Redemption - Leon Uris [304]
“Derry,” Dary corrected. “Well, there’s been trouble in Dublin and the Brits are rounding up anyone who blows his nose in a green handkerchief. With you gallivanting around in British uniform with a false name, best not to take a chance. You see, we’re heading into Larkin country. If we were so much as to set foot in Derry, much less Bogside, you’d be spotted as a Larkin in a blink.”
“That’s what I figured. I must be able to get to Ballyutogue, though.”
“Our cottage is fairly close by. Most of the village men will be droving cattle into the Derry pens and the women will be selling their lacework there as well. I’ve arranged for us to slip in by dark one night. Your Aunt Brigid is dying to see you.”
They prepared their catch. Dary smoothed the turf fire as Rory pan-fried the trout.
“I’ve heard about the turf fires,” Rory said. “It does smell like angel’s breath.” Rory reckoned the fish was as well cooked as it was going to be. “Well now, wee Dary,” he said, showing the pan, “Jaysus, forgive me, Uncle. I’ve heard you referred to as ‘wee Dary’ all my life, by Conor in particular. I’ll mind my manners. And you’re not that short. We had troops half your size,” and on that mention Rory bit his lip as Chester Goodwood flashed through his mind. Wouldn’t the gaffer squad have loved to have been here now!
“I’ve not heard myself called wee Dary for so many years. Would you continue to call me that?”
“Are you sure?”
“I felt it down to my toes.”
“Wee Dary it is, then.”
Their contentment ultimately found its way into Rory’s officer’s bag and a gift bottle of cognac from Caroline Hubble.
“Mary,” Dary said, “we only see this at Christmas about every fifth year.”
A restless silence fell, which both of them recognized as a prelude to family business. Dary went to his satchel and produced a letter.
“This letter came to me about four months ago from Liam.”
Rory scanned it and handed it back. “I couldn’t read the Squire’s writing with two good eyes. You’ll have to do the honors.”
“Aye,” Dary said. He wet his lips, then his whistle, with a taste of the magnificent velvet of the cognac.
“My son Rory,” Dary began, “it has taken this long to find the courage to write to you. I am sending it to Dary knowing that in time you will find your way to Ireland.
“Perhaps wee Dary, better than anyone, can explain the meaning of my tears of guilt and personal misery. From that terrible moment you left us, I found myself in the grip of great pain that I knew intimately from my own boyhood. I wore that pain from childhood into manhood. I realize that I have laid on you the same kind of pain.
“I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I can never rest again until I ask for it and I can never be entirely whole again until I win it. Ballyutogue Station, like its namesake in Ireland, has become a place of sorrow. You haunt the land, my son, every whispering leaf on every whispering tree. Bless you for keeping your letters coming to your mother and sisters and brother. You are ten feet tall in Tommy’s eyes. He worships you.
“We had to put RumRunner down. I wanted the old boy to hold on until you came back but he just laid down one night and refused to get up.
“If prayers will help you, you’ve a powerful amount of them from me, and us.
“I’m so sorry for what I did. Please come back when your roving is done. I love you, son…. Your father, Liam.”
It was a new moon, barely a sliver, just right for a pair of men down from the hills, skimming over the land, unseen. A tad of moonbeams flitted in and out of the rapidly moving clouds. Dary as well as all the kids in Ballyutogue, knew the route, which for generations had held hideaways and a passage for republicans on the run.
Father Cluny, an out-and-out republican dressed in peasant’s attire, warmly welcomed Dary and Rory. First they went to the forge, which was always unlocked. It was dark until Father Cluny got the lantern working. Rory went from bench to bench, anvil to bellows, feeling the tools, ancient enough to have once been held by Conor. The fires in the pit softly glowed, setting off the