"They could be in prison for years," Matt groaned. "Jaysus, what's being done to get them out?"
Not much, was the answer. Matt was appalled at the way attitudes had changed. Even in the Falls attitudes were different. The war was creating jobs by the thousand. Men were working and earning money. They were putting food on the table and clothes on the kids.
"But you're working to salvage the fuckin' British Empire," Ferdy shouted angrily. "What about fighting for Ireland?"
"Fuck Ireland. I'll not be spending years rotting on a stinking prison ship for lost dreams -"
"They're not lost -"
"They are in Dublin. Dev's as bad as the British. He's sold out -"
"So we'll get rid of Dev -"
"Oh sure, and have Boland in his place? Don't make me laugh."
Matt was stunned by some of the things happening. IRA men were even joining the British Army. "Sure and why not. The pay's bloody good and they'll teach us a trade."
Matt and Ferdy did all they could, but they were swimming against the tide. One week they stayed upstairs in a pub in the Short Strand and sent word to those friends who were still free. The friends came, never more than two at a time for fear of attracting attention - up the back stairs to tap on the door. Even their whispered identification brought a guarded response. "Come in with your hands up." And they entered to find Matt levelling a revolver at them from the far wall. "If you're armed put it on the bed," he said softly, "then sit down and we'll talk."
It was a reception which nobody liked. Matt just scowled, "There's more police spies about than maggots on a corpse. Some bloody Judas set Jimmy Traynor up. Otherwise he would never have been taken."
But they never found the informer.
In October, Matt organised a break-in to the Crumlin, with eight men hidden in a laundry van. Guards had been bribed to let them through the main gates without searching the van. Once inside Matt intended to release Traynor and as many others as possible - then they would fight their way out. Once again, police spies got wind of the plan. The bribed guards were arrested. Matt drove into an ambush. He and his men escaped, but Traynor remained in prison, along with the other internees.
In November, Matt succeeded in smuggling a revolver into the prison hospital. A message was delivered to Traynor, telling him to report sick. The revolver was actually in his hands when guards rushed through the ward and surrounded him. Traynor threatened them with the gun. They laughed, before beating him to his knees with their clubs. The revolver had been unloaded, guards had emptied out the bullets and replaced the gun in its hiding place. Once more someone had talked.
"Dear God," Matt said weakly, "there's only you I trust any more, Ferdy, and sometimes I wonder if you talk in your sleep."
The truth had to be faced. The IRA was beaten in the north.
Halfway through December, Matt and Ferdy decided to go to Dublin. Matt had remained on the run for three months in Belfast, but the strain was telling and he was afraid his luck would run out. Not that he would allow himself to be taken alive. Ferdy had strict orders about that. If arrest ever seemed certain Ferdy would shoot him, and blame the British for his death.
Matt Riordan was now as ready to die for the cause as his father had been before him.
A week before Christmas they crossed the border and went south. Matt travelled happily, and not simply because he was not a wanted man in Dublin. "Didn't they promise me Connors if I went to England? And didn't I do that for them? So Connors it is." He shrugged. "And they can please themselves. If they argue this time, I'll take Connors myself. God knows, I've waited a hell of a time."
But their reception in Dublin drove such thoughts from Matt's mind. Dublin was as bad as Belfast. Dev was using The Emergency, as he was calling the war, to clamp down hard on the IRA. Internment was the policy in the south as well as the north. "It's civil war all over again," a man said to Ferdy, "except this time Dev's got all the guns, and the police and an army."
Matt and Ferdy had come looking for help. Instead they found the IRA reeling from a succession of blows. Special Branch detectives had arrested scores of men all over Dublin. Of the men who had promised to bring Sean Connors to an IRA court-martial, every single one was now interned on the Curragh. And police spies were as numerous as in Ulster.
Even Matt and Ferdy were treated with suspicion. On arrival they had gone to an IRA safe house in Rathmines, where they had stayed as welcome guests for three days - but on Christmas Eve it became obvious they were prisoners.
Furiously, Matt demanded an explanation.
"We are planning a raid," he was told. The IRA was to hit the Magazine Fort in Phoenix Park on Christmas Eve. It had been decided that Matt and Ferdy were too unfamiliar with local conditions to take part - and it was best for them not to roam free until the raid was over.
The raid was a colossal success, a coup beyond their wildest dreams. In the space of two hours, IRA men immobilised the entire garrison and got away with a million rounds of ammunition in thirteen lorries. The news reached the house in Rathmines at ten-thirty when the back door crashed open and a breathless driver rushed in. "Quick, I'm parked under the trees. Give me a hand, for God's sake."
It took seven of them an hour to stack three hundred magazine boxes in the basement.
"What a Christmas present!"
Ammunition was being distributed to a hundred hiding places around Dublin.
The IRA had stolen virtually the government's entire stock of ammunition.
Ferdy was beside himself. "Wouldn't you think the tide's turned at last. God, I can feel it. Matt, we've enough ammo to raise an army."
Nobody could sleep for excitement. Over a million rounds! It was fantastic. By three o'clock in the morning, Ferdy had outlined a scenario for springing every IRA man who was in prison - north and south of the border. By four o'clock they were working out a plan to surround the Stormont parliament, and the Dail in Dublin - simultaneously. By five they were picking men for key positions in a new government. And by six they were too hoarse to talk any longer. They just sat in dazed bemusement with tired smiles on their faces.
"Merry Christmas, Ferdy," Matt said happily. "Come on, let's get a few hours' sleep."
There were nine of them in the house, all drunk with the thrill of success. Matt could not remember when he last felt so happy. Two men were deputed for guard duty, and the others settled down to sleep on the floor.
"What a Christmas," Ferdy sighed as he dozed off.
The attack, when it came, was so sudden that the guards failed even to fire a warning shot. Before anyone realised what was happening, soldiers and police were pouring through every door and window. Matt grabbed a revolver, but was knocked senseless before he could use it. One man escaped: evading outstretched hands he dashed into the garden, where rifle fire tore him apart.
Matt was handcuffed and chained and pulled to his feet. Ferdy was dragged through the front door. All of them were herded into the back of a lorry.
On the way to Mountjoy, they saw the road blocks. Troops swarmed out of every side street. Dublin was under martial law. Not even the British, in all of their years in Ireland, had mounted such a search as was going on in Dublin. All army leave had been cancelled, roads everywhere were blocked, cars and lorries were being stripped to the axles at checkpoints ... ten days later, the government had recovered more than ninety per cent of the stolen ammunition.
The men in the Dail had won the day - even though they had suffered the fright of their lives. The IRA had been defeated again. Many IRA leaders were held pending trial - and Dev and his colleagues were in no mood to be lenient.
On 7 January, the eight men taken alive from the house in Rathmines, including Matt Riordan and Ferdy Malloy, were put on trial. All were found guilty, which was no surprise. The surprise was the savagery of the sentence.
Matt and the men with him were to be committed to prison - for fifteen years!
Matt was led out of the dock, surrounded by guards. Bet
ter to have been hanged in Belfast, he thought, than to be imprisoned in Dublin.
Chapter Seven
By 7 January, Sean Connors had more than recovered from being beaten up in Shadwell, he had capitalised on it. He had been released from the hospital to a hero's welcome in the East End - mainly because he refused to bring charges against the men who had almost killed him.
"I'd have done the same myself," he told the Daily Express, "if I thought I'd had my hands on those devils from the IRA."
The Daily Mirror reported him as saying, "The IRA are the scum of the earth."
By condemning the IRA at every opportunity, he was getting back at Matt Riordan. He became a minor pundit on Irish affairs. Fleet Street had access to him and whenever Ireland cropped up, Sean Connors was good for a comment. It caused problems at times. His views were still those of his father - that Ireland should be united as one country, but by peaceful means, he stressed, not by the use of the gun. Questions on Ireland's neutrality were more difficult. Influenced by Freddie, Sean was beginning to waver - even though he refused to say so in public. Instead he stressed that Ireland was so small and so poor that her involvement was irrelevant - "Ireland wouldn't make a ha'p'orth of difference."
Sean's public utterances gave comfort to a number of people. Many Irishmen living in England had suffered a backlash from the IRA bombing campaign, and were grateful to Sean for speaking out. A more surprising development was a message from de Valera himself, full of praise for Sean's "responsible attitude."
Freddie was impressed. "Will you look at that. He'll be making you an ambassador next."
"Like Hell. The Da never trusted the man and no more do I."
Increasingly Sean was used as a sounding board by Irish politicians in their arm's-length dealings with the British Government. It was easily done at Craven Street, which more and more was taking on the atmosphere of an international club - not just a press club either: politicians, minor diplomats and socialites rubbed shoulders with newsmen from a dozen countries.
"We must be crazy," Freddie said one night, looking at a room full of people. "We could charge admission for what we've got here. I swear I don't know half of these."
It had started when Sean left hospital. People came to see how he was and brought their stories with them. After that it just grew. Sean revelled in the atmosphere, which was just like Ballsbridge in the old days. Even in January when he dispensed with his cane, visitors still thronged to Craven Street with grist for Sean's mill.
By February he showed few signs of having been at death's door. He limped slightly but no wounds were visible. Only when he stripped did the scars show, especially the livid one down his back, where the docker's hook had nearly torn the life out of him. He had mended well and soon he and Freddie were as active as ever in their search for stories.
Yet ... for a country at war, stories of war itself were hard to come by. The British seemed to be playing at it. There were clues everywhere ... park railings carted off to be turned into munitions, children evacuated from the capital, poisonous snakes in Regent's Park Zoo destroyed for fear they might escape in an air raid ... but there was little sense of impending disaster. Gas masks were issued, shelters constructed, lights blacked out at night - and yet London went on much as before. The theatres were still open. Freddie and Sean took the Hamilton girls to see young John Gielgud in The Importance of Being Earnest and out to supper after, just as they would have before war was declared. Some people thought Chamberlain was right to speculate that the German economy would collapse and sink Hitler with it.
"That's as likely as me swimming the Channel," Freddie said in disgust. "When will they realise? I tell you Sean, there's no hope unless the British get rid of Chamberlain and his bunch of appeasers."
But that seemed unlikely. Besides, not everyone agreed with Freddie. France was secure behind a honeycomb of fortresses which had taken twelve years to build and stretched from the Alps to the Belgian frontier. The Maginot Line was Europe's Great Wall of China. Two million Frenchmen manned the ramparts and Gort's Expeditionary Force stood behind them - 390,000 British soldiers ready to fight on French soil. A German attack could not possibly succeed. "This war will be a stalemate," a French journalist told them. "The gold can stay in the bank, and each Army will remain in its fortress of ferro-concrete."
"Very cosy," Freddie said, bluntly disbelieving. "I spent a lot of time in Germany last year. Nobody there was impressed with the Maginot Line."
The Americans were calling it "The Phoney War", and it was easy to see why. Sean was struck by a sense of anti-climax. London had crackled with tension last year, big stories had been easy to come by - but during the Spring of 1940 Sean grubbed hard for snippets of news and made every one count.
Freddie coined a joke for his CBS audience - "It's so quiet here you can hear a Ribbentrop." By the end of March, however, he was too restless to stay in London. "I'm going to France. Sean, you take over the CBS microphone. I'll cable the stuff through, use what you can. It will ruin my reputation for me to stay here any longer."
They threw a party before he left. Margaret Hamilton was among the guests, and there was no mistaking her feelings for Freddie. She had changed since the outbreak of war - become more concerned with events, more like her sister and less like her mother. Parties bored her unless Freddie was there, and with Freddie planning a three-month tour of Europe the question was: "What will Margaret do?" She could always revive "the flirtatious five hundred" as Freddie called her former escorts, but the new Margaret was in no mood to do that. Instead, she announced that she had enrolled in the Wrens. "Why not? I've always liked boats. Who's the best crew at Cowes every year? If I practise on Samantha I may even end up on the Admiral's barge."
Samantha was a river cruiser moored at Staines. George Hamilton had bought it for himself originally, only for Margaret to develop such a passion for boats and to become so expert, that George had made a present of it on her twenty-first birthday.
Her announcement was greeted with cheers and excitement. Freddie, who had known in advance, beamed proudly for the rest of the evening. But Sean repressed a shiver, as if someone had walked on his grave. He looked at Margaret and remembered the glittering parties in Eaton Square. Things were changing.
After Freddie left for France, Margaret went down to Staines to mess about on Samantha until she heard from the Admiralty. Val visited her when she had a day off from the East End, and returned with comforting reports for George and Cynthia at the Dorchester.
Meanwhile Sean continued to hunt for stories - but hard news in London was thin on the ground. Ambassador Kennedy returned from another visit to the United States, where he was reported to have told everyone that Germany would crush England in the war, a view he confirmed when Sean called at the Embassy. "But that's just for publication in Ireland," Joe Kennedy grinned. "I'm unpopular enough here as it is."
Popular or not, Joe Kennedy's assessment seemed justified the very next day - when Hitler invaded Denmark and Norway.
"The Phoney War ended this week," Sean said in his CBS broadcast, "when the 20,000 British troops in Norway were routed at Namsos. Now the world awaits London's response."
London was slow to respond, despite the rising barrage of press criticism. While German troops paraded triumphantly in Oslo and Copenhagen, Chamberlain's government continued to dither. In the House of Commons, however, the mood was changing. On 7 May, Parliament gathered for one of the gravest debates in its history. The atmosphere in the chamber crackled with suspense. By mid-afternoon the Distinguished Strangers Gallery was crammed tight with the ambassadors and ministers of two dozen countries. In the Press Gallery, Sean sensed that hard news was coming at last.
And come it did. Chamberlain survived boos and catcalls from the Labour benches, but then his own supporters turned on him. Leo Amery, former Secretary-of-State, trembled with emotion as he delivered his speech. Concluding with a savage finale borrowed from Oliver Cromwell, he pointed at Chamberlain - "Y
ou have sat there too long... depart I say ... let us have done with you. In the name of God, go"
The debate continued the following day. Speaker after speaker took up Amery's cry. It was left to Herbert Morrison, Val's Labour Party mentor in the East End, to deliver the final attack. His conclusion was a flat ultimatum demanding the resignation of Chamberlain and all who had supported appeasement.
Chamberlain was on his feet, snapping his reply, "We shall see who is with us and who is against us. I will call on my friends to support me in the lobby!"
Few of them did. Tory backbenchers, many in uniform, filed into the Opposition lobby to vote against the government. At least one officer had tears streaming down his face.
Pale and angry, Chamberlain managed a wan smile as he shuffled from the chamber. The time was 11.10 p.m., Wednesday 8 May.
"Fifty minutes to midnight," Sean wrote, "even the English couldn't leave it later than that."
The news that Winston Churchill had become Prime Minister reached Freddie Mallon in France forty-eight hours later. Exhausted by a day which defied belief, Freddie was too bitter to smile. "The fools," he whispered, "just in time to be too late."
Freddie had warned them. From the moment he stepped onto French soil he had warned them. Every day his cables to Sean preached the same message - that the French army was a shambles and the British Expeditionary Force not much better. "Joe Kennedy is right," he admitted again and again. "This lot won't hold the Germans for five minutes."
Morale among French troops was rock bottom. They wanted no part of this war. Their equipment was pitiable. One reserve regiment proposed to tow its guns into battle with tractors, until, at a demonstration for newspapermen, not one tractor would start. Some of the machines had not been repaired in ten years. Freddie saw 1891 rifles, and field rations date-stamped 1920. At Metz a quarter of the infantrymen in the 42nd Division were marching barefoot because their socks had rotted away.
Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1 Page 122