David Healey - Rebel Train

Flynn had come to America in 1847, the black year when the famine was at its worst in Ireland. Hundreds of thousands of Irish were starving to death due to the failure of the potato crop but Flynn managed to escape thanks to an aunt who scraped together the money to buy his passage from Cobh Harbor. Unlike many of the Irish refugees who sailed to New York or Boston or Newfoundland, his famine ship arrived in Baltimore.

“There it is, lad,” one of the deckhands said, pointing out the brick fort standing guard at the harbor entrance. “That’s Fort McHenry, where the British met their match against the Americans.”

“I’m going to be an American now,” the boy said proudly. Like most of the Irish, he hated the British who were slowly starving his people.

“Aye.” But the deckhand shook his head sadly. “So much for Ireland, laddy. There’s no doubt your future lies here now.”

Baltimore was a seafaring city where ships arrived from around the world full of goods and immigrants hoping for a better life. Along with the Irish came Polish and Germans, each living in their own squalid neighborhoods ringing the harbor.

Flynn’s new home was in the cellar of a decrepit row house, where he shared the damp quarters with an extended family headed by a distant cousin. They took him in because they had to, but there was no joy in greeting the young boy from home.

“He’s a big ’un,” he overhead the cousin telling his wife late one night when they thought Flynn and the other children were asleep, tumbled among each other under the dirty blankets. “Another gob to feed.”

“He’s plenty big enough to work,” the wife said. “He can earn what he eats.”

So Flynn was sent to the docks and the breweries and the stables, wherever a strong young boy was needed. His wages were paid to the cousin. In return, Flynn got scraps of bread and salt pork.

Life was hard and the boy might have been worked to death before that first winter was out. But his fate changed one day when the parish priest hired the boy’s services to muck out the stables. After hours of shoveling, Flynn sat eating a bowl of soup at the table in the rectory kitchen when the priest came in with a newspaper. He put the paper down on the table and proceeded to talk with the cook. Flynn sneaked a look at the paper and glanced up a minute later, mortified, to find the priest staring at him.

“You can read, boy?”

“Yes, Father.”

At a time when most of the Irish immigrants still spoke Gaelic, a boy who could read was rare. But his aunt had taught him in Ireland, holding lessons in front of the peat fire, telling him it was the way of the future.

Impressed, the priest put an end to Flynn’s laboring. Flynn became an altar boy and an errand runner for the priest. Father McGlynn was a rough and belligerent working man’s priest who drank too much whiskey, but he made certain that Flynn got his lessons. “Reading and writing and thinking are what separate us from the dumb beasts,” the old priest grumped. “Now copy out that damned page like I told you.”

By the time he was a teenager, the penniless immigrant boy could read and write as well as anyone, even in Latin.

He could have gone into the priesthood or found some job clerking in an office, but that was not the life for Flynn. He found that quick wits were useful, but quick fists even better. He went to work in the adventurous world that was America in the 1850s. When the war broke out, he found himself on the Southern side when the lines were drawn. Briefly, he shouldered a musket in the Confederate ranks but discovered that soldiering wasn’t for him. One dark night he deserted and fled to Richmond.

He soon found himself employed by Colonel Norris. From smuggling messages and quinine to helping Confederate agents cross the Potomac, Flynn had done more to help the Cause than he ever had in the ranks of General Joseph Johnston’s ragtag army.

As for Colonel Norris, his stern demeanor and severity reminded Flynn of Father McGlynn. But Flynn did not believe in the Southern Cause, just as he had not believed in old McGlynn’s unrelenting Catholicism. Flynn was in this war for himself, just as he had always done everything for himself. It was the way of the future.

Flynn was still sprawled in the chair a few minutes later when Colonel Percy came out onto the porch with the massive guard. Flynn made a show of clumsily scrambling to his feet and saluting awkwardly. The tall, sandy-bearded colonel squinted at him. He was about Flynn’s height but with a lean build. In fact, his clothes hung loosely, as if he had lost weight. Flynn seemed to remember something about the colonel having been wounded.

“I’m Percy,” he said. “Who are you?”

“Thomas Flynn, sir. Sergeant Flynn.” Flynn promoted himself; he had only been a private when he last wore a uniform.

“You’re the one Norris sent,” Percy said. His look was not friendly. “You’re the one who’s going to shoot me.”

“Well, I’m not in any hurry.”

“What if I shoot you first?”

“That could happen.” Flynn shrugged. “The truth is that I’m against shooting either one of us. I propose we go get Mr. Lincoln like Colonel Norris wants and make that the end of it.”

Percy still looked hostile. Evidently, he had already told his men what Flynn’s role was to be on the raid. The big guard had huge hands that he kept flexing as if he couldn’t wait to fit them around Flynn’s throat. Two other men had appeared in the doorway, the first a tall, lank-haired fellow with bad teeth and a wicked scar under his cheekbone. The second man was pale-eyed and whip thin, and his hand rested on a revolver in a hip holster.

“This could end right here,” Percy said.

Flynn nodded. “Sure, and you think Colonel Norris would let you get away with that? He’s a vengeful bastard and if he doesn’t find you, he will find your men. Or maybe even your home and your family. Fauquier County, isn’t it?”

“You son of a bitch,” Percy hissed, taking a step toward him.

Flynn held his ground. “It’s not me you should be mad at, Colonel,” he said, realizing that things had gone as wrong as they could. Percy’s men circled him like wolves. “It’s Norris. I’m stuck with you as much as you’re stuck with me, don’t you see? There’s things I’d rather do than drag me arse to Maryland. Besides, I’m kinder than anyone else Norris could have sent. Or might still. I’ll only use one bullet.”

Percy smiled slightly, and Flynn decided that the colonel understood him, even if he couldn’t like him. His men seemed to sense the tension ease and drifted away. Flynn really hadn’t known what to expect when Norris had sent him to join these soldiers. And Flynn hadn’t been exaggerating about Norris’ long reach. There was no betraying him unless a man wanted to find himself dragged out of bed late at night and dumped into the James River with a hundred pounds of iron chain around his ankles. Flynn himself had performed those exact services for the spymaster.

Considering the company Norris kept, Flynn had expected Percy to be an altogether different man from the gentlemanly, handsome, likable officer he found. Percy looked every bit the dashing Southern hero and Flynn would not be surprised if the man even wore a plume in his hat. He would regret killing him, if it came to that.

“Let’s get off the street,” Percy said, interrupting his thoughts “This is the sort of discussion we should be having indoors.”

Percy led the way into the house, followed by Flynn and then the two who had come out on the porch. The huge black man stayed behind to keep a lookout.

“That was Hudson on the porch,” Percy explained as they entered a high-ceilinged parlor to the left of the front door.