Captain Gallagher

Chapter 2

"Eamon, you have to learn your letters!" Catriona knelt on the floor beside Eamon. "You'll never make anything of yourself."

"What if I don't want to make anything of myself?" Eamon frowned at the page in front of him.

"Then that's just too bad, it is," Catriona's lips curled up. "Your parents had high hopes for you. You'd not be wanting to let them down, would you?"

"No." Eamon stabbed a finger at a word. "That says potato."

"Good!" Catriona pointed out another word. "And that?"

"Tenant."

"Very good. That's enough for today. Go out and play." Catriona took the paper and put it away carefully.

Eamon was gone before she could say anything else, running out the door where the moors awaited. He rushed over the hills to the house of a friend. "Tadhg! Tadgh!" He yelled. "I'm here!"

A blonde boy came out of the cottage to meet him, brandishing a stick. "It's been near ten minutes I've been waiting, Eamon!" He complained.

"T'wasn't my fault!" Eamon pouted, saluting Tadhg with a stick of his own. "Are we off to the wars, then?"

"Aye. Oh...I've forgotten our rations." Tadgh rushed back into the house and reappeared with a bundle. "We're on half rations: a forced march, Eamon."

"We'll make the best of it," Eamon said staunchly. "Come, Tadgh, we'll be back soon enough." The two boys fell in step with each other, carrying their sticks over their shoulders.

"T'would be so much better if we'd a piper with us," Tadgh said after a while. "We're out of step."

Eamon scoffed. "We've no need of a piper when we've our voices," he said contemptuously. "Sing out, lads!" He called, beginning a song. Tadgh joined in and the two boys' voices rose into the air.

Óró, sé do bheatha bhaile

óró, sé do bheatha bhaile

óró, sé do bheatha bhaile

anois ar theacht an tsamhraidh.

'Sé do bheatha, a bhean ba léanmhar

do bé ár gcreach tú bheith i ngéibhinn

do dhúiche bhreá i seilbh meirleach

's tú díolta leis na Gallaibh.

"Bí ciúin!" Eamon commanded, breaking off in the middle of a chorus. "D'you hear the hooves?"

"Aye," Tadgh breathed. "It'll be the British for sure! Take cover, lads!" Both boys dove under a thin covering of shrubs and waited breathlessly as the hoofbeats drew nearer.

"Ready?" Eamon put his stick over one shoulder as if it were a musket. "Hold until I give the word." Tadgh mimicked Eamon's actions, positioning his own stick.

"Wait...wait..." Eamon closed one eye and squinted down the stick. A horse's legs cantered by and Eamon huffed in surprise. "I buachaill! A boy!" He whispered in disbelief. "We can't shoot a boy, Tadgh!"

"No, we can't," Tadgh agreed. "And he's gone by now, anyway. What if..." His eyes widened. "What if he's a British spy?"

"He'd not got on a red coat," Eamon frowned. "He was wearing a blue coat."