Page 43 of The Missing Sister
Nuala cast one more glance around her and walked inside the farmhouse. The low-beamed kitchen-cum-living area was stifling today, what with the fire burning to cook lunch for the household. Her mother Eileen had already peeled all the vegetables and they were boiling away in a pot above the fire. Heading for the pantry, Nuala collected eggs that she had taken from the henhouse earlier, along with flour and the precious dried fruit soaked in cold tea, then set about making a mixture that would provide enough for three or four brack cakes. These days, they never knew when an IRA volunteer might arrive at the door, exhausted from being on the run and in need of food and shelter.
Once she had tipped the mixture into the bastable pot, ready to be hung over the fire when the vegetables were cooked, Nuala wiped the sweat from her brow and walked to the front door to take in some gulps of fresh air. She thought how, as a child, life here at Cross Farm had been hard work, but comparatively carefree. But that was before her Irish brethren had decided it was time to rise up against their British overlords, who had dominated and controlled Ireland for hundreds of years. After the initial killings of British constables in Tipperary in January of 1919, which had sparked the hostilities, ten thousand British soldiers had been sent to Ireland to subdue the uprising. Of all the British army troops in Ireland, the Essex Regiment was the most ruthless, raiding not only IRA safehouses, but also the homes of civilians. Then the Black and Tans had joined the soldiers to quell the insurrection.
Ireland had become an occupied country, where the freedoms Nuala had once taken for granted were being chipped away at every day. They had now been at war with the might of the British Empire for over a year, battling not just for their own freedom, but for that of Mother Ireland herself.
Nuala stifled a yawn – she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had more than three hours’ sleep, what with volunteers arriving at the farmhouse for food and a billet. Cross Farm was known to all of the local IRA as a safehouse, partly because of its position nestling in a valley, with the advantage of being able to post scouts at the top of the heavily forested hillside behind them, giving a bird’s eye view of the lanes below. This gave the occupants of the farmhouse enough time to leave and scatter into the surrounding countryside.
‘We will prevail,’ Nuala whispered under her breath as she went inside to check on the vegetables. Her father Daniel and her older brother Fergus were committed volunteers, and both she and her big sister Hannah worked with Cumann na mBan. While it didn’t require as much direct action as that of her brother, Nuala prided herself that their work acted as a strong foundation for the men – without the women delivering secret communications, smuggling ammunition and gelignite for bombs, or simply providing food and fresh clothing, the cause would have floundered in its first few weeks.
Her second cousin Christy had been living with the family too for almost ten years now. The Murphys had taken him in after both his parents had died, and Nuala had heard whispers that he had an older brother called Colin, who was soft in the head and up in Cork City at a hospital for people like him. This contrasted strongly with the sturdy presence that Christy brought to her life. At fifteen, he’d had an accident with a thresher on the farm, and although his leg had been saved, he now walked with a limp. Christy had carved himself a handsome oak stick, and though he was only a few years older than her, the stick seemed to lend him an air of wisdom. Despite his injury, Christy was as strong as an ox, and was an adjutant to the Ballinascarthy Brigade of the IRA, working alongside her father. Neither Christy nor her father were on active duty, but their brains helped plan the ambushes and made sure that supplies and intelligence were coordinated. He also worked at the pub down in Clogagh, and every evening, after labouring a full day at the farm, Christy got on his old nag and rode down to the village to pour glasses of porter. There, he listened out for useful information if a group of Tans or Essexes were in the pub, their tongues loosened from the drink.
‘Hello, daughter,’ her father said, as he rinsed his hands in the water barrel that stood outside the front door. ‘Is lunch ready? I’ve a fierce hunger on me today,’ he added as he dipped his head to pass through the doorway and sit down at the table. Her father was a bear of a man, and even though Fergus was a tall lad, Daniel was proud he could best his son in height. Out of all the passionate anti-British feelings that permeated the very walls of Cross Farm, her daddy’s ran the deepest and most vociferous. His parents had been victims of the famine, then when he was a young lad he had witnessed the Land Wars – a rising against the British landowners who charged outrageous rents for the hovels their tenant farmers lived in. Daniel was a true Fenian through and through. Inspired by the Fianna, the warrior bands of Irish legend, Fenians were firm believers that Ireland should be independent – and that the only way to achieve this was through armed revolution.
Her daddy was also a fluent Gaelic speaker, and had brought up his children with a great pride in their Irishness, teaching them to speak the language almost before they could speak English. All the children knew it was dangerous to speak Gaelic in public, lest the British heard you, so they only spoke it behind the closed doors of Cross Farm.
After the Land Wars, her grandfather had managed to buy four acres of fertile farmland from their British landowners, the Fitzgeralds. When Daniel took over, he had succeeded in purchasing another acre to expand the farm. Being free of ‘the oppressors’, as he called the British, was, Nuala knew, the most important thing in her daddy’s life.
His hero was Michael Collins – ‘Mick’, or ‘the Big Fellow’ as he was commonly known around these parts. Also a son of West Cork, born only a few miles away near Clonakilty, Mick had taken part in the Easter Rising alongside Daniel, then after two years in a British prison, had climbed the ranks to become chief of the IRA volunteers across Ireland. As Daddy said so often, it was Mick Collins who ran the show, especially while Éamon de Valera, the president of the fledgling Irish republican government, was in America raising funds for the Irish battle against their British masters. Michael Collins’s name was spoken in hallowed tones, and Nuala’s sister Hannah had a newspaper clipping of his photograph pinned up on the wall opposite the bed, so she could wake to the sight of him every morning. Nuala wondered if any man would ever match up to the Big Fellow for her. At twenty, her older sister remained steadfastly unmarried.
‘Where’s your mam, Nuala?’ asked Daniel.
‘Out digging up spuds, Daddy. I’ll be calling her in.’
Nuala walked outside, put two fingers in her mouth and gave a shrill whistle. ‘Where are Fergus and Christy?’ she asked as she returned and began to dole out the potatoes, cabbage and boiled ham into bowls.
‘Still sowing the fields with winter barley.’ Daniel looked up at his daughter as she put his bowl down in front of him. They were all on half-rations of ham just now, saving what they could for hungry volunteers. ‘Any news?’
‘Not so far today, but...’
Nuala turned towards the open door as she saw Hannah flying up the track towards the farmhouse on her bicycle. Her sister worked in a dressmaker’s shop in Timoleague and wouldn’t normally return home for the midday meal. Nuala knew something was up. Her heart began to beat against her chest, the feeling so familiar to her now it was almost constant.
‘What’s happened?’ she asked as Hannah came in through the door. Her mother Eileen, and Fergus and Christy, followed in her wake. The door was closed tightly, then bolted.
‘I’ve just heard that Tom Hales and Pat Harte have been arrested by the Essexes,’ Hannah said, panting hard with both exertion and emotion.
‘Jaysus,’ said Daniel, his hand covering his eyes. The rest of the family sank down onto the nearest chair or stool.
‘How? Where?’ asked Eileen.
‘Who knew where they were?’ demanded Christy.
Hannah put out her hands to quiet them all as Nuala stood there, the bowl she’d been placing on the table frozen in midair. Tom Hales was the commandant of the Third West Cork Brigade – he made all the main decisions, and his men trusted him with their lives. Pat Harte, always a steady soul, was his brigade quartermaster, in charge of its organisational and practical side.
‘Was it a spy?’ asked Fergus.
‘We don’t know who informed on them,’ said Hannah. ‘All I know is that they were captured at the Hurley farm. Ellie Sheehy was there too, but managed to talk her way out of it. She’s the one who sent me the message.’
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ Daniel thumped the table with his fist. ‘Not Tom and Pat. O’course, we all know why. ’Twas in retaliation for Sergeant Mulhern being shot and killed outside St Patrick’s Church yesterday morning.’
‘And may God have mercy on his merciless soul,’ said Christy.
In the silence, Nuala managed to find her wits and serve out food to the shocked gathering.
‘We can’t expect that Mulhern could be murdered without reprisals – he was chief intelligence officer for West Cork, after all,’ said Hannah. ‘To be fair, ’twas a low attack, as the man was going into Mass. ’Twas brutal.’
‘War is brutal, daughter, and that fecker had it coming to him. How many Irish lives are on his conscience as he stands before his maker?’ demanded Daniel.
‘What’s done is done,’ Nuala said, after crossing herself discreetly. ‘Hannah, do you know where Tom and Pat have been taken?’
