An Irish Hostage

by Charles Todd

  Three men lay on the ground. Only one was standing, looming over them, a black shape against the dark clouds behind him.

  Friend—or foe?

  Chapter Nineteen

  I made certain that the fleeing man hadn’t circled around the enclosure, intending to come back and deal with me, then, keeping my revolver out of sight, I caught up my kit and quietly went up the uneven steps myself, prepared for anything.

  My gaze was on the standing figure, trying to decide what to do if he turned this way. I couldn’t just shoot him out of hand—

  He turned. I dropped the kit and brought up the revolver.

  Before I could say anything, Simon called to me, careful not to use my name. “Boy!”

  There was urgency in his voice.

  I felt a surge of relief as I reached down for my kit and ran forward.

  He took my kit from me as I surveyed the scene.

  Major Dawson lay quiet, not moving. One of his captors was rolling about, clutching a bleeding leg. And Terrence had his hand over a badly bleeding arm.

  I looked at Simon.

  “Knife,” he said, gesturing toward Terrence, and I went to kneel by him as Simon checked on the Major, then went to deal with the third wounded man.

  Kneeling by Terrence, I reached in my kit for scissors and began to cut away his jumper and the shirt beneath it.

  The knife had gone deep into the flesh of his upper arm. I couldn’t tell whether an artery had been nicked, but I saw him wince with the pain as I pressed on the wound to staunch the bleeding.

  “How is the Major?” he was asking Simon.

  “Unconscious.” He was pulling a dressing from his pocket and applying it to the leg wound.

  I began to bind Terrence’s wound, but he pushed me away. “We need to go.”

  “And you can’t row without a bandage,” I told him in a low voice.

  He let me finish, then got to his feet.

  The man who had been helping to carry the Major to the edge of the precipice was quiet now, and I thought he believed we were going to kill him. But when Simon finished with his leg, he tied the man’s hands and feet, blindfolded him, dragged him back to the wall, then went to attend to the Major.

  I was sure I heard distant thunder.

  “We’ve got to carry him,” Simon was saying to Terrence, making sure he wasn’t overheard. “He’s not able to walk.”

  Terrence reached into his pack and pulled out a thin sheet. He and Simon together got the Major onto it and then tied knots into the four corners to ease the task of carrying it.

  “Where’s the other man?” Simon asked, kicking the small fire, to scatter it.

  “He ran by me. I could have shot him, but thought better of it.”

  “He may have friends in the village. We ought to move.”

  Leaving the bound man where he was, they lifted the sheet with the Major on it, got him across the platform, but found it harder to get him down the steps to the lower enclosure. Lowering him to ground, Simon took the flask from Terrence, and lifting the Major’s head, he poured a bit of the contents into the Major’s mouth. He coughed, but it seemed to revive him just a little.

  Simon told him, “It’s going to be rough going. But you’re safe. Just stay as quiet as possible.” He pulled at the scarf covering his nose and mouth, then stuffed it in his pocket.

  I couldn’t tell if the Major was able to respond. They picked up the sheet again and we started back the way we’d come. I was grateful that it was downhill now, but in the dark, it was harder to tell just where we were putting our feet. I heard both Terrence and Simon swear under their breath as they slipped. And we hadn’t even reached the path.

  I was looking up at the distant sky, out over the Atlantic Ocean, and I could have sworn the lightning was much closer. Occasionally, as I followed the little party ahead of me, I also thought I could hear thunder.

  We had finally moved out of the enclosures, we were on the path that led down the long slope of the land toward the village and the water, when I saw a flicker of light, like a torch, moving up the path toward us.

  “Do you see those lights?” I asked. There was no place to hide, no cover at all.

  Terrence said, his voice muffled. “Turn back—those sharp stones.”

  We turned, moving as quickly as we could, toward the cover of the stones. We followed them in the opposite direction from that of the path, tucked Major Dawson in behind several of the taller ones, and then the three of us lay flat in the prickly grass, hiding our faces.

  We could hear the progress of whoever was coming toward us. They were moving fast, sweeping the torch from one side of the path to the other. I thought there were at least two people.

  It was a long climb, and it was a while before they reached those defensive stones. I could hear them talking as they got closer, and I saw Simon reach out and put a hand over the Major’s mouth.

  Then they were even with us, and the sweep of the torch was coming too close. Squinting, my face in the dirt, I saw it come within inches of Terrence’s foot. I held my breath. There were three of them . . .

  And they moved on, concentrating on reaching the heart of the fortress as quickly as possible, staying with the path. I drew a breath.

  They disappeared around the first wall, but we stayed where we were. Any movement was easy to see, even in the dark—just as we’d seen them, in time to hide. We’d been masked by the dark gray stone behind us, and we’d had no light.

  I waited, but neither of the men in front of me stirred. When the men with the torch had disappeared behind the wall of the platform, Simon raised on one elbow.

  “Sister?” he said, still avoiding my name. “If you hurry, and stay low, close by the field walls, you can make it to the currach.”

  “I’ll stay,” I said.

  “No. We’ve already got the Major to watch. You’ll be in the way.”

  “I can shoot—as well as you can,” I retorted.

  “That’s not the point. We can hide Dawson here, and if we need to fight, we can. But I’d as soon get out of here without more bloodshed.”

  “What if they’ve already found the currach? And are guarding it? I’m safer with you.”

  “She’s right,” Terrence said. His voice was tight. I thought perhaps his arm was beginning to hurt him more than he was willing to admit. “If we separate, we’ll end by leaving someone behind.”

  And so we waited. I lay there, looking toward the distant storm. Watching the play of lightning in the clouds. What was troubling, was seeing a few strikes out at sea. It was coming this way, the storm.

  After what seemed an eternity, there was a flash of light as the men came out of the platform and started down. I couldn’t see if they were bringing the injured man with them. Surely they wouldn’t leave him there?

  Beside Simon, the Major groaned. I had no idea what his injuries were, I hadn’t had a chance to examine him. At least he was alive. But how much jarring could he take as we tried to get back down that long slope to where we’d hidden the boat?

  Try as I would I couldn’t tell if the escaping man had roused the village or just the two men he’d brought back with him. But the houses looked dark. I could only hope they were, that lamps I couldn’t see were lit in windows turned toward the sea.

  We lay there. An insect came crawling by, brushing past my chin. I clenched my teeth, hoping it wasn’t intending to bite. Mercifully it moved on, not into the neck of my shirt or up a sleeve.

  Progress was slow—I gathered that they had brought the injured man with them after all—compared to the pace they’d made going up. Soon we could hear voices, one of them angry, one whining, as if explaining how he and his companion had lost the Major. The torch was sporadic now, keeping to the path more than searching the ground on either side. But we couldn’t be sure, and I had just moved a little as the insect came back, when the torch swept over us.

  I didn’t know how they could have missed seeing us. I tensed, wishing I’d take
n my revolver out of my pocket when I had the chance.

  But the four men, two of them supporting the wounded man, were demanding answers to questions.

  And I heard one of them exclaim, “I tell you, they couldn’t have vanished. Not with the Englishman in the state he was in. They must have tossed him into the sea. I think they wanted him dead—”

  They were out of earshot, although I could hear their raised voices a bit longer.

  We lay there. Time crept by. I closed my eyes, worrying about the Major, wondering if he needed help now, not later. My training told me to go to him, make certain he was able to breathe, that he wasn’t dying.

  Simon finally stirred. I heard him ask Terrence for the whiskey again, and I saw the faint light of the stars flash a little on the silver of the flask as Simon lifted the Major’s head and offer him another drink.

  I tried not to think how whiskey might hurt rather than help. But Simon had dealt with the wounded. He’d know what not to do.

  Then he rose. “Let’s go.”

  They took up the sheet and began to walk, as I brought up the rear.

  It was a long, worrying walk down from the heights. Out in the open, nowhere to hide, and if there was a watcher, posted to keep an eye on the path, he would see us now, a quarter of the way down—then half. My ears were strained to catch any sound, and I wished we could use our own torch, to ease the way.

  Simon said something to Terrence, and the reply was a shake of the head. I thought it was a question about his arm. He was using his right arm, but every step must surely have jolted the wound.

  We were closer to civilization now, but we couldn’t cut across the fields. Those low stone walls were everywhere, blocking off the land like a gray patchwork. We were all on edge, had been when we first started down.

  And then we found the track that cut down to the boggy place where we’d left the boat.

  I could smell rain, now. The storm was closer, the night sky split in half by sheets of lightning, but the thunder was slower in reaching us. There was still time—

  It was impossible to see the currach until we were almost on it. I went ahead, stepping into the springy weeds and then into the water, holding the prow while they gently lifted the sheet into the bottom of the boat, then I followed, sitting in the bottom myself, next to the Major’s head. Simon and Terrence took their places. We were just about to push off when we heard voices. Ducking our heads as low as we could, we waited. I couldn’t be sure where they were coming from.

  The sound of oars moving through water followed almost at once. A boat had set out from the village and was heading back across the water to the mainland. It passed within twenty feet of us, its wake rocking us.

  They were too busy pulling at the oars to see us. Peering over the gunwale, I counted two rowing and a third sitting lower in the boat, no doubt his wounded leg stretched out before him. And then they were gone, their voices floating back for a few seconds more, and then silence.

  We waited a good quarter of an hour, and I watched the storm moving inexorably our way. The water was already getting rough. I didn’t have any idea how good this wood-and-hide boat was in a storm.

  Our oars went into the water, we backed out into the current, and Terrence guided us out into the sea, well offshore before turning toward Killeighbeg. A dark boat on a dark sea, I thought. Impossible to see the Major’s face, but I could feel his breathing, ragged and painful.

  Had they decided to drop him over the cliff because he’d told them what they wanted—or had they believed he would never tell them anything, and it was time to cut their losses? Up there on the cliffs’ edge, his cries would have sounded like the gulls, and even a stray hare wandering into the enclosures would never have noticed it.

  When we were well away from the island, Simon called over his shoulder, “How is he?”

  “Alive,” I answered.

  Behind me Terrence grunted. Glancing back, I could only see the pale oval of his face as he bent over the oars. Several times he missed his stroke, recovered, and kept at it.

  It was a long run back to the mainland. And the storm was moving faster. The lightning was lighting up the sea around us, the sea itself seeming to want to swamp us, and then the rain came rushing over us, pelting us with the first hard drops, then soaking us. I tried to protect the Major as best I could, but it was hopeless. The currach bobbed across the sea, and I found a pail near where Simon was kneeling, and tried to keep pace with the rain coming in.

  Ellis stirred several times, as if in pain. I’d taken off my flat cap and put it over his face, to shield it a little, and I touched his shoulder from time to time, reassuring him that he was safe, not sure that he could hear me.

  And then as quickly as the storm hit us, it had moved on. The rain was lighter, but the wind that had driven the storm was bringing cooler air behind it, and I was beginning to shiver in my wet clothes.

  How on earth was I going to get back to Eileen’s room, a bedraggled boy dripping puddles wherever he stepped? And what were we to do with the Major?

  Finally the dark shape of land rose out of the storm, and I said quietly, “Si—” and stopped myself in time. “What are we to do? Terrence is wounded, you’re being hunted, and the Major is going to need a great deal of care. Take him to the house? And how do we explain how he got there?”

  I had to raise my voice to be heard.

  Over his shoulder, he said, “We’ll need some sort of distraction.”

  Ordinarily, I thought, the first glimmer of the summer dawn would be appearing anytime now. But the storm clouds were between us, still raging.

  I could see the strand now, where we’d set out. A slim pale line against the seagrass and reeds that marked the land. Terrence had got us back safely.

  Looking back at him, I was shocked to see how haggard he was, the line of his scars stark against the dark hair plastered over his forehead.

  Simon looked no better. And I surely bore a resemblance to a drowned rat, with my hair every which way. No one would think I was a boy now.

  And then we were running up on the strand and the currach stopped with a jolt that made Ellis cry out in pain.

  Terrance was saying, “There’s an empty croft not far from here. We’ll take him there. Tomorrow is Sunday, they’ll be in the church. We can carry him into my room, once they’ve left the house.”

  I said, “We can take him to Mrs. Flynn—your aunt. She has two rooms. No one will think to look in her bedroom. And no one will think twice about my coming and going from there. I can’t visit your room.”

  Simon helped me out of the little craft, handed me my dripping kit, and then helped Terrence lift the Major out. When he was lying on the strand, they turned the currach over, then lifted him again and started through the high grass. I followed.

  The croft was barely habitable. I could hear mice scurrying about in what was left of the thatching over our heads as we took the Major into the driest part. Terrence took a torch out of his sack, unwrapped the oiled cloth that had kept it dry, and turned it first on our surroundings—filled with windblown debris—and then on Ellis.

  I knelt beside him. Like Michael, he’d taken a terrible beating. Both eyes were swollen closed, I thought his nose was broken, and his lips were twice their normal size. There were bruises and cuts, and that was just his head. God knew what else was wrong. Simon began to open his shirt. It was already torn in half a dozen places, and he had only to rip it a little more.

  His body was dark with bruises and cuts. I thought he’d been kicked as well as beaten with fists. One hand was so badly swollen and dark that I knew it must be broken. There were burns on the underside of his arms, red and weeping. And I’d thought that fire was only for warmth and perhaps making tea!

  “How bad is it?” Simon asked.

  “He needs a doctor. If only we could get him into the cockpit, we could fly him out. But I don’t think that’s possible. I’m afraid of broken ribs—they could puncture a lung. Internal in
juries—I honestly don’t know how we managed to get him this far without killing him.”

  “Leave him here, with the Traveler to watch over him. I’ll find blankets and a change of clothes. A Thermos of tea. You can come back in the light to see to him. Right now we must get into the house without waking anyone. We need to change.”

  He was right. But it went against my training to leave a wounded man untended.

  I started to say something about that when I saw drops of blood on the floor by my knee. Fresh blood—

  Looking up quickly, I saw that Terrence’s arm was bleeding heavily. Not surprising after his exertion at the oars.

  “I need to deal with that.” Rising, I reached for his arm, but he stepped back. “Later.”

  “You’ll drip your way through the kitchen and up the stairs,” I told him, “if I don’t do something.”

  Against his will, he held out his arm, and I did the best I could, cleaning it, then binding it well. I could tell it hurt like the devil, but he set his teeth and said only, “Hurry.”

  That done finally, I turned to Simon. “Will you stay with him? I’ll speak to Maeve, I’ll ask her please to help us.”

  “I’ll stay,” he said.

  Gathering up my kit, I turned to Terrence. “The sooner we go, the sooner you can come back.”

  He left the torch with Simon and together we walked out of the croft—where the wall had tumbled in, a tree was growing out of the rubble. I hadn’t even noticed it as we’d brought Ellis in.

  Outside in the wind again, I could feel the chill in the air. Not unusual for June on this western coastline, open to the Atlantic storms. I was grateful that last night’s storm had passed on, taking the rain with it, but banks of heavy clouds in the east promised a less than bright morning. Listening to the squish of wet stockings in wet shoes, the boy’s shirt clinging to my back while the jumper smelled strongly of wet sheep, I couldn’t imagine how we were going to dry our clothing.

  We’d walked in silence, back through the high grass, over the slight rise, and were soon on Flynn land again. There Terrence said to me, “You know that man well. I heard you call him by name. And you work smoothly together. I noticed that too.”