The Music Makers

by E. V. Thompson

  ‘She’s a fine-looking girl,’ said a young voice. ‘Really pretty.’

  ‘Then remember it for when it’s your turn,’ retorted another soldier, provoking another outburst of crude laughter.

  ‘Quick! Get her over here, off the road.’

  Kathie was pushed and dragged through the darkness, her legs scratched by briers, her dress catching in the undergrowth.

  Once, the soldier holding her slipped and she was able to pull an arm free from his grip. She fought hard to escape, using her feet and her free hand, but then another soldier seized her free hand and she was dragged, still struggling, between two of them.

  ‘This is far enough. We won’t be heard by anyone on the road. I claim the privilege of rank. I’m going first. The rest of you can sort it out between you.’

  The rough bark of a tree scratched Kathie’s arms and then her breasts as she was bent over the trunk of a felled tree, one of the soldiers holding both her wrists and pulling from the far side. As she struggled to break free he put a foot against the tree and stretched her body out toward him.

  Then her dress was lifted from behind and pulled clumsily over her head. Before she could cry out the rough hands of the corporal gripped her and she felt a cruel tearing pain inside her.

  Biting back the cry that leaped to her throat, Kathie stopped struggling. She lay across the log, her body a silent rigid protest at the humiliation it was suffering, moving only to the sheer weight of the soldier who took her as though he were a dog and she a bitch.

  The soldier began grunting and the sound reminded Kathie of a mating she had once witnessed between a boar and a sow in northern Ireland. The sow had tried to escape over a low wall to an adjoining sty, and the boar had taken her as her body straddled the wall.

  Kathie almost smiled at the thought, so totally divorced was her mind from what was happening to her body. No, it could not be her body. This must be happening to someone else, not to her. She was witnessing it in some strange vivid nightmare.

  She felt the soldier move away, but another took his place immediately. This one was more violent. His hands explored and hurt. But still Kathie made no sound, and the body that was not hers did not react to him.

  By the time the third soldier took her, the laughter and excitement about her had died away. The men hardly spoke. When they did, it was in brief whispers, as though they were afraid of something they did not understand.

  It was the young inexperienced soldier who put their thoughts into words.

  ‘Why is she so silent?’ he whispered. ‘Why isn’t she shouting, or crying – or struggling?’

  ‘It’s not natural,’ mumbled the third soldier as he walked back to his silent companions. ‘She’s lying there like a corpse. I’ve never known any woman to be like this before.’

  ‘I’ll get a reaction from her.’

  The fourth soldier put down the whiskey-jug and stumbled as he went to the fallen tree, unfastening his trousers.

  Kathie was not prepared for him, and this time she did give a gasp of pain that was quickly stifled.

  ‘Ah! I thought that would make you jump a bit. Now you’ll know you’re alive, me beauty.’

  But the feeling of detachment had returned, and though Kathie bit her lower lip and the blood tasted salt in her mouth she never made another sound.

  The fifth man bothered her no more than the second or third, and by now her mind belonged to her no more than did her abused body. She was no more than a part of the fallen tree that chafed and grazed the front of her body. She had no human thoughts or feelings.

  The last man to take her was more gentle than any of the others had been. He alone almost brought her body to life and stirred feelings that the others had all but destroyed. His clothing against her body felt different, too, more coarse than the uniform of the others.

  Then it was the turn of the young soldier to take her, but he could not bring himself to perform the act.

  ‘No,’ he muttered. ‘It’s not right. We shouldn’t have done this. No good will come from it.’

  ‘Shut up! You’re not man enough to take her and that’s all there is to it. Stop trying to find excuses. What’s done is done. You were a party to it the same as the rest of us, remember that. Now, anyone else?’

  No one moved.

  ‘What will we do with her now?’ asked one of the soldiers.

  ‘Why, can you think of something new?’

  The reply brought a nervous laugh, and the soldiers became a party of drunken friends once more as the whiskey-jug passed among them.

  ‘We’ll leave her be. She won’t recognise us again. It’s not as though we met face to face, is it now?’

  Their drunken humour restored, the soldiers crashed away through the undergrowth and, after an initial hesitation, the youngest soldier followed them.

  Kathie lay motionless across the trunk of the tree until heavy drops of rain began to fall on her back, spattering noisily against the branches about her. She felt ill and exhausted but, pushing herself away from the rough bark, she straightened the dress about her bruised body.

  Although still detached from the things that had happened to her, her mind was functioning well enough now. She was in full command of her senses and knew exactly what she had to do.

  Ignoring the rain, she set off for the mountain refuge, walking with fierce determination through the grass and heather and scratching gorse.

  Below the camp of the Kilmar men was a stream with a small waterfall and a pool that was deep enough for swimming. With the sudden heavy shower it was deeper than usual, water cascading off the slab of water-smooth rock above the pool. Stripping off her clothes, Kathie lowered herself into the icy water and swam to the waterfall. Standing up in the tumbling water, she allowed it to wash down over her, cleansing away the evils of the night. Doing the same for her mind would not be quite such a simple matter. That would require more than water.

  When she began to feel the cold, Kathie swam back to the edge of the pool and climbed out, slipping her rain-sodden dress on over her head.

  The camp was in darkness, the rain having washed away the last traces of last night’s fire. Kathie did not go to her own sod-roofed dug-out, but pushed aside the heavy wet blanket guarding Dermot’s cabin.

  ‘Is that you, Kathie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve been listening for you. When it started raining I went looking for you on the ridge. You weren’t there. Where have you been?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter just now. I want to talk to you first.’

  She heard his weight shift on the heather bed as he reached out for the candle that stood in a niche cut into the earth wall.

  ‘No! No lights. I would rather speak to you in the darkness.’

  ‘All right.’ Dermot shifted his position again. ‘It must be important if it can only be said in the dark and you need to come to me at this time of the night.’

  When she did not reply immediately, Dermot said, ‘Something is the matter, Kathie. What is it?’

  ‘Do you remember the night Liam was here? What you said to me after he and my father had gone?’

  ‘Yes. I asked you to marry me.’

  She could sense his increased interest, even in the impenetrable darkness of the dug-out cabin.

  ‘Why …?’

  ‘Is it still what you want?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then my answer is “Yes”. But it must be soon, while we are still living up here in the mountains. Find a priest who will marry us quickly, Dermot.’

  ‘I know one who will do it right away. But what has made you suddenly so sure this is what you want? And what about Liam …?’

  ‘I am not here to talk about Liam. I came here to talk about us. You and me.’

  ‘Then I will arrange a wedding before you change your mind. Let’s wake the others and tell them now. They have had little to celebrate since we came here—’

  ‘No, there will be time enough for celebrating t
omorrow. Tonight is for us. I want to stay here with you, Dermot.’

  ‘Stay here? You mean … sleep with me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Suddenly Kathie began shivering uncontrollably. Her teeth chattered together and her body shook so violently she could not control it. Dermot was thoroughly alarmed and reached out to hold her.

  ‘Kathie, what is it?’ He felt her wet dress. ‘Why, you are soaked through. Get out of these clothes before you catch your death of cold. Put this blanket about you while I go to your cabin and get you something’ dry.’

  ‘Not now, Dermot.’

  Kathie pulled the wet dress off over her head and dropped it to the floor, but her violent shivering continued.

  ‘Just hold me, Dermot. Hold me tight … please.’

  Dermot drew her on to the bed, covering her naked body with the blanket and holding her to him. In a while, her shudders grew less violent and her mouth sought his in a hard demanding kiss.

  Minutes later they were making love in a frenzy of passion that in some strange confused way made Kathie feel she was avenging her body for the degradation it had suffered.

  Only when the storm had passed and Dermot was deep in an exhausted sleep beside her did Kathie’s mind allow her to think about the things that had been done to her. But it was not self-pity that kept sleep away. Her whole being screamed out for revenge. Eventually, she did slip into a fitful sleep, only to wake herself crying out loud – calling for Liam.

  The cry did not wake Dermot, but someone heard – and understood. In the cabin he shared with some of the Kilmar men, Eoin Feehan heard Kathie’s call and he broke out in a cold sweat. He was glad he would not have to spend many more nights in the Wicklow mountains. If Kathie ever learned that he was one of the men drinking with Corporal Garrett and his soldiers near the fallen tree outside Rathconard, he would never live to enjoy the memory of what he had done that night.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Dermot McCabe and Kathie Donaghue were married on 17 May in the year 1846, the ceremony taking place in the decaying chapel of a ruined monastery, high in a Wicklow mountain valley. As it was a Sunday, the priest who conducted the service could not make his way from his own village until after his evening ceremonies were over. The sun had already disappeared beyond the peaks when the priest closed his prayer-book and pronounced them man and wife.

  The priest impressed upon them the importance of the step they had just taken but said nothing else that was not in the book he held in his hands. There was little he could say. He knew nothing of their lives before this day and was too experienced in the ways of his countrymen to ask questions. When a man arrived for his wedding ceremony carrying a musket, accompanied by similarly equipped guests, one did not prolong the ceremony a moment longer than was absolutely necessary.

  Not that the priest feared the men of the Wicklow mountains; they were as much his parishioners as the residents of the village where he had his church. He encouraged them to come to him for confession and had made this ruined chapel their own, a halfway house between the civilisation of the village and the remote and lawless refuge of the mountains.

  The priest’s success could be measured by the number of unmarked grassy mounds laid out in an untidy row behind the chapel. Here were buried men who lived their earthly lives outside the law of man, brought here after death in the hope of a better life beyond the grave.

  This was the first wedding the priest had conducted in the chapel, and after he had shaken the hands of the newly-weds and wished them well he watched them walk away, surrounded by their armed friends. It was an inauspicious beginning. Although the priest had asked no questions, news travelled far in Ireland and he knew who they were and the village in County Wexford from whence they came. He would send news of the wedding to the Kilmar priest; it might ease the burden borne by the girl’s parents. There was nothing else he could do for them.

  The wedding itself was unusual enough, but Kathie planned a far more dramatic honeymoon. There would be a full moon the next night and Kathie was preparing a surprise for the soldiers. She had no doubt that an attack would take place. During the last few days Eoin Feehan had become increasingly surly, withdrawing himself from his companions more than ever. Even the excitement of the wedding failed to shake him out of his strange mood; if anything, it made him worse. More than once, Kathie caught him looking at her with an intense unreadable look on his face.

  She told Dermot nothing of the impending attack until their wedding night. It was an incredible revelation for a bride to make to her husband, even in such unusual circumstances, and at first Dermot would not believe her. Not until she told him of Liam’s suspicions did he begin to take her seriously.

  ‘Why haven’t you told me of this before?’ he demanded. ‘We could have got the truth from Eoin.’

  ‘How? He would have denied every word and the others would have believed him. It has been hard enough convincing you. Besides, if the others had known they would have given something away to him by a look or a careless word. That isn’t what we want.’

  ‘But the others must be told. We have got to leave this place immediately.’

  ‘Not until tonight. Eoin has not been to Rathconard for three nights, but I’ll wager he goes tonight – and early. He’ll need to tell the soldiers that we suspect nothing and will be here when they attack. As soon as he leaves we will tell the others. It will give us plenty of time to do what I have in mind.’

  ‘And Eoin? Is he to get away?’

  ‘Eoin Feehan will get away with nothing. When the soldiers arrive here to a warm welcome they will be sure he has played them false. That, and the news we send back to Kilmar of Eoin’s part in his brother’s death, will ensure that he will have nowhere in the whole of Ireland where he will be safe.’

  ‘You have thought all this out very carefully, Kathie.’ There was something in this that puzzled Dermot.

  ‘Yes, I have. Very carefully. That’s my way.’

  ‘I know. For that reason I can’t understand why you came to such a sudden decision to marry me.’

  When Kathie made no reply, Dermot said, ‘I suppose that had nothing to do with Eoin Feehan?’

  ‘Of course not. Nothing at all.’

  She said it so vehemently that Dermot was satisfied. It was not until later that Kathie herself realised that responsibility for everything that had happened could be attributed to Eoin Feehan. It was certain he had given the names of the Kilmar men to the soldiers. Had it not been for him they would not be in the mountains now. Then, had Jeremy not been keeping watch on him he would not have been arrested, and Kathie would not have gone to Rathconard. Eoin Feehan had a great deal to answer for.

  The next evening went exactly as Kathie had predicted. After a day during which Eoin Feehan’s nerves threatened to overcome him, he announced his intention of going to Rathconard, ‘for a drink’. It was said in such a belligerent manner that everyone looked at him in surprise. His freedom to go to Rathconard was resented, but not one of the Kilmar men argued with him. His statement of intention made, Eoin Feehan wasted no time in carrying it out.

  As soon as the turncoat was out of sight, Dermot called the others together and told them what Kathie had learned in Rathconard. At first they were as sceptical as Dermot himself had been, but as the story unfolded and they realised there must be some truth in what was being said they wanted to go after Eoin Feehan and bring him back.

  ‘No,’ said Dermot. ‘There is a better way.’ He explained Kathie’s plan and, although the men would have preferred a swifter and more positive justice, they agreed that Eoin Feehan was unlikely to go unpunished for his treachery.

  The soldiers would not attack until well after dark, and there was much to be done before then. Each man now had his own musket and it was loaded and primed, all available powder and musket-balls being divided equally between them. Kathie took over the weapon left behind by Eoin Feehan. She intended playing a full part in the forthcoming events of the night.


  As the sun sank below the western horizon, the Kilmar men built up the camp-fires carefully before casually slipping away, ostensibly to their dug-out cabins. In fact they gathered their weapons and, making their way to the ridge behind the camp, took up concealed positions among the tumbled rocks there.

  The moon was late rising and by the time it appeared above a dark bank of cloud on the eastern sky-line the fires in the camp were burning low and causing Kathie some concern. She was relying on the fires to show up the soldiers when they crept up on what they believed to be an unsuspecting group of outlaws.

  ‘Are you quite sure they are coming tonight?’ whispered one of the waiting fishermen. ‘Perhaps there has been a change of plan that we know nothing about.’

  ‘Keep quiet – and listen,’ hissed Kathie. ‘I thought I heard something then.’

  She had hardly finished talking when something moved between the ridge and the dying fires. Suddenly, as they watched, the whole area around the dug-out cabins was alive with red-uniformed soldiers and the Kilmar outlaws were given a horrifying illustration of the fate planned for them.

  While a few men lit previously prepared pitch torches from the fires, other soldiers ran to the dug-out cabins and, throwing back the blankets hanging in the doorways, discharged their muskets into the darkness inside. Seconds later the blazing torches were thrown in and the soldiers drew back, kneeling just beyond the firelight, muskets ready to shoot down the Kilmar outlaws as they fled from the blazing cabins.

  It did not take many minutes for the soldiers to realise that their plan had misfired and the camp was empty. They gathered uncertainly about the burning cabins, leaning on their long muskets and making weak jokes. They were disappointed and felt foolish. After preparing themselves, mentally and physically, for a fierce battle the result had come as a tremendous anti-climax.

  The soldiers relaxed too soon. As the dry wooden frames of the cabin roofs collapsed, sparks and flames rose high in the air, clearly illuminating those who stood about them.