‘Women faint with adoration when he passes by…’
‘He can travel like the wind, silent as a blackfellow or raging like a storm, whichever suits his purpose …’
‘He’s so strong that other men drink their whiskey with one of his beard hairs in it as a concoction to give them almighty strength.’
Connor slaps his knee. Marshall throws his stinky arm around you.
‘And oh, how he loves his daughter. If he has one weak spot, you’re it. You’re the last name on his lips in prayer under every starry night. He’s sworn an oath to save you, and by God he’ll keep it.’
At that point in the story, Marshall leans over you and tries to plant a hairy, slobbery kiss on your lips. You scream and duck. He lunges for you and knocks over the wooden table, and glass shatters everywhere.
Connor starts swinging at Marshall, yelling, ‘She’s young enough to be your daughter, Marshall. Ryan’ll bloody scalp you. Didn’t you hear a word I said?’
Marshall shouts in reply: ‘He’s dead. Ryan’s dead for sure. You’re mad to think otherwise!’
Before you can help yourself, you’ve joined in the fray, kicking Marshall and spitting like a cat, so blinded by emotion that you don’t notice the soldier coming up behind you until his hand falls heavily on your shoulder. You are taken away.
YOU ARE SENT to prison, charged with disorderly conduct and escaping your master. Every new day that you awaken within those stone walls feels like a bad dream. Only a few months ago you rescued Sarah from here. Now you have fallen lower than low, your hair roughly shorn from your head as punishment, blisters on your hands from the long days of scrubbing laundry in the burning sun.
Hope feels like some scarce, long-forgotten luxury – like butter, or a fur-collared cloak. No one will ever come to rescue you as you rescued Sarah. Or so you think.
In this matter you have no choice. Go to scene 37.
‘Sarah,’ you say, gripping her hands urgently, ‘take Bobby back to the master. I’m not coming home with you.’
Sarah laughs and shakes her head. ‘Oh, very funny, wild Irish girl.’
‘Sarah, I love you dearly, and we’ll be together again someday, but I have a chance to find my da right now – the best chance I’ve had! A gentleman came while you were away; he said I reminded him of someone. See this hanky? LSO – they’re his initials. I’m sure he knows Da!’
Sarah looks gobsmacked. She is still shaking her head, but she isn’t laughing anymore. Bobby tugs at her hand. ‘Sarah? My knee’s all right now. Let’s go and meet Father.’
Sarah’s gaze hardens. ‘Yes, we all will,’ she says firmly, ‘and no more nonsense from anyone.’ She looks at you pointedly, and reaches out to take your wrist, as if you were another child.
You wrest your arm away. ‘He’s my flesh and blood, and he’s somewhere right here on this island. If I give up and go back to work now, I’ll go mad!’
‘I think you already have,’ she says quietly. ‘I thought I was a sister to you.’
Tears spring to your eyes. You’d rather she yelled and cursed – you can’t bear the sight of her so disappointed, so crushed. After all she’s done to help you today, you are treating her like this …
You shake your head and push the feelings away. You don’t trust yourself to speak, so you just blow her a kiss, then turn and run. Your stomach twists itself into knots, and the lump in your throat grows. But you climb up onto the docks and start running up the hill towards the shops in town, the direction in which the mysterious gentleman went – and, just like that, you are gone. You are now an escaped convict on the run.
You slow down to a walk so that you don’t look suspicious. You know Sarah won’t call the redcoats on you, but you do wonder what lie she’ll tell the master. And what will Bobby say?
You look down at the hanky in your hand, spotted with Bobby’s blood. ‘L’ could be for Leonard, Louis, Liam, Lawrence …
You reach the main street, but the mysterious gentleman is nowhere to be seen. You start to feel like the world’s biggest fool for taking such a risk. Where will you stay tonight? How on earth will you hide and survive? Sarah’s right – you’re mad.
Taking a deep breath, you open the door of the nearest grocer’s shop. ‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ you say to the woman behind the counter, ‘a gentleman dropped this – I’m looking to return it to him. A tall Irish gentleman with ginger hair.’
The woman looks you up and down suspiciously. ‘How did you know he was Irish?’
You pause, gulp. ‘I … overheard him talking. His initials are LSO – see?’
‘Yes, I see. Had a bleeding nose, did he, this Irishman? Can’t say as I know anyone of those initials. Plenty of Irish names beginning with “O”, though – O’Grady, O’Brien, O’Malley, they’re all “O”-somethings, aren’t they? Well, leave it here. I’ll put it up on the noticeboard there, and someone might claim it.’
‘If you don’t mind, ma’am, I’d rather take it to the gentleman in person …’
‘Well, it so happens I do mind. Either you don’t trust me to take care of a bleeding hanky for a while, or you think there’ll be some sort of reward for you if you deliver it yourself. Either way, I don’t want you in my shop! I suppose your accomplice is around the shelves nicking something while you distract me with a cock-and-bull story, is that it? Out – go on – out!’
You begin to rush out of her shop just as a red-coated soldier steps in. The sight of his uniform, the gun slung over his shoulder, the commanding way he is staring at you, triggers some sort of rabbit reflex in your brain, and for
