1916

by Morgan Llywelyn

  “I think the country smells a lot better than the city,” Ned retorted. “But give me a hand here and we’ll be outside again soon.”

  She helped Ned drag the sacks away, then knelt with him to scrape aside the earth.

  The pit was empty.

  Ned sat back on his heels, aghast.

  “Where are the rifles, Ned?”

  “I knew someone was watching us that day, I knew it! We’ve been betrayed. The Citizen Army must have got them.”

  “Are you not both on the same side?”

  “We’re both on the side of Ireland, but we’re separate armies with different leaders. Connolly’s supporters want a socialist country for the sake of the working class; the Volunteers want a free Ireland for everybody’s sake. And even within the Volunteers there’s a difference of opinion as to how to achieve it.”

  She was shaking her head. “Can’t you work together?”

  “You haven’t studied Irish history or you would know we’ve always been too tribal for that. Each group has its own philosophy and insists on its own individuality.”

  “Like the unionists in Ulster,” the girl said.

  Ned looked at her in surprise. He had not expected such an astute observation from—

  No! He slammed the door on his thoughts. This was no common whore, this was his friend. His friend gazing at him with the tracks of salt tears on her cheeks…unthinkingly he reached out and put an arm around her. The shed was dark and private, and he had just had a shock. He did not want to talk politics. He wanted the feel of another human being close to him, the warmth and comfort two people could offer one another.

  Síle relaxed against him. When she lifted her face to his he kissed her as naturally as breathing.

  This time he parted his lips first and caressed hers with his tongue. She tasted sweet except for a trace of salt where one of the tears had reached her mouth. That salty tang was an added spice, making the kiss sweeter.

  Síle knew what Ned must think of her now. She was ruined in his eyes; any respect he had for her was destroyed. From now on he would see her as other men did and use her in the same way if she let him. The very thought made her flinch inside, yet she did not flinch away from him.

  What’s done is done, she thought ruefully. She might as well go the rest of the way and extract what pleasure she could. Her profession gave her no physical pleasure. She regarded her clients with a remote scorn, as she would regard pigs rooting in a trough. But Ned’s touch was different, perhaps because the relationship had not begun as a business transaction. The first time they kissed she had allowed her feelings to rise to the surface. They could not be driven back now. She would have this much, Síle resolved, if she never had anything else!

  Her arms tightened around Ned so fiercely the embrace took his breath away.

  There need be no pretense of innocence now. Ned did not have to control himself as he would have done with someone like Mary Cosgrave. With a sense of relief he gave himself over to passion, a passion Síle met and amplified. She pressed her body against his until he was afraid he would have another premature ejaculation, but she eased away in time. Her hands slid to his trousers and skillfully unbuttoned them.

  The touch of her fingers on his springing erection was maddening.

  “Not here,” Ned said hoarsely. “I will not make love to you in a filthy shed.”

  Síle was touched that he did not use any of the common names for the act they were about to perform. Make love. She would cherish the phrase even if it was meaningless, even if she did not dare use the word love herself. “Then where shall we go, Ned?”

  “Let’s look in the cottage. If no one’s there…”

  They rearranged their clothes and hurried to the cottage with a combination of stealth and desperation. The door facing onto the yard was not fastened; people in rural Ireland never fastened their doors. Ned pushed it open and peered in.

  There was no fire on the kitchen hearth.

  “It’s all right,” he said over his shoulder. He went inside, then turned to face her. “Failte isteach.”

  The cottage appeared deserted. A layer of dust covered its few remaining bits of furniture, and the air was stale. But when Ned went to the window where he had seen the curtain move on Sunday, he noticed that the dust on the deep sill had been disturbed.

  Across from the fireplace was an old settle, a wooden bench meant to double as a bed. When Síle lifted the seat the customary straw mattress and flour-sack sheeting were not stored inside, but there was a tattered shawl hanging on a peg on the back of the door.

  “There may be a bed inside,” Ned suggested, indicating the other room.

  “If there is, it’s likely damp. This will do us.” As Síle folded the shawl to pad the bench she thought briefly of her comfortable room at Mrs. Drumgold’s, with all the appurtenances for making love save love itself.

  Then she put everything out of her mind but Ned.

  She let him undress her and smiled at the dawning wonder in his face. When he knelt before her and unbuckled her shoes, she lifted her petticoat so he could take down her stockings. Delay had restored a measure of self-control; he was able to savor his first view of a naked woman. “How beautiful you are.”

  Síle had heard those same words many times before, but never believed them. Until now. “Touch me,” she whispered. “Touch me wherever you like.”

  With reverent fingers he traced the curve of her breasts. Holding his breath, he stroked the tight red curls of pubic hair. In the dim light filtering through the tattered curtains Síle read his eyes and knew he could not wait any longer. She lay back on the settle and opened her arms.

  “Now, Ned. Now.”

  He tried to ease his weight onto her gently. But as her thighs parted she cupped his buttocks and pulled him hard against her pelvis. His penis plunged into a hot, moist haven that squeezed him like a hand. Ned gasped with shock at a pleasure so intense it bordered on pain. Then his body took over with a joyous pounding lust. There was no room in his mind for thought, only for waves of sensation. A great sweetness welled up into his throat even as the heat and pressure built in his groin. Síle matched her rhythm to his, two bodies moving as one.

  The climax when it came shuddered through them both together.

  He lay panting on top of her, believing all passion spent. When she moved under him he realized his mistake.

  This time she allowed him to be gentle.

  Slowly, softly, he stroked her with warm hands. When she responded with a little moan, molding herself to his touch, he ignored his own body’s need and lingered over the caress. He wanted to learn what gave her pleasure. Woman was a new territory, wondrous and strange, and he was an explorer on a voyage of discovery.

  No man had ever been so gentle, so tender, with Síle Duffy. Ned’s tenderness seduced her in a totally new way.

  Time stopped in the cottage.

  She gave him everything he wanted, leading him step by step until he was ready to run ahead of her. His healthy passion was a delight. So many of her clients brought flaccid organs and flagging desire and expected her to restore both. Ned was as hard as an oak tree and as tireless as the wind.

  But at last they burned all moisture dry and lay helpless in each other’s arms. Ned whispered, “Thank you.”

  She replied with something she had never said to any man. “Thank you.” Then she was content to lie still, listening to the deepening rhythm of his breathing.

  Ned stirred, sat up. “I’d best be taking you back.”

  “I suppose so. Will we walk?”

  “There’s no need now. We’ll ride the tram.”

  “It’s glad I am to hear it. I don’t know that I could walk.”

  He said quickly, “Did I hurt you?”

  “You didn’t hurt me. Far from it.”

  “Are you sure?” Ned asked as he fumbled for his clothes. “Will you ever want to see me again?”

  Instead of replying, she reached for him.

&
nbsp; Hidden within the veil of her hair, Síle sucked him with a slow hot mouth. He reacted like one of Galvani’s frogs, spasming uncontrollably. When at last he could speak, he said, “Who taught you to do that?”

  She did not answer, merely looked at him slantwise. And smiled.

  A week after the gunrunning at Howth, six hundred rifles with ammunition were brought ashore at Kilcoole in County Wicklow and distributed to the Dublin Brigade.1

  August 3, 1914

  GERMANY DECLARES WAR ON FRANCE

  August 4, 1914

  BRITAIN DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  KNEELING on the unpadded bench in the confessional, the man bowed his head over his folded hands. “Bless me Father for I have sinned.” Too late he realized he had rattled off the words by rote.

  They had a new meaning now.

  “How long since your last confession?” asked the disembodied voice on the other side of the grille.

  “Monday.”

  “What sins have you committed since?”

  He paused, gathering his courage. “I have been with a woman, Father.”

  Silence on the other side of the grille. Then a surprised whisper, “You?”

  “Yes.”

  When the priest spoke again his voice was deliberately uninflected, yet one could sense the distaste beneath the words. “Did you commit a sexual act or acts?”

  “I did, Father.” The penitent’s head sank lower over his folded hands.

  “What acts?”

  He hesitated. How could he describe the closeness, the warmth, the unexpected feeling of completeness? Any words he used would make it sound…dirty. Sinful because the church insisted it was a sin.

  “I kissed her, Father.”

  The voice bore on relentlessly, a dog worrying a bone to extract every fragment of marrow. “Was your mouth open or closed?”

  FATHER Paul O’Shaughnessy emerged from the confessional a shaken man. He stood outside on the church steps trying to regain some composure. Father Bertolucci had known who he was, of course, even though he had made a point of traveling across Manhattan. Most priests in the diocese recognized one another even with the grille between them. But none admitted it; the anonymity of the confessional was sacred.

  There was something else he had not admitted to Father Bertolucci. That was not the first time he had kissed Kathleen Campbell, and in spite of being adjured to go and sin no more, it might not be the last. Nor, he feared, would it always stop with kissing.

  Feared.

  Hoped.

  Dear God, where were they going?

  FOLLOWING the Bachelor’s Walk incident, Volunteer support increased dramatically. Men flocked to join the Irish corps while ignoring recruiters for the British army. They saw Britain’s involvement with mainland Europe as another expression of imperialism, of no relevance to them. Ireland had suffered enough because of imperialism.

  On the day Britain entered the war, the British-owned Cunard liner Lusitania sneaked out of New York Harbor at one in the morning, heading for home. She was flying the American flag. Her electric lights were disconnected and her portholes were covered by blankets.

  The war in Europe expanded hour by hour. Nations were settling old grudges and seizing new territory. The first shots had been fired in a conflict between the German kaiser and his cousin, the Russian czar. No sooner had Britain promised to uphold Belgian neutrality and defend the coasts of France than Germany invaded Belgium. Austria declared war on Russia; Germany and Austria threatened to attack Italy unless it renounced neutrality; the emperor of Japan declared war on Germany.

  Britain was not yet invaded, but the possibility was growing. As her threshold on the Atlantic, Ireland was strategically important. In Dublin a number of “suspicious individuals” were arrested, bewildered foreignborn waiters and elderly shopkeepers who had dutifully registered as aliens and were now considered to be spies. Members of the army reserve were called up. Many of them were laborers from the building trades whose families came down to the North Wall to cheer as they boarded the troopships.

  RUNNING against the tide, the pages of Sinn Féin began to protest British recruitment. Passionate editorials argued the injustice of having Irishmen involve themselves in wars they had not started, and fight for land not theirs. People who had never paid much attention to the paper before began to buy and read it, and discuss it among themselves.

  AT first people believed the war would be over by Christmas. Then reports from the front line began to shake that optimism. Horrific battles were being fought. There had been a bloodbath at Mons, and small Belgium was being overrun. British hospitals throughout the United Kingdom would soon be flooded with the mutilated and dying. The contagion of war was spreading; digging in.

  WHEN Ned called in to Tom Clarke’s news agency, the two men discussed the situation. Leaning his elbows on the counter, Clarke said, “I know a lot about war, lad, and make no mistake, Ireland’s at war against England. Always has been; still is. It’s not just about flags flying and marching off to glory, either. It’s about men being dragged out of their homes in the middle of the night to be tortured. It’s about perjured evidence and falsified police records. I could tell you a lot of things that would shake your faith in British justice.”

  “Are you saying you were innocent of the charges against you?”

  Clarke smiled bleakly. “Oh no, I was guilty enough. But I know men who will go to their graves with convictions against them for things they never did.”

  “Does it have to be that way? What makes men hate each other so much?”

  Clarke adjusted his spectacles with his forefinger. “In a war you don’t necessarily hate the poor bastard on the other side. You don’t even know him, though you may have a lot in common. You just go on fighting because fighting has come to be the way you live. The way your father and his father before him lived, maybe. You don’t think about the morality of it, right and wrong, good and evil. You don’t think at all; you don’t dare. It might unman you.”

  EARLY in September, Pádraic Pearse spent the day in the Dublin offices of the Gaelic League. Ned mowed lawns at Saint Enda’s. Sweaty and itchy, he returned to the house at twilight just in time to see Pearse arriving. The headmaster, usually a man of abnormal energy, looked exhausted. The skin around his eyes was slack; when he spoke his voice was as hoarse as if he had been lecturing for hours. “Would you be kind enough to join Willie and me in the dining room in half an hour?” he asked Ned. “There is something I want to tell you privately.”

  Ned ran to the dining room with his hair still damp from the comb. The Pearse brothers were already sitting on either side of the table. Mrs. Pearse lit a fire in the fireplace and then lingered in the doorway until her elder son made shooing gestures with his hands. “Go on now, Mother, and fetch us a pot of tea. We’re in dire need of some.”

  Willie added, “And perhaps some sandwiches if there is any cold chicken left?” His tone was casual, but he kept watchful eyes fixed on his brother.

  When she was out of earshot, Pádraic Pearse said, “Ned, I must ask you not to speak of this conversation to anyone. I shall explain everything to Mother later, in my own way.

  “Firstly, you should know that for some time the IRB has had an advisory committee consisting of Joe Plunkett, Eamonn Ceannt, and myself drawing up plans for a proposed insurrection.1 We all three belong to both the Brotherhood and the Volunteer Corps, and in addition military strategy is one of Joe’s enthusiasms.

  “In July I was co-opted onto the Supreme Council of the IRB.2 Between them the members represent all shades of nationalist philosophy. Today I attended a very long council meeting at which the plans for insurrection were thoroughly discussed. We may have another meeting in a few days and invite a few interested parties outside the Brotherhood.”3 Pearse closed his eyes and wearily massaged the bridge of his nose.

  Willie interjected, “I presume Seán MacDermott was on one side and Arthur Griffith on
the other when it came to discussing the use of physical force?”

  “At first there was some…ah, heated discussion,” his brother admitted. “But eventually we reached a consensus. With Britain distracted by the European war our opportunity has come at last, so the IRB has now officially agreed on an armed insurrection.4 If we are successful this will be the last Rising after so many failed attempts.

  “Ned, this is why the Volunteers are so important. They will become Ireland’s army of independence.”

  Ned’s heart gave a violent thud.

  “We have voted to accept any assistance Germany may offer us,” Pearse went on, speaking in a grave, measured voice. “As James Connolly has written, ‘Over the centuries Britain, not Germany, has been our only enemy among the nations of the world.’”

  In a hoarse whisper, Willie asked, “When?”

  “No specific date is set, but the Rising will take place under any one of three conditions. First, if Britain attempts to force conscription on Ireland. Secondly, if German troops land here. Or if the European war draws to a close and Ireland still is denied Home Rule. At least one of these is, we are convinced, inevitable.”

  The three men sat looking at one another in the quiet room.

  A Rising—to set Ireland free.

  THAT night Ned lay sleepless in his bed and stared at the ceiling. Pearse had taught him to think, and now he could not stop thinking.

  What was proposed was glorious in theory, but the reality could be very different. Armed insurrection meant killing or being killed.

  What could possibly justify such an act to a Christian conscience?

  Something Pearse had once said came back to him: “The church has always taught that its men and women are soldiers for Christ and should be willing to die for their faith. What is the difference between that, and being ready to die as Robert Emmet did in the cause of freedom?”

  Alone in the dark, Ned struggled to answer the question to his own satisfaction.