“This is Lady Macmillan,” he told the NCO in charge. “Her husband works at the Castle, and when this whole thing blew up, she was in a house on Sackville Street, organizing a charity event for the boys in France. She was trapped there until this evening, when I managed to get her away.”
“And you are?”
McColl presented his Service card, hoping the man would forget the name.
The NCO handed it back. “And where are you going now?”
“They have a country house just outside the city. I have a car waiting just up the road.”
The NCO nodded. “Well, good night, madam. I’m sorry—your ladyship.”
“Good night,” Caitlin said, in what she hoped was an English accent. “And thank you.”
They carried on up Dorset Street, past shuttered shops and silent houses, only linking arms when the soldiers behind them were far out of sight. Ten minutes later McColl was hammering on the garage owner’s door, hoping he wouldn’t have to threaten the man with his gun. He didn’t, but it took another ten pounds to coax him down with the keys.
The Alldays started the first time, and the city was soon behind them. McColl drove steadily north on the Belfast Road, only pulling over when the first hint of sunlight paled the eastern sky.
“I’ve been thinking,” Caitlin said after a while. “Won’t they be watching the boats?”
“I’d guess not yet, but if they are, I’ll say you’re under arrest and I’m taking you back to London.”
“Okay, let’s get the boat. But,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder, “is there any reason we should hurry back to London? If I’m going home, I want to spend some time with you before I have to leave.”
Windermere
There was no check at Larne and none at Stranraer. Caitlin had always wanted to visit the Lake District—“Wordsworth was a revolutionary, you know”—so they took the local train from Carlisle and changed to another for Windermere. Many of the hotels were closed, either for the season or for the war, but they finally found a rambling stone-built guesthouse with a beautiful view across the lake.
It was Friday evening when they arrived, and the next two mornings brought news of the Dublin GPO’s destruction and the surrender of the rebel forces. Having spent most of Saturday in bed, Caitlin insisted on doing some work on the Sunday morning. With the bulk of her interview notes abandoned in Maeve’s house on Mary Street, she was anxious to put her memories on paper.
The more she remembered and wrote, the more uncertain she grew as to what she wanted to say. Out for a walk by the lake that afternoon, she asked McColl how he felt about it all.
“They never had a chance,” was his simple answer.
“No. But the leaders knew that. Or at least they did once they knew that there’d be no German help.”
“But they went ahead anyway.”
“They felt they had to. That if they didn’t, nothing would ever change. Maybe you have to be Irish—or Irish-American—to understand that, to feel that weight on your shoulders, that duty, almost, to keep showing the English that you value independence so much that you’re willing to die just to keep that dream alive.”
“You said the leaders knew,” McColl said. “Did they tell their followers it was doomed from the start?”
“A lot of them knew, I think.” She fell silent for a moment as they both watched a V of geese fly over the water. “What surprised me—if I’m honest—is how few supported them and how hated they were by some people. You should have seen the working-class women around Jacob’s Factory. The people with the most to gain from a socialist republic, and they were its bitterest enemies. You know, the more I think about it, the more I fear it was all for nothing.”
McColl considered. “You know more about politics than I do,” he said eventually, “but I think you’re wrong about that. I’ll tell you something I shouldn’t—London knew about the Rising a month ago.”
“Then why didn’t . . . ?”
“They wanted to flush the republicans into the open and give them enough rope to hang themselves. Literally, I expect. They’re eager to make an example.”
“But that’s terrible!”
“It’s also very stupid. If the government locks the leaders up for a couple of years, they’ll look like one more bunch of failures. If it executes them, they’ll end up looking like heroes.”
News of the first executions—Patrick Pearse, Thomas Clarke, and Thomas MacDonagh—reached the lakeside guesthouse on Wednesday evening. Meanwhile the other war went on. The besieged forces in Dublin had not been the only ones to surrender on that Saturday—the British garrison in Kut had also raised the white flag after several failed attempts to relieve it.
On the main fronts, it seemed to be business as usual, a tale of minor losses and gains, often at inordinate cost. In France the German-instigated battles around Verdun were entering a third month with no sign of a breakthrough; the level of casualties was considered “concerning.” The Anglo-German sector was relatively quiet, but no doubt the dolts on the British General Staff were planning another “big push.”
Despite all that, McColl couldn’t, like Caitlin, simply oppose the war. “I know the arguments,” he told her. They were sitting in a rowboat, happily drifting across the still lake, beneath another perfect blue sky. “How can we be fighting for democracy when the Russians are our allies? How can we demonize the Germans when they have much better social welfare than we do? How can we bang on and on about Belgium when we’re occupying India and Egypt and God knows how many other places?”
“Well, how?” she asked calmly.
He sighed. “I guess in the end it has to be personal.”
“Jed?”
“Jed and Mac. What if—” He was about to say, What if your brother were at the front? but managed to stop himself.
She said it for him. “What if Colm were out there? Yes, I suppose I’d feel the way you do, but that wouldn’t make me right.”
“Maybe not. But if I refused to do my bit, I know I would feel I was letting him down.”
She gave him a wry smile. “So I don’t suppose you’d consider resigning—or whatever you call it—and coming back with me?”
“Is that a serious question?”
“No. Yes. I know you won’t. And I won’t hold it against you.”
“The moment it ends, I’ll be on my way to New York.”
“Well, I might be there. If some socialist paradise springs into existence, I might be visiting.”
“Some hope.”
“Don’t be so pessimistic. And we can write to each other,” she added. “Or at least you can write to me—I never know where you are. You can tell me you love me every so often.”
“I can. I do.”
They spent a week in Windermere, rarely more than an outstretched arm away from each other. Neither could remember a happier time, but both knew it had to end. If McColl didn’t show on the following Monday, Cumming would fear the worst, start a search, and uncover the trip to Dublin. Knowing that Caitlin had to be the lure, Cumming would contact Dunwood and find out that she was wanted. The Service chief would then have no choice but to track down the pair of them. Dismissal for him and much worse for her.
There was always the fear that Dunwood had already blown the whistle, but with any luck he was too busy picking up the pieces in Dublin. Still, McColl took them off the train at Watford Junction rather than risk any waiting police at Euston. A cab brought them to Rickmansworth, the Metropolitan to Baker Street and a small hotel that McColl knew from years before.
They made love that night and again in the morning, but both were aware of a growing distance—voices inside them were already rehearsing good-byes. It wasn’t a long walk to the American embassy, and the lone policeman outside the entrance gave them a welcoming smile. One last clinging embrace, one last loving kiss, and the do
or swung shut between them.
McColl stood out on the pavement for several minutes looking up at the windows, as if she might throw one open and blow him a final kiss. Then he walked to Oxford Street and took an omnibus down past Oxford Circus, staring blankly out the window at the early-morning shoppers. When would he see her again?
There was no one watching his flat and no sign that Cumming had ordered a search—the only changes from ten days ago were an added layer of dust and a letter from Jed on the mat. There were no blacked-out passages for once, and the news was good—his and Mac’s division was moving to a quieter stretch of the front, down along the Somme.
He bathed and changed before setting out again, this time for Whitehall. A stop for coffee and cake put off the evil moment and gave him time to work on his story. Not that time was likely to improve it, and in the end he settled for the truth, which at least had the virtue of simplicity. He would appeal to Cumming’s romantic streak, if indeed his chief had one.
He didn’t really think that Cumming would fire him. A talking-to, no doubt, but the Service wasn’t exactly overburdened with multilinguists who could track down Bengali terrorists and blow up Belgian bridges. As he’d thought from the start, he was made for this job, and Cumming was smart enough to appreciate that fact. Now, with Caitlin safely across the Atlantic, there’d be no one to further distract him.
He pictured her in his mind, sitting in the boat on Windermere, lying in their guesthouse bed with her glorious hair spread across the pillow. Maybe the war would be over that year, and they could be together. This parting was painful, but nothing like the one before, when he thought she’d never forgive him. He might have lost her again, but this time out of choice, and hopefully not for long.
In the American embassy, officials whom Caitlin knew and trusted told her not to worry—they were sure the British would let her go home. The British reprisals in Ireland—another four had been shot, with more to follow—were enraging a sizable portion of the American public, and the government in London would not want to make matters worse by arresting a well-known American journalist. An agreement would be reached, and the embassy would give her an escort to Liverpool. She had, it seemed, even chosen a good time to sail—under intense pressure from Washington, the Germans had recently agreed not to sink any more civilian ships without a prior warning.
On the morning of the following Thursday, she was told she’d be leaving early the next day, and as if on cue, an hour or so later, a letter arrived from McColl. He was leaving as well, and though he couldn’t say where he was going, the Newcastle postmark might be a clue. Perhaps the Allies were planning a northern Gallipoli, with reindeer rather than donkeys.
And of course he said he loved her.
And I you, she thought. The last thing she needed was a man, but by God she wanted this one.
What had Kollontai said? You drank from the cup of love’s joy, and then you went back to work.
It rained all the way to Liverpool, and England looked green as an Irish flag. There were no zeppelins above the city, and her ship, though depressingly small, had a good supply of recent American newspapers. The women’s Liberty Bell, which von Schön had mentioned in Berlin, was now touring the forty-eight states, ringing up support for suffrage, and a woman named Jeanette Rankin, whom Caitlin had met before the war, looked set to be the first of her gender to win a seat in Congress. Behind the mask of the war, the world was actually changing.
Admittedly, her government seemed poised to invade the Dominican Republic, but then nothing was ever perfect. Except perhaps those days in Windermere. They’d come pretty close.
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