance of escaping the hangman.

  The only light comes from the guardroom door, which is slightly open. As they pass it, the smell of beer and warmth overrides the cold prison smell of urine and shit. They go through the inner courtyard, freezing against the wall when they hear the guardroom door open and slam shut.

  ‘They’re just going for a piss,’ whispers Dick. ‘And that’s the other way, thank God.’

  Once in the outer courtyard they use the new cutter on the lock in the small postern gate, then ease the bolt open and are out and free under the prison wall. They see a single soldier, and Tomas hears the click as Dick cocks the revolver, but the soldier is wrapped around a girl and the revolver is not needed. Within five minutes they see a late tram; as they board Dick Teeling says, ‘Look at the board – that’s a lucky sign.’

  ‘Nelson’s Pillar and Dalkey?’

  ‘No, you eejit, the shamrock above.’

  They are not asked for their fare; they take the tram as far as the Liffey, cross on the Ha’penny Bridge and reach the safe haven of Dick’s aunt’s house in Heytesbury Street by midnight.

  The escape of two of the men captured and condemned for the elimination of fourteen Intelligence officers enrages the British. Tomas is again headline news.

  ‘Daring escape from Kilmainham; security arrangements to be strengthened,’ says the Irish Times. ‘Police confident that the two condemned men will be speedily rearrested.’ There is a grainy photograph of Tomas and Dick below the headline.

  The curfew is brought forward to ten o’clock. Both the Auxiliaries and the IRA step up their patrols, and the IRA, confident and now better armed, look for trouble rather than avoiding it. Little battles break out all over the city during the curfew; grenades, rifle and machine-gun fire regularly punctuate the darkness.

  Tomas meets Michael Collins two days later.

  ‘You and Teeling did well,’ he says. ‘The Brits are beginning to realize that they can’t win. We’re in charge now. But you’re a marked man. Best get back to Cork and lie low for a while. You’re Harry Meehan from Waterford from now on. Here are some papers – letters, bills, a wallet with forty pounds in it. The quartermaster will give you some clear spectacles and a different suit. Once you’re back at Lissagroom you’ll be safe enough. The Tans and Auxies daren’t stick their noses out of Cork City.’

  Tomas can hardly recognize his bespectacled new self in the mirror. Prison life has made him gaunt; he looks like a man of thirty-five. Perhaps he has indeed become Harry Meehan. The train journey to Cork is slow and uneventful , although the train is stopped and searched twice, both times by the IRA. At Cork Station he thinks about going to see Kitty in Station Road, but there are Tans and policemen around the station, so he goes directly to the Queen Victoria on the Quays.

  11

  TWO DAYS LATER he is in Lissagroom.

  ‘I’m glad to see you back and living,’ says Michael Kelly. ‘Dead heroes are no use to man or beast, and there’s work for three here right enough. You’ll earn your bed and board.’ This is a long speech for Michael Kelly, who asks
no questions and speaks only to give Tomas his tasks for the day.

  Tomas is happy to have hard work to distract him from the turmoil of the past year. Life in Cork and Dublin and the prison diet have softened his muscles and the first couple of weeks are exhausting.

  Michael Kelly has bought three neighbouring fields from a widow woman who has given up her farm. ‘The stone walls are destroyed altogether,’ says Michael. ‘You’d not hold cattle in any of the fields.’

  It is over a month before the walls are rebuilt, a month in which Tomas works from dawn till dusk, finding stones the right size, moving them into position, breaking them into manageable pieces, building each wall up to four feet high. ‘Anything lower and my cows will be in County Kerry,’ says Michael Kelly.

  The old bedsteads and odd timber are replaced by proper gates that Tomas puts together in the farmyard and hangs on long-disused iron gateposts. Michael is pleased. ‘These fields are fit for the King of Connaught,’ he says. ‘O’Brien will be looking down from heaven at the wonder of it. Fair play to the man, he was crippled with the arthritis in his last years. Now for the drains.’

  Now for the drains. Digging diagonal trenches across each field, laying in the drainage pipes, then covering them over, is only a little less back-breaking than stone-walling. Tomas’s hands blister at first, then heal and harden. In the smallest field he is set to digging a lazy-bed for potatoes. As he plants the seed potatoes he remembers his first trip from Cork to Lissagroom with Denis, and the British sergeant who had stopped them on their way. And Frank O’Gowan, who hadn’t told them of the pistols and ammunition at the bottom of the last sack. Frank had left Dublin immediately after the killing of Captain Newbury. As far as Tomas knew he hadn’t been taken, but the Skibbereen Echo once a week was the only source of news at the farm. Michael Kelly goes into the village to Mass every Sunday. Tomas stays behind.

  Although he is tired after each day’s work, Tomas finds it hard to sleep. He has nightmares – Staigue Fort, the destroyed face of Seamus O’Connell, Patrick O’Mahony’s shattered knee, William McKelvey curled up and groaning in the farmyard. Worst of all is Captain Newbury’s screaming, pregnant wife, who as she turns towards him has Eileen Burke’s face.