Rosa's Island (38 page)

‘It does concern them, Da. Matthew found the stuff in 'barn and Byrne told him what it was – and about us. And I told them about Carlos.'

‘You did what?' His father stared incredulously. ‘You idiot. You blockhead! Why did you do that? Are you completely out of your senses?'

Jim nodded. ‘I probably am. But I also know that I'm sick to death of lies and deceit. I can't go on living this half life any longer. I've drunk from 'cup of regret and bitterness and I'm ready to tek my punishment if I have to.'

‘Well, so you might be,' his father grunted. ‘But I'm not.' He tore off his nightcap and turned to pick up his breeches from a chair in the bedroom. ‘I'll do a deal with Byrne. Get him safely off Sunk Island if he keeps quiet.'

Jim shook his head. He couldn't believe his father's behaviour. Had he no thought for anyone but himself? ‘It's too late for that,' he attested. ‘I've already sent for 'authorities.'

‘What!' His father stopped in the action of putting a leg into his breeches.

‘I've sent a messenger,' Jim said. ‘I've alerted Hedon.'

‘But not Patrington?' His father hurriedly pulled up his breeches and buttoned them. ‘We can try to get him out over 'bridge into Patrington.' He hesitated. ‘That is, unless they've put a watch on it. Mebbe we'll tek him over in a waggon at first light. Then if he's caught we can swear we didn't know he was in there.'

‘Swear on 'bible, shall we, Da?' Jim came into
the room and wearily sat on the side of the bed. ‘Call heaven as our witness?' He put his head in his hands. ‘You're not listening to me. What would Ma say if she knew?' he muttered. ‘Would she forgive us?'

His father looked askance. ‘Don't dare bring your mother into this! This has nowt to do with your mother!' His voice thundered, but had a shaky edge to it and Jim knew that his barb had hit home.

‘I won't help you, Da. I've a scheme to catch him and I won't be put off. You've manipulated me since I was a lad of thirteen. I've had 'threat of gallows hanging over me and not once have you tekken any of 'blame.'

He knew that time was getting on and that Byrne would be waiting for the horses, yet he couldn't stop the outpouring of wretchedness. It had lain festering for so long, and now, like a foul boil, it erupted, spewing forth his regrets, griefs and sheer misery.

His father was rendered speechless and stood with one hand on the iron bedhead and the other clasped to his mouth as he gazed at him. Finally, Jim stood up. ‘So, I'm telling you. I'm going to catch Byrne and his brother, cos he'll turn up too, sooner or later, and if they tell of what happened all those years ago and I go to jail, well, so be it.'

There was a sudden crack of thunder and a flash of lightning lit the room as James Drew said in a low voice, ‘You won't go to jail. It'll be me.'

‘Don't give me that, Da,' Jim said dejectedly.
‘Don't start playing 'martyr now. It's too late for that.'

‘No. No, I'm not. It was me. It wasn't you.'

Jim looked at him. His father's face seemed grey, even though the low fire in the hearth cast a glow to the room. ‘What was you?' He glanced towards the window at the rosy reflection of the fire.

‘I killed Carlos. It wasn't you. I was holding 'gun. You tried to knock it out of my grasp as I pointed it at him. I was the one with my finger on 'trigger.'

‘Da! Look! Summat's on fire!' Jim pointed to the window. In the blackness of the night sky came a red glow and sparks flying into the air. ‘God in heaven,' he cried. ‘It's Marsh Farm! It's on fire!'

MATTHEW'S LEGS WERE
beginning to ache. He could only carry one roll of fabric at a time down the ladder and he had been up and down a dozen times already. Byrne sat on a bale of straw with Rosa at the side of him. He loosened his hold on her each time Matthew went up the steps and took hold of her each time he came down.

Matthew emptied one crate and started on another containing tobacco. He sniffed the pungent aroma which emanated from the sacks and put one over his shoulder. Holding the other in his hand, he shuffled carefully down the steps again.

‘Ah, baccy!' Byrne said. ‘I can smell it from here.'

‘Customs will smell it too if they get near,' Matthew muttered and loaded the two sacks into the waggon next to the rolls of silk.

‘But they won't get near, will they? They'll not be expecting me in a waggon. Come on,' he said, as Matthew took a breather. ‘We haven't got all night. I told you I want to be away before dawn.'

Matthew climbed up again and picked up
another two sacks. He carried them down under Byrne's gaze, stored them in the waggon and went up again. He's tiring, he thought. Sitting down has made him sleepy. Byrne had put his head back against the wooden structure whch made up the bays and was watching him through half-closed eyelids.

Again he collected another two sacks of tobacco and took them to the top of the ladder. Byrne was having difficulty in keeping awake. His head kept jerking as he fought sleep and Matthew saw Rosa edging away from him. The knife was lying loosely in Byrne's hand. Matthew put down the sack and as Rosa looked up at him, he put his finger to his lips. He picked up the sack again and stepped silently down.

Halfway down he stopped. Byrne's eyes were closed and Rosa had managed to edge herself along so that she was sitting right on the end of the bale. Matthew indicated that she should move further away, came down another few steps, then, putting down one of the sacks, he lifted the other high and hurled it towards Bryne where it crashed against his legs, waking him. Rosa sped away, out of his reach.

Matthew grabbed the other sack, sprang down the remaining steps and, keeping hold of the neck of the sack, launched the bulk of it at Bryne, as with an oath he jumped to his feet. The weight of it caught him and he staggered and dropped the knife. Matthew launched the sack again at Byrne, hitting him on the side of his head.

‘Run, Rosa. Get out,' Matthew shouted, and she ran towards the door, but hesitated, holding
onto it. ‘Go on,' he shouted again. ‘Run. Go to John Gore's. Get help.'

Still she hesitated, and Byrne, now seemingly recovered, hit out at Matthew with his fist. ‘She'll not get there in time,' Byrne snarled. ‘You'll be dead before she's halfway there.'

‘We'll see about that,' Matthew retaliated. He was younger and stronger too, of that he was sure. Byrne might well have powerful muscles from digging ditches, but so had he. Working on a farm was no job for a weakling. His arms, shoulders and chest were hard and muscular from digging and ploughing, scything and threshing, as well as handling horses and oxen. He was also taller and more heavily built than Byrne.

He dropped the sack and punched Byrne on the nose. Byrne drew back, a trickle of blood running down towards his mouth. Fury was in his eyes and he lashed out wildly at Matthew, catching him on his cheek. Out of the corner of his eye, Matthew could see Rosa still hesitating by the door. Why doesn't she run, he thought distractedly, and took another blow from Byrne which sent him staggering.

‘Matthew! Watch out.' Rosa gave a warning shout as his feet came too close to the lantern. Byrne, though, didn't see it as he lunged again at Matthew and caught it with his foot, crashing it over onto its side. The glass broke, the oil seeped out and a small tongue of flame licked the loose straw which had spilt from the bales, and ignited it.

Matthew stamped on the burning straw, but
Byrne hit out at him and he ducked away, fielding Byrne's wild blows and striking out at him. He saw the flame as it sped along the straw towards a bale, and called again to Rosa. ‘Go for help,' he urged. ‘Place'll go up in flames. Pax,' he shouted at Byrne. ‘We've got to put 'fire out!'

But Byrne didn't seem to hear him or see the flames catching the bale of straw and licking up the sides of the wooden waggon. It was as if his blood was up and all he was intent on was wreaking revenge and right now, Matthew was the enemy.

They fought hard and furiously and Rosa screamed from the doorway for them to get out. Smoke started to billow about them as the fire took hold of the other straw bales and then the waggon, then the rolls of silk were set alight and, with a great whoosh, the flames tore through the casks and lit up the brandy, sending up spirals of blue and yellow flame which curled above them, blackening the upper storey of the barn.

Matthew took a step backwards. The smoke was thick and choking. He couldn't get his breath, his chest was heaving, and he couldn't see Byrne whom he had just sent crashing to the floor with a blow to his chin. ‘Byrne,' he shouted, ‘where are you? We have to get out. Byrne! Answer me!'

Rosa suddenly appeared at his side, carrying a bucket of water which slopped over her feet as she heaved it into the heart of the flame where the lantern had been.

‘I told you to run,' Matthew shouted at her. ‘Go fetch help.'

‘I couldn't,' she sobbed. ‘How could I go and leave you with that madman? He was going to kill you.'

‘Fetch another bucket of water,' he bellowed. ‘I'm going to try and find him—' As he spoke there was a tremendous crash and a weakened blackened joist holding the upper level of the barn pitched to the ground, bringing down the wooden ladder and part of the floor, blocking the doorway and their exit.

‘Matthew,' Rosa clung to his arm. ‘We're trapped!'

Jim dashed into the stable block and brought out a young mare. She was a jaunty mover, used to pulling the trap, and didn't object to having someone on her back, though she didn't travel at great speed. He sprang onto her, unsaddled, and dug in his heels. His father was left in the yard staring after him as Jim shouted, ‘Go to John Gore's. Tell him to fetch as many men as he can. And a pump. We'll have to pump water out of 'ditch. There'll not be enough in 'tanks.'

As he rode, he knew that he must get there as fast as possible to save Matthew and Rosa. They were there with Byrne and he could only think that they were in very grave danger, and because of what had happened in the past, it was his fault. His and his father's.

It wasn't you. It was me
. He could hear his father's words echoing in his mind as the mare cantered steadily at one speed, and no amount of urging and kicking made her move any faster. What did he mean? That incident on the night of
nearly twenty years ago had been so confused and blurred that he had never really comprehended what had happened, and in order to preserve his sanity he had deliberately blocked it out of his mind.

He remembered Carlos full of smiles. He had told Jim and his father a few weeks before that he was to be a father. ‘I am so happy,' he had said, when he announced the news. ‘My beautiful wife, she gives me this gift. I must be worthy of them both. My wife and child. I will give up the smuggling. It was an exciting life but now I will become respectable!'

His father had been angry with Carlos, arguing that they would lose good business, but Carlos was adamant that he would give up the smuggling, he would become an honest seaman. James Drew had turned away and Jim saw that stubborn look on his face which appeared whenever he was crossed. He had been absent for several hours, missing his supper.

The sun was slowly sinking on that fateful evening when Jim came across his father and Carlos in the middle of another heated argument, on the track leading off the island. Carlos was holding the reins of a black stallion which belonged to Mr Jennings. James Drew was bound for the marshes for he had his loaded fowling gun with him, a canvas bag over his shoulder and a dog by his side. According to Carlos, a messenger had brought the news that the ship with the Byrne
s on board had arrived in Hull with a consignment of goods, which were waiting to be taken off. Carlos was
now on his way to tell the Byrnes that he was going to declare the goods to the Customs officers.

‘You may find it's too late,' Drew had insinuated. ‘Customs may well be on your trail.'

‘Pah!' Carlos had said. ‘How can they be? There is no-one who would tell.' But then he had become suspicious of James Drew's devious manner and asked him point-blank if he had told the law. Drew bluffed, but Carlos now knew that he had double-crossed them out of sheer perversity and spite.

Jim remembered now, as he rode towards Marsh Farm, that he had stood back, terrified at the anger in his father's voice and manner. It was as if he had a madness in him, a violent passion that was about to burst, and as Carlos shouted that he had betrayed them and lunged towards him, Drew lifted his gun and pointed it at him.

Jim gave a great sob of anguish, as he had on that night. ‘No, Da! No!' There was a rumbling of thunder and a fork of lightning lit the sky and, like a bright light suddenly illuminating his vision, he remembered. He had rushed at his father, his hand reaching up for the fowling gun. But his father had swung away out of his reach, then swiftly turned again towards Carlos, who stood as if carved in stone. Jim saw the whole scene as if he was in a trance and moving at half speed: Carlos's horrified expression and the movement of his hand as he crossed himself, his father's determined attitude and his finger on the trigger.

‘No, Da. No!' He shouted again out loud as he
neared the blazing building. All of this, the tragedies of Carlos and his drowned wife and orphaned child, the Byrne brothers making an unwelcome return for vengeance, the smuggling which his father had once again agreed to, came rushing into his head. And the reaching for the fowling piece once more, and the crack of the shot as it hit Carlos in the forehead, echoed in his mind as the timbers of the barn roof crashed to the ground.

‘Look what you've done,' his father had blamed. ‘Look what you've done! I was onny going to frighten him. You've killed him. That's what you've done, you've killed him!'