Spirited Away - A Novel of the Stolen Irish (2 page)

CHAPTER
2

May
1653

The
O'Brennan girls wandered along the village beach, which was empty except for a
man in a black coat. He sat on a flat rock at the far end of the strand. Freddy
shaded her eyes from the late morning sun to see him better. 

       "Here!"
Aileen called from the water's edge, sinking to her knees and attacking the wet
sand with Aunt Kate's wooden hand spade.

       Freddy
rushed over, swinging a small leather bucket. Barefoot for the first time this
year, she padded into the bay and dipped the pail into the water.

       "Oooh!
It's icy!" She cried, pouring out some of the seawater. Then she knelt
next to her sister and scooped two handfuls of sand into the pail.

       "Look
at the squiggles," Aileen said. "We'll get plenty here."

       "For
plenty of cod," Freddy said. Lugworms were the best for catching fat fish
from the bayside rocks near the village.

       "Mam
will be happy."

       "She
will, she will." Freddy lifted her face to the spring sun, waiting for
Aileen to find the worms. She loved Aunt Kate and the breezy stretches of sand
along Galway Bay, but sorely missed Da. She wondered where he was on this fine
morning, and sent up a quick prayer that he was all right. He and Freddy had
always been inseparable, working side by side on the farm in spite of Mam's
objections. Mam worried that Freddy was too boyish and muscular to catch a good
husband.

       Freddy
sighed, rested on her heels, and gazed at the bay. How lovely it would be to
gallop Firewind down the beach, the fresh sea wind in her hair. There'd been no
time for riding since arriving here. She scolded herself for her ingratitude.
Many a family did not fare so well. As the O'Brennans had fled to County
Galway, they'd shared the road with a starving family from Kilkenny City. Mam
offered them as many potatoes as she could spare. One day they'd come across
orphans trudging alone, faint from hunger. Mam crowded them into the cart so
they could rest and nibble on dry biscuits. 

        "Eww!"
Aileen held a six-inch-long lugworm in her spade. "Hurry!"

       Freddy
yanked Aunt Kate's work gloves from her apron pocket, put them on, grabbed the
big worm, and placed it in the pail.

       "Here's
another, even bigger!"

       Again
Freddy handled the shiny marine worm, which had red gills running down the
sides of its brown body. Before long the girls had filled the pail with live
bait. Carefully covering the worms with more sand and seawater, they ambled
down the bright strand and dipped their bare toes in the gentle waves. Freddy
left the little bucket on the sand, hiked her skirts up, and skipped around
Aileen in the chilly shallows, splashing her. Aileen shrieked and tried to
throw water at Freddy with the spade. Tiring of their game, they gazed across
the sparkling water to the black-streaked hills of the Burren and filled their
lungs with the sweet May air.

       Then
they waded in a little stream that meandered across the sand. Freddy noticed
the man walking toward them, his arms piled high with bundles. She wondered why
he wore such a heavy coat on this delightfully warm morning.

       "Let's
go catch the biggest fish," Aileen said.

       "Very
well." Freddy retrieved the pail and headed toward the seawall.

       "Say
there!" 

       Freddy
stopped and turned.

       "Would
you help an old fool?" The man had dropped two of his bundles on the sand.

       Freddy
looked at Aileen, who shrugged.

       "How
do you mean?" Freddy asked him.

       "My
back pains me." His gray-whiskered face twisted in misery. "If you
would kindly carry my parcels into the village, I will give you sacks of papaya
sweetmeats. Here, taste some."

       She
and Aileen each gobbled down a piece of candied fruit, their eyes widening at
its exotic flavor. Their empty stomachs rumbling, they agreed to help.

       "We
were just going into the village," Freddy said, cheerfully hoisting
several parcels and trying to keep the bait pail from spilling. The sisters
followed the old man up the stairs onto the seawall and along narrow lanes that
wound through rows of whitewashed cottages with crimson flowers and neatly
thatched roofs.

       Rounding
a corner, the man suddenly turned and shoved them through a doorway, into a
chamber where young women and girls stood packed together, trembling and
whimpering. Freddy's mouth dropped open as the man threw off his coat, roughly
grabbed his parcels, and leered at them. The leather pail flew from Freddy's
hand out the door, rolling into the lane and leaving a trail of lugworms and
wet sand.

       "Got
'nough 'ere!" he bellowed out the door.

       Three
English soldiers rushed in. The one wearing a shiny helmet and breastplate paid
the man, brandished a long musket, and declared to the frightened group that resistance
would bring death then and there. "By order of Oliver Cromwell himself, ye
papist whores are bound for Hell or Barbados!" he shouted.

       The
women began wailing. Freddy and Aileen clung to each other, casting terrified
glances at the others.

       "No
trouble now, and no noise!" the soldier commanded from the doorway.

       The
other two men, who wore red coats and no armour, handed their muskets to the
leader and tied the twenty or so captives together, securing each with heavy
ropes around their wrists and waists. As one wrapped the rope around Aileen's
wrists and tightly knotted it, the young girl turned bewildered eyes on her
sister.

       "This
must be a mistake—" Freddy began.

       "I
said no noise, no trouble!" the soldier in the doorway thundered, waving
his musket at her.

       It
happened in blurry slow motion. The musketeers drove them like livestock down
the coast road. Along the way people watched, aghast but helpless under the
scrutiny of Cromwell's ruthless men.

       "They
could be your own dear mothers and sisters!" cried one bystander, an older
woman who stopped hanging her wash in the sun to look.

       The
soldiers whipped their muskets around, pointing them at her. "One more
word!" the leader shouted. "Just one more, and ye'll go with
'em!"

       When
Freddy caught her first sight of the filthy slave ship awaiting them at the
Galway City wharf, she lost her nerve and panicked, struggling against the
ropes.

       "Stop!"
someone barked from her right side. As she turned toward the sound, the
uniformed man clobbered the side of her skull with the heel of his musket.

CHAPTER
3

May
1653

Wedged
against a timber, Freddy opened her eyes and blinked in the semi-darkness. She
carefully raised her pounding head and could make out rows of women and girls
crammed into a small compartment. The stink of vomit and human excrement hit
her, and she gulped back a wave of nausea. Freddy felt her aching head and
found a tender, sticky spot. She looked at her fingers, gasped at the dark
blood on them, and pressed the cloth of her sleeve against the wound. Aileen,
tucked beside her, whispered sleeping breaths on the side of Freddy's neck. Her
slight body rolled away as the vessel pitched.

       "Aileen?"
she whispered. The younger girl didn't stir. Freddy leaned over her, anxiously
watching her chest rise and fall. Aileen's face looked peaceful, with her
golden-brown hair still half pinned up. She appeared uninjured. Freddy exhaled
with relief, clenching her fists at the notion of anyone hurting her little
sister. Aileen wasn't tall and strong like she herself was. The sisters did not
resemble each other whatsoever – except for their eyes. They had both inherited
the sloping, emerald O'Brennan eyes.

       Lying
back again, Freddy's mind was flooded with the memory of how they had ended up
here. With a muffled moan she covered her face with one arm, grimaced, and
pressed the heels of her palms against her closed eyes. She wriggled onto her
side, facing away from her sister, to relieve her aching back. Resting her
throbbing head on her hands, Freddy glumly stared at the dark wood of the hull.

       Stolen.
Spirited away. All for an empty promise of sweets. It was her fault, God help
her. Mam had sternly told them never to speak to strange gentlemen. If only
Freddy had obeyed for once. Her shoulders heaved as hot tears ran down onto her
hands. Mam was right. She said that her eldest was a wild O'Brennan through and
through, full of fire and rowdy passion that must be managed somehow. She
believed that Freddy must pray to Jesus to change her unruly ways.

       Everyone
had heard the stories of Cromwell's men kidnapping Irish Catholics and selling
them into slavery. Being "Barbadosed," they called it. But the rocky
west of Connaught was said to be a safe haven for those who'd been forced to
flee from their own ancient family lands.

       She
slowly shifted to her other side, careful not to disturb Aileen.

       The
sickening stench of the cramped hold hit her again and she gagged. She pulled
up her apron skirt, covered her nose with it, and breathed through her mouth. Dim
light poured from a single overhead hatch secured with a padlocked metal grill.
The compartment was quiet except for the ship's groaning and male voices
singing a bawdy ballad somewhere beyond a partition. Some of the smaller girls
were sitting up, their noses covered with layers of their skirts. As the ship
lurched, Aileen stirred in her sleep and again rolled into Freddy.

       The
ship lunged, more sharply this time. Every minute, every ocean swell, took them
further from Mam, from their sisters, and from E
́
ire. Along
with the next wave of nausea came another, even stronger surge of wretched
homesickness. Freddy blinked back more tears, picturing her family around the
fire in Aunt Kate's snug cottage.

       Oh,
that God Almighty may bless us and save us, she whispered into her apron. With
His help, she and Aileen would make the best of this, make their way back to
Mam and the others. Somehow they would. They must. They were, after all,
O'Brennans – the fiercest warrior clan in all of E
́i
re.

       Freddy
clenched her jaw, took a deep breath, and lifted the apron from her face. She
wiped her eyes and again held the fabric against her nose, shivering in the
damp dark. Her bare feet were like ice. She curled up tight to warm them under
her skirts. Now the only thing Freddy could see was the hatch. She watched as
the square of light gradually disappeared into the night.

       Spotting
her first star, Freddy folded her hands and whispered more fervent prayers, a
single word echoing through her mind like a drumbeat: home, home, home. As she
prayed, she kept her eyes on the star. Then something moved, blocking her view
of the star. Shadows flickered around the hold, from a flame held near the
grate. Thick fingers held a torch, waving it back and forth above the hatch.

"We
must eat it, all of it," Aileen whispered, "and thank God and His
angels that we're not sick like poor Bridget." Freddy nodded and dug her
spoon into her morning slops, willing herself to force it down. This time it
was gritty potato peelings, fat and gristle, mashed grain, and a bit of yam.

       "Captain's
orders," Silas, their skinny gaoler, mumbled as he again locked the grate
from above, ignoring their pleas. The latrine pot had not yet been emptied. Its
contents slopped over with each roll of the ship, creating a putrid mess.

       "Silas,
have mercy!" It was Ciara this time. "The rats bite and the bilge
water is sloshing…"

       But
he was already gone.

       "Ach,
that he may shit sideways!" the high-spirited girl fumed.

       A
slender beam of sunshine from the hatch lit the hold this morning. They were
packed like herrings, each person allowed two feet in width and six feet in
length. As the wretched ship sailed south, they coped with the reeking hold by
taking turns crawling over each other to press their noses against the grate
and gasp what fresh air they could. Freddy tried to make it last as long as
possible by quickly covering her nose and mouth with her apron when she
finished inhaling unsullied air.

       Ciara,
whose place was next to Aileen's, said that among the women were thieves,
prostitutes, and prisoners. Some had burned their crops when Cromwell's men
came. Others had given in to the temptation of liquor, then were spirited away.

       Bridget,
the seasick one, claimed to be engaged to a Barbados planter. The girl vomited
and moaned again where she lay just below Freddy's feet. Severe illness had
already taken a toll on the underweight girl, who could barely stay on her feet
long enough to use the latrine. Freddy had caught a glimpse of Bridget in the
daylight, and was shocked to see that the girl's face had a greenish hue. 

       Having
managed to swallow their slops, the O'Brennan sisters crawled over the others
to the latrine pot. Waiting for Aileen to finish, Freddy watched a hefty rat
approach her sister's bare ankles. She held back until just the right moment,
then gave it a fierce kick. The rodent rolled, let loose a piercing squeal, and
scurried away.

       "Bless
ye, lass," a nearby woman said, "mayhap it will die."

       "Mayhap,"
Freddy answered, holding her skirts as she carefully squatted over the latrine.
"We need the captain's cats. They'll kill the vermin." She lifted her
face toward the grate. "Silas!" she called. "Throw down the
cats, will ye?"

       No
response came.

       "Ach,
let's talk of better things," Ciara said with a deep sigh as Aileen and
Freddy crawled back over her to their places. "
Nidhe Israel Synagogue Museum
in
Bridgetown is considered the oldest synagogue in the Western Hemisphere. Built
in the 1650s, it now features colorful panel displays and multimedia presentations
about the history of Jewish culture on Barbados.
Like what awaits us
beyond the wide sea."

       "The
West Indies are said to be perfect altogether," Bridget said in her faint
voice.

       "Like
the legendary
Tir na
nÓg
, the Land of Youth," added a girl Freddy could not
see.

       "Warm
sun each day, and beaches white as sugar," Ciara enthused.

        "Where
bananas grow wild." The voice came from the far side of the hold.

       "And
coconuts too," someone added.

       "And
the yellow fever and starvation and slaves worked to their deaths!"
another chimed in. "Good Irish folk kidnapped, Barbadosed, and never heard
from again. Didja know old Cromwell believes Catholics are right devils with
tails and all?"

       "…devout
Irish women raped and tortured," an older voice put in.

       Silence
fell, heavy as a tombstone. 

       "That
God may give us strong backs to bear our burdens," Freddy offered, quoting
Mam.

       "Aye,
aye, that He may," the others answered in a chorus.

       "Enough
of yer yammerin'!" someone bellowed from above.

       With
a bang, the hatch door slammed shut.