“Of course, you will. Sure, you’re only going to Wexford for a few days and then I’ll come and see you in your new flat.”
“Thank you for this day. It’s been perfect.”
Mrs. Mallon kissed her daughter on the forehead. “Go on now, Mrs. Ryan.”
Emmet listened to the exchange between Bridie and her mother. His mouth felt dry and his tongue like flannel. He wanted to thank his mother-in-law as well but struggled to form the sentences.
The cab arrived and Emmet went outside, longing for fresh air. He stood leaning on the car and waited for Bridie.
Both fathers carried the cases to the cab and gave them to the cabbie. Emmet watched as Bridie gave her father a quick hug and then Emmet’s father pulled her close.
Emmet frowned when he heard his father’s quiet words: “Be patient with him tonight. He’s not much of a drinker, I’m afraid.”
Bridie smiled and climbed in. Emmet seemed to fall into the seat beside his wife and then he developed hiccups. With every noisy spasm, he apologized. “Sorry, sorry.”
Bridie patted his hand.
The drive to the hotel only took ten minutes and then Emmet struggled to clamber out again. His legs felt like rubber.
A hotel porter pulled Emmet out while another unloaded the suitcases.
Emmet put his arm around her as they walked in. “It’s very posh, isn’t it?”
Bridie cringed. “Not so loud, Emmet.”
Emmet’s eyes widened. “Am I loud? Sorry.”
They followed the porter up to their room, Bridie clutching Emmet around his waist, keeping him from stumbling.
The porter hovered after he put their suitcases down and Bridie nudged Emmet. “Have you a coin for the man, Em?”
Emmet felt himself flush and rooted in his pocket to give the man a tip.
The door closed and then they were alone. Emmet sat down on the end of the bed, feeling lost and woozy.
Bridie went across to look out the window. “There’s a lovely view from here over St. Stephen’s Green.”
“Is there?”
Bridie turned to look at Emmet. She shook her head and tut-tutted. “Look at the state of you, Emmet Ryan.”
He gazed at her blankly.
She went to him and kneeled to unlace his shoes.
He patted her head. “I think I need a little lie-down, Bridie.”
“Yes, I think you do.”
She helped him shrug off his good jacket and pulled off his shoes. “Can you stand for a moment?”
He pushed himself off the bed and stood, wavering, while she undid the buttons on his shirt. “You’ll have to take your own trousers off.”
Bridie turned her back on him and pulled down the cover and blanket. The sheet was crisp and white. Emmet dropped his trousers to the floor.
Bridie turned back to him and she put her arm around his waist. “Come and lie down.”
He collapsed in the bed, knowing he should remove his socks but unable to make the effort. Bridie pulled the covers over him.
His tongue was thick and fuzzy. “Sorry, Bridie.”
He felt her cool hand brush his hair from his forehead and heard her soft words. “For better or worse, my love.”
Chapter Nineteen
Dublin, 28 June 1922
The pounding on the door of their flat shocked them awake. Bridie sat bolt upright while Emmet leaped out of their bed, grabbing his dressing gown in passing.
Emmet growled at the boy who thrust a note into his hand. “What is it?”
“From the paper, sir. I was told to fetch you because Collins is bombing The Four Courts.”
Emmet tore open the note from his editor. It simply said. “Civil War. Get in as quick as you can.”
Emmet frowned at the boy. “When did it start?”
The boy’s voice was high pitched and frantic sounding. “I don’t know. I was just told to run and knock you up so you could record it all.”
Emmet pulled open a drawer in the small table by the door where he kept loose change. He gave the boy a penny. “Right, so. You did well. Run on back now. I’ll be there directly.”
As soon as the door closed, Bridie hastened to Emmet’s side. “What is it? What’s happened?”
Emmet pulled her in against his chest. “The Government is bombing the anti-treaty garrison at the Four Courts.”
Bridie pulled back and peered into his face. “Ah, no. It surely hasn’t come to this. Collins wouldn’t.”
Emmet sighed and then walked quickly back to the bedroom to throw on his clothes. “He’ll do what he has to do to keep order. I know Churchill has been putting pressure on him to resolve the Four Courts.”
“But they’ve been there since April. Why now?”
Emmet pulled on his jacket. The Brits have been threatening to come back in.
“Dear God. How will it end?”
Emmet shook his head. “With bloodshed.”
Bridie clung to him at the door. “Let it not be your blood.”
He kissed her. “My days of being in the middle of the fight are done. I fight with my words now.”
“But who’s in the wrong here? How will you write it up?”
He closed the door without answering her question.
• • •
Emmet rode his bicycle downtown to the temporary office of the Freeman’s Journal, not having the patience to wait for the tram. Since the presses had been destroyed by the Anti-Treaty I.R.A. in March, they had been operating from a flat above a shop on St. Augustine Street. He crossed the Liffey, coughing in the cloud of smoke that engulfed him.
The boom from the 18-pounder cannons shook the very streets and plant pots fell crashing to the pavement from window sills.
Emmet came into the office and joined the reporters, editors and copy-boys, all talking at once.
“Ryan. Good. You’re here. I want you out there. Get some firsthand impressions of what’s going on.”
“When did this start?”
Hooper wiped his brow. “Around four o’clock. I believe Collins gave the order, but no one will confirm it. All I know is that The Free-Staters have got British weapons backing them. Those hooligans in the Four Courts will finally be routed out. They should never have been allowed to dig in like they have.”
Emmet bit his lip at Hooper’s tone. “They were peaceful. It’s pretty extreme to take cannons to them.”
Hooper’s eyes popped wide open. “Peaceful?” He waved his arms around the small office space. “You think destroying our premises and presses was peaceful? We’re only in this poxy place because of those fellas. They deserve what they get.”
Emmet nodded. “Right. I’ll get out there and see what people are saying.”
“Make sure you get the story in and finalized before three o’clock so we have time to get it over to the press.”
“I’ll make sure.” Emmet knew they were renting time on another paper’s press until they could get their own back up and running, so they were limited in the time they had in order to get out an evening paper.
Emmet walked down Lower Bridge Street and turned right on Merchant’s Quay and then the way was blocked by men in uniform. The noise of the shelling was deafening. Lorries raced along the quay on the other side of the Liffey from where Emmet stood, taking men and supplies to the battle to reinforce the Provisional Government troops.
Emmet turned back and crossed over the Liffey and cycled in a wide circle to try to get closer to the Four Courts. He stopped regularly to talk to people. He watched as British troops delivered two more cannons to the Free State troops and spoke with a captain who told him that Collins had been offered 60 pound howitzers by the British, along with the offer to bomb from the air, but Collins had refused on the grounds of the risk to the civilian population.
Emmet shook his head. “My God. Not long ago we were all standing shoulder to shoulder and now the Brits are providing the means for Irishman to kill Irishman.”
The captain wiped a sleeve across his forehead. �
�It’s madness, I know, but what can we do?”
A little after two o’clock in the afternoon there was a huge explosion that sent a thick grey mushroom cloud into the air.
At the barricade Emmet threw himself to the ground. His eyes stung with smoke. He wiped his face with his handkerchief and it came away black with soot.
Emmet crawled over to a trooper who studied the scene through binoculars. “What the hell was that?”
“Looks like the Records Office just exploded.”
“Surely an 18-pounder wouldn’t do that?”
“No. They’ve booby-trapped the whole area around the building with explosives. We must have hit one of those spots.”
Alarm bells clanged as ambulances made their way back from the area carrying wounded Free State troops. Emmet helped to lift the wooden barricade out of the way to allow an ambulance to race past. He wished he could get closer to the Four Courts but knew it was too dangerous. His heart went out to the men and women holding the building, fire now raging.
He knew he had to get back and write his story to make it into the paper in time, so he reluctantly climbed back on his bicycle and cycled through the falling silt and smoke back to the office.
The story he wrote focused on the human element of the fight. He wrote about the men who felt driven to the extreme action of occupying the Four Courts by their sense of betrayal with the Treaty, and how the British may have lost the War of Independence, but they were now getting their revenge by pitting the Irish against each other.
When Hooper read the story he came into Emmet’s office and threw down the notes. “What is this?”
Emmet straightened his shoulders. “It’s the way I see it.”
Hooper tore the pages in half. “Write it again. You’re a damn journalist. Report the news, don’t offer your personal point of view.”
Hooper marched out and Emmet sighed. He wasn’t entirely surprised. He looked at his watch, understood he had very little time and pulled a clean sheet of paper out. The story was half the length and kept to the bare facts of weapons deployed, explosions witnessed and the current state of the situation.
Emmet read it through.
There’s no heart to it but if this is what the editor wants, so be it.
• • •
Emmet slept in his office for a few hours. Before that he went out and back again twice but after another huge explosion around five o’clock things quietened down somewhat for the evening. He had sent a note to Bridie to tell her that he’d be home when he could be, but it may not be for another day. He felt grimy and longed to go home for a bath and change of clothes, but he didn’t dare. Too much was happening.
The battle had spread to encompass a much wider area outside of the region of the Four Courts. It now stretched over to O’Connell Street. The Anti-Treaty Dublin Brigade had taken over several key buildings, including several hotels. He knew that the Four Courts would need to be surrendered soon and he was torn between waiting nearby to witness that or to move to where the battle was now most active. There were plenty of his colleagues keeping watch over the Four Courts, amongst the crowds of general population watching the activity.
He waved at another reporter from the Journal and pointed towards Sackville Street. The man touched his hat in a brief salute to acknowledge he understood that Emmet was leaving. They can chronicle the surrender.
He decided to get as close to the Gresham Hotel as he could to get a look there. If he could get into any of those buildings, he knew he could get to all of them safely because he heard that the Brigade had mouse-holed between the buildings, cutting passages through the walls to facilitate movement between them.
Maybe I can find Liam. Emmet knew Liam was with the Dublin Brigade. I’m glad Kevin went to Cork a few weeks back.
He cycled along the Liffey, crossed over the river and turned north up Sackville Street. He stopped for a moment to gaze up the street. His mouth fell open when he saw the devastation already created. Shop windows were smashed and debris lying out in the street. Broken chairs lay upside down on the pavement amidst bricks, wood panelling, pots and boxes. Shards of window glass crunched underfoot as men bolted from one side of the street to the other. Torn awnings and drapes flapped in the wind as they hung by corners and shredded bits of fabric. He started forward again, keeping a watchful eye for signs of snipers or soldiers. He passed the General Post Office, the scene of so much action during the 1916 rebellion and then he left his bicycle on Cathedral Street, to continue by foot up Thomas’s Lane around to the back of the Gresham.
A man from the Citizen Army, dressed in his everyday woollen jacket over a once-white collarless shirt, with his flat cap pulled low over his eyes, stepped out from a doorway and threatened him with an old rifle, probably kept in hiding since 1916. “Who are you? You can’t go any farther.”
Emmet showed his press identification. “I need to get closer. I need to tell the story as it’s happening. Let me go in and let people know the truth.”
The man frowned. “Are ye for us or against us?”
Emmet hesitated. “In theory, I’m neutral but if you’re asking am I a spy, I’ll tell you no. You’ve nothing to fear from me.”
The soldier nodded and lowered his rifle. “Follow me, then.”
Emmet followed his escort along Thomas’s Lane and in through a back door into the Gresham Hotel. He was led to an upper room where an officer wearing a dust-covered uniform and bandoliers crossed against his chest stood peering out the window.
The soldier called out: “Comander Holohan? I found this man out back. He’s a journalist.”
Holohan turned, ran his hand through his dark hair and glared at Emmet. “Who are you?”
Emmet showed his identification again.
Holohan growled. “I’ve no time for entertaining the press.”
“Let me just stand back and make notes.”
Holohan turned back to the window to peer up the street. “Just stay out of the way, but I can’t guarantee your safety.”
“Of course not.”
Emmet retreated to a back corner of the room while his escort nodded to him and left, presumably back to his post. After a few moments, Emmet left the room to explore. He stopped to speak to the defenders at their posts by the windows, and others deep in the maze of broken hallways as they restocked supplies or as they took a rest. He was surprised by how many women were there, not just in the capacity of preparing food and rolling bandages but returning fire side by side with their male counterparts.
He found a spot in an empty room and sat down to write. The story he wrote resonated with heartfelt interviews, but even as he wrote it, he knew it would never be published by the Freeman’s Journal, and yet he was driven to write it. Like in 1916, the Anti-Treaty, or Republicans understood that they were not going to win this battle, but they felt compelled to stand up for their beliefs. Emmet wanted to capture their names and where they were from, these men and women who put their lives on the line for their beliefs. The battle for the block of buildings where Emmet spent the rest of the day and into the next became more desperate as the Free State army blasted their positions with heavy firepower.
On July fifth the Republicans surrendered. The Gresham Hotel was crumbling and on fire, but the defenders did their best to help the senior men to escape.
Emmet stumbled down the steps in exhaustion to the back entrance. He intended to make his way back to his office to write up his stories when two Republican snipers caught up with him. Everyone knew him by now.
One soot-blackened man rested his hand on Emmet’s shoulder. “Take a look and see, is it clear?”
Emmet cracked open the back door, and seeing no one there, he opened it farther. “It looks clear, lads.”
He held the door open wide for the two soldiers to pass by him. They had just left the blazing building when they heard shouts from the end of the lane by Cathedral Street. Emmet jumped out and stood in the middle of the laneway, waving his arms with his ide
ntification held in one hand. “Run, boys!” he called over his shoulder.
He heard the pounding footsteps of the two escaping soldiers as three Free State soldiers shouted for him to get out of the way.
Emmet bit his lip and felt his stomach and sphincter muscles clenching as he kept waving his arms. He resisted the urge to close his eyes as he waited for the bullets to strike him. “Don’t shoot! I’m a journalist!”
By the time the three reached him, the two Republicans had disappeared.
One of the soldiers yanked his identification from Emmet. “Jaysus, you almost got yourself killed. You’re under arrest for aiding the escape of an enemy.”
Another soldier pushed him forward. “That’s treason. You’ll be shot.”
Emmet licked his lips. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get in your way. I’m just doing my job, getting the story, like.”
“Yeh. Tell it to the judge.”
They pushed him along to a waiting vehicle, and then he was driven to the police station. Emmet’s thoughts were on Bridie, and he asked the desk Sergeant if he could send a note to his wife.
The Sergeant nodded, and Emmet pulled a page from his notebook.
Dear Bridie,
Don’t worry. I’m fine but I’ve been arrested. As soon as I know anything I’ll let you know. I’ve been taken to the Castle.”
He signed his name and after the Sergeant read it, he was given an envelope and the Sergeant walked to the door and shouted into the courtyard for a boy to come and take the note for delivery.
“Can I send a note to my editor as well? He’ll need to know I’m here.”
“Go ahead but be quick. I have to process you and get to the others.”
More prisoners were being brought in every minute.
Emmet addressed a short note to Mr. Hooper and gave that to the delivery boy as well who stood looking up at Emmet.
Emmet pulled out a tuppence and gave it to the boy who disappeared at a trot.
“Empty your pockets into this box.”
“Can I keep my notebook and pen?”
“No. Everything in here. Can’t have you making notes about how to blow this place up next.”
Emmet sighed. “I didn’t blow anything up.”
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