The Devil's Acre

by Matthew Plampin

  Martin twisted his cap as tightly as he could, looking down fixedly at his crossed legs. ‘I am mourning, in my way. You can be sure of that.’

  Amy wasn’t listening. She sat up suddenly, rubbing her palms against her eyes, smoothing down her hair and picking up her bonnet from where it had fallen on the grass. ‘We must leave this city. I can’t stand it no longer. It ain’t safe for Katie; Heavens, Martin, it ain’t safe for us. America – we must go to America.’ Her tone grew imploring. ‘Talk to your Mr Quill. Tell him that you wish to go to the Colt factory over there to – to learn more about the engines. To finish your training. He’ll listen, won’t he?’

  Martin found that he could easily imagine a fine new life for them in Hartford. There would be a pretty cottage in a Connecticut lane, with Katie skipping around the flower-garden; formal tutelage in gun manufacture, followed by a long-term contract on a master engineer’s wage; a lasting friendship with Ben Quill, continuing until they were both old men. It could not happen, though, not yet, no matter how much he might want it. He had to stay loyal to Molly and his brothers. Caroline was getting them their guns. The moment of action might not be too far off now.

  He shook his head. ‘It ain’t that simple.’

  ‘Because of Slattery, you mean – because of this debt you all kept hidden for so long. You have a family, Martin. You have a child. What’s to stop us going – making our arrangements in secret and then sailing away from this place forever?’

  Martin glanced across at Amy; she was working herself into a rage. The debt she spoke of was an out-and-out lie, a story spun with the Mollys’ collaboration to convince her to enlist her sister to their cause. It had been a necessary deception. The truth was too much of a risk. He hadn’t liked doing it, and had felt guilt over it since – but he was damned if he wouldn’t make her understand exactly what was at stake for him here.

  ‘You’re asking me to betray my closest friends,’ he answered angrily. ‘We are bound together, Slattery and me – all of us. We are brothers. I won’t leave ‘em like that. D’ye hear me, Amy? I bleedin’ won’t.’

  This did not chasten her in the least. ‘That man hates you, Martin,’ she spat back. ‘Can you really not tell? He hates you for siring English children, for mixing your precious Irish blood, and will grind us into the mud to show it.’

  He looked up sharply; there was something new here. ‘What’s this? What are you talking about, girl?’

  She hesitated, lifting her chin a little. ‘I heard him talking. At – at Michael’s wake. Saying the most dreadful things. That our boy was a – a half-breed. A Protestant mongrel.’ Here she faltered, shaken by the recollection, brushing away a fresh tear; but she took a breath and made herself continue. ‘That it was better that he should have died in his infancy, before he could – could –’

  Martin’s hand shot out, seizing her arm. ‘Pat Slattery said that? He said mongrel? He said that to you?’

  Amy made a vain attempt to wriggle free, frightened by his reaction. ‘N-not straight to me face, no, but I heard it clear enough. He was with some of the others – Owen and Joe, I think, and –’

  A mighty blaze of light blasted out everything, sweeping away the rest of Amy’s words, casting the peaceful park into a roaring forge of blinding whiteness. Martin felt a burning sensation in his throat and chest; he realised that he was out on the hillside, breathing hard, racing upwards in the full glare of the sun; and then he was shoving through a game of some kind, knocking people aside and cursing at the very top of his voice. There was but one thought in his mind. He was going back to Westminster right away, he was going to find Patrick Slattery and he was going to kill him. He was going to wring the life from that wretched bastard with his own two hands. A player from the game he had spoiled grabbed hold of his shoulder, seeking to chide him for his interruption. Martin turned on this fellow almost with gratitude, punching him twice in the face with such unrestrained force that he went straight down and did not rise again.

  Then he heard her, singing somewhere in the distance in that cracked bell of a voice. Molly was in the park with him. She’d pushed her way up through the baked turf of Greenwich and was now moving among the trees at the hill’s summit, running her bony fingers through the lowest leaves. He tried to look at her; the sunlight was simply too powerful, however, dissolving everything and making his eyes ache. But she knew that he needed her. Was she leading him onwards? Was she beckoning him to her side? Martin continued uphill, and before long found himself at the end of a neat oak-lined avenue with flagstones underfoot. Around him were people with telescopes in their hands, exchanging idle observations, looking off towards London and the distant dome of St Paul’s. He paused, panting, momentarily lost; but her song found him again, reaching out to him from the far end of the avenue. And there she was, by God, dancing across the stones like a dark, ragged sprite, skipping through a set of tall iron gates and out into the countryside beyond. Surging on with the last of his strength, Martin went after her.

  Molly had led him to a wide, rutted road – the main road back into the city. He was sweating, struggling for breath and sobbing too. Staggering to a halt, he bent over and put his hands on his thighs, watching tears and drops of perspiration splash together against the dusty ground. For the first time in many months, his thoughts were of the Athlone workhouse, of his beloved mother and sisters, all five of whom had met their ends in the same weekend, claimed by a fever that had rushed through the weak, half-starved inmates like a mounted charge. As always, he’d been off plotting a riot or an assassination or the burning of some building or other; and by the time he reached Athlone on the Monday all but Sally, the youngest and last to die, had already been committed to the earth, buried in a mass grave outside the workhouse wall.

  The place itself had sickened him past all expression. The moaning hundreds, mostly women, children and the elderly, who were packed into every damp, barren room; the hopelessly thin broth, served but once a day, on which they were supposed to survive; the skeletal dead heaped in the yard, through whom he had to rummage to find what remained of his sister. It was impossible to comprehend the sheer quantity of misery contained within the Athlone workhouse. Every single person under that leaking roof had a tale of terrible injustice to tell – a story to inflame the soul with righteous anger and break the heart with pity. And Sally herself, once able to run a plough truer than any man, was but a faded, broken wisp of what she’d been, with every painful stage of her demise impressed into her teenage face. Martin had carried away her straw-light body on his back, burying her beneath a tree on the borders of what, only a year before, had been the Rea farm. It had been that same evening that he’d caught his very first glimpse of Molly Maguire.

  These black memories brought him abruptly to a far more recent time, only a few days past, in the bleak corner of Westminster that served as the Catholic churchyard – where, with Jack, he had carried that tiny coffin to its grave. He felt every sensation anew; the rope against his skin, and the pathetic weight at its end; the smell of wet clay, so strange in the dust and warmth of high summer; the quivering wail that had trailed from Amy’s lips, drowning out the priest’s final blessing, growing louder and louder as the earth had started to go back in. He could hear the puffing of his so-called brothers, of Pat, Owen, Joe and Thady, as they worked with their shovels – men he’d thought were ready to die for him, who he would surely have died for, yet who’d mocked his loss and insulted his boy within earshot of his grieving wife. Jesus Christ Almighty, he was going to kill them all.

  Martin swallowed hard, dragged a sleeve across his face and took in his surroundings. The road was quiet, the only traffic being a couple of light Sunday gigs and some solitary riders. Beyond it was an expanse of sun-browned heath; at its far side, shimmering in the heat, was another village, its houses and church arranged like cups around a jug. Off to his left, three horses stood drinking from a small pond, beneath a wilting willow. Molly was nowhere to be seen; nor did her s
ong sound any longer in the dried-out air. He sat down at the side of the road, confusion cooling his blood, the mad fury that had carried him there rapidly ebbing away. What did she want of him? To start for London at once, along this road – to hunt down Pat Slattery and mete out punishment for his unbrotherly words? To dislodge him, perhaps, and lead the Mollys himself? Or something else altogether? Martin asked her for further guidance, for some sign of her will; but she was utterly gone.

  A clear image of his wife and daughter, sitting together under that oak, waiting helplessly for him to return, cut through his perplexity. Amy had no money, and was almost certainly too weak and befuddled to get the two of them home on her own. This was a real and immediate duty. A decent man would not allow Molly Maguire’s mystifying riddles to keep him from looking after his family. Martin climbed to his feet with a groan and started back towards the park.

  Slattery was in his usual spot at the Manticore, right at the ring’s edge. He’d pulled his cap low over his eyes and was biting on the stem of his pipe, following the goings-on in the ring with close concentration. As Martin watched he gave a snarl of encouragement, striking the barrier. There was a slip of paper poking from his fist; he had money riding on whatever contest was underway.

  Few places offered action as good as that found in the Manticore on a Sunday night. The tavern’s modest upstairs room was always stuffed to the gills long before the hour appointed for the first match. This teeming clientele was drawn from every corner of London, and from several different levels as well; there were pockets of black top hats gleaming within the broad silt-bed of workers’ caps, and rumours persisted of certain members of the aristocracy paying the occasional visit, sloping across the river on the sly after a long day of sermons and domestic tedium. Attention was divided between the ring itself and the handful of bookmakers positioned at intervals around its edge. Every man in the room was shouting, either to place a wager or to cheer on one they’d made already, holding aloft betting slips, crumpled bank-notes or handfuls of sweaty coins.

  Martin elbowed his way to the hexagonal ring and hoisted a boot up onto the top of the barrier. A sturdy, battered-looking terrier was shooting about within, his chewed ears erect, his docked stump of a tail wagging furiously. Before him, a swarm of plump rats was scattering in squeaking terror, pressing themselves into the ring’s shallow corners, piling up a dozen deep in their panic. With fierce excitement, the little dog seized a straggler and shook it hard, leaving the body immediately to take a dive at another. This second rodent tried to stand its ground, baring needle-thin fangs, but it did no good; the terrier’s jaws snapped shut again, swinging the corpse away to the other side of the arena.

  Martin launched himself across the ring towards Slattery, knocking loose the oil lamp that was suspended from the low ceiling with his shoulder. There was a whoop of dismay from the crowd as the lamp dropped from its hook, breaking apart on the sanded floor. Landing at a bad angle in the darkness, Martin stumbled among the rats; he felt their fat, frantic bodies squirming across his calves and starting up his trouser-legs, desperate to escape the dog. Slattery was laughing at him from behind the barrier. Leaping forward, Martin charged into it, pushing it over, the white light roaring up around him once more; and the next he knew they were on the ground together, his foe pinned beneath him in a stream of fleeing rodents, his fist cracking against a nose, then a mouth, then an eye.

  ‘What did you say about me boy, Slattery? What did you bleedin’ say?’

  Around them, arguments began over spoiled bets and quickly grew heated; several vigorous attempts were made to catch or kill as many rats as possible; and somewhere in among it all the little ratter barked in frustration at the ruining of his game. Slattery bucked, struggling hard. Martin adjusted his position, fastening his hands around the bastard’s neck. That was it; he had him now. Fingers clawed at his knuckles, trying to work themselves inside his grip, but it was no use. Martin realised that he was grinning. He squeezed tighter.

  ‘Enough.’

  It was Molly, her voice stern and cold; Martin caught a glimpse of a girlish form gliding through the press of barging men, her hair tasting the air behind her like a long, forked tongue. What the devil is this, he thought – why is she restraining me now? It made no sense at all, but he loosened his hold; and immediately Slattery knocked him back, rocketing up from the shadowy floor and butting Martin’s chin with the flat plate of his forehead. This barely had time to register before something struck against the side of his skull, a blow swung in from behind, jolting him into a dizzy, sparking emptiness. When he returned to his senses a moment later he was being tipped down the tavern’s narrow staircase. A strapping pot-boy met him at the bottom, taking his place in a well-practised system of ejection; he dragged Martin to his feet, punched him a couple of times and then shoved him out into the street before he’d had time to regain his balance. Carried forward by the momentum of this push, Martin staggered to the centre of the road before falling heavily onto his side.

  The Manticore stood next to the fermenting sheds of a small vinegar yard and opposite a sprawling riverside brewery, and the various powerful smells produced by these two establishments – bitterly acidic, cloyingly meaty, revoltingly sour – hung in the surrounding air. Both were dark now, their gates shut; the Sunday night hush was broken only by the tavern sounds leaking from the Manticore and the steady patter of rain. Martin drew up his knees and rocked himself into a crouching position, clutching at his head. There was blood, a tender lump and one hell of an ache, but no serious damage. He’d been lucky. Then Molly’s whisper tickled the inside of his ear, slipping between the raindrops, admonishing him softly. He swatted at it as if it were a biting insect.

  ‘Ah, leave me be,’ he muttered. ‘Ain’t you had enough bleedin’ fun?’

  The tavern door creaked open and Slattery emerged, dabbing at a split nostril with his sleeve. Martin sprang straight to his feet and dived at him again. A body rushed in to stop him, though, clasping thick arms around his chest and holding him back. It was Jack Coffee; Martin saw that the other Mollys were there also, Owen, Thady and Joe, coming out behind Slattery. They must have been in the Manticore as well, away in the crowd.

  ‘Protestant mongrel, weren’t it?’ Martin cried, fighting against Jack’s grasp. ‘Ain’t that what you bleedin’ said, ye miserable louse?’

  Slattery came closer, splashing through a puddle. Even in that gloomy lane, unlit save for a single lime-light burning outside the railway yard at its end, Martin could tell that he wore a wicked sneer. ‘Look at this, my lads – drunk on his sorrow. Crying in the bleedin’ streets.’ He shook his head and spat on the ground. ‘I’m ashamed o’ you, Martin Rea, truly I am. The sons of Eire cannot afford the luxury o’ grief.’

  Martin took another lunge, almost breaking free from Jack’s arms; but something in the way that Slattery squared up to meet this attack quashed his spirit, stripping the fight from him completely. As always, the fellow had transferred all sense of grievance onto himself, admitting no fault in what he’d done. He was ready to beat or get beaten yet would not yield a single inch. Pat Slattery was more likely to remove his boots and cap and leap into the Thames than utter a single word of apology or remorse. Martin stopped struggling. Sensing his surrender, Jack released him and took a step backwards.

  Slattery’s hackles were up, though; he wanted a battle. Pouncing forward, he grabbed Martin’s face between his hands, pressing damp fingertips hard against his cheek and neck. ‘You’re forgetting the task to which you’re pledged,’ he declared, clenching his bloody teeth. ‘All of us here, all of us, are bound by our soul’s oath to Molly Maguire. She’s looking to us, Martin, to you and me, to get her some bleedin’ justice.’

  Martin barely managed to keep his voice level. ‘I don’t know, Pat,’ he said.

  Slattery was still for a second. Then he leaned in even closer, pressing their foreheads together. His skin was cold; his breath smelled of gin and raw onion. ‘Jesus
, Mary and Joseph, Mart,’ he murmured, ‘this is some dangerous ground you’re stepping onto here. D’ye not remember Roscommon, and all we did in Molly’s name? D’ye not remember Denis Mahon?’

  ‘Aye, o’ course I do – how could I not?’ Martin pushed Slattery away impatiently. ‘I just can’t say what she wants of me no more. Not for sure.’

  Now Slattery was smiling in scornful disbelief. ‘What the devil are you talking about? She wants us to knock over Lord John. Summer’s nearly at its end. That filthy Saxon parliament will soon be starting a new session. Our man will be out in the city a good deal. And that’s when we’ll get him.’

  This blunt summary made Martin suddenly perceive their long-cherished plan for what it truly was. The Mollys had convinced themselves that their escape would be easy – that Colt’s revolvers would enable them to shoot their way to safety once the deed had been done. It was a lie, he realised, nothing more than a piece of soothing self-deception. They might well kill Russell, and several others besides, but they were certain to be chased down shortly afterwards. A gang of Irishmen armed with revolving pistols would be simple to track, even back into the Devil’s Acre. Molly’s scheme would surely end in their deaths, either right there in the streets or upon the gallows of Newgate. Martin thought of Greenwich Park – of how he’d returned to the shadow of the oak to find that Katie had wandered off down the hill, fallen flat on her face and was shrieking uncontrollably; yet Amy, slumped once more in a dismal, weeping heap, hadn’t noticed. They needed him. To do Molly’s will would be to abandon them utterly.

  ‘Oh, see the certainty there, brothers!’ Slattery crowed, turning towards the other Mollys. ‘See the pure bleedin’ faith in his eyes! Ain’t that the very fellow you want at your side when the trouble starts, eh?’

  ‘The bugger don’t want to go through with it,’ growled Thady. ‘It’s plain as day.’