Only with Blood

by Therese Down

  He had tethered his horse there and given him hay rather than send him out into the relentless rain. The cart stood dripping, resting on its shafts. The horse stopped munching hay, strands protruding from each side of its mouth, and eyed the man suspiciously. His ears went back as it seemed his worst fears were confirmed and the man began roughly throwing on his driving harness, pushing him backwards between the shafts and fumbling with the still damp leather harness to hitch him. And then Spillane was urging the horse out of the barn and across the yard and slapping his rump with the reins to make him canter up the road, spraying mud and water in all directions, towards the nearest railway station at Limerick Junction. Here, he assumed, Caitlin was heading. She had banked on it.

  About two miles up the road in the opposite direction was Maher’s farm. Maher and his family were resting after their Sunday meal and enjoying the luxury of being able to relax for a few hours in the long week. By contrast, Caitlin was very busy in their barn, hitching their pony to the small trap they used for shopping trips. She wasn’t sure about her immediate destination other than she intended to drive Maher’s pony and trap as far away from Dunane as it was reasonable and humane to ask the beast to travel.

  The rain suddenly reduced in ferocity to a sullen drumming on the pony’s hide and Caitlin no longer had to squint to see the road. Maher’s silver grey pony trotted and cantered smartly till they came to a village called Golden, around seven miles or so from Dunane. Caitlin wore woollen gloves but they were sodden and her hands were cold. The January afternoon was dark, and as the rain abated, the evening chill announced itself in a stiff breeze which lifted the pony’s mane and stung Caitlin’s cheeks. They adopted a more leisurely gait through the almost deserted village. A woman opened a door briefly and put out a cat, revealing for a moment a warm, yellow glow from the open fire and lamplight in her front room. There was a small bar at the far end of the main street, and although its windows were blacked out Caitlin could hear strains of accordion music and an indistinct fuddle of combined voices as she passed it by. All else was silence except for the hooves of the pony and the whir and occasional squeak of the buggy wheels.

  George Plant was executed in Portlaoise jail on the fifth of March 1942. Davern’s and Walsh’s sentences were commuted to imprisonment. Stephen Hayes, IRA defector to the forces of the Free State, following two months of torture by his own men, was sentenced to five years’ penal servitude by the Special Criminal Court.

  “Well, he must have spilled his guts, boy,” remarked Joe darkly on a sullen early summer evening, soon after Hayes’s sentence was made public. Donal and he were in his kitchen, a frequent meeting place when privacy was of the essence. “Sure, given what he did… five years?”

  A clock ticked dully on the wall above the sink as the shadows lengthened and the sun suddenly lost its grip on the horizon and sank. Joe got up from his stool, pulled down the blackout blinds, and pressed the light switch. A sickly orange bar of light was roused to flickering service, managing full power after two minutes or so.

  “De Valera executed a couple of our lads in 1940 for colluding with Germany – lads working with Hayes – Harte and McGrath, IRA leaders.”

  “Hayes was colluding with Germany?”

  Joe nodded, raised his eyebrows, and looked at Donal directly. Then, reaching out to an ashtray as he exhaled smoke, he jabbed the butt of his cigarette into it to extinguish it.

  “We had absolutely no chance of overthrowing the Free State, let alone England, on our own,” Joe retorted as if Donal had suggested otherwise. “How the hell were we supposed to arm ourselves when Dev was doing a vault face and beginning to clamp down on us the way he did?”

  “We?” said Donal. “You helped Hayes?”

  “By 1940,” said Joe more quietly, “Dev was every bit the statesman, wanted no more truck with the IRA – was determined to put behind him once and for all his old associations, and the rhetoric was high, boy. ‘Lay down your arms,’ he was saying in the Dail. ‘Put away those means of striving for freedom which allow the English to name you terrorists and invite their scorn.’” Joe imitated de Valera’s sententious, nasal voice and tone and Donal laughed. “Or words to that effect,” finished Joe, half smiling. Then his smile died. “I had started to hate him.”

  There was a long silence. “You’re shocked about the Germany thing. I don’t blame you. But those of us who disapproved of the more right-wing leanings of our comrades had a choice. We could split – sabotaging any small chance the IRA had of a successful military coup in Ireland – or we could wait until victory was ours by any means, straighten out the politics afterwards.”

  “But,” Donal strove for words to phrase his incredulity. “But… Hitler, Joe?”

  Joe sighed heavily. It was almost as if he hardly knew how or lacked the energy to articulate the meandering apologetics which had resulted in the alliance of a Communist IRA faction with the policies and actions of their Fascist brothers. He plumped for defensive forthrightness. “Donal, the IRA has always been willing to whore itself out to any enemy of England if it gains us a foothold. And is that so terrible? It was James Connolly himself – a great man and a Marxist – who said, ‘England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity.’ Sure, even Wolfe Tone joined the French army to help Napoleon against the British and get them out of Ireland.” Joe was more animated now, summoning the rhetoric he had once delivered in small, smoky rooms in Dublin to placate outraged Republican Communists when they discovered that Sean Russell, the IRA Chief of Staff in 1940, had gone to Berlin to train with Hitler’s Abwehr in the deployment of explosives.

  “Sure, Roger Casement went to Berlin in 1914 to get help with establishing the Irish Brigade,” went on Joe, but the light in his eyes had died again, inconstant as fealties and the orangey electric bar which lit his kitchen. “Russell’s attempt to enlist Hitler’s support was just the latest desperate bid by Irish men to rid themselves of the English menace – which even O’Connell called ‘the sole and blighting curse of this country’.” Donal could not remember much about Daniel O’Connell. “And that was strong stuff from a pacifist, and a patsy of the Catholic Church – like Dev has turned out to be! Sure where did pacifism ever get us? Can you tell me that?” Joe looked challengingly at Donal.

  The latter’s face was screwed into a frown. He was trying to remember something impressive about Daniel O’Connell. “Didn’t O’Connell get the emancipation of Catholics in Ireland?” he ventured, looking uncertainly at Joe “… persuade the British to let Catholics vote and get good jobs and stuff like that? I remember my history teacher called him… what was it… ‘The Liberator’. He used to say O’Connell ‘singlehandedly delivered the Irish nation of spiritual oppression by the English – and all without shedding a drop of blood’.” Pleased he had recalled something useful, Donal was unprepared for the curled lip and derisory stare with which Joe fixed him, just before he ignored him.

  “Those of us whose strain of Republicanism runs back through the likes of Pearse and Connolly, to Wolf Tone, deplore Hitler and his stinking Nazism. But the only way to oppose Hitler full on is by hitching ourselves to the British, and that is wholly unacceptable! Sure, even Stalin is in bed with Churchill now,” he added bitterly. Joe shook his head, the fervour coming back. “The only way – the only way to gather any sort of meaningful force against the British, Donal, is to remain united – in spite of our own domestic or ideological differences, and then, as I said, we can sort things out – afterwards.”

  “What, like whether we run to France or Germany or Russia, you mean, when we need help?”

  There was an unmistakable menace in Joe’s tone which was at odds with the words he said when he spoke again. “Have a cup of tea now, for the road – I won’t offer you anything stronger, for we both have an early start.” With his back to Donal as he made the tea, Joe continued talking. “Stephen Hayes,” he said, pouring boiling water onto tea leaves in a pot, “was a friend of mine.”

  “What?
” Donal’s tone was incredulous.

  “Yes, indeed. And I’ll tell you one thing, Donal.” Joe picked up the teapot and agitated it to encourage infusion of tea by the boiling water. “I don’t think for a moment that Hayes passed information about IRA activity to the gardai.”

  Donal was astonished. “So you don’t think Hayes betrayed Plant?”

  “Not at all.”

  “How so?”

  “I think Hayes gave Plant the order to kill Devereux, all right. But I do not think he told the gardai where our lads were hiding or where the safe houses were or where we were storing arms. Not for one second.”

  “Then why…”

  “Why did the IRA arrest him and torture him?” Donal nodded. “Why indeed. We’re all looking for someone to blame, Donal. There are those who think he failed us with the Germans, that he got Harte and McGrath executed.” Joe poured milk into two mugs and poured tea onto the milk, then passed a mug to Donal. “The gardai and Dev’s Special Forces are getting cleverer. Sure most of those boys are ex-IRA, like de Valera! They know how we think, how we operate. They don’t need IRA top brass informants to give them clues. Hayes was a scapegoat, is all. Who do you blame when everything you believe in starts to go bad, disappear?”

  “So,” began Donal, taking his tea and placing it on Joe’s small, wooden table, “if the IRA hadn’t tortured Hayes…”

  “Then no one would ever have found out about Plant shooting Devereux. That’s right.”

  “But how can you be sure?”

  “I can’t be one hundred per cent,” admitted Joe, still standing against the sink, folding his arms carefully so as not to spill the mug of tea he held in his hand. “But I’d be willing to bet anything Stephen Hayes was innocent. Sure, think about it – why would he ask Plant to kill Devereux for treachery then betray the IRA himself? He’s the leader of the IRA.”

  “I dunno,” responded Donal. “There’s many say he was using Devereux as a scapegoat for his own betrayal – blaming him, like.”

  “The Stephen Hayes I know – the man who led the IRA after Sean Russell died on a U-boat off the coast of Galway – the man I helped devise Plan Kathleen…” He stopped and put his tea down so he could gesticulate to emphasize his words. “Sure, right up to August of 1940, Hayes was meeting with Germans in Dublin to organize an anti-British offensive in the North.” Here, Joe paused to let Donal appreciate the full impact of his words. “It is not likely he turned traitor by the time Plant pulled that trigger and killed Devereux – a month later – is it? Think about it.”

  Donal was trying. He enquired quietly, “What’s ‘Plan Kathleen’?”

  The clock proclaimed it was almost ten o’clock. Donal had a half-mile walk back to his digs at O’Hallorahan’s bar. He wanted to go home but he had to know the extent of Morgan’s involvement with the IRA. He had to know how binding was the covenant to which he had lately sealed.

  “Like I said,” answered Joe, picking up his mug once more, “Hayes was working with the Germans. Fifty thousand German troops would arrive by submarine to the Derry coast, attack the British troops, establish a base in the North. We get rid of England, and Germany gets strategic control of Northern ports and a foothold into England.” Donal’s heart was thudding. He had a headache which had come on suddenly and was quite acute on the right side of his head.

  “I take it the plan failed?” he managed, without the slightest attempt at humour.

  “It did. Sure there were too many ‘if’ factors and de Valera is working with the British, without a doubt. He is letting them use Irish ports and harbours along the west coast right up to Derry – and it’s pretty obvious the RAF is being allowed to use Irish airspace from Galway to Fermanagh – every day. What chance of a U-boat invasion?” Joe stared at Donal, not a trace of friendship in his expression. “You’re wondering how I know all this, eh?” he asked, staring at Donal. “How could Joe Morgan, sitting nights at O’Hallorahan’s bar, downing pints with the lads, know all this stuff, eh?”

  Donal was actually wondering why he felt entirely powerless to get off his stool, announce his headache, and leave. “De Valera is the traitor here, Donal – not Stephen Hayes,” went on Joe, quietly, more certain now that his novice was paying close attention. “And now, there are forty thousand American troops headquartered in Derry! How the hell does that happen in a neutral country, Donal, can you tell me that?” Joe’s icy tone and the interrogative with which he had concluded this last utterance were an unmistakable challenge. Could Donal belittle this information in a witty, pat corollary? “Plan Kathleen was Ireland’s last hope. It was expedient that we all got behind it. And in the light of Germany’s invasion of Russia, it was the right decision.” Joe paused, staring at Donal, who remained quiet. He was trying, under the older man’s intense scrutiny, to retain a neutral expression. “And now that this… Plant affair…” Joe spat the words and looked away from Donal, something like anxiety crossing his face in the moment before he shifted his gaze to the kitchen floor. “This business with Hayes being tortured and then running to de Valera for help…” Joe looked back at Donal and this time there was a flicker of appeal in his expression, like an SOS signal. “Well, who knows which of us is next, eh?”

  When Donal finally left Joe’s house and heard the door shut against the still June night, his heart was much heavier than it had been on arrival, for now it shared the burden of a man’s secret fear.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Donal’s first IRA assignment had been straightforward enough. When the summer holidays began in mid-June of 1942, Joe got him a job at the warehouse in Cashmel, loading and unloading whatever needed to be transported to wherever it was required, from Monaghan to Bantry. Molly Corcoran’s husband, Desmond, often ran errands for the IRA, passing on messages to people who worked on the farms and in the depots to which he hauled his freight. Donal’s first job was to ride with Desmond, help him load and unload the freight, but more importantly, deliver a verbal message to a man called Eamonn McGinty who worked in a grain depot in Mullingar. The message was simply, “The dance is on for seven thirty on Saturday night and it’s reels not jigs.” On no account was Donal to write down the message. Donal had no idea what the message meant and Joe made him repeat it till it was word perfect, emphasizing that the precise order of the words was of vital importance. McGinty pretended he hadn’t heard the message, then pulled on his right ear three times to indicate he had. Desmond and Joe bought drinks for Donal that night back at O’Hallorahan’s bar, and said he had been initiated into the brotherhood with flying colours. When Donal mentioned later that evening that he should really be back in Golden, helping his father with the farm, Joe and Des exchanged glances and the latter stood up, shook Donal’s hand, and said he was off to bed; there was a lorry already loaded with flour and potatoes and he had to be in a warehouse in Cork city by nine the next morning.

  When Desmond had gone, Donal explained in detail why it was necessary for him to go home. Last year’s calves would have gone to market and this year’s would be newly born. Milking would be in full swing again and it was a lot harder when there were new calves around. And then there were the pigs; they would all have farrowed by now and the bainbhs would soon need to be crated up and taken on the cart to market. There was turf to dig and fences to reinforce. And in August, there was the making of hay – backbreaking work. Donal had always been there to help his father from June through to September, the busiest part of the farming year. Joe occasionally nodded in apparent sympathy and laughed at times as Donal expounded on the challenges of farming. When Donal asked what was funny, he remarked that he could not imagine him shovelling manure or feeding pigs, so used was he to seeing him in his suit and shiny shoes. But then Joe got serious and said that he was sorry but it was out of the question that Donal should go home. He had obligations to his country now which overrode those to his father, and indeed would honour his father more in their exercise than if he went home to dig turf.

  For the fir
st time since he had associated closely with Joe, Donal became really angry. His colour rose and he took a large gulp of his beer. “You cannot prevent me from going home, Joe!” he said, trying to control his voice so that it did not draw attention to them. “I am not a prisoner here. My father needs me. Isn’t it enough that I am away through the rest of the year? All through the winter he milks and feeds the animals on his own. I have two sisters – they work hard but they’re at school and they cannot help him with turf digging and hay making like I can. He needs me, Joe. I am going home. I have to.” Joe had been sipping his beer, his expression neutral throughout Donal’s speech, but when Donal had finished, he put down his tankard and turned to meet the young man’s flashing eyes.

  The younger man was shocked at how steely and dark Joe’s became in the instant they met his. When he spoke, Joe’s voice was low and authoritative. “I don’t think you fully understand what you have signed up for here, Kelly. Everything else in your life is secondary to the cause. And there is a new countrywide movement in operation – a Northern offensive and you are needed. Dev has locked most of us away and so every man on the ground is an essential soldier. You cannot go home because it is highly likely that next week you will be in Fermanagh.” Joe raised a finger to his lips as Donal frowned and leaned forward suddenly, as if he were about to speak. Joe took his cap from the table in front of him and put it on his head, downed his pint, and stood up. “Oh, and it might interest you to buy a paper on Sunday morning, Donal. Good night, now.” And just before he left, he put his hand on Donal’s shoulder. “You did well today, son. I’m proud of you.”