by Leon Uris
"I want to spit on him, Owen, that's what. A hundred quid." Then he looked to the older man. He knew at that instant O'Sullivan was a leader. He steadied everyone in an instant while Conor had hovered on anger and indecision.
"I'm thinking," Owen said, "as we get into this deeper some of our best men might have rotten motives and fits of fear. It's best not to stand in judgment now, just get the job done."
"Sometimes I'm too much of a bloody loner," Conor whispered.
With the tender emptied, Conor and Owen O'Sullivan used their torches like surgical instruments. With the top of the tank cut away, the bronze boxes were lowered and bolted into place, then filled with rifles. With this done, the thin steel plate was put back into place to cover the scars and then the tanker was refilled.
O'Hurley's fears subsided throughout the night as he saw the precision of their work. Unless one knew and was looking hard, it would be impossible to detect.
An hour before daylight the Red Hand Express rolled out of the O'Sullivan Foundry onto Sir Frederick's rail steamer at the Prince's Dock. Destination Belfast.
The Boilermakers had gathered for their triumphant return to Ulster, although without the Hubble family. Lord Jeremy had been banished to Trinity College in Dublin and the Earl of Foyle had once and for all time divested himself of further pretense about that team.
For a week the train remained in its shed at the Weed Ship & Iron Works. On the eighth day after their return, Duffy O'Hurley, now a portrait of calm, sought out Conor at his forge and informed him a trip had been scheduled.
The train picked up Lord Roger in Derry and continued down to Dublin for his regular monthly economic conference at the Castle. While Roger remained in Dublin, the train dead headed back to Belfast. En route it pulled to a siding near Drogheda where a covered motor van and four members of the Brotherhood lay in wait. The coal was shoveled away from the top, the water level lowered, the covering plate removed and the bronze boxes emptied of their treasure within a half hour.
The Irish Republican Brotherhood had received its first arms of the twentieth century.
CHAPTER TWO
1906
Gloom at the Union Preservation Party headquarters was stifling. After a night filled with concerned telephone calls, the telegraph tape from London petered out, having related the full devastating news. The Conservative Party with their Ulster allies, the Unionists, had been crushed in the election. A decade and a half of imperial-minded rule was done.
Sir Frederick and Lord Roger emerged from the inner council room through the gathering of the shattered loyal. Weed intoned a few words to the effect that Ulster would continue to fight Home Rule despite the Liberal landslide. He was greeted with feeble applause.
Outside, a brisk dawn air greeted the two smack on. As they turned down Great Victoria Street in gray light only the tapping of their canes and the clip-clop of their carriage trailing them punctuated the silence. Reaching the Hotel Antrim, they retreated at once to Sir Frederick's apartment and were joined shortly by Brigadier Swan to assess the damage.
It was not as though the country were in any sudden new grip of republican outcry but the Home Rule issue would be on the rise again. How much would the nationalistic new Sinn Fein Party benefit?
Home Rule talk always shivered the Ulster industrial establishment. Her competitive position depended largely on keeping the province a decade behind England in wages and workers' conditions. Swan, Hubble, and Weed needed no amplification of the threat.
Yet there was a queer bit of luck in the election. In the past the Liberals had depended upon the Irish Party to form a coalition government. In return for their support the Irish had always extracted a promise of Home Rule. This time the Liberal victory was so overwhelming, they held a majority without the Irish and really didn't need them. On their own and without Irish pressure, the Liberals had shown they were not in any rush to give Home Rule. Of course the bottom line of protection for the Unionists was, as always, a veto of Home Rule in the House of Lords.
Roger was pensive, speaking little. "I say, you're being funereal," Weed said.
"What it boils down to is that, eventually, we are going to have to play the entire Orange card over. Perhaps again and again."
That grim message settled in as the butler appeared. "Beg pardon, Sir Frederick. The Reverend Maclvor is in the lobby and wishes to see you."
"Oh, horseshit Weed grumbled, "he's the last person I want to see today. Tell him I'm indisposed."
"No, wait a minute," Roger said, "let's hear what the enlightened one has on his mind."
Oliver Cromwell Maclvor had flourished through the years far beyond the generosities of his benefactor. With his Savior's Church of the Shankill filled to overflowing and no longer in need of Sir Frederick's charity, he heightened his sights and ambitions. By singular decree he proclaimed a new sect, the Universal Presbyterian Church, establishing a Protestant version of a quasi-papal state.
To back up "his" new church, the Universal Presbyterian Missionary and Theological Center was established adjoining his Lord's house in the Shankill. Churches of the new faith sprang up in Londonderry, Larne, East Belfast and Dungannon, with a dozen more in the planning. A publishing house spewed out Maclvor's mass oriented fundamentalist gospel with the right hand and a damnation of Rome with the left.
As his power over the masses expanded, he dived into the Orange Order, attaining high rank, and sniffed on the perimeter of the Unionist Party. Throughout his rise, Maclvor's excessive language and occasional incitement to riot were tolerated by the authorities, for they blended with the over-all Ulster scheme. Roger had warned Sir Frederick time and time again that Maclvor's growing independence was a threat but Weed reckoned the day would never come when he could not bring the man under control.
Oliver Cromwell Maclvor was shown into the parlor. The man was never out of touch with his personal magnetism. The offer of tea was expected and accepted.
"We are all exhausted," the little preacher said, "from two nights of vigil and prayer. This is a tragic day for Christians." His thin lips suckled at the teacup, causing Weed to wince.
"Obviously we're all a bit down," Sir Frederick said, "but on the whole we do not anticipate any drastic upheavals. We are firmly of the opinion that Home Rule legislation is still years off and surely Lords will support us with a veto when that time does come."
Maclvor set the cup down and emitted the kind of holier-than-thou glare that turned his flock into the jibers, although it had little, effect in this room. "Ulster has entered the valley of the shadow. It is no time to play word games with the Protestant folk of this province whose very existence is in jeopardy."
Roger astutely set himself on the man. It seemed obvious to him that Maclvor was sniffing about to find his head in some sort of power play. Just what position did he believe himself to be in? What was his card?
"I dare say, Reverend," Sir Frederick continued the dialogue, "overreaction at this stage could very well boomerang on us. I'm in touch with many of these Liberal chaps. It's one thing to promise Irish Home Rule during a political campaign, it's another thing to come through with that promise. I really don't think we ought to run up a hurricane warning. Let's wait and see what their intentions are. My guess is that the Home Rule issue will just sit and rot."
This brought Maclvor to his feet deliberately. "I cannot see how you fail to read the writing on the wall. I cannot see how you choose to remain inert with a dagger now poised at our throats."
Well, of course, Sir Frederick reckoned, the man's penchant for evangelical power glory pending disaster and forecasts of doom were all part of the fuel that stoked his ovens. Yet his tone and manner were changed. He seemed, at the moment, transformed from beholden to beholder. The pretense of spontaneity was a game he played on his flock but Weed knew the man was never spontaneous, but an infinite, calculator. Just how long had he been awaiting a political disaster? The sting of the election had not yet been felt and something new seem
ed in the making in the way things were in Ulster.
"You may continue to procrastinate," Maclvor said, "but I am prepared to answer the disaster that has befallen us by inspired divine revelation. I am going to call for a province-wide crusade in which we will organize every Christian man, woman and child to defend his freedom and British heritage."
Swan and Roger exchanged glances as they watched Sir Frederick contain his urge to boil. Weed unearthed a cigar with deliberate severity and, without asking MacIvor's leave, lit it up. "I suggest you tread softly," he said in what was obviously an order.
"And I suggest I am not seeking your advice in the matter," Maclvor responded.
So that was it! A cutting of the umbilical cord. Snip! Just like that.
"The problem," Maclvor continued, "is your complacency. You've, failed time and again to recognize the growing dangers. You've answered these satanic papist schemes with pacification. In the past three years you've stood by idly while the Crown has bought up tens of thousands of acres of Protestant land and turned around and all but given it away to the very people who have vowed to destroy us."
Weed's patience narrowed. "See here," he snapped, "the Land Act has done nothing more than take over encumbered, useless acreage from indebted estate owners."
"And given it to the papists!"
"Gentlemen," Swan said quickly, "we are all shaken by the election. I think we should allow the moment to settle and then we should all sit down when our thoughts are, clear and reorganize our strategy."
"Perhaps your interests and the interests of the common folk of this province have grown irreparably apart," Maclvor answered.
"Am I to understand this to mean a disassociation between ourselves, Reverend?" Weed said bluntly.
"You may take it to mean, sir, that I am no longer bound to your advice or decisions. You may soon see a groundswell of little people from the Shankill to Londonderry who aren't so content to allow their freedom to be robbed and will seek new directions in their leadership."
"You've thought this out for a long time, haven't you?" Sir Frederick said softly. "For fifteen years you've been breeding on adversity and waiting for the Conservatives to fall from power. Good day, Reverend Maclvor."
Before the preacher could launch a tirade, Swan had him by the arm and walked him out the door. Oddly, Sir Frederick did not explode in the face of the affront. He was shaken.
"What do you make of it, Roger?"
"Obviously, we've been handed a bill of divorce," Roger said.
"Horseshit! I still employ half of Belfast. If they don't know out there where their bread is buttered, they'll soon find out."
"How? It won't be that easy. Would you care to go to the reverend's church and debate with him from the pulpit? You see, Freddie, it's the same bloody thing that happened four decades ago in England. Gladstone came up with all that reform and campaigned outside of his constituency. He caught the ear of the masses and for the first time in English history the people rejected the wisdom of the ruling class and the gentry and changed it for populist reform and populist politicians close to their own breed."
Sir Frederick knew Roger was right. Ulster had been deliberately kept behind England. While Gladstone's Liberals pushed through reform, Ireland and Ulster were locked in a struggle of nationalism. One party fought for Home Rule, the other party struggled against it. Ireland continued to lag in social reform and thus created a vacuum. With the defeat of the Conservatives, Ulster was serving notice that it, too, was rejecting the age-old rule of the gentry and seeking out its own populist voices.
"We can no longer count on the people here to follow us automatically and blindly," Roger said.
Sir Frederick slowly chilled to ashen with the truth of his calculation.
"Maclvor has figured that he is strong enough to rush in and fill the empty space. He will summon up that old breed of Ulstermen and try to lead them politically."
"I'll break his balls if it's my last act on this earth," Weed menaced.
Roger Hubble, ever the pragmatist, seemed skeptical. "Our problem is that we deliberately set up Maclvor and a lot of little Maclvors as our spokesmen to the masses. They've been conditioned to listen to him. We've created a monster and we've no real way to communicate to the Shankill except through that monster."
Ashes dripped from Weed's cigar. He brushed off his trousers aimlessly. "You told me time and again this sort of thing would happen."
"I had always hoped that somewhere along the line we could abandon Maclvor and his ilk. Yet we've been so consumed with this Home Rule fight we've had to keep him. I personally have worked with the Irish in Dublin Castle long enough to realize that by and large they are decent people. Sometimes I believed we could compromise and work things out with them. But always there is this big Orange ogre of our own creation between us. I suppose that the English and Irish always manage to bring out what is worst in ourselves and each other."
"So that dirty little bastard thinks he can replace the ruling class of Ireland. Well, thank God the Crown doesn't see it that way. In a showdown I think even the Liberals will stand with us."
"Today they will. Once Ulster's balance sheet shows red ink, England will bail out."
"Do you really believe that, Roger? Deep down, do you really believe it?"
"We are here to show a profit, you and I. What happens when we're no longer profitable?"
"How are we to combat Mr. Maclvor?"
"Do nothing for the time being. After a time he'll come to realize he can't go it alone and he'll come back to make an accord with us."
"I'll never deal with that scum, never!"
"Oh, it might not be all that bad, Freddie. There may be a shift in power but Maclvor's still really fronting our cause. Could you imagine for an instant how ruinous it would be if Maclvor were a Gladstone? If suddenly we were confronted with a voice appealing to the masses who was bent on social and labor reforms? We can be grateful that he's done his job keeping the good Ulster folks' minds on the Reformation. He's a dog with only one trick. He'll keep the Catholic and Protestant mobs separated and fighting one another. He'll buy us time."
CHAPTER THREE
Ordination Sunday.
The great day arrived for Dary Larkin several years ahead of time due to his sizable inheritance of family brains. He had been moved up in his studies a number of times and was to be among the youngest priests ever ordained out of St. Patrick's College at Maynooth.
Ireland exported most things in modest quantity, save emigrants, Guinness, Donegal tweed, Waterford crystal and . . . priests. Priests to tend Irish exiles about the world and priests as missionaries who went to places only an Irish priest would go. Dary Larkin chose a missionary order.
His final advancement had come quickly, once he declared for the order. A new course had been inaugurated at the church-run University College in Dublin in African languages to which a small select group of priests had been nominated. When Dary was accepted to these classes, his Bishop obtained approval for ordination by papal petition.
Priesthood was a great event in the life of an Irish family. Despite the personal leanings of Conor and myself we had dealt with too many free-spirited Wolfe Tone republicans in the priesthood and the excitement of the day rubbed off on us as well.
The night before the event I met Conor at the station in Dublin, setting eyes on him for the first time in many months. He was a sorely changed man, for all vestiges of youth had flown. He had not seen his woman, Shelley MacLeod, since his return to Belfast and the sorrow of it was plain enough for me to see. Although Conor had come to terms with it, my own feeling was that he would never truly get over her. Continuing to live in Belfast and only a few minutes' walk from her house must have caused him daily pain but, Conor being Conor, I expected, he would make little mention of her to me.
I am certain that Conor wanted to leave Belfast at this point but one might say he was a victim of his own success. Because of his rugby prowess he remained a favorite of Sir
Frederick and continued a relationship with Jeremy Hubble as a sort of big brother.
Although Conor was assigned to a particular blacksmith shop in the yard, he had complete freedom and worked mostly on special projects and commissions. Some, of the time found him doing wrought iron jobs at Rathweed Hall, Sir Frederick's home.
For our purposes, his situation was absolutely perfect.
My second play was running at the Abbey. Conor promised to remain in Dublin for a few days after Dary's ordination and see the work. Well, don't you know, any day I get to talk the night through with that lad was a grand one. I had looked forward to it for weeks. Yet when the moment came I found him terribly inward.
I waited patiently for that explosion that usually came halfway down the bottle but this time he only grew more somber. We spoke, mostly of the continued success of the Brotherhood and the gunrunning operation. Sir Frederick Weed's lovely private train had made four lovely trips to England since the rugby tour and had returned with two hundred rifles, a hundred carbines and ten thousand rounds of ammunition. The whole operation had been a masterpiece of silk. Conor's main concern was the erratic behavior of Duffy O'Hurley, who blew hot and cold.
Conor had come up with a second scheme on dumping the guns around the country. The Brotherhood knew sympathetic priests in Belfast, Dublin, Cork, Derry, Newry, Waterford and Mallow, which were along the route most traveled by Weed's train. Once dropped, the guns were placed in coffins and the "bodies" buried in churchyards with the aid of the priests. Tombstones bearing the names of either Carrick, Cassidy, Conroy, Coughlin, Concannon or Considine marked where the guns lay. The first name of Elva, 1879-1904, and the engraving, A True Daughter of Erin, held one of the stashes of weapons.
*
Early the next morning Conor and I returned to the Amiens Street Station for Brigid's arrival. She debarked greeting us awkwardly, for it was by far the longest journey to the biggest city in her life.
Now, a man couldn't precisely say she'd aged lovely. For the occasion Brigid had garbed herself in store bought clothes from Derry that might never come out of the closet again. She and what she was wearing were strangers giving one another no comfort at all. She limped as well from the pinch of her new shoes. Appearances aside, greetings were long and warm for this momentous occasion.