by Leon Uris
While her generals seethed, the English public that had been hysterical with conquest during the jubilee suddenly sobered at the revelations. A half century earlier the Irish potato famine had failed to move them. Now they were revolted by their behavior toward the Boers.
I believe a seed was planted in the Transvaal and the fruits of the matured tree would spread discontent throughout their imperial scheme and all future imperial schemes. Something magnificently human was challenging man's ancient rites of conquest and enslavement. Something was going to happen in the twentieth century to overturn the age-old order.
I knew somehow that Ireland and the Irish people would be among the first to make that challenge.
*
My daddy Fergus O'Neill died during my stay in the Transvaal. I had last seen him at the wake of Tomas Larkin and I knew from the tragedy in his soul he would be getting away soon. They had worked their fields together through the joys and sufferings of a half century. It could not be otherwise. Fergus had followed Tomas all his life and would have to follow to St. Columba's.
The old women were left, Finola and my ma, Mairead, along with the weakest of our strain, Brigid and Colm.
*
I won no popularity contest with the British for my Bloemfontein concentration camp articles but on certain matters they are honorably fair. There was no way they could prosecute a legitimate journalist for doing his job. My return to Ireland found me well established on certain Dublin Castle enemy lists but a minor hero in the budding republican movement.
Dublin pulsated. Words poured from Irish pens by the millions, all filled with ancient hopes. A national theater had been founded. Writers were turning it into a latter-day Athens. I settled in grandly.
My inquiries after Conor Larkin led nowhere. He had vanished from Derry shortly after the fire at the shirt factory and Kevin O'Garvey's disappearance. Some had seen Conor wandering about Ireland like a soul in purgatory. Then he was gone. I didn't know where but my heart was broken. The one thing Ireland didn't need was another playwright, but the only way I could work out my sorrow was to take up my pen seriously and write about our youth in Ballyutogue. I wrote a play about our summer in the booley house and each line I penned was like a cry in the darkness to him.
One day my prayer was answered. A letter came from Liam in New Zealand. He had received a cable from Conor from Shanghai. Conor was aboard ship and on his way to Christchurch.
CHAPTER TWO
The bells of Belfast rang out and the gospel-singing city on the River Lagan glided into motion for the Lord's Day and all that holiness. In the Shankill, along Sandy Row, in East Belfast and the other strongholds of Calvin, Luther and Knox, the pubs were shut sourly and the doors of the Lord's houses sourly flung open.
From this vast armada of churches, these capital ships of the Reformation, dirge like cantatas emerged sounding like the funeral movement of a tragic symphony. Work hardened hands held tattered hymnals and voices went their own way, above, below and against the struggling choir.
"Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore,
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love and power,
He is able, He is willing,
Doubt no more."
Over in Andersontown, along the Falls and in Ballymurphy, the Catholics disposed of their business with God and Mary in rapidly intoned low masses in forty-minute shifts.
Protestantism in Belfast was a far more serious matter among the Anglos and their Scottish brethren, for this was the entrenched, unyielding front line of the "assaulted" faith and nowhere were He and His son so gloriously and zealously proclaimed.
Lucy MacLeod awakened trembling. The counting of weeks had given way to days and soon it would be only hours. One Sunday more and she could reach over in bed when the bells tolled and feel her Robin beside her again all warm and drowsy and lovey.
His twelve-week tour of the Northern Rugby League in the English Midlands would be over and he would be home again. She had dreaded his annual departure since he made the team six years before, but never a complaint left her lips. Her man was a member of the East Belfast Boilermakers, a status of high achievement, and the income from it kept her out of the factories.
As Lucy went through the motions of dressing, she felt and admired what was female of her body. It was not dainty or pale but good solid stuff that Robin adored. Large breasts with big rosy buds that had lost none of their firmness. She sat before the mirror pretending as she did that she was sitting before Robin. Him with his back propped up on the bed, his eyes glowing to watering. She rehearsed precisely what she'd wear, how she'd smell, what nicies she'd surprise him with.
Lucy's reverie was broken by a relentless ticking of the clock. She covered herself reluctantly. Once all tightly corseted, she buttoned a flowery print down her hourglass figure and complimented herself as still lovely and crowned herself with a large-brimmed hat, bowed, plumed, flowered and veiled.
"Matthew," she called for her son.
He trudged in, all ten years of him, a condemned little man. She inspected him and declared him fit for church.
"What time is Daddy's boat coming?"
"You know just as well as I do," she answered. "Friday at noon."
"Can I quit school, Ma?"
She twisted his ear, gently but with a hint of firmness.
Their wee house on Tobergill Street was exactly like the one next door belonging to Grandfather Morgan and Grandma Nell and they marched to it as they had done for Sundays eternal, exchanging Lord's Day greetings and expressing joy that Robin would be returning to them in a few days.
Grandfather Morgan was an awesome figure. He was noble as the photographs of royalty in his finely cut gray frock coat, silk top hat and his roughhewn hands disguised under white gloves. He tugged out the gold pocket watch from his vest and snapped it open. Morgan MacLeod had gone to work at the Weed Ship & Iron Works on the very day it had opened in 1878, and in the next two and a half decades had never missed a day to illness. It was said of him he'd be working on the day of his funeral. Every man looked up to Morgan. He was known from one end of the Shankill to the other and in many other parts of Belfast. Church deacon, Grand Master of his Orange Lodge, foreman of the shipwrights on the "Big Mabel" dry dock.
The only thing out of kilter in this otherwise perfect setting of piety was Matthew's Aunt Shelley. Auntie Shelley alone successfully resisted Grandfather Morgan, all the reverends (and there were many), all the neighbors' snickers (and these had died), and anyone who infringed on her unprecedented independence.
In her own way she was just as big a MacLeod as his daddy and Granddaddy, a wonderment. Even Robin faltered before Morgan. Auntie Shelley made no secret of the fact she occasionally smoked cigarettes, read forbidden books and disappeared for long weekends without bothering to explain to anyone where she went or in whose company. To Matt she was beautiful, even more so than his mom. Grandfather Morgan seemed resigned but still played out a little game that perhaps some of the godliness about would eventually rub off on his daughter.
Morgan patted Matt's head as he did each Sunday and often during the week. However, the Sunday pat carried special inference. Once more the watch was out, a show of impatience for Grandma Nell. They were all gathered as Nell came down the stairs as flowery and stiff-laced as her daughter-in-law.
The MacLeods then stepped into the street and joined the ethereal march of the holy. It was as though Belfast had been drained of blood for its Sunday embalming. Holiness permeated everything, their clothing, Grandfather's beard, and his own squeaking patent leather shoes. They nodded rigidly and in unison as they passed promenading neighbors who nodded back rigidly and in equal unison. The burden of their religion hung as the heavy albatross and wedged deeply into wrinkled, unsmiling faces.
"There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that f
lood
Lose all their guilty stains.
I do believe, I will believe,
That Jesus died for me,
That on the Cross He shed His blood,
From sin to set me free."
The Reverend Mr. Bannerman acquitted himself reasonably. His flock listened variously. Even the verbal richness of the gospel was delivered in the unvarying manner of a man having no other personality than automatic righteousness. Considering the mediocrity of the Reverend Mr. Bannerman and a small army of his fellow preachers, the faithful thronged and filled the church and droned through hymns and dozed through the sermons as captives in a place out of fear of being someplace else.
Matthew MacLeod was trapped in a grim cell of dark varnished wood. His backside ached through the thinly padded pea-green velvet seat, a color that would revolt him for the rest of his life. Just above him there was an ocean of flowered hats, lacquered white collars and waxed mustaches.
"Be not among the winebibbers the preacher extolled without enthusiasm, "look thou not upon the wine when it is red . . ." He cleared his throat in the manner of a man desiring to expectorate but daring not to. "At last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder."
Matthew counted the flowers on the hats, then the curlicues on the wooden pillars, then made out faces in the wood grain of the seat back in front of him. There was the face, of a fox, a clown and perhaps a lady's hat if one stretched imagination that far.
The Reverend Mr. Bannerman had warmed up to temperate, his outer limit of wrath, and denounced the non-temperance folk, wherever they might be.
Matt leaned forward ever so cautiously, peeking down the long row past great bosoms and great beards. Near the end of the pew a little head all filled with ribbons likewise, peered out. Matt wiggled his finger and she wiggled hers, then he made a face and she made one, then he stuck out his tongue and she stuck hers out. At that time a heavy hand of authority addressed the back of his neck and towed him into line.
"Precious, precious blood of Jesus,
Shed on Calvary;
Shed for rebels, shed for sinners,
Shed for thee!"
On and on and on they groaned down the verses, the steam propelling their lungs losing vigor with each new verse. Outside, Matthew could hear the muted sounds of children singing "Dusty Bluebells."
A recitation ensued of those to be remembered, of bazaars, of bees, of collections, of special services, of potlucks, of men's clubs, of ladies' auxiliaries, of the sick to be visited, of Orange events.
The organ playeth! A horrendous solo ensued by the wife of the largest donor, a hodgepodge homage to Christ in which the lyrics defiled the tune of "Londonderry Air." He scratched one elbow . . . carefully . . . then the other and, as though electric currents were running up and down his spine, he began to wiggle. He wiggled and wiggled and wiggled. Grandfather Morgan glowered and he froze.
"The drunkard shall come to poverty; and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags . . . every man shall receive according to his own labor."
Variation on the Ulster theme of themes, the goodness of work. Even at the age of ten, Matthew MacLeod knew that Protestants were more industrious than Catholics, and Presbyterians more industrious than Anglicans or Baptists. The Bible was a veritable catalogue of the exalted status of industriousness and likewise filled with the sin and corruption of sloth, a well-known affliction of the Catholics along with their drinking. There could be little doubt who was on God's side and whose side God was on.
Deep into the second hour, Matthew was abruptly elbowed from his doze and sprang to his feet automatically.
"What can wash away my stain?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus!
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus!
Oh, precious is the flow,
That makes me white as snow!"
Socializing in the vestibule was far more than perfunctory, for Morgan MacLeod was a man of high esteem. Today the talk was over the return of his famous son, Robin. With Grandfather's hand tightly locked around his own, Matthew was subjected to several more pats on the head, pinches on the cheek and "he looks just like Robin, that one."
A half dozen times Morgan would be pulled off to the ride out of general earshot as he was petitioned to save this job at the yard or put in the good word for that promotion. As an Orange Grand Master, Morgan inherited that special power in the Belfast scheme.
Sunlight! At last, sunlight!
Matthew, still locked in firmly, looked with longing as the heathen children played "kick the can" and "Ulster flag" and skipped rope to "Dusty Bluebells."
So that they would not forget the message of the Reverend Mr. Bannerman's sermon, Morgan analyzed and reiterated the preacher's words over Sunday dinner.
By now, nothing tasted good to the boy. He was admonished for not eating and warned not to get dirty, for much still remained of the day.
The next round with God was the subject of a long discussion between Grandfather and Grandma Nell. For evening services she preferred attending the great, shiny new Savior's Church of the Shankill and hearing the Reverend Oliver Cromwell Maclvor. At least, Matt thought, he wouldn't be bored. On the other hand, the Reverend Mr. Maclvor frightened him. When he got a full mouth of lather going, people were known to faint all over the church, others stand up and scream and writhe and others fling themselves at the foot of his pulpit.
Grandfather expressed grave doubts about Maclvor and on this Sunday he won out. Their horse was stabled two streets away and Matthew went with him to hitch it to the brake. With the boy firmly wedged in between his mother and grandmother and all those corsets they went for a ride along the river to the outskirts of town where a full-blown flurry of late religious frenzy ensued in evangelical tents with no-nonsense thunder and damnation fundamentalist gospel.
Tent preachers came and went on various holy tides. Any man with a gift of gab and a few shillings could get himself a degree in short order and go into business. The game was to shop around to find the new up-and-comers in the everlasting revival.
After a final Bible reading from Grandfather Morgan, Matthew went to his house next door with his mom. His daddy would be home soon and next Sunday would be different. There was a church for everything in Belfast and his daddy chose one that specialized in short sweet services. It was remarkably well attended. After that they would spend the rest of the day having fun.
Then, of course, his daddy would go on tour with the team again. Matthew MacLeod prayed at bedside in earnest for the first time that day. He prayed he could go to jail on Sundays when his daddy was in England and escape all that goodness.
CHAPTER THREE
CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND, 1904
The train slowed as it crossed the river on the northern approach to Christchurch and swung around the Botanical Gardens of that garden city. Conor saw them on the platform, the Larkins of New Zealand. Liam, trying to look well dressed to no avail, a rather dumpy lady with the widest of smiles, she being his wife Mildred, and four wanes, two boys and two girls who held bouquets. All of them seemed scared stiff.
The awkward handshake melted to an embrace, then the tension fled as Conor swooped his nieces up in his arms and offered to let them search his pockets. Necklaces from Hong Kong of semiprecious stones and real pocket watches for the lads. It was a jabbering, happy lot that made into the station to wait for the inland train.
Liam spotted the flecks of gray in his brother's temples. "You've been traveling hard," he said, "you'll stop and rest awhile."
"Aye," Conor whispered, "that will be grand."
*
Ballyutogue, the farm of Mildred and Liam Larkin, was some fifty miles inland, halfway across the narrow waist of the island. At Kowi Bush they continued by rig to a place in the foothills of the Southern Alps where the Waimakariri River plunged down for the sea. The land ran a gamut of green from iridescent to ultramarine. It was no sodded cottage that greeted him bu
t a two-story frame house finer than that of any Protestant farm on Inishowen. Liam Larkin was like a squire himself with a thousand acres of rich meadow and cropland with topsoil running deep and no less than two full-time hired hands.
For a week the wanes, Spring and Madge and Tomas and wee Rory, heard glorious tales of the sea and the singing of chanteys. Mildred and the spinster girls from the surrounding ranches and the men as well had the spots dazzled off them.
Conor and his brother talked the nights half through. They seemed to talk of everything. Except Ballyutogue, except Kevin O'Garvey, except Finola, except Ireland. A lot was spoken but nothing was said. In the end Liam knew very little other than that Conor had spent fifteen months in Australia and the rest at sea.
*
Liam plopped at the round oak table. Mildred brought him a cup pa and one of her own, doffed her apron and both of them stirred in unison.
"Did you talk to him?" she asked.
"Nae, not yet."
"He's been here a fortnight, luv."
Liam studied the checks of the tablecloth and ran his finger over a tiny tear. His wife patted his hand and they sipped from their cups with matching slurps.
"Don't let it go any longer," Mildred said determinedly. "It's three hundred acres of the best land around and the Smiths are almost willing to give it away. You know, luv, we could finance him ourselves."
"That's not the half of it, Millie."
"On with you. Why that look in his eyes when he searches over the hills? I know when a man is hungering for land."
"We all looked that way when we first came," Liam said. "It reminds us of home."
