A shadow passed over his face. “We don’t know that. No intelligence has reached us. But three of our riders have failed to come back.”
“I have to find him!”
As I turned heel, he restrained me.
“Don’t go by Trinity College. It’s sniper’s alley.” He looked at me closely. “I know your father, Molly. A fine man. If he ever has a mind to switch sides he would be valuable for the future of Ireland.”
“Not if he dies,” I said.
He smiled grimly. “You’re a smart girl,” he said and then whispered, “There’s too many poets running this revolution. Too many panicky decisions and bungled operations costing many a good life.”
Pearse looked up and saw us at that moment.
“I’m just telling her to let my girl know I won’t be able to take her to the Abbey Theatre tonight,” Collins said lightly.
His joke was lost on Mr Pearse, who is not the joking kind.
Could one of the missing dispatch riders be Jack? My first call would be to Jacob’s, south of the Liffey.
On Sackville Street, the wild looting continued all around. It frightened me almost as much as the bullets. People were becoming mad with greed. I saw a boy sell off pocket watches for sixpence each, shawlies scratching each other’s eyes out over bonnets and petticoats. It was unreal, unearthly. A revolution inside the Post Office and a crazy crazy carnival outside, with men women and children wild with excitement at the absence of police. Respectable citizens looked on, tut-tutting, but did nothing to intervene. Some of them even lost control and joined in.
As I made my way up one side of the street, Skeffy was pinning a notice at O’Connell Bridge while Hannah his wife was hauling a massive bag of flour from the GPO.
“Skeffy!” I cried, running to join him.
He was frowning as he pinned his notice to the lamppost, but his face lit up when he saw me.
“Hannah is helping them with supplies. But we’ve got to stop this looting,” he said, scratching his head under his deerstalker cap. “Run across the road, there’s a good girl, and tell her I’ll still see her for tea at half past five. She and the whole city have gone bonkers mad!”
I did as he asked and Hannah nodded, then continued to haul a great sack of flour with Mary McLoughlin who I’d met at the Green.
“Connolly gave me eighty pounds to buy food, but I couldn’t get any,” Mary said. “They’re very short of food up at the Green.”
“I thought Anto Maguire was dispatched to look for food,” I said, worried.
“Yes, Mallin sent me because nothing came back from an earlier message,” she said.
“Maybe Anto didn’t make it.”
Mary just shrugged her shoulders. “People get delayed with all the shooting and have to take different routes. I delivered ammunition earlier but I lost Julia Grennan and Nurse O’Farrell from Cumann na mBan in Dame Street. It’s hard to keep track.”
But her words filled me with dread.
I went back to read Skeffy’s notice for a meeting to set up a Citizen’s Militia Force to stop the looting.
A golf ball came flying up the street and Skeffy ducked just in time.
“It’s mostly just kids robbing sweets and old ladies grabbing shoes,” I said. “They’re just poor.”
“Molly, dear, I believe in equal rights for all. But this is chaos!”
“Mr Pearse says they are wiping out the stain of Irish history with their blood, and victory will be in death,” I said.
“Mr Pearse is a fine man but obsessed with blood sacrifice,” said Skeffy, his face white with strong emotions.
“I don’t quite see how you can wipe out a stain with another one of blood,” I said, thinking of Nancy doing the laundry. “Don’t you then just have two stains?”
Skeffy laughed for a moment. “He doesn’t mean it literally. I would like nothing more than an Irish republic, but not like this. Good cannot come by bad means.” A Catherine Wheel came spinning up the street. “When will the men of Ireland no longer be hypnotized by the glamour of arms? We are falling into an abyss!”
He looked grimly down the street. A stream of refugees were leaving buildings all along Bachelors Walk and Eden Quay and making their way towards to the Customs House. I noticed the Eustaces among them and, further down, a line of blind boys from the home, all tapping their white sticks. I wondered if they had been told to leave.
“Do you know where all the outposts of the rebels are?” I asked Skeffy.
“They have occupied Boland’s Bakery and the Mill south of the city near Ringsend. They are in the Mendicity Institute in Usher’s Island and the Dublin Union, a hospital for God’s sake, to the west. Then there is Jacob’s biscuit factory and Saint Stephen’s Green and the College of Surgeons. They are establishing smaller outposts as they go.”
I hastily drew a map on the back of one of his fly posters, while he suggested additions to it to help me out.
“I must find Jack,” I confided in him. “He is in grave peril.”
Skeffy embraced me. “The British will not let the second city of the Empire be occupied for long. Troops and guns will be on their way. Go and find Jack if you must. But don’t come back here.”
I hugged him tight and went on my way. Even if everyone thinks him mad, Skeffy is the sanest and kindest man in Dublin.
As I was about to cross the bridge a tall young man ran to join me.
“Could you tell me the way to Jacob’s?” he asked me.
I looked at him in surprise. It was Jack’s friend, musical Martin from the Fianna.
We crossed the bridge quickly, hugging the sides. A shot rang out from near the Ballast Office between Aston Quay and Westmoreland Street just across the bridge. We crouched down in a doorway of the Carlisle Building on Burgh Quay.
“Why do you ask about Jacob’s?” I asked once I’d caught my breath.
“I mean to join my comrades,” he told me. “My father took the air out of my bicycle wheels this morning. But I told him I’d lose my job if I didn’t go to work.”
“It’s that way,” I said, pointing out to sea in the hope of sending him to safety rather than doom.
He laughed. “That’s a lie. I know it’s not that direction.”
“I won’t send you to your death,” I said.
“If you don’t tell me, someone else will.”
Before I could stop him, he raced towards Aston Quay, bullets snapping at his heels as he ran raggedly. He had a pronounced limp. I breathed a sigh of relief as he dodged into the alley before MacBirney’s.
I headed left on Burgh Quay, then cut through Hawkins Street. I heard shots ring out from the direction of Trinity College and I ran full pelt, cursing that I hadn’t taken my bike and had left it at home in my haste to get into the GPO. At least on foot, I wouldn’t get taken for a dispatch rider, I reasoned. Raising my Red Cross flag, I dashed across Westmoreland Street into Lower Fleet Street, then down to Fishamble Street, to go the back way around Dublin Castle. It was just as well I was on foot as there were so many barricades now.
I paused breathless in the doorway of a pub, which was closed, though you could smell the drink from the very stones. But moments later Martin Walton came limping in front of me. He was shaken but exhilarated.
“Are you shot?” I called out in fear.
“They didn’t get me! Trinity College is full of soldiers. I nearly got shot down by the Castle gates!”
“That’s because you are wearing a green uniform, you eejit,” I said.
I felt bad because I should have warned him to avoid going by Trinity College Entrance.
He grabbed me gently by the arm. “I mean to join my company, C Battalion, in Jacob’s Biscuit Factory in Bishop Street – even if it kills me.”
He was very handsome under his wild dark hair.
“Please help me, Molly, for Jack’s sake,” he said. “The Big Fella himself has sent me and I didn’t dare say I’m from Drumcondra and I’ve hardly ever been south of the
Liffey. If you guide me there, I’ll check inside for your brother.”
“You have to get me inside Jacob’s,” I insisted.
We set off and I noticed he was rubbing his cheek as well as limping.
“Fine soldier you are,” I said mockingly.
“I had a toothache all day yesterday,” he explained. “My father put whiskey on it for me. But it’s bothering me more than the soldiers.”
I reached into my haversack and gave him some oil of cloves on a piece of cotton wool, which he put in his breast pocket saying he would save it for later. He wouldn’t tell me what was wrong with his leg.
We rounded a corner over near Christchurch to take us on a route around the back of the Castle. In truth, I do not know this part of the city so well and was getting a bit lost myself in the back alleys. With a start, I saw British troops on the opposite side of the road. I told Martin to hang back. If they saw his uniform, they would arrest or shoot him.
I was right to be cautious.
A soldier called out. “Freeze, you there!”
Martin’s face turned white. I stepped back. I quickly took my Saint John’s Ambulance armband from my knapsack and put it on Martin’s arm.
“Pretend to be injured and put your arm over my shoulder,” I hissed.
He groaned and gurned like he was on the stage.
“He hurt his leg, sir,” I said to the soldier, as I staggered under Martin’s weight. I dug Martin in the ribs and hissed, “Don’t lean on me so much!”
“Are you sure you’re not a pair of Fenian rebels?” jeered the soldier, who had a Northern Irish accent. “Boy, what’s wrong with your leg?”
Martin got flustered and began to speak but I kicked him so hard he really did go “Ow!” in pain.
“He’s not from here. He’s from Drum – France! ” I improvised. “I’m taking him back to his aunty. He’s in the Saint John’s Ambulance and fell over a barricade.”
Martin started to chunter in random French. “Oui, oui, non, non, merci.”
A fusillade of gunshot rang out and the soldier lost interest in us.
“Stay at home,” he said menacingly, then more tolerantly, “Bunch of kids!”
We cut through a laneway running near to the back of Dublin Castle and I felt a pang about the poor policeman shot yesterday and poor Seán Connolly. I wondered if Matthew the Bugler was still alive. The Castle was quieter today, but not in a peaceful way, more like the lull before a storm.
Martin had to stop to catch his breath and control his shakes.
“You picked a good time for one of your first visits south of the Liffey,” I said. “Though are you sure you’re from Drumcondra? You spoke French like a native!”
He laughed, and pretended to cuff my ear for my cheekiness.
We continued down the back of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and rested briefly in the little park beside it. Martin was very sad when I told him about Seán Connolly dying on the roof of City Hall in the hope it would scare him off joining the rebels in Jacob’s.
We sat in silence for a few minutes and I hoped he was going to change his mind.
“It’s a bit hard for a lad with a toothache to go into a biscuit factory,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “Would you not consider going home and living for Ireland instead of dying for it?”
“We have to be free,” he said with passion and then winced with the pain in his jaw.
I had not succeeded in frightening some sense into him. He hummed to calm himself – ‘The Last Rose of Summer’ just like my music box!
“I play the violin,” he said. “Won first prize in the Feis Ceoil, the Irish Music competition.”
“Play music for Ireland instead,” I said lightly.
“I will,” he replied, with sudden determination. “You’ll see. The new Ireland will be a grand place.”
The labyrinth of streets was eerily quiet and we hugged the buildings and crept onwards, stealthy as thieves. The tenements, even the small cottages, seemed empty. We soon learned why.
We heard the mob before we saw them, gathered at the railings of the large hulking Jacob’s factory that occupied the triangle of Bishop Street and Peter Street and loomed like a fortress, its two tall towers no doubt useful for look-out.
A howling mob of rough-looking women was screaming at the balustrades.
“Come out, ye so and so’s! Ye’re too yellow to fight, ye slackers!”
“Get over to France, ye bowsies, and die alongside our husbands and sons!”
“The Tommies are comin’ and will bate the hell outa ye!”
It was going to be impossible to get in.
“Let me in, let me in!” Martin shouted suddenly, desperate to find sanctuary.
The mob turned on him. I thought he would be torn limb from limb. They were like French revolution furies, spitting and screaming all manner of abuse. A massive woman wearing a great big coat and with a face like thunder raised a frying pan to strike him down. A shot rang out. The woman collapsed like a sack, her legs going from under her. Shot, I feared, though there was no sign of blood.
The door flew open and, in the split second while the mob took it in, Martin was pulled inside. He grabbed on to me and I was swept up in his wake. The doors banged shut.
Martin and I huddled together in shock.
“I would give the pope, me granny, and even Patrick Pearse not to be here now,” he whispered to me.
“I should go out to tend to the poor woman,” I said. “They’re angry because they can’t get their separation money for their men fighting in France. They have nothing to eat.”
“They’ll tear you apart,” said a man’s voice.
“Peadar!” exclaimed Martin, embracing his friend. “We are friends through the music, Molly. Peadar wrote our ‘Soldier’s Song!’”
They began to sing a song that was like an anthem for the rebels.
“Soldiers are we, whose lives are pledged for Ireland . . .”
I soon learned the reason for Martin’s limp. He pulled out a murderous-looking shotgun from his trouser leg. I grew very afraid to look at it. The barrels had been sawn in half.
“It’s a sawn-off shotgun,” he said proudly. “Father O’Shea over in Beggar’s Bush showed us how to do it.”
“Give me that here or you’ll be killing yourself and all of us with it,” said Peadar. “Go and report to Commander McDonagh who is on the roof, by the tall chimney towers.”
The factory was badly lit with its vast machinery shrouded with dust-wraps, carefully placed by the workers before they’d left on the previous Saturday. There was an overwhelming, cloying sweet smell, as if we were inhaling sugar.
Rebels carrying sacks of sugar to use as barricades passed us on the stairs. I showed them all Jack’s photograph with not one flicker of recognition from them.
Martin’s ears pricked up as we passed one room. We pushed open a door and heard the distinct sounds of a gramophone playing “God Save the King”. A group of young Fianna boys and Cumann na mBan girls were gathered round, giggling. They were in a beautiful library lined with leather books behind glass cases and leather sofas and armchairs. There were special artifacts in glass cases, now covered with biscuit crumbs.
“We’re going to put it on when the leaders make their tour of inspection to get a rise out of them,” laughed one young girl.
“Have you brought your fiddle here?” one lad asked Martin. “We’ll have a céilí when it gets dark.”
When they had finished listening to the record, I showed them Jack’s photograph in my locket. They promised to keep an eye out for him and pass on the message that I was looking for him. I ripped a page out of my diary and wrote him a note.
“Jack. Father has left instructions for us to go to Aunt Elizabeth’s family in the Presbyterian Manse, York Road, Kingstown, or Dr Ella Webb in Hatch Street. If you can’t get to either, Mother O’Brien, at Nanny’s Shop in Whiskey Row, Ringsend, will look after you or help you get to Kingstown. Your loving sis
ter, Molly.”
I gave it to a sensible-looking girl who had a First Aid armband.
It was strange in that library, so full of frivolity and fun, and so different from the chaotic Stephen’s Green and the tense atmosphere of the GPO.
A group of lads gathered around a large volume.
“‘Friends, Romans, countrymen!’” one intoned, mock theatrical.
“That’s ‘Julius Caesar’ by Shakespeare,” I said.
“‘Cry “Havoc” and let slip the dogs of war!’” another boy exclaimed. Everyone laughed. Except me. For I had been out on our streets and seen havoc.
We went up on the roof, beside the tall chimney towers. The position commanded a good vantage point over the whole city. Shots were exchanged and I was able to distinguish them. The British soldiers’ guns make a higher note than that of the bark of the rebels’ Mausers.
I peeked over the balustrade and looked out over Stephen’s Green. By the barricades of motor cars and bicycles at the corners, rebels in green darted into the College of Surgeons that is to the west of the Green. Something was up.
I saw a group of men crouching by a chimney tower and realized they were the commanders. One, a small wiry man, was relaxed and smiling as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“That’s Thomas MacDonagh,” whispered Martin.
I jumped. I’d forgotten he was with me.
“He’s a great chap,” he added. He pointed to a tall bluff man in a well-cut blue suit casually smoking a cigar and leaning on a cane. He had a military bearing and a cold, steely look.
The Easter Rising 1916 - Molly's Diary (Hands-on History) Page 11