O’Sullivan inched forward. There was a moment of utter silence, and then his thin old voice rang out over the countryside like a bugle.
“Up the Republic!”
And the slaughter began.
It was no battle. It was a rout, a massacre. The instant O’Sullivan’s cry broke the stillness of the night, the fields erupted in violence. The bottles of gasoline came first, showering over ditches and hedgerows with bitter accuracy, exploding, brightening the fields with flames. Then shots rang out — the chatter of automatic weapons, the deadly blasts of rifles and handguns. Mills bombs, homemade canisters of destruction, hurtled down on Farrell and his men.
A man — the thin-faced man, the mugger from London — rose screaming and ran into the night, his clothes in flames. O’Sullivan fingered the Sten gun’s trigger and sent a stream of bullets climbing the man’s back from his belt to his head. The scream died in a throaty gasp and a thin man sprawled dead on the ground, his clothing still flaming.
From all corners of the field the shooting went on, a furious barrage of destruction. Farrell’s men were firing back but did not know where to shoot or what to shoot at. One was on his feet, his hands high over his head, shrieking that he surrendered. A Mills bomb arced through the air and landed at his feet. He looked at it, hypnotized, still screaming, then tried to back away. The bomb blew off both his legs.
“Surrender,” O’Sullivan said scornfully. “They’ll be prisoners of war, will they? The fires of hell they will.”
There would be no surrenders, no prisoners. Ellen watched, transfixed, as the merciless destruction continued. She saw a heavyset man break into a run, watched as gunmen on all sides picked him up as a target. It was Koenig. Bullets tore at his legs, his body. They ripped into him from all directions, and he seemed to be dancing like a puppet on strings, miraculously staying on his feet.
“And why are they wasting bullets?” O’Sullivan demanded. “It’s only the gunfire that’s keeping him on his feet. He’s been long dead, he has.” As he spoke the words, Koenig toppled and fell.
A high-pitched scream. Another figure broke cover and ran toward the road. Again the guns spoke, and as they found their mark Ellen saw that it was a woman. Koenig’s woman.
“That there should be a woman in such business,” O’Sullivan said. “Who would have thought I’d see the day that I’d be shooting women? Or that I’d see the day that women came into the fields with guns.”
Gradually the staccato of gunfire died down. Flashlights played carefully over the terrain. Men in long jackets and caps came into view, moving through the battlefield, making certain that none of the spy gang were still alive. Ellen heard soft moaning off to the left and saw a young Irish boy walk over to the source of the moaning. His flashlight revealed a man on his back, blood pouring from a wound in his side, his head cradled in his arms. The boy put his pistol to the back of the wounded man’s head and blew his brains out.
And Mick O’Sullivan said, “You’ll come out and meet the boys now. And have a look at these ‘professionals,’ such as they were. Eight of us, and did you ask if eight would be enough! Two of us could have done the job and done it right. Professionals!”
David held her arm. They walked back and forth over the fields, studying the wrecked bodies of the men who had planned to kill them. They found Koenig and his woman and the long thin man, but they did not find Farrell. His body did not turn up.
“He never escaped,” O’Sullivan insisted. “No man escaped. But one of the bombs could have taken him, and there’d be too little left in one piece to know it was him. There’s none of them escaped, and ye may count on it.”
Ellen swayed. It was over, they were going to live, they were all right now...
“Ye’ll meet the boys. Ellen Cameron and David Clare they are, and here are Seamus Finn who slashed their tires, and Fergal O’Hara. And here’s my own son Sean, and a good boy he is. And Jimmy Davis” — he pointed to the boy who had blown out the brains of the wounded man — “and just seventeen he is, and never fired a pistol at a man before tonight, and how well he did I’ll not soon forget.” Jimmy Davis glowed with pride. “And Tom Behan and Sean Cassidy and Peader Killeen. And now we’ll go round to Fergal’s house. You’ll be hungry, not eating the whole day and night, and you look to be needing a touch of poteen. And the boys will have a taste from the jar, I know.”
There was laughter from the men.
“We’ll be after having a hooley,” O’Sullivan said. “Fergal’s mother has the food cooking for ye already, and the jars out on the table. It’s a victory celebration, do ye know.”
She couldn’t help it. She had held it back too long, and now there was no need to fight it any longer, no need at all. Her legs sagged and her shoulders heaved and she collapsed against David, fell into his arms, crying and crying, crying like a baby. It was all over and there was nothing to worry about and she couldn’t stop crying to save her soul.
The men turned away, embarrassed. And David held her, firmly but gently, held her tight in his arms until the crying stopped.
Twenty
Fergal O’Hara and his widowed mother lived in a tiny cottage with a thatched roof upon which an anachronistic television antenna was perched. The main room of the cottage was crowded now with the eight “boys” and Ellen and David. Mrs. O’Hara, a thin little woman with snow-white hair and cool blue eyes, kept bringing food from the kitchen. Lamb chops, sausages, bacon, plates of fried potatoes. They ate ravenously; no food had ever tasted so good.
And there was plenty of drink. Some of the men uncapped bottles of stout and drank deeply in long swallows. Seamus Finn drained one bottle without taking it from his lips, then set it down empty with one hand and snatched up a full bottle with another. “Sure,” he said, “and I’m going to hell in me Guinness.” And he uncapped the second bottle and poured it down his throat.
Little Mick O’Sullivan, looking more like a leprechaun than ever, came over to them with a jug of colorless liquid. “Poteen,” he announced. “Made not three miles from this very house, and none the worse for not having the tax paid on it.”
David took a long drink, coughed, shivered, and passed her the jug. She tried a sip. It was very smooth but extremely strong, and it burned its way down her throat and into her stomach. She shook her head when O’Sullivan offered her another drink.
“It puts color in your cheeks, lass.”
“Maybe later.”
David took another drink, a longer one this time, and returned the jug to O’Sullivan without coughing. The little man beamed appreciatively. “It’s a good lad you are,” he said. “Ye’ll have to teach the lass to drink. Though it can be bad if a woman develops too much of a taste for the jar. She’ll turn her back on your housework and not be paying enough mind to the children.”
She looked at David. His eyes met hers and she felt herself blushing. There were no more tears now, she thought: Only the elation of having survived and the joy of good fellowship. Warmth permeated the cottage, and only a portion of it emanated from the turf fire on the hearth. The greater part came from the men themselves.
“Oh, I feel like singing,” she cried.
O’Sullivan had already told the others that Ellen was a singer. Now one of them came to her, a banjo in hand. She was not very good with the banjo, had only experimented with that instrument from time to time, but she sensed that the professionalism of her performance would not matter. She took the banjo, and they gathered around, jugs of poteen and bottles of stout in hand.