The Promise of Light (11 page)

Signs appeared on doors.
CREW ONLY
. They were handwritten signs, stuck up with white tape that looked as if it had been borrowed from a first-aid kit.

Maybe a liner wouldn’t have been as expensive as all that, I thought. Not if I traveled second class. At least they might have a library. I thought of green felt-covered tables in the reading room and brass buzzers you could press which would bring a waiter up from below. Then I’d ask for coffee and the waiter would bring it on a tray with silver tongs for lifting crumbly sugar cubes into my coffee, holding them there until the cubes vanished. And maybe once I’d slide a silver teaspoon up my sleeve and carry it to my room and study the liner’s crest engraved on the handle.

I imagined myself walking the liner’s deck, hands behind my back, nodding hello to people sitting in chairs.

The
Madrigal
’s deck was not a place where I could walk with my hands behind my back. The times I climbed up from below, I moved from one clump of tarpaulin-covered crates to another, feeling the hammer of waves more sharply here than in my cabin. Iron-gray sky seethed above the ship. A small tractor was tied down on the bow, blanketed with wornout tarps, which were held around the crates with lengths of ginger-colored hempen rope.

My lungs filled with the emptiness of ocean air. Before this, the farthest I had ever been out to sea was half a mile beyond Narragansett Bay. There, I could still smell traces of land and the horizon was bubbly with trees. But here it was only the sea.

The cylinder lay nestled in my suitcase. Sometimes I caught sight of it as I unpacked a clean shirt or unfolded a new pair of socks. Once I took it out and held it. The weight of it strained at my wrists.

I tried to imagine how Ireland would be. I painted pictures of it in my head, but the pictures were blurry and vague, like watercolors. All I came to know was how little I’d been told about the place.

A plan formed in my head of how I would go about uncovering my parents’ past. I phrased the questions I would ask, and even designed a poster to be nailed up on the local noticeboards. I would be persistent but polite. I would circle and keep circling until I had uncovered every layer of what I didn’t know. There was enough money to stay for a while. I’d even pay bribes if I had to, as soon as I could get to a bank and change my dollars into local currency.

It was my great adventure. I started to enjoy myself, and I found a resolve that I had never felt before.

In the long, midocean nights, I convinced myself that I would have no difficulty. The hard part, I thought to myself, was getting to Ireland, and I had as good as done that already. The people of Lahinch would be as interested to know about the lives of my parents after they had reached America as I would be interested in knowing how they were before they left. I imagined a breathless exchange of stories, which I promised myself I would write down and save and pass on to my own children some day. And if it turned out that they were not my true parents, then I wouldn’t waste any time in finding my real mother and father. I knew it might make for some awkwardness. I felt I was ready for that. But I wouldn’t let anything get in the way. If one person did not want to answer my questions, then I would ask someone else and keep asking until the truth was finally spat out. I tried to picture a different set of parents, but I couldn’t. I only saw the same two faces that had softened so gently with age as I grew up beside them.

*   *   *

Lifeboats had been lowered on deck. Crewmen unbattened tarpaulins and stacked wooden crates in the boats. They lifted the crates by their rope handles, showing the weight with grimaces dug into their cheeks.

I had put on my suit, the same one I wore when I’d landed my job at the bank.

I realized now that we would be mooring offshore and rowing the supplies in. Perhaps the port was too small for their ship, or too crowded and they didn’t have time to wait for the docks to clear. I snuffed out the idea of myself walking down a gangplank and onto the quay.

The captain stood outside the wheelhouse, hands in pockets. He nodded down at me.

Mist hedged us in. Each movement of legs and arms and lips sent a smooth stream of particles twisting away to regroup.

The only sound the crewmen made were grunts when they lifted boxes and more grunts as the boxes swung into the lifeboats.

I walked over to them. “Need some help?” I took off my hat as I spoke. Water had made drops on its felt brim and ran across my fingers.

“Help? You can help if you want, Yank.” Baldwin tweaked the buttons on my coat. “Got into your city clothes, have you?”

“So we’ll be rowing to shore?” I tried to make conversation.

“We’ll be rowing in. That’s right.”

“How are you going to deliver that tractor?” Engines drummed up through the deck plates.

“We’re making two stops. We deliver the tractor to Galway city. This stuff in the boats, this is the first stop. Lahinch. Your stop.”

“But I’m getting off in Galway.”

“You get off where the captain tells you to get off. Either that, or swim ashore from here.”

*   *   *

It was three-thirty in the morning. Land bunched in a dark wave just beyond the mist. The heavy smell of plowed fields drifted in.

I sat on my suitcase and smoked a cigarette. The captain would show up sooner or later and then I would have words with him.

The lifeboats had been loaded. They hung in their cradles, ready for lowering into the water. More crates still lay on deck.

“Evening, Mr. Sheridan.” It was the captain. He stepped out of the shadows in his heavy rubber boots.

I pulled the cigarette from my mouth. “I’m getting off in Galway, aren’t I?”

“No, sir. We received a radio message to let off our passenger here instead. You’ll be met.”

“Why the change?”

The captain shook his head. His close-cropped beard looked as if it had been chipped off a slab of flint.

“Did Willoughby tell you why I’m coming to Ireland?” It seemed stupid to keep the thing secret any longer. I wished I hadn’t taken Willoughby’s advice.

The captain squatted down. He balanced on the balls of his feet. “Mr. Sheridan, I didn’t want to bring you here. When he first asked me, I told him I wouldn’t. But Father Willoughby insisted. I owe him a favor or two. I didn’t ask questions. You kind of get a feeling for when questions aren’t meant to be asked.”

“It’s really quite simple…” I rapped my knuckles on the suitcase, ready to explain.

“Well, if it’s all that simple, you should have gone on one of those big ocean boats that have brass bands and shuffle-board.”

“I didn’t have the money.” The cigarette had started to burn my fingers. I flicked the stub over the side.

The captain watched the arc of the falling cigarette, as if he didn’t like to see even those few shreds of tobacco wasted. He aimed a finger at a lifeboat that had been lowered to the water. “Time to go ashore, Mr. Sheridan.”

“But where’s the port? I don’t see any lights.”

“We’ve gone as far as you’re going.”

Worry fluttered in my chest. Then suddenly it was everywhere, racing through my veins. “This isn’t right.”

“Either you go in that lifeboat or I’ll have Baldwin throw you overboard. I had to stop him from doing that once already.”

I stared at where the captain’s eyes had been before the shadows took them away. “What the hell’s going on?”

The captain ran a finger along the bridge of his nose. “Mr. Sheridan. I’m not going to ask you again. I’ve done you too many favors already.”

*   *   *

I climbed down a rope ladder, using one hand to grip the bristly hemp and the other to hold my suitcase. The lifeboat rose up with each wave and clumped against the hull. Baldwin sat in the boat, ready to set out the oars. As soon as I stepped into the boat, Baldwin shoved the boat away and started rowing toward shore.

The sky was purple and gray. A beach showed pale between the water and the clouds.

A wave struck the boat sideways. It fell on us in heavy rain. I tried to brush the water off my clothes before it soaked in.

“What’s the matter with you?” Baldwin’s fists tightened around the oars.

“What the hell are we doing, Baldwin? Where’s the port?” I hoped that the anger in my voice would jolt the truth out of him. And I hoped he could not hear the panic that had taken over my heartbeat and my breathing.

“Well, if you don’t know by now, then you’re better off not knowing at all.”

“All I know,” I leaned forward and shouted, “is that you guys aren’t delivering any fucking farm supplies!”

Baldwin laughed in my face. “Well, you’re right about that. You must be academic.”

“So what is it then?” I grabbed a crate and tugged at the lid. The nails groaned in the soft wood as they started to come loose.

“You leave those alone, you stupid bugger! You’ll get us both killed.” Baldwin jammed his oar blades deep into the coal-black water.

I gripped the crate and tugged again. The lid tore off. A smell of oil wafted up in my face.

“Now look what you’ve done, you bloody idiot!” Baldwin stopped rowing. He pulled in the oars. Silver threads of water trickled from the oar blades.

I squinted at the crate. I ran my hand across the cold metal and wood inside. Rifles. “You sons of bitches.” The spit dried up in my throat.

“Well, what did you think was in there? Did nobody tell you back in Boston?”

I lifted one of the rifles from the crate. They were new Springfield ’03s, the same gun that Bosley used to go deer hunting each year in the Great Swamp.

“And there’s plenty more than that.” Baldwin jabbed me with his boot. “We got fifteen crates at twelve guns to a crate and that makes … makes a lot.”

“We’re all going to jail.” My eyes had dried out, too.

“No, we’re not. If they catch us, they’ll kill us.”

“Damn you, Baldwin.” I heaved the rifle into the water. It slipped into the waves and disappeared.

“Here!” Baldwin lunged forward. “You can’t do that!”

I swatted him aside. I took another gun and threw it over. “They’re all going in! You’re not stopping me.”

Baldwin knotted his hand into a fist and swung and missed. Then he swung again and struck me on the temple. “You fucking useless cowboy. You don’t know what you’re doing!”

My ear felt as if it was on fire. I grabbed another gun and threw it over. Baldwin’s fist smacked into my other ear. Now my head buzzed as if it was filled with wasps. I grabbed another gun.

A strong light appeared suddenly from a hillside across the bay. It swung like a branch of ivory across the water.

Baldwin’s face was suddenly bleached in the glare. “Oh, Jesus.”

My eyes wouldn’t focus. The boat seemed to be dissolving in the harshness of the light.

“That’s the British army.” Baldwin grabbed the oars and sank them into the water. He began rowing toward shore, leaning back to make the boat go faster. “They’ll shoot us before we get anywhere near a jail.”

I gaped at the beam. It swung back and forth through the fog. Searching.

Another wave exploded on the lifeboat. Light turned the spray into splinters of glass.

Baldwin heaved at the oars. “As soon as we hit the beach, you’ve got to get the crates out. There should be people there to meet us. You got to work fast.”

I breathed in, ready to spit out my anger at Baldwin. But the anger had gone and only fear remained.

Now there was movement on the beach. Men waded into the surf as the lifeboat came into shallow water. Their arms swung above the waves as they came close.

“There’s people coming toward us.” My throat had tightened so much that it hurt to speak.

“Now you got a choice, Yank.” Baldwin pulled in the oars. “You can help us get these guns out of here. Or you can stand here and do nothing. And I swear to God you’ll never get a word out of your mouth before the English shoot you and leave the seagulls to peck your bloody eyes out!” Then he stood up, ready to jump over and haul the boat through the surf.

I pulled him back. “Tell me who they are!”

“It’s the Irish Republican Army. At least it would be if you’d leave them something to fight with.” Baldwin struggled free of my grip and vanished into the water. He grabbed hold of a rope that looped along the length of the lifeboat and started hauling the boat. Now men from the beach joined him. Their faces barged out of the dark. All of them were breathing hard. Their soaked clothes slopped in the water.

For a moment, I stayed sitting in the boat. Baldwin was telling the truth. The worry on the faces of these men was proof enough.

The searchlight blazed on the curved planks of the lifeboat. I could feel it. It sapped all the blood from my skin. I swung myself overboard.

The water was freezing. It came up to my waist. Breaking waves shoved the lifeboat forward so that I found myself pulled toward the beach. My cramped hands gripped the ropes.

We heaved the boat forward through the surf, coughing when the waves slapped our mouths.

“You said there wouldn’t be any soldiers!” Baldwin yelled at the others.

The man closest to me called across. “They got a tip. We did everything we could.” Salt water coursed off his chin.

The beam swung out to sea. It found the
Madrigal
and burned along the hull. Men stood on the deck, their skin gone bony in the light.

Then the lifeboat’s hull struck sand. Spray showered the crates and my suitcase.

More men appeared from the dark. Some wore trenchcoats with thick brown belts. Others carried bandoliers with loops for shotgun shells.

A wave burst against the back of my head. Water squelched in my ears. Another wave shoved me and I tripped. I went down into the surf and my fingers dug into the sand. Then hands closed on my arms and I felt myself lifted from the water.

A man with a broad, flat forehead stood in front of me. He wore a sweater that drooped with the weight of seawater. “All right, are you?” he bellowed.

I nodded and coughed up salt. Black waves crumbled into white and thundered up the beach.

The engines of the
Madrigal
hammered up. It started heading out to sea. The searchlight followed, draining the darkness around it.