The Story of Esther Costello

Copyright & Information

The Story of Esther Costello

First published in 1953

© Estate of Nicholas Monsarrat; House of Stratus 1953-2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The right of Nicholas Monsarrat to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

This edition published in 2011 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

Typeset by House of Stratus.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

ISBN: 0755131320 EAN 9780755131327

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This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

www.houseofstratus.com

About the Author

Nicholas Monsarrat was born in Liverpool, the son of a distinguished surgeon. He was educated at Winchester and then at Trinity College, Cambridge where he studied law. However, his subsequent career as a solicitor encountered a swift end when he decided to leave Liverpool for London, with a half-finished manuscript under his arm and £40 in his pocket.

The first of his books to attract attention was the largely autobiographical ‘This is the Schoolroom’. It is a largely autobiographical ‘coming of age’ novel dealing with the end of college life, the ‘Hungry Thirties’, and the Spanish Civil War. During World War Two he joined the Royal Navy and served in corvettes. His war experience provided the framework for the novel ‘HMS Marlborough will enter Harbour’, and one of his best known books. ‘The Cruel Sea’ was made into a classic film starring Jack Hawkins. After the war he became a director of the UK Information Service, first in Johannesburg, then in Ottawa.

Established as a sort after writer who was also highly regarded by critics, Monsarrat’s career eventually concluded with his epic ‘The Master Mariner’, a novel on seafaring life from Napoleonic times to the present.

Well known for his concise story telling and tense narrative, he became one of the most successful novelists of the twentieth century, whose rich and varied collection bears the hallmarks of a truly gifted master of his craft.

‘A professional who gives us our money’s worth. The entertainment value is high’- Daily Telegraph

Dedication

For C A, Mrs and Jean

with love and thanks

Author’s Note

The Story of Esther Costello is the story of a monstrous fraud in philanthropy. It is wholly fictional, and its characters portray no ‘real life’ persons, either alive or dead. In particular, it does not reflect in the slightest upon those many exemplary individuals and organizations rendering aid to the handicapped. If the book has any moral for the charitable, that moral is: ‘Give to those you know’.

Prologue

In the late spring of 1916, after the bloody and abortive Easter Rising in Dublin, four men on the run from the police and the military reached the outskirts of a small village called Cloncraig, in the county of Wexford in southern Ireland. One of the men was an undoubted murderer; for the rest, that distinction was still to come. They were all members of Sinn Fein; they had had a fearful time getting out of Dublin after the fighting, with the police on their heels and few friends to trust; they all carried arms, and four hand grenades apiece, and (between them) two hundred pounds of gunpowder stolen from a fireworks firm near Kingstown.

They had clung possessively to the explosive throughout a fortnight’s hue-and-cry which had chased them farther and farther south; it was the tool of their trade, their cherished treasure, as a full wallet is to another man, or her fresh beauty to a young girl. It was never to be surrendered. But the weight of it was heavy and had hampered and nearly ruined them many times; now, after fourteen days’ close pursuit, their weariness was desperate, and their pace a deadly mockery of their hopes.

Presently, as they stumbled down the road in the dusk, a figure rose beside them, melting out of the shadows like a ghost. The party of four stopped dead, their hands clutching their guns.

The stranger called softly: “Is it you?”

“Is it who?” said the leader, who was the murderer.

“Sinn Fein,” said the stranger, as a man gives a password.

“Sinn Fein for ever.”

“Up the rebels,” said the stranger, and then: “You can’t stop, boys. There’s police all around.”

“God damn them all!” said one of the party. “English hirelings, every one.”

“You can’t stop,” repeated the stranger. “You’ll have to break for the coast – and fast, too.”

“We need rest,” said the leader. In the darkness, he bent his aching legs to ease them. “We’ve been on the move for a fortnight.”

“How was it in Dublin, then?”

“We killed four hundred of them – the murdering bastards. But they got James Connally. They’ve hung him already, for all I know.”

“God bless Ireland,” said the stranger.

“Where can we sleep?” asked one of the party.

“You can’t stop,” said the stranger again. “It’s the coast for you.”

“We’ll sleep here tonight,” said the leader, suddenly hard. “Where’s the house?”

The stranger jerked his head. “Nearby,” he said, unwillingly. “But it’s likely to be watched.”

“We’ve got guns,” said the leader. “It’d better not be watched too close. We can use them again, if need be.”

They set off up a side track, moving slowly with dragging feet: the heavy weight on the back of each man bore him down nearly to the ground. “Can you not go faster?” asked the stranger presently. “You’ll have to move like hares tomorrow … What’s in the packs?”

“Something for you to take care of,” said the leader.

“What’s that?” asked one of his party, sharply.

“We’ll be leaving it behind for a bit,” said the leader. “It’s making us too slow altogether.”

“How do you mean, ‘leave it behind’?” said another, a rebellious voice.

“Bury it, maybe.” He turned to the figure at his side. “Have you got a cellar?”

“I have that. But–”

“We’ll be leaving something with you,” said the leader. “Something to take care of. We’ll come back for it. Maybe not for a long time. But we’ll come back.” There was extraordinary menace in his voice. “Remember that.”

“We’ve carried it a long way,” said another of the party, whining against the decision. “It’s cost a few lives by now. How do we know we can trust him?”

“I trust him,” said the leader. He turned again. “Don’t I?”

“I’ll hold it safe for you … What is it, then?”

“Something to take care of. Something to be kept dry. Something that’s never to be looked at – not by you, not by your wife, not by the kids. It’s to stay there till we come for it. And we’ll come, too.”

“Be easy,” said the stranger. “It’ll lie hid till doomsday – and beyond, if you like.”

Part One

Chapter One

The four children played in the ruined cottage just outside the village of Cloncraig – the cottage, long deserted, where the man and his wife and the children had all been killed, away back during the Troubles. Its door hung askew, its windows gaped; grass grew between the turf walls and sprouted from the floorboards. The Black-and-Tan place, their parents called it, and cursed the memory when the children were not by; but for the children – Esther Costello and her brother, Michael Fairlie with the limp, and young Denis Finane – for them it was just a fine place to play, and safely out of call of the grown-ups. Perhaps the cottage was haunted, perhaps the queer stains on the old walls were really blood; but it was full of good corners, and hiding places, and secrets – a fine place to play indeed, and none better in Cloncraig.

It had become more exciting still since Esther discovered the cellar.

Esther Costello was ten, and the eldest of the four; the others followed her, though she was only a girl, because she knew the best games, and was daring always, and strong enough to punch their heads if need be. There was also (though they did not know this, and would have spat derisively if they had been told) an element of great beauty in her small, lively face. But to look at them otherwise, there was nothing much to choose between the four children: they were all ragged, barefoot, ill-nourished; the outdoor air had put a deceptive brown upon their faces, not really hiding the pallid skins below.

Their hair, which never knew a comb from one month’s end to another, hung matted and over-long; their hands and feet alike were filthy. The boys wore bleached khaki shorts, Esther a faded skirt and a ravelled woollen jersey. The quartet, in fact, looked what they were – the products of a poor Irish village, and of feckless parents who, lacking the resources or the patience to train their families, thankfully let them run wild.

The children were thus, as free young animals, singularly happy for most of the time, and especially so on this May morning, when Esther – newly-elected Captain of the Cellar – was allowing them for the first time to see what she had found below the flagged-stone floor.

The cellar itself was wonderful enough: a single dark space, hollowed out beneath the living room, and unsuspected by the two generations of children who had always used the deserted cottage as a playground. Its entrance was by a trapdoor beside the fireplace, masked by a stack of crumbling peats and discovered by Esther when she was scavenging for kindling. A ladder led down to it, and there, by candlelight, she had come upon an empty room, stone-flagged, swept clean, which must have lain hidden in musty darkness for at least twenty years.

The cellar had become their headquarters for the most secret meetings of all. But a few weeks later they had found something else, something better still. Hidden treasure, no less – or so it seemed likely to turn out.

It was, once more and inevitably, Esther who had chanced to stamp on a hollow flagstone, and become curious, and, when her brother and the others were gone, prised it up and discovered the strange hoard below. Four boxes they were, wrapped tight in old newspapers, and round them all a big, rotted mackintosh sheet.

And in the boxes?

“I’m not saying,” said Esther, when she first reported the find to an awed audience.

“You’ve never looked,” said Michael Fairlie.

That was not quite true. Esther had looked at one box, and been puzzled by what she saw, and put back the top staves again, without exploring farther.

“I’ve looked all right. Never you fear.”

“Is it treasure?” asked Denis Finane, a small wizened caricature of a child who looked almost a decade older than his nine years. “Is it gold, then?”

“It’s not gold,” said Esther, tantalizing.

“Tell us, Esther,” said her brother, Johnny Costello. “What’s in the boxes?”

Michael Fairlie, limping round on his twisted leg, affected disdain. “There’s nothing there,” he said scornfully, over his shoulder. “It’s empty boxes. Firewood.”

“All right,” said Esther, feminine and tough at the same time. “It’s empty boxes.”

“Don’t listen to him,” said Denis Finane, ready to weep with curiosity. “Tell us what’s in them.”

“Nothing,” said Esther. “You heard him say.”

And so her perverse mood had remained, until today, when at last she was going to show them what she had found.

What she had found did not readily identify itself to any of them. They went down the ladder by candlelight, one by one, and under Esther’s direction the flagstone was prised up again, and the boxes levered out. Inside each of them was an old canvas pack, such as travelling tinkers carried, but so rotten now that it tore when it was touched; and inside the pack two little kegs, like beer barrels, full of black powder – some of it wet, some of it dry still. Alongside each were three or four metal objects, like iron balls, but egg-shaped and fluted. Each had a small metal ring attached, hanging down from its middle.

Michael Fairlie dropped one of these strange things on the floor. It rang on the stone flag, setting up a small tinny echo. It did not bounce, like a ball; it did not break or crack: it did nothing. In the candlelight the children looked at each other, puzzled.

“Well,” said Johnny Costello. “What is it, then? Some old game?”

“’Tis powder,” offered Denis Finane excitedly. “’Tis powder, and these are cannonballs.”

“Balls is right,” said Michael Fairlie, sniggering.

“There’s a bad word, and well you know it!” said Esther sternly. “Your ma’ll soap your mouth out, if I tell her. Behave yourself, then.”

Johnny Costello was fiddling with the object which Michael Fairlie had dropped. “The ring’s loose,” he said presently. “You can pull it out.”

He gave a jerk, and the ring came away, and with it a small pin. They waited, none the wiser, for some explanation, but nothing happened.

“Buried treasure!” said Michael disgustedly. “’Tis nothing but a lot of old kitchen stuff.”

Esther opened another of the kegs – the wooden staves were loose and rotted – and dipped her finger in the powder, and tasted it with the tip of her tongue. It looked like black sugar, but it was salty and bitter, different from anything she had ever tasted before. She stood in silence, disappointed that her ‘treasure’ should have turned out like this – nothing special, just dull and flat, with no sense in it.

Out of the corner of her eyes she saw her brother Johnny pick up another metal ‘egg’, and jerk out the pin, and then hold it momentarily to his ear, listening. She pushed the keg of powder she had opened back into the box again, and Johnny, following her, tossed the metal object on top of it.