‘Red and black scarf. He’ll be off to a meeting. If long lectures and group discussions could win a war, we’re there. They’ve just sent round a new directive reinstating the salute.’ Robert fished a crumpled copy of ‘Our Fight’ out of his pocket. ‘It says here, “A salute is a sign that a comrade who has been an egocentric individual in private life has adjusted to the collective way of getting things done.” And listen to this bit. “A salute is proof that our brigade is on its way from being a collection of well-meaning amateurs to a steel precision instrument for eliminating Fascists.”’
Ten minutes later John stood up and took Kate’s hand. ‘Let me walk you back to your hotel. Robert will settle the bill.’
Robert and Kate were both surprised at this sudden end to the conversation. She looked again at John, brown, lean, tall, smiling, and didn’t drop his hand as they walked slowly back in the hot night. Outside the hotel, John, a little dizzy from the heat and the wine, steadied himself by putting his hands on Kate’s shoulders. She laughed.
‘I thought you were seeing me home.’
‘You know what Horace said? “Trust not tomorrow’s bough, for fruit. Pluck this, here, now.” You’re a pomegranate, a peach. I’m in love. I don’t think I’ll make it back to barracks.’
‘Horace would say you’d better stay here until the morning.’
‘That would be safer. Robert will tell them I haven’t deserted.’
27
Caceres, February 1937
Dear Mother,
I am sorry not to have written sooner, but we have been constantly on the move since we arrived in Spain, and much has happened, not all of it good, I must say.
We began badly when our lorry from Kenmare broke down and we thought we would not get to Galway in time. As luck would have it the embarkation was delayed for two days. La Bandera Irlandesa had a great send-off, with Archbishop Gilmartin leading us in prayer in the big square in Galway. We sang ‘Faith of Our Fathers’, feeling that we were going on a crusade. O’Duffy made a good speech.
That has been the best of it so far. Our German ship, the SS Urundi of fourteen thousand tons, was not allowed within the three-mile limit, so we had to board the Aran Island tender. On our way out the wind got up, and we sheltered under Black Head for five hours. Many of our fellows were seasick, and twenty of them could not face the rope ladders up the side of the Urundi and turned back. Or perhaps it was the thought of five more days at sea.
Anyhow we arrived at El Ferrol, and entrained to Caceres, where we were given uniforms and, eventually, decent rifles after we refused the single-shot Mausers. They were at least thirty years old.
We did some basic drill and training in Caceres. We are a mixed bunch, a few old soldiers, IRA or British Army, but mostly green farmers’ boys. There are four companies in the Bandera. I am in No. 2 Company.
Next thing we were off to the front to take part in an attack on the Republicans (strange that our enemies are called Republicans) near Jarama. What happened was we were attacked on the way, not by the enemy, but by our own troops – Canary Islanders, who hadn’t been told we were coming and opened fire on us without a warning. They killed four of our men, a Kerryman from Dingle among them. We fired back, not knowing who they were. Apparently we killed a dozen of them, but that was little consolation. It was all of an hour before we all realized our mistake; as you would expect there has been a real Donnybrook about the whole affair since.
That was over a month ago. We have seen many ruined churches and convents, and the stories of Republican outrages against the Church are not exaggerated. It is certain that four thousand priests and nuns were killed in the first weeks of the war, and many more since. At the same time our side is pretty ferocious – not many prisoners are taken, and those that surrender are treated very roughly.
The food is plentiful but most of it not my taste. There is an abundance of wine, and many of our fellows drink too much of it. I must close now, and remain,
Your loving son,
Tomas
PS Show this letter to Mrs O’Hanrahan when you next see her, as I haven’t written to her yet.
Valencia, June 1937
Dear Mother,
Since I last wrote we attacked the village of Titulcia, our first proper action. It poured with rain, the attack failed, and we lost two men. The next day we were ordered to renew the attack, and our leaders refused. They don’t seem to have much of an appetite for fighting, and we’ve been kept in reserve ever since, not a surprise.
We saw little of O’Duffy, who spent most of his time in hotels well behind the front line. The men have started calling him ‘O’Scruffy’ and ‘Old John Bollocks’. He was a good Commissioner of the Garda, but he is completely discredited after Titulcia.
So when our six months, which is all we signed up for, was over, we were asked whether we wanted to fight on, not that we’d done much fighting. Out of four hundred men only eight of us agreed to stay. I still believe in the cause and I’ve seen what the Reds can do to churches and priests and nuns. And I’m not ready to come back to Ireland yet. The eight of us are now part of the Foreign Legion and we have a new general, Yague. This is a different kettle of fish entirely, much tougher, battle hardened, well drilled and disciplined. We are more than a match for the Republicans; our air force, mainly Germans, has shot down almost all the Republican planes.
Your loving son,
Tomas
Teruel, December 1937
Dear Mother,
We are outside Teruel, a town that the Republicans kicked us out of at the end of last year. Reinforcements have arrived and the weather has improved, which means that our air force has bombed the town for three days in a row. We expect to attack on the ground very soon.
I am getting used to the Spanish food, although I avoid the wine. I look forward to coming home to a good stew. We have the other side beat, and the war will be over by the summer. Don’t worry about me. It’s much less dangerous here than Dublin was in 1921.
My best regards to Mrs O’Hanrahan and Father Michael.
Your loving son,
Tomas
28
BY THE END of 1937, John and Robert’s battalion is in Teruel – a different war and different weather. Teruel is a small town in harsh country; it is bitterly cold. They fight from house to house, hand-to-hand combat with bayonets, interrupted by strafing and bombing from the Nationalists’ Condor Legion whenever the weather allows. The Republicans pray for snow and cloud, and for the last two weeks of December their prayers are answered, although their casualties are heavy. Robert is hit by shrapnel and has to go back to a field hospital for three days.
‘You’ve taken Teruel while I’ve been away. I didn’t think you could manage it without me,’ he says to John on his return. He has a bloodstained bandage around his head and he looks tired and grey.
‘I’m glad you’re back. How do you know we’ve taken the town? We’re still getting shelled every day.’
‘It’s in this morning’s directive. They say the journalists are coming for tonight’s concert. Perhaps your friend Kate will be there.’
‘What concert?’
‘God only knows.’
There is a concert on Christmas Eve; Paul Robeson sings spirituals to the battalion in the Town Hall.
‘The Nationalists have got their Moors; we’ve got Paul Robeson,’ says Robert.
‘Ideologically impure, that comment. And he can sing,’ says John.
Next to the stage there is a small group of journalists and brigadiers, healthy and well dressed, a sharp contrast to the four hundred ragged soldiers sitting in the well of the hall. Kate is one of two women in the group; she is wearing a dark green tunic, and looks to John like someone from a world to which he no longer belongs. He manages to catch Kate’s eye and she waves. After the concert he hurries outside. The journalists are already in the bus. Kate rubs a clear space in the glass, presses her hand against the window, and is gone.
Three
days later the Nationalist counter-attack begins. The weather clears, the bombing and the strafing are relentless, and the Republicans are slowly driven back to the edge of the town. Teruel is no longer pretty, much of it destroyed by grenades and dynamite in the house-to-house fighting. The bombs of the Condor Legion have completed the destruction. Only a few buildings are intact. Most are shells, their walls cracked, an occasional half-floor with a ruined bedstead or bath. In the streets, now under six inches of snow, there are abandoned carts, several burned-out tanks and the frozen bodies of dead mules and horses.
John’s section is told to make their own way out and regroup when they can. They pass another section of their battalion guarding a small group of prisoners huddled on the ground. On the wall above them someone has painted, ‘Teruel será la tumba del fascismo.’
‘This lot overran their advance,’ says the lieutenant. ‘Or else they got lost. Some of them are your countrymen, leftover Micks from the Bandera Irlandesa.’
John looks at the men sitting on the ground, looks again and sees Tomas Sullivan – gaunt, bearded, left arm in a makeshift sling, no boots and bleeding feet, the man he had last seen in Kilmainham Jail awaiting the hangman.
‘Tomas,’ says John, and Tomas raises his head.
‘What are you going to do with them?’ John asks the lieutenant.
‘What do you think? We’re not taking them along with us.’
‘That man’s mine. I’ve unfinished business with him.’
The lieutenant hears the intensity in John’s voice, then says, ‘One bullet’s as good as another.’
John prods Tomas to his feet with his rifle. Tomas rises slowly, and John escorts him around the corner and into a ruined shop fifty yards away.
Tomas looks at John for the first time. ‘You need to know how to do this. One shot to the heart, one to the head to finish the job.’
The guards and the prisoners hear two shots. One of the younger prisoners begins to cry, his tears leaving two pale streaks in his grimy face. An older man sitting next to him puts an arm around his shoulder. Three minutes later John comes round the corner, his rifle slung over his shoulder. His hand shakes as he lights a cigarette.
‘Now you’ve got the hang of it, you can help us finish off the rest,’ says the lieutenant.
‘That was family business, an old score settled. We’ll see you at the rendezvous.’
As they trot down the street Robert looks at John curiously. ‘That was strange.’
‘We should have stopped the executions. That boy can’t have been more than seventeen.’
‘Hard to do after you’d just picked one of them out and polished him off yourself. That lieutenant would have shot us if we’d tried to stop him.’
‘We should have tried.’
The retreat from Teruel is disorganized and drawn out; it is several days before the battalion regroups and is reinforced. They are held in reserve until the battle of the Ebro. This last desperate attempt to win the war, a long battle of attack and counter-attack, finally ends in November with the Republicans thrown back across the river.
The International Brigade is withdrawn in October. A month later they are given a farewell parade in Barcelona past President Azaña and General Rojo. Three hundred thousand people line the streets, the women throwing flowers, many weeping, as the tired, dirty soldiers march down the Avenida Diagonal.
‘La Pasionaria has told us, “We are history, we are legend, we can go proudly.” I think we should go quickly,’ says Robert. ‘It’s an odd way to celebrate defeat.’
‘Let’s celebrate being alive.’ John looks at Robert, gaunt with dysentery, a shrapnel scar on his forehead. ‘We’re abandoning these people to the Nationalists. We know how bad that will be. I’m not sure they do.’
‘Now what do we do? Back to manorial rolls, back to horse-coping?’ says Robert.
‘For as long as Hitler lets us.’
They make their way across the Pyrenees in a train crowded with refugees, and then on to Paris, where they part. John spends two days at the Paris office of the New York Times, trying to find Kate.
‘I can’t tell you where she is,’ says the duty editor. ‘You can see from the paper that her last despatch was from Madrid.’
Back in England John tries the London office with little more success. Kate’s next piece is from Paris, and he curses his timing. He sends a hopeful telegram asking her to meet him for lunch at the Savoy in a week’s time.
Against the odds Kate arrives for lunch. John watches her come down the short stairway into the restaurant; she is wearing a white dress that makes her arms and legs look very brown. John stands up and hugs her tightly. Kate is surprised for a moment at his embrace, kisses his cheek, then pushes him away to look at his face.
‘God, you look tired. I’m glad you tracked me down. I’ve never seen you in a suit before, only your scarecrow uniform.’
They talk about the war, and then about each other. At the end of lunch John takes her hands in his over the empty glasses and says, ‘I want to marry you.’
‘Oh my. I thought you Englishmen were reserved.’
‘I’m Anglo-Irish, and unreserved. I mean it.’
‘My dear, you hardly know me. We’ve spent an evening and this lunch in each other’s company.’
‘And a night together.’
‘I’m surprised you remember – you went straight to sleep the moment you got into bed, and I had to shake you awake in the morning to get you to first parade in time.’
‘I remember what you looked like with no clothes on.’
‘You were seeing at least two of me that night.’
‘I’ll make up for it. I’ve booked a suite here for three days. I can return your Jarama hospitality. It’s a much nicer room.’
‘That wouldn’t be hard. But I’d like to inspect the suite.’
Kate and John don’t leave the Savoy for three days, and are married ten days later by special licence. Robert Keen is their best man.
29
JOHN AND KATE spend their brief honeymoon in the Lake District, where the rain fails to spoil their enjoyment of each other. Finding out whom they had married, after less than a week’s acquaintance, is exciting. They already know they are well matched in bed, which is where they spend most of their time, but they also discover they are compatible over breakfast, on long walks even in the rain, on their fondness for dogs and dislike of cats, on their preference for whisky over gin. Each knows little enough about the other’s history, and indeed about the other’s country, to make discovery a pleasure. When John tells Kate he wants to train horses again in Ireland, when Kate tells John she intends to continue as a journalist for the New York Times, it seems a reasonable balance.
John takes Kate back to Ireland to stay at Burke’s Fort, where Kate is presented to Charles and Cis. They are about to move out to the dower house on the edge of the estate, and young Charlie and his Irish wife have already moved in.
John has told Kate about Chantal. He has not told her about Grania, about the Trafalgar Folly, about the possibility that he has a daughter living a few miles away in Maryborough. He knows that Charles and Cis will have erased that part of his past from their minds.
Two days before they are due to leave for London, young Charlie says over breakfast, ‘The O’Connells are selling Killowen, twenty miles away from here in County Kildare. Forty boxes, a cobbled yard, two hundred acres, access to the Curragh gallops and a nice dry house with a fanlight. It all needs work. They’re asking fourteen thousand and I hear they’ll take twelve.’
John does some quick arithmetic and rings the bank. Kate thinks the house is charming.
‘It’s your decision, though,’ she tells John. ‘You’re the one who is going to be living here all the time. And I’m not going to make the curtains.’
John laughs. ‘I picked you out in Alicante as a real American home-maker. How could you have deceived me so?’
Forty-eight hours later the house is theirs
. They decide to lock it up and ask young Charlie to find someone nearby to keep an eye on it until they return.
‘And that may not be for a while – there’ll be a war before the year is out,’ says Kate.
‘Dev’s determined to keep Ireland out of it, and I think he’s right. It’s too soon after the War of Independence to be fighting on the same side as the British, and conscription won’t work here. I hope the Republic will be friendly neutrals, though the Treaty Ports have gone,’ says Charles.
‘I’m still a hybrid, still Anglo-Irish,’ says John. ‘I feel bound to volunteer if they’ll take me. I can’t have Kate risking her life as a journalist while I sit at home. She’s off to Berlin next week while I try to find the Royal Irish Dragoons.’
John finds the Royal Irish Dragoons in Tidworth.
‘I see your father was a Dragoon,’ says the commanding officer. ‘Won an MC, killed on the Somme. I can make you a second lieutenant, though you’re a bit long in the tooth, give you a troop, see how you get on. None of us knows anything about armoured cars as they haven’t arrived yet, so you won’t be at a disadvantage. At least you’ve been under fire, unlike the rest of our troop leaders.’
For the next six years John and Kate meet as often as they can manage, in the South of England where the Royal Irish Dragoons spend all of the Phoney War, in London on leave, in Cairo, and in Paris after the liberation. James Burke is born in Dublin, the first of his family for two hundred years not to have been born in Derriquin. Kate is combining a report on Ireland’s role in the Emergency with a trip to Killowen for two months before James arrives. She cables John in Egypt, ‘A nine-pound boy; both of us fine.’ James spends most of the war at Burke’s Fort alongside his cousin Fred, born later in the same year. When the war is over John is a stranger to his five-year-old son, who bursts into tears when he is first introduced to his father.
Back at Killowen after demobilization in 1946, John gradually restores the house and the yard, with a little help and some money from Kate. Racing in Ireland recovers quickly after the war. For some time John struggles with only a dozen mediocre horses in the yard, surviving through a number of big bets at decent odds.
Ashes In the Wind Page 21