Free Ashes In the Wind by Christopher Bland

she is about to say murder, changes her mind ‘...cold-blooded.’
    ‘More cold-blooded than shooting your father, worse than a firing squad?’
    ‘About the same, I’d say. Best leave me here.’
    As they part, she brushes Tomas’s cheek, not this time with her lips but with her fingers, and then walks swiftly away. Tomas’s intense happiness at the top of the hill has been replaced by sudden, confused misery. He watches as Kitty turns the corner without looking back.

8
    T OMAS THINKS D UBLIN is to Cork as Cork is to Drimnamore; Cork is a big town, Dublin a proper city. He and Frank travel up together by train. Frank is exultant when they arrive at Kingsbridge Station.
    ‘This is the place,’ he says as they walk down Upper O’Connell Street. ‘Nowhere else counts for a candle.’
    Their billet is in the Summerhill Dispensary, a ramshackle building that houses a Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths, a chemist’s shop, a saddler. On the three floors above there are thirty small bedrooms sharing a bathroom and kitchen at the end of each corridor. Medical staff from the nearby Rotunda Hospital occupy most of the rooms, but it is soon clear to Tomas that there are several other Volunteers in the building.
    Frank is a taciturn companion. Tomas’s questions receive either a monosyllabic reply or silence, and Tomas soon gives up trying to find out what is going on. After two days a messenger arrives who has a hurried conversation with Frank in the street. He leaves two bicycles behind.
    A week later they are with Michael Collins in a small room above a haberdasher’s shop.Tomas notices the sign as he and Frank walk in. ‘Sullivan’s Gentlemens Outfitters’ it reads. He nudges Frank.
    ‘Look, must be my cousin,’ and gets no reply.
    Michael Collins is sitting behind a wooden table covered in papers, a revolver acting as a paperweight. Behind him is a large-scale map of Dublin inned to the whitewashed wall. Fifteen red crosses mark streets clustered around the centre of the city. The room gradually fills up as men arrive in twos and threes. Tomas recognises one face from the bar of the Queen Victoria.
    Michael Collins stands up, leans forward, places his hands upon the table and looks around the room until the quiet chatter dies away.
    ‘We’re going to wipe out the British Intelligence network in a single morning. The Cairo Gang, fifteen of their best men in Dublin. Next Sunday’s the day. Same day as the GAA match at Croke Park. You’ll be able to disappear into the crowd. Donal will tell you your detailed instructions and timings. Nothing in writing, no notes.’
    Tomas and Frank are given a name and address – Captain Newbury, 92 Lower Baggot Street, close to St Stephen’s Green. Early on Sunday morning Tomas goes to Mass.
    ‘Much good may it do you,’ says Frank. ‘Light a candle for me. And one for Captain Newbury.’
    Tomas doesn’t go to confession, doesn’t take Communion. He is troubled by the thought of the morning’s work – Staigue Fort and Ashtown were little battles, as Kitty had said. This was to be another... He cannot find a word he likes for what they are about to do.
    Tomas and Frank arrive at Lower Baggot Street just before nine. When the housekeeper answers the door Frank pushes past her, asking in a whisper where the officer’s rooms are. Too frightened by the grim-faced men and the drawn revolvers to speak, she points up to the first floor. They run up the stairs and burst through the door on the landing. Newbury, still in his pyjamas, is halfway to the window as both men fire. Newbury falls forward, crashing through the window glass, and hangs, half in, half out of, the room.
    As the firing stops, Tomas hears a woman scream; Newbury’s wife is standing in the corner of the room. She is heavily pregnant, holding up her hands as if to push them away when they leave the room.
    As they leave the house, Tomas looks up and sees the woman trying to cover her husband’s