by Leon Uris
Word had been spread about Hamburg that a shipment of arms was about to leave port to deposed ex-President Diaz of Mexico, who planned a coup to retake the government, but the ploy fooled almost no one. The entire deal had Ulster Volunteer Force written all over it.
On the evening of March 24, 1914, Christopher Hubble boarded the nine-hundred-ton grain steamer, the S.S. Prinz Rudolph. Her sister ship, the S.S. Prinz Oscar, was docked in the adjoining berth. He inspected the cargo of some three thousand machine guns, twelve hundred mortars and several million rounds of ammunition, then ordered the hatches sealed and to be shown to his quarters, thus establishing the manner of conducting business by speaking to no one except for terse instructions to Otto Scheer.
At daybreak the Prinz Rudolph slipped up the Elbe River trailed by the Prinz Oscar. By the time the two ships reached the North Sea, they were picked up and shadowed by a destroyer of the Royal Navy, H.M.S. Battersea. Christopher ordered the two ships to continue on a southwesterly course through the English Channel as though they were heading into open sea.
When he instructed Scheer to veer north into the St. George Channel and the Irish Sea, the German balked. He didn't like Hubble, Hubble's youth, his cargo or walking a tightrope on the edge of British territorial waters. But the bloody Englisher was unflinching and the thousand quid for the job was more than a year's wages.
URGENT. ALERT TO FIRST NAVAL PERSON, ADMIRALTY, FROM H.M.S. BATTERSEA S.S. PRINZ RUDOLF AND S.S. PRINZ OSCAR STEAMING DUE NORTH AND STILL FLYING GERMAN COLORS. RUDOLPH BELIEVED BEARING UVF WEAPONS. REQUEST INSTRUCTIONS FOR SEARCH AND SEIZURE.
First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill was looking at a possible act of piracy if he boarded the vessels in international waters. He quickly returned a message for the observation destroyer to continue to trail the pair and went into consultation with his own staff and set up a late meeting with the Prime Minister.
War was imminent but England's position vis-a-vis her treaties with France and Belgium had not been publicly stated. There, was tremendous pressure on him against committing an act that would make England a party to the conflict before she was ready. As midnight conferences ensued, first at the Admiralty, then at 10 Downing Street, a consensus mounted to let the Ulstermen get away with their latest little gambit rather than offend the Germans at the moment.
Only a final plea effort by Churchill was able to keep the Battersea watching the two ships as he set up contingency plans to board if they dared enter Irish waters. The Prinz Rudolph and Prinz Oscar continued to steam into the North Channel which separated Ireland from Scotland. On their fourth night out of Hamburg they edged close to Ulster and the moment for the "make or break" decision was at hand.
*
Otto Scheer knocked and entered Christopher's cabin as night fell.
"The destroyer is still following us," he said.
"Yes, I know. Well, carry on as planned."
"Herr Hubble, the crew is getting extremely nervous."
"What of it? They'll just be thrown into jail."
Otto Scheer sneered. "That's not funny."
"I didn't mean it to be funny. You agreed to the plan, did you not, Herr Scheer? I mean to say, you Germans are supposed to be crackerjacks at carrying out a plan. Not losing your nerve, are you?"
The German crimsoned. Christopher seemed unflappable.
"The minute we enter Irish territorial water . . ."
"Stop your bloody sniveling, Herr Scheer. You all liked the color of the quid when we signed you on, now go about your job." Scheer glowered at the man half his age, then snapped off a salute-like bow of the head and turned on his heels.
"Scheer. You can tell your people that by morning the Battersea will be nowhere in sight."
"What makes you so damned sure?"
"They're just trying to bluff us out. And by the by, tell that chef of yours . . . well, never mind, we've only one more meal together. I'll manage through that stuff, somehow."
Alone, Christopher blew a long breath and hunched over pale and shaky. Everything had looked so cut and dried on the planning board. The entire operation was based on the fact that Sir Edward Carson and the Unionist Executive had gotten away with every bluff against the government so far. Afraid of risking an unscheduled confrontation at sea, they had gone to great lengths to make certain the Royal Navy knew about the ships and their cargo. In that way they could put the ball in the Liberal Party's court, so to speak, force them to make the decision. Their scenario called for grim, all-night meetings in London and by morning the escort would be gone. Well, that was the plan, anyhow.
He lay back on the cot. There would be poor little sleep until daybreak. Then, who knew? Visions of a clammy prison cell awakened him every time he dozed.
Mustn't let the bloody krauts see me in a state, he mumbled to himself, must keep up the old front . . .
Chris was snapped out of his sleep by loud jabbering. They were speaking so fast he couldn't make it out Dawn light slivered through the porthole. He went to the sink, heart pounding, and meticulously washed his face, combed his hair, brushed his teeth and gained rigid control of himself.
He stepped out on the deck arrogantly, up the ladder to the bridge. As he did, crew members below him broke out into applause and cheers. Rathlin Island lay off the starboard bow and the Battersea was nowhere to be seen!
Chris clasped his hands behind him.
"Morning, Herr Scheer," he said gingerly.
Scheer smiled and nodded.
"Have you contacted the Prinz Oscar?"
"Ja, I have."
"Then proceed to rendezvous as scheduled."
Rathlin Island, a semi-deserted boomerang-shaped piece of land, lay within sight of County Antrim's north coast. Site of centuries of bloody struggles from Scottish and English invasions, the island became the demesne of the Viscounts Gage, then fell into dereliction, left to the migrating flocks who alone held court amid its spectacular cliffs and caves.
A day earlier a replacement crew of former British Navy men in the Ulster Volunteer Force had been dropped on Rathlin and awaited the ammunition ship.
By early afternoon on their fifth day out of Hamburg, the Prinz Rudolph and Prinz Oscar pulled into the sanctuary of Church Bay, dropped anchor and contacted the crew on land by semaphore. Within minutes, they rowed out and boarded the Rudolph.
In a brief but proper ceremony the ship was turned over by Otto Scheer, the German flag was struck, a flag of Ulster raised and the ship renamed Glory of Ulster.
Lifeboats from the Oscar came alongside and took the German crew to their own ship. Last to leave, Otto Scheer clasped Christopher's hand with a strange flush of affection.
"You're nervy, Hubble," Scheer said.
"Yes, well, good show, good journey home," Chris replied.
Once aboard the Oscar, the Germans lifted anchor and sped back for Hamburg as the Glory of Ulster moved due west in the opposite direction. By evening they dropped anchor near Inishowen Head where Lough Foyle entered the sea and radioed to prepare for their entry into Londonderry the next morning.
Throughout the night all units of the Ulster Volunteer Force went on emergency duty, executing a plan to take and guard key points around the province and move units of the transportation corps into Londonderry.
At daybreak, Ulster Volunteer "seizure" of Londonderry had been completed, the waterfront sealed off and a fleet of seventy lorries on the Strand alongside the main Caw & Train dock.
The Glory of Ulster steamed down the River Foyle under the hand of Christopher Hubble, past the Pennyburn Light and to the dock where port master D. E. Swinerton, an off-duty UVF officer, waited with all the necessary documentation. He boarded immediately and scanned the ship's manifest, which read, "Communications and Medical Supplies," signed and sealed all papers and within two minutes unloading proceeded.
By broad daylight and with no Constabulary or British troops in evidence the Glory of Ulster's treasure was transferred to the waiting lorries and withi
n two hours the convoy sped out to a predestined dump. In a later announcement to the press Lord Roberts characterized it as an exercise to test the efficiency of certain UVF units, declared the exercise a success and vehemently denied the presence of weapons aboard the ship.
*
Lord Louis de Lacy's republican sentiments boiled over. Against Conor Larkin's advice, Louie urged the Supreme Council of the Brotherhood to counter the Glory of Ulster affront with a daylight gun run of their own, this one with weapons for the "legal" Irish Home Army.
Three weeks later, in what was to be Ludwig Boch's final arms sale to the Irish, a small German freighter precariously anchored off Inishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands in the mouth of Galway Bay. A thousand rifles and a hundred machine guns were transferred to Lord Louie's yacht, the Grainne Uaile, with no attempt at secrecy.
Commander of the Home Army in County Galway instructed units to report to the docks in ranks, unload the yacht with ceremonious fanfare and thence parade into the center of the city.
Orders from Dublin Castle were conveyed to General Sir Llewelyn Brodhead at Camp Bushy to move one of his regiments into Galway, "to prevent disorders." The Fusiliers of the King's Midland Division arrived at the waterfront at the same time as units of the Irish Home Army.
Cheering and bands that greeted sight of Lord Louie and Grainne Uaile soon turned to bullying and herding by soldiers with fixed bayonets being personally led by a mounted General Brodhead.
The pushing and shoving turned to hooting and stone throwing. As the yacht was being unloaded, shots rang out on the unarmed gathering. Within minutes five members of the Irish Home Army lay dead and another twenty wounded.
The subsequent investigation and report stated that "upon receiving weapons from the Grainne Uaile, several members of the Irish Home Army activated them and opened fire, on the troops. The Fusiliers returned fire only as a last resort and for the purpose of defending themselves."
*
June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo. Five weeks later England was at war with Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey.
The Home Rule Bill was cleared for final passage and royal assent but Lords had successfully attached crippling amendments to suspend enactment for the duration of the war. Moreover, Carson had gotten his provisions for a future Ulster exclusion.
Despite this, Redmond rose in an emotion-packed House of Commons and urged Irishmen to join in England's war. He begged for arms for the Irish Home Army to defend its own country and free British troops on Irish soil for combat duty.
While many greeted the speech with relief, the War Office greeted it with suspicion. They did not want a strong Irish Home Army.
*
The bill was passed shortly after war began and immediately went into cold storage . . . the dead letter file. John Redmond eclipsed fighting, seizing control of the Home Army as his future guarantee for a Dublin Parliament.
At the same time. Sir Edward Carson moved astutely to protect Unionist claims in the postwar era and offered up the Ulster Volunteers to the British Army. Lord Kitchener and the ruling generals greeted this warmly. An all-Ulster Division was formed with their own officers, insignia and flag.
When Redmond attempted the same sort of thing for the Home Army, the War Office was not so inclined to put Irish Catholic units into the field and bogged Redmond's appeals in red tape. Even with this affront, Redmond continued to urge loyalty to the Crown and what shaped up as a contest to see which side would sacrifice the most blood for the British to support their respective positions at the conference table after the war.
Tens of thousands of Irish Catholics enlisted in the British Army and were accepted and treated as second class troops, as indeed they had lived as second-class citizens in their own land. They were, dispersed with deliberate, methodical bigotry. Fervor for England's war dimmed.
By mid-1915 the republican message began to get through: Ireland and the Irish people had no enemies among the nations of the world except for the British themselves, and Irishmen were dying by the thousands in British uniform.
The Redmond era was done, in consummate failure. The day of the republican was begun.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dan Sweeney had thinned out like a scarecrow. It had been months since he had set foot out of Dublin and the trip to Dunleer through a network of safe houses had worn him out.
The two men sat outside the cottage a short distance from the lough. It was a warmish evening. Dan lit a cigarette and hacked in pain. The sickness ravaging his body had tempered his acid. He spoke softly and meditatively these days as Dan Sweeney was turning into the ghost of Dan Sweeney.
"At the last meeting of the Supreme Council," he said, "we declared ourselves as the provisional government of Ireland and passed the resolution to stage a rising sometime during this war."
"So say you all?" Conor said.
"So say us all, myself and Brendan Sean Barrett as well."
"Strange, I thought it would come with celestial fanfare and angels and their harps all floating over a scene with choirs singing ancient Celtic litanies."
"Have no fears, Conor. When the Irish people learn of our decision I am certain Seamus and our new poet brother, Garrett O'Hara, will encase the moment in a proper hallelujah chorus."
Dan coughed again and stole a glimpse at the bottle resting at the tip of Conor's fingers. He held it up to Dan, who resisted. "Go on, Dan, you never made any temperance vows I ever took seriously."
Dan grunted and accepted the bottle, knocked off a swig with the gusto of a man who had been nipping in secret. After the first rush of fire the pain eased and he indicated with a smile that whiskey was what he needed now.
"I'm sure you didn't travel all the way to Dunleer to let me know we're the ruling body of a non-existing government of a republic yet to be declared," Conor said.
"Well put, well put. We've got to stop the Protestant momentum," Dan said. "John Redmond is finished. Asquith is finished. Carson is the belle of the ball. Nothing is too atrocious for him to get away with. The time has come to let them know we're in business."
"Aye, I agree."
"In a year or so we will be commanding our men to stage a rising," Dan continued. "Before they go into battle, I believe they have to have gained faith in themselves. They have to know they are capable of winning. We need a victory now to fortify ourselves, Conor. Not poetry or rhetoric. We have to whip somebody, Englishmen, Ulstermen. The Brotherhood must know that it's a good force."
"Those are my sentiments entirely," Conor said.
"But what to do? We've argued ourselves dry. Most are in favor of an assassination. We’ve spoken of British Chief Secretary Augustine Birrell most often, and the rest, Carson, Weed, Hubble, Bonar Law. We even spoke of taking out John Redmond. We spoke of bridges to be blown, raids, even a robbery on the Treasury."
"Where does it stand, Dan?"
"It stands with me coming to you to ask for help. Whatever we decide on and execute will be my last act as commander."
"What do you mean?"
"For a time Atty and I kept my imminent demise secret. When the obvious became obvious to everyone, I sent her to you in Belfast. Having thrice been offered the crown of Rome and thrice refused, I suggested Garrett O'Hara as my successor. He's not much of a military man but as a zealot and scholar he'll embellish the rising with flourish and mystical flavor. Maybe that will catch the fancy of the Irish people, who knows? But for now, I am here with my old friend and adversary Conor Larkin, the one link of steel in our otherwise flossy chain of command. I want you to give us the victory we need so desperately."
"I see," Conor whispered.
"Victory is such a lovely word," Dan said. "No matter how temporary, it will grow larger each year in our fanciful minds and warm us for ten thousand nights. We've had so few. They've had so many."
Dan seized up into another coughing fit and chucked away his cigarette angrily. It was strange to hear him talk
like a poet, Conor thought. Blunt old Dan who had always put it cuttingly on the line. He really wanted the exhilaration of victory once so he could die without considering himself a failure.
"I've a notion or two," Conor said.
"That's why I came. I knew you would."
"Lord Roberts and the mucky-mucks of their imported British staff have put a true army together in the UVF. Yet they've some sloppy habits carried over from the old days. Part of the reason is that they've no respect for us as a fighting force. The Brotherhood is ignored and the Home Army is disdained."
"Namely?"
"I'll get to that in my own good time. Despite their bragging about the masses of ordinary Ulstermen being the backbone of their force, neither the British staff nor the gentry completely trust their own people. They're not putting the guns they've collected into the hands of their own rank and file. Likewise, they don't consider us a threat so their guard is down."
"Namely, Conor, namely."
"Namely, they've stored all their eggs in one basket. Everything that came off the Glory of Ulster and probably half the Ulster Volunteer Force arsenal is stored in a single place . . . Lettershanbo Castle."
"Sure, Castle Lettershanbo," Dan mused. "Why don't you plan an attack on Gibraltar as well?"
They were, speaking of an eighteenth-century bulwark guarding the entrance to Lough Foyle. A single road over a large musty dune constituted the only entry and that could be seen from the castle walls for miles. The entry road was blocked with defenses four deep. Once at the castle, an attack force faced twenty-foot walls ten feet thick covered by machine guns and searchlights. Rumors abounded that it held an enormous arms cache but it was utterly impregnable for the likes of the Brotherhood.
"You're, daft," Dan said. "I asked for a simple little victory, Conor, not Wellington at Waterloo."
"Sure, you know me by now, Dan, always looking for back doors."
"Give me another drink of that stuff," Dan said. It hit the mark. "I think we're a couple of old Irish drunks playing with the fairies. For a moment I thought you said something about blowing up Castle Lettershanbo."