Tipperary Tales
The Lord is the first tale in a series of nine.
Tale 1
THE LORD
A great storm had lashed the west coast of Ireland for over a week and during that time no crabber or fishing boat had dared venture out from a small port on the Dingle peninsular. It was not surprising therefore that a knot of curious spectators gathered on the spray drenched quayside when a large white yacht was seen just off shore. The harbour entrance here was deep but narrow and protected on one side by a sea cliff and on the other by a rocky breakwater. For centuries this had been a safe haven for small boats, but larger boats could have trouble with that narrow entrance, even in fine weather. Now just such a larger boat was apparently hell bent on running the gauntlet between the scylla of the cliffs and charybdis of the breakwater.
“They won’t make it”, muttered one old fisherman. “It’s madness to be out in such weather”, said another. “Perhaps they had no choice”, ventured a third.
The white yacht was now close enough for those on the quay to see that it was about sixty feet in length and with a missing aft mast. A helmsman and one crewman were visible on deck, both working calmly and methodically to align their bucking and rolling boat with the narrow harbour entrance, while pinching into those squally winds which bounced off the cliff face. As the white yacht reached a point of no return there was a heart-stopping moment when an extra large wave lifted it sideways and seemed about to dump it right on top of the breakwater, but with consummate skill the helmsman cut back across the face of that wave like a giant surfboard, and then sped through the narrow gap.
Minutes later the boat was alongside, lines were thrown ashore and made fast to quayside bollards and two haggard bedraggled men stumbled ashore.
Within in an hour the Harbour Master was on the telephone to his friend Lord Henry Rushbrooke in County Tipperary.
“Henry”, he asked “are you still looking for a decent cruising yacht?”.
“I am indeed”, came the answer.
“In that case”, went on the Harbour Master, “you should put a cheque book in your pocket, get in a car and come to the Dingle as soon as possible”. He went on “… two Dutchmen came ashore this morning from a sixty foot yacht. They’ve had a grim crossing from America, lost a crewman and a mast on the way, and the boat has taken a beating. It looks a terrible mess, but to ride out the biggest storm we have had around here for ten years, it must be a good seaboat. And it’s American built, so it’s got a wealth of high-tech gadgets and ‘gizmos’ on board of the type we rarely see in the Dingle. The Dutchmen are the owners and they just want to walk away and never see the boat again, but as you know, skippers who lose people overboard face possible manslaughter charges, so these two will have to stay around for a few days while the local Garda talk with Dutch police and get confirmation that criminal charges will not be pressed. Meanwhile, everyone in this town knows the story, and since most people know someone who knows someone who buys and sells boats, it won’t be long before a covey of professional yacht brokers and a similar number of representatives from yacht chartering firms, come winging this way looking for a bargain. Arrive here pronto, Henry, and you could get a good deal.”
Lord Henry was on the Dingle next morning and after a brief chat in the Harbour Master’s office they walked along the quay to look at the boat. Without owner’s permission, neither could step aboard, but it did not take too much imagination to see that here was a damaged, but nevertheless, fine boat. A short while later, and by prior appointment, they met the two Dutchmen for lunch in a nearby pub.
The yachtsmen were brothers, both in their early fifties, and like so many Dutchmen they spoke good English. The elder of the two did most of the talking.
“While we all eat,” he said, “I will explain how we come to be here in Ireland and why we want to sell the boat.”
Since childhood the pair had been keen sailors and in their late teens they represented the Netherlands at several inter-national dinghy-racing regattas. As they grew older, got married and had families, their taste in sailing boats evolved from small fast uncomfortable boats in which one usually gets wet, to large, slower more comfortable boats in which one usually stayed dry. Both had long hankered after a ‘blue-water’ ocean cruising yacht which, from, their homes in Holland could reach Scandinavia and Britain and perhaps the Mediterranean, in safety and in comfort. When one of them chanced upon just such a boat, for sale in an East coast USA marina, they decided to buy it and sail it home to Holland. The boat seemed in good order but a professional survey suggested that work was needed to masts, spars and rigging before subjecting it all to the possible rigours of an Atlantic crossing.
The second Dutchman now took up the story while his elder brother made a start on his lunch.
“The boat had been built about eight years previously for a New York businessman. He had property interests in the West Indies and liked fishing for marlin off Florida Keys. For several years it was regularly sailed from Long Island Sound near New York down to Florida and to the West Indies and back. When that original owner was lost overboard in somewhat mysterious circumstances, the boat passed to his son. He was not a sailing enthusiast but kept it in a marina as a sort of floating weekend cottage before deciding to sell. It was problems arising from three years inactivity with no maintenance at the marina, which needed to be addressed.”
Repairs and replacements took much longer than expected. They bought the boat in early summer and the plan was to sail it home in August, which tends to be a good time for transatlantic voyages. A volunteer crew of Dutch friends were happy to join the brothers for the crossing and the adventure was eagerly awaited. But the boat was not ready in August, and still not ready in September. All was finally completed in early October, by which time the brothers found that their volunteer crew were unable or unwilling to take three weeks off work in order to sail the Atlantic. With time running out and the real prospect of having to leave the boat in the US until the following summer, the brothers persuaded an old friend with some, but not a lot, of sailing experience to make up numbers to a basic three people instead of the six originally intended.
All three then flew to New York, collected the boat, spent a couple of days cruising in Long Island Sound while they got the feel of it, and then headed North East up the American coast, past Block Island and on to Nova Scotia, before swinging east into the open Atlantic.
Having now eaten a few mouthfuls of his lunch the elder brother again took up the tale.
“Sailing conditions were idyllic for the first two weeks; calm sea, warm sun and a steady breeze; just like those pictures one sees in brochures and yachting magazines”, he laughed.
When they heard on short-wave radio that a late season hurricane had torn though the Bahamas and was heading for East Coast USA, they hardly gave the matter a thought, after all they were two thousand miles away in mid-Atlantic, not off the coast of Florida. Over the next two days the hurricane tracked its way north up the American seaboard and then to the relief of people in North and South Carolina it kicked back into the Atlantic. Within hours the Dutchmen saw the mercury in their barometer falling like a stone. A massive depression, if not a fully-fledged hurricane, was coming their way.
The storm struck with a brutality and suddenness which even those experienced sailing men had never before encountered. For days on end the sky was so black that at times it was hard to tell day from night and all the while their boat was tossed about by mountainous seas as on some nightmare fairground ride. But things seemed to be holding together well and all were confident they would ride out the storm. Then in the middle of the night the boat was knocked down flat by a giant wave. At that same moment there was a mighty bang like a signal cannon being fired and as the boat lurched drunkenly back onto an even keel, it was apparent that the after mast had snapped off close to deck level and gone over the side plus all its spars and rigging and a very small storm sail. The brothers had been below at the time and when they scrambled up on deck they found that jumble of broken spars and ropes was threatening to drag the stern of their yacht under water. Of their friend and crewman who had been at the helm, there was no sign.
After Herculean efforts they managed to clear the wreckage and save the boat from being dragged under, but the whole interior was awash with water plus spilt diesel fuel and it still seemed likely that the boat would simply founder. The electric pumps no longer worked, the generator was waterlogged and the batteries were failing fast. They sent out a “MAYDAY” signal but doubted if it would do them much good and both men then hand-pumped the boat’s interior until they were exhausted.
A gas-fired galley stove continued to work and to provide a modicum of warmth and light while the storm continued to rage all about them. Cold, wet and hungry the brothers were convinced they would die, but they refused to surrender to the elements as they kept the boat sailing on a easterly course whilst hoping for the best.
One night they became aware that the noise of the storm had changed; what they now heard was the sound of waves beating upon rocks. Somewhere ahead was a lee shore, that most feared of all sailing hazards : but where? The sound of surf seemed to be all about them, but then it receded. As dawn broke they realised they had passed through a cluster of offshore islands and then “Thank God”, said the elder brother, “we saw this little harbour tucked in under the cliffs, and here we are in Ireland”, he laughed.
Lord Henry and the Harbour Master had listened with grim faces to this harrowing tale. After a lengthy pause Lord Henry now commended the two of them and commiserated with them over the loss of their friend. He said that his own experience of bad times at sea was nothing compared with two weeks in an Atlantic storm, but he could guess at how they felt when all seemed lost. In 1979 he had been a crewman in that infamous Fastnet race when a freak storm overwhelmed the racing fleet, sank a dozen boats and took eighteen lives. Lord Henry added that his own boat had sunk within minutes of being dismasted and that he and another crewman clung to a spar for over an hour before being plucked from the sea by a helicopter. Four of that crew were less lucky.
This short tale by Lord Henry seemed to impress the two Dutchmen. It was as if they appreciated that the tall stranger sitting across the table from them, was a serious and experienced sailor who like them, had experienced near death at sea and lived to tell the tale.
“When we bought the boat”, said the younger brother, “and during those first few days, it was like a dream come true but that dream then became a nightmare. In time the two of us will surely sail again, but we could never again sail in that boat without feeling endless remorse and regret over the loss of our dear friend. That is why we want to sell. Hopefully someone else will find the good luck and good times with her, which have eluded us.”
After lunch all four men walked along the quayside to where Lord Henry’s car was parked. He collected a powerful torch and they then went to the boat. While the others stayed ashore Lord Henry now clambered about in the sodden and wrecked interior, trying to ascertain what was where and how bad was the damage. All four then returned to the pub and ordered another pot of coffee, while Lord Henry did some calculations on the back of an envelope.
Even in its present parlous state Lord Henry knew that this was just the sort of boat he had wanted for years. It slept fourteen, had a huge main saloon where all that number could be seated around one table, and of real importance it had proved itself almost unsinkable in extreme conditions. Here was a classic ‘blue-water’ cruising yacht that could make long voyages in safety and in comfort and Lord Henry knew as he worked on his calculations that others, too, would covet this boat. Unless he made a realistic offer to these two charming Dutchmen they would simply say ‘no’ and wait for professional yacht buyers to arrive. They would almost certainly pay more than Lord Henry could afford. Lord Henry now made his offer.
The two brothers excused themselves from the table and talked quietly together on the far side of the room, then returned to say the offer was too low, but they would accept a marginally higher price, which they specified. Lord Henry said a long “Hmmmm” and then agreed. An ancient looking bottle of Dutch gin conveniently appeared from the brief case of one of the brothers; glasses were filled and all four men now drank a toast in the strong liquor. The deal was done.
Lord Henry Rushbrooke was a tall, balding man of sixty with a forceful manner and a florid complexion. His family had been in Ireland for over three hundred years; for much of that time at Rushbrooke Abbey, which was now a sprawling Georgian mansion but had once been a Cistercian monastery. Three unmarried children in their twenties all looked upon the Abbey as home, and a married daughter lived in a farmhouse on the estate. One of Lord Henry’s sisters and her family lived nearby, so one way or another Lord Henry was rarely short of able-bodied family and friends as volunteer crew when he went sailing. Lord Henry’s wife and a younger son had both died in a car crash some ten years earlier.
Lord Henry’s father had been leader of the Southern Unionists, a long since defunct political party which campaigned for Ireland to remain part of Britain and not to break away as an independent state. His high political profile led to death threats from IRA Nationalists, who perceived Southern Unionists as puppets of the English government, and Rushbrooke Abbey was twice attacked by arsonists – once in ‘The Troubles’ and once again in the civil war that followed independence. Those were turbulent years and it was perhaps unsurprising that the former Lord Rushbrooke moved his entire family to England, where the present Lord Rushbrooke was born and educated. He inherited the title and land while a young schoolboy but the Irish estate was run by a Factor for many years, and it was not until Lord Henry had done two years National Service in the British Army and had worked his way through Cirencester Agricultural College that he returned to his ancestral home.
Fresh from college he was shocked at how badly neglected the place was, and from then on he was very much a ‘hands-on’ owner and manager of the place.
Two main passions of Lord Henry’s life were hunting in winter and sailing in summer. Not too many Rushbrookes had been sailing enthusiasts but generations of them had been hunting enthusiasts. The famous Surtees character, Mr Jorrocks, once asserted of hunting that it had ‘all the excitement of war with only five and twenty per cent of the danger’. If that were indeed the case it was fortunate that not too many Rushbrookes became professional soldiers, for Mr. Jorrocks’ comparatively safe activity of hunting seemed to have killed quite a lot of them. Indeed, a propensity for male members of the Rushbrooke family to die sudden and violent deaths had long fuelled a local myth that the family was accursed.
Origins of the “curse of the Rushbrookes” seemed to go back over two hundred years to one Lord Rushbrooke who caught a stable lad stealing and ordered him to be horsewhipped. The punishment was administered with such severity that the lad died. Days later an old crone, whom the locals suspected was a witch, confronted the then Lord Rushbrooke. She berated him for taking away her only grandchild and said that in retribution the Rushbrooke family would be cursed for six generations. During that time no Lord Rushbrooke would live to look upon the face of his own grandchild.
Few paid much attention to that incident until the original Lord Rushbrooke and then the next one too, both died while out hunting. Since then accidents and sudden death had been the lot of numerous male Rushbrookes down the generations.
Lord Henry’s father survived those two house burnings and IRA death threats but then shot himself, hours before the family was due to go on holiday. His grandfather nearly drowned while fishing in the River Suir but within weeks was lost at sea with the Titanic. Great grandfather Rushbrooke went out at midnight to stop a hound riot in his kennels, which were close to the Abbey, and he was killed and eaten by his own hounds. It was said at the time that so little of him was left that the local undertaker put bricks in great grandfather’s coffin to give it some weight!
Lord Henry knew all those tales but they did not seem to worry him unduly. He was actually the seventh Lord Rushbrooke since the one whose harsh treatment killed the stable lad and it was his opinion that the curse had now run its course. But some locals suggested darkly that the counting of those six accursed generations started with the son of the man who caused all the problems, and if that were the case then Lord Henry was at risk.
However, earlier that summer Lord Henry’s only married daughter had given birth to his grandchild, and our man had not only looked upon the child’s face, but had stood by the font in the family chapel when she was christened Laura, after her late grandmother.
The birth of a granddaughter seemed to prove that Lord Henry was correct not to worry about the family curse, but a few year’s earlier when he found himself struggling in those wild seas and wondering if he would ever be rescued, it would be astonishing if he had not had a nagging suspicion that the family curse was about to take him too!
Lord Henry’s bedroom windows at Rushbrooke Abbey looked down over lawns and a large grassy meadow to the River Suir beyond. The grass in that meadow was sweet and succulent with lots of white clover and it was much loved by horses. In August Lord Henry’s men had taken a late cut of hay from the field and our man was now impatient for the grass to “come again” so that it could be grazed by horses, before the first frost of winter took away its flavours and much of its nutrient value. After two or three weeks there was usually some visible regrowth but two months had now passed and the grass on that meadow still looked remarkably sparse.
Standing in his pyjamas one morning and surveying this scene Lord Henry noticed something odd. That land which lay closest to the river was always the wetter part of the meadow and that which lay close to his gardens the dryer, and for that reason the river side grew and regrew its grass, soonest. But with a birds-eye-view of the situation he could now clearly see that the best, or least poor grass was that closest to his gardens. He decided to walk the meadow and try to ascertain why.
It was after lunch when he crossed the lawn, climbed carefully down into and across the ‘ha-ha’ which kept livestock out of the garden and started to walk the meadow in a methodical manner. He soon discovered that the grass near to the river was skimpy and sparse, not because it had failed to regrow after haymaking, but because it was being closely cropped by the teeth of herbivorous animals. He knew there were rabbits about the place and also a few wild deer but it would take an army of rabbits or a sizeable herd of deer to gnaw the place in this manner, and either himself or one of the estate workers would surely have seen what was happening. Also there were no signs of rabbit or deer droppings but at a place where generations of horses, sheep and cattle had trampled down the riverbank in order to drink, Lord Henry suddenly began to understand what was happening. There was a mass of horse hoof prints on the bank plus liberal quantities of horse droppings in the shallow water and it all looked very recent. The river Suir at this point was broad, deep and canal-like, but a short distance up stream was an old ford which was still used by local farmers to wade cattle from one side of the river to the other. This was also a place where local children swam on hot days. Lord Henry now walked up to the ford where he again found numerous hoof marks all going in to the river on his side but when he looked across at vegetation on the far bank it was pristine and untrampled by animals. It was becoming abundantly clear that a largish bunch of horses was entering the river at the ford and probably exiting it at his meadows. Lord Henry now retraced his steps to the meadow and walked downstream. After about half a mile, at a point where a sandy beach adjoined a public road, he discovered where those phantom horses exited the river.
A group of tinkers were camped close to that lower ford which he had just visited and our man did now recall that these tinkers seemed to have more horses than most others. Obviously they had found the roadside grazing was none to good and had opted to graze Lord Henry’s meadow : by night.
The next question was : how does one stop such depredations?
One solution would be to fence off the river bank at all points where tinker horses might come ashore, but from long experience of such people, Lord Henry suspected they would merely pull down the fences and carry on as before. The best solution, he felt, was to catch them red-handed, and give them a big fright.
His only son was presently in England so Lord Henry decided to enlist the help of his son-in-law : the father of little Laura.
Kenwin Tomkins-White – whom we shall call KTW – was in his mid-thirties and the younger son of an Anglo-Irish family. After leaving agricultural college he decided there was no future on a family estate worked and managed by his father and his elder brother, so he set up as an agricultural contractor; to plough, spray, combine, cut hedges or dig ditches for any farmers who would pay him. After much perspiration this business had grown to a point where he now employed half a dozen men and took on work anywhere within an hour’s drive of his base. He had done some work for Rushbrooke estates long before marrying into the family, but Lord Henry and his men were well equipped and usually self-sufficient.
In the early summer of that year KTW had been appointed Master of the local Harriers and he now spent two days a week hunting a pack of hounds instead of driving a tractor. At first sight Harriers look much like foxhounds but they are in fact smaller and faster and, some would argue, more genial and easy going animals than foxhounds. Harrier followers either ride or run and since the traditional quarry was the hare, those who followed on foot had to be fit and fast to keep up. Hunting with Harriers tended to go out of fashion during the early years of the last century which led to most Irish packs converting to hunting foxes, while many of their English counterparts simply closed down. Deprived of their cross country running with Harriers in England some groups of foot followers established running clubs; a few of which still retained that old name ‘Harriers’.
After a long-standing master and huntsman had retired, the Tipperary Harriers had struggled in vain to find a suitable replacement. There were not too many applicants and all those seen by the Hunt committee were deemed inappropriate, probably incompetent or both. More as a joke than as a serious proposal, Lord Henry’s daughter, who was now Mrs KTW had said to her husband : “Why don’t you apply for the job? You hunted a beagle pack as a schoolboy and another pack at agricultural college, I’m sure you could hunt these local Harriers with your eyes closed.”
His first reaction was to laugh, but after a bit KTW began to think about it more seriously. Winter months were a quiet time for agricultural contracting with not too many jobs where time was of the essence, as when spraying or combine harvesting needed to be done, and hunting those Harriers might be good fun. So KTW applied for the job as Master of Harriers. The Hunt committee were astonished. Mrs KTW had been riding out with them since her pony club days but the only time they ever saw Mr KTW he was riding a tractor not a horse. However out of courtesy, but feeling sceptical, a small group of the Hunt committee interviewed KTW. They were astonished to learn that he had hunted beagle packs for four years and that he was knowledgeable about hound breeding, scent, kennel management and the like. He was asked to come back and meet the full Hunt committee. Ahead of that final selection meeting his wife briefed him on all questions he was likely to be asked. Both agreed there was one question that could prove very difficult to answer but may not be asked and that became known as ‘the big question’.
When KTW returned from meeting the Hunt committee, his wife asked two questions:
“Did they ask ‘the big question’?”
“No.”
“Did they offer you the job?”
“Yes.”
Great hilarity followed and Lord Henry was soon aware that his son-in-law would be hunting the Harriers next season. ‘The big question’ which fortunately did not get asked was “Can you ride a horse?” to which the answer would have been ‘No’.
Thus KTW became one of the few people ever to get a job as master and huntsman of a fox hunting Harrier pack without his being able to ride a horse.
In the summer months Mrs KTW gave her husband numerous secret riding lessons, and by the time the Harriers rode out for cub hunting in August he had become a passable horseman. Few guessed and even fewer knew that he had only been riding for three months.
When he got a message asking him to call on Lord Henry for a coffee some time after 9.00 pm, he had dinner and then drove to the Big House.
As they sat in the study, Lord Henry explained how tinkers were using the river to raid his best grazing and asked his son-in-law’s advice on tactics.
KTW was no lover of tinkers and barely a month went by when some or other of that fraternity did not steal a vehicle battery or hand tools or unscrew/unbolt some piece of a tractor or digger which one of his men had left unprotected or unwisely parked. He knew that Lord Henry’s gut reaction was towards confrontation with such people and that over the years there had been some big fights between estate workers and local tinkers. He now argued for a positive but non-confrontational approach to the problem.
“You never know what weapons they may be carrying”, said KTW. “At a tinker gathering near Clonmel last week, the Garda frisked those they could catch and ended up with knives, swords, axes, bill hooks, knuckle dusters, hurling sticks and goodness knows what else. It’s my experience”, went on KTW, “that if tinkers feel cornered or if their beloved horses seem at risk, then they stand and fight. If we can ambush the ones coming into your meadow, but leave them an escape route back into the river, then I think we can administer a notable shock without our getting involved in fisticuffs.”
“That seems a good assessment of the situation Kenwin”, said Lord Henry. “I agree with your logic. So when do we tackle them?”
“Suits me”, said KTW “why not now?”
KTW had driven over in his work-a-day pick-up truck and this seemed an ideal vehicle for the job in hand. Firstly because it had two powerful spotlamps on the cab roof and these could be controlled for direction by handles inside the roof. Secondly because the truck was already old and battered and if it chanced to get hit by a thrown half-brick the result would not be too critical. By comparison Lord Henry’s Range Rover was neither scratched nor dented, and he was keen it stayed that way.
The meadows were no more than a stroll across the lawns, but to get there with a vehicle it was necessary to drive down the main avenue, along a public road to the estate farm buildings and then double back along a track close to the river. It was a custom and practice for the main avenue gates of Rushbrooke Abbey to be locked during the hours of darkness, but Lord Henry and other members of the family all carried a gate key on their car keyrings. Lord Henry now let the pick-up truck out of the main gates, closed them behind him, and they headed for the meadow.
They expected to find the place already full of tinker horses so KTW drove slowly along the river track with no lights showing but the meadow lay quiet and deserted in misty moonlight. At Lord Henry’s suggestion they parked in the shadow of some trees, almost opposite that broken area of bank where the tinkers were expected to come ashore. It was 10.00 pm. They decided to wait for an hour and then reconsider the matter.
Sitting in the vehicle with no lights on both men were surprised at how far and how clearly they could see, once eyes got accustomed to the darkness.
KTW now gave an amusing commentary on his early season experiences hunting the Harriers. He said these hounds were much more responsive and less ‘bolshy’ than beagle packs he had hunted, and that as his horse riding slowly improved he had become adapt at spotting life-threatening obstacles from afar, and finding a route which took him around rather than over them!
Lord Henry told Kenwin about the storm driven yacht, and how he was itching to get Monty the estate mechanic down to the Dingle to start fixing things, but his lawyers had told him to wait until they got clearance from the Dutch lawyers. He continued, that he hoped to have the boat in good working order by Easter and to make a first voyage, probably to the Scilly Isles, in early summer.
“I was hoping that you and the family might be able to join us on that first voyage, but I suspect that Laura might be a bit young?”
KTW did some calculations on his fingers and said that Laura would be about eighteen months old by then and he continued : “I will leave it to my wife, your daughter, to decide whether or not she is too young.”
While they talked a horse whinnied in the darkness ahead and then another did the same. Much splashing and thudding of hooves followed and then, as in some well-rehearsed theatrical event, up from the dark river, like ghostly spectres, rode four horsemen, each leading a bunch of dripping, steaming horses. The riders paused for a long moment at the top of the bank, and the waiting men noticed that all four seemed to be carrying bags of some sort. When convinced that the coast was clear the riders slipped from the bare backs of their horses and began to untangle lead ropes to the other horses.
“Lights, Action”, muttered Lord Henry.
KTW now switched on the headlamps and spotlights and floodlit the scene. The horsemen – they were boys and scarcely teenagers – stood mesmerised for a few seconds like rabbits caught in the glare of vehicle headlamps, but their horses reacted immediately, rearing, kicking and bucking. Then as one, the four boys fled down the bank, dragging horses behind them and plunged into the dark river from which they had just come. KTW now started the pick-up truck engine and with much revving, but not too much forward speed, they drove to the riverbank. From well down stream came shouts, curses and whistles as the boys struggled to control or regain control of their horses. When those noises had died away and the tinkers were obviously clear of Rushbrooke land, and probably back ashore, the two men went to check the scene of the incident. Just below the lip of the bank were three plastic buckets and by two of them were small shovels. This was what the riders had been carrying when caught in the headlamp glare and from copious and obvious signs these buckets were being used to collect up horse droppings which had they been left in the meadow, might have been spotted in daylight from the Big House or gardens and have attracted attention to the night time raids.
After putting the buckets and shovels in the pick-up truck, Lord Henry suggested the job had been well done, he thanked KTW and offered him a quick whisky as a ‘night-cap’ before he went home.
They now retraced their route to the farm buildings and then back to the main avenue where further progress was blocked by a car, showing no lights, and parked slap in front of the gates. A flurry of activity within the steamed up interior, indicated that whoever was in that car had noticed that something was happening outside.
“Hello, hello” said KTW “it looks as if we have disturbed a courting couple.”
“Courting couple be blowed”, shouted Lord Henry as two half-naked bodies appeared briefly and then dived out of sight between the front and rear seats. “Shine the spot lights on them Kenwin, embarrass the bastards. I will not tolerate my avenue being turned into a fornicatorium by sex mad locals. There are miles and miles of quiet country lanes hereabouts, so what on earth attracts them to my gates?”
Those spotlights now lit up the inside of the car like a goldfish bowl leaving no dark places for the occupants to hide. A man suddenly sat up and seemed to be wrestling to open a rear door.
“Stand by for fisticuffs”, said KTW with a laugh.
“I bet he doesn’t fight”, said Lord Henry. “He’s got no trousers on, and men without trousers rarely fight.”
The man in the car seemed to appreciate this fact for he suddenly flung himself into the driver’s seat, started the engine and drove off at speed tracked by the dancing spotlights until he got safely around a bend in the road.
Both men were still chuckling when Lord Henry poured them each a whisky in his study.
“Here’s to a successful evening”, he ventured raising his glass “four tinker boys, a dozen tinker horses and two members of Fornicators Anonymous all sent packing.”
A love of the sea and of sailing was second only to Lord Henry’s love of horses and hunting. As a teenager he had thoroughly enjoyed sailing in dinghies. But while doing National Service in the Irish guards he was introduced to ocean racing, and from then onward his real love was big yachts. He hadn’t been in a competitive race for several years, when he agreed to help out a friend by crewing in that fateful Fastnet race. It brought home to him forcefully that ocean racing was for fit young men and not for unfit old men. As a result, and for the past ten years, Lord Henry had settled for leisurely cruising in a comfortable boat of about forty feet. He kept it moored at Dunmore East which provided a good base for weekend jaunts along the Irish coast. This was how he had come to know the Harbour master on the Dingle – which was a favourite haunt.
Twice each year, typically in early summer and again in late summer, Lord Henry would aim to go voyaging to places like the Scilly Isles, or the Channel Isles and to the Atlantic coast of Brittany. His present boat had served him and the Rushbrooke family well, but it did have two problems. Firstly it slept just six adults and secondly as his family grew more extensive there was little room for non-family guests. In addition, although it was a comfortable boat in light weather conditions, it bounced about like a barrel when conditions got rough, which meant that when sailing any distance from land, whoever was skippering had to spend almost as much time looking at the barometer and anticipating bad weather and calculating to which safe haven one could run if the weather got nasty, as they did looking at sails and plotting a course.
At the tail end of last summer Lord Henry had crossed to southern England for a Regatta and when the weather became unseasonably stormy he opted to moor the boat in the Hamble River and bring his party home by train and ferry, rather than give them all a severe shaking by sailing home. The boat had since been craned out of the water and it was now on a cradle in a Hamble boat park, awaiting spring weather.
It was when a package of material arrived from Holland with a letter from Dutch lawyers confirming that the Dingle Yacht plus all its contents was legally his, that Lord Henry appreciated the good fortune of having his old boat on land in southern England rather than on its mooring at Dunmore East.
He did not need two boats and it would be far easier to sell that old one where it was. He promptly rang Hamble and told the boat yard owner to find him a buyer.
His next telephone call was to the Harbour master in the Dingle, to tell him the good news, and to let him that that a Rushbrooke Estate mechanic would be arriving shortly to start work on the boat. Also that someone else, probably one of his daughters, would be calling to collect sails, soft furnishings and any other perishable items which might start to grow mushrooms and rot if left on board.
Amongst the material from Holland, Lord Henry was delighted to find a complete set of boat builders plans which would make it so much easier to order an aft mast and get spars and rigging correctly replaced.
He was also cheerful to get a near pristine workshop manual for the main engine and for the diesel generator. He rather expected such manuals to be missing or at best lying waterlogged and near useless somewhere in the boat. He now headed off to the estate workshop to button-hole Monty Finnigan the estate mechanic, to brief him on his next project.
Monty was tickled pink at the idea of getting his hands on some new and different engines. He had done a fair bit of work on Lord Henry’s old boat and he knew what needed to be done when marine engines had been swamped and had ingested saltwater. Lord Henry pointed to a battered electric hair dryer in Monty’s tool-box and suggested that it could be his most important piece of equipment over the next few days, if things like the short-wave radio were ever to come back to life. It was agreed that Monty would draw enough petty cash to keep him alive and fed for up to a week, and that he would leave for the Dingle next day.
At the end of October cub hunting ended and fox hunting proper began. Lord Henry’s estate lay on the border between the Tipperary Harriers and the local foxhounds and since these two packs avoided hunting on the same dates it meant that enthusiasts with enough time on their hands, could hunt four days a week. Lord Henry was not quite that enthusiastic and running his estate took up several days a week, even in winter, but he did try to go hunting twice a week with one pack or the other. The main criteria regarding with whom he hunted were : “do I like that bit of country?” and “is it within an hour’s horse box drive of Rushbrooke Abbey?” From time to time he did venture up into north Tipperary or east of Waterford but he tried to avoid far flung meets; not so much for the fag of getting to them but because of the soggy tedium of a long drive home, when tired out and sometimes soaking wet, with water squelching in his boots every time he pressed the horse box pedals.
On his second or third outing with the Tipperary foxhounds, Lord Henry found himself being tackled by the large and formidable Adèle Kennedy – the Chatelaine. She had just been appointed Chairperson of the Hunt Ball committee, and although that event was not due until well into the New Year, the Chatelaine was keen that all planning and decision making processes start sooner rather than later. She believed the old Hunt Ball committee had lost its way, lost its enthusiasm and lost its ability to think up new ideas, so she had sacked the lot except for John the Judge, and she was now busy trying to get new committee members. Would Lord Henry be willing to serve? Lord Henry looked about, hoping for some sudden distraction, like a fox breaking cover which might let him escape, but nothing happened to save him. Meekly he agreed. The Chatelaine smiled broadly, thanked him, gave him a slap on the shoulder which nearly knocked him from the saddle, and cantered off.
When Monty returned from the Dingle, Lord Henry asked that he call at the Big House and tell how he got on. Wearing an unusually clean boiler suit, unusually clean hands, and with an unusually big grin on his face, he now sat in Lord Henry’s study. His trip had gone well and no problems had defeated him. The main engine and the diesel generator had both ingested saltwater and the electrics were obviously soaked but both engines were cleaned out and up and running on the first day. Over the next two days he then cleaned, dried and lubricated all obvious parts below and above deck, and he helped Lord Henry’s daughter load armfuls of soggy sails and soft furnishings into her Land Rover for her to haul back to Tipperary for cleaning and drying.
The boat’s main engine was run up for a couple of hours each day and Monty was astonished at how smoothly and quietly it ran, especially when compared with the engine in Lord Henry’s old boat. He also said that when word got about that a man working on the big white yacht was good with marine engines, a steady succession of fisherman chugged across the harbour to ask his advice regarding rumbles, bumps and knocking noises in their boat engines. On one day a troop of sea scouts came to sail dinghies in the harbour, and while the scoutmaster was admiring the boat, Monty mentioned that it was probably going to be sailed around the coast to Dunmore East to get its new mast fitted. Later that day the scoutmaster came back and volunteered the services of himself and some of his seniors, as unpaid auxiliary crew for any such a voyage, should extra muscle be needed. Monty gave the man’s card to Lord Henry who thought a few sea scouts could be very useful.
When he walked into the study Lord Henry had noticed that Monty had a plastic supermarket bag which made a chinking thud as he put it on the floor. From that bag Monty now produced three bottles of American whisky and placed them on the desk. He had found them under the floorboards in the main saloon and he felt they might be safer at the Abbey than if left aboard. Lord Henry said that he would put two bottles in a safe place and he handed the third back to Monty for him to put in a safe place until he had something to celebrate!
Monty grinned his thanks then put his hand back into the bag and pulled out a heavy canvas pouch, which made a big thud as he put it on the desk.
“What have we here?”, asked Lord Henry as he picked up the pouch and unbuckled a flap which held it closed. “My God”, he gasped as two automatic pistols and a box of ammunition slid on to his desk. “Where on earth did you get these?”, he continued as he carefully checked each gun to make sure it was unloaded.
“They were in a small pigeon-hole, hidden behind panelling in the main saloon. I found it quite by accident when I was drying out some electrical wiring.”
At this point Lord Henry noticed that a piece of white card had slipped out from under the lid of the ammunition box.
“Does this tell us anything?”, he enquired, but Monty said he had not thought to open the box so had not seen the card which Lord Henry now read. It had a printed name and address on one side and a hand-written message on the other. The name was JK ZIPOLI with an address on Fifth Avenue, New York. The message read : “Have a good voyage to the Caribbean. Watch out for pirates and drug runners. I hope to get these back unused.” It was signed ‘JAN’.
“Who else knows about these guns?”, asked Lord Henry.
“Nobody”, said Monty. “I thought it best to keep quiet about them until I had given them to you.”
“Quite right, quite right”, muttered Lord Henry “and I think we both continue to keep quiet until I decide what to do about them. I suspect the legal owner is still this Mr. Zipoli in New York so I will probably start by trying to make contact with him, and meanwhile I will put this little lot under lock and key in the gun room. Now what else have you got hidden in that bag?”
A replacement timber mast plus spars, sails and all necessary rigging had already been ordered from a specialist dealer in the UK and Lord Henry was impatient to move his new boat around the coast to Dunmore East which had a dockside crane to lift out that broken stump of a mast and step in the new one.
A spell of cold settled weather in mid-December provided a window of opportunity, and early one morning Lord Henry, KTW and Monty drove to the Dingle, met up with the helpful scoutmaster and half a dozen of his boys, and they all climbed aboard for the voyage to Dunmore East. Lord Henry had planned to motor all the way, which was why he had Monty in the party but he had brought a set of sails in case the engine caused trouble. There was hardly a breath of wind as they left Dingle peninsula astern and slipped south past Valencia Island and Bantry Bay, but as they passed Mizen Head and swung eastward, a steady breeze sprang up from the southwest. To the great joy of sea scouts, Lord Henry now cut the engine and gave the order : “Hoist the mainsail.”
And under sail they continued all the way to Dunmore East, where they arrived looking every inch a thoroughbred ‘blue-water’ cruising yacht. Everyone enjoyed the trip, even Monty, who had never before been to sea on a yacht and wondered if he might be seasick. As for Lord Henry he was elated at how well his boat handled, even without its aft mast.
The three from Rushbrooke Abbey had left at the crack of dawn and had an alcohol-free time while aboard, so KTW did not have to be asked twice to join Lord Henry for a drink before going home.
Nobody was at the Abbey when they arrived but a large note on the hall table said : “Kenwin, ring home immediately”, and this made KWT feel uneasy. Several minutes later when he rejoined Lord Henry he was ashen-faced with shock.
That afternoon Lord Henry’s daughter had been in the first floor nursery with little Laura. When the telephone rang she walked out of the nursery and along the landing to pick up an extension phone. Unnoticed, Laura toddled after her, stumbled, caught hold of the landing banisters and somehow pitched headlong through them into the hall below. She was dead.
Down the generations, Rushbrookes remain accursed.