The French were within landing
distance. A formidable force of well-trained, experienced
soldiers were ready to disembark. For one whole day, the 21st December,
the wind held its breath and the sea was calm. But the commander, General Hoche, was missing; his ship had not been seen since
The days that followed were passed in
a nightmare trance. The flagship Indomptable with its
fourteen companion ships made way as far as
But time was on the militia's side and
every day brought reinforcements nearer, for Dublin had heard the news and
troops were hurrying as fast as wintry conditions and rugged roads would allow,
to give the remnants of the French force a warm welcome on a cold day. The peasantry whom the French had come to liberate, exhibited
their loyalty to, or their fear of, their masters by turning out to clear the
snow-blocked roads. The ladies of the viceregal court
in
These were agonising days for
Caroline. Hour after hour of the uncertain daylight, she watched with Hugh Ro,
huddled in any available shelter from the bitter, buffeting wind. The Indomptable loomed out of the mists and spray; sometimes
moving figures on its decks were visible; Fergal was there, but too obscure to
be picked out.
The mountains beyond the bay were
covered in snow, the landscape bleak and virtually deserted. By the night of
the 27th the storm became a hurricane. Even within the bay, great waves rose.
One monstrous wave caught the Indomptable, stove in
her quarter-gallery and one of the windows in the great cabin. Water poured in;
the cots of the officers were almost torn down; trunks floated about the cabin;
the officers barely escaped drowning.
When the storm eventually abated, the Indomptable was alone; her companion ships had cut cables
and fled. At four in the morning of December 29th she set sail for
Hugh Ro, his arm around Caroline,
watched the battered Indomptable head out to sea.
Like a ghost ship, she disappeared in the night; Caroline, seal dark and silent
in her skin wrapping, leant against Hugh Ro, watching till darkness and mist
shut the ship from sight. Then, with one wild, despairing cry, she collapsed in
his arms. He picked her up and carried her gently down the rough path to the
cabin where they had found lodging. For days she hovered between life and
death, wracked by fever, exhausted, her great eyes wild, her speech rambling.
So, inauspiciously, the year 1797 came
coldly to the west. And the cold which held all
As Caroline's seventeenth birthday
passed unnoticed, with the aid of her kind hosts, Hugh Ro nursed her back to
health. It seemed that he was always there by her bedside, his hand cool on her
brow, his voice strong and comforting. He sang her asleep and whistled her
awake and, when she was feeling better, he disclosed
that he was making a song for her: “Bla na gCarraig”, the flower of the
rocks. Among the rocks of south
As they walked abroad along the calm
and smiling shore, he turned to her with a solemn expression:
“I'm glad to see this day,” he said, “and
you walking by my side again. 'Twas
a hard time you went through. But you have grown up, Caroline. It's not just
that you're seventeen. I think you have seen through the follies of men ..... their delusions of power
and glory ..... their heroics. Life is something else,
isn't it?”
“It is, Hugh Ro. For me, I think at
this moment, it is just being me ..... being true and no pretending. It's that for you too, isn't
it?”
“It is. Sometimes I think I might be
the last of the fili. They made songs about great
victories, laments over defeats. They made gods of the victors, devils of their
enemies. What they really thought was never recorded. The simple words were
their living. What they really sang of maybe, was more than mortal, older than
time. They celebrated the eternal struggle between light and darkness, the war
of the invisible gods. And all the while, they seemed to be celebrating the
feats and failures of poor actors strutting the stage
of time.”
“They sang of love too.”
“They did, and that was their best
singing. It was of life.”
“Even love of country?”
“Even so, but there are many ways of
giving one's love for a country. I see it as better to give a life than a
death. But then, I am not a hero.”
“I think you are, Hugh Ro. I truly
think you are.”
It was accolade for Hugh Ro. A deep
and lasting friendship developed between them during those gentle days of
recovery. He came to represent for her the patient, loving father she had never
known. One day, she took him into her confidence as she might a father, told
him of her love for Nick Marsmain.
“When you are sure you have met the
man you love, marry him,” he said. “The love of women has always crossed the
boundaries of opposing hates and loyalties. Like true religion, it transcends
race and creed and political affinity. If it does not, then it is a poor,
slavish thing. Your love, Caroline, would be as the flower of the rocks. God grant,
the man you love appreciates his fortune.”
There was anguish in his voice. “Would
that he were me,” he might have added. It was not easy
for him to be so much by the side of this beautiful, warm-hearted girl. It was
not easy for him who had been so often a lover, to restrain his emotions. As he
walked the bleak, wintry roads, he made the stations of the
cross in his own flesh.