by Joe Joyce
At the junction with Donore Avenue two gardaí with outspread arms were trying to keep people back. ‘Please,’ one of them said. ‘Keep out of the way. There’s still people in the collapsed houses.’
‘Captain Duggan, army headquarters,’ he said to him and passed by.
The litter on the road turned into a carpet of debris as he neared the centre of the explosion. A couple of the terraced houses had collapsed into a heap of rubble and rescue workers were still pulling chunks of masonry and bits of carpentry off the piles. The front walls of other houses had fallen out, exposing tilting upper floors, beds covered in plaster, dining tables, chairs smashed against walls, pictures askew. A little red oil lamp was still burning in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary on the return of a house missing the second flight of stairs.
Two fire engines were angled to cast their headlights on the rescue workers and an ambulance, lights on, waited behind them. A group of soldiers were trying to clear a path through the debris, shovelling bricks and stones and glass to one side. The only other noises were the hum of engines, the mumble of voices, and the crash of falling masonry as bits fell off some of the damaged houses and the rescue workers sifted through the demolished ones.
‘Do you have somewhere to go?’ an ARP warden asked a young woman with two small children hanging onto her nightdress. Her hair was covered in dust and the children’s faces were streaked with dirt. ‘Mrs McCarthy will take us in,’ she said, on the verge of tears. ‘Down the road.’
The warden called over one of his colleagues and asked him to take the woman and children to their neighbour’s and ticked off a name on his clipboard. Another of his colleagues linked arms with an old woman who looked barely able to support the bull’s wool army greatcoat around her shoulders. The warden stopped him and asked who she was and ticked her name on his list. Then he went to the next house and shone his torch through the hall door which was hanging half-open on one hinge and called out names. There was no response.
Duggan spotted a major dispatching more men to help the gardaí set up a cordon and saluted and introduced himself. ‘Is the battalion intelligence officer here?’ he asked.
‘Lieutenant Kelly,’ the major pointed to an officer standing by the crater in the road, stopping some soldiers from shovelling debris into it.
Duggan joined him and they swapped names. ‘Might be some bits of the bomb in there,’ Lieutenant Kelly said. ‘Might identify whose it was.’
‘Were there one or two?’
‘Two. Another fell behind those houses. On the banks of the canal. Didn’t do so much damage.’
‘Many dead?’
‘There’s two children unaccounted for in there,’ Kelly pointed towards one of the demolished houses where the rescue workers were lifting out a large sheet of ceiling. ‘They got everyone out of the other one. A clergyman and his family. From the church down there.’
‘How many wounded?’
‘Don’t know exactly. Ten or twenty gone to hospital. ‘
‘Anyone see the bomber?’ He looked up at the clear sky: the stars were sharp in the frosty air but were blacked out to the west by a cloud. More snow coming.
Kelly shook his head. ‘Not that I know of. Heard the fucker myself. I wasn’t long in the bed. Thought at first that he’d hit the barracks.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Nothing sobers you up faster than that. We were here within minutes. Total chaos. Screaming and shouting. People running everywhere. Debris still falling. Choking dust.’ He shook his head at the memory. ‘I didn’t think anyone could come out of those houses alive.’
The major interrupted them to order Kelly to get more men to clear all the gawkers back behind the cordons. ‘And don’t let anyone back into their houses if they’re damaged. Tell them we’ll keep everything safe if they’re afraid of looting.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Duggan wandered back towards Griffith barracks, past a Presbyterian church with all its windows gone. Its wayside pulpit still proclaimed, ‘The Lord is good to all and His tender mercies are over all His workers.’ Someone was inside with a flashlight and he caught a glimpse of the pews covered in chunks of plaster and dust. He came to the cordon on that side of the scene before he reached the barracks and turned back.
‘They’re all right,’ one of the rescue workers at the demolished houses shouted. There was a ragged cheer and somebody began clapping. The ambulance moved forward along the path cleared for it and a couple of men went to the scene with stretchers. Duggan watched from a distance and then decided to go back to the Red House: he wasn’t doing anything useful here.
There were fewer people in the immediate area of the bomb now as the gardaí and soldiers cleared the area. Ahead of him, Duggan saw a soldier trying to move back a young woman with an overcoat over what he thought at first was a red nightdress. She had her arms folded tight across her stomach and was ignoring the soldier and his orders, staring over his head at the rescue scene.
Duggan looked at her again and realised it was Gerda Meier. But she doesn’t live here, he thought, confused. She raised a hand to push back her hair over her right ear and he saw a tear-drop earring and then a glimpse of a necklace above the top button of the coat and realised she was wearing an evening dress.
‘D’you live here or what?’ the soldier was saying, exasperation rising as she remained oblivious to his presence.
‘It’s okay.’ Duggan showed him his ID. ‘I’ll handle it.’ He waited until the soldier had moved away and said quietly, ‘Was machen Sie hier?’
She looked at him when she heard the German but gave no indication that she recognised him. ‘You see?’ she said in English, tightening her arms around herself. ‘Even here. They’re trying to kill us.’
‘Who?’ he asked, confused.
‘The Jews. They won’t even wait until they invade.’ She seemed to see him for the first time, catching his confusion, and pointed to the building beside them. ‘Look at the synagogue.’
Its windows were all gone and its pillars and pediment pockmarked and pitted like it had been bombarded. ‘That’s a synagogue,’ he said, realising how stupid he sounded as soon as he said it. He hadn’t really noticed it when he had arrived, presumed it was a theatre or hall or something.
‘And that’s the rabbi’s house,’ she pointed back behind him, to one of the demolished houses.
‘I thought it was a clergyman,’ he stammered. ‘From the church down the road.’
‘The other house,’ she said, her look removing any doubt that she recognised him. ‘Don’t you know? This is where the Jews live in Dublin.’
He shook his head slightly. He had a vague memory of hearing somebody mention Little Jerusalem in some context or other but he had had no idea where exactly it was. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I didn’t know.’
She nodded, accepting his admission but not holding it against him.
‘Do you know him?’ he asked. ‘The rabbi?’
‘No. I don’t know anybody here.’ She paused. ‘I don’t live in this area.’
‘They’ve all survived. Nobody’s been killed.’
‘Yes.’ She gave a tired sigh.
A young warden ran by them towards someone up near the cordon, shouting, ‘Put out that fucking cigarette. D’you want to kill us all?’
‘I’ll drive you home,’ Duggan said.
‘Yes,’ she said.
In the car she remained quiet, lost in her own thoughts. Duggan tried to tread his way back to the city centre, down quiet streets that sparkled with frost in the headlights, where everyone seemed to be sleeping peacefully. But most must have heard the bombs. Are they all awake, lying there waiting for more to fall on this pretence of a peaceful sleeping city? he wondered.
‘They might not have been aiming at the synagogue,’ he said as they came upon Christchurch and he swung down into Dame Street.
‘What do you mean?’ she stirred, unfolding her arms.
‘They might have been aiming at the barracks.’
‘There’s an army barracks just around the corner.’
She shook her head. ‘I know them,’ she said.
He waited for her to elaborate but she didn’t. He slowed at a red traffic light and dug out his cigarette case, flipped it open with one hand and offered it to her as he edged carefully through the junction.
‘I’ll do it.’ She took the case from his hand, extracted two cigarettes and put both in her mouth. He handed her his lighter as he sped up. She lit both and handed one to him.
‘This war,’ she inhaled deeply. ‘This is why they started it. To kill us. They don’t hide it. It’s what they say themselves.’
‘Did you have a bad time in Vienna? Before you left?’
‘No. Not then. We left early, before they took over. My father was very wise, he saw what was coming. My uncles and aunts didn’t believe him.’ She shrugged. ‘They know now. But it’s too late.’
They went up O’Connell Street, past the Metropole and the GPO. Across the road the Gresham Hotel was dark, looking like it was unoccupied. Ringing in the New Year in the warm ballroom there a few hours ago seemed like a distant memory.
‘My uncle Jacob is an obstetrician, a lovely man, so learned, civilised,’ she said. ‘He was one of those they made clean the footpath outside his hospital with a toothbrush. While they laughed and kicked and spat at them.’ She inhaled again and waved her cigarette in a metaphorical shrug. ‘You’ve read about all these things.’
Duggan made a non-committal noise. Yes, he had heard something about these things but it was all vague and distant and dismissed by some as propaganda. ‘It must’ve been difficult coming here. Leaving your friends. Learning a new language.’
‘Yes’ she said.
‘But you’re safe here.’ They were on Dorset Street, a railway bridge ahead of them. He looked out for Iona Road, knowing it was somewhere near here.
She gave him a curious glance that he caught. ‘It’s there,’ she said, indicating the turn.
‘I mean,’ he said, ‘they can’t find you here now.’
She gave a bitter little laugh of disbelief.
‘All the files were destroyed,’ he added.
‘What files?’
‘About people,’ he was about to say ‘like you’ but caught himself in time, ‘about people who’ve come here from the Continent.’
‘Destroyed by who?’
Fuck, he thought as he turned into her road. I shouldn’t have told her that: it was probably secret information.
‘By the government,’ he said, too late to withdraw it. ‘Sensitive files like that were burned last summer when people thought the Germans were about to invade.’
‘That’s true?’ She pointed at a house on the left ahead of them and he let the car coast to the kerb.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Please don’t tell anybody that. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’
‘I won’t tell anyone,’ she said in a tone that reassured him. ‘But it won’t matter anyway. There are always people who will tell them such things. Who will help them.’
Duggan thought of Peter Gifford’s comment about the Friends of Germany dividing up the country between them under German rule. Some of them would be quick to bring an occupying force to Little Jerusalem. And Gerda’s earlier remark that she didn’t live there took on another dimension. Part of her efforts to hide her origins.
She pushed her cigarette into the ashtray. ‘Don’t speak to me in German again,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry,’ he replied, taken aback. ‘I know my accent is—’
‘It’s not that,’ she cut him short. ‘I don’t want to hear it spoken.’
‘What about the café? Mrs Lynch’s?’
‘I’ll go there on Saturday. I only want to hear it from Nazis.’
‘Okay,’ he said, not really knowing what she meant but relieved she was continuing with the plan. ‘I’ll see you on Monday.’
‘Yes.’
She got out of the car and took a key from her coat pocket and opened the hall door. It was closed before he had finished the first leg of a three-point turn.
The Red House was the busiest he had seen it since the summer’s day when the government had ordered sensitive documents to be destroyed at the peak of a scare about a German invasion. Lights were on everywhere, men in mixtures of dress – uniforms, formal, casual – moved with purpose. The atmosphere was grim.
Captain Sullivan was in their office before him, grey-faced and dishevelled and looking like he had a premature hangover. He was on the phone, asking someone what height the planes were at when they crossed the coast. Commandant McClure came in, looking fresher than anyone else, and sank into a chair beside Duggan’s end of the table. Duggan gave him a quick rundown on what he had seen and heard at the bomb site. ‘Could they have targeted the Jewish area?’ he concluded.
McClure rejected the idea with a shake of his head. ‘They were at ten thousand feet. Could just about hit the lit-up area of the city from that height.’
So Griffith Barracks couldn’t have been the target either, Duggan thought.
‘But the point is that they did hit the lit-up area of the city,’ McClure continued. He seemed keen to talk through what they knew. ‘First time this has happened. They can’t have thought they were over England since it’s all blacked out. The only places in this part of the world with any lights burning are in this country.’
‘And there were other bombs?’
‘One north of Drogheda, another one near Enniscorthy. And the anti-aircraft unit in Dalkey saw two parachutes come down over Wicklow.’
‘Parachutes?’
‘Parachute mines apparently.’ McClure looked at his watch. It was after six o’clock, more than three hours to daylight. ‘This bloody night will never end. We haven’t got any reports of explosions or where they came down yet but we’ll get a spotter plane up at first light. And hope nobody stumbles across them before then.’
Captain Anderson from the British desk looked in, saw McClure and said, ‘You were looking for me, sir?’
McClure waved him to another chair. ‘Do we know where was hit in England tonight?’
‘I haven’t got a comprehensive report yet,’ Anderson said. ‘Seems to have been around the Severn estuary. Cardiff, Bristol.’
‘So it could have been someone off course.’
‘The lookout post at Carnsore said there were three planes in formation,’ Sullivan had put down his phone. ‘Heinkell IIIs, he thinks. There was a fair bit of cloud at the time there so he didn’t get a long look at them. They were heading due north.’
‘In formation,’ McClure repeated to himself.
‘Not a lost stray then,’ Anderson said.
‘You could put everything else down to someone being off course,’ McClure said. ‘But not hitting the lit-up city area.’
‘What about the parachute mines?’ Duggan offered.
‘And those,’ McClure agreed. ‘Whoever dropped them must’ve seen the city lights too.’
‘Were they not aimed at shipping? At Dublin bay?’
‘The Luftwaffe uses them on land too,’ Anderson said. ‘In the London blitz. They can wipe out a whole street, no problem. There would’ve been a lot of deaths if they came down on the city.’
‘But they haven’t exploded,’ McClure said, lighting himself a cigarette. ‘We would’ve had reports of explosions in Wicklow if they had. Which suggests that their fuses were set for the sea. And that they were meant for our ships.’
‘Or that they’re on timers,’ Anderson suggested.
McClure nodded. ‘Put out a warning about timers to the ARP people, the guards. They should know not to go near them but just in case.’
An orderly came by with a tray carrying mugs of tea, a bottle of milk and a bowl of sugar. They each took one and sipped the strong tea, alone with their own thoughts for a few moments.
‘Was it the same plane that dropped the bombs and the mines?’ D
uggan asked.
McClure gave Sullivan a questioning look. ‘It’s not clear yet, sir,’ Sullivan said. ‘Some of the reports suggest it was but we haven’t got all the timings and directions straightened out.’
‘So,’ McClure looked from one to the other. ‘What does it all mean?’
‘The start of something?’ Duggan asked.
‘A new year,’ Anderson shrugged with a twisted grin. ‘Happy New Year.’
‘You mean the start of an invasion?’ McClure said. ‘No. If they wanted to soften us up it would be with a much greater blow. Like Rotterdam. Wipe out Cork, someplace like that. To intimidate.’
‘It could be a signal,’ Anderson suggested. ‘A message.’
‘Could indeed,’ McClure agreed.
‘A reminder of what could happen if we give up our neutrality,’ Anderson added. ‘They were only small bombs on the city. They could’ve dropped much bigger ordnance. Like the parachute mines.’
‘Let’s not jump to any conclusions yet.’ McClure got up and said to Duggan, ‘Give Bill there a hand with collating all the reports and working out the chronology of events.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Duggan said.
McClure and Anderson left and Duggan moved down the table to Sullivan’s space. ‘At last you get to do some real intelligence work,’ Sullivan passed him a wad of handwritten notes and torn-off pages from the telex.
He was about to leave and get a few hours’ sleep when the phone rang at the other end of the table. He had to stand up to get it, noticing that the window was now a dull grey, no longer a darkened mirror. The tiredness hit him suddenly, his mouth felt dry and scratchy from too many cigarettes and his stomach was hollow with hunger.
‘How’s the captain?’ a cheery voice said.
‘Busy,’ Duggan said, letting his shoulders sag partly at the sound of his uncle Timmy’s voice.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Timmy said, as if busyness was to be taken for granted. ‘You missed a great party last night. Drop around for the dinner and I’ll tell you all about it. You’ll love all this stuff.’
Duggan yawned, trying to figure out what he was talking about. Had Timmy been at the Friends of Germany event after all? Had he missed him going in? ‘I’m just on my way to bed. Been up all night.’