Liberty or Death

Liberty or Death part II

© Copyright David Cook 2015

The first light of a new day blazed bright over County Wexford for a few seconds, lancing through the thin clouds like a glittering explosion.

A dawn mist hung between trees. Bark glistened. The air was already sticky, hazy and sparkled in the pooling mist that seemed to have washed away the stain and dust of the previous day. And yet, despite the dampness, it promised to be another beautiful summer's day in an otherwise wicked world.

And then the horsemen came.

They came out of the mist like creatures from a nightmare. They were dressed in the red finery of British Dragoon Guards, and the big horses thundered down the green tangle of sunken lanes with reckless abandonment. There were fifty of them, faces grim underneath black bicorn hats, and they cantered fast in pursuit of their prey.

The prey was in fact a man, who unknown to the troopers, had already negotiated his horse up the steep banks of the lane to lie concealed in the undergrowth's wild chaos. He watched them pass in a blur of horse, uniform and dust, waiting a few minutes until he was satisfied that he was safe, and then gently eased his horse up.

'There, there,' he said soothingly, patting its neck where the thick veins throbbed beneath the skin with large blackened calloused hands. He was a big man with broad shoulders, and a flat, hard face. The horse whinnied and jerked its head with fondness at his gentle touch.

He looked around. The patch of ground was covered in ferns and wood horsetails, skirted by ancient-looking trees with gnarly boughs. A red deer watched his movements, ears pricked, before bolting away. Hearing a soft trickle of water, he carefully negotiated up towards the high ground, feet snapping on old twigs and making a dull sound as his thighs brushed against the verdure. He reached the small bubbling stream, half-hidden by the ferns, and bent down to take a long drink. It was good and he cupped some for his horse. A blackbird sang its beautiful birdsong and a robin redbreast joined in; its call was louder despite its small stature. He pulled out a handful of corn from his long grey coat, and the horse munched noisily with big yellow teeth.

The man wiped sweat from his forehead when the corn was all gone, leaving husks on his skin, and yanked out a scrap of paper, which had an address on it. A slit of sunlight from the green canopy above dappled the clearing. He had risked his life to get this far, but their leader was a methodical and persistent bastard. One slip up and he would be in loyalist hands and it would all be over. He had the address of a man who would help him, and now he just had to survive long enough to reach it.

Scurlock put the paper back in his pocket and followed the path through the woods to the town of New Ross where his brother, Pádraig and his son, Dónall would be waiting for him.

*

'Where exactly are we heading to, sir?' Sergeant Seán Cahill asked, before spitting a thick jet of chewing tobacco onto the roadside. His white breeches were spotted with spittle stains.

Mullone steered his horse around a charred shell of what appeared to have once been a mail coach. The rebels intercepted mail coaches and set them ablaze as a signal on the roads for the men to snatch up their pikes and green cockades, and meet at dedicated rendezvous points. The air was still and the horse's hooves kicked up dust, so the men and their mounts were grimy and dusty.

'New Ross, Seán,' he said, pulling at his neck-tie that seemed to choke him. 'We're to find this man, Colonel Black, and bring him back to the Castle.'

'Ah, that'll be nice,' Sergeant Cahill replied in his usual unbothered way. As usual Mullone was struck by the sergeant's ability to take everything in his stride, as though their hunt for a shadowy killer was just another adventure.