“Easy now, Bernard. You can’t fight weather like this, so you just might as well go with it.”
The one-eyed terrorist was positioned behind the tug’s wheel and responded to this advice while once more easing back on the throttle.
“Damn it. Doc.
We’re barely doing ten knots as it is. At this rate, we won’t get to the Firth until daybreak.”
“And what’s wrong with that, my friend? That still gives up plenty of time to get up to Gare Loch and do our dirty deed just as the christening is about to take place.”
A particularly massive wave hit the tug’s hull at an angle, and the deck canted hard to starboard. A sturdy iron handhold kept Dr. Blackwater upright, while Bernard momentarily lost his balance and crashed into the side of the wheelhouse with his right shoulder.
Quick to recover, he grabbed for the helm to keep the tug on course.
“I was just hoping that we could get past the Sound of Bute before sunrise,” added Bernard.
“I’ve got a feeling that’s where we’re going to encounter the first Brit blockade.”
“What makes you think that they’ll be going to such an extreme?” asked the physician.
Bernard answered passionately.
“Oh come on, Doc!
You know how paranoid the Brits are! Just knowing that their beloved Queen will be passing over those same waters will be reason enough to stop every single vessel headed up the Firth.”
“And so what if they do, Bernard? Don’t forget that this tug is duly registered in the Port of Glasgow. Why we have just as much right to be on the Clyde than anyone else.”
“I’d still feel more comfortable penetrating the sound under the cover of night,” continued Bernard.
Again the tug rolled hard to the right, and this time it was the physician who lost his footing. Forced to reach out for the deck-mounted compass to keep from tumbling over, Dr. Blackwater just managed to remain standing.
Outside the glassed-in wheelhouse a murky twilight prevailed. The gray, ever-darkening dusk sky seemed to merge with the surging gray sea, and it was impossible to determine where the two met at the horizon. Oblivious to the poor visibility, Bernard steered on the bearing given to him by the compass. For the majority of their voyage, this course would take them almost due north.
They were in between swells when the door to the cabin opened and in walked Sean. His presence caused a sour expression to cross Bernard’s face.
“Phew! You smell like a dead fish, Sean,” observed the IRB’s co founder disgustedly.
“What do you expect after being down in the bilge for the last half hour with a couple hundred smelly cod for company?”
“How does it look down there, Sean?” asked Dr.
Blackwater.
“You’ll have to see it with your own eyes to believe it. Doc. You can’t even see the bomb anymore.”
“Bernard, that was a stroke of genius when you suggested that we stop that trawler and purchase its load,” offered the physician.
“I just hope we won’t be forced to test my theory,” replied Bernard.
Sean smelled his shirtsleeve and wrinkled his nose in disgust.
“Well, I can personally vouch for its effectiveness.
Those cod are only just starting to thaw out.
And since there’s no refrigeration in the bilge, they’re going to really be stinking to high heaven in a couple more hours.”
As a wave tossed the bow of the tug upward, and gravity pulled it abruptly back down into the sea again, Sean’s knees buckled. Reaching out to support him. Dr. Blackwater shook his head.
“I’d still feel better if you were down in the hold resting, Sean. That wound of yours has a good way to go until it’s healed, and one fall could rip it right open.”
“Then I just won’t fall, Doc. I hardly feel the pain anymore.”
“You young bucks are remarkable,” reflected the silver-haired physician.
“If it was anyone my age who suffered a gunshot like that, they’d still be in the hospital.”
“Me being laid up in Cootehill House was hard enough,” admitted Sean.
“Although I was lucky to have one of the prettiest nurses in all of Ireland attending to me. I wonder how Marie’s getting along?”
“As long as she has those blasted veggies of hers to take care of, she’ll be just fine,” said Bernard.
The mere mention of the precocious redhead caused a smile to turn the corners of the physician’s mouth.
“She has done a remarkable job with that vegetable garden of hers. I haven’t seen anything quite like it since my mother’s time.”
“Did your mother have a garden at Cootehill House too. Doc?” queried Sean.
“You don’t know the half of it, lad. Not only did she have a small plot for her personal use, but she was responsible for the upkeep of the rest of the estate as well. With my father perpetually out on house calls, she supervised the raising of sheep, cows, chickens, and pigs, and saw to it that over eighty prime acres of potatoes were properly cared for. She was sure something for a city girl, and now Marie’s just sort of moved in and taken her place. I can’t tell you how it does my heart good to see her enjoying the place like she does. I still say she’d make a hell of a wife, if one of you would get up the nerve to ask her.”
“I beg to differ with you,” said Bernard.
“Marie’s too independent to settle down permanently. Besides, I can just see her now, with a baby in one hand and an Armalite in the other.”
The three men shared a brief laugh as the deck beneath them rolled to and fro like a carnival ride.
“Speaking of marriage, how about you, Sean?”
asked the grinning physician.
“You’ve got to be kidding, Doc. When would I ever find time for a wife and kids? And since it’s a struggle merely to take care of myself, how would I ever support her?”
“Were you ever married, Doc?” asked Bernard.
The physician responded with a fond smile.
“That I was, lads. And she was a lovely girl at that. Her name was Patricia. She was a local gal from Dundalk. Her father was a surgeon, and it was when I inherited his practice that I decided to put down roots on the coast.
Though she couldn’t have children, she kept a warm, clean, happy house. And if it wasn’t for the cancer that eventually ate her up, we would have been married for forty-five years come this June.”
A moment of reflective silence followed, only to be broken by the cool voice of Bernard Loughlin.
“You know, I lost a wife myself. I took Catherine as my bride when we were both nothing but wide-eyed teenagers.
We even had two children, a boy and a girl.”
Amazed by this revelation, Sean interrupted.
“I didn’t know that about you, Bernard. Where are they now?”
“In a cemetery outside of Derry,” answered the terrorist bluntly.
“I lost the whole bunch of ‘em to a car bomb most likely meant for myself. I never did learn for certain who the bastards were that were responsible for this slaughter. Some say it was the RUC, others the Brits. And I even heard tell that the explosives were placed there by the IRA. But regardless of who did it, that was enough to show me that revolution and marriage just don’t mix.”
With no dark secrets of his own to confess, Sean excused himself to bring up some supper. It was pitch black outside by the time he returned with a large wicker basket filled with loaves of shepherd’s bread, a wheel of goat cheese, and a half dozen green apples.
Though the pitching seas did little for their appetites, they forced themselves to eat to keep up their strength.
Bernard volunteered to take the first evening watch, leaving Dr. Blackwater and Sean free to go below and get some rest. Two bunk beds filled the vessel’s single stateroom. It was while he lay on the bottom mattress of one of these bunks that Sean got the nerve to ask a question that had been on his mind since they’d left Dundalk.