One thing reassured him: there was just no way the British could have known about the arms landing in Tralee. He himself had been told at the last minute and his crew had still not been given a single detail.
In view of the behaviour of the British, Spindler felt the best thing to do was to disguise the Aud.
In the course of Wednesday night, his crew built a wood and canvas casing, six-feet high, around the funnel. When morning came, they would paint Spanish signs and flags over the Norwegian.
Not for the first time he wished he had a wireless to contact Tralee.
‘I only hope,’ he joked with his first mate, ‘the Irish haven’t started the rebellion already. That’ll only make the British twice as vigilant.’
So certain was he becoming of success that he made plans for their getaway after the gun-running. He would mount four dummy 10.5 cm guns and raid British vessels below 3,000 tons. How would they know the Aud had only one machine-gun aboard?
He was laughing to himself when a cry rent the air, ‘Submarine ahoy,’ and all his certainties vanished.
The periscope turned out to be a floating meat tin.
Early on Maundy Thursday morning, the Aud was near its destination, at the front-end of the time-span allowed. Better early than late, he thought. That should please the Irish.
The wind had died in the night; it was a fresh, still morning. Though the crew were tired after hours of putting the casing around the funnel, he could not let them rest. All hands were needed to open the hatches and remove the cargo camouflaging the arms.
The upper deck soon looked like the packing department of a big store, piled high with window-frames, door-frames, tinware, zinc buckets and piles of tin baths. Packing cases and straw were thrown into the ship’s furnace, the rest heaved over the side. It was half an hour before Spindler noticed that the Aud was trailing flotsam – baths, coffee cans, pails – to the horizon.
An armed British motor launch, passing within six miles, took in the extraordinary scene and sailed on.
That, too, struck Spindler as distinctly odd.
The U-19 had also experienced calmer seas once it turned south down the west coast. Casement, though still weak, was feeling slightly better. In the night hours he had discussed with Monteith the various expeditions that had landed or attempted to land in Ireland over four centuries. All had met with shipwreck or disaster. And theirs was the smallest of all.
‘The hardest part,’ Casement said, ‘is we have absolutely no idea how things stand at home or what the plans are. We do not even know how dependent the Volunteers are on German arms.’
On the Aud, eight-bells signalled it was noon. According to Spindler’s calculations, they were only forty-five miles from Tralee, 52 N 11 W. If there were no hitches, they should arrive at Fenit in four hours.
He ordered full-speed ahead. They had taken so long to jettison their cargo, there was no time to change to Spanish markings after all. Yet he was happy. He had, he remembered, only one more enemy to beat that night: the full moon.
Two more hours of feverish activity followed. Steam winches and unloading tackle were readied. Hatches were opened; in the holds, the topmost cases were put in slings ready for hoisting ashore. Small bags were packed with pocket torches and tools for ripping open the cases in order to make weapons immediately available to the Irish rebels.
While this was going on, Spindler took his chief officers aside.
‘I presume the Irish will deal with the harbour authorities, but if not and they come aboard to inspect our papers,’ Spindler winked, ‘I’m sure you know what to do.’
His men made chopping motions with their hands.
‘It’ll take seven to eight hours to load,’ he said, ‘Fenit is a mere seven miles from Tralee with a connecting railway. If the alarm is raised, the British could be on to us within half an hour.’
His officers gasped. They were sailors not soldiers; they had no experience of fighting trained troops.
‘Now you understand why we have to unload the machine-guns first. The rebels will be waiting on shore. I hope to God they are, anyway.’
He asked someone to see that their naval ensign was ready to be unfurled. He checked personally that the explosives were in place.
‘I want two more large charges placed foward,’ he said, ‘just in case we have to scuttle the ship.’ Then: ‘Hands wash and into clean No 2s.’
The crew went below to clean up and put on their uniforms, except for their caps which they stuffed in their pockets. They wore a dagger and pistol in their belts. Finally, they pulled on their old Norwegian overalls.
At the Volunteer HQ, Hobson and O’Connell were visited by Liam Manahan, a Commandant from the Limerick Brigade.
‘When,’ he asked Hobson, ‘is the crisis expected?’
Hobson’s eyes narrowed. ‘Crisis, what crisis?’
‘There’s a lot of talk in our area.’
‘It must be because of the Castle document,’ O’Connell said, non-committally.
On his way out, Manahan ran into MacDonagh.
‘What on earth are you doing here, Liam? You should be home on full alert.’
‘ ’Twas just that I heard rumours of a crisis. But Hobson assures me ’tis nothing at all.’
‘Listen to me,’ MacDonagh hissed, ‘there is a danger of immediate raids and arrests.’
Manahan’s eyes widened. ‘That’s not what Hobson said.’
‘He and his ilk are not in it.’
‘In what?’
MacDonagh grabbed his arm. ‘For God’s sake, Liam, take it from me, things are as serious as can be.’
MacDonagh was disturbed by all the talk flying about. Hobson was astute; if he grasped what was going on he would tell MacNeill. Then there would be trouble.
*
Shortly after 1 p.m., the Aud was alone on the sea. On the horizon, there were what seemed to be long, low bluish clouds that slowly crystallized into a land bathed in sunshine.
Spindler mustered his entire crew.
‘You guessed we were not headed for Libau.’ They smiled, nudging one another. ‘That there is Ireland.’
They cheered. Some sniffed the air. Ja, that lovely fresh smell was Ireland.
‘Set your watches, men, by Greenwich Mean Time. Which makes it now ten minutes after twelve.’ As they put their watches back, he went on: ‘I warn you, if we are captured, our uniforms might not save us from being shot. Are you with me?’
They roared, ‘Yes!’
He went meticulously through each man’s task.
‘Engineers: We may have to move up the shallow channel to Fenit. Be ready to pump out the water-tanks to lighten ship.’
‘Ja, Herr Kapitän.’
‘Ship’s doctor. Where are you? Good man. I want you to hand round surgical dressings.’ He nodded. ‘The rest of you remember, if there is an emergency, there will be a big medicine chest in the mess-room. Clear?’
No one had any questions.
‘Very well. Every man to his post. And good luck.’ And, he murmured to himself, ‘God knows we’ll need it.’
The coastline, for all its rich and varying hues, was the most inhospitable he had ever seen. The mountains were steep, high and bald; they were seamed with clefts and gullies and protected by overhanging cliffs.
As the boat came closer, he picked out numerous islands and jagged rocks and reefs. It would need all his seamanship to bring the Aud through safely. At least the steepness of the cliffs was a guarantee of deep water – or so the manuals said.
For the one and only time the U-19 spotted the Aud. It was two miles on the starboard beam.
Lieutenant Weisbach did not try to make contact; he had no orders to do so, nor did he offer any explanation to his passengers. It made Casement more suspicious than ever.
As the submarine passed the mouth of the Shannon, about five miles off the coast, the light from Loop Head was just visible on the port side.
Weisbach warned that from there to the
Inishtooskert Island, they would have to be doubly vigilant in case they ran into a British patrol craft.
On the Aud, Spindler, not the best of navigators, focused his glasses on shore, looking for signs of life, a house, perhaps, or a lighthouse. Nothing but rocks.
‘Where in hell’s name,’ he murmured, as he edged nearer shore, ‘is the entrance to Tralee Bay?’
Many inlets looked like it. After fifteen minutes, he saw what he took to be a small three-pointed rock in Smerwick harbour, known as Three Sisters’. Beyond, would be Tralee Bay.
The look-out on the port bow called out, ‘Sail ahoy.’
Spindler felt an indescribably joy. He picked out the triangular shape of a white sail. The pilot cutter, what else could it be?
He soon found out. He was nowhere near as far south as he thought; in fact, he was at the Shannon estuary. On its north side was a small island on which stood the Loop Head Lighthouse with its signalling station. Owing to a trick of light, the sail was the Lighthouse itself. He had no doubts that British soldiers were occupying it. He had always intended giving it a wide berth since it was bound to be bristling with machine-guns.
He cursed himself for being such a damned fool.
He slowly switched to starboard, and with his glasses scanned every hill, cliff, gully, as well as the water ahead.
By 3 p.m., Loop Head was very close with its signal station and a few small attendant buildings. On the cliff, a wireless mast rose 200 feet. There was nothing else. Except on either side of the mast a dozen black muzzles poking out of concrete gun-emplacements, all pointed his way. British marines or coastal guards were watching their every move.
Casually, Spindler ordered below all men not needed on deck. The rest strolled around nonchalantly, pulling on briar pipes, spitting overboard. He himself, like an old salt, tramped the bridge: six paces to port, six to starboard.
From the Lighthouse there was no warning shot, no signal of any kind. Yet British indifference was worrying Spindler more and more. Did it mean things were going well or had already gone irreparably wrong?
The enemy’s unconcern was not as complete as he thought. The Commander of the signal station relayed that a foreign steamer, the Aud, was acting suspiciously. In Naval HQ at Queenstown, Admiral Bayly promptly sent two destroyers to intercept. The noose around Spindler’s neck on sea and land was tightening.
Unaware of this, he steered the Aud away from Loop Head, flying a green flag. Ahead were the Seven Hogs or Magharee Islands, while on the south and east sides of the Bay were a few fishermen’s huts outside Fenit.
The nearest of the Hogs or Hags was their rendezvous point, Inishtooskert.
In Tralee, Austin Stack was briefing the pilot, Mort O’Leary.
‘The arms boat is arriving in three days,’ he said, ‘on the night of 23/24.’
‘When do you want me, Austin?’
‘On Holy Saturday night. In the Rink there’s a couple of green lights. When you go out in the Bay, show them from the sea-side and pilot the boats in. Provided they manage to beat the blockade.’
At 4.15 p.m., the Aud was one mile from the small, low-lying, uninhabited island in the north-west corner of Tralee Bay. The green flag had no effect. Neither Casement’s submarine nor the pilot cutter with a green flag at the masthead and a man in a green jersey in the bows was to be seen.
This was the bitterest disappointment of Spindler’s life. They had survived tempests and British patrols and now this. The entire crew were peering into the distance, some with glasses. The whole place seemed dead. Since there was scarcely any current, Spindler ordered, ‘Cut engines.’
The resulting quietness and sense of foreboding were overwhelming.
In Tralee, Mort O’Leary left Stack and, on his trip across the Bay, saw a two-masted vessel lying off Inishtooskert where the arms boat was due in a few days. It struck him as an odd place for a ship to be. Why didn’t it come into harbour? It was too big to fit Stack’s description.
Supposing it to be a British decoy ship – there were lots of them around – he continued his journey home.
On the Aud, the minutes ticked by. Ten, fifteen, thirty. Spindler scanned the shore with his glasses. Nothing. Were the damned Irish all having a nap? To refresh his memory, he reread his orders. He was at the right spot at the right time; if nothing happened in half an hour, and no communication seemed likely, his orders were, ‘Use your own judgement whether to go in or turn back.’
‘Turn back?’ he muttered. ‘Never!’
But if he went in in daylight, he might just as well signal to the British, ‘Here are some arms, take them as a present from your admirers in Germany.’
‘Herr Kapitän!’
His mate was pointing in alarm towards Kerry Head. The northern buttress of Tralee Bay was ablaze. Orange flame and thick swirling smoke rose into the spring sky.
‘Warning? Might this be a warning from the rebels,’ he said, hoarsely, ‘telling us to go home?’
How was a German sea captain to know that this was the Irish farmer’s perennial way of clearing stubble and furze bushes from the hills? He mustered his entire company on the bridge.
‘I want to level with you,’ he said. ‘We seem to be on our own. The British may be on to us. Say the word, and we’ll get the hell out of here.’
‘Nein!’ they yelled back.
Brimming with pride, Spindler said, ‘Thank you,’ and sent them back to their posts.
He tried to work out what had gone wrong. A code-word was to be put in news broadcasts from their Nauen transmitter. This should have been picked up by rebel receivers on the Irish coast. Maybe the word had been omitted. For all he knew, without a wireless, the west had started a scrap of its own, resulting in martial law. That would also explain why the British seemed to know all about them.
His chief worry was Casement. Was he already in Ireland? Had he been arrested? Had the U-boat been delayed by bad weather or engine trouble? Had the U-boat already landed Casement, in which case the pilot boat would return for the Aud under cover of night?
There were a hundred questions and not a single answer.
At 4.30 p.m., Con Collins arrived at 44 Mountjoy Square, Dublin, where McDermott was staying.
‘Thanks for coming, Con,’ said McDermott. ‘I’d like you to take a message for me to Limerick and Tralee.’
On his way to the train, Collins sneaked a look. It read: ‘All going well and according to plan.’
In Berlin, the Admiralty received a wire about the break-in in their New York office. They reacted at once.
Top priority was given to a coded wireless signal sent to all U-boats in Irish waters:
‘Come in, commanders. Everything betrayed. Return immediately with Libau.’
The message was repeated over and over. No U-boat picked it up.
The British did.
Spindler realized that remaining at a standstill looked suspicious. He decided to explore the inner parts of the Bay with its semicircle of barren hills.
At half-speed, the Aud sailed along the northern shore. A few hundred yards from Fenit there was a small pier with a lighthouse. Spindler picked out a few tall masts and bouses in the village. To add to his gloom, there was a flagstaff flying the British ensign; at its base was what appeared to be a British Tommy on guard with a rifle on his shoulder.
That, too, struck Spindler in his nervous state as very odd. At any time, the guard should have been interested in them, why not now with heightened tension?
He prayed that an Irish rebel would see his green flag.
At her home, Surrey House, in Rathmines, Countess Markievicz needed a green flag to fly over the General Post Office during the rising.
Among her guests was Laurence Ginnell, an Irish MP very sympathetic to the national cause. She grabbed his green bedspread and went downstairs.
She had only a small amount of gold paint and it had dried up. She opened a tin of mustard, wet it and mixed it with the paint. While four guests held the
bedspread taut, she painted on it, ‘Irish Republic’.
All the time her brown cocker spaniel, Poppet, jumped and barked and finally tore a strip out of it.
‘Get down, dear old darling,’ the Countess said.
*
At dusk, Spindler replaced the green flag with occasional green flashing lights as he pointed the Aud north towards the flat coast below Kerry Head. Risks he had to take. The signals became bolder, more frequent, and still there was no reply from land. So perfect was the peace, they might have been cruising on a lake in Germany.
For two hours this went on. The crew, with their sense of the sacredness of duty, could not believe that the British were either so lax or so foolish as to take them for a harmless trader. This had to be a typically subtle English trick, the kind their instructors had warned them about in training.
In fact, in Tralee they were being taken for a harmless trader.
Con Collins reached Tralee at 10 p.m. Stack met him at the station and took him to his own lodgings in Upper Rock Street. There, he read McDermott’s message.
‘Everything here, too,’ he told Collins, ‘is under control.’
In Mountjoy Square, Dublin, McDermott was briefing a team whose job was to steal equipment from a Wireless College in Cahersiveen on the Ring of Kerry. Present were Denis Daly, the leader, Charlie Monaghan, Donal Sheehan, Colm O’Lochlainn and two from Cahersiveen, Denis Healy and Con Keating, a skilled wireless operator.
‘Now, boys,’ said McDermott, ‘for the last time. You’ll be catching the train to Killarney in the morning.’
Daly said, ‘You didn’t tell us if we’re to be armed.’
‘Indeed, Denis. In case of trouble. You’ll travel in separate compartments. Proceed to the rendezvous’ – he pointed with his walking stick to a map – ‘outside the town, here, where you’ll be met by two cars from Limerick. Tom McInerney is seeing to them. You proceed to Cahersiveen.’ He turned to Keating. ‘You’re sure, Con, that Wireless College has everything you need.’
‘I know exactly where it’s stored.’
‘Grand. First you go to Ballygambon Cross’ – he tapped the map again – ‘nine miles outside Tralee. Stack is sending a party to pick the equipment up on Saturday morning. They’ll transport it for you to Ballyard near Tralee. Con Collins is in Tralee already and he’ll help you set it up.’
Rebels Page 20