No one knew about the cave, which was used as a hideout and a hospital by the Republican Army, except the people who were using it. They had dug it out themselves from a seam of slate, at the side of a peak which hung over one of the deepest lines of Abhann an Eas. It was most unlikely that anyone would notice it because the top of the peak and on the two sides the bank of the river were entangled with twisted hawthorn and blackthorn bushes so narrow neither man or beast could go through them. The holly and ivy that was growing thickly on the face of the cliff, were hiding the mouth of the cave and the little narrow foot -bridge that led into that mouth. Certainly the path in was so well hidden under foliage that it looked like a swamp leading into the cave. There was a big door with a bolt and a strong lock at the mouth of this cave. The cave was very roomy inside, and it looked comfortable. There was wood around the four walls, and it was painted tastefully. The ceiling was also wooden. There were oil lamps on the sides of the walls. There was an oil cooker there, and presses and beds. There was a table and chairs, in it. There were books, maps, typewriters, and cooking utensils. There were a couple of machineguns, and riffles, and ammunition, and hand grenades, and a lot of other things that had to do with soldiering.
Now and again the odd man was taken to it, young men who were escaping, or who were wounded here and there. Certain doctors came there between times, and young women who had knowledge of nursing. These things were done unknown to anyone except the people who were in the Republican Army. Doctors would come during the night when every one was asleep, and nurses might be there for a fortnight sometimes, unknowing to anybody. It was there that the foot patrol from the south of Ireland, spent most of their time when they were about the Gleann; but they were stationed on the north side of Breifne Ui Ruairc, at this time, and they were not expected to return unannounced.
There was no man in Gleann Ceo as busy as Marcus Mac Alastair in these past times. He was manager and treasurer and engineer at the mine. He was general manager of the Co-operative shop. He was the captain of the Gleann Ceo, company, of the Republican Army. You would think that he wouldn’t have time to salute God, or Muire/Mother of God, from he got up until he went to bed again. But of course that was not the case. Because there was always a chance that you would find him stretched on a couch, having a drink and smoking his pipe, in his local pub, with the appearance of one who hadn’t a care in the world except conversation, fun, joking, stories and poetry. You would never think that he was the ‘villain’ that the British would love to capture. Little would you think that he was the ‘murderer’ that the gallows was waiting for, if they got their hands on him. Sometimes you would find him telling stories, to his two children, and they sitting up on his back. Marcaisin was in around seven years at this time, and he was a slender fair -haired boy. The other child was a little girl, pretty with long nut- brown hair, she was a little pet and her name was Deirdre. You would hear the laughter of these children long before you reached the house. There you would find Triona gentle, and pleasant, moving silently about the house. You would find old Nabla sitting beside the fire knitting, or patching, or stirring the porridge, and telling about how great life was when she was a young girl. You would find Nansai Seimin Ban and she affable and a little shy. It is possible that you would not be long inside until Conn Mac Carty would put his head in on the front door, himself and his whistle. And it wouldn’t be long either until Feargal and Peadar, would arrive. Pol an Greasai came an odd time. Una used to come too, and it was great to be present during these nights. You would see the merry crowd, and you would hear music and singing that would enchant you. You would get story telling, and poetry composed, that would leave you wandering the roads with dreams of Magh Meall and Tir na nOige. And when they would get to the floor to dance a set, it was expected, and more than just expected that every body would jump to their feet and go out together. To be sure it would be a sad person whose heart was heavy heading for home after spending a night in Dun le Grein.
Big Conor Guildea was getting so stiff in his bones by this time that it was taking him half the day to walk from his own house to the Droighead and back again. But despite that handicap you could see him heading off to Mass every Sunday morning, in fair weather or foul. He was very close to eighty years old at this time. His step was slow and his shoulders were drooped. His big bones were bare and his limbs that were once hardy were now slender and weak. The most of his old friends were departed this life, and it was seldom that he met any of the few old stalwarts who were still alive. His old woman was crippled with pains in her bones, and she was not able to go out to Mass with him as she used to do. But he was very grateful to the God for leaving her around the fire, to chat with him about the times gone by. Their voices and their faces kept the loneliness from their hearts. If God hadn’t left her alive with him he would have been like Oisin in diaidh na bhFiann/ Oisin when the Fianna were gone.
It was marvellous how Gleann Ceo had improved in all directions since Marcus Mac Alastair became the boss in his own right. There was no poverty on anyone except the very few real wasters who hadn’t the sense to mind the money which came to them during the past seven years.; and they deserved no pity. As for the houses, you would not recognise some of them, they were so stylish inside and outside. There were clean streets around them, and there were cobbled lanes leading in to them, and there were hedges thickening around them. People who were in the habit of carrying manure, and turf and potatoes in creels on their backs now had donkeys to do the work, and many of the people had horses and carts. A lot of them joined together to buy ploughs and mowing machines; and between them all they got a threshing machine for the oats, and they used the old mine engine that was on the bank of Abhann an Eas, in a new way. Very few families in the Gleann would not have plenty of meal and bacon of their own from one end of the year to the other, items which most of them would have had to buy a few years ago. Cattle were plentiful in the fields, and the mountain was dotted with sheep. Young and old were respectably dressed going out on Sundays or market days, and bicycles and horse traps were getting very plentiful about the place. Gleann Ceo was on the wheels of the world.
A DESERTER FROM THE ENEMY CAMP
A short while after sunset one evening in the month of May, all of the Mac Alastair household were sitting around the fire, when someone came rushing to the door, and he knocked quick and heavy on the knocker. It was most unusual for anyone to knock on a door in Gleann Ceo; and the people inside knew that it must be a stranger. Old Nabla almost fell from the chair with the fright she got. Nansai Seimin Ban changed colours. Marcus jumped to his feet and he reached for his guns; but before he could remember where he had left them, Triona had one pushed into his fist and she was pushing him out the back door at the same time.
“Out you go,” she whispered. “I’ll go to the door.”
The man outside was hammering on the knocker again. Triona went down and she put her hand on the latch quietly. She had a loaded gun in her other hand.
“Who is there?” she asked in a low voice.
“Open the door good woman,” came the voice of the foreigner through the keyhole. “Don’t be one bit afraid. I am alone, and two of the Sinnfeinigh are after me.”
Nansai and the two children were already gone to the room by now, and old Nabla was all over the house sprinkling holy water, and she on her best praying.
Triona opened the door carefully and she stuck out the gun. But before she had the door half opened Marcus already had the man outside by the neck.
“God protect us,” Nabla said. “A British soldier! Promise God that his blood will not be spilled here!”
“Not a finger will be laid on him, yet any way,” Marcus said. “Up with your hands until you are searched, son.”
With that Feargal Guildea and Conn Mac Carty arrived in on the floor, panting.
“We have nice sentries out there,” Marcus said. “I believe they are drinking. Where did you men lay eyes on this lad?”
“We w
ere coming up the slopes drawing near the bridge at Abhann an Eas, when we heard the man taking the slopes on the other side. We thought that it was Pol an Greasai, and we whistled at him to wait for us. But instead he began to run. We got suspicious, and we ordered him to stop or we would shoot; but he took to his heels altogether. We followed him as fast as we could, but we couldn’t catch him. Char dhada Bodach an Chota Lachtna an la a mhair se/I think it means that he had good wool in his coat when he survived.”
“Since there are three of us here let us court marshal him,,” Marcus said. “His accent proves that he is British, and the clothes he is wearing proves that he has come from the enemy camp. If he isn’t a spy he must have some other kind of derangement.”
“Maise I find it hard to believe that he is a bad person,” old Nabla said. “He has an innocent jaw on him. Maybe drinking is his problem.”
The soldier looked at her and he began to smile. “May I have permission to speak, sir,” he said to Marcus.
“You may sit down on that chair now,” Marcus said. “What do you wish to say?”
“Maise maybe the poor fellow is hungry,” Nabla said, as she lowered the kettle over the fire.
“Thank you good woman,” the soldier said. “I would be pleased to drink a drop of tea, all right. I walked out of Droim Dhilliuir tonight. I came as far as the river during the time since I left the highway down at the loch.”
Triona stuck the poker into the fire and she brought up the blazes that soon had the kettle singing.
“Is this the house of Marcus Mac Alastair?” the soldier asked.
“Don’t put another question like that to us,” Marcus said. “Maybe it is as well for me to tell you that the three of us are officers in the Republican Army, and that we have a secret oath to condemn you to death right now. I am afraid that your execution is your due at dawn. You know yourself that is the justice meted out to spies.”
“I am not a spy at all,” the soldier said. “I am a single soldier in the British Army for five years. I spent two years out in France soldering in the Big War, and I was wounded there twice. I am recovering in Droim Dhilliuir, for almost six months; but I had to clear out of it this evening with my life.”
“You have my sympathy, you poor man,” Nabla said.
“Why did you have to flee?” Feargal asked.
“They were preparing to capture me and court marshal me for giving information to the Sinnfeinigh. I fell out with a man from the Black and Tans last night, while we were having a drink together. They had information about me that no one else had, and they disliked me for a long time any way. They went to the head officer this morning, and he told him the whole story. The officer who put me on my guard was a clerk, himself and a few other men who were questioned about the story. They are collecting information about the affair since morning and I was given a hint, this evening that they were about to grab me at any minute.
“I walked up the town calmly, and I got the lend of a bicycle from a friend of mine. I reached the crossroads at the end of this Gleann; I left the bicycle in the care of an old woman who lives at the bank of the river, and I took to my heels up through the meadows, and the briars after dark. I knew that if I went with the river that I would come to the iron bridge sometime; and when I did finally reach the bridge, and I saw the light of this house right above my head, and not another light to be seen, I knew that I was at the end of my journey. I so happened that this pair was coming along the road behind me, and they greeted me. But I did not know that they were not two quick -tempered youths who would put a bullet in me as soon as they could see my clothes; and I thought that it was better for me to come in haste to this house. I was thinking that Marcus Mac Alastair would not let me be shot without allowing me time to talk; and I see now that I was right. Even though I have never seen you, sir, I am almost certain that you are Marcus Mac Alastair and that this is Triona, your wife. I even believe that this old lady is called Nabla, who is of the opinion that there is no badness in me. I believe that this is Nansai coming up out of the room, and that she has put Marcaisin and Deirdre to bed.”
“You might as well name these two men when you are at it.” Marcus said.
“I don’t know what this man’s name is,” he said, pointing at Feargal,
“but I don’t mind betting that he is Conn Mac Carty, the manager that you have in the Co-operative shop.”
“Where did you see me, sonny?” Nabla asked. “ I don’t know how you could know me, the one who hasn’t gone farther from home than to that highway out there for many the long day.”
“I never did see you,” he said, nor any one of you, except for these two, Triona and Nansai. I saw them two the night the hall was burned in this Gleann.”
“God protect us”” Nabla said. “How could he recognise me, and he never having seen me at all? He has black magic.”
“I see that you have accurate knowledge of the people and the places in this Gleann,” Marcus said. “What person from the Gleann gave you this detailed knowledge?”
With that, the door opened and Una Guildea came in, and she whistling merrily. But the whistling stopped, and she got a right fright when she saw the man who was in there ahead of her.
“Wallace Woods,” she said, “is this where you are?”
Everyone who was there looked at her in total astonishment. This was the very first time that any one in Gleann Ceo found out that she had known this soldier from Birmingham. She often met him in Droim Dhilliuir, but she kept this a secret from everyone, and he performed the same trick. Marcus gave her a roguish look, which caused her to blush.
“I understand now,” he said, “what the journeys to Droim Dhilliuir were all about.”
She hit him in the face with a piece of an apple that she was eating.
“Yourself and your men gained a lot from at least one of these trips,” she said. “That is the man who told me that the soldiers were coming here that time that you did the big ambush on them.”
“It was I who gave her that information right enough,” Wallace Woods said. “That is the deed for which I had to flee tonight. I am afraid that the officer in charge knows that it was I who gave that information to Una. The Black and Tan who told on me today, he saw her and me inside of a room together, the night before the ambush. He knew that she was from Gleann Ceo too because she gave him a thump in the mouth the night the hall was burned. He wanted revenge for that; and for me as well, I believe, because of what she did to him that night.”
“Didn’t I tell all of you that he was not a bad person,” Nabla said as she was giving Conn Mac Carty a pat on the back.
“Is Una describing our committees to you every time you meet?” Marcus asked. “I am afraid that it is she who should be court marshalled and not you. Many the girl whose hair was not pulled from her scalp for a lesser deed.
“We wouldn’t have much hair to pull from Una,” Conn Mac Carty said. “Most of the ribs have been cut by herself as she is.”
By now Triona had the tea ready, and the smell of bacon and eggs going through the house was making Wallace Woods ravenous. She came as far as him with that kindly look of hers and she laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Now, hungry son,” she said, “sit over and eat your fill, and be thankful that I did not put a bullet in you tonight.”
He looked into her eyes, and he smiled like some one who had known her all of his life.
“I think that we will not waste you this time, Mr. Woods,” Marcus said, “But you will have to give a commitment that you will not leave this Gleann without permission. A sharp eye will be kept on you, be assured of that; and if any kind of tricks are noticed from you, it will be too bad for you.”
“I wish to join the Republican Army,” Wallace Woods said, as he was putting a piece of bacon into his mouth.
“Are you ashamed of the destruction that the people from your country are doing through Ireland?” Marcus asked him.
“I have nothing to do with the work they are do
ing since the first day that I came to this country,” he said. “The ordinary people in England do not understand what is happening here. There is anguish among them, which is annoying the Black and Tans. They have been kept away from here until now; but that is changing. According to what I hear, this Gleann will be circled before long, and that will be some circle. The machineguns were taken from the officers who were in charge this morning, they were sent to County Cork, and there is a new group in Droim Dhilliuir now. It is my opinion that they will be up here before too long; and I am asking you to accept me into the Republican Army, so that I can help you when the time comes. What do you say, Mr. Mac Alastair?”
“We will think about the situation,” Marcus said, “and we will let you know in a day or two whether you are accepted or not. What kind of work did you do before you went into the army?”
“I was working in a grocery shop,” he said. “I had five years spent in a big shop in Birmingham, when I was obliged to go out to war.”
Marcus glanced at Conn Mac Carty and he found Conn glancing at him.
“The young fellow who is working for Conn in the Co-operative shop will be setting up a small shop for himself out in Ballinashee before too long. He will be leaving Conn any of these days; and I will recommend to the trustees that you will be taken in his place. We have a meeting tomorrow night. And I am sure that you will get lodgings with Conn in Seimin Ban’s house. But it is better for you not to go as far as Seimin wearing that kaki, or you will give him a heart attack. There are clothes of mine here, and you can wear them until you get proper clothes for yourself. If the sleeves and the cuffs are a little too long for you, it won’t take Triona here long to fix them.”
“I am most grateful to you, Mr. Mac Alastair,” Wallace Woods said. “I hope I will be able to compensate you for your hospitality for many a long day.”
West, in the Foggy Valley Page 15
