Redemption - Leon Uris [82]
“I know I have to fight.”
“Aye, you’ll have to fight. I know I won’t be able to stop you. But fight, man, when you have your wits and mind keenly focused. What you seek now is revenge, and revenge for the sake of revenge. Revenge is not to one man. Kill Roger Hubble and the miseries of Ireland will still be there. Don’t give your life away. Make it count.”
The two brothers walked through the Bogside, then to the quay and the shipping office. A likely vessel was due in in a week.
Conor hitched up his livery horses to the small buck-board and rode out into the countryside, over the Burntollet Bridge and to the gates of the seminary. Somehow, it still burned Conor to see his brother disappear behind the wall. Dary smiled.
“I’m ready,” Dary said.
“I’m ready as well,” Conor said.
Dary soon vanished from his sight.
29
1904
Conor Larkin slid shut the door of the wheelhouse behind him and set down a cup of tea for Bojo at the helm. He sipped on his own as Bojo gave him the headings for his watch.
The S.S. Famagusta moved flat out at twelve knots on a smooth tabletop of windless water and a big show taking place up in the sky.
“Christchurch tomorrow,” Bojo said. “You got a brother there?”
“Aye, he has a station somewhere in the middle of the island up in the hills.”
“A real spread?”
“Couple thousand acres, maybe more.”
“That’s a station, good enough. Setting down for a spell?”
“For a spell.”
“How long you been roving, Larkin?”
“I’ve been out of Ireland for about five years.”
“Well, I’m going to miss you as much as one can miss a paddy. How long’s it been since you came aboard in Australia?”
“Year ago.”
“That long already. Yeah, I’ll miss you.”
Conor took the wheel and adjusted his eyes. It was a night of nights out there. Bojo slurped at his tea. “Five years. That’s a piece of time, all right. Woman?”
“Isn’t there always a woman?”
Bojo gurgled a laugh and gave his mouth a swipe from the back of his hand. He’d forgotten. Yeah, there was a woman, or two. “This New Zealand is beautiful country. If I ever quit the sea, I’d give it my utmost consideration.”
Flecks of gray had shown up on Conor’s temples, starting when he crossed the line past thirty.
Bojo was glad he was off watch. “Hate it up here at nights,” he said, making his departure. They all hated the night watch, Conor thought. During the daylight there was always someone moving about, someone to chat up.
There were those bad days and nights when you battled the wheel or were rocked silly up in the crow’s nest and all you could think about was finishing your watch and getting a shot of rum in your belly.
Sailors hated the calm nights like tonight. It was with but a sliver of moon and the heavens filled with stars and mischief that the watch became painful. They had time to ponder all they had left behind, all they would never find, all that useless wandering. They would hurt for that one woman—abandoned, dead, waiting, unfaithful. They would wish for something beneath their feet that didn’t roll, something long and green with a covering of spring flowers. All that was gone. All that they would never see again. All that they would never know haunted them on night watch on a calm sea.
Conor loved it at the helm on these nights. These were nights for himself and Caroline. Newport, new girl. Some of the lassies were lovely creatures. After a time, they would look into his eyes and become frightened. He saw through them and they could never look in too deep. They became frightened of losing him because he demanded a power of love they did not possess. Some loved him well, but they could not come between him and that ever-tilted sword charging at some unknown foe, nor could they come between him and a love he had touched once long ago.
So Conor found a new ship. He saw the swill holes; black, brown, yellow, and white, living through motions of life in the humility of colonization.
He saw Bogsides of Irish scattered about the world.
For the better part of a year Conor took to Australia.