It was a shaking, bone-jolting ride. The motorcycle’s top speed was slightly higher than that of the Triumph but seemed to Ellen at least three times as fast. She rode with her arms locked tightly around David’s middle and her face pressed up against the back of his bulky sweater. The wind, cold and rain-laden, played furiously with her hair. Rain was everywhere, soaking into her clothes and wetting her to the skin, splashing up at her from puddles in the road.
At first she had been certain that they would be caught. Koenig had never come so close before, and only the dead sheep on the road had saved them. Koenig had had to brake hard, his attention fastened on stopping the huge car safely, and before he could settle himself and send bullets their way they were off, the motorcycle leaping beneath them, plunging headlong down the road.
She was wrapped in wind and rain and noise, the constant roar of the cycle, the whining of the wind in her ear. There were things she wanted to say to David, questions she had to ask him, but conversation was presently impossible. Once, she tried to shout to him, but he failed to hear her over the combined roar of motorcycle and wind. She gave up the attempt and held on to him for dear life.
She could barely believe what had happened, and her own feelings were hopelessly confused. On the one hand she was overcome with admiration for David. He had acted so quickly, so precisely, sending her for her purse, taking it from her, then using the gun to force the policeman to surrender his motorcycle. Another moment’s delay and they would have been finished, and the shepherd and policeman killed in the bargain. But now, at least for the time being, they were free.
And at the same time she was afraid, terribly afraid, of what they had done. They had stolen an Irish policeman’s motorcycle. Their earlier plan, one of seeking refuge with the police at Tipperary, was no longer workable. A single act had transformed the police from friends to enemies, at least until they could straighten things out. They had to run, not only from Koenig and Farrell and their gang, but from the police as well. Before, they had been fugitives from evil; now they were fugitives from the law, too.
She pressed her face into the comforting warmth of David’s sweater. Her eyes glanced down at the road surface below as it flew by beneath the wheels of the motorcycle. She had never been on a motorcycle before, had always been scared to take a ride. It did not frighten her now—as though there were no room within her for additional fear, as though she already had as much fear in her as she could manage at one time.
Koenig and Farrell could be behind them right now, she thought. They could have caught up, they could be bearing down on the motorcycle at any moment and she would never know it. She could not turn around to look behind her. Surely the carnage in the roadway would have delayed them for a while, but not for very long. And it was impossible for her to estimate how fast the motorcycle was going. She couldn’t see the speedometer from where she sat, and although it felt to her as though they were exceeding the speed of sound, she knew they were probably making less speed than a fast car was capable of.
Without warning, tears welled up behind her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks. She was not sobbing; the tears simply flowed of their own accord, fighting her attempts to blink them back. She tightened her grip around David’s body, clinging to him, her eyes tightly shut, her teeth clenched hard together.
She wished, not for the first time, that she could pray.…
When finally he braked the motorcycle to a gradual stop she loosened her grip around his waist and dismounted. He lowered the kickstand and stepped away from the motorcycle. There were no cars approaching from either direction. She found her cigarettes in her purse. She gave one to him and kept one for herself, and he lit them both, cupping the match in his hand to shield the flame from wind and rain.
She said, “Where are we?”
“Two miles outside of Mitchelstown, according to the sign.
“In Tipperary?”
“In Cork, but close to the county line. I don’t dare drive into Mitchelstown. That garda must have got to a phone by now, and they’ll be waiting for us. And we can’t stay on the road any longer because they’ll come looking for us.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.” He took his cigarette from his lips and looked at it. The rain had put it out. He shook his head and threw the cigarette off to the side of the road. “We made very good time. The motorcycle was flying.”
“It felt that way.”
“So we should have a good jump on Farrell and Koenig. But where do we go from here?”
“Do you think we might have lost them?”
“We could have, on any other road in the world. But this damned thing didn’t have a single side road branching off ever since we got on the motorcycle. They could follow us with their eyes closed. There was just the one road, and we stayed with it, and so will they.” He sighed. “Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe we shouldn’t have taken the motorcycle, maybe we should have stayed there.”
“We’d have been killed.”
“That’s what I figured. You know, if he tried to stop them, they might have shot him. But I don’t think he would. Unless—”
“Unless what?”
“He may have asked them to give him a ride after us. And they may have refused, or else they may have taken the easiest way of refusal. By putting a bullet in him.” He shook his head. “Poor man. He was very decent with us, made it very easy for us to pay for the sheep and cut through all sorts of red tape. And the price for the sheep certainly seemed reasonable enough. Though I don’t honestly have any idea what a sheep’s worth. Still, it seemed reasonable, didn’t it?”
She nodded. She could still hear the horrible sounds of the dying sheep and the sounds Mr. Mahoney had made as he ended their suffering.
“They’d never have been so easy with us if the same thing happened in the States. So we return the favor by taking his motorcycle away from him. I wonder who’s going to catch us first, the law or Farrell.”
“Isn’t there anywhere we can go?”
“There must be, but I can’t think of it. Maybe we can hide the motorcycle and work our way into Mitchelstown on foot. Find someone there to hide us from Farrell and the police. But how do you walk up to someone out of the blue and tell him you’ve got a gang of spies after you, and the police as well? A man would have to be mad to take us in. More likely he’d hold a gun on us and call the gardai.”
But she was only half-listening to him. There was something she remembered, something that had struck a responsive chord somewhere inside her. Something, a place to hide.…
“They’re used to hiding men on the run. On the run from the British or from the Irish forces during the Civil War. But would they hide strangers? And strangers from overseas? Somebody might, but we don’t know anyone. You didn’t happen to pass through this part of the country on your way to Tralee?”
“No, I went south of here. I was in Cork City, so I took the southern route over. David…”
“If we only knew someone.”
“David—Mitchelstown Caves!”
He looked blank.
“In the song,” she said. “One of the verses to “The Croppy Boy.” It’s not in the standard versions, they all take place in Wexford, but there’s one that I heard this trip where one of the croppy boys is a Tipperary boy who hides in the Mitchelstown caves. Oh, how does it go?”
She sang,
When we were beaten at Vinegar Hill
And the Saxon victors did burn and kill
Then I did fly straight to Mitchelstown
And in one damp cavern did I lay me down
And it’s in this cavern dark I lie today
And pray no Saxon shall pass this way
Or from the scaffold at old Mountjoy
They’ll hang the body of the Croppy Boy
“An old woman taught me the song,” she said. “The caves are in Tipperary, a few miles northeast from Mitchelstown.”
“Do you think we could find them?”
“Why not?”
He considered this. “It just might work. ‘One damp cavern,’ eh? It can’t be much damper than I am already. We’d have to go on foot, and if it’s five miles from Mitchelstown we’ve got an hour of walking ahead of us at the very least. It may be fairly dark by then, I don’t know. Do you feel up to it?”
“I think so. We certainly can’t stay here.”
“No, we can’t. We can’t even walk on the road. We’ll have to cut cross-country. We’d better get rid of the motorcycle. I wish there were a break in the fence. The thing’s a perfect tipoff; anyone seeing it will know we’ve quit the road and started hiking.”
“Can we lift it over?”
“Far too heavy. Give me a hand.” They wheeled the machine off to the side of the road and propped it against the fence. David got the knife from her purse and climbed over the fence, hacking at some of the shrubbery. He passed branches over the fence to her and she arranged them upon the motorcycle, piling them up to obscure it from view. He climbed back over the fence and examined the motorcycle under its pile of camouflage.
“To me,” he said, “it looks like a motorcycle with branches piled on it.”
“But if they come roaring by at sixty miles an hour…”
“That’s a thought. I don’t know, it might work. Let’s get off the road, Ellen. We’ll want to cut this way”—he pointed—“and just walk until we come to something that looks like a cave, I guess. I don’t know. How are you feeling?”
“All right.”
“Cold and wet and miserable?”
“A little of each, I suppose. But I’ll manage.”
“And hungry?”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t mention it. I’ve been trying not to think about it.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s all right. I’m tired, too, as far as that goes. And soaked and scared. I’ll feel better when we get far enough from the road so that they won’t be able to see us. I hope that cave’s there. And that we’ll come somewhere close to it.”
By the time they reached the cave she had long ago given up hope of ever finding it. She was walking on sheer momentum and running low of that. Before, she had been cold and wet and miserable and hungry and tired and afraid. Now she was all these things to an even greater extent. The ground over which they had been walking was spongy with rain. Her shoes were soaked through and her feet were chilled to the bone. Walking had grown progressively more arduous. The muscles in her calves knotted up, and for a time every step was agony. Then it grew easier; either the knots had worked out of the muscles or she was too numb to notice them.
They walked on, they blundered around, they climbed over ditches and banks and unmortared stone fences. The twilight grew dimmer and the darkness came on, and the rain did not let up or the wind abate. Several times she felt at the point of collapse. She was sure they would drop in a field, only to awaken chilled and feverish at dawn. But they walked on. David held her when she was weak and comforted her when her fear threatened to rage out of control, and because he was there she was able to go on.
When they found the cave, when it turned out to be right where it was supposed to be, when it loomed before them like a whale’s mouth, she thought at first that it could only be a mirage. Just as men saw water in the desert, she and David were seeing a cave in the middle of the waterlogged hilly meadows of Tipperary. But it was no mirage. They hurried to the cave and found shelter inside it.
It was dark, and they had no flashlight. David lit matches to illuminate the cave’s interior. It was large, larger than the inside of Gallarus Oratory, and extended back much further, with labyrinthine passages working far back into the side of a hill. Whether it was damp she could not say. She was too wet herself to know.
David was kneeling at the rear. “There have been people here,” he said. “See? The remains of a campfire here, and dry wood stacked against the wall for another fire. I wish I knew how recent the fire was. It could have been made a day ago or many years ago. There’s probably a way to tell, but I don’t know it.”
“Maybe it was the croppy boy’s.”
“Could be. Should I build a fire?”
“I don’t know. If they could see it…”
“Go outside for a minute,” he said. “I’ll light a match and hold it around. Let me know if you can see it.”
She went to the mouth of the cave and stepped outside.
“Anything?”
“I can’t see a thing.”
“Good,” he said. “Come on back.”
She went to him. He was gathering firewood from the pile at the side of the cave, shaving down a few sticks with the long knife to make kindling. He worked quickly, whittling a pile of scraps that would catch a flame and give a start to the larger branches and logs.
“What about the smoke?”
“There’s a fissure overhead,” he said. “A break in the rock. It should serve as a natural chimney. Besides, this wood is bone dry. It’s been here a long time, and it shouldn’t throw much smoke at all.” He shrugged. “I suppose it’s chancy, but it’s a chance we pretty much have to take. We’ll be able to dry our clothes and warm ourselves. I don’t know about you, but if I don’t thaw out soon I’m going to turn blue. And you look in pretty sad shape yourself.”
“I have had better days.”
“Uh-huh.”
He scratched a match and used its light to arrange the kindling in a neat ball upon the ashes of the former campfire. Then he positioned thinner sticks over the ball of kindling, making a tent-shaped arrangement. He set up a neat square of larger pieces of wood around the little tent, then scratched another match and applied it to the kindling. In just a few minutes a small fire was burning brightly, casting a warm glow around the interior of the cave.
“You must have been a Boy Scout.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I think you qualify for a fire-building merit badge. Is there such a thing?”
“I don’t know. But I’m a man of many talents. Wait a minute—I want to see if the fire shows at all from the outside.”
He was back seconds later, reporting that it was quite invisible. “And it’s getting darker and darker now,” he said. “They’ll probably quit for the night. I think we’re safe, croppy girl. You found us a good place to hide.”
“It was just luck that I remembered it. And that we found it. I was beginning to think I had sent us all around Robin Hood’s barn, but we’re here, aren’t we?”
“That we are.” He straightened up. “I’ll, uh, go sit by the entranceway and keep watch. You’d better get out of those clothes and dry them over the fire. Not too close, or they’ll raise too much smoke. But get out of them for now, that’s the main thing.”
He was on his way before she could object. She felt odd, undressing in the campfire light, and as she stepped out of her underthings she was conscious of David sitting in darkness near the mouth of the cave. He could turn around and see her and she would not know the difference.
The thought made her giggle and blush at the same time. What earthly difference, she wondered, could it possibly make? Another Ellen Cameron would have been quite nervous at the thought of being undressed in the presence of a man. But that earlier Ellen Cameron no longer existed. She had passed away forever in the course of their escape, and the girl who had taken her place was made of sterner stuff.
She placed her clothing on the bare earth by the side of the fire. David, she thought, was carrying chivalry beyond the bounds of good sense. He was as cold and wet and miserable as she, but an excess of gentlemanliness was leaving him at the front of the cave while she dried and warmed herself. She thought of summoning him back, then decided to wait, at least until her underthings were dry. They were all nylon and would dry quickly.
When they had dried she put them on and called him back. He stopped halfway to the fire and offered to wait until she was dressed.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” she said. “First things first. Besides, I think we know each other well enough to forget propriety a little.”
“Of course, but if it bothers you…”
“It doesn’t.”
She noticed, though, how he avoided looking directly at her. She moved past him to the front of the cave. Later he called her back. He was dressed again, except for his trousers and socks. She put on her skirt and blouse and sat beside him and gazed into the fire. Like the sea, it exerted a definite hypnotic effect on her.
“Tired, Ellen?”
“A little. I don’t think I could sleep, though.”
“Why not try? I’ll keep watch.”
“Oh, I don’t—”
“Just lie down and relax, then. I won’t let you sleep long. Don’t worry. But it’ll be good for you to get a little rest.”
“How about you?”
“If I get sleepy, I’ll wake you and let you stand watch. Fair enough?”
“I guess so, but…”
“Go ahead.”
She stretched out on the hard ground, her eyes still fixed upon the fire. She let her mind wander, let her thoughts stray far and wide. Her eyes closed of their own accord, and sleep took her by surprise.
All at once he was shaking her awake. She tried to fight him off, tried to slip back under the protective cloak of sleep, but he wouldn’t let her. Then she opened her mouth to cry out but his hand fastened over it.
“Shhhh,” he cautioned. “They’re outside.”
Her eyes widened, and she clutched his arm in fear.
“About a dozen of them,” he said. “They have flashlights and guns. I haven’t seen any uniforms. They’re about a hundred yards away, spread out over the sides of the hills. I think it must be Farrell’s gang. The police wouldn’t have to be so silent about it. Are you feeling all right, Ellen?”
“I guess so. Are they going to…to find us?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you come up front and have a look? Maybe you’ll recognize them.”
She peered out from the cave’s entrance. At first she saw only shapes and lights, but then her eyes focused and she was able to make out the faces of the men. She recognized Farrell and Koenig and the thin man who had mugged her in London and tracked her in Cork. She was surprised how strangely calm she felt now. They had been running for so long, knowing only that their pursuers were at their backs. Now at least the crisis was approaching, and there was something comforting in the knowledge. They were in more danger now than they had ever been. But at least they did not have to run. At least they knew who was after them and where they were.
She crawled back into the rear of the cavern. “It’s Farrell and Koenig,” she whispered. “I recognized them. How do you suppose they found us?”
“They must have spotted the motorcycle.”
“But we walked for miles…”
He nodded. “And probably left a trail a yard wide,” he said. “Remember, they have lights. And we were in a hurry. I guess they didn’t have much trouble following us.”
“Do they know we’re in this cave?”
“I don’t think so. But they know we’re in one of the caves around here, and they’ll get to this one in a matter of time.” He was carefully scattering the campfire, beating out the little tongues of flame with his sweater. Then he picked up the gun.
“What are you going to do?”
“Nothing yet. But we’re in a good position for defense. They can’t rush us, the cave’s mouth is too narrow. We may be able to hold out.”
“How many bullets do you have?”
“Half a dozen. But they don’t know that.”
“And when morning comes? When it’s light out?”
“We’ll worry about that when the time comes.”
He moved toward the mouth of the cave, and she followed after him. They crouched in the darkness, off to the side. She watched men moving cautiously, playing their powerful flashlights back and forth over the terrain. Koenig drew a revolver from a shoulder holster, pointed it off to the left. She steeled herself, and when the gunshot sounded she did not utter a sound. The shot was to scare them, she knew; Koenig hoped they would cry out at the noise, or shoot back, thus revealing themselves.
One man was headed their way. Ellen looked at him, trying to remember if she had seen him before. He looked familiar, but she could not be certain. He moved ever closer to the mouth of the cave, and his flashlight shone into the cavern, illuminating the dark walls.
He called out, “I think it’s this one!” A Scot, she guessed, by his accent. And he put one foot into the cave and swung his light their way, and David shot him in the throat.
Blood poured from the wound, a red river staining the cavern floor. David grabbed the dead man and pulled him inside. He snatched up the flashlight and tore an automatic pistol from the corpse’s grasp. Ellen pressed flat against the wall. Some shots rang out from the field. David snapped off a quick shot in return, and the men outside dropped behind cover.
“We’ve got a stalemate,” she heard David say softly. “They’ve got us bottled up and we can’t get out. But they can’t get in, either.”
“Now what happens?”
“We wait.”
For a long moment nothing at all happened. She stared at the dead man, saw the barren stare in his eyes, the pool of drying blood. He looked unreal, as if he had never been alive at all. She looked at him and thought of the dead sheep in the roadway.
They had two guns now, she thought. And the dead man had never fired his pistol, so it probably had a full load. How many shots did that mean? Six? Not all guns were six-shooters, she knew. She wanted to ask David how many bullets the gun held, but she did not want to break the silence, so she said nothing.
Perhaps six bullets. And David had fired twice, so that left four in the revolver.
Ten shots.
“David Clare!” It was Farrell, bellowing across the field, his voice shattering the silence of the night. “Good shooting, Clare!”
They said nothing.
“But do you always shoot that well? And how many shots do you have left?”
“Find out for yourself, Father.”
The false priest roared with laughter. “Come on out here,” he called. “Surrender and we’ll let you live. The whole thing’s shot now anyway, Clare. All I’m interested in is the film. Give us that and we’ll let you go.”
“Sure you will.”
“Why not? Killing bores me, Clare.”
David didn’t answer this time. She saw his hand tighten on the grip of the revolver, saw the lines of tension in his face.
“Clare! Our little girl thought you were the killer. Did she tell you?”
“She told me.”
“Funny, isn’t it? And now you’re going to die trying to save her. A girl who wouldn’t trust you an inch, and you’re going to die at her side.”
“We’re neither of us dead yet, Father.”
There was a pause. Then a volley of shots rang out, peppering the floor and the walls of the cave but none of them coming close to her or David. “They can’t get to us,” he told her. “They can waste bullets, but they can’t get to us.”
“Clare! You think you’re sitting pretty, don’t you?”
“I think so.”
“How long will you last without sleep? Or food? Or water?”
“We’ve got food and water. And we can last a long time without sleep, Father.”
“Brave talk. You can make a deal. Throw out the film.”
“You’re too late.”
“What do you mean?”
“We already burned it, Father. And the passport. So you might as well collect your boys and go home.”
There was a pause. “You’re a liar.”
“So are you,” David shouted back. “Now cut the games. You want the film, and the passport, and us, you come get them. No deals.”
“We’ll starve you out.”
“Maybe.”
“Or we’ll hurry things up with tear gas.”
“If you had tear gas you’d have used it already. Forget it.”
Another roar of laughter. Farrell was insane, she realized. Absolutely insane. Even now, temporarily frustrated, he was enjoying himself immensely. It was all life and death, but he was happy as a child with a new toy. It was all a game to him.
“We’ll get you when the sun comes up, Clare. We’ll have you trapped then, and we’ll be able to see.”
“So will I. You want to lead the pack, Father? I never shot a priest before.”
More laughter. More shots sounded out, but fewer this time. Again the bullets were all wide of the mark.
“David?” Her voice was a whisper. “Do we have a chance?”
“I don’t know.”
“You sounded so sure of yourself.”
“He wants us to beg. I won’t give him the satisfaction.”
“What he said…” She didn’t want to ask the questions but forced herself. “Will they be able to starve us out? Or will we fall asleep after a long enough wait?”
“Maybe.”
“David…”
“They can’t stand out there with their guns forever. Someone has to pass by sooner or later. The longer we hold out, the longer we stay awake and alert, the better a chance we have.”
She nodded, her teeth clenched. How very brave he was, she thought. He had managed such a confident air of defiance with Farrell, shouting at the false priest with assurance in his voice. And all the while he had known that the situation was virtually hopeless—
“Make sure the fire is going,” he said suddenly. “Hug the wall and go back to it. I scattered it somewhat, but it should be burning. Add a little more wood to it.”
“Why?”
“If we have to give up, I want the passport burned. And their precious microfilm. I don’t want them to have it.”
She swallowed. She was going to cry now, she knew it, she couldn’t help it. But she swallowed, and the tears stayed back.
She said, “Shall I burn them now?”
“No.”
“In case there’s no time…”
“No.” He took her hand. “If we get out of this alive, we’ll want to be able to turn that film over to the right people. Besides…” He laughed, and for the first time in her life she knew what gallows humor really meant. “And besides, they’ll never let you back into the States if you lose your passport.”
When the noise first came from deep in the rear of the cave, she thought it was some small animal burrowing around there. But the noise came closer, slowly closer, and she could tell that it was a man making his way into the cavern. She huddled close to David, and he turned to cover the rear of the cave with his pistol.
“If there’s a back entrance…”
“We can still cover it,” he said.
“Can we?”
There was a dry cough behind them, out of sight. The cough was repeated. “Hold your fire,” a soft voice said. The words barely carried to the front of the cave.
And then, from the darkness, a man emerged. He was not more than an inch or two over five feet tall, and his old face was deeply lined with wrinkles. Black hair peppered with gray stuck out from beneath a ragged cloth cap. He wore an ancient tweed jacket that reached almost to his knees, and in one hand he held an odd sort of gun, larger than a pistol, smaller than a rifle.
“Ah,” he said, his voice no more than a whisper. “Sure, and it’s a fair Donnybrook, by the sound of it. What, and only two of you, and such a lot of them outside?” He shook his head sadly. “I thought it could be some of the boys, but ye aren’t faces I know, nor Irish by the look of ye. And if I’m not prying, could you be after telling me the nature of the row?”