The Family on Paradise Pier. Dermot Bolger

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       FOUR The Motor

      Donegal, August 1919

      Maud was surprised at the ease with which she discovered the location of the remote cottage being used as a temporary headquarters by the local IRA commander. A mark of how the villagers trusted the family was that it only took Art five minutes to emerge from the smoky gloom of MacShane’s public house with directions and a respectful warning that he might be found with a bullet in his head if he did not keep his mouth shut. But it had not gone unnoticed how the family had so far declined to contact the constabulary about last night’s incident, which had begun when Brendan announced at dinner that he could see men moving about in the coach house. They had all watched from the window as four armed strangers pushed the family’s battered Ford across the yard to the gate, then cranked up the starting handle, climbed in and drove off.

      Father had placed a hand on Maud’s shoulder when sensing her about to intervene. Last year his cousin the Countess became the first woman ever elected to the British House of Commons. She refused to take her seat however, setting up an illegal assembly in Dublin with other Sinn Fein MPs instead, which proclaimed the right of its volunteers to use arms. Donegal had seen little of this new lawlessness, but remote police barracks were being attacked, and there had been raids on Big Houses by masked men seeking weapons.

      Locals knew that Father didn’t hold a gun licence, so last night’s raid was confined to the outbuildings. But Maud was determined to recover the motor. Father had no idea about this expedition but Father rarely bothered to use the motor, whereas, since finishing school, Maud had become at eighteen the first female in Donegal to drive. Learning was not easy, because Father, himself an infrequent driver, had been nervous about teaching her. But after Art was given permission to drive the motor, there had been no way in which Maud was going to be forbidden. Now, having fought for that right, she was simply not going to simply see their motor stolen. She did not wish to bring Art, but after divulging the address he had refused to let her cycle up into the hills alone.

      Although she thought she knew the area, Maud would have been lost by now except that Art had a mental map of every sheep track for miles around. The sixteen-year-old rarely paused for bearings, but cycled up the negotiable parts of the steep track and carried his bicycle over stretches potholed beyond repair. By now they were probably being watched. The IRA lookout would think them picnickers at first, only growing alarmed as their destination became clear. Maud knew that she was taking a huge risk and their informant in the village might be in danger too. Yet all she could think about was the damage surely inflicted on the motor when it was driven up this rough boreen. Branches on both sides must have destroyed the paintwork.

      Art stopped to scan the hilltop where, beneath a clump of trees, there was the entrance to a cottage.

      ‘Do you think they’re really there?’ he asked.

      ‘They will have seen us coming for miles.’ Maud looked back down the steep hill. Having left Dunkineely fuelled by righteousness, she was now apprehensive, sensing that the respect she was accustomed to might be absent in this new world of desperadoes. Would they be locals whose faces she knew, or strangers? Which would be the most dangerous? It was whispered that flying columns rarely stayed under one roof for more than a few СКАЧАТЬ