A man of honour, p.1
A Man of Honour, page 1
For the ancestors
and the archivists
The Breastplate
I bind to myself today,
The power of Heaven,
The light of the Sun,
The radiance of the Moon
The splendour of Fire,
The flashing of Lightning,
The swiftness of Wind,
The depth of the Sea,
The stability of the Earth,
The hardness of Rock.
A spell of concealment, attributed to St Patrick
The Matter of the Truth: A Note from Author to Reader
As you embark on this novel, know that every one of its characters existed. Its central event, an assassination attempt, happened in March of 1868. The perpetrator was imprisoned, interrogated and tried. The event had consequences for everyone concerned. But then, as sometimes happens in life, it was forgotten.
Words spoken in court by the judge, the defence, the witnesses, I have quoted exactly. I include conversations between the prisoner and his interrogators in the gaol cell. These words were secretly recorded and have lain in state archives, largely unread, for a hundred and fifty years. In the same way, the words a queen read in a letter from her favourite son have lain in royal archives – until now.
This story has lain in my cells since birth. For the last seven years, I have pondered these people from a different time every day. Their motives, their courage, their foibles. I hope that by introducing them to a new time, a new world, they will live again. They deserve to.
I dedicate this book to them all, and to my loved ones (three in particular) who have supported me unconditionally – and who have endured so much, sacrificed so much, to see it live.
Simon John ffloyd Smith
Prologue: The Seed Is Sown
The year was a year of wars and revolution. Some fine men of vision were assassinated that year. But our town was quiet. Our house was calm. I had lived there all my young life. It was solid, built from sandstone and brick and terracotta, with deep, vine- shrouded verandahs. I always felt safe there. I dreamed there.
It was the night of the spring equinox. The ancient cherry tree was an explosion of fragrant white blossom outside the dining room window. The scent of hyacinths wafted light and powerful on the evening air, through the open front door. I always noticed those things. As a baby, I had climbed into the lap of my adoring great-aunt Menie, pressed my face close to hers and inhaled her particular exotic scent with gurgles of delight. And recognition, perhaps.
Usually we would all have settled, after dinner, in the family room. The television was there. But on this evening, my mother crouched with me in the golden light of a single lamp on the sage-green Axminster of the sitting room floor. That room was rarely used. It was the repository of all the treasures. There were her cherished Venetian glass paperweights, glinting. She was a woman ahead of her time, but she loved things of age and quality and meaning. There was an antique desk, which had belonged to her mother, Molly. And her mother, Tottie. And her mother, Brigid, before her. It had a hidden compartment, which sprang open at the push of a small brass button. Packed inside were yellowing documents, letters and photographs. On the wall above the desk hung three miniature portraits, smokily dark with age. A young man, a young woman, an older woman. All these people were my ancestors. Their faces emerged from the darkness of the oils, just as the artist had planned. He was an ancestor too.
There was a prayer book, even older than the desk, its contents in French and Latin, its cover a faded gold. Ghostly biblical figures swam in that gold. It had an intricate metal lock. Beside it, a framed photograph of the boy who died young, before I was born. That same photograph was in every room of the house. We must never forget him, my mother always said. We spoke his name every night, in a simple prayer.
And there was another book, bound in deeply hand-tooled green leather. It was the first time I had seen it. She passed it to me. It was heavy. It was bible-like. Inside, each in its own embellished window, were photographs of faces from another time. All of them, she told me, were family. I was mesmerised. Already, I felt connection.
‘You love these family things, don’t you?’ she said. ‘One day, you’ll look into this book and know all of these people. But tonight, I want to tell you about someone in our family who is not in this book.’
I was instantly alert. I knew something was coming that would change things.
‘He tried to assassinate a prince. He was young, he was misled by his friends, he was betrayed. But he did shoot the prince. And they hanged him for it.’
In that moment, the seed was planted.
The years passed. I lived a full and lucky life. Then, quite suddenly, my ancestor’s story returned to me in miraculous ways. It was demanding to be told. I was the one who had to tell it.
You are about to read Henry J. O’Farrell’s story, told in his way.
The Adventure Begins
A realm beyond time, beyond place
Blackness. Ineffable blackness, whirling around me. A familiar voice, rippling but silvery-clear, as if through an ocean’s depths:
Well
Then, flashes of coruscating light. I am at the centre of the Universe. All around me is in constant circular motion. But at my core I am calm, still, primed. My ears make out the rhythmic sound of grinding now. Scrape scrape scrape. Rusted wheels clatter on cobblestones. Somewhere in the distance, a church bell rings. Already, I like that sound. Much nearer, the rowdy hubbub of men’s voices. The banter, the banter! I like that sound too. I can smell overripe apples, and the stink of horse shit and wilting cabbage leaves ground into mud.
Where am I? Dull flashes of red-black and gleaming white streak across my vision. Oh, yes. This must be the place of my birth! I can sense the Liffey near at hand, surging and sweeping through the heart of the city. And – who is this rogue of a man? With one hand he drags a heavy wooden cart, with the other he carries … me. One huge hand cradles me. His pride soaks into me along with his sweat.
‘Behold, lads, my new-born son!’ he shouts in a boozy voice. I am borne aloft, like one of his prized turnips. Passed from man to man, then back to the father. But strange to say, I feel no fear. On the contrary. Those men’s hands let me know that I am safe. All is well. Another O’Farrell male has come into the world, and I am he. My father tosses me into the soft lining of his jacket, a warm roost amongst the potatoes in his cart. Then, clunk clunk clunk.
Off we go!
That time swirls into … this. The smell of the sea, and roasting meat, and every opulent fragrance ever made blends and rises in a cloud to me as I circle and dip in the brightness.
Where is this? Below me a beach – but bare of bathers. Soft, well-tended grass, soft rhythmic whoosh of breakers on the sand. A ferry disgorging her passengers onto hot wooden planking. Gay-coloured tenting, flags whipping in the breeze and the brass-shine of trumpets as a band strikes up. And such laughter! Oh, it must be a fun-fair. No, it’s a picnic – but not the kind I’m used to. A grand one, this one. There must be a thousand people here. Brilliant gowns shimmering in the sunlight as their women promenade. Gentlemen in black and white, dashing and preening. Fine dispositions, every one of them, arrayed below me.
I spiral downwards. Yes, let’s get amongst it all. Oh! Here’s a game of skill – a darts competition. I fancy my chances – my eye is keen as a stiletto. The prize today, displayed on a velvet-swathed table: a Lord Bury telescope! That’s the finest there is. I could definitely use one of those in my … watchings … in future.
‘You’re up, Mr O’Farrell! Final shot,’ says the spruiker in red stripes.
Another gentleman, close by, whispers, ‘We’re well ahead, sir. Bag this one, and we’ve bagged the Bury!’
I concentrate now. Distilled energy pours from my brain through the sinews of my arm into the very nerves of my index finger and thumb. Such power pent. Ready to … fire. A second more …
Now
Oh, my stars! I am flying again. I feel the furious air-rush, the harsh, exhilarating freedom. That small projectile is … me! My vision, a needle-fine beam, flashes from my very prong – sharp, pure, deadly. I see the target racing towards me. I cannot miss the mark. But … What? The target is no bullseye. Oh help me God! The target is a man. I am the bullet. I have been unleashed, and for one terrible purpose. I’m bound to burrow into this man’s back, burst his flesh, shatter his spine. Help me Lord! HELP ME LORD!
‘God save my poor country!’ I try to shout, again and again. But try as I might, all that comes is a strange primordial scream. I am thrown to the ground, stamped on, then grabbed by many rough hands. They rip my clothes from me. I am rendered naked by that throng. Someone tears a hank of hair from my scalp, and I am being borne aloft, as before. But no feeling of safety for me now. Utter panic courses through me. I am screaming that scream again. People are shouting: Lynch him lynch him lynch him.
Then, everything slows. The sound of the crowd recedes. I can hear a single bird, calling from a nearby tree. It is the most beautiful note I have ever heard. But what is it telling me? I’m rising up. I am looking down on myself in that swirling mob. That other me is still twisting and writhing and roaring. Such violent movements he makes, such vile words pour from his contorted mouth. Oh, there go his top hat and cane. They tilt and spin so effortlessly in mid-air, describing two perfect intersecting arcs, then disappear in a blur of fine dark worsted and angry, florid faces. I paid a pretty penny for those. But no need to worry now. I am freed from care.
And, wonder of wonders – he has risen above his body too. My target! Here we both are, floating. I, the patriot. He, the prince.
‘Greetings, sir,’ I say.
‘What the devil did you do that for?’ asks the Duke of Edinburgh, vaguely irritated.
‘In a word? Recompense. For all your people have done to my people – over generations.’
‘Would you be Irish, sir?’
‘I would.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes, “Oh.” Now there’s a succinct admission of oppression. But another thing. I made an oath that I would do it. I’m a man of my word. I never go back on an oath.’
‘Nor I,’ says the prince.
‘I thought as much. We are both honourable men, who wish to leave … our mark.’
‘Immortality, eh? We do all of us crave it.’
What an elegant dance this is – above it all. The start of a spirited soul race. Just as I once prophesied. Both of us have fulfilled our callings. Surely it is all over now. Surely we can be off to better things. Off to somewhere. Or perhaps, to nowhere – nihil. Depending on your beliefs, really. But both of us love a voyage, especially a mystery one.
‘Shall we set sail?’
‘Anchors aweigh!’
Lèse-majesté
On tour, Knysna, South Africa, 13 September 1867
The voyage was already a triumph. Astonishing, really, given that it had started as a way out of scandal. Queen Victoria had seen the signs. Her second son, Prince Alfred, affectionately known in the family as Affie, had been spending far too much time with the Princess of Wales. He was twenty-two and quite smitten. Alexandra was ravishing, after all. She was acknowledged as one of the great beauties of the time. But she also happened to be married to his older brother, Albert Edward, known as Bertie.
Libertine London was used to such things. Bertie himself had a penchant for plucking ripe young chorus girls from the West End. That was common knowledge. But the prospect of her first two sons, the second and fourth in line to the throne, entwined with the same princess? The queen found that impossible to contemplate. It was not enough for Victoria that she ruled entire populations in an empire that encircled the world. She needed desperately to rule her own children.
So she came up with a plan. Affie was mad for sailing. He left the Palace at twelve to study. Joined the Royal Navy at fourteen. Became a midshipman at fifteen, a lieutenant at eighteen. The naval life had made him healthy and fit, and provided an honourable escape from the Teutonic discipline of his father, the cosseting of his mother, and the cruelty of the royal tutors. He had already spent more than half his young life at sea.
As sailing was his bent, Queen Victoria decided to indulge it. She had a word in the ear of the First Lord of the Admiralty. In no time at all, the Admiralty had promoted the young lieutenant prince to captain, and furnished him with the finest vessel of the times, the frigate HMS Galatea. She was sleek and swift under sail, as fast as any ship afloat. His orders were to sail her around the globe, visiting Britain’s colonies, and any foreign ports where she could build trade. It would be a royal tour, the first in history – a marvellous demonstration of the power of Britannia, and of Victoria herself. The queen gave Alfred a new title, the Duke of Edinburgh. She was well-pleased with her scheme. It would mean at least a year away for the young prince. A year away from the London gossips. A year away from Alexandra.
On the morning of the 26th of February, 1867, Galatea had slipped her moorings and left Plymouth Harbour with Prince Alfred at the helm, bound for the Mediterranean and beyond. On board were forty officers and four hundred men, hand-picked for the journey. They included the prince’s equerries, Eliot Yorke and Arthur Balfour Haig, and his best friend, Francis, Lord Newry, all of them young men in their twenties. Like the prince, once official duties were done, they intended to have fun.
Also with them was the artist Oswald Walters Brierly, who had sailed the world on the Wanderer with adventurer Benjamin Boyd and charted the coasts of New Guinea with Owen Stanley on the Rattlesnake. As happy with a brush or pen in his hand as with a sextant, Brierly had produced celebrated paintings, in swirling oils, of many a ship, battle, and storm at sea. He would be a sage companion and adviser to the young prince, quickly becoming one of his inner circle.
They had visited Spain first, then set sail for Brazil. While crossing the Atlantic, Galatea lost the benefit of the north-easterly trade winds and entered that curious void known as the equatorial doldrums, a region of gloom, rain and oppressive, oven-like heat, where a languor fell over them all. They took to their quarters, read, slept, planned, or invented games they could play on decks slippery with salt and rain. Lord Newry, in these languid days, put his skills with the pencil and brush to good use. Though no match for an artist of Brierly’s renown, he could still render a remarkably lifelike depiction of the human form, in every imaginable position. Soon all the bulkheads in the cabins of the prince and his suite were veritable galleries of curiosa erotica. The crowning glory: a gigantic image of Galatea, her crew and a bevy of comely sirens, all naked.
On arrival in Rio de Janeiro, they were feted by Pedro II, the Emperor of Brazil, and his son-in-law the Count d’Eu, Alfred’s cousin. The emperor, anxious to raise his country’s standing, gave one of his city palaces to Alfred for his stay. The prince and his officers explored the nearby hills, sipping champagne from bottles cooled in mountain waterfalls, and feasting on oranges that grew wild along the tracks. That evening, they wandered through towering avenues of palm trees, lit by fireflies, to a sumptuous ball attended by the city’s beau monde, at which they were served a banquet of thirty courses. The prince, Brierly noted, did not leave till four in the morning.
Galatea departed Rio the next day, cutting a swathe through flotillas of boats, flags and cannon fire on the harbour, and out into the South Atlantic again. Now the mariners felt they were truly voyaging, bound for Tristan da Cunha, a rock rising three thousand feet out of the ocean, as remote a place as anywhere on earth, where they stopped, briefly, before sailing on eastward to Africa.
***
The men are grouped in a small tableau, some standing, some reclining, rifles at their sides. They have barely moved for two hours, flanked by dogs and horses at rest, as though waiting for a photographer to record the moment. A river snakes down the centre of the vast plateau before them. In the distance, the animals of the veldt wander back and forth in the soft gold of the grass – grass so high that, if you plunged in, you could lose yourself.
Alfred had been overjoyed to arrive at the Cape of Good Hope. Galatea dropped anchor at Simon’s Bay. Then, in the sparkling southern sunlight, he had taken a barge to shore and proceeded with his close companions on horseback to Cape Town, thronged by cheering crowds. He had spent three years of his youth there, and the people still thought of him as theirs. It felt like a homecoming. But the thing Alfred was most excited about, the real reason for his South African stopover, was today’s hunt.
They have ridden for several days. Last night they pitched tents under the stars, gathered firewood, feasted on roasted meats and regaled each other with tales of beasts they had killed. This morning they rose at dawn, had a mug of coffee and an egg each, broke camp and rode out. The landscape surrounding them was breathtaking, a kind of mystical other-world to their European eyes. The earth radiated a coppery glow. Ferns and lilies of every hue lined the track. If they looked up, the vast sky was a crystalline blue that they never saw in England. Towering escarpments of deepest purple rose on either side of them and disappeared towards the horizon.
They are perched now on the side of a small hill, near a thicket of trees. The animals on the veldt are blissfully unaware of them. They are safe, out of reach, even of the most powerful of the rifles. But their target is closer at hand – a beast that has broken away from its herd. From the scrub, every so often, they hear unmistakable trumpeting, and it stirs them.
