“They took your panels, Branna,” says Lorelei.
“I know, pet. Nothing I could do to stop them. Did they pay a courtesy call down Dooneen track, I wonder?”
“They stole Mo’s panels off her roof too,” I say, “but when they heard the explosion they left, before they took mine.”
“Yes, our crew cleared off at the same time.”
I ask Branna, “What about Declan and Max?” and she shrugs and shakes her head.
“They’re not back from the village,” says Tom, adding disgustedly, “Mam won’t let me go and find them.”
“Two out of three O’Daly males in a war zone is enough.” Branna’s worried sick. “Da told you to defend the home front.”
“You made me hide,” Tom’s sixteen-year-old voice cracks, “in the fecking hay loft with Izzy! That’s not defending.”
“I made you hide in the what?” says Branna, icily.
Tom scowls, just as icily. “In the loft with Izzy. But why—”
“Eight bandits with the latest Chinese automatics,” Izzy tells him, “versus one teenager with a thirty-year-old rifle. Guess the score, Tom. Anyway: I believe I hear a bicycle. Speak of the devil?”
Tom has only just time to say, “What?” before Schull starts barking at the farm gate, wagging his tail, and round the corner—on a mountain bike—comes Tom’s brother Max.
He skids to a halt a few yards away. He’s got a nasty gash across one cheekbone and wild eyes. Something terrible’s happened.
“Max!” Branna looks appalled. “Where’s Da? What’s happened?”
“Dad’s—Dad’s,” Max’s voice wobbles, “alive. Are you all all right?”
“Yes, thanks be to God—but your eye, boy!”
“It’s fine, Ma, just a bit of stone from a … The fuel depot got blown to feckereens and—”
His mum’s hugging Max too tight for him to speak. “What’s with all the cussing in this house?” says Branna, over his shoulder. “Your father and I didn’t raise you to speak like a gang o’ feckin’ gurriers, did we? Now tell us what happened.”
WHILE I CLEAN Max’s gashed cheek in the O’Dalys’ kitchen, he drinks a glass of his father’s muddy home brew to steady himself and a mug of mint tea to muffle the taste of the home brew. He finds it hard to begin until he begins. Then he hardly pauses for breath. “Da and me’d just got to Auntie Suke’s when Mary de Bъrka’s eldest, Sam, calls round, saying there’s an emergency village meeting at the Big Hall. That was noon, I think. Pretty much the whole village was there. Martin stood up first, saying he’d called the meeting because of the Cordon falling and that. He said we should put together Sheep’s Head Irregular Regiment—armed with whatever shotguns we had at home—to man roadblocks on the Durrus road and the Raferigeen road, so if or when Jackdaws break through the Cordon, we’d not just be sat around like turkeys waiting for Christmas, like. Most of the boys thought it was a sound enough idea, like. Father Brady spoke next, saying that God would let the Cordon fall because we’d put our faith in false idols, a barbedwire fence, and the Chinese, and the first thing to do was choose a new mayor who’d have God’s support. Pat Joe and a few o’ the lads were like, ‘F’feck’s sake, this is no time for electioneering!’ so Muriel Boyce was shrieking at them that they’d burn, burn, burn because whoever thought a pack o’ sheep farmers with rusty rifles could stop the Book of Revelation coming true was a damned eejit who’d soon be a dead damned eejit. Then Mary de Bъrka nnhgggffftchtchtch …” Max grimaces as I extract a small flake of stone from his cut with a pair of tweezers.
“Sorry,” I say. “That was the last bit of grit.”
“Thanks, Holly. Mary de Bъrka was saying it’d do us no harm to follow the principle that the Lord helps those who help themselves, when we heard engines, lots of them, roaring our way. Like the Friday Convoy but much, much louder. The hall emptied, and into the square drove twenty Stability jeeps, plus a tanker, too. Four, five, six men got out of each. Big bastards, Ma. Big mean bastards. Stability guys andmilitiamen obviously from outside the Cordon. We were about matched man to man, but there’d not be much of a fight. They were armed to the teeth and trained to kill, like. This big Dub, he climbed on a jeep roof and spoke through a megaphone. Said his name was General Drogheda, and the former West Cork Lease Lands were now under martial law following the collapse o’ the Cordon. He’d been sent by Cork Stability to requisition all the solar panels on Sheep’s Head for government use, and to commandeer in Stability’s name the diesel that’d been delivered yesterday. Well, we looked at each other, like, ‘Not feckin’ likely.’ But then yer man Drogheda said that any opposition would be treated as treason. And treason, under Clause Whatever of the Stability Law Act of Whenever, would be dealt with by a bullet through the head. Martin Walsh walked up to this General Drogheda’s jeep and introduced himself as mayor of Kilcrannog and asked for a closer look at the requisition orders from Cork HQ, like. Your man got out his revolver and shot the road between Martin’s shoes. Martin jumped six foot in the air and six foot back. Drogheda, if that’s his real name, said, ‘Is that a close enough look, Mr. Mayor?’ Then he said if any hero tried to stop them they’d empty the food depot, too, and we’d be eating stones all winter.”
“Stability’d not behave like that,” says Branna. “Would they?”
Max drinks the brew, winces, and shudders. “Nobody’s sure about anything now. After Drogheda’d said his piece, about ten of the jeeps left the village along the main road heading Dooneen way, another ten drove to the edges of the town to get to work, while the rest stayed put. Then out came ladders from the back o’ the jeeps, and up went men from each crew onto every roof with a panel. A pair stayed below fingering their weapons, like, to discourage any argument. Meanwhile the tanker was emptying the fuel depot. We were all muttering and furious, like—these robbers’re robbing our feckin’ diesel!—but if we’d tried to stop them they’d have mown us down, cold, like, and taken the panels anyway. We knew that and there was feck all we could do. By and by the tanker was full, the roofs stripped of panels, and jeeps were coming back into the square, waiting for the ones that’d gone down the Knockroe road to come back, I guess. Then … it happened. I didn’t see it kick off, but I was with Da and Sean O’Dwyer when I heard a godalmighty ruckus from by General Drogheda’s jeep …”
Sparingly, I dab Max’s cut with antiseptic cream and he winces.
“Drogheda was yelling at a militiaman. He had an Audi symbol round his head, saying hewas head of operations, and if yer man din’t like it, then he could … Well, it was to do with his mother’s … Doesn’t matter. The wind had dropped, the shouting echoed round the square, and I watched another o’ the scruffier militiamen stroll up behind Drogheda and, uh …” Max frowns, swallows, tries to stop himself crying, can’t, and the wheels come off his voice. “Shot his brains out. Point blank. Right feckin’ … there.”
“Oh, God, no,” whispers Izzy.
“Oh, my poor boy,” says Branna. “You sawthat?”
Max hides his face in his hands and steadies himself for a few seconds, breathing deeply. “Oh, that was just for starters, Mam. The Stability men and the militias went at each other like dogs, dogs with guns. It was a hailstorm but with bullets, like, not hail.” He’s angry with himself for blubbing. “Like an old war film, with stuntmen falling off roofs, men crawling on the pavement …” Max looks away and shuts his eyes hard to keep out the picture but he can’t. “Us villagers scrambled clear, as best we could, but … Mam … Seamus Coogan got a bullet.”
I can’t help it: “Seamus Coogan’s hurt?”
Max starts shaking and he shakes his head.
Tom asks, wide-eyed, “Seamus Coogan’s dead?”
Max just nods. Izzy, Branna, Lorelei, Tom, and me look at one another and feel the cold wind of the near future. I was talking to Seamus Coogan only yesterday. Max drinks up the rest of the homebrew and carries on as if his sanity depends on telling us what saw, and maybe it does. “I—I tried to … but … it was all instant, like.” Max shuts his eyes, shakes his head, and sort of wipes the air with his hand. “Da pulled me off, shouting there was nothing we could do for him. We legged it round the back o’ the Fitzgeralds’ and hid in their garage. Just in time. The tanker in the square got hit and—you heard that, right?”