The Moon Over Water

Thomas O’Farrell moves quietly through the harbour streets by the light of a waning gibbous moon. He’s dressed in frayed, sweat-stained linen, mud on the cuffs of his patched trousers, all in aid of his disguise. The leather of his army issue boots is worn and the sole of one’s coming away. He carries a burlap sack on his broad back and in it, he will maintain to anyone who cares to ask, is all he has to his name; all he has to show for all those years in arms serving Mad King George, and a poor show indeed it will be. All this penny-theatre has been patiently crafted to prevent anyone smoking his true purpose.

He’s also far from home, but getting closer with every step; he’s an Irishman from the hamlet of Rosroe in western Connemara and Porthbyghan, a fishing village clinging to Cornwall’s windswept, storm battered southern coast is the closest to home he’s come in many, many a year.

He’s trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. The sack on his back may be light enough, but the weight of his mission threatens to make him over cautious, too self conscious, and that thought alone is enough to cause him to be in fear of his life: should he be discovered he’ll be murdered, there can be no doubt of that. He knows it all very well indeed, but the thought also brings an ironic smile to his face: he feels in greater danger here, in peaceful England, than he ever did in Portugal and Spain, but in those days he had his fellow redcoats by his side and at his back. The smile fades and his next thought is that he’d rather be anywhere but here. He puffs nervously on the clay pipe clamped between his lips; no tobacco burning in the bowl, of course—that would smack of prosperity and it’s vital that he cuts as a down-on-his-luck ex-soldier in dire need of work. Any work.

The mingled odours of stale beer, ardent liquors and the old sweat of working men comes to him, overwhelming the scents of salt water, seaweed and fish. He knows he’s getting close and, rounding a corner, there it stands: The Moon Over Water. The inn’s sparsely lit, a candle lantern either side of its door and dim candlelight spilling out of the two four-pane windows flanking the door. Closer still, Tom can hear the low murmured conversation of the men inside, then detects the tangled aromas of roasting meat and pipe tobacco. Is it this that suddenly spirits him back home, to Rosroe and Killary Harbour? No, he decides: it’s the commingled, tangy scents of the sea, damp sails and tarred hemp reaching out to him from the harbour mere feet from where he now stands. He longs for home, but knows there’s no choice on offer but to do as he’s been commanded and then collect his reward; enough silver to change his stars. When that day dawns he’s vowed to never again put on a uniform and fight in England’s foreign wars. He dreams of buying a fishing boat and even marrying one day. That thought reminds him of Róisín. He wonders if she’s wed by now, but then shakes all thoughts of home from his mind and steps into the fug of The Moon Over Water’s taproom.

He finds himself a quiet corner and, grateful for the opportunity to rest his weary bones, eases himself down onto the bench and raises a hand to gain the attention of the potboy. A tankard of cloudy cider duly set down before him, his eyes downcast, Tom’s mind roves again, this time to the first day of his life under the colours.

Tom O’Farrell, or Tomas Ailbe ó Fearghail as he was named at birth, was born in western Ireland in the year of Our Lord 1793 to Seamus ó Fearghail, an impoverished tenant farmer and his long-suffering wife Siobhan. Tired of the regular, alcohol-fuelled beatings, Tom had left home shortly after his fifteenth birthday. Large for his age, precociously co-ordinated and with the beginnings of stubble appearing on his chin, he’d made his way to Galway, there to find himself a recruiting sergeant. Sergeant Flack hadn’t even bothered to ask him his age, just a name to write in the ledger and that the moment Tomas Ailbe ó Fearghail met his first, but by no means his last, problem. It seemed the sergeant, and his smirking mates sitting behind him nursing their tankards of beer, brandy or anything else they could lay their hands on, had no time at all for Irish pride.

“Name?” asked Sergeant Flack.

“Tomas Ailbe ó Fearghail,” replied Tom.

“The King’s English, cully!”

Tom simply hadn’t known how to reply: to him his name was surely the same in any language.

“Speekee Englishee?” quipped one of the drunken sots from the tables behind the sergeant, knowing full well Tom was Irish, not a lascar—or whoever the man’s crude mimicry was intended to impersonate—but his joke was greeted with guffaws of laughter. Sergeant Flack, recruiting for an Irish regiment and so clearly having encountered the problem before, simply said:

“Spell it out, lad.”

Tom had obliged, letter by letter, even taking the time to carefully explain that his middle name was spelled A-I-L-B-E but pronounced ‘All-Bay’. While giving the impression of hearing him out, Sergeant Flack wrote something down, then turned the ledger around to face Tom and said:

“Sign here, lad.”

As he signed his name and accepted the King’s shilling, Tom read the ledger entry as it had been inscribed:

Pvt. O’FARRELL, THOMAS

In the ledger Sergeant Flack had noted down Tom’s age (given as sixteen), his size (average), his ‘description’ (malnourished) and the date of his enlistment. Thomas, or Tom O’Farrell would be his name for as long as he would serve as a redcoat under the regimental colours of the First Battalion of King George III’s 88th Regiment of Foot, the Connaught Rangers, or ‘The Devil’s Own’. In time, Tom would sail with the officers and men of the 88th and discover the regiment’s nickname to be well deserved indeed.

The memories flee his mind and Tom’s back once more in the taproom of

The Moon Over Water

. What shatters his reverie is first the sudden petering out of the conversations that had been in full swing as he entered, and then a gruff voice which addresses him thus:

“Irish?”

Tom’s immediately well aware he’s the object of the man’s question and also that the taproom’s also fallen completely silent. All eyes are on him.

“What!” replies Tom, “How can you tell that, now?”

Tom’s simple attempt at levity is met with an expressionless stare. For Tom, the seconds that ensue seem to last for entire minutes, but then that stoney stare transforms into a guffaw of laughter that’s quickly taken up by the other inhabitants of the taproom. Tom notes it all: the questioner had first commanded silence and then the other men had followed his lead. Both things lead Tom to believe that the bearded fellow’s a leader and his first useful contact.

“Stand you a drink, friend?” asks Tom, at which the bearded man rose to his feet, makes his way over to Tom’s table, sits himself down as Tom summons the potboy to carry his pitcher of ale over to their table and then stretches out a meaty fist in greeting:

“Brae Chenery, Godhal, but my friends call me Brae.”

“Thomas O’Farrell,” replies Tom and shakes the man’s hand.

“We like Godhyli well enough here in Porthbyghan, friend,” says the bearded man, “but what I can’t fathom is how a good Irish boy like you can bring himself to fight for Mad Georgie.”

So much for a careful disguise, thinks Tom. It seems no amount of frayed homespun and mud is enough to conceal his soldier’s bearing. He sups on his tankard to give himself time to think. But here’s a good sign: this man and doubtless his muckers too are no supporters of the English king. I’ve definitely come to the right place, but now choose your words very, very carefully, Tomas Ailbe ó Fearghail: your life’s balanced on the head of a pin.