54/40 Fulfilled

Green. My earliest memories are of the fabled Emerald Isle, place of my birth, and the green everywhere. And then in my fevered dreams I remember that the ocean was green, too, much of the journey across the Atlantic. And hunger. As I toss and turn at night even now I remember the gnawing pain in my belly and how it turned my thoughts inwards so that all I cared about was putting something, anything, in there to stop the hurt. At least the boat pitching her way across the ocean smelled clean and fresh and salty. Above decks, anyway. Ireland in my memory stinks of the rotting potato crop that would never again feed us. The stench followed us, mile after mile, as we walked to the port seeking escape from the hunger and the pain and the stink and the humiliation of being Irish in an Ireland under the thumb of the thieving English. Every night I hope to wake up before I remember her brown eyes. Jenny. Sweet innocent little Jenny, fading away to skin and bones in spite of all our efforts to keep her fed. Her belly swollen. Her eyes looking huge as she lay on the cot in our hovel. My mother holding her hand, her other hand on Jenny’s frail chest, feeling the faint breaths until finally that chest lay still and the life went out of those brown eyes and they stared deep into my soul even as my heart sank. Silence. And then my father erupting in a fury of curses. Smashing the chair upon which he sat against the hard clay of our floor. Crockery was next as invective flowed freely from those formerly pious lips. Finally, his rage spent, he looked at me and I felt a chill go up my spine. I had never seen such pure hate in those eyes before. “Today we will bury Jenny,” he said, an otherworldly calm seeming to come over him, “then we’ll sell everything we can and get on a boat to America. Nobody’s hungry there, they say, but most importantly you can be a man in America and not have to lick the boots of any damned landlord or his hired lackey. You can live free on your own land. You can walk tall.” He paused and looked around him, for the first time seeing the shambles of our home which he had just made. With a sigh he continued. “My life is over, John. I’m done. But one last thing I can do and that’s give you and your brother the life I couldn’t give your wee sister.” My mother looked up, having gently crossed Jenny’s bony arms over her chest. She looked at me, too, and my soul was almost crushed by the depth of sadness I saw looking back at me. “Go and get the priest. I have to clean up.” She rose then, picked up the broom, and began to lethargically sweep up what once had been our tableware. The priest came, but he was no real help. He arrived at our door looking more like a stuffed potato than like a man of God. Clearly the famine was only academic for him and men of his ilk. It would not be hard to leave his kind behind, though I knew that I would forever long to see those green hills once more. We buried Jenny and our tears were for her and for Ireland. Would we ever again know joy? +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I’ll start my story here: the part of British North America called New Caledonia, directly north of the Oregon Territory, what the tyrant queen Victoria wanted to call British Columbia, puts even my beloved Emerald Isle to shame for all the shades of green there. And the trees! The trees are endless, green and tall with a straightness to make any shipbuilder weep with joy. The waters teem with fish, the forests with game, and the climate lacks the winter harshness I knew in Erse or in the eastern parts of America. My name is John O’Neill, lately governor of this fair northern land, and my task is to tell how that came to be and to leave a record of my doings so as to protect my reputation amongst my Irish and American compatriots. I will start then, with the most controversial thing I did in this land, an act for which I have been judged piratical by many who otherwise agree with my heart and soul’s hatred of all things British and our common desire to sting them wherever we may for the future freedom of blessed Eire. It was a rainy and chilly day, August 28th 1858, when I and my forty core men first caught sight of the wooden palisade of Fort Langley, the southernmost Hudson’s Bay Company trading post on Fraser’s River, having made our way up the Nikomekl River from the Georgia Strait and then down the Salmon River. These were two small rivers, not much more than streams, and we had to portage several times, with great effort moving our precious cargo, but in this manner we avoided the Royal Navy gunboat guarding the mouth of the Fraser. Gold had been discovered farther up that majestic river and many thousands of my fellow Americans had already found their way to the gold fields and commenced panning and mining for the glittery metal. So many Americans, in fact, that we vastly outnumbered the five hundred or so Brits who lived on the mainland parts of New Caledonia. We surveyed the unruly tent city grown up around the fort and saw and heard many Americans there that day. I was surprised to see Ned McGowan, himself lately from San Francisco, a lawyer and a leader of men. He was in the middle of a rowdy group of miners, cheerily lifting a mug when he saw me approaching. “John O’Neill!” he cried, “My favourite disgraced soldier! Have you seen the light and decided to seek your fortune on the new gold fields?” The men around him laughed at the jibe and tipped their mugs. A motley crew they were, at least half drunk, but they were Americans like me, all of us in a foreign land. “Yes, Ned, my new bride and I have come to try our luck. California is pretty well milked dry, wouldn’t you say?” Mary came up beside me and gave him a nod of her head. His eyes moved from me to her and he spoke in a grim tone. “She’s too pretty for you, my friend. You’d better watch that some miner who’s done well upstream doesn’t make her a better offer and steal her away.” My hand moved to push aside my greatcoat and make my dragoon pistol more easily reached. Ned saw that and he burst into laughter and gave me a pat on my other arm. “Calm yourself, John. I’m just warning you that there are too few women in this country and Mary might find herself in an uncomfortable spot one of these days, especially if you take her upriver to where the gold is. There are short tempers up there, I’m told, and plenty of drink to be had by any man with a little gold dust. Things might get a bit unpredictable.” I let my coat fall back over my pistol and managed to offer a bit of a chuckle. “You’re right and a man of wisdom, as always, Ned. I’ll be careful. We’ve brought with us a few of our mutual friends from the Fire Hall and we’ll just go and find ourselves a corner to set up our camp.” I tipped my hat, in what I hoped would be seen as a genial gesture, and we took our leave. We quietly pitched our tents amongst the miners and others, and we scattered to listen at the campfires to judge the mood of the rest of our fellows. We were cheered on hearing how disgruntled they were at how hard it was to find gold and at the refusal of the monopolistic Hudson’s Bay Company to sell land for settlement. The gates of the Fort stood open until sunset and we watched the Union Jack being taken down with music and salutes in the British formal manner and all who were not with the Company were ejected until morning. We were well content to sleep soundly that night with only a token guard posted. The next morning dawned fair and bright. We waited for the dew to burn off and took the time to don the uniforms given to us by the US Army Quartermaster General in San Francisco. These uniforms originally bore no unit insignia, but my beloved Mary and some other wives had sewn new crests for us all in a fitting emerald green bearing the golden harp of our homeland and the hopeful words ‘Army of Pacific America’. We donned our greatcoats as well to disguise ourselves, as warm as it already was, and each armed himself with a dragoon pistol and Colt revolving rifle, likewise on loan to us from our friend in the armoury at San Francisco, and thus began my supposed act of piracy. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I was in the lead as we approached the open gate of the Fort. We walked in casual order as did everyone around us, our carbines across our backs, and no-one questioned our presence. To our left was the wall with its defensive works, including cannon in towers on the corners, pointing towards the river. Several men armed with muskets could be seen patrolling, but their attention, too, was focused outside the Fort. Ahead of us were workshops and storehouses and the trading post, the centre of much activity. To the immediate right was the trading window where the Indians conducted their business, then next to that were the barracks and other housing for the servants of the Company, and near the far wall was the Great House with the flagpole in front, proudly bearing that Union Jack that we Irishmen despise. The first words spoken to us were by the guard standing at the door of the Great House, who had been looking over at the trading post with a bored expression on his face. He noticed us coming towards him and his eyes at first widened and then he hailed us. “You gents can do your business at the trading post like everyone else, buckos! Hie ye off there.” We continued approaching and he crossed his musket to bar the door, looking at us with greater concern. “If you want to live another day you’d better stand aside yourself, bucko,” I said, just loud enough to be heard by that guard and no-one else, as I held open my greatcoat to show him my pistol and so did many of my men, our backs turned towards the guards on the wall. His face blanched as I continued, “leave your musket standing there and walk inside. Say nothing, just step aside and let us by and you’ll be breathing still at sunset.” We had a plan for this moment and we immediately put it in place. We took our carbines off our backs and streamed inside, two men to each of the rooms on the ground floor and the rest of us to the office upstairs. We tied up those present downstairs, including another guard in attendance there, and upstairs we found only the factor and several clerks. Our operation went off without a hitch to that point. J. Murray Yale, factor at Fort Langley, was a very small older man and I learned right there that he had a big attitude and no fear of death. He drew a pistol from a desk drawer and with a loud curse fired at me, putting a hole in the sleeve of my uniform. Sergeant O’Malley shot him dead right there with his carbine and we ordered the clerks to lie on the floor. I sent one squad to close the Fort’s gate and two others to pick off the guards on the wall. Another squad was sent to control the barracks and my final squad took the trading post. I had hoped to capture the Fort quietly and with no blood shed, but I lost one man and we had to kill four of the Brits before everyone else surrendered. The guard at the door who we disarmed made it through alive, as promised, thanks to his wisdom and discretion and the grace of God. The rest of the day was spent caring for the wounded and securing the Fort, including ferreting out some young boys who thought that they could take back the Fort from us by waiting until full dark. I admired their bravery, but was glad to return them to their mothers for everyone’s safety. At dusk we took down the Union Jack and announced over the wall that a proclamation would be read at dawn outlining the new realities of life at Fort Langley. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The night passed quietly with our tiny army now in full control of the lower reaches of the Fraser River. We had filibusterers freshly returned from their folly in Nicaragua to man our guns on the bastion and most of the rest of our force were veterans of the Mexican War, Irishmen to a man and loyal to the cause, hard and tested men who had shown their quality again on the day previous. We hoisted our flag with the dawn, the handiwork of my bride Mary Crowe, a stunning emerald green festooned with the golden harp and the year 1642- the year of the O’Neill rebellion in Ireland- and we saluted that flag with patriotic fervour on that brand new day and brand new era. Our next act was to satisfy the curiosity of the hundreds of murmurers gathered outside our gate. With our flag flying high on the morning breeze for all to see we opened the gate and the crowd saw us for the first time arrayed as an army, in full uniform, armed and standing in ranks with all the discipline of Caesar’s legions, our greatcoats left behind. I stood in front as befitted my rank and my eyes swept the crowd before us, viewing men and a few women, whites and redskins, but I saw no threat in those looking back at me. I dramatically unrolled a scroll I had been carrying for several weeks now as our trumpet boy called all and sundry to attention, and I read in a loud voice: “Let all those present here today know that a new day has dawned on this fruitful land which until today was the sole domain of robber-barons headquartered in faraway London, servants of the Queen of England who, like those robber-barons calling themselves the Hudson’s Bay Company, cares only to fill her treasury with the wealth of this land and who cares nothing for bringing the blessings of civilization to these parts. We of the Army of Pacific America hereby take possession of this Fort and all its contents and inhabitants and make known to all God’s children and all witnesses here today that we intend to free this whole land heretofore known as New Caledonia and bring Democracy and Progress to all resident therein. To that end we promise that a free and democratic election will be held here at Fort Langley one week from today to elect a governor and council to organize this territory and to legitimize our actions that have brought us to this day. All white men within the sound of my voice present here today and still resident here on the day of election will be eligible to cast a ballot in this first free vote in this new and wildly beautiful land of which God has seen fit to grant us to become stewards. God bless America, and may God grant long-awaited freedom to Ireland!” I was gratified and relieved to hear cheers burst forth from the ragged band of men gathered on the grass amongst the tents. Some threw their hats into the air and fired pistols aloft. I rolled up the scroll with a smile on my face and held my arms up for order. I called Captain Skeehan forward to make his own announcement. He saluted me and faced our new friends. “Today we want to accomplish three things: firstly, the trading post and trading window will not be open today so that we can inventory all the supplies and trade goods. No-one need go hungry because of this for the second thing we will do today is prepare and host all of you at a grand feast to be cooked and served on the path between where I stand right now and the slope down to the dock.” At this there were more cheers, and it took a couple of minutes and several false starts before Skeehan could continue. Chuckling softly, he carried on when all was reasonably quiet. “The third thing we need is your help. Anyone who wants steady pay now and a grant of 160 acres once our mission is complete is welcome to interview to join our little army. You may come to the gate throughout the day and pass in individually or in small groups to apply. In the meantime, perhaps you would be good enough to push that wagon over there with the young lady sitting on it up to the gate. That wagon contains your uniforms and your weapons to continue the freedom campaign we have begun today!” About a dozen husky young men happily pushed the wagon through the gate and then joined the line forming there, and I was reunited with my wife who had spent the night with a few other armed guards protecting the tools of our future work to create the territory of Pacific America. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++