The Devil's Due: An Irish Historical Thriller Page 2

  “Frank,” she began slowly. She held my gaze for a moment, then turned her head and stared at some unseen spot on the floor. She pulled a chain from the collar of her gown and absentmindedly rubbed the medal between her fingers.

  It was a foolish thing to do and I knew it before the words came out of my mouth.

  I reached for her hands. “You have to come with me.”

  Kathleen looked up and dropped the medal. She frowned. “What?” she demanded, her voice rising. “Have you lost your mind?”

  I nearly had to clamp my hand over her mouth again but, thankfully, she stopped. I waited, knowing she wasn’t done.

  “How can I leave?” she whispered, then nodded toward the door. “What about them?”

  A domestic servant she was called, one of six girls who kept house for a rich Protestant family. Her days were spent scrubbing yesterday’s dirt from the tile floors and polishing the dark wood moldings that filled the house. She washed and mended the linens, cleaned out the fires, and restocked the coal. At four, after she brought Mrs. Cavanagh her afternoon tea, in a china cup served on a silver platter kept polished as the missus demanded, she put the baby in the pram and took the three children for a walk.

  “Kathleen.” My whisper was urgent. “You know what will happen if you stay.”

  It was only a matter of time before Liam told the boys about Kathleen. He was my friend after all, and Billy would come for him next. I didn’t think Billy would do anything to Kathleen—what could he do, her sister being Mary and all?—but I didn’t tell her that. I couldn’t stay in Limerick, but I didn’t want to leave Kathleen behind.

  There was a thump in the house. She gasped, and I had to clamp her mouth again. A door squeaked, then loud footsteps right outside the room. A second later, the creak of the stairs.

  Kathleen pulled my hand away and leaned close, her lips touching my ear.

  “It’s Eileen,” she whispered, “going to the privy.”

  I stared at the door and listened to the footsteps fade. A moment later, there was the far-off clunk of the privy door shutting outside. I turned back to Kathleen and, in the dim light, I could see her face was clouded with doubt.

  “Come with me,” I said softly.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” I asked as I searched her eyes. I nodded toward the door. “They mean nothing to you.”

  “I can’t,” she said again. She hesitated, looking away for a moment, before her eyes found mine once more. “I can’t.”

  Before I could say anything more, her eyes narrowed. “And where would we go?” she demanded. “With the IRA after you.” She continued to scowl. “And likely the British too.”

  “I don’t know. Tipperary? Tralee? Dublin? What does it matter?”

  “What does it matter?” she repeated as if I were daft.

  She was about to say more but stopped as the sound of a motor drifted across the darkness. I glanced at the window. The sound grew, the motor whining. Soon it became a roar. My heart quickened as I reached for the drapes. I froze at the squeal of the brakes. Doors banged open and the night was filled with voices. British voices.

  “Go!” Kathleen hissed in my ear.

  I turned back. Her eyes were filled with panic. She gripped my hands.

  “Now! Before they find you.”

  I held her gaze for a moment—her eyes pleading with me—before I nodded. I leaned forward and kissed her gently on the forehead. I turned and rose, then felt her hand on mine once more.

  “Go,” she said softly, nodding toward the door, all the while still holding my hand.

  There were shouts from below the window, then the sounds of running feet. She dropped my hand and nodded toward the door once more.

  “Go.”

  Silently, I made my way to the door.

  It was a foolish thing to do; it was better to get the parting over with. But I couldn’t help myself, and I glanced back once more before I slipped outside.

  Kathleen had pulled her knees up to her chest, the linens draped over. She was biting her lip and staring at something—nothing—on the floor between us. She pulled the medal from her gown again, and I watched as she turned it over and over in her hands.

  She looked up once, shook her head as a tear slid down her cheek. Go, she mouthed.

  I felt a lump in my throat as I quietly stepped outside.

  ___

  I managed to sneak out of the Cavanaghs’ without disturbing the family or the other servants, or worse, drawing the attention of the British patrol. The fog was thick, and I was thankful for that as I made my way down the alley. Still, I hid in the shadows, afraid not only of the Peelers and the IRA but wary of the gypsies and gangs that would surely try to beat and rob me given the chance. As I approached the street, the murmurs of voices and the bang of a hammer caught my attention. Heart thumping in my chest, I slipped back into the alley. After a moment, I peered around the corner and, in the glow of the gas lamp, spied the green uniforms of the Peelers. A constable was standing in front of the telegraph pole, a hammer in his hand. One more stood behind him, his rifle held ready. Three more plus a driver sat in a lorry. They were hanging another notice; more orders, no doubt, more new laws from London designed to put us back into our place. The aristocracy in London was looking to squash the latest insurrection as they had all the ones for centuries before, all the while trying to appease us ignorant peasants with promises of Home Rule someday. I hid in the alley waiting for them to finish, my heart thumping in my chest all the while.

  It was but a moment later that they were done. With a growl from its engine and a grinding of its gears, the lorry disappeared into the mist. I slipped out of the alley and made my way to the pole.

  One thousand pound reward, the notice said. I shivered as I stared at the picture, at the grainy black and white image.

  “Jesus!” I hissed.

  I jumped at the loud bang somewhere off in the darkness but, after a moment, realized it was nothing more than a backfire from the British lorry driving away. I turned back and stared up at the poster, stared up at my own face.

  Francis Kelleher. Wanted for murder in Ireland.

  CHAPTER TWO

  We were to burn down Argyll Manor—a stately home that belonged to a rich Protestant landowner—before, it was rumored, the RIC moved in and converted it into a new barracks. Lieutenant Dan Buckley was in charge and Tom Sheehy, Sean Murphy, and I were ordered to assist. Under cover of darkness, Dan and Tom broke the lock on the door while Sean and I kept watch for the Peelers. This far out in the country, we didn’t expect them, but the dead before us had taught us to be careful. I heard the whistle—two long, low notes was the signal that Dan and Tom had been successful—and I took one more look down the lane before I stood nervously. Lugging the mine—fifteen pounds of gelignite and gun cotton packed in a wooden box—and the haversack with the other things we would need, I followed Sean. He wobbled side to side, an awkward step due to the two tins of paraffin he carried. I was no better, watching my own feet, not wanting to trip, careful with the package in my arms. I didn’t tell the boys, but the mine scared me, and the sooner I could lay it and get away, the happier I would be.

  We slipped inside and while Dan issued hushed orders and kept watch, Sean carried a tin of paraffin to the second floor. Tom was responsible for the first and began spreading the paraffin—kerosene—over the furniture, the walls, the drapes, and the doorways. Leaving the others to their tasks, I set the mine in the center of the parlor, checking the distance to the door. We planned to detonate the bomb from outside, protected, we hoped, by the heavy wooden door and the thick cut-stone walls. I only had forty yards of detonator wire in my haversack. I had wanted more, but supplies being what they were, that was all the quartermaster could spare. As I unwound the wire, working my way back to the door, I hoped I remembered everything I had been taught. Stepping outside, I knelt on the stoop and pulled the detonator from my haversack. Two nigh
ts earlier, we had pilfered the coil from a Model T Ford. This I had fashioned into a detonator, a box with a plunger, and a flashdamp battery, a device that the man from GHQ—General Headquarters in Dublin—assured me would work. I attached the wires, carefully twisting the nuts, mindful of the plunger the whole while.

  Without warning, there were shouts from inside and I flinched. Then came the gunshots, first one then two, then the roar of a volley. My heart thumping in my chest, I peered around the door and saw two British soldiers, their weapons blazing up the staircase where Sean had gone. Tom and Dan were lying on the floor, two more British soldiers standing over them. Dan was still; Tom was screaming in pain, clutching his stomach. Then I heard a shout from upstairs. With a sinking feeling, I realized Sean too had been shot. I reached for the haversack and began frantically searching for my revolver. Why didn’t I carry it in my coat pocket like the other lads? I’m not sure how he saw me, but suddenly one of the soldiers turned and leveled his gun. Forgetting my own, I lunged to the side, slamming my hand on the plunger as I leapt out of the doorway.

  For several days after, I replayed the scene over and over in my head asking myself each time if there was anything different I could have done. Surely, Dan was dead and Tom soon would be, if not from the bullet he already had taken then from the one he soon would—the British, as they had done many times before, would later claim that he was shot while trying to escape. And surely Sean had no chance, wounded as he was, and me without a gun in my hand and ready at the time, I was no help. And surely the British had reinforcements in the area, waiting to rush in and shoot any IRA men still alive. Surely, I told myself again and again, there was nothing else I could have done.

  There was a terrible bang and a bright flash followed by a roar, and suddenly the world was raining down on my head. Deaf and blind, I struggled for several moments, praying for the first time in years to Jesus, to Mary, to the saints, to anyone who would listen. When I finally pushed the door off me, I could hear the muffled screams as I pulled myself to my feet. I slapped at my own burning clothes then, dazed, I stared back at the doorway, feeling the heat from the growing inferno inside. I stumbled backwards when the flames, unhappy that I had somehow escaped their wrath, began to lick out the door, searching for me. A moment later, they shot out the broken windows on either side and then from the windows on the floor above.

  From behind me, I heard the shouts and the sound of the lorries, muffled in my ringing ears but loud enough to startle me. With one last look at the burning doorway, I turned and ran. I scrambled over the wall, then darted across the field, waiting the whole while for the bullets to find me. Somehow they never came. Still I kept glancing over my shoulder to see if I had been spotted. By the time I reached the crossroads, the screams from inside the manor house had gone silent.

  ___

  It’s a strange thing to know that someone wants you dead. Sure I knew that one day I might find myself on the wrong end of a British rifle and, like many before me, I might become another nameless face, another worthless Irish peasant, an enemy of the Crown killed in a gun battle. But it was a risk I was willing to take, for ours was a cause worth dying for. That the British wanted me dead, just as they wanted every Irishman like me, was not a surprise. Like all new Volunteers, I was told this repeatedly during training. If the British catch ye, yer dead! But just as sure, lads, if they learn who ye are, they’ll hunt ye down and ye’ll be just as dead! Hiding who we were behind the facade of farmers, ironmongers, coal porters—good citizens all—was the means of our survival.

  But as I had learned earlier, the British now knew who I was. In many ways, perhaps, it was inevitable. Events that had taken place years ago had set the wheels in motion.

  It was on a warm summer night two and a half years earlier that I had found myself in the stable facing a dozen men.

  “I do solemnly swear that to the best of my ability, I will support and defend the government of the Irish Republic against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same. I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion. So help me God.”

  I remember pausing, taking a deep breath before glancing up at the faces around me, at Billy, at Liam, at Patrick, at Mick, Tom, Sean, Roddy, and Dan, people I had known all of my life. They stared back at me, their voices silent, their faces stern. Then Billy stuck his hand out.

  “Good to have you with us, Frank.”

  Suddenly there were claps on my back and laughing; a light time, a camaraderie despite the seriousness of the moment. Thinking back on it now, there was never any doubt that I would join. Ours had been a rage seven hundred years in the making. Centuries of massacres and attempts by the British to crush us had surely left us weakened but had never darkened our dream. Even while our land was being taken and our food was being shipped to England—all while our own children starved to death—we continued to fight for what was ours. Even when our language was denied to us and when they tried to squash our heritage and our faith with their so-called Penal Laws, we held firm. Certainly the Irish Catholic Church was as bad as the British government but it was our church. Then, finally, on one fine morning, the day after Easter, one hundred and thirteen years after Robert Emmet hung from a British noose, Patrick Pearse and James Connolly led a band of men—Fenians and Irish Brothers all—into the center of Dublin and awakened our slumbering rage. Suddenly, it seemed, the dream of our fathers and of our father’s fathers was within our reach.

  My own contribution began three years after Pearse and Connolly and fourteen others faced a British firing squad for proclaiming Irish independence. There I was, with just nineteen years of age, joining my friends, my fellow countrymen, taking up arms in the fight for freedom. Doing my part for Ireland.

  ___

  With my picture posted on the telegraph poles and the lampposts around the city, I couldn’t wait any longer. In the cold darkness before dawn, I began my journey, hitching a ride on a milk cart. Wet and dirty from the long night and with the pain of Billy’s beating becoming a dull, throbbing ache, I fought the pull of sleep. The air was cold, and I shivered as the city faded behind us. The driver was content to listen to the sounds of the horses, their steps rhythmic and somehow peaceful. It was just as well—I didn’t want to talk, lost as I was in my own thoughts. And what was there to say anyway? With my own friends against me, there were few places I could go. Sure I could hide—for a while—but it would only be a matter of time before someone discovered who I was.

  Yesterday’s papers had denounced the atrocities perpetuated by the dangerous criminal element that calls themselves the Irish Republican Army. Dan, Tom, and Sean had been identified, as had the dead Black and Tans, and authorities were looking for the accomplices who were seen escaping after setting the explosives. While the papers hadn’t mentioned me by name, the poster I had seen earlier confirmed the British were hunting for me. The mood in the country left me with few choices. There was still an element within the Irish that was more afraid of what the Tans might do in retaliation, and sacrificial lambs—real or imagined—were offered as appeasement. My only option was to run.

  I listened to the horses, their steps softened by the fog, as the plan began to form in my head. As I put the pieces together, the heavy weight I had been carrying since Billy first accused me of being a traitor, began to lighten. But that was replaced by the burden of what I was leaving behind. My plan was dangerous, I told myself, but less dangerous than staying. Besides, what choice did I have anyway?

  My mind made up, I settled back into the seat and stared off into the fog. I had a long way to go before I reached the coast, longer still because I couldn’t risk being seen. Not by the Peelers, not by the Tans, not by the men who were once my friends.

  ___

  I shook my head trying to chase the dark thoughts from my mind. Despite all that had happened, the morning was quiet and peaceful. The gray mist that surrounded us, the rhythmic clip-clo
p of the horse and the rattles and squeaks of the cart provided a strange comfort. My head bobbed and I shook it again to clear the cobwebs, telling myself I had to stay awake. I sat up and stared out at the countryside, at the gray light of dawn, too tired to talk and not sure what to say anyway.

  Three nights with no sleep and Billy’s beating had taken their toll. The soft darkness continued to pull at me, but as soon as I began to slip away, sharp jolts of pain would startle me awake. I went on like that for some time, see-sawing between sleep and pain, each rut and bump reminding me of Billy’s boot. I finally gave up fighting, letting the waves of darkness wash over me. Sometime later I let out a cry, waking to the pain that shot through my ribs.

  “We’re here,” the driver said. He poked me with the buggy whip again.

  I looked up. The cart was stopped at the crossroads; the lane to the right led to the farm. I thanked the driver as I climbed down. He nodded once then flicked the reins. I watched as he turned and disappeared into the fog, his early morning delivery to the creamery done. I sighed, glanced once behind me at the road we had traveled on, then back in the dim light of early dawn over the hills toward where the city lay, lost now in the fog. With a sigh, I turned. As I began walking in the other direction, a cold rain began to fall. I turned my collar up and tugged my cap low. So much had happened in the last sixteen months, I thought as I made my way down the road, and now here I was leaving my home, leaving the fight for freedom to my brothers.

  ___

  I had thought that I would have my savings, enough money to pay for the boat fare. But with my picture posted all over Limerick, it wasn’t safe to wait for the post office to open. I had no way of knowing if Billy was still alive or if he had been captured by the British. Liam had escaped, I hoped, and as for the others? I didn’t know. But one thing I knew for certain: no British jail could hold Billy. He was one of the most ruthless men I had ever met and if he hadn’t escaped, he was surely dead. But I also knew that dead or not, he was sure to come after me. That was a fear that kept me going.