The Devil's Acre (23 page)

‘What did you say about me boy, Slattery?
What did you bleedin’ say?’

Around them, arguments began over spoiled bets and quickly grew heated; several vigorous attempts were made to catch or kill as many rats as possible; and somewhere in among it all the little ratter barked in frustration at the ruining of his game. Slattery bucked, struggling hard. Martin adjusted his position, fastening his hands around the bastard’s neck. That was it; he had him now. Fingers clawed at his knuckles, trying to work themselves inside his grip, but it was no use. Martin realised that he was grinning. He squeezed tighter.

‘Enough.’

It was Molly, her voice stern and cold; Martin caught a glimpse of a girlish form gliding through the press of barging men, her hair tasting the air behind her like a long, forked tongue. What the devil is this, he thought – why is she restraining me now? It made no sense at all, but he loosened his hold; and immediately Slattery knocked him back, rocketing up from the shadowy floor and butting Martin’s chin with the flat plate of his forehead. This barely had time to register before something struck against the side of his skull, a blow swung in from behind, jolting him into a dizzy, sparking emptiness. When he returned to his senses a moment later he was being tipped down the tavern’s narrow
staircase. A strapping pot-boy met him at the bottom, taking his place in a well-practised system of ejection; he dragged Martin to his feet, punched him a couple of times and then shoved him out into the street before he’d had time to regain his balance. Carried forward by the momentum of this push, Martin staggered to the centre of the road before falling heavily onto his side.

The Manticore stood next to the fermenting sheds of a small vinegar yard and opposite a sprawling riverside brewery, and the various powerful smells produced by these two establishments – bitterly acidic, cloyingly meaty, revoltingly sour – hung in the surrounding air. Both were dark now, their gates shut; the Sunday night hush was broken only by the tavern sounds leaking from the Manticore and the steady patter of rain. Martin drew up his knees and rocked himself into a crouching position, clutching at his head. There was blood, a tender lump and one hell of an ache, but no serious damage. He’d been lucky. Then Molly’s whisper tickled the inside of his ear, slipping between the raindrops, admonishing him softly. He swatted at it as if it were a biting insect.

‘Ah, leave me be,’ he muttered. ‘Ain’t you had enough bleedin’ fun?’

The tavern door creaked open and Slattery emerged, dabbing at a split nostril with his sleeve. Martin sprang straight to his feet and dived at him again. A body rushed in to stop him, though, clasping thick arms around his chest and holding him back. It was Jack Coffee; Martin saw that the other Mollys were there also, Owen, Thady and Joe, coming out behind Slattery. They must have been in the Manticore as well, away in the crowd.

‘Protestant mongrel, weren’t it?’ Martin cried, fighting against Jack’s grasp. ‘Ain’t that what you bleedin’ said, ye miserable louse?’

Slattery came closer, splashing through a puddle. Even in that gloomy lane, unlit save for a single lime-light burning outside the railway yard at its end, Martin could tell that he wore a wicked sneer. ‘Look at this, my lads – drunk on his sorrow. Crying in the bleedin’ streets.’ He shook his head
and spat on the ground. ‘I’m ashamed o’ you, Martin Rea, truly I am. The sons of Eire cannot afford the luxury o’ grief.’

Martin took another lunge, almost breaking free from Jack’s arms; but something in the way that Slattery squared up to meet this attack quashed his spirit, stripping the fight from him completely. As always, the fellow had transferred all sense of grievance onto himself, admitting no fault in what he’d done. He was ready to beat or get beaten yet would not yield a single inch. Pat Slattery was more likely to remove his boots and cap and leap into the Thames than utter a single word of apology or remorse. Martin stopped struggling. Sensing his surrender, Jack released him and took a step backwards.

Slattery’s hackles were up, though; he wanted a battle. Pouncing forward, he grabbed Martin’s face between his hands, pressing damp fingertips hard against his cheek and neck. ‘You’re forgetting the task to which you’re pledged,’ he declared, clenching his bloody teeth. ‘All of us here,
all of us,
are bound by our soul’s oath to Molly Maguire. She’s looking to us, Martin, to you and me, to get her some bleedin’ justice.’

Martin barely managed to keep his voice level. ‘I don’t know, Pat,’ he said.

Slattery was still for a second. Then he leaned in even closer, pressing their foreheads together. His skin was cold; his breath smelled of gin and raw onion. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Mart,’ he murmured, ‘this is some dangerous ground you’re stepping onto here. D’ye not remember Roscommon, and all we did in Molly’s name? D’ye not remember Denis Mahon?’

‘Aye, o’ course I do – how could I not?’ Martin pushed Slattery away impatiently. ‘I just can’t say what she wants of me no more. Not for sure.’

Now Slattery was smiling in scornful disbelief. ‘What the devil are you talking about? She wants us to knock over Lord John. Summer’s nearly at its end. That filthy Saxon parliament will soon be starting a new session. Our man will be out in the city a good deal. And that’s when we’ll get him.’

This blunt summary made Martin suddenly perceive their long-cherished plan for what it truly was. The Mollys had convinced themselves that their escape would be easy – that Colt’s revolvers would enable them to shoot their way to safety once the deed had been done. It was a lie, he realised, nothing more than a piece of soothing self-deception. They might well kill Russell, and several others besides, but they were certain to be chased down shortly afterwards. A gang of Irishmen armed with revolving pistols would be simple to track, even back into the Devil’s Acre. Molly’s scheme would surely end in their deaths, either right there in the streets or upon the gallows of Newgate. Martin thought of Greenwich Park – of how he’d returned to the shadow of the oak to find that Katie had wandered off down the hill, fallen flat on her face and was shrieking uncontrollably; yet Amy, slumped once more in a dismal, weeping heap, hadn’t noticed. They needed him. To do Molly’s will would be to abandon them utterly.

‘Oh, see the certainty there, brothers!’ Slattery crowed, turning towards the other Mollys. ‘See the pure
bleedin’ faith
in his eyes! Ain’t that the very fellow you want at your side when the trouble starts, eh?’

‘The bugger don’t want to go through with it,’ growled Thady. ‘It’s plain as day.’

Martin tried to deny this but it was no use; he’d said no more than three angry words before Slattery interrupted.

‘Aye, Thady, I believe you’re right. He’s too afeared for his Saxon wife and the child still living.’ He patted at his face as if searching for a bruise. ‘Ah, Christ above, I knew this would occur. You were the best among us once, Martin, honest to God. I should’ve damn well stopped it, and now it’s too bleedin’ late.’

Curtly, Martin told Slattery that he was not his master, nor had he ever been; that he did as he pleased and no attempt to halt his marriage to Amy Knox would have had any chance of success. And furthermore, he said, he was loyal to Ireland, and to Molly Maguire, and would not hear it claimed otherwise.

Slattery wasn’t listening. ‘Your union with that Saxon
woman put clear distance between us, and each child you had with her only added to it. And just look at what’s happened now. Your boy is dead, finished by one of the plagues of this hellish Saxon city, and all at once you no longer have the heart for Molly’s toil.’

Martin knew then what was coming. He stayed quiet, crossing his arms, staring up at the blank, boarded windows of the Manticore.

‘You’re doing a deal better with the guns, I s’pose,’ Slattery continued, ‘along wi’ that vicious bitch o’ yours, the sister-in-law. What is it, three pistols now? Who’s got ‘em?’

‘I have,’ said Owen. ‘They’re safe, Pat.’

Slattery nodded, strolling back over to the other Mollys. ‘Here’s how it will be, Mart. You get us the rest o’ the dozen, wi’ bullets and powder and whatever else these Yankee contraptions need. And then we’ll let you go.’

There was a short, significant silence. Martin could feel their grins through the darkness; behind him, Jack cleared his throat, shifting about uneasily.

‘What d’ye mean?’

‘Get us the guns,’ Slattery repeated slowly, ‘and we’re through wi’ you. We don’t need you for the job itself. We don’t bleedin’
want
you, chum, if truth be told. Molly Maguire don’t want you. Not for this.’

A week earlier, Martin would have protested this ruling with all his might, and demanded the chance to demonstrate his commitment in various hot-headed ways. Now, though, he thought only of flight, of doing as Amy had begged him to back in the park: of going to Mr Quill and asking him to arrange a transfer to the Colt works in Hartford. Slattery was right, it seemed. He’d lost his heart for their task.

‘You’ve a month, Mart, before the Saxon parliament opens again and Lord John returns to London. After that, if we’ve got what we need, you can take your little Saxon brood off wherever you damn well please.’

With that he led the Mollys back into the Manticore. The tavern door opened, throwing a shaft of warm light across the street, allowing Martin to see the contemptuous glances
being cast at him by those filing through it – those he had so recently counted as his brothers. And there she was, Molly Maguire, slipping from the deep shadows around the vinegar yard to go in with them, drifting ghost-like along the tavern wall, quickening her step to reach Pat Slattery’s side. She was cackling to herself as she went, a cruel, rattling sound, unlike anything he had heard from her before; his casting-out seemed to amuse her.

The door closed again, restoring the street’s darkness. Martin stumbled over to the brewery gates, leaning against them, sliding down until he was sitting on the ground. Gingerly, he touched the lump on the back of his head. It had grown to the size of a half-walnut, and was even sorer than before. His headache was getting worse as well, curling slowly around the top of his spine, squeezing the wakefulness out of him; he felt as if he could sleep where he sat, out in the rain. At that moment he was thinking not of Slattery, nor of Molly’s scheme, nor even of his wife and daughter and departed son, but of the work that awaited him in the coming morning. He was expected in Colonel Colt’s engine room at seven o’clock sharp. The new Yankee engineer, Mr Ballou, was a stickler for punctuality, and both he and Mr Quill would expect the usual long day of intelligent labour. How could he, so battered, dazed and exhausted, possibly hope to supply it?

Jack had remained outside, and was standing in the centre of the lane, regarding him uncertainly. ‘Are ye going back in, Mart?’ he asked. ‘To watch the ratters?’

‘I don’t think they’d have me, pal.’

‘I ain’t neither.’ Jack looked off towards the light outside the railway yard. ‘Got to get me to Rosie McGehan’s for ten, so I have.’

‘What, she has you smashing murphies on the Sabbath?’

‘Aye, she’s a tough mistress, that one.’ Jack paused, kicking at a loose cobble. There was something he wanted to say. ‘You are doing a good thing, Mart, whatever Pat might think. You must see to your family. Too much has been lost already.’

‘Aye, Jack,’ Martin replied warily, ‘it surely has.’

Jack was satisfied; he’d spoken his mind. ‘Shall we walk back to the bridge, then?’

Martin nodded. Jack extended a hand, heaving him to his feet, and together they started along the street.

Word reached the engine room shortly after noon – Walter Noone had rooted out some more villains who’d hidden themselves among the workforce. Following some questioning in an empty chamber of the warehouse, their source reported, the watchman was about to expel them from the works. Martin’s first thought upon hearing this was of Caroline. A cold cramp twitching in his stomach, he set down the spare piston ring he’d been cleaning and climbed up onto the workbench beneath the room’s single narrow window, set high into the yard-facing wall.

The moment for the expulsion had been chosen carefully. The yard was full of operatives taking their dinner break with the usual clamour; all fell silent, however, as the front door to the warehouse opened and two men were pushed through it into the sunlight. Both were bleeding from the nose and mouth, their eyes closing fast under the weight of bright, bulging bruises. One of them was sobbing, cradling a shattered hand in the crook of his arm. Noone and a couple of his henchmen came behind, clad in their dark army-style uniforms, shoving the pair towards the main gate. Martin breathed a short, hard sigh of relief. There was no sign of his sister-in-law. She had not been caught, thank God. There was hope; they could still get the guns.

The straight-backed watchman looked over at the engine-room window, seeming to spot him there – and promptly reached out to seize the collars of his prisoners, bringing the little procession to a halt. ‘How ‘bout it then, Mr Quill?’ he shouted, his stony features somehow expressing livid amusement. ‘How ‘bout it, sir?’

Martin realised that the chief engineer had got up onto the table beside him and was peering out through an adjacent pane. He’d been so lost in his fears for Caroline that he hadn’t even noticed.

‘Spies, these two, from the workshop of none other than Robert Adams,’ Noone went on, speaking with mocking clarity. ‘Here to jot down the details of the Colonel’s machines and then wreak as much mischief upon them as they could. So please, Mr Quill – have I your permission to continue? Does their removal from the Colt Company meet with your approval?’

This was a crude reprisal for Quill’s intervention in Martin’s own case, which had obviously left a nick in Noone’s pride. The stocky engineer was scowling, muttering oaths against the cracked, sooty glass of the window. His point made, the watchman slapped each of his captives about the head, prompting them to continue their shambling progress towards Ponsonby Street.

Martin jumped back down to the engine-room floor, sat on his stool and tried to return his attention to the piston ring. Despite his staggering fatigue, he’d lain awake throughout the previous night, turning the situation over in his mind. He’d considered fleeing with his family – going to Mr Quill and requesting an immediate transfer to Hartford, as Amy had begged him to – but soon saw that it would be futile. To leave London now was to make the Molly Maguires his sworn enemies. He honestly did not want this; and besides, he knew only too well what the consequences would be. The Hunger had scattered the Mollys far and wide. They were certainly in America, and in numbers. Were he to make it across the Atlantic, there’d surely be a gang of knife-wielding Tipperary boyos waiting for him on the docks at New York.