by Ralph Peters
We traveled down the west side of the lake, by a low, straight road that ran through tidy villages. Those whose work brought them out of doors took time to wave as we passed. It was a different world from those highlands east of the lake, where death and cruelty hid behind the beauty. The harness creaked and jingled as we slid along. The clouds drooped down, covering the hills and ridges, and the cold come off the lake to hurt your bones. Yet, this side of the lake felt all at peace, the houses built by men of sound decision.
With a snap of the whip, we passed a farmer’s wagon.
“Major Jones?” John Brent leaned back toward me. “May I ask you, sir, if you plan a lengthy visit in Hammondsport?”
There was a note of concern in his voice. I wondered if there was danger for the fellow in the village, as well as in the high country.
“We will see, Mr. Brent. A problem is it?”
He nodded at the lowering sky. “I do believe we’ll have a heavy snowfall. I was surprised it didn’t begin yesterday. Feels like a big one coming.”
“I will do my best to waste no time, then.”
I hoped Molloy would be there. Waiting. Though he had been a thief and given to drink, I trusted his skills and his promise.
I pondered over Nellie as we drove. Trying to imagine the terrors and devils that beset her, and all of her own mind’s making. No, that was not true. For her terror of the asylum was no fantasy, nor was the danger Kildare would betray her. I wished that I might see things through her eyes. But we are ever separate from each other, and she more so than most.
Sometimes, when my spirits weaken, I see our Savior’s cross as naught but lonely.
I thought of her, so vivid in the snow, telling me we would not meet again.
Again, I wondered what she truly knew. Longing to rescue her from both her worlds. There was sadness. For I knew even then that I would fail her.
I pulled the travel rug tighter.
The south end of the lake drew in like a string bag. We saw the frozen boats and shoreline buildings. Hammondsport slept out the winter’s day under a gray blanket. Ramshackle, the shops and low hotels looked too dull for serious vice. I knew there were pleasant houses higher up the hill, with a fine little army of Methodists to give the village mettle. I recalled that the townspeople—not the Methodists, mind you—had a scheme of growing rich by raising grapes for wine. I thought them just as likely to strike gold. For Temperance will put an end to drink in our lifetimes. Then where will such ambitions find themselves?
There was no masking my arrival, for small towns have eyes for things they should not see. I told John Brent to drive right up past the shops on the square, to lay aside suspicion. Then I had him stop before the Rhys home—abode of a fine Welsh family, whose welcome I had enjoyed on a previous visit. Methodists, too. Twas a sober, pleasant house, set on the hillside, not far from where a high stone mill stood derelict.
The path was clear of ice and snow, for the Welsh are conscientious. I gave the door a rap.
Mrs. Rhys appeared in her apron, cleaning her hands from her kitchen business. She was surprised, of course.
“Why, Major Jones! A visit is it? There is good. Inside with you, then, for the heat will go out and the cold come in.”
Now I am a proud American, and if you find a prouder let me know. But there is lovely to hear the lilt of the homeland in a voice.
And a fine visit it might have been, for the Welsh will cook you up proper, and not let you rise until your belly is so full of good things that you fear you cannot rise at all. But I had my duty.
“Mrs. Rhys . . . I was but passing, see. And wished to say hello. Is Mr. Rhys at home, then?”
“Missed him by a whisker, you did. He’s back to the shop with his dinner in him.”
“It’s greetings I would leave him.”
“But, surely, we’ll have you for supper, Major Jones?”
“I cannot stay, mum. For there is duty to our government.”
She shook her head in warm, Welsh sympathy—there is none finer or more sincere, I will tell you. For we are not like the English, who only have you in to get you gone. Twas cruel to come and not stay on to eat.
“Ah,” she sighed, “isn’t duty a terrible thing?”
“Mrs. Rhys . . . I have a thing to ask.”
“Well, ask you, then.”
“I would . . . like to visit your privy.”
She shivered at the very thought. “You’ll freeze to the marrow. And need there’s none. For there’s a pot in the cellar.”
“I would . . . if you don’t mind . . . rather use the outhouse.”
She made a face. “Shy now, is he? And doesn’t he know what it’s like when you’re ten to the house and no secrets?”
“I beg you, mum. Let me use your outhouse.”
She rolled her eyes and slapped her hands on her apron. Miffed. “Won’t stay to eat, he won’t. But he’ll go off traipsing through the snows on us. Is that the duty you’re after doing? Well, go you, then. You know where the door lies.”
I hurried through the house and out the back. Shutting myself in the frigid cabin, I peeked through the air hole until I saw that Mrs. Rhys was well away from her windows. And then I was out the door and into the trees.
I made my way through drifts and thickets, testing my way with my cane and thrashing down brush. Twas good it was not summer. For I was alone, unbothered by child or dog. Or prying eyes. I crossed a steep road cut into a hollow, then turned downward. The mill loomed, its knocked-out windows blackened eyes. You could see the man who built it had grand hopes, though they were dashed. Not old, the mill stood abandoned but for a part of the ground floor locked up for storage.
I did not see Molloy. I worked my way up to the wall facing the steep of the hillside and scanned about me. Cold stone, snow and trees. I did not want to walk around the building, for the opposite side faced a street, with houses on the other side. I hoped Molloy was not so foolish as to put himself on display for all to see.
Twas cold, and I fear I did a bit of Quaker dancing to keep me warm. The clouds crawled down the hills, and I well remembered John Brent’s fear of snow. I could not afford to be trapped here while great events transpired without me.
Shivering, I leaned against a window sill. To ease the moment’s pressure on my leg.
A hand grabbed me.
Molloy it was. Putting the fear of dacoits and assassins into me. He crawled out of the building. In which he had no right to be. For that was private property.
“I didn’t know ye was a gandy dancer,” he said, with that mile-wide grin on his mug. “Oh, me darling man, ye’ll set me to admiring the Welsh yet.”
I resumed my usual dignity. “Are you all right, then? No harm’s come to you, Molloy?”
“Oh, a rare day that’ll be, when the likes o’ them troubles Jimmy Molloy. Major Jones, ye’ve no idea the great fools they are. They’re touched in the head every one. Ye’d get to thinking there’s something in the air up here.”
Molloy was one of those odd fellows who appear dapper even in threadbare clothes. In a low manner, of course. He looked a sight, in his battered derby and overcoat.
And a welcome sight, if I am to be honest. For I felt more affection for the fellow than I like to say. I will not have you think me too soft-hearted, or the dupe of a confidence man. But he was brave, see. Irish though he was, he had his qualities.
“Tell me,” I demanded. “Tell me what you’ve learned, man.”
“Oh, an’t it an embarrassment for the glorious Irish race? Tis the silliest thing I’ve heard tell in me life. Kildare leading ’em round by the snouts, and them following at his heels like the dumbest o’ sepoys, all faith and nary a question. And the O’Hara boys, trading in government rifles and—”
“What’s that? Government rifles?”
He looked at me. Amazed. “Well, blind me with a stick if I didn’t think ye knew that much, at least? Ye didn’t know about the guns they’re after buying? And with gold, too
? Direct from the arsenal, and sold by your fine Federal officers.” He made a face of absolute disgust. “Oh, I’ve never trusted an officer in me life, and there ye see why.” He glanced at me, then added, “Present company excepted, o’ course. But then ye was a sergeant in your prime . . .”
“Why are they buying the guns, Molloy? How many? Where are they keeping them? What are—”
“Oh, Katie bar the door, for the man thinks he’s a rushing racehorse. Would ye hold onto your drawers, Sergeant Jones?”
“‘Major’ Jones, thank you.”
“Well, Major, sir, just let me get me answers out, so’s we can look at ’em teeth to tail in the light o’ day. Now first off, I can’t say all what they’ve bought in the past, but I know they just bought fifty Enfield rifles. Fine and handy they are, too.”
“How do you know that?”
“How do I know? Didn’t I just unload ’em meself, and me with the pain in me back where that Seekh fellow put his boot till ye shot his face off. Why, do ye remember that day—”
“Where did you unload them?”
“Oh, up to the barn. On the farm where Kildare hangs his hat. With that quare, blazing daughter o’ his, and an’t that a shame the decay o’ her?”
“Kildare has government rifles in his barn?”
“Well, government rifles they were. But now they’re his.”
“Is there anything else in the barn?”
He thought for a moment. “Only the uniforms. And a cow and a couple o’ horses.”
“Uniforms?”
“For the Fenian army. And handsome green, they are. Like the sacred flag o’ Erin.” He stopped and gave me another baffled look. “Ye didn’t know that, either?”
“What’s the army for? How big is it? What are they planning to do? And . . . how did you get them to trust you to such an extent?”
Molloy looked many things—he had a knack for disguises, that one—but I do not think he ever looked trustworthy. Of course, the Irish probably judge differently.
“Trust me? Sure, and don’t they all love me? If it wan’t all such a lunacy, I’d be tempted to join ’em meself. Treat me proper, they do. As befits a former sergeant o’ Her Britannic Majesty, who can teach ’em how to stand-to proper, and to march and fix a bayonet.”
“You were never a sergeant, Molloy. And your corporalcy didn’t last six months.”
Exasperation twisted that rubber face. “Sure, and didn’t I have to tell ’em something? To convince ’em I’m worth the trusting?”
Yes. Of course. But I did not like his pretense to a sergeancy. For rank was hard-earned under the sun of India.
“I hope you’re not teaching them too much,” I said. “Or too well.”
“And what would it matter, me darling man? For all their doings are no more than hoopla.” He looked up the hillside as if looking into the future, and his face saddened. For he, too, was capable of sincere emotion. “Don’t I hate the thought o’ the boys dying by the dozen and marching off into captivity? For excepting Kildare and that Napper and Bull O’Hara, they’re naught but poor bogtrotters all tricked into throwing their lives away. As if they’d ever teach the Queen a lesson. No matter how many hundred Kildare says he’s raised in the cities. They won’t make it through their first battle.”
I grasped him by the arm. To force an answer. “For God’s sake, man. What are you talking about? With your ‘teaching the Queen a lesson,’ and battles and hundreds of men?”
He shrugged. “The invasion o’ Canada. What else?”
Well, that made me skip a breath. I watched a gray bird hop across the snow. And back again. Twas Molloy broke the silence, not me.
“Now an’t that the craziest thing what ye’ve heard, Major Jones? An invasion o’ the Queen’s American dominions! And the Frenchies supposed to rise up in Kewbeck, as if a Frenchman could ever be trusted to raise a hand before the battle was won. And them going to set up an Irish kingdom, with the Frenchies in it, too, and all with a mob o’ Mayo boys what an’t got the alphabet between ’em.”
“Canada,” I said. To the frozen air.
“An’t that the craziest thing ye’ve heard?” Molloy went on. “Twould never come off in a thousand years. So have no fears. There’s no rebellion against the Union or such. Naught but a crazy scheme that will never work.”
“It’s not supposed to work,” I said softly. For I saw it all now. Every bit.
Molloy looked at me oddly. I never knew him at a loss for words, but he took a moment to find his way back to speech this time. He reset the hat upon his head and his eyes hunted over me.
“Now . . . Major Jones. Would ye only be telling me the riddle o’ that? Here’s great preparations, and men all incited to die to avenge dear, old Ireland, with lovely, oiled guns, and all set to go as soon as the ice melts so’s they can get across the river into Canada. And a priest to bless them on their bloody way. And . . . ye say it’s not supposed to work? Now where would be the sense in that?”
“Molloy,” I said, bucking up my spine, “if you were still in uniform, I’d see you decorated. You’ve done your country a noteworthy service. And now I need you to do another.” I looked into that long-familiar face, into the eyes that were never serious even in a regimental lockup, at the mouth born to smile at life. The risk to him was greater than he realized. Or perhaps he did realize it. For Jimmy Molloy was never a coward, I must give him that.
“Ye’ll be wanting me to keep watch over them still,” he said.
“Yes. And you must let me know the instant they’re about to move. The very instant, Molloy.”
“But couldn’t ye just go out and arrest ’em? With what I’ve told ye already?”
I shook my head. “It’s best to take them in the deed. If only at the beginning. With weapons in hand, and all the men identified.”
The skin tightened around his eyes. A troubled look, that. “Sure, Major Jones, sir. The boys don’t know what they’re about, and I’d hate to see ’em come to needless harm. Without Kildare they’d do nothing. For he’s only talked ’em all into the doings, and they have no sense o’ the foolishness.”
“No man will come to harm unnecessarily. But we must make a thorough cleaning. Or the business will be tried again. And next time, your countrymen will bleed.”
He tipped his hat forward and gave his hair a scratch. Lice, probably. “Well, I’ll do it for ye. As ye know I will. And I’ll move heaven and earth to let ye know the minute they’re set to move. But I pity them, I do.”
“There’s a good soldier, Molloy.”
He smiled wistfully. “I’m not a soldier anymore, Major Jones.”
“No. Of course not. I forgot.”
“Sure, and it’s nothing. It’s only old times ye were thinking on. But I would have one thing o’ ye. For curious I ever was, and ye know it.”
“What’s that?”
“Just what I asked ye. What did ye mean that this invasion scheme’s not intended to succeed? For what could be the sense in the likes o’ that?”
“If I tell you, your life might be in even greater danger.”
He shrugged. And smiled. “If they get wind o’ me doings, my life won’t be worth a turd. So I’d thank ye not to let me die in ignorance.”
“I do not expect you to die, Molloy.”
“And I’m not expecting it, neither. For twould spoil me plans. But what did ye mean that the Canada go is meant to fail?”
“Molloy . . . have you ever heard of the Earl of Thretford?”
“Can’t say as I have. Though he sounds like a low, high-born Englishman.”
“That he is. And a very rich Englishman. A man of power.”
“Is he in Canada, then? Or what do ye mean?”
“He may be in Canada by now. When last I saw him, he was in Rochester. Talking with Kildare. Whose name, by the way, is Kilraine.”
Twas his turn for bafflement. “Is an Englishman backing the Irish, then?”
“No. The Irish are backing the E
nglish. Had I not seen him, I never would have figured it out. And we would have been at war with England, and us wondering what happened.”
“War with England?” To his credit, Molloy looked aghast. He knew what stood behind that thin red line.
“The Earl of Thretford . . . and his kind . . . represent industry . . . the mills of Manchester and such like. They want Southern cotton. And they’d gladly spend the lives it takes to get it. They want England to come in on the Confederate side. But they can’t get the government to move. For Palmerston is cautious behind the bluster.” I thought back on the land that had shaped my sorrows. “Kildare’s the paid agent of Thretford and his party. He’s to lead your invasion of Canada from American soil. With U.S. government rifles. And Lord Russell and Palmerston and the rest of them will have no choice but to respond as befits the dignity of Her Majesty. The rich will have their war. And we will see the Union broken. It’s clear as day,” I told Molloy, although this day was hardly clear.
“So . . .” Molloy said slowly, “ . . . the Irish think they’re striking a blow against the English. But they’re really fighting for the English. So the English have an excuse to fight us.”
“Exactly, Molloy.”
He looked down, with a slow and solemn shake of the head. “Oh, Sergeant Jones, I tell ye. I don’t know whether to pee or go blind.”
Now that ungentlemanly comment reminded me that I had places to be, and a pretense to maintain. I hoped that Mrs. Rhys had not gone out to the privy to see if I was still alive.
“We’ll stop them, Molloy. And we’ll keep little fools from becoming great ones. You’ve done your new country proud.”
But he was in no mood for praise that day. He stood there as sober as ever I had seen him.
“Bastards,” he said. With unmistakable hatred in his voice. “The day will come when Ireland will be shut o’ the dirty, pasty-faced English bastards.”
“For now,” I said, “let’s just keep this country free of them.”
I left him muttering. For my part, I went running. With the first snowflakes floating through the trees. Back of the Rhys’s yard, I prowled about the outhouse for a moment. When I did not see Mrs. Rhys behind her windows, I made my way down to the back door.
