by Rose Doyle
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Allie
I woke in the night to find Sarah crawling from the nest.
'Where are you going?' I sat up. She had James with her.
'Go back to sleep,' she hissed as she disappeared through the doorway.
It was hot and clammy in the nest, like the night outside only worse. I crawled after them. Sarah was dressing, already in her underskirts. James lay sleeping by the side of the nest. I'd never known a baby enjoy his sleep so much.
'What you're planning is futile and feeble-minded.' I lifted her dress from the ground. 'You'll get yourself barred from the camp altogether.'
'I'll find Jimmy first.' She reached for the dress. I held it away.
'How're you going to find him in the middle of the night?'
'The middle of the night's the best time. The camp will be quiet and I can talk to the sentries. It was sentries helped me meet him before, when he was in Beggar's Bush.' She held out a hand. 'Give me my dress, Allie.'
'You don't know the sentries here.' I took a step away from her. The moon was high, and bright, creating shadows all around us. Sarah stood like a half-dressed spectre in its light. I spoke quickly, afraid she would take James and run as she was to the camp. 'The camp is as big as a town and it's forbidden to wrens. It's a bright night. The sentries will see you coming with James and know you're from the village. It's market day tomorrow, Sarah, and the women who go will ask. . .'
'They might destroy my chances altogether.'
'They might, and they might not. It's better to wait and see what they have to tell us. We have to plan, Sarah. One more day's waiting isn't going to make any difference.'
'It will... I can't wait.' She crumpled and slid to the ground, hugging herself. 'You've no idea what it's like, Allie, being without him when he's so close.'
'Just as well too,' I was harsh, 'one of us needs to think straight.'
She lifted her head. 'What does your straight thinking tell you then?' She was full of hostility.
In a minute, if I wasn't careful, she would be up and making for the camp again, with or without her dress.
'I think you'll lose him altogether unless you go about finding him the right way.' I sat beside her, careful to keep the dress to the other side of me. She seemed calm enough. 'If you're thrown out of the camp you may never get back in again.' She looked about to protest so I completed the picture, 'You'll end up like Clara Hyland, rearing your child on the plains.'
I'd gone too far and immediately regretted it, not least because it was disparaging of Moll. The child had attached herself to me and had even, and miraculously, cleaned my dress of Ellen Neary's blood.
Sarah jumped up. 'Have you lost your reason, Allie?' She glared down at me. 'Clara Hyland's a drunkard. That's why she came here and that's why she stayed. I won't be keeping James here any longer than a week. I won't have him made into a savage.' She paused. 'I won't have myself made into one.'
Sarah was right about one thing. Clara Hyland was a drunkard. She wasn't the only drunkard in the village but she was one of the worst. Lizzie Early was different. There was something more than drink eating away at Lizzie's body.
'What're you going to do?' I said.
'I don't know,' Sarah was calmer, 'yet.'
'It's time we decided something,' I said.
The plan we made that night to bring Sarah and Jimmy Vance together seemed, to me, as sure as death and taxes. Sarah had doubts, but then she never had my certainties about anything.
It was surprisingly easy to persuade Sarah that it would be wiser if I was the one to make the first approach to the camp. I would dress in my best, speak in my most elocution-trained tones and would take Moll Hyland with me. A woman with a young girl in her charge would be a lot more acceptable than a woman alone. I would be the most respectable and reasonable young woman ever to come seeking a meeting with the camp's commander.
Sarah's doubts were about the chances of arranging such a meeting. But I've always believed in venturing to gain and knew that someone in a position of power could produce Jimmy Vance.
I left for the camp with Moll early next morning, well ahead of the wrens who would be leaving later for the market.
The camp, as I came close to it, was more sprawling and less imposing than it had looked on the skyline. A clock tower rose high above the rest of the buildings in its centre and the Union Jack, defeated by the windless humidity, hung limp against a flagstaff. To the right and left of these high points there were two churches while everywhere else, far and wide and further than my eye could see, stretched rows and rows of wooden huts.
It was the huge number of wooden huts that made it easy to believe there were more than ten thousand soldiers stationed here. Sarah would never have found Jimmy Vance just by wandering about the camp.
There was a dull chorus of horses neighing and soldiers drilling as Moll and I joined the stream of country people on the main road into the camp. Most of them, driving donkey carts, were bringing produce to sell at the market. Others, on foot like ourselves, were hoping to buy.
Moll, skipping like the blithe innocent she was anything but beside me, was in great good humour. We'd made sure too not to approach the camp from the direction of the wren village, walking almost to Kildare so as to come at it from the other side. Moll had been glad to come with me, her mother less so.
'She can be giddy. I don't want her going near the horses,' warned Clara, red-eyed and pale-faced, 'nor anywhere near the soldiers either.'
I didn't see how either of these could be avoided but nodded agreeably. Clara had been given a full bottle of whiskey by a soldier the night before and was drinking the last of it as we spoke.
'Go inside for a lie down.' Moll took her mother's hand. She was matter-of-fact. 'I'll bring you something sweet from the camp stores.' She gave me a grave look.
'We won't forget her, will we Allie?'
'We won't,' I said, 'we'll bring back bonbons . . .'
'I'd prefer raisins,' said Clara Hyland, 'or currants. It's a long time since I tasted either.' She looked from Moll to me, jealous and hurt at the friendship her daughter was bestowing on me. Moll, instinctive creature that she was, threw her arms about her mother's neck and hugged her close and kissed her blanched cheek.
'I'll have ten thousand things to tell you,' she said.
Moll walked with my parasol high above her head as we crossed the plains. When we left the grass, which was scrubby and worn from the hoofs of the army's horses, she handed it to me. 'While we're on the road and in the camp we should be proper,' she said. 'It doesn't look right to have a child with a parasol.'
In her best blue and white striped dress, her hair tied up in one of my ribbons, she was close as she'd ever be to looking like an ordinary nine-year-old. I needn't have worried. We might both have been children for all the heed the sentries paid us as we walked with the country people into the camp.
'We'll buy Mama's raisins first,' Moll said when we got to the marketplace, 'in case we don't get a chance later.'
She meant in case we were thrown out when I started to ask questions. Moll never rested her vigilance. Ever.
The donkey carts, sans donkeys, were lined up and displaying everything from eggs, meat and poultry to soap, razors and blackening brushes. Other vendors sold much the same goods from rough, uncertain-looking tables. The donkeys, looking lost, unhappy and dirty, wandered about the place.
I stopped at a table selling perfumery and opened a bottle. The stench made my head reel.
'Buy it,’ Moll sniffed too, 'it's a beautiful scent.'
'It smells of cabbage with lavender,' I said, 'and someday you'll choose better for yourself.'
'I might,' said Moll, 'and then again I might prefer not to wait.'
There were no bargains on the market stalls so we bought the raisins in one of the army stores. They cost eight pence for a pound; for an extra thruppence I bought a pound of currants too, to keep body and soul together as we went bac
k across the plains. The shopkeeper was talkative and asked if we were enjoying our visit to the camp.
'We are indeed,' I said, 'we're finding it both hospitable and friendly.'
He gave Moll a fat fig for herself. 'Enjoy your stay,' he smiled.
'Where do we go now?' Moll darted between store windows, stopping to stare into the baker's.
'Eat your fig,' I said.
It was dusty in the camp, the ground dug up by horses' hoofs and the boots of parading soldiers. My skirt hems were already well soiled by the time I led Moll away from the market, into the rest of the camp. There were enough army wives and children about, as well as idling soldiers, for us to go unnoticed.
I marched us along with a purposeful air. As soon as I could be sure I had the right building I would march with the same directness into the headquarters offices and ask to meet the commanding officer. I was prepared to lie, and to flatter; I didn't think about failing.
The camp was less sprawling once I got a sense of how it was laid out. The soldiers' huts were in squares separated from each other by high, sod fences. Lines of larger huts in front of them housed officers, many of them sitting in the sun playing card games. Some of these huts had flower gardens and fencing and a reassuring homeliness about them.
In the raised centre of the camp stood still grander huts as well as the two churches, one Catholic and one Protestant, and the flagstaff and clock tower we'd seen from the plains. The clock tower had a weathervane and spire. On a height, with a commanding view of it all, I could see another lot of buildings.
I stopped a boy of about ten, running past with a dog. 'Are those the camp headquarters?' I pointed at the building which overlooked the camp.
'Who wants to know?'
'Answer the question.' I gave him a penny.
'That's them all right.' He took his penny and went after the dog before I could ask him in which building exactly the commanding officer had his office. He mightn't have known anyway.
'A halfpenny would have done him,' said Moll, 'what do we do now?'
'Be patient.'
I knew, from talking with the wrens, that the commanding officer was one Major General Ponsonby. He didn't much fraternise with rank and file soldiers or local people and all any of them knew about him was that he was a stickler for discipline and rules. I was hoping that this meant he would also be courteous and mannerly enough to listen while I presented Sarah's case.
To get to him, though, I needed to be able to walk directly and confidently to his door. Wandering uncertainly in front of the headquarters building would get questions asked, might even prevent me ever getting inside. I would have to speak with someone who could give me precise directions to his office.
'We're going to admire some of the gardens by the officers' huts,’ I told Moll, 'and while we're doing it I want you to be seen and not heard. Do you understand?'
'You don't want me to speak because I won't sound like you and I might give you away,' Moll said.
I straightened the ribbon on her hair. 'That's right,' I said, 'I want you to play the role of a shy, well-mannered child.'
Moll said nothing.
Youth, my father had always said, is not so corruptible as age. I remembered this when we dawdled by a florid garden tended by an officer who looked to be in his forties. As one of the corruptible aged he would be suspicious if I asked for directions. I had better set my sights on a younger man, or men.
There were plenty of them about. The card players we'd seen earlier were younger. There were four of them, sitting on chairs and laughing. Not a very serious game then. I studied them from under the parasol's fringe. Their uniform jackets were open and, in the case of three of them, so were the top buttons of their shirts. One was smoking a cigarette and two had the thin moustaches of young men trying to look old.
It was the moustaches made up my mind for me.
'Good day to you.' I stopped; not too close, not too distant and carefully not standing in the way of the sun. 'I'm sorry to interrupt your game. I seem to have lost my way . . .'
Hesitant and apologetically smiling, I held Moll's hand and caught the grey eyes of an officer with a scar over an eyebrow. A little suffering might have made him more sympathetic than the others.
'Where were you headed for?' He half stood, bowed and sat again with his cards face down on his knee.
'I thought we were on our way to Major General Ponsonby's staff quarters,' I made a vague gesture, 'only now I'm not so sure. . .'
'Who is looking for him?'
The officer who asked the question sat forward in his chair. He had a narrow face and was the one with his shirt buttoned up. His eyebrows were quite a distance above his eyes and gave him an imperious look.
I smiled at him cautiously. 'My name's Alicia Buckley. I'm visiting the county from Dublin and promised my father I'd call on the major general.' The lie came easily. I’d hoped to find his office and make an appointment there to call on him. If you could direct me . . .'
'Your father did not write to the commander in the first instance?'
The man's eyebrows came together as he coldly scrutinised Moll, beginning at her feet and working up to the ribbon in her hair. She stood very still, her hand in mine like a dead thing, knowing that he saw her poverty and despised her for it.
I went on smiling. 'My father's a practical man and not much given to the use of pen and ink,' I said. 'We agreed I would simply make myself known to the major general while in the area.' I stopped smiling, tilted the parasol, and gave a small curtsy. 'I shouldn't have disturbed your card game.'
I nodded to the group and, tightly gripping Moll's hand, stepped quickly around them. The narrow-faced officer was definitely trouble. It would have been both stupid and dangerous to prolong the contact.
'You're headed in the wrong direction, Miss Buckley,' the voice of the officer with the scar followed us, 'you'll find the shortest route is back the way you came and to the left.'
'Thank you.' I turned, slowly.
I had the advantage of him now, of them all, since the sun was in their faces and behind me. The scarred officer shaded his eyes with his hand.
'Go to the end of this block and turn,' he said, ‘swing with the road and it's a six-minute direct walk.'
'Thank you,' I said as I began a businesslike retracing of our steps, 'we've been wandering in the heat too long. It's confused us.'
'So it seems.' The narrow-faced soldier put his hat on his head and looked at me under its brim. 'You've wandered quite a distance from the main road, Miss Buckley. It would have been
better to come escorted. Your small servant can't be of much help to you.'
'Moll is not my servant.' I squeezed her hand, praying she would keep silent, 'she's the daughter of a friend. But you may be right that I should have waited to be escorted through the camp.' I looked at them all in turn. 'I decided instead to trust in the natural courtesy of the British soldier.'
The man smoking the cigarette put it behind his back.
'Touche, Miss Buckley,' the scarred officer dropped his cards and clapped his hands together, twice. 'And you're right, of course. A young woman should feel safe among the men of Her Majesty's army.'
It was hard to know whether or he was laughing with me or at me. 'To prevent us wandering off course again,' I was crisp, 'I'd be glad if you would tell me in which of the buildings I might find the commander.'
'Your trust in the gentility of the soldiery is commendable, Miss Buckley.' The other officer's mouth, under the shadow cast by his hat, curled slightly. 'But Major General Ponsonby is another matter. He may wonder, as I do, about the bona fides of a young woman arriving unannounced and unescorted.'
I'd been right. He suspected me. He probably disliked me too. He probably disliked all women.
'You seem, sir, to imply that in some way I am not to be trusted,' I was the essence of dignified offence, 'it's not a response I'd have expected from an officer.'
'Your trustworthiness is not th
e issue, madam,' his face was hot now with more than the sun. Moll pulled at my hand. 'At issue is your right to be here. I think it would be best if you were to leave the encampment and have your father make an appointment in writing with the major general.'
'Are you afraid, sir, that I'm here to plant a Fenian bomb?'
Moll pulled again, much harder, at my hand. 'Come away, Allie, please do . . .' She was shrill and frightened, both for and because of me. It was so easy to forget Moll was a child.
'We'll go at once.' I put my hand about her shoulder and pulled her to me. I'd never in my life regretted losing my temper so much. 'We can only hope that the major general will be more civil than some of his officers.'
We began walking away again, Moll's small body stiff and shaking under my arm. Behind us I heard a short, sharp exchange between the soldiers, then quick footsteps over the dusty ground.
'Allow me make amends for my fellow soldier,' the scarred officer said as he fell into step beside us. 'Captain Browne takes an overly serious view of life, and of the army.' He buttoned his jacket, pulled it straight and ran fingers through his short, fair hair. 'Will I do for an escort?' he stepped in front of us, grinning. 'We can ramble a trois to the commander's office.'
He might be as suspicious as his fellow officer but he didn't dislike me. He was relaxed, the kind of man who liked all women. There was no harm in that, up to a point. I smiled at him.
'That won't be necessary,' I said. 'Directions are all we need to make our own way.'
'You might get lost again. You might meet another Captain Browne.' He stepped closer and spoke softly to Moll. 'I'm sorry to say there are a great many Captain Browne's about the place. Far more of them than there are Captain Ainslies.' He bowed and Moll stared at him, unblinking. He stared back.
'Is your name Ainslie then?' she asked.
'Captain Alexander Ainslie,' he confirmed with a nod and Moll gave him another careful look before she said,
'It's not up to me whether or not you walk with us where we're going. It's Allie will have to decide that. I'm only a child.'
