The spring and summer flew by in a blur of manly activity. Myles spent hours with his da, just the two of them, working on blocked drains, collapsed fences, and overgrown hedges. Sometimes they just wandered around the farm, like two pals, taking stock of the dilapidation, while Jack displayed the same comedic skills as their aging neighbor, Andy Murphy—mimicry, jokes, foibles, legends—all in a day’s work.
Jack seemed to have lots of money, spent it freely, and was in no hurry to find work outside the farm or new ways to provide for the family. No one questioned the source of his largesse. Irishmen often came home from England feeling flush and spending lavishly, even if they couldn’t afford it. After all, Jack had been gone for over a decade and might have changed his ways. Rumor had it that he’d won the lottery in Birmingham. Another had it that he had a recording contract with Decca Records and had been given a big advance. Sure, wasn’t he… “A finer tenor than John McCormick”?
More remarkable still, he never touched a drop of drink all summer. Given the man’s reputation, that was nothing short of a miracle. Jack brushed it off with a simple comment that drink “doesn’t agree with me anymore” when pressed with, “sure, one bottle of stout won’t kill ya.”
Some days, instead of farm projects, they went hunting down in the lower meadows. At last, Myles had his chance to do what he’d been dreaming about for years: show off Nell’s skills and his own knowledge of game and fox habitat to his da. In turn, Jack taught him how to shoot the ancient single-barreled shotgun that had hung unused in the upstairs rafters. Kitty had warned Myles against the dire consequences of even touching the gun, though he sometimes sneaked in and played war games, pretending he was an IRA marksman, killing scores of British soldiers as they came swarming across Sugarloaf Mountain.
That was before Jack came home. Now he was allowed to take target practice openly in the orchard, using a thick wedge of oak nailed to an apple tree as a bull’s-eye. Once he got used to the violent kick of the butt against his jaw —which knocked him flat the first time he pulled the trigger—he showed lightning speed and accuracy that drew praise from all quarters. Soon Myles was bagging pheasant and rabbits weekly, beating his father to the mark when the dogs flushed the game from the furze.
It was on one of those hunting expeditions that Myles came to know another side of his father. He also learned a well-kept secret about his mother that cast her in whole new light. The conversation began after Myles had downed a pheasant with a brilliant shot, and Jack, sensing his son morphing into a man, opened a delicate subject: his years in the IRA.
“You know, son, the crack of a gun always reminds me of when I led the Flying Column down in Bunclody back in ‘19. We’d been tracking the Black n’ Tans for a week after they burned out the whole village of Kiltealy. Well, we hit ‘em at 3 in the mornin’.. blew up the barracks where they were billeted, out toward Vinegar Hill. Never knew what hit ‘em. Bastard foreign riffraff… Criminal element turned loose from British prisons and armed on condition they come over an’ massacre us. Five of ‘em escaped the first blast, but we blew their balls off as they came charging out of the back…”
“What happened after that, Da?”
“They caught us in Enniscorthy four months later, but not before we’d done several more jobs like that.”
“How come they didn’t kill you like they did when they caught Padraig Pearse and the others in the Easter Rising?”
“Did yer mother never tell ya the story? Sure, I’m not surprised; it’s not like her to dwell on the past. Or to brag.”
Myles was now listening to an entirely different man than he’d known before. Gone was the funny raconteur. In his place was a soldier, focused and gleaming at the memory of battle. This was the real IRA hero, the one he’d never believed existed. Yet here he was listening to the first-hand account, like a dream come to life. Myles sank down on the stone wall, ready to drink it all in, watching his father’s glistening blue eyes harden as he warmed to the story.
“Well, see, we were arrested and taken to the local jail in Enniscorthy. The whole county knew what happened; someone had informed on us, one of our own. We were to face the Tan’s firing squad the following Wednesday. So, here’s what happens. We were allowed one last visit from family and friends to say our goodbyes. No men, only women. I was dating your mother at the time, sort of—she was Kitty Cusack then, a gorgeous slip of a girl, but secretly a commander in the local Cumann na mBan.
“I thought only the men could be commanders?”
“Oh, no, son. The women were commissioned, too. Kitty had a reputation—well-deserved, may I say—as a fierce Republican. Absolutely fearless. And deadly. She shows up on Tuesday night, acting the green, gawky country girl—‘Sorry to bother ya, Sir’—with freshly baked brown bread, four packs of Sweet Afton fags, and guess what else?”
“A hacksaw blade?”
“Ha, you’ve been reading too many comics. No—a sawed-off shotgun—stowed under her big winter coat.”
Jack smiled at the memory and lit his pipe, puffing to fill the silence. Myles felt his pulse race. His mother with a shotgun? Was this the same woman who forbade him to even handle the old shotgun gathering dust upstairs before his da came home? He watched Jack’s face for a few more seconds before asking, “So did she manage to hide the shotgun from the guards?”
Jack laughed and rolled on: “No, that was not the plan. She had a different idea. The guard, a Tanner, never knew what hit ‘im; she fired at point blank range…right through the coat… blew a hole in him the size of yer fist.”
Myles tried to swallow, but felt his mouth go dry and his chest tighten. Then he heard himself say in a faint voice that sounded high-pitched and distant, “You mean ta tell me that Mammie killed the guard…I mean, the Tanner?”
Jack smiled indulgently at the boy’s amazement, continuing calmly, as though telling a bedtime story. He moved in closer to Myles, holding his gaze, warming to the subject, enjoying both the memory and the discomfiture of his audience.
“Oh, absolutely. Dead as a doornail. He made one fatal mistake—didn’t think a country lass would have the nerve to pull the trigger; stupid eejit, he dared her: ‘Go ahead, he sez, ya Fenian bitch. I dare ya. Ye don’t got the fucken nerve.’ Sure, we all heard ‘im yell it from up an’ down the cell block. We knew they’d be the last words the Tanner ever spoke. Didn’t know Kitty Cusack like the rest of us... That woman had nerves of steel; tougher than most of the lads in the movement. Kitty always took care of business. Always got the job done.”
With that, Jack looked off in the distance and paused to relight the pipe. A long silence followed before Myles broke in, choking back tears.
“I never knew any of that, Da. Mammie never told me… How could she? So, how did you escape?”
Another long pause, puffs on the pipe and a resigned sigh. “Well, after Kitty sprung us—all twelve of us… Oh, listen, ‘tis a long story, son. We split up. Packie Hayden, Denny Brennan an’ me stayed together an’ got out to Canada; ended up in Montreal. We had contacts and a lot of help up the chain of command. But that’s why yer mother and I got to meet up in New York after it had all settled down years later.
I’ll tell ya the rest some other time. Sure, Mick Collins and I were best buddies; started out as hand-picked lieutenants in the IRB—Irish Republican Brotherhood—before deValera and The Treaty tore us all asunder. I can’t bear to even think about the betrayals and treachery; all those fine young men and women, tortured and martyred for…for what? Look what it got us.”
The memory seemed to wilt him. Gone was the aloof storyteller, spinning a yarn. His soft tenor voice broke, and tears welled up in the blue eyes, turning gray in anguish. Embarrassed, he turned away, trying to regain his composure. “I’m sorry son. I shouldn’t have told you all this. Promise me ya won’t tell yer mother I told you about Enniscorthy. I shoulda let sleeping dogs lie…”
“I promise, Da. I won’t say a word.”
With that, Jack stood up, stuffed the pipe in his pocket, and started up the hill toward the red-tiled farmhouse. They walked the distance in silence, deep in their own thoughts, Myles a few steps behind his father. His mind raced with questions and a dawning realization that his world had just been turned upside down.
(to be continued next Friday)