Page 77 of The Missing Sister

‘How incriminating were the documents?’ she asked.

‘Thank the lord Con uses code, but there’s enough there to show that they’re IRA volunteers, so.’

‘And Sean?’

‘Ah, now Sean, he has the blarney to talk his way out of Mountjoy Jail. He told Crake – that was the name of the commanding officer – that he was in the area buying cattle. He gave a false name and the eejit believed him! Said he had an honest face and wished more Irishmen were like him.’

Both Charlie and Finn laughed loudly as the whiskey calmed them. ‘Shh,’ warned Nuala. ‘What about Con and John?’

‘I’d not want to see the state of them now, if Tom Hales and Pat Harte are anything to go by.’ Finn shuddered.

‘These Auxies, they didn’t get a good look at your faces, did they?’ she said.

‘What, apart from shining a torch right under our chins?’ Charlie sighed. ‘They saw us all right, but all we Irish look the same to them, so.’

‘What do you think will happen now about what we discussed?’ Finn asked Charlie.

‘I’d say that Sean will be even more likely to.’

‘To what?’ Nuala asked.

Charlie looked at Finn.

‘You can tell Nuala anything,’ Finn reassured him. ‘She’s as good as our men any day of the week.’

‘Then she’ll know about it soon enough,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s to involve all the volunteers around these parts... We’re to blow up Timoleague RIC post and then set fire to Timoleague Castle and the Travers’ house next door.’

Nuala stared at them, open-mouthed.

‘You wouldn’t dare! ’Tis right on our doorstep!’ she gasped. ‘They’ll be searching every house around if you do.’

‘I know, Nuala, but we’ve information down from Dublin HQ,’ said Charlie. ‘The British want to take over the castle and house and post more men in there because of the trouble we’ve been causing them. We can’t have that happen. We’d be overrun with the lousers, so.’

‘Timoleague RIC post has been evacuated already, hasn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Charlie, ‘but the British are looking to refill it. The company here in Clogagh will be raised, as well as others, and we’re to collect gelignite from across town and hide it somewhere close. We were thinking of Cross Farm, Nuala, if your mam and dad would agree. ’Tis close enough to Timoleague.’

‘But the Travers family and their servants up at the house haven’t been evacuated! Will you set fire to them where they lie in their beds?’ Nuala asked, aghast. She’d seen old Robert Travers from Timoleague House one day from the window of Argideen House, when he and his wife had come to visit the Fitzgeralds.

‘The British would burn us in our beds and not be thinking twice about it, Nuala, but no, we’ll have them taken to safety before, don’t you worry,’ Finn comforted her.

She drew in a breath and then exhaled slowly.

‘Now then, Nuala, go back upstairs and get some rest,’ said Finn, ‘and I’ll be getting a pallet from the outhouse for you, Charlie.’

‘Sure, I’m grand where I am in this chair... You two go up... I’ll be...’

‘He’s asleep already, poor fellow,’ whispered Finn. ‘He’s got enough work for five men. Being commandant, he takes every injury or death in the company personally.’

Upstairs, Nuala put her arms around her husband, who had fallen asleep the moment his head had landed on the pillow.

‘I love you, darlin’,’ she said as she caressed his hair, wondering darkly how many more days and nights she had left to feel his heart beating steadily against hers.

When Nuala went into Timoleague for the next monthly fair day, when all the farmers brought cattle to sell and stallholders set up along the street, hawking everything from homemade jam to saddles, the usual jollity of the event was completely lost. The Essex Regiment were a menacing presence, marching down the streets or clearing men out of the pubs so they could sit down in their places. Hannah joined her when the dressmaker’s shop closed for lunch and they wandered along the street, glancing at the stalls.

‘Have you heard what’s about to happen?’ Nuala asked her sister under her breath.

‘I have indeed. The “manure” was delivered to Cross Farm two days ago.’