Shamrock Green (33 page)

‘Still ailing, Sister. Will you be rememberin' her in your prayers?'

‘That we will, that we will.'

They were through the barricade and beyond the troop line and walking down towards the bridge and Sylvie saw more devastation and folk poking among the rubble and then the river reaching out to the docks and to the sea. She did not trail behind now. She walked upright, head up, with Mr Pettu at her side. Fran would have been proud of her fortitude, she thought, as they passed through another cordon and followed the nuns up Jagger Street to the end of the Sperryhead Road.

‘Do you know where you are now?' Mr Pettu said.

‘I do,' said Sylvie.

‘There's no word of street fighting here,' Mr Pettu told her, ‘but I'd keep out of Sutter Street if I were you, just in case.' He offered his hand and Sylvie shook it. ‘I'm sorry to hear about Mr Hagarty. He'll not be the last we'll lose, I fear, but it must be a sore trial for you with a little one, and your husband still at the war. Will you manage on your own from here, Mrs McCulloch?'

‘Yes, Mr Pettu,' Sylvie assured him. ‘My thanks to you and your friends.'

‘The sisters are pleased to be of help,' Mr Pettu said, then he left her to join the nuns for the march back to Lebrun Street, and Sylvie set off down Sperryhead Road in search of her daughter and son.

*   *   *

Within an hour of occupying the warehouse Charlie sensed that their position was hopeless. The news that Jansis had brought over the wall was discouraging: the Shamrock, their supply line and escape route, had been closed off.

‘What do you think, Turk? There's still time to get out before a shot is fired or a drop of blood spilled.'

‘Don't be bloody stupid, man,' Turk said. ‘We're here to fight.'

‘That's what I thought you'd say.'

The empty sprawl of Watton's warehouse might have been held by sixty men but a mere twenty could not hope to hold off a government attack for long. Charlie placed guards by the gates and snipers in the windows then Turk and he climbed up to the cabin of one of the cranes to take a dekko at Sutter Street.

‘I thought we'd have reinforcements by this time,' Charlie said. ‘Weren't we told they'd come flocking in to town as soon as the thing got started?'

‘Never mind the boys from the south, Charlie. Where are our lads? Put off by cancelled orders, by confusion and disorganisation, that's where,' said Turk. ‘Now I'm asking myself what I'm doing sitting in a wooden box a hundred feet above Sperryhead watching the British assemble enough firepower to blow half Dublin to smithereens.'

‘I'll ask you again; do you want to surrender?'

‘No.'

‘Well,' Charlie said, ‘if we put three men front and back and a pair in each of the cranes at least we can take out a fair share of soldiers before we go down. It'll be like shooting ducks in a barrel.'

‘Fish,' said Turk. ‘Fish in a barrel.'

‘Do you believe Sylvie's woman?'

‘Jansis has no reason to lie to us. I just hope Maeve is well out of it.'

‘She would be with us if you'd given her half a chance.'

Turk grinned. ‘Aye, she's a spunky wee thing, is Maeve.'

‘She's far too young for you.'

Turk gazed through the greasy glass in the side of the cabin at the green hills beyond the city, at the spires, steeples and tenements that climbed into the rain-washed sky.

‘In four or five years she'll not be too young for me,' he said wistfully. ‘I ask you, what would be so wrong in a fine fellah of twenty-eight marrying a girl of seventeen?'

‘Marriage is it, now?'

‘Aye, of course it's marriage. What do you take me for, Charlie?'

‘I take you for an idiot,' Charlie said, patting Turk on the shoulder. ‘Who'd have thought there was a big soft lump inside you. Will we show the white flag an' go out peaceful so you can marry my niece when she's old enough an' have a multitude of hairy-faced sons to fight the fight we ran away from?'

‘No,' Turk said. ‘I'm thinking we had better do it ourselves.'

‘Then,' said Charlie, ‘we'd better do it quick.'

‘Why's that?'

‘Because they're bringin' up a field gun to shoot us out of the sky.'

*   *   *

The soldiers were well organised. They had formed four ranks, two facing down Sperryhead Road towards the docks, and two facing back towards the bridges. The troops in the front rows knelt each on one knee, rifles trained on the crowd. The troops in the rear rows had fixed bayonets. Three sergeants and an officer patrolled the ranks to keep order but there was no sniper fire to distract the men who appeared to be enjoying their confrontation with the citizens of Dublin now that the onlookers at the broad end of Sperryhead Road were no longer hurling insults at them.

‘Have you seen my children?' Sylvie's voice sounded as if it came through a hollow tube. ‘My daughter and my baby, has anyone seen them?'

The folk in the crowd paid her scant attention. They were waiting to see what would happen next. If they needed a scapegoat, however, Sylvie McCulloch with her airs and graces, her money and her fancy man would surely fill the bill.

‘Won't they let me in to look for my children?' Sylvie said.

‘They won't let anyone cross the line,' a woman told her. ‘Have you a house down there?'

‘Aye, sure an' she has a house down there, her an' her rebel friends. It's because o' her we're all out in the street here.'

‘I thought it was because the Citizens had took the warehouse?'

‘Bloody Citizens. Bloody brotherhood,' an elderly man snarled. ‘The only thing they're good for is makin' trouble for the rest o' us.'

‘Please,' Sylvie said, ‘tell me what's happening?'

‘I'll tell you what's happenin',' the fierce old gentleman said. ‘They've cleared all the houses and tooken their troops out. They'll not be for stormin' the warehouse after all. Change o' plans. They'll be for usin' the big guns to blast the poor beggars before they send in the soldiers for to mop up.'

‘I've lost my children,' Sylvie said.

‘You should've thought o' that before,' a woman, a neighbour, told her; then, relenting a little, added, ‘If it's Maeve you're lookin' for, she went off down the road three or four hours ago, carryin' the baby with her.'

‘Went where? What road?'

‘Down through the lines. She'll be safe enough down there.'

Sylvie wriggled through the crowd and peered at the long length of Sperryhead Road.

It was empty as far as her eye could see, a great blank damp space, no sentries at the gates of the cottage rows, no guards on the doors of the house, her house. The Shamrock stood bland and shallow in the post-noon light, like something cut out of cardboard. She saw a cat, two cats, skulking down the pavement's edge, and heard a dog bark, and realised that what the old man said must be true and that the troops intended to raze Sperryhead Road to the ground. She experienced a moment of overwhelming terror at the thought that Maeve and Sean might still be in the vicinity. She let out a cry as a harsh, whirling whistle sounded overhead and a shell struck the front of the Shamrock. The brickwork round the window of Mr Dolan's room imploded, spewing debris and blowing the lace curtains into the air like frozen breath.

‘Dear Christ, will they be leavin' us nothing?' the woman asked.

Shaking his head, the old man answered, ‘Nothing.'

The shells came looping over from behind the dockside warehouses. The gunners' accuracy was uncanny. The Shamrock was the target and the Shamrock was struck again and again, five, six, seven shells pounding into the front of the building until nothing could be seen but a huge cloud of dust billowing across the cobbles. The crowd was silent now, cowed at last, as the dust drifted and settled and revealed the extent of the damage.

The Shamrock had been torn wide open, bedding exposed, bedding and torn curtains and carpets, the gap of the staircase, the stairs crushed under a mass of panelling and brickwork, then the roof collapsed, plunging down in another roar of dust, and fire bloomed from a fractured gas pipe.

‘Aye, you'll have no more rebel tea-parties in there, I'm thinkin',' Sylvie's neighbour said as a government platoon, moving at the double, entered the courtyard from the alley and, a moment later, began peppering Watton's warehouse with grenades.

A hand to her mouth and tears in her eyes, Sylvie turned away.

*   *   *

As soon as they were forced to take to the rooftops Turk knew the game was up. He had hoped they might survive until nightfall and that some of them might manage to escape into Sutter Street to fight another day. When the Shamrock was shelled, however, and government troops swarmed around the warehouse all chance of holding out until sunset vanished.

The brothers, those who were still alive, were scattered throughout the building. He had no idea where Charlie was, or Kevin. He had Peter with him, hauling the lad by the collar, while Peter shrieked with the pain of the hole in his side. Jansis was wounded too and he pushed her ahead of him up the narrow staircase towards the door that opened to the air and the sky.

They had two rifles, a revolver and a pocketful of ammunition to hold off the final onslaught. He wished he didn't have to do this, to decide what was right and what was wrong, what was sensible and what was not, and what would haunt him for the rest of his life, if any life was left to him – or if it would be better to become one with the angels before the sun slipped down behind the rain-cloud behind the Dublin hills.

‘Come on, lad,' Turk said. ‘Come on, Patie.'

Peter screeched and clung to the steps, dragging his heels on the stone.

Big rump bulging under her Sunday overcoat and still with the beret on her head, Jansis held the Mauser in both hands and would not let go. She fell through the little door on to the roof. There was a ledge around the door, not much of one, eight or ten inches, leaded, then the roof pitched down and dropped into the loading bay at the front of the warehouse.

He grabbed Jansis by the belt and pulled her against the upright. He pulled Peter from the stairs and laid him belly down across the ledge. The boy was hollowed out by pain, the first real pain he had ever felt in his life, Turk reckoned. Well, Turk thought, never mind, it'll all be over soon enough and there'll be no pain where we're going.

Away to the west, beyond the hills, the cloud was breaking up a little as it often did this time of an evening. Below, the soldiers were running from the shelter of the gatehouse into the warehouse. More soldiers crouched behind the jute bales and three troopers were scaling the iron ladder that led up to the cabin of the jib-crane. The brothers who had been sniping from the crane were probably dead. In the window of the crane Turk noticed a glint of sunlight, very pale and watery. There were motor-cars in the street now, for Mr Watton had returned from the country and had assembled other partners and managers to negotiate with the army commanders. There had been no heavy shelling of the warehouse. Only the Shamrock had been destroyed. Turk wondered why they'd done that, why they'd blasted a hole in the Sperryhead Road: to cut off the possibility of retreat, of course, and save British lives.

Jansis said, ‘I think I'm shot.'

‘I think you are,' Turk said.

He took cartridges from his pocket and fed them into the Mauser.

Jansis leaned back against the little door and looked down the slope of the roof to the loading bay below. The troops were firing into the building but not at the rooftop. Jansis's arms hung slack by her sides and the front of her coat was wet with blood.

‘Does it hurt?' Turk said.

‘By God, does it not,' said Jansis.

He snapped the Mauser and gave it back to her.

She lifted her arms as if they were made of lead and took the rifle, cradled it against her breast and fumbled for the trigger.

‘Not now, not yet,' said Turk. ‘Wait, if you can.'

She looked secure enough with her boots propped on the ledge and her legs braced. He knelt down by Peter and lifted him. There was blood on the boy's tunic, but not much, just a thin dark red tassel looped across his thigh. He was sheet-white, though, and terrified.

Turk groped in the boy's pockets, found five cartridges, and transferred them into his own pocket, then he eased the boy back until he was more inside than out, kneeling on the little bit of landing, head protruding from the doorway. He had stopped screeching now and as Turk made to step out on to the ledge, he grabbed the skirt of Turk's tunic and said, ‘Give me a shooter, man, for God's sake give me a shooter.'

Turk took the revolver from its holster and fitted it into Peter's hand. He unclipped the lanyard and wrapped it round the boy's wrist. Sunlight came slanting over the rooftops and for an instant Peter's eyes were filled with sunlight and Turk could see sunlight pink through the boy's big ears.

‘Take the stairs,' Turk said. ‘See we don't get back shot.'

‘Right,' said Peter.

Easing round, he propped his elbows on the doorstep and gripped the revolver in both hands. He was grinning, or grimacing, as he peered down into the dark of the stairs, and the waiting, Turk thought, would keep him going.

Turk held the Mauser in the crook of his arm and put his other arm around the woman's waist. She was far gone, weakened by blood loss. He doubted if she would last through it. She leaned shyly against him, as if she thought he might be courting her. She put her head against his shoulder and he could feel her hair against his cheek, her lank hair stirring in the breeze that came in off the sea.

‘I think I hear them coming,' Jansis whispered.

‘I do too,' said Turk.

Chapter Seventeen

It was not yet dark when Gran McCulloch put her to bed. Sean was tucked up fast asleep in a drawer from the tallboy in the big bedroom upstairs. Gran had padded the drawer with blankets before she put Sean down and though he seemed snug enough, the drawer had looked too much like a coffin for Maeve's liking and she had begun to cry.