A Shocking Assassination

by Cora Harrison

  TWELVE

  W.B. Yeats:

  The old brown thorn-trees break in two high over Cummen Strand

  Under a bitter black wind that blows from the left hand;

  Our courage breaks like an old tree in a black wind and dies,

  But we have hidden in our hearts the flame out of the eyes

  Of Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.

  ‘That woman at number 23 is a police spy, Eileen. Did you know that?’

  Eileen choked over her cup of tea. She had half-chewed the hunk of dry and very stale bread that was all the food available for breakfast, had taken a gulp of tea to soften it and both had got stuck in her gullet. It took a few minutes of vigorous thumping by her mother and coughing from Eileen before her windpipe was clear.

  ‘You should eat properly,’ said Maureen severely. ‘At your age, too.’

  ‘It’s your fault,’ retorted Eileen. ‘You startled me. How do you know that she’s a spy?’

  ‘People say that she is,’ said Maureen. ‘Her cousin is a peeler, a guard, you know.’ She didn’t sound too concerned, but Eileen frowned with annoyance. Everyone in the street knew about Maureen’s rebel daughter and she didn’t want to get her mother into more trouble by being seen to visit her. It might result in a visit from a policeman and an interrogation of her mother. Generally she never visited by daylight.

  ‘I’d better not go out by the front door, then. I’ll just get over the wall and into the back lane,’ she said. ‘If we go out together, she’ll know that it is me, shawl or no shawl. I’ll go now and I’ll meet you at the prison at half past three. If you’re right, and his mother visits at three o’clock, then she’ll be well gone by half past. They only allow ten minutes for each visit.’ She could easily pass the morning on her own. Wearing the old black dress and the shawl she would merge into the background of the poor that flooded the streets of Cork. She choked down the rest of the unappetising bread and then took off her boots, breeches and jacket and stuffed them into a basket. She would go barefoot, she thought, but then changed her mind. The dress that she had selected the night before was too long for wall climbing. She had thought about tearing a strip off it, but in the end she decided to leave it as it was and put on the boots again. The length of the dress would be enough to hide their shining beauty and these days she was quite unused to bare feet and would find it hard to walk through the streets, let alone climb a crumbling wall with exposed, jagged pieces of broken stone. If her plan did not work out, then a quick getaway might be necessary.

  ‘You’re up to something,’ said her mother suspiciously. ‘I can see it.’

  ‘Nothing, not today, anyway,’ said Eileen, suppressing the thought of the piece of paper which she planned to pass over to Sam when they shook hands. ‘I wouldn’t involve you. I just need you today for a bit of a disguise. You’ll make me look respectable. You’re always telling me that you wished I was respectable, and not go around wearing breeches and boots, so now you’ll have your wish. There’ll be a pair of us – a respectable mother with a respectable daughter.’ Quickly she shoved the basket with the clothes behind the settle. She would have preferred to take them with her, but there would be a search at the door of the prison. She had been warned about that. She would just have to return afterwards to collect them.

  ‘What was all that writing about last night? I could hear your pencil going scratch, scratch until I fell asleep and then there was all that burned paper among the ashes in the fire this morning?’ Her mother sounded amused, even proud, but Eileen was conscious of a moment’s alarm. It was important that her mother be totally unaware of the plan. She had to appear just concerned for the prisoner, sorry for him, but not hugging a secret to herself. Maureen showed the world her thoughts. Her daughter would not wish to involve her in any secrets. Furtively she stirred the cold ashes in the fireplace with the toe of her boot. Her mother watched indulgently.

  ‘Want some more breakfast?’ she asked, but did not protest when her daughter shook her head. Her mother never breakfasted at home. There would always be scraps of uneaten food in the pub when she cleaned up after the night’s drinking. In any case, there was little enough food in the house. Eileen wished now that she had taken some more money from the jar on the mantelpiece in the hideout. She was hungry. She was used to a substantial cooked breakfast at this time of the morning. The farmer who sheltered them was generous enough to tell them they could take what eggs they could find from the barn that sheltered his hens at night, and he often dropped off some home-cured bacon for them. They fed well, the soldiers of destiny, she thought. She knew that she had filled out ever since she had joined them and the fact that she looked so well had reconciled her mother to the life that her only daughter was leading.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Maureen said. ‘I’m not after your secrets. Just wondered what you were writing, that’s all. You used always show me your essays.’

  ‘Just trying out an article,’ said Eileen shortly. Her effort to compress all of the information Sam would need onto a piece of paper which would fit in the palm of her hand, and could be passed to him as she greeted him, had been more difficult to write than any thousand-word article for the Cork Examiner. It was essential that he understood the plan, essential that there should be no fumbling, no hesitation, and no missed chances.

  ‘See you later, then,’ she said lightly, as she slipped through the back door, down to the privy at the back of the yard. There was a loose stone here which could be removed to make a stepping stone, high enough for her arms to reach the top of the wall; she remembered that stone from the days of her childhood, when it had always seemed to be more fun to climb over the back wall than to walk out of the front door like a civilized human being, as her mother used to put it.

  She would approach the gaol by the back streets, she planned. No waiting around the gates, no awkward encounter with Mrs O’Mahony. She would go up to the top of Barrack Street, around by Gillabbey Street. From there she would walk along College Road, wait for the right moment when no one was in sight, no nursemaid wheeling out one of the babies from these houses of the privileged classes, no delivery boys cycling along the steep incline. She used to envy these bicycles so much, though she thought that the metal strip on the crossbar bearing the name of shop or stall rather spoilt their smartness. No, she would wait for the right moment and then she would slip into the university grounds, make her way to the tree-lined patch near to the river and conceal herself there. If any of the students spotted her, they would just imagine that she was some girl coming in to scrub the floor or make the cups of tea in the university restaurant’s kitchen.

  She had two pieces of luck. First of all she found an abandoned hunk of cake lying on the wall of the bridge, left there for the birds, doubtless by some student suffering a hangover. Eileen consumed it in two large bites and then when she had penetrated a little further along beside the river she found an old willow tree, which, when she had climbed up it, made a very good place to hide and was perfectly situated to provide a view of the prison.

  Cork gaol was a small, one-storey building, constructed, like its neighbour the university, of fine white limestone. There was a high wall all around the buildings and standing clear of them. The entrance was closed on the outside by a pair of heavy wrought-iron gates in one of which was inserted a small wicket door. These outer gates gave access to a yard that had another pair of iron gates which extended the full height of the archway. Between the two sets of gates and to the left was the visitors’ waiting room, in which she had been told a warder was always on duty.

  Prisoners awaiting trial were allowed visits of ten minutes’ duration each between three and four p.m. Not more than six persons were allowed in the waiting room at the same time and they were all searched and had to wait their turn under the eye of the warder. Eileen’s plan was based on that. The visiting cell, she knew from what Tom Hurley had told her, was situated near the centre of the prison and was approached from the main gate
by a path running inside the wall that led to the prison buildings at which the military sentry was on duty. She could see the path from where she sat on the branch. Three minutes to walk it, she reckoned, and probably at a run the distance could be covered in under a minute. Speed and silence were to be their watchwords. And, of course, meticulous and careful preparation.

  Tom Hurley, she thought idly, as she watched for her mother to appear, had proved to be very useful unknown to himself. He had spent six months in Cork gaol after taking part in a parade down St Patrick Street and he remembered the layout of it fairly exactly. He was easy to flatter and she had found that he was very ready to describe the gaol, and even had unbent enough to draw a sketch map of the place and its surroundings. Her plan, she knew, was a good one, if everyone could keep their head and if Sam O’Mahony could be forewarned and be ready for the rescue.

  There was a sound of a bell from the university and she hoped that it meant half-past three. She was getting tired of sitting on the branch of the willow tree and every nerve in her body was on edge like an over-strung fiddle. Her mother was coming now, she could see her turn in from Western Road and cross the stone bridge. She was wearing her shawl well pulled up over her head. Swiftly Eileen slid down and pulled up her own shawl, feeling pleased that the strong smell of mothballs had begun to evaporate. She brushed the catkins from her dress and dragged it well down to cover the shining splendour of her knee-high boots and then she rearranged her shawl, folding it into a triangular shape and carefully pinning it under her chin. It felt uncomfortable like that and the pin dug into the soft flesh of her neck, but not being used to a shawl she didn’t want it to fall off just as she was passing the note to Sam.

  Maureen gave a nervous start when her daughter joined her in Gaol Walk. Her eyes, inside the framing shawl were wide and frightened. It was good that she was so much taller than her daughter, thought Eileen, glancing up with a reassuring smile. Maureen had been brought up in her early years by an aunt who lived on a farm and only returned to her own mother when she had been seven years old. The early good feeding had helped her to grow tall and strong, Eileen had often thought. She linked her arm with her mother’s, leaning her shoulder against the woman’s arm and mentally assessing the height difference. It should work. Luckily Liam was not too tall and quite slight in build. Confidently she marched up towards the lofty limestone archway.

  ‘Yes,’ said the warder at the gate abruptly.

  ‘If you please, officer, we’ve come to see my cousin, Sam O’Mahony,’ said Eileen, speaking in a shy soft low voice. She felt her mother’s arm tremble and she pressed it comfortingly to her side. Now that the play had begun, she herself was not nervous. Just keyed up and excited. And yes, he took a bunch of keys from his pocket.

  ‘A pity you didn’t come at the same time as his mother,’ he grumbled as he unlocked the wicket gate. ‘Can’t you families get yourselves organized? You’ll have to wait your turn, now. There are two other sets of people in front of you.’ This wicket gate, noted Eileen, bowing her head as though chastened by the reproof, was barely the height of a man. If a vehicle stormed the prison, then the two outer and the two inner gates would all have to be broken down first. Big heavy gates, too, made from wrought iron set into stone archways, no, it would be impossible to force them open; her plan was a better one. Brains over brawn, she said to herself.

  Demurely Eileen waited, her arm locked into her mother’s, her head hanging, looking, she hoped, the epitome of a bashful country girl. The warder now relocked the outside gate, and walked them across to a one-storey building, made of the same white limestone as the gaol itself. There was another warder standing at the door to this, smoking a cigarette and looking bored.

  ‘Visitors for Sam O’Mahony. Aunt and cousin,’ said the first warder briefly.

  ‘Lucky man. Second visit today. Don’t know why you didn’t all come together.’ He held out his packet of cigarettes to the first warder and jerked his head at them to go inside. Eileen exerted a gentle pressure on her mother’s arm and went in. The room was furnished with three wooden benches and was freezing cold and filled with the miasma of fog. The door was left open, but the two warders were talking loudly about last night in the pub and Eileen seized the opportunity and turned to one of the male visitors.

  ‘We’re visiting Sam O’Mahony. Who have you come to see?’ she asked.

  He turned out to be living in the east Cork town of Midleton and introduced himself as Tom O’Brien. ‘Me and Augustus are here to visit our youngest brother, George, someone accused him of robbing his pocket, brought a lorry-load of witnesses,’ he said, his voice wavering between family solidarity and unease about the weighty evidence for the crime.

  ‘Sam is in for murder,’ said Eileen and sadly dabbed her eyes with the corner of her plaid shawl.

  ‘That’s bad,’ said a third man sympathetically. ‘And I bet he’s as innocent as a babe unborn. That’s the way with things. Them peelers, guards, they call themselves, “guardians of the peace”; well that’s a laugh, that is. “Persecutors of the poor”, that would be more like it, isn’t that right, Maggie,’ he said to his wife.

  ‘They say that he stole ten shillings from the butcher’s at Fermoy, as if my Colm would do a thing like that!’ Maggie ignored Eileen and leaned over towards Maureen’s well-built and more motherly form.

  ‘Visitors for Colm O’Sullivan,’ shouted the second warder. The first warder, Eileen noted, flung down his cigarette and walked across to meet a couple of women emerging from the inner gate. One warder at the outside gate, a second at the visitor’s waiting room, and a third at the inner gate, noted Eileen. She kept her face down and partially covered by the shawl in order to conceal her excitement. She would be able to memorize the positions of the prison warders and now she had the names of two of the other prisoners awaiting trial and so allowed visitors on a daily basis.

  ‘Tom O’Brien, Colm O’Sullivan,’ she repeated soundlessly to herself. And the wonderful thing was that one man lived in Midleton and the other in Fermoy, both towns at a considerable distance from the city. It would be most unlikely that the families would be able to visit the prisoners again tomorrow. Nevertheless, an unconvicted prisoner could receive visitors every day of the week, except for Saturday and Sunday. She stopped listening to the story of Tom’s woes and looked keenly around the bare little room, noting the position of the warder behind what looked almost like a shop counter. There was, she noted also, a telephone on top of it and her eyes found the socket in the wall above a steel safe.

  The ten minutes allowed for the O’Sullivans’ visit to their son were not long in passing. Soon they reappeared, escorted by a warder, were handed over to the warder at the inner gate, then there was a wait while the keys were produced and the gate unlocked. Next three warders came together: the first warder to escort them to the wicket in the other gate, the second beckoned Eileen and her mother from the visiting room, and the third still stood with the keys dangling loosely from his hand. This will be the crucial moment, thought Eileen, as she followed him meekly, peeping at the overlooking windows and keeping alert for the presence of other prison warders.

  No other warder appeared though. The man tapped on a door in the middle of the building and then, as soon as it was unlocked, he thrust the two women inside and then left. He had not exchanged a word with the warder of the prison cell and this one, thought Eileen, was a surly-looking fellow, tall and tough-looking. He nodded to them to sit opposite a wooden barrier and to put their hands on the shelf beneath it.

  ‘Spread the fingers,’ he ordered. ‘Just a handshake is allowed through the barrier. No hugging or kissing. Too easy to pass things like that,’ he said sourly, glaring at them. ‘Any gifts,’ he queried and when they shook heads silently, went straight over to the phone on his desk at the back of the room and just said, ‘Prisoner 41.’

  So they don’t search the visitors, thought Eileen. Just hands are inspected, and not even them at the two outside
gates. Another fact to remember. She was slightly trembling, she noticed, and was annoyed with herself. This was a serious affair and she was supposed to belong to an army. She had never yet taken part in a raid; her job was to do the writing: propaganda agent, press secretary, planner, even. Tom Hurley was old-fashioned and he didn’t like women entangled with the fighting force.

  But now it was serious. Sam’s life probably depended on her. She clenched her hands as she heard the heavy footsteps tramping down the corridor. There was a knock at the door opposite to the one where she and her mother had entered. Two doors. She reminded herself to check whether both would be locked during the ten-minute visit time.

  And then the inner door was unlocked and Sam was thrust into the room. No chances were taken. The door was immediately relocked and then there was just one warder, the prisoner and the two visitors – two against one, she thought excitedly, though reminding herself that the one was armed and that there was a telephone by his hand.

  ‘Just a handshake, remember,’ he said now in a monotonous tone, turning his attention back to the Cork Examiner which he had taken from a ledge beneath the top of his desk.

  There was an odd look on Sam’s face. He seemed defensive, unhappy, embarrassed, even annoyed. For a moment it was almost as if he had not recognized her, shrouded in her faded plaid shawl and then he suddenly flushed a dark red. He avoided Eileen’s eyes, looking with an air of bewilderment at Maureen. Eileen nudged her mother firmly and Maureen held out a tentative hand. He seemed not to know what to do for a moment and then reluctantly he shook it. Eileen gave him a moment to recover and then took her own hand from beneath the shawl. She had meant to have given it a quick lick, but in the event she was sweating heavily with a mixture of fear, compassion and excitement. The small piece of paper stuck to it firmly. She forced herself not to glance over her shoulder at the prison warder. She had looked once and twice would show anxiety.