After ten minutes on the good road, Powerscourt decided it was time to move. The two young men were dozing or asleep. He nudged Johnny Fitzgerald very gently in the ribs. They both arched back very slowly on their seats to gain maximum purchase. Then, in unison, they drew their knees up to their chins and they launched themselves as hard as they could, boots first, into the crotches of their enemies. Powerscourt followed this up with an enormous punch with his right hand into Seamus’s cheek. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Johnny doing the same thing. Seamus fell to his right. Powerscourt reached out his left hand and opened the door. He grabbed the young man by the top of his shirt and the seat of his trousers and propelled him towards the door. Two vigorous kicks were enough to send him into the outside world. Powerscourt closed the door and turned to administer a final kick to the departing figure of Mick on the other side. Johnny closed the door. They had left the season of Darkness behind them.
‘By God, that was good, Johnny,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Give it ten seconds or so and go tell the coachman to keep going for another four hundred yards as fast as he can. Then we can review the situation.’
No pistol shots followed them up the road. Powerscourt rubbed at the knuckles of his right hand. They would be sore for some time from the punch that felled the one called Seamus. Johnny clambered out and took up his position beside the coachman. Now they heard shots behind them, three fired at brief intervals first, and then two volleys of about eight or nine rounds at a time. A scream echoed round the mountains and its noise and the gunshots sent the sheep scurrying for whatever cover they could find. Johnny stopped the coach. Powerscourt had picked up the book Mick had been reading. It had fallen on the floor at his departure. The Wind Among the Reeds, Fisher Unwin, London, 1899, the title page said. W.B. Yeats. And him, Powerscourt thought, a Protestant poet from Sligo, a man of the Anglo-Irish, read by such an ardent and uncompromising Catholic nationalist as the young man called Mick.
They could hear horses coming at speed. ‘Powerscourt,’ shouted the Major, ‘are the two of you all right?’
‘Never better,’ Powerscourt replied cheerfully, ‘bit thirsty, that’s all. Catering department non-existent among these nationalists. Thirst must be meant to be good for you. What was that firing a moment ago?’
‘Young fool,’ said the Major, ‘the one you must have thrown out on the left-hand side of the road, thought he’d take us on. Must have seen he was outnumbered about twelve to one. Maybe the natives never learn to count out here. Anyway he loosed off a few, couldn’t shoot straight incidentally, so we had to reply. He’s gone,’ the Major looked round at the desolate landscape for a moment, ‘to the great peat bog in the sky.’
‘I think he always preferred death and glory, that one,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Nothing finer than giving your life in Ireland’s cause. What about the other fellow? He told us his name was Seamus but he’s really called something else. I think he was the brains of the enterprise.’
The Major laughed. ‘Brains, was he? Well, he’s not looking too clever at the moment. Doubled up, he is, whichever of you two kicked him in his private parts did for him good and proper. Pity we’ve only got one in the bag, but better than nothing.’
Powerscourt thanked the Major for his swift appearance on the scene. ‘We were right behind you all the time,’ said the military man. ‘Had a bet on what time you’d break out, actually, Powerscourt.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Damn it, I think I may have won. I said you’d see off the little green people five minutes ago. Good show, what?’
Johnny made a special request. ‘Does anybody have anything to drink in this godforsaken place?’
The Major looked at his troops. ‘I am blind,’ he said, ‘I cannot see a thing.’
Half a bottle of John Jameson was handed over to Johnny Fitzgerald who took an enormous swig. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘thank you so much. By God, that tastes good.’
‘I say,’ said the Major, ‘I’m forgetting my duties. We’ve got a couple of spare nags with us. Thought you might like to totter back on your own. Leave all this mess to us,’ he waved his hand at the corpse on one side of the road and the doubled-up figure on the other, ‘we’ll clear it up.’
As Powerscourt and Fitzgerald began the ride back to Leenane a vicious hiss pursued them down the road. ‘Traitors, bloody traitors to Ireland, both of you.’ The face of the one called Seamus was doubled up with pain as he spoke but there was no doubting his sincerity. One of the troopers kicked him hard on the side of the head.
‘Shut up, you piece of Fenian shit,’ said the trooper. ‘From now on you can learn some bloody manners. Don’t speak, unless you’re spoken to first.’
Lady Lucy Powerscourt was still at her prayer station in the garden late that afternoon. She watched the street that led up to the Maum road. Twice in the last half-hour she had heard horses’ hooves and human voices but it was only a farmhand and a man come in to buy some tea from the store. Still she waited. She said more prayers. She looked at some fishermen unloading their catch and a man from the hotel kitchens obviously haggling about prices. A priest went by on his bicycle and smiled at Lady Lucy. Three small boys trotted past her kicking at a stone in the road. Then she heard laughter that she thought might be Johnny Fitzgerald’s. Johnny had a very distinctive laugh. She wondered if she should run down the road to meet them, if it was them. Something told her not to. If her prayers had been answered, then it was only proper to wait in that place for her deliverance. She heard Francis’s voice. The two of them were hidden temporarily by a bend in the road. Then she saw them, rather dirty, rather dishevelled as if they had been in a fight, but not wounded or hurt. She pulled out a handkerchief and waved it furiously.
‘Francis!’ she shouted. ‘Francis!’
One of the horses broke into a gallop. ‘Lucy, my love! Lucy!’
Then Francis was beside her, holding her tight in his arms. ‘My own love,’ she said, ‘you’ve come back! Thank God! Oh, thank God!’
Half an hour later Lord Francis Powerscourt was lying in his bath. Lady Lucy was plying him with champagne as she listened to his adventures.
‘There’s to be a great dinner tonight, Francis,’ she told him. ‘To celebrate the release of the ladies and your escape. The Major organized it before he left. He said he might sing a song, the Major.’
‘God save Ireland,’ said Powerscourt, ‘if the Major sings a song.’ He wondered if a wake had been organized too in case he and Johnny had not returned but he didn’t like to ask.
‘And Dennis Ormonde is coming from Ormonde House,’ Lucy went on. ‘He’ll be so pleased to see his wife again.’
Lady Lucy left to attend to some matters in the bedroom. There was still some time before dinner. Powerscourt rose slowly from the waves and draped himself in a series of towels. He thought of A Tale of Two Cities again. It is a far better thing I do now, he said to himself with a wicked grin, than I have ever done before. He advanced into the bedroom and kissed Lady Lucy firmly on the lips.
‘Francis,’ she said, and then in a different tone altogether, ‘Francis!’ She moved to close the curtains. The worst of times were over.