WHILE I CLEAN Max’s gashed cheek in the O’Dalys’ kitchen, he drinks a glass of his father’s muddy home brew to steady himself and a mug of mint tea to muffle the taste of the home brew. He finds it hard to begin until he begins. Then he hardly pauses for breath. “Da and me’d just got to Auntie Suke’s when Mary de Búrka’s eldest, Sam, calls round, saying there’s an emergency village meeting at the Big Hall. That was noon, I think. Pretty much the whole village was there. Martin stood up first, saying he’d called the meeting because of the Cordon falling and that. He said we should put together Sheep’s Head Irregular Regiment — armed with whatever shotguns we had at home — to man roadblocks on the Durrus road and the Raferigeen road, so if or when Jackdaws break through the Cordon, we’d not just be sat around like turkeys waiting for Christmas, like. Most of the boys thought it was a sound enough idea, like. Father Brady spoke next, saying that God would let the Cordon fall because we’d put our faith in false idols, a barbedwire fence, and the Chinese, and the first thing to do was choose a new mayor who’d have God’s support. Pat Joe and a few o’ the lads were like, ‘F’feck’s sake, this is no time for electioneering!’ so Muriel Boyce was shrieking at them that they’d burn, burn, burn because whoever thought a pack o’ sheep farmers with rusty rifles could stop the Book of Revelation coming true was a damned eejit who’d soon be a dead damned eejit. Then Mary de Búrka nnhgggffftchtchtch …” Max grimaces as I extract a small flake of stone from his cut with a pair of tweezers.
“Sorry,” I say. “That was the last bit of grit.”
“Thanks, Holly. Mary de Búrka was saying it’d do us no harm to follow the principle that the Lord helps those who help themselves, when we heard engines, lots of them, roaring our way. Like the Friday Convoy but much, much louder. The hall emptied, and into the square drove twenty Stability jeeps, plus a tanker, too. Four, five, six men got out of each. Big bastards, Ma. Big mean bastards. Stability guys and militiamen obviously from outside the Cordon. We were about matched man to man, but there’d not be much of a fight. They were armed to the teeth and trained to kill, like. This big Dub, he climbed on a jeep roof and spoke through a megaphone. Said his name was General Drogheda, and the former West Cork Lease Lands were now under martial law following the collapse o’ the Cordon. He’d been sent by Cork Stability to requisition all the solar panels on Sheep’s Head for government use, and to commandeer in Stability’s name the diesel that’d been delivered yesterday. Well, we looked at each other, like, ‘Not feckin’ likely.’ But then yer man Drogheda said that any opposition would be treated as treason. And treason, under Clause Whatever of the Stability Law Act of Whenever, would be dealt with by a bullet through the head. Martin Walsh walked up to this General Drogheda’s jeep and introduced himself as mayor of Kilcrannog and asked for a closer look at the requisition orders from Cork HQ, like. Your man got out his revolver and shot the road between Martin’s shoes. Martin jumped six foot in the air and six foot back. Drogheda, if that’s his real name, said, ‘Is that a close enough look, Mr. Mayor?’ Then he said if any hero tried to stop them they’d empty the food depot, too, and we’d be eating stones all winter.”
“Stability’d not behave like that,” says Branna. “Would they?”
Max drinks the brew, winces, and shudders. “Nobody’s sure about anything now. After Drogheda’d said his piece, about ten of the jeeps left the village along the main road heading Dooneen way, another ten drove to the edges of the town to get to work, while the rest stayed put. Then out came ladders from the back o’ the jeeps, and up went men from each crew onto every roof with a panel. A pair stayed below fingering their weapons, like, to discourage any argument. Meanwhile the tanker was emptying the fuel depot. We were all muttering and furious, like — these robbers’re robbing our feckin’ diesel! — but if we’d tried to stop them they’d have mown us down, cold, like, and taken the panels anyway. We knew that and there was feck all we could do. By and by the tanker was full, the roofs stripped of panels, and jeeps were coming back into the square, waiting for the ones that’d gone down the Knockroe road to come back, I guess. Then … it happened. I didn’t see it kick off, but I was with Da and Sean O’Dwyer when I heard a godalmighty ruckus from by General Drogheda’s jeep …”
Sparingly, I dab Max’s cut with antiseptic cream and he winces.
“Drogheda was yelling at a militiaman. He had an Audi symbol round his head, saying he was head of operations, and if yer man din’t like it, then he could … Well, it was to do with his mother’s … Doesn’t matter. The wind had dropped, the shouting echoed round the square, and I watched another o’ the scruffier militiamen stroll up behind Drogheda and, uh …” Max frowns, swallows, tries to stop himself crying, can’t, and the wheels come off his voice. “Shot his brains out. Point blank. Right feckin’ … there.”
“Oh, God, no,” whispers Izzy.
“Oh, my poor boy,” says Branna. “You saw that?”
Max hides his face in his hands and steadies himself for a few seconds, breathing deeply. “Oh, that was just for starters, Mam. The Stability men and the militias went at each other like dogs, dogs with guns. It was a hailstorm but with bullets, like, not hail.” He’s angry with himself for blubbing. “Like an old war film, with stuntmen falling off roofs, men crawling on the pavement …” Max looks away and shuts his eyes hard to keep out the picture but he can’t. “Us villagers scrambled clear, as best we could, but … Mam … Seamus Coogan got a bullet.”
I can’t help it: “Seamus Coogan’s hurt?”
Max starts shaking and he shakes his head.
Tom asks, wide-eyed, “Seamus Coogan’s dead?”
Max just nods. Izzy, Branna, Lorelei, Tom, and me look at one another and feel the cold wind of the near future. I was talking to Seamus Coogan only yesterday. Max drinks up the rest of the homebrew and carries on as if his sanity depends on telling us what saw, and maybe it does. “I–I tried to … but … it was all instant, like.” Max shuts his eyes, shakes his head, and sort of wipes the air with his hand. “Da pulled me off, shouting there was nothing we could do for him. We legged it round the back o’ the Fitzgeralds’ and hid in their garage. Just in time. The tanker in the square got hit and — you heard that, right?”
“They must’ve heard it up in Tipperary,” says Branna.
“Time went by,” says Max, “I dunno how long. We heard guns, saw a guy get shot on the Fitzgeralds’ drive … An hour? Dunno. Can’t’ve been, but suddenly the jeeps were driving off, up the mountain road to Finn MacCool’s seat, and … And then it was all quiet again. Birds singing, like. We all appeared from our hiding places … stunned, like, like … had that really happened? Here? In Kilcrannog?” Max’s eyes well up again. “Yes. There were the bodies and the wounded to prove it. Bernie Aitken tried to defend his panels with his rifle, and he got shot. He’s in a bad way. I think he’s going to die, Mam. The village square’s a — a—it’s — it’s … Don’t go and see it,” he tells Tom, Izzy, and Lorelei, “just don’t. Not till it’s been cleaned up and rained on. I–I—I wish to feck I’d not seen it. There’s twenty, thirty graves to dig, like. Several injured militiamen, too, who can’t walk, like. Some o’ the lads said we should just dump them in the sea, that’s what they’d do to us”—anger ignites in Max’s face, driving away his shock for a few seconds—“but Dr. Kumar’s doing what she can for them. They’ll probably die anyway. There’s a crater where the depot was and all the windows blasted out around the square. Josey Malone’s house has had the front ripped off it. Oh, and the pub’s a right feckin’ mess now.”