Part 2 (1/2)

The O'Malley's stayed in Liverpool until they sold everything they couldn't take aboard the s.h.i.+p. His mother cried when her marriage chest, fine linens, and family china were purchased. They wrapped the rest of their belongings in faded blue cloth.

As they boarded the s.h.i.+p, his mother started coughing.

The s.h.i.+p was packed. None of the adults could stretch out to sleep. Patrick worried about his mother. Her cough worsened in the dank air below deck. After four days at sea, her trembling and alarmingly hot body woke him up in the middle of the night. His father wept through his mother's moans. Patrick sat up and saw her head in his father's lap. After awhile her body stopped shaking and her skin turned gray. His father clutched her to his breast and wailed. Patrick heard the same sound all around the bottom of the s.h.i.+p.

The next day some of the crew descended into the dank hole to gather the bodies of the people who had died during the night. His father grabbed his sister and shoved Patrick into the sea of people rus.h.i.+ng onto the deck where the relatives of the dead screamed and wailed as the sailors tossed the rigid bodies overboard.

Patrick's last memory of his mother as she plunged into the foaming sea was the peculiar way her cheeks and eyes had caved into her face and the eerie pallor of her skin. He pressed against his father fearfully. She no longer looked like his mother in the merciless daylight.

Tears streamed down his Da's face. ”Oh, it's sorry I am, Mary. To die out here without a priest to say last rites and not even a coffin or shroud.” He wept openly for a long time.

After that, a coffin s.h.i.+p appeared in every one of Patrick's nightmares.

By the time they arrived at Const.i.tution Wharf in Boston, Patrick had pa.s.sed his eleventh birthday and was big for his age. His sister Katy's growth had been stunted by starvation and the famine had temporarily taken her voice.

”All she needs is to eat normal and she'll be fine,” their father p.r.o.nounced as the s.h.i.+p neared its port. ”She'll get plenty of that in America. Thank G.o.d.”

Patrick noticed gangs of young men waiting at the docks. When pretty young women disembarked, the men s.n.a.t.c.hed them and disappeared. The fathers, brothers, and husbands of the young women chased the villains with a howl. But weakened by hunger and the inactivity aboard s.h.i.+p, the men were easily overpowered by the thugs who beat them and stole their possessions.

”Dirty, rotten emigrant runners!” A man waiting at the docks shook his fists at the villains. He turned to Joseph, looked down at Katy, and nodded. ”You be keeping an eye on that one. Those poor girls will never see their families again. The scoundrels be taking them to houses of prost.i.tution. Most of the prost.i.tutes in Boston and New York be innocent Irish girls taken by gangs of Irish boys gone bad. 'Tis a disgrace, it is.” The man spat on the ground.

Patrick saw his father's grip tighten on Katy.

The O'Malleys settled in the North End slums in a dilapidated rooming house. Their neighbor's baby had died a year before and she happily cared for Katy, freeing Patrick and his father to look for work. They saw signs posted everywhere: ”No Irish or Catholics Need Apply.” Below one of the signs someone had scrawled, ”The man who wrote this wrote it well, for the same is written on the gates of h.e.l.l.”

Joseph shook his head. ”Sure and I didn't come over the sea for this.”

Patrick and his father signed on as day laborers on reclamation projects around Boston. There he met Timmy, who was a year older. Timmy was a handsome lad, but he had a club foot and walked with a limp. He was also smart and tough. Being they were both from Ireland and close to the same age, they became friends.

One evening, as they sat around the wharves, Timmy spied a group of teenagers coming toward them. He took Patrick by the arm and dragged him away. ”The first thing you need to know,” Timmy whispered as they ducked into a dark alley, ”is the natives hate us.”

”The natives?”

Timmy put his hand on Patrick's mouth, silencing him. When the teenagers were out of sight, Timmy said, ”The natives are them Irish born in America.” He nodded in the direction of the group. ”They be the True Blue American gang. Stay away from them if you value a sound body and your life.”

”Why do they hate us?”

”Because we're not natives,” Timmy put his arm around him. ”Just stay away from them.”

It wasn't easy. It seemed they lived to provoke the immigrants. Patrick learned their faces in order to stay away from them. His only protection was to join a gang of Irish immigrants. Since Timmy belonged to the Plug Uglies gang, Patrick joined, too.

In the meantime, Katy gained weight and found her voice again. It worried Patrick that she was growing up so pretty. He shuddered as he looked around at the brothels, where most of the wh.o.r.es were pretty Irish girls. Even Timmy was beginning to eye his sister.

Not that Katy noticed. Over the years, she had grown attached to Elizabeth, their neighbor. When Elizabeth's husband was killed in a barroom brawl, Joseph soon found himself in her arms. It made sense. An Irish woman alone had no chance, and Joseph was a lonely widower.

”My only sorrow,” Elizabeth said to his father at dinner one night, ”is I can't give you a bairn.”

”That's a relief,” Joseph answered. ”The bairns here are only born to die.”

Patrick wondered about his own future. Although he was happy for his father and liked Elizabeth, he felt like an intruder. He was almost grown and needed to find his own way.

When the Civil War began, he was drafted into an Irish brigade from Ma.s.sachusetts, Col. Thomas Ca.s.s's ”Fighting Ninth” regiment.

”I can't fight in the war yet,” Patrick told Katy. ”I'm still a boy.”

”A boy as big as a man,” Katy put her hand on his arm. ”Is it worried about me, you are?”

Patrick looked away. Katy squeezed is arm. ”Patrick O'Malley, you listen to me. I can take care of myself.”

He turned to look at his sister. She was pretty like their mother. It hurt him to think of where she might end up without him here to protect her.

She finished his thought, ”Without ending up in a brothel.”

”Who's to make sure you don't? There be far too many scoundrels afoot...”

”They'll all be drafted. There will be no one left under thirty.”

”Da's too old to watch out for you,” he warned.

”Timmy's not,” Katy turned and looked him straight in the eye.

Patrick's eyes widened. He was afraid of that. But he knew Katy had to marry somebody someday.

”He's the one for me. With his foot, he won't be going to war.”

”Katy...”

Katy patted Patrick's face with her hand. ”He's your best friend. You know how good he is and he loves me. He's not like the other boys around here who just want to lie with me.”

Patrick hugged her. ”He's a fine man, Katy. It's happy I am.”

”So now you can go off and be a hero and not worry about me.” Katy laughed.

Patrick laughed, too, but it didn't change his concerns.

On July 1, 1862, Patrick and the rest of his brigade distinguished themselves by winning the Battle of Malvern Hill. But Patrick lost his friend Sgt. Driscoll in the fight.

Sgt. Driscoll loved to drink as much as he loved America. At forty, he was the oldest man in the brigade, but no one was better with a rifle-unfortunately. When the brigade was unable to continue up Malvern Hill because of an aggressive sharpshooter, Captain Conygham needed a skilled marksman to take down the young Confederate sniper.

”Leave that to me,” Driscoll volunteered.

After a few rounds, the sound of a rifle reporting back from Malvern Hill ended.

”I think he's dead, Captain,” Driscoll yelled.

”Make sure he's dead,” Captain Conygham ordered.

Sgt. Driscoll walked up the hill to the clump of trees where the sniper lay on his stomach. Following close behind, Patrick saw Driscoll turn the boy over. A raspy word of surprise came from the young Confederate officer before the boy closed his eyes and died.

”Da.”