Death on the Holy Mountain

13

Powerscourt and Fitzgerald watched Butler Lodge for almost an hour. The smoke continued to pour regularly from the chimneys. The only human they saw was a young man who came out of the front door and returned five minutes later with a bundle of logs. There was no sign of any women. Powerscourt crept back into the wood and beckoned to his friend.

‘What do you think, Johnny?’

Fitzgerald pulled his Daniel O’Connell memorial bottle out of a side pocket and took a tentative swig of the clear liquid. ‘I think they’re in there, Francis. I really do. I know we haven’t seen any of the ladies, but I wouldn’t let them out of the house if I could help it. Christ, this stuff has got a kick in the tail. At first sip you think it’s lightly spiced water or something like that. Then it tries to knock your head off. It reminds me of some Polish vodka a fellow gave me once. It was so powerful the authorities banned its manufacture altogether in case it killed off half the population of Poland.’

‘I agree with you, Johnny, I think they’re here. I wish I knew what to do tomorrow, mind you. I hope that bloody hotel has got a telegraph.’ Powerscourt rubbed his leg, stiff from lying by the edge of the water. ‘Could you stay here for a while, and keep watch? I’m going back to see if young Bradshaw has spotted anything up that damned mountain. I’ll see you in the hotel about nine o’clock.’

Powerscourt found himself wondering what the cuisine would be like in Butler Lodge. If the kidnappers were all young men of the age he had seen so far, the bill of fare might not be too elaborate. He speculated about how Lucy would survive on a regimen of ham and eggs for five days or so. He had to climb some way up the hill before he found Bradshaw. The young man had veered off a couple of hundred yards to the right to find a better view.

‘Have a look for yourself, sir,’ he grinned, handing over the instrument. Powerscourt now had the back view of the lodge. He saw part of the drive leading up to it and the woods stretching out on either side. On the far side of the lawn he thought he could see a small river, flowing into the lake. Two of the rooms on the first floor were visible, one of them with a window open to let in the evening sunshine, but his eyesight was not good enough to spot a person inside. He asked the young man if he had seen any female inhabitants of the house on the upper floor, but Bradshaw shook his head.

‘Keep watching for half an hour or so and then make your way to the hotel,’ Powerscourt said, patting the young man on the shoulder, and he set off to find his other watcher. Jones was so well hidden that Powerscourt walked past him twice before he realized Jones was there. ‘Nobody’s gone in, nobody’s come out, nothing at all, sir,’ he said. Powerscourt asked him to watch for another half an hour and then make his way to the Leenane Hotel. He wondered if they should take turns to watch the house through the night but he didn’t see what purpose would be served. As far as he knew the kidnappers were not yet aware that there was a rescue mission at the gates.

Later that evening, after enormous helpings of Irish stew, Powerscourt outlined his plans for the following morning. Operations were to begin at first light. He and Johnny were going to watch the road leading from Leenane to Butler Lodge, at a safe distance from the house. Bradshaw and Jones were to maintain a similar vigil on the other side. Anybody who looked as if they were going to the place of captivity was to be seized, and any messages taken from them. Prisoners, Powerscourt explained, were to be taken to a secure room in the basement of the hotel which was fitted with a great many locks. It was, the hotel keeper explained, where they had concealed contraband in days gone by.

‘I don’t know,’ Powerscourt said to Johnny after the two young men had gone to bed, ‘how long it will be before those thieves know we are here. Not long, I shouldn’t think. Even if we intercept all the messages coming from Westport or wherever enemy headquarters is, it’s going to leak out of here somehow. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if the hotel isn’t supplying them with food. I’ve sent a message to the authorities saying I think we’ve found them. I’ve asked for reinforcements, twenty men, police or soldiers I don’t care, but I don’t suppose they’ll get here until the afternoon at the earliest.’

Johnny took another swig of his stout. His bottle of Daniel O’Connell memorial liquid seemed to have been reserved for emergencies. ‘Do you have a plan to get them out, Francis? It’s going to be bloody difficult.’

‘I’m just trying to make it up as we go along,’ Powerscourt said, trying to sound more cheerful than he felt. ‘I keep thinking about those two women and what they must be going through. I keep thinking about Lucy too, and how I should feel if she was locked up down there in Butler Lodge.’

As he went to sleep that night Powerscourt reminded himself that there were now two days left until the expiry of the deadline, two days to spring Mary Ormonde and her sister Winifred from the grasp of their captors. And while he knew that they only had value as long as they were alive, he was unsure how the terms of trade would change once the deadline had expired.

Low cloud lay over the mountains the following morning. The party of four rode past Killary Harbour, Ireland’s only fjord, snaking its way back into the hills and forward to the sea. We may as well hang a banner round our necks saying rescue mission come to Butler Lodge, Powerscourt thought, as a few of the locals peered out of their windows to watch them go by. Whose side would these people be on? he wondered. He suspected the loyalty of the inhabitants would not be with them. An hour and a half after they had set out Jones and Bradshaw brought the first catch of the day, a defiant young man of about twenty years.

‘This is the fellow we saw on the road yesterday, sir,’ said Bradshaw, ‘or at least it’s the same horse. It had a little cross of white in the middle of its head. We’ve left the horse tied to a tree up the road.’

Powerscourt looked at the young man. Was this the enemy he had been wrestling with all these weeks, a lad scarcely more than twenty who had barely started shaving?

‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

The young man said nothing.

‘I said, what’s your name?’ Powerscourt repeated his question.

Once more the young man said nothing.

‘We’re not asking for anything other than your name.’ Powerscourt asked his question for the third time. ‘Remember that if you co-operate with us you will receive much better treatment than if you don’t.’

‘I’m not co-operating with you,’ the lad suddenly found his voice, ‘you’re a bloody traitor, that’s what you are. Doing the work of the occupying power like some posh Uncle Tom. You should be ashamed to call yourself Irish, so you should.’

With that he spat into the road right at Powerscourt’s feet. ‘Search his pockets,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I’m sure he was bringing a message to the people in the lodge.’

Jones found a battered envelope in his inside pocket. There was no name on it. Powerscourt ripped it open and laughed. There was indeed a message but it was written in Irish. None of the four could understand a word. It was, Powerscourt realized, even worse than India where they had often intercepted messages written in native languages. There the servants would translate for them. No doubt they could find some Gaelic speaker in Leenane but he would share, almost certainly, the political sentiments of the young man and might suffer from a temporary bout of amnesia. Powerscourt stuffed the letter into his back pocket. ‘Take him to the basement down in Leenane, and see if you can find anything about him when you get him there.’

‘Traitor!’ shouted the young man as he was led away. ‘You’re a disgrace to your country!’

‘If you don’t shut up,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald savagely, ‘you won’t get any food for the next two days, so keep your bloody mouth closed from now on!’

Powerscourt and Fitzgerald returned to their position behind a clump of trees overlooking the road from Butler Lodge to Leenane. ‘If they send us some policemen,’ Powerscourt said, ‘rather than English soldiers from the garrison at Castlebar, one of them might speak Irish.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Fitzgerald gloomily. ‘The kind of people who learn Irish round here aren’t the kind of people who join the police force.’

They stopped talking. They heard a whistling sound coming up the road. As they stepped out from their cover to intercept the whistler they had a brief glimpse of another youth of about twenty years old wearing a bright green shirt. He turned and fled back down the road. Then they heard the voice.

‘Lord Powerscourt! Johnny Fitzgerald! Stay right where you are! You are surrounded!’

They didn’t wait to hear any more. They raced across the road and dived into the undergrowth. Both began wriggling down the hill towards the lake. Two shots followed them into the scrub. ‘It’s no good!’ The voice sounded very self-assured. ‘You are still surrounded. You’ll only get yourselves killed.’ Another shot ricocheted off a tree a couple of yards away.

Johnny Fitzgerald wrestled a gun out of his coat pocket and fired in the general direction of the voice. ‘God save Ireland from people like you!’ he shouted defiantly and was rewarded with a bullet that passed six feet over his head. Powerscourt was cursing himself. If his reinforcements arrived that afternoon he had been intending to surround the house and give the kidnappers an ultimatum. Now, while he and his men thought they were secretly observing the approach roads to and from Butler Lodge, the people inside had been observing them and claimed to have them encircled. Powerscourt doubted if the forces from the lodge had sufficient manpower to have himself and Johnny completely surrounded but he had no idea where the ring would be weakest. He and Johnny had been moving in the direction of the lodge. Now, he felt sure that would be the wrong course of action. However he deployed his forces, the voice would want to be able to bring his men home within the secure walls of Butler Lodge. Powerscourt pointed in the opposite direction, towards Leenane, and began half walking half crawling through the gorse and bracken.

‘Give yourselves up now! Come out with your hands up!’

Johnny Fitzgerald fired off a little salvo of two shots and the voice kept its peace. Where were the horses? How far back had they tied them?A hundred yards? Two hundred yards? Certainly they were on the other side of the road. In a straight running contest Powerscourt felt sure they would be outpaced by these young men, if indeed they were all young, but on horseback they might get clean away. Did the voice know they had horses? Had they been apprehended? Were they even now safely accommodated in the Butler stables, ready to serve one side as loyally as they had the other? Powerscourt dismissed his speculations and hurried on through the undergrowth. Suddenly he saw the first piece of good news they had received that morning. He could just see the horses fifty yards away by the trees. And lying on the ground beside them was Trooper Bradshaw, rifle at the ready, prepared to fire away at all and sundry. This could be turned to his advantage. Powerscourt and Johnny Fitzgerald shot out of the undergrowth and raced across the road. Then they positioned themselves behind the prostrate figure of Bradshaw. ‘Fire!’ shouted Powerscourt. Three shots rang out, aiming in an arc down the road. ‘Fire!’ Powerscourt shouted once more. ‘Fire!’ he gave the order a third time and then all three mounted their horses and fled back, heads down, in the direction of Leenane, Bradshaw turning round from time to time to send yet more covering fire in the direction of their enemies. They might not have been caught but they had been forced to flee the field. It was not, Powerscourt said to himself as they finally reached Leenane, the most auspicious start to their operations. There were thirty-two hours to go before the expiry of the deadline.

The cavalry came shortly after two o’clock in the afternoon. The man in charge was a Major Piers Arbuthnot-Leigh, a veteran of the Boer Wars. ‘I’ve got twenty-three of my chaps with me, Powerscourt,’ he informed his host, ‘all well blooded in pursuit of the Boer, not so much experience against the native version over here.’ He had one of those braying voices that can cut through the noises on the hunting field. His troops all looked young and fit.

Powerscourt led the Major and a detachment of his men off on a reconnaissance mission towards Butler Lodge. Arbuthnot-Leigh peered down at the house through a powerful pair of binoculars from a position hidden among the trees.

‘I say, Powerscourt, that looks pretty damn fine to me.’

‘The Lodge, do you mean?’ asked Powerscourt.

‘No, no, man, not the wretched lodge, haven’t had time to look at that yet, the fishing, salmon, I should say in that river, and in that lake in front of the house. Some of the finest prospects I’ve seen since I was last at my place in Scotland. Bloody fine!’

‘I think,’ Powerscourt said acidly, ‘that our business on this occasion is with the humans in the lodge rather than the fish in the river.’

‘Quite so, quite so, another sort of bag altogether, what?’ Arbuthnot-Leigh turned his binoculars in a slightly different direction and continued staring down the mountain. ‘Didn’t stint themselves when they built the bloody lodge, these Butlers, did they? Place is huge. Expect they went in for wild parties down there, compliant females of good proportions imported from Dublin, what? Let me see.’ He swung his glasses round the exterior. ‘With sixteen of my chaps I could have every door and window covered, bag any Paddy trying to make a hasty getaway to the pub or the bog or wherever they come from, seven more as a mobile reserve. Trouble is, don’t have to tell you this, Powerscourt, what about the fillies inside? Bloody difficult with the two fillies, if you ask me.’

Powerscourt realized that the Major might not be as dense as he sounded.

‘What’s the plan?’ Arbuthnot-Leigh went on. ‘Would you like my chaps to put on a show of force? Ten of them ride down the hill, rifles in hand, like something out of the Wild West and shoot a few rounds in the air? Give the Paddies something to think about, what?’

‘They might panic,’ Powerscourt said rather sadly, ‘and think this is a full frontal attack. Then they might shoot the women.’

‘Pity, that,’ said the Major. ‘We could launch an attack in stages, like a proper siege. Begin firing at the little green people from the top of the hill, work our way down, surround the building, knock on the front door and offer them surrender terms, if there are any of them left, what do you say?’

‘Same objection as before,’ said Powerscourt.

‘Fillies?’ said Arbuthnot-Leigh.

‘Fillies,’ nodded Powerscourt.

‘Bit like real life, don’t you think, Powerscourt, damned women causing a lot of trouble, whichever way you look at it.’

The Major looked round at the six men under his command, all staring down the hill at Butler Lodge. ‘Tell you what, Powerscourt, what do you think of this as a suggestion? These six chaps of mine here, all damned good at tracking the enemy, creeping about in the bushes, not making a sound, that sort of thing. Bit like the fox in the hen coop, only know he’s been there after he’s gone, if you see what I mean. We need to know how many Paddies are on guard duty in that damned place. If I leave these fellows and our sergeant here in charge, they can try to come up with an estimate of the number of the other team. Are we playing cricket or rugby or tennis, what? Be damned useful to know that. What do you say?’

‘Good idea,’ said Powerscourt, ‘it would be very helpful to know how many of the rogues there are.’

‘Good show,’ said the Major, and moved off to confer with his sergeant. A few moments later he was back. ‘Operation’s going to start in a few moments,’ he announced. ‘I’m going to stay with them for a while, Powerscourt, so I’ll see you back at the hotel. Must remember to organize nosebag and sleeping bag for my chaps. I’m completely hopeless at all this crawling about in the undergrowth business. My ghillies tell me I make more noise than a herd of cattle but I’ll see my chaps started. Bloody poachers in an earlier life, three or four of them, the buggers would crawl through the jaws of hell if they thought there was game on the far side.’

Powerscourt thought he was dreaming when he walked into the reception area of the Leenane Hotel. He thought he saw Lady Lucy sitting in a corner by the window drinking tea. He thought the phantom figure waved at him. Then the phantom spoke.

‘Francis, my love, how very good to see you. You’re looking rather dishevelled, I must say. I’ve changed our room upstairs, you know. We’ve got a huge place now and I’ve moved some of the furniture and I’ve filled as much of it with flowers as I could. Would you like some of this tea? It’s rather good.’

Powerscourt held the ghostly apparition in his arms and realized from the strength of the embrace that this was no apparition but the wife of his bosom and the mother of his children.

‘Lucy,’ he said, looking into her face, ‘what on earth are you doing here? How did you arrive? How long are you staying?’ Part of his brain said he should add ‘Are you out of your mind?’ to his list of questions but he resisted.

‘One thing at a time, Francis,’ she said brightly. ‘I was talking to that nice Dennis Ormonde yesterday and he was wondering how his wife and her sister were going to get back from a place as remote as this. That Chief Constable person popped in to tell us you’d found them, you see. And Mr Ormonde said he wanted them back as quickly as possible and that he would send his coachman and one of his finest carriages once he heard they were free. He’s absolutely convinced, you see, Francis, that you’ll secure their release. It’s quite touching, really. So I said why didn’t he send it today, with me in it, as the ladies would welcome another female to talk to on the way back. So here I am!’

‘So you are,’ said her husband, unsure of his feelings. For while he was delighted to see Lucy, he didn’t like her to be as close to the point of danger as she was now. Still less did he like to have her on the spot when he thought of what he was contemplating for the morrow. ‘Is there any news of the paintings, Lucy? Any word of any more people being taken? Orangemen still behaving themselves, are they?’

‘There was one rumour, Francis, about that man Connolly, the one who sent you away.’

‘What did it say?’

‘Well, Mr Ormonde told me the rumour was that all his paintings had been returned intact. No Christian Brothers replacing the ancestors, none of that. But then he tracked the rumour down and he found it came from a man who travels the country selling horses. Mr Ormonde didn’t think he was reliable, if you see what I mean.’

Powerscourt frowned. ‘Don’t see why it should be doubtful just because it comes from a man who sells horses, Lucy. Half the bloody country spend their time buying and selling horses, for heaven’s sake. Don’t see why he should be any less reliable than any of the rest of the inhabitants.’

‘Ah,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘but Mr Ormonde had actually bought a horse from this fellow once. He said the animal was so lame it could scarcely trot the length of his drive. And by the time he discovered that, the man had taken his money and disappeared off in the direction of Ballinrobe.’

‘If it’s true,’ said Powerscourt, resisting with difficulty the urge to walk up and down the little reception area, ‘then Connolly must have paid up, in whatever currency the thieves were dealing in. His deadline must have arrived too. How very interesting. Any other news, Lucy?’

‘Only this, Francis: Young James has disappeared from Butler’s Court. Everybody is very worried about him. They think Young James might have been taken hostage too.’

‘Don’t think he’s close enough to the family to warrant a kidnapping. Distant cousin, isn’t he? How very curious.’

‘If you think you might have found the women, Francis, does that mean that you are closer to solving the mystery?’

Powerscourt laughed bitterly. ‘I don’t think I’m ever going to get to the bottom of this one, my love.’

Their conversation was interrupted by a great shout from the doorway. ‘Lady Lucy! By God, here you are in Leenane! This calls for a celebration!’ Johnny Fitzgerald embraced Lady Lucy and disappeared briefly to order some refreshments. When he came back he looked cheerful. ‘They’ve got some Pomerol in this place, who would have thought such a thing. I’ve ordered a couple of bottles in case the first one’s a fluke if you follow me. Now then, Lady Lucy, was it the scenery that brought you here to this place, or have you other intentions?’

She explained that she had come in the carriage that was to bring the Ormonde women home, that her role was to provide company and conversation on their long journey back.

‘Three women cooped up in one of those posh carriages,’ said Johnny, ‘probably be able to talk non-stop all the way to Dublin. Seriously though, Francis, I have some news. When you were off showing our aristocratic friend the lodge I went off on a great loop round that lake in front of the house. I went behind the hill, if you follow me, and then I crept down through the wood opposite Butler Lodge. Amazing view you have up there.’ Johnny sounded like a recent convert to the beauties of nature. ‘The lake in front of you, the lodge sitting on its lawn like a doll’s house, that bloody great hill shooting up behind it. Anyway, what do you think I saw? Two ladies walking about the lawn escorted by one young man of about twenty, I should think.’

‘Good God!’ said Powerscourt. ‘So we were right. They are there.’

‘How did they look, Johnny?’ asked Lady Lucy. ‘Did they seem to have been maltreated in any way? Did they look pale?’

‘They looked fine to me,’ said Johnny. ‘They were laughing with their young guard at one point as a matter of fact.’

‘Were they now,’ said Powerscourt, remembering somebody in South Africa telling him how captives often grew close to their captors. Maybe this happened in Butler Lodge too. Maybe the ladies were just looking after their own interests by charming the young men.

There was another arrival at their table. The Major was introduced to Lady Lucy and gazed at the Pomerol in astonishment. ‘Good God! Did you bring that stuff with you, Johnny?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Johnny cheerfully, ‘there’s a heap of it here in the cellars. It’s in pretty good shape. You’d better try some.’

‘Now then, Lady Powerscourt, Powerscourt, Johnny,’ the Major was making his report, ‘I bring news from the front. I stayed at my post rather longer than I intended, I must confess. Thought I might catch a sight of some of the damn fish the lodge was built for but no luck. Wrong time of year. My chaps went through their full routine of crawling about on their bellies, shinning up trees without making a noise, the usual tricks. They report a total bag of five or maybe six, all aged about twenty or so, all carrying out various tasks inside the house. My most expert wallah, fellow by the name of Healey, claimed he heard one of the villains complaining he’d been made to do the cooking three days in a row. Didn’t hear the reply.’

Powerscourt told the Major about the sighting of the two women on the lawn.

‘Fillies in the paddock, eh? That’s damned good work. Now then, Powerscourt, your show here, of course, do you have a plan for tomorrow?’

Powerscourt did indeed have a plan taking shape in his mind for tomorrow but he was not going to mention it at this point or in this company. ‘Yes and no,’ he said, ‘Sorry for such an Irish reply. Do you have any suggestions, Major?’

‘Well,’ said the Major, rubbing his hand together, ‘I can’t see a way round the women and that’s a fact. My natural instinct, as taught by those clever chappies in the Staff College, would be to infiltrate the place. Trooper at every window, rifles drawn, pack of seven or eight lined up at the front door. Stand and deliver. Under normal circumstances that should loosen their bowels all right, the damned Paddies, all come out with their hands up demanding a glass of Guinness, that sort of thing. But it wouldn’t work with the fillies inside unable to flee the coop.’

‘Do you think they’ll try to make a run for it, Francis, now they know we’re here?’

‘Would you, Johnny?’ Powerscourt replied.

‘I think I would,’ said Johnny, emptying another glass of rich red wine. ‘The longer they stay, the more heavily the odds are stacked against them.’

‘I’m not sure,’ said the Major, screwing an elaborate monocle into his right eye for a closer inspection of the wine bottle’s label, ‘that it makes any difference if you have fifty fellows camped outside their front door or five hundred. As long as they have the fillies they hold the ace of trumps.’

‘I wonder if they’re waiting for something,’ said Powerscourt, ‘the day of the deadline perhaps. I forgot to tell you, I haven’t been able to find a single person here who speaks Irish and could translate that message we intercepted. There’s a bloody menu in Irish, for God’s sake, at least I presume it’s Irish. Hardly likely to be written in Bulgarian out here. There’s a helpful page written in what I presume is Irish with drawings of boats and horses which I imagine is some sort of guide to the local attractions, waterborne excursions up Killary Harbour, best places to hide a couple of Protestant women, that sort of thing, but not a soul will admit to being able to translate a few sentences.’

‘I think we should put a guard on the place tonight, Powerscourt,’ said the Major, eager for action. ‘They might well try to make a run for it. Fox’s last stand, what?’

‘Please do that, try to keep the villains awake, might dull their wits tomorrow,’ said Powerscourt, and the Major marched off.

‘Do you think they know they’ve had it, Francis,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, ‘that the game is up?’

‘I don’t think that’s how they see it,’ Powerscourt replied, ‘not yet at any rate. If Ormonde gives in to the blackmail tomorrow, then they’ve won. They leave the ladies behind and try to escape. In one sense, you see, our arrival has made the ladies’ position much safer, though I don’t know if they have worked that out yet. If they had killed them before we came and made good their escape, how could we have linked these young men to the deaths? Very difficult, if not impossible. But now they know they’re surrounded. If they kill the ladies they’ll be caught. Then they’ll hang. Even a Mayo jury would have to convict them. It’d be committing suicide. You’re not going to advance the sacred cause of Irish freedom by murdering a couple of harmless Protestant women. So why kill them? I can’t see any advantage at all, only the gallows waiting for you after a short spell in Castlebar Jail.’

‘Would you like to put that to the test by trying to storm the place tomorrow?’ Lady Lucy sounded very serious.

‘I would not,’ replied her husband.

‘I’m just going to sort something out in our room, Francis,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘and maybe I should dress for dinner. I’m sure they always do here in Leenane. I’ll see you both in a little while.’

Powerscourt took his friend out into the little garden that looked over the water. A stone nymph was blowing water on to the roses. A couple of fishing boats were coming in to land at the little jetty a hundred yards to their left. Powerscourt leaned over the wall and told Johnny of his plan. Johnny looked at him closely and took a great gulp of his Pomerol. ‘If I’d known you were going to say something like that, Francis, I’d have brought the whole bloody bottle with me.’ Johnny looked out towards the mountains, brilliant with sunlight. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘of course I’ll do it. Wouldn’t do it for anybody else, mind you. Have you told Lady Lucy?’

‘I’m not going to tell her this evening. It can wait until the morning.’

‘One other thing, Francis,’ said Johnny, looking at the tiny harbour, ‘don’t you think our friend the Major should mount a guard here too? The buggers could escape in a boat and nobody would know where they’d gone.’

After dinner that evening Powerscourt outlined part of his plan. ‘First thing in the morning, Major,’ he began, ‘could you send a couple of chaps up to the front door with a white flag. They’re to deliver this letter and wait for the reply.’

Lady Lucy was looking anxious. ‘And what does the letter say, Francis?’

Powerscourt pulled a sheet of the hotel’s finest notepaper from his pocket. ‘It says,’ he began to read, ‘“Lord Francis Powerscourt and Johnny Fitzgerald propose to call on your leaders at eleven o’clock this morning. They will not be armed. They suggest that a truce should be in operation from the receipt of this letter until the end of the meeting. Please give your reply to the man who brought this letter. Yours, etc, Powerscourt.”’

‘Spot of chinwag never did any harm in these circumstances,’ said the Major. ‘Mind you, the way these Paddies talk you could be in there till dinner time at the earliest.’

‘Expect we’ll be lectured about our desertion of the Irish cause for the King’s shilling,’ said Johnny gloomily. ‘There’s no fanatic as fanatical as a young fanatic, especially if they’ve been educated by the bloody Christian Brothers.’

‘And what are you going to say to them, Francis?’ Lady Lucy sensed there was something her husband was not telling her.

‘I’m going to try to point out to them,’ said Powerscourt, ‘that their position is hopeless. They’re outnumbered and outgunned for a start. In any fight they’re going to lose. I don’t think I’ll put it quite like this, but they have a choice between a bullet at Butler Lodge and the rope on the gallows. If they give themselves up peacefully, we will ensure that the authorities treat their cases with sympathy.’

‘I don’t think Dennis Ormonde would see it in quite those terms, Francis,’ said Johnny. ‘If he had his way, they’d be stripped and tied to those punishment triangles at the Octagon in Westport and flogged until their blood was running down the street.’

‘Well, he’s not here,’ said Powerscourt realistically. ‘We are.’

‘I’ve been thinking about the problem with the fillies,’ said the Major, looking suspiciously at a large glass of Irish whiskey. ‘Do you think we could mount a raid in the night? Get a couple of chaps inside, shouldn’t be difficult, find the ladies, whisk them out. Blast the rest of them to hell first thing in the morning.’

‘It’s worth considering,’ Powerscourt replied diplomatically. ‘Once we know the results of the meeting we will have to review all the options left. That would certainly be one of them.’

There was a full moon shining over Killary Harbour and the little garden of the hotel. Powerscourt and Lady Lucy were leaning on the wall, looking at the water, dark grey, almost black. A couple of fishing boats were pulled up on the shingle near the quay. The mountains to their right were dark and menacing. Somewhere up there, Powerscourt said to himself, the two ladies were spending another night in dangerous captivity. Did they know there was a rescue mission just five short miles away, eager to devise a plan that would restore their liberty?

‘How do you think they’ll be bearing up, Mrs Ormonde and her sister, Lucy?’

‘I expect they’ll be managing, anybody who can cope with Dennis Ormonde should be well equipped to handle anything.’

Powerscourt laughed.

‘I’m more worried about you, to be honest, Francis,’ Lady Lucy went on.

‘Do you think you’ll be all right, going to confer with these people?’

‘I’m sure I’ve talked to worse in my time,’ said her husband, wondering if now was the moment to give her the whole picture. He decided against it. As he fell asleep that night, realizing that the deadline, so long awaited, was about to arrive, he wondered if this was the last night he would ever spend with Lucy sleeping by his side.