by Aubrey Flegg
‘It’s fine and hard now,’ he said.
Peter was looking at the haycock. ‘What in the name of God have you been doing to this! Sliding down it like children?’ he asked. The cock did look a bit ragged, but the men just laughed and crowded around, pulling out chains, unwinding them from the drums at the top of the ramp, talking among themselves and hooking the chains together at the back of the haycock. Then they came around to the front of the float and started working the levers back and forth, which tightened the chains around the cock. The oiled ratchets clicked and the haycock began to move. It was great having all these men. Seamus directed, but the men had all carted hay before.
‘Isn’t that a lovely sound?’ Katie said to Dafydd, forgetting Seamus for a moment. ‘The sound of summer and of carting hay.’
Slowly the haycock slid up the ramp until the moment came when the ramp tipped forward and, with a snap, became the flat top of the float again, only now the huge haycock was standing proudly on top. There was a cheer from the men.
‘God above! Would you look at those wheels,’ exclaimed Peter, pointing. Even as they watched, the wheels were visibly sinking into the soft meadow.
‘Come on, everyone,’ Seamus urged, ‘push. We’ll be all right if we keep going. Either the field is wetter or that hay is damper than it looks.’ Katie found a place at the side of the float and added her weight to the push. She avoided the circle of pale moist grass where the haycock had stood, as it usually crawled with slugs and beetles.
‘Stay back of the wheel,’ she warned as Dafydd thrust himself in to push in front of her. Barney strained, the men heaved and the cart lurched up on to the road.
‘You’d all better come,’ commanded Seamus. ‘We’ll need a push on the hill.’
‘Please God they’ll not all be as heavy as this,’ said Father in wonderment. The meadow was almost directly below the quarry but the cart had to follow the road which circled round, then climbed the steep hill up to the farm and on to the quarry yard.
With so many helpers they took the hill at a rush. As they drove into the quarry yard Father said, ‘A little help is worth a wagon-load of pity. That was great work.’
‘We’ll start by putting the cocks out by the quarry edge,’ said Seamus, pointing to a place near the rim. ‘We can build the stack over there then, close to the shed.’
‘Go ahead,’ said Father. ‘Griff and I will put away the slates we had out yesterday.’ Katie glanced towards Mr Parry who raised his eyebrows. Was this wise? A reminder of yesterday’s failure – but in a short while she heard them both laughing. Well done, Mr Parry! If he could just keep Father on the laughing side of an attack everything would be all right.
Peter backed Barney up till they looked perilously close to the edge of the quarry.
‘That’ll do!’ called Seamus from behind. The chains were undone and two of the men stood up on the back of the float to tip it up again.
‘Take her away,’ Seamus shouted. Barney lurched forward, as if he knew exactly what was needed from him, and the haycock slipped off the float.
‘Like butter off a hot knife,’ said Josie with satisfaction.
Katie, recalling the bumpy ride on the way down, called to Dafydd, ‘Come on, take a twist of hay to sit on,’ and pulled a hefty wisp out from the haycock.
‘Hey!’ came a shout from among the men. ‘Leave that cock alone.’ Katie turned in amazement. Whose hay was it anyway? Seamus snapped something at the men but she could not make out which one of them had spoken. Then one of them called out, ‘Just a joke, Miss,’ but it didn’t feel like a joke to her.
‘Come on,’ she said to Dafydd. ‘We’ll walk straight down through the fields – it will be quicker. I’m not going on the float with that lot.’
They had reached the first gate when Seamus caught them up.
‘What was all that about?’ Katie asked, as they walked down. ‘Which of them was it?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Seamus. ‘The lads are all a bit edgy.’
So that’s who they were, ‘the lads’. Of course. But why would the lads take time off to cart hay for Father? She looked up at Seamus who was walking beside her, face set.
‘Why are they here, Seamus?’ she asked.
‘No questions, Katie, remember?’ he said. Katie bit back a tart reply. This was a different Seamus, he had to be handled differently.
‘I want to talk about Father,’ she said, but Seamus only increased his pace slightly. ‘Seamus!’ she challenged. ‘He has shell-shock. He has it so badly that Mr Parry says if he gets another attack like the one you gave him last week he could be in an asylum for life.’ She overtook her brother, turned, and backed down the hill in front of him. ‘It’s guns that set him off, Seamus. Guns! do you understand?’ No response. ‘What are you up to now? Why are these men helping us all of a sudden?’ Seamus moved to one side. ‘Don’t you push past me! You’re going to collect the guns from somewhere, aren’t you, going to attack the barracks? Kill more people for Ireland?’
At that Seamus did stop and said between clenched teeth, ‘Katie, this is a last warning. Nurse Father by all means, that can be your contribution to the war. My job is to fight it. There’s nothing that a squeamish girl of fifteen can do – understand? Ireland is on the move again. Step back and let it pass.’ Katie was damned if she would move, but neither could she think of anything to say. Seamus stepped round her and continued on downhill and Katie found herself looking up at Dafydd, who had been following discreetly behind. He gave an apologetic smile and a shrug. Obviously he had heard everything, but that was all right.
* * *
They had the second haycock up before Marty came back. When he did arrive Katie could see he was hopping mad that Seamus had come back ordering things about on the farm in his absence.
‘What have they been doing with the cocks, Katie? It looks as if they’ve been gored by a bull.’
‘Josie thought they’d been sliding down them.’
‘Who are these men? They’re not even local, apart from Josie …’
‘Friends of Seamus.’
‘And what’s turned Seamus into a farmer all of a sudden?’ Then he remembered something. ‘Oh, Mother says she wants a hand to bring down the tea.’
‘Is it twelve already!’
Katie decided to bring the food for the men down to the field. It was one pail of tea and another of sliced and buttered soda bread. Dafydd gave a hand. The soda bread was still hot when she took the tea towel off the top of the pail. The smell of it nearly killed her. She and Dafydd shared a slice for company, but ‘family’ would get theirs up at the farm when the next load went up – she wasn’t carrying tea for everyone. Father, still laughing rather too loudly, told a story of how he and Mr Parry had been driven to the front in France during the war in a London bus with the old destination Camberwell Green still on the front. Josie managed a smile, but Seamus looked uncomfortable; the men just looked at each other and poked grass between their teeth. Katie remembered what the trench-coat man had said yesterday and wished Father would talk of something else.
Seamus’s friends seemed to lose heart as the day wore on, and one after another they drifted away with a murmured apology, until only Josie remained. But the other haycocks were smaller and coming up easily, and soon the quarry yard was full of neat mounds of hay, ready to be piled into one large stack.
Katie, exhausted from the double walk, stayed in the meadow for the last trip, and Dafydd joined her there once he had helped push the float up the hill. She lay on her back and watched a lark soar higher and higher above them, singing and trilling, sprinkling her in a shower of liquid sound. She watched the fluttering speck until it turned, still singing, and flew down in great descending sweeps to the ground. It landed not far from Dafydd. She saw him freeze as the bird dipped into the grass in front of him. He walked slowly over to where it had landed. He wouldn’t find the nest, not there – a lark always lands a little way away from its nest and then runs t
hrough the grass to it. But Dafydd stooped and picked something up. If it is an egg he’ll keep it in his hand, she forecast, but he put it in his pocket. Some other treasure then, or else he’ll have a messy pocket. She lay back again and let her arms and legs go limp.
‘Look,’ said Dafydd, standing over her.
‘What is it?’ Katie couldn’t see against the light.
‘Look!’ He squatted down beside her. In the palm of his hand lay a row of bright copper cylinders, each narrowing to a silver point.
‘What are they?’ she asked, propping herself up on one elbow, but she instantly knew. ‘Bullets!’ she said.
‘Live cartridges,’ said Dafydd.
‘Why are they stuck together?’
‘They’re in a clip, ready to load into the magazine of a rifle. You just press them in with your thumb.’
‘Where did you get them?’
‘Over there, where the first haycock was.’
Not lark’s eggs then, she thought. ‘But what are they doing in our field?’ She realised that her mind was working slowly.
‘Designed to kill,’ said Dafydd darkly.
All at once Katie was wide awake. She sat up in one movement and turned to stare at where the first two haycocks had stood. How had she been so stupid? Seamus had fooled her, fooled all of them.
‘Dafydd, I’m an eejit! An absolute and utter fool. That’s ammunition, isn’t it? That’s what they took from Nenagh – not just guns but ammunition as well! Remember, Seamus said how heavy the boxes were? It was all here, hidden in those first two haycocks! We actually helped push it up the hill. That’s why Seamus’s so-called friends came to help us bring the hay up to the quarry – they knew it would be heavy. Remember what Seamus said about the boxes? Neighbourly love, my foot! First he ruins Father’s hopes in the quarry, then he actually gets Father to push the arms he hates up the hill. What sort of monster is he? Remember how one of them shouted when I pulled a wisp out? This clip, as you call it, must have been dropped by one of them the night they hid it here. How could I have been so slow!’
‘What if your Dad discovers it?’ asked Dafydd.
‘Father? God help me, Frog, I don’t know. We’ve got to get him away, get him away now! I’ll kill Seamus for this. Show me those things again.’ Dafydd held out the shining clip of bullets on his palm like someone offering sugar to a horse. ‘No,’ said Katie, ‘take them, show them to your Dad. He must do something to get Father away now. And I’ll deal with Seamus, by God I will. That stuff will be gone out of here by tomorrow or I’m not Katie O’Brien.’
CHAPTER 16
Surprise Visitor
Katie had meant to climb straight up from the meadow, the way she had walked down with Seamus earlier, but in her hurry she had moved a bit too far to the right. She stopped, and looked upwards, panting. The quarry sheds loomed above her. To her right the black slice of the cut breached the grey tumbled wastes of slate. A freshly built wall closed off the entrance. Father had daubed large letters in red on the new-laid stone: Danger – Keep Out. Two trickles of paint ran down from the bottom of the K. Something black was lying on the ground at the foot of the wall; maybe Father had forgotten his coat there. She’d bring it in for him later. Hitching her skirt, she began to climb again. As she did so the black object moved. A head rose and she saw that it was a dog lying as if on guard. ‘I know that dog,’ she said to herself and pressed on harder.
A short last struggle brought her into the quarry yard, where she stood, breathless. There was no sign of Seamus and the yard looked deserted.
‘Damn!’ she muttered. ‘He must have gone down with the float again.’ She walked slowly between the haycocks. They stood like shaggy giants caught on the move, now standing frozen, wondering if they’d been seen. She walked forward cautiously. It was then she heard the voices. She stopped and listened, as one of the voices rose. It seemed to be reassuring the other.
‘No, boy, the safest place for the sparrow is under the hawk’s nest. Your father’s reputation is our protection. The whole parish was here on Sunday and can vouch that there is nothing here. Your original idea was good.’ Seamus’s reply was low and she had to strain to listen. The one word she got was ‘informer’.
‘Don’t worry, son,’ then with a laugh, ‘if you’re not an informer yourself we’ll be all right. I’ll be off now.’ Holding her breath she waited for the owners of the voices to appear. What were they up to? Then she swore: was there another way out? She ran forward and, as she did so, the door of the shed scraped open and Seamus came out alone.
She pushed past him into the shed, demanding, ‘Who was that?’
‘Come back!’ he called.
But the shed was empty, just an echoing space. On the far side a shaft of dusty sunlight opened and closed across the floor as a loose sheet of timber in the wall swung backwards and forwards. Katie could hear the clatter of slipping slates outside then and knew she was too late. She turned and walked back out into the yard.
‘How much did you hear?’ demanded Seamus, grabbing her arm.
‘Enough,’ said Katie.
‘Like what?’
‘I know where the guns are, for a start.’
‘We never mentioned that.’
‘But I know, they’re in the haycocks.’
‘Katie, I warned you,’ said Seamus, straightening himself up. ‘You’re under house arrest, and that’s an order.’ Katie’s mind flew back to when they had been children together; this was ridiculous – but yet it wasn’t ridiculous, he meant it. ‘If you tell anyone about this or make the smallest move to interfere, or leave the farm I’ll …’
‘Have me shot. That’s what you mean, Seamus, isn’t it?’ said Katie, facing him down. For the first time that day Seamus looked uncomfortable, but Katie went on, ‘Well, I won’t make a move, Seamus, will I? Because that means telling Father, and whatever about you, I don’t want to send Father to an asylum for life. That was really clever of you today, getting Father to help you push the guns he hates up the hill. You may even have been there when that man in the trench coat denounced Father in the cave, but you weren’t there when Father started calling out the names of his friends killed in the war, were you? Oh no, you’re never there to see the consequences of what you do. Listen to me now. Mr Parry is going to try to get Father away – you’ve got till then to move these guns.’ She paused. ‘After that I am going to destroy them if I can and you can have the pleasure of shooting your little sister.’
Seamus looked at Katie, and for a moment their eyes were locked together in equal combat. Did she see there a glimmer of respect? But she knew he could give as good as he got.
‘Yes,’ he said, then turned on his heel and walked back to the house.
* * *
‘Throw that water outside, Dafydd dear,’ said Mother. ‘We never let water from washing our feet stand in the house in case it lets in harm. An old superstition really.’ Tea was over and Father and Mr Parry were sitting behind empty eggshells.
Katie was drying her feet in the porch as Dafydd passed: ‘Dad’s winning,’ he whispered.
Katie glanced into the kitchen.
‘Mother, could you do without us for a couple of days?’ Father asked.
‘I’m sure I could. Young Dafydd here does more work than the pair of you together. But where would you go? Aren’t the roads all closed?’
‘Griff here wants to see the Broadford quarries while he has the chance. The weather’s holding and a walk through the hills would do us both good. We worked him hard enough today.’
‘When would you go?’
‘First thing tomorrow. We’ll stay the night with the MacNamaras.’ He turned to Mr Parry, ‘MacNamara’s the one to swear that Broadford slates are better than Killaloe – they’re not, but you’ll like him.’
Dafydd joined Katie on the bench in the porch.
‘Well done,’ she said.
‘It was the bullets that made him hurry it up, like you said. But what are we goin
g to do?’
Katie smiled at the ‘we’ and stole a glance at the boy beside her. ‘I don’t know yet. Set the hay on fire, perhaps? Blow the whole lot up?’
‘A bit dangerous, and it mightn’t work. The hay was a bit damp.’
‘I’ve got to do something but I’m not doing anything till Father’s well away. I wonder if Seamus knows he’s going?’
* * *
Morning dew drenched the grass when Katie and the two men left the track to climb the fields up on to the mountain. They were booted, but she was barefoot and swung her feet so that the wet grass ran between her toes. Father carried a stick and a satchel containing a substantial packet of sandwiches. Katie had also put in two bottles of stout and the corkscrew. She wanted to see them up the ridge on to the mountain – Tuontinna. She would have loved to have gone with them all the way, crossing the Shannon at Killaloe and then through the Clare hills to Broadford, but she had other things to do. She had lain awake last night planning where she could get her hands on paraffin and matches. She would have to act quickly because when Seamus heard that Father was away it would be a race between him and her.
Father stopped when they reached the top of the fields, level with the top of the quarry, and looked down. ‘Good heavens!’ he said. ‘Seamus has already got the stack started. When did he do that?’
Katie looked down: the two haycocks from the quarry edge were gone and the base of a new haystack was laid out in a neat square beside the shed. Wisps of hay showed where the two remarkably large and heavy cocks with their secret store of guns and ammunition had been. So they were gone. It was at once a relief and a disappointment.
‘It would be great if the boy took an interest in the farm,’ Father was saying, then he turned to Katie, ‘You turn back now, Katie. We’ll be all right.’ It was kindly meant, but the old hurt returned. The whole object of her staying at home was gone now and the feeling that he didn’t need her returned. She looked at Mr Parry but he was anxious to get going. ‘Come on, Eamonn,’ he said. ‘Just listen to that lark sing!’
