Women of Courage

by Tim Vicary

  If I could knock him down and shove a red-hot poker up his arse, Werner thought, I would.

  But there’s no need. Whatever he says or does I can take my time. I’ve got something to say which will hurt him far far worse than that.

  ‘Well.’ To do him credit Charles had at least paled slightly. ‘After all these years. Whatever brings you to Glenfee out of this dark, rainy night?’

  ‘I wanted to see you, Charles. I have something important to say.’

  ‘Indeed? Well, you’ve chosen a damned inconvenient time for it. But now you’re here you’d better sit down.’ He indicated a shabby leather sofa. ‘Can I offer you a drink?’

  ‘Yes, please. Whisky, if you have it.’

  Charles opened a cupboard and poured a small amount into two cut-glass tumblers. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have ice, water, that sort of thing. Neat do you?’

  ‘Certainly.’ Werner took the glass and drained half of it in one go. The warmth spread gloriously through his veins.

  Charles sat in the chair by his desk and smiled awkwardly. ‘I hope I don’t seem too rude. It’s a bit of a shock to get used to, seeing you as a fully grown man after all this time. What do you do for a living?’

  ‘As it says on my card. I’m a journalist.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well, what do you want from me? Inside knowledge about the UVF, I suppose. If so, I warn you it’s no go. The reason we’re such a tight effective organisation is that we know how to keep a few secrets.’

  Werner smiled. ‘Yes, I know that. As a matter of fact I happen to know one or two of your secrets as well.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Werner took a deep breath. That was silly, he thought. This was where it would all begin. The important thing was to handle it calmly, so that Charles did not lose his temper completely and do something foolish.

  ‘Forgive me. Perhaps I exaggerate. But I regret to say that . . . I have a rather difficult request to make of you. It is of the utmost importance that you listen to me carefully, and think before you react. If you do not, something terrible may happen which you will regret for the rest of your life.’

  Charles put his whisky glass down carefully on the desk. ‘I’m not sure I understand you.’

  ‘Of course not. Not yet. Let us take it step by step. It is very simple, really. I think you should read this letter.’

  As he took the letter out of his pocket, Werner could not stop his hand shaking slightly. He stood up before he gave it to Charles, and then stepped back slightly to be a little out of Charles’s reach, near the door. It was rather like passing over a piece of dynamite, in its way. He put his left hand back in his pocket, where the automatic pistol was.

  The letter was in a crumpled white envelope. There was nothing written on the outside. Charles picked up a paperknife and slit it open.

  Inside was a single sheet of lined paper, apparently torn from a child’s exercise book. On it was some writing in grubby pencil. The letters were shaky, not always the same size, smudged in places.

  Father,

  These men have caught me and shut me in where you can never find. Please do what they say or they will kill me. I am sorry.

  Tom.

  Charles did not take it in at first. When he did, needles of rage pierced his brain. He sprang to his feet, pushed back his chair, turned upon Werner ...

  ‘Stand still!’

  Through a red mist of rage Charles saw the round, black muzzle of a pistol pointing unwaveringly at his face. Werner stood with his back to the door, two yards away, out of reach, with the gun at the end of his fully extended left arm. Behind the gun were two ice-blue intense eyes freezing him into stillness.

  ‘Sit down. Please.’

  Charles stood, his hands clenched into fists, shaking with the sudden rush of fury. Surely this German was no marksman, would not dare . . .

  ‘Do what I say. Now, please. If anything happens to me your son will die as well. Sit!’

  Slowly, never taking his eyes off Werner for a second, Charles backed towards his chair, reached behind him with his hands, sat.

  ‘You unutterable bastard!’

  ‘Say what you like.’ Werner lowered the pistol slightly, but did not move away from the door. ‘But when you have finished, listen to me. If you love your son at all it is important to do that.’

  ‘Love him at all? What do you know of it, you slug? Where is he?’

  ‘You read the note. Safely guarded, where you cannot find him. But, unlike you, I do not make a habit of abusing small boys. If you listen to me and do exactly as I say, then by tomorrow night I will return him here. Safe. Completely unharmed.’

  ‘And if I don’t?’

  ‘You will, if you love him. Be warned, Charles Cavendish. I am not a monster as you seem to think, but the man who is guarding Tom is. His orders are to kill the boy if I do not return – and I am perfectly sure he will do it. So do not even try to disobey.’

  There was a silence. The rain rattled on the window and the coal spluttered in the fire. Far away, faintly, Charles could hear the sound of Deborah playing the piano and singing. As though this place had become a home again, he thought, uselessly.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  That’s better, Werner thought. The first sign of a return to reason. Still standing out of reach by the door, he began to explain. He spoke very slowly and clearly, aware that he was dealing with a man whose judgement might be clouded by emotion, who might be overcome by rage at any moment and forget what he said.

  ‘It is very simple, really. At nine-thirty tomorrow morning you are due to pick up Sir Edward Carson at Craigavon and transport him in your car to Mount Stewart. Is that correct?’

  ‘How the devil do you know?’

  ‘I asked if it was correct. Is it, or isn’t it?’

  Slowly, painfully, Charles nodded. ‘It may be.’

  ‘Good. I also believe that you intend to leave this house, Glenfee, at seven o’clock tomorrow morning in your car with your chauffeur. You will then pick up an armed escort of three UVF soldiers in the village three miles down the road and proceed to Craigavon. Is this correct also?’

  ‘Someone has told you.’

  ‘Of course. Now, it is a good plan but I wish you to change it slightly. You may still leave this house at seven o’clock tomorrow morning, but your chauffeur and the men from the village will not be in it. Instead, I will accompany you with an armed escort of three men of my own. At the same time as we leave, you will send your chauffeur to the village with a written order cancelling the duties of your escort. Do you understand?’

  Charles stared at him, with loathing. ‘But why?’

  I’ve seen a rabbit stare like that at a snake, Werner thought, with satisfaction. He smiled at Charles, enjoying the sense of power. ‘Ah. Well now, that is the interesting part. You see, we will all go in the car to Craigavon to pick up Sir Edward Carson as arranged. You will play the role of the officer in charge, as though I and my men are your soldiers. You will be very careful not to betray us in any way, because if you do, your son will die. Is that clear too?’

  ‘Everything is clear, you monster, except what you hope to gain by doing this.’

  ‘What I hope to gain is a little acceleration in the course of history, no more. You and Sir Edward will not, of course, arrive at Mount Stewart after you leave Craigavon. Instead I have arranged a little holiday for you in the country. A rumour will spread that Sir Edward has been arrested by the British Army and is being held in Holywood Barracks. If you want to know why we are doing this, think about your colleagues in the UVF for a moment. What are they likely to do, when they hear such a rumour — and find Sir Edward is missing?’

  Charles did not answer. He remembered some of the fiery conferences he had attended only last week at Craigavon. Again and again, a number of junior officers had urged an immediate pre-emptive strike on all the military barracks and stores in Ulster, so as to make the UVF’s threat of controlling the province a f
ait accompli.

  The orders for such an operation — a three-page document entitled The No.1 Scheme — were already drawn up. They detailed the occupation of Belfast by a flying column of 5,000 men, a ‘sudden, complete, and paralysing blow’. There were plans to cut railway, telegraph, and telephone communications throughout the province, to block all roads that could be used by British reinforcements, and to capture all British Army and police depots. Every UVF unit in Ulster had already practised its role in this plan for months but until recently they had not had the guns to put the plan into action. Now they had.

  Last week in Craigavon several officers had argued strongly that it should be put into immediate effect now, while the time was ripe. The Liberal government was surprised and demoralised by the success of the gun-running and the mutiny of its own officers at the Curragh last month, they said. It was very tempting. Only the more mature officers counselled caution.

  If Carson were arrested, everyone in the UVF would believe the British government were trying to attack them. They would want to strike back. The pressure to rescue Carson and take over the province before it was too late would be irresistible.

  Charles himself had argued for putting this plan into effect. It had never occurred to him that it might be useful to the Germans. He had realised it might lead to a brief civil war but he believed the UVF would win it and that the Liberal government would back down and reverse their nonsensical policy of putting Ulster under an Irish Home Rule Parliament in Dublin. He remembered discussing this in the car with Simon on the way back from Craigavon.

  Simon! Could he be behind this? The thought hurt him almost as much as the piercing pain about his son. He remembered how bitter Simon had seemed whenever he had tried to end their relationship. How an unpleasant, vicious side to the young man had surfaced . . .

  A side which Charles had tried to ignore.

  He glared at Werner intensely. ‘Who told you all this?’

  ‘All what exactly, Charles, old boy?’

  The calculated familiarity of Werner’s manner enraged him. It was deliberate — an attempt to remind Charles of their school days together, when he had been as fond of Werner as he had recently been of Simon. And now they had both done this to him! Charles gripped the sides of his chair, trying to retain control.

  ‘Who gave you all this information about my orders to collect Carson tomorrow? And made you think that the UVF might stage a coup if Carson were abducted?’

  Werner laughed. ‘As for the second, it is obvious enough, isn’t it? I worked it out for myself even before I saw the secret orders. But I got hold of those and the details about tomorrow, because . . . you’re afflicted with a certain weakness, aren’t you, old chap?’

  So it was true. Simon — that smooth-talking little devil. And only a few days ago I offered to write letters of recommendation for him, too. ‘Why?’

  He hadn’t realised he had shouted aloud. But Werner seemed happy to answer.

  ‘Why did I come to you, do you mean? Why choose you as the weak link in the highly moral force of loyal Ulstermen? Well, Charles, why do you think? I knew what you were like from all those years ago when we were at school together. Do you remember? When I was put into your study for protection and you forced me to do those things that . . . no decent man would think of. I haven’t forgotten — I don’t think I ever will.

  ‘Then I was sent back here and the first thing I saw was you, parading all proud and disdainful with a young smooth-skinned ADC by your side. Perhaps it seemed normal to most people but I thought, nothing has changed, has it? So I thought I would ask that young man a few questions, just to see where his loyalties lay. Oh, you chose a jewel this time, Charles, didn’t you? Young Simon couldn’t give a damn for you or the Union, not in a thousand years! That boy cares only for himself. And now, I’m afraid, he seems to think you’ve insulted him — apparently you have a gift for it. So, just like me, he wants to hurt you.’

  Charles stared at him, hurt, bewildered. ‘I thought we were friends, at school.’

  Werner laughed. It was a cruel, mocking sound. ‘For a leader of men you know very little about people, don’t you, Charles? You thought we were friends because you wanted to think it. It was never true, not after you started to touch me. You had the power and you used it to degrade me. You never even cared what I thought.’

  ‘So you’re doing all this just to hurt me, just for something that happened at school?’

  So casually he says it, Werner thought. Just something that happened at school. As if a boy could be buggered once a day for two terms and then cast off, forgotten, unharmed. He never wrote, never cared when I left. Passion can’t touch this man. Just sarcasm, cruelty, blackmail.

  Coldly, he said: ‘Oh no, Charles, you’re not that important. I’m not doing it to hurt you at all. The fact that it does just adds to the pleasure.’

  Silence. Werner was pleased to see that Charles’s initial rage seemed to be cooling. The man was less likely to try to spring up and try to throttle him now than he had been a few minutes ago.

  No doubt he was thinking hard, instead, of more devious ways to evade the trap he was in.

  As quietly and calmly as he could, Werner said: ‘Let me explain what is going to happen between now and tomorrow morning. Listen carefully, it is important for your son. He will be kept where he is, well-fed and guarded, until tomorrow night. If all goes well and I return safely to speak to his guard before eight o’clock tomorrow night, he will be released and brought back here. Otherwise he will be killed. So it is in your interests to see that nothing happens to me.’

  He paused, waiting for a response, but none came. Charles sat silent, unmoving, staring at him with concentrated disgust.

  ‘Tonight I will stay here in this house. No doubt it will cross your mind to try to send a message to someone for help, but I would advise against it. It would cause the death of your boy, and it would also lead to the death of the messenger. My men have surrounded this building and have orders to shoot anyone they see leaving it. I suggest you advise your servants of that at once. I see that you also have a telephone, but you will find you are no longer connected to the operator. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Perfectly.’ Despite himself, Charles reached out casually for the telephone at the end of his desk and put the receiver to his ear. After a few moments’ silence, he put it down in disgust. ‘It seems you have planned well.’

  ‘I believe so. Now, if you will show me around the house and find me a room for the night, I need trouble you no more until the morning. If no harm comes to me, no one needs to be hurt.’

  ‘No one except Carson,’ Charles said. ‘And me too, I suppose.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘A little holiday, I think you said, didn’t you, Weichsaker? Carson and I would be taken away for a little holiday? Have you thought what Sir Edward will say when he is released and finds the whole country plunged into civil war because of a plot organised by a foreign power? He’ll turn the whole force of the UVF against you, and the British government will do the same with their forces! Then you’ll see a war far worse than anything that could happen in this small corner of the world. What good will that do you or anyone else?’

  Werner smiled thinly. Franz, Karl-Otto and Adolf had already dug the two graves which were the solution to that problem. One for Charles, one for Carson. But it would hardly encourage Charles to mention them now.

  ‘That is a matter for politicians, not me,’ he said. ‘After all, holidays can be long or short, according to need and circumstances. In any case, I suppose that your wife and servants will be here tomorrow night to welcome your son home, even if you and Sir Edward Carson have to be detained a little longer.’

  29

  PLAYING THE piano had given Deborah unusual pleasure. She was no great pianist, but she had always played, ever since she was a child. She liked romantic ballads and lullabies mostly, which she could sing in a clear, low contralto as she accompanied her
self. The songs and soft chords gave her comfort. She had played the same tunes to Tom when he was at home, and tonight she shared them with Sarah, who sat quietly on a sofa in the drawing room, leafing through a newspaper and listening. Sometimes, when Deborah looked up, she saw a relaxed smile stray like a ghost across the thin, strained face in the firelight, and she thought, this will do us both good.

  Not just the two of us either. Always, she was conscious the child growing inside her. This music is for my baby, too, thought. It will help him sleep and grow quietly inside me, safe, secure, knowing nothing of the dangers and troubles of world into which he will be born. I must shield him from that long as I can.

  As long as I can . . . Once, towards the end of the evening Charles had looked in. With him was a tall thin man with startlingly pale blue eyes and a crippled hand. Charles introduced him as Werner von Weichsaker and said he would be staying the night. But neither had stayed to talk. Charles’s introduction had been curt, brief almost to the point of rudeness, and Deborah had guessed the man’s arrival had been an unwelcome extra burden to her husband’s many military duties. Charles looked unusually tense, she thought, his face pale, strained.

  So tonight would not be the time to tell him of the baby.

  For three days now she had put it off. Each day seemed to her like a reprieve, a last blessed hour of sunlight before the storm that had to come. She told herself that Charles was too busy, he was in the wrong mood. That Sarah was too weak to face the inevitable row. That she was being kind to her baby to let it grow in peace another day longer. She even told herself that she was being kind to Charles.

  Soon the excuses would run out.

  As she went to bed the rain had stopped. She opened her bedroom window and stood there in her nightdress for a moment, looking out into the darkness across the grounds. The clouds were passing and there was a patch of clear sky over the hills to the west where the moon shone down, surrounded by a sprinkling of stars. She could make out some of the trees of the park and the woods on the hills; the field where the cattle came down to the pond that they sometimes called a lake, where she had played at boats with Tom and where the poor children from Dublin had tried to catch ducks; the summerhouse near the oak in which Tom had built a tree-house; the woods with the little gothic pavilion and the ice-house and the badger setts and the tunnel under the road where she and Tom had played hide and seek long ago.