Chapter 35

The following new characters are introduced in the next two chapters:

Father Michael Fournier

Priest, Missionary, 5'-7" tall, 135 pounds, 45 years old, brown hair, hazel eyes

Thomas Young

Partisan Leader, Lieutenant Colonel, 5'-10" tall, 150 pounds, 38 years old, brown hair and beard, blue eyes, no Talent

Shortly after the Feast of the Epiphany, which is on the 6th of January, a Tuesday in this year of 1801, Clare, Saoirse, and Eileen became very agitated. On the evening of Friday, the 9th of January, it all came to a head when Clare had a question for me after we were in bed, but before we had sex.

"Mark, when will we be married? We, Saoirse, Eileen and I, were aware that we couldn't be married during Advent, but Christmas and Epiphany have passed now, and we all wish to be married, and we want a proper church wedding. You promised!" she reminded me in a shaking voice.

"Yes, we will be married, but I am not sure about a 'Proper Church Wedding' as you put it," I told her. "There aren't that many churches here in Lexington. At least not churches as I have known them," I continued.

"There is a Catholic chapel here, but I don't know when the priest will be here!" she told me starting to become frantic.

We hadn't visited any of the few churches here for Christmas. Instead we held a service in the large parlor at Hickory Hill. Mrs. O'Flannagain had brought her Bible. Many of the other women had been jealous but grateful as none of them had one. Various passages were read from it, and our Sisters and Cousins had sung hymns during the service. Everyone attending seemed to have enjoyed the service.

There had been more singing following the service by our female relatives with Ken and Kell joining in. There were a number of tunes in Gaelic plus some in our American English including a number of Christmas carols. Several of the men recruited from Fort Jefferson had also sung a few Christmas tunes in Old English. At the time, we were unaware of there being a Catholic church in Lexington.

"We will visit the chapel tomorrow if you wish and try to determine when the priest will be there. I wasn't aware that there was a chapel here," I finished.

"Yes, one of the cooks, Miss Rose, told us," Clare informed me. We slept very well later that night.

Saturday morning after checking on operations at Mount Sterling, Wolf and I accompanied by Saoirse and Clare transferred to Hickory Hill. Carl and Eileen soon joined us there. We borrowed horses from the stable, and set out for the Catholic chapel there after checking with Sererena.

The chapel it turned out was located on the west end of Main Street at the present outskirts of the city. It was a fairly large log building. When the six of us arrived and were looking around, an older lady emerged from a small house behind the chapel.

"Can I help you?" she inquired as she neared us. Clare led the other women over to speak to her.

"Do you know when the priest will be here again? We all wish to be married, but don't know when he will be here," Clare told the woman.

"I'm Mrs. McCarthy. I take care of the Mission house when Father Badin and the other priests are absent. There are four of them now, but they are all gone presently. I don't know how they do it. They are always traveling and seem to live in the saddle. The mission here in Kentucky covers such a vast area. They seldom have time to rest, and it can't be good for their health," she told the girls before getting back to the situation at hand.

"Father Badin is scheduled to be here on Sunday, the 18th, to celebrate Mass. Do you live in Lexington?" she asked looking over at the three of us males in our uniforms.

"Our Headquarters is at Hickory Hill, ma'am," I told her. "We are often away from there on patrol. I'm Major Mark O'Connell, Commander of O'Connell's Border Rangers, and these other gentlemen are my Brother Wolfgang O'Connell and my Cousin Carl O'Connell," I told her to introduce myself and the others.

"And you ladies are?" Mrs. McCarthy asked.

"I'm Clare O'Hara, and this is my Cousin Saoirse Ward, and our friend Eileen O'Keefe," Clare told her.

"Are all of you sixteen?" Mrs. McCarthy asked looking at them critically.

"Yes, we are all sixteen," Clare told her, and I could feel the spell that she used to convince Mrs. McCarthy.

"Are all of you Catholic?" Mrs. McCarthy asked next, but I was prepared for that.

"We are all Christians," I told her, but the spell that I had cast made it sound like 'Catholics' to her. Mrs. McCarthy smiled at us after hearing that.

"Be here on the afternoon of Saturday the 17th. Father should be here by then, and you can all speak to him. Because of the area that the mission covers, and the constant traveling, plus the many small congregations, the announcement of the banns will only be made on Sunday the 18th before you are married. Will any of your parents or siblings be attending," Mrs. McCarthy asked.

"My Parents were killed in an Indian raid a number of years ago," Eileen told her, near tears. "My two Brothers will be here though," she finished as Carl moved over to comfort her.

"My Parents were also killed years ago, but by the British," Clare told her in a determined voice, not willing to allow the woman to see her grief.

"My Parents live in Olive Hill some distance from here and won't be attending," Saoirse told her.

"What about you gentlemen?" Mrs. McCarthy asked.

"Our Parents live back east in the colonies," I told her.

"And the three of you came out to Kentucky to join the Army?" she asked questioningly.

"Actually there are quite a few more of us O'Connells here, but we are the only ones getting married presently. Some of our relatives will attend the wedding," I said receiving a sharp look from Mrs. McCarthy.

"Are any of you ladies in a family way?" she asked next in distaste. All of the women turned a bright shade of pink in embarrassment.

"No!" Clare told her immediately. "We are not pregnant!"

"That's good," Mrs. McCarthy said after exhaling. "Marriage is a sacrament and fornication is a sin," she told us in a very self-righteous voice.

"Father will be glad to learn that none of you are with child," she added after a few seconds. I believed that instead she was the one relieved to know that.

"You can join us here on any Sunday. Even when none of the priests are here, we gather to pray and sing a few hymns," Mrs. McCarthy told us.

"Your Sisters should come and sing for them," Clare told me immediately on hearing that.

"They can sing after the wedding," I told her and smiled.

We returned to Hickory Hill after that to return the borrowed horses that we had used before transferring back to our operational sites. We stopped for a short visit to inform our relatives there about the forthcoming triple wedding on the 18th. All of our Sisters, Cousins, and their live-in-lovers were excited by the prospect of a wedding.

The following day, Sunday the 11th, Ken, Kell and their Wives came to see me at Mount Sterling. Sunshine and Rose went to look at the garden area behind the fort with D & C. Ken, Kell, Airmid, and Almha came to my office. They had issues to discuss.

"We need more information on the port cities and where the British are storing their supplies," Ken told me once they were all seated.

"We don't have any information on that, and I don't believe that General Clark will either. It isn't the kind of information that he would need for his operations," I told Ken and the others.

"General Greene at Fort Jefferson, the Army Headquarters, promised help when we were ready to start operations against the British. His operations or intelligence people should have some information that would help you, but I'm not sure how much they will have," I finished.

"When can we check on that?" Kell asked.

"Tomorrow! I'm pretty sure that they don't work on weekends," I told him remembering when I had gone to Fort Henry to report on a weekend.

"I'll come to Hickory Hill in the morning when Clare and Saoirse come for their Magic studies, and we can leave from there while they are busy," I told them.

"All of the new members of the family seem to be progressing rather quickly with their studies," Kell observed. "Nearly as quickly as my Wives did."

"Yes, they all seem to be. We need to destroy those British supplies before they can be sent out to the various border forts and used against us this summer," I told him.

"Why destroy them?" Airmid asked in a questioning voice.

"So the British can't use them!" I told her.

"They can easily be kept from using them without destroying them by using Defensive Shells. Then the Americans can use what they wish and possibly sell what they don't need," she said with a smile.

"That's not even considering what large fires could do to those cities on the east coast," Kell reminded me.

"We wouldn't be terribly popular with their citizens if we burned their cities down," Ken added. I had never thought about what repercussions large fires would have if they got out of control which was very likely given the state of fire protection in the present Reality.

"You're correct!" I admitted. "Defensive Shells will easily keep the British from using the supplies and will also frustrate them when they are unable to get through them and can only watch them sitting there in the warehouses."

The next morning, I came through the Portal with Clare, Saoirse, Duncan, and Connor who were all headed to their Magic studies. Ken, Kell, and his Wives were ready to leave and I transferred us to Fort Jefferson after giving Clare a little kiss.

We went to General Greene's Headquarters after my relatives had a little look around. My Brother, Cousin, and his Wives were quite surprised to see how settled and civilized Fort Jefferson and Washington City appeared to be.

I didn't want to bother General Greene at this time. Instead we went to check with his S-2 and S-3. The Officers there just barely remembered me, and were confused when I asked about the British supply depots on the east coast. The S-3 (Plans and Operations) people claimed to have no information on them. The S-2 (Intelligence) people looked at us warily, and weren't ready to admit knowing anything. It wasn't until Colonel Harrower happened by that we got any help.

"Well, Major O'Connell! We haven't seen you in some time. What can we do for you?" he asked in a friendly voice.

"Sir, we are starting to plan our operations against the British. We need to know where their depots and storage areas are in the Atlantic seaports," I told him.

"General Greene did mention to me last summer that you were planning to do something there, but he wasn't very specific," the Colonel told us.

"We had a general idea of what we wanted to do then, but we have started to do the actual planning and need more information. No one here seems to have that information," I told him. The Chief of the S-2 section had joined us when he saw that the Chief-of-Staff had arrived, and the Colonel took him aside to speak to him for a few minutes before departing.

"If you will come with me, I'll show you what we have on that," the Lieutenant Colonel told us after the Chief-of-Staff had left. He took us to the very back of his section and opened a very solid looking locked box there. He spread out the papers from the box on the table.

"This information was very difficult to obtain, and is not to be released," he told us. "You can look at it, but I can't allow any of it to leave here," he added. He obviously didn't realize that he was dealing with Wizards. Besides having excellent memories, Kell quickly called paper and pen to him, and made notes in the Ogham writing system on pertinent points.