by Paul Reid
James thought of Tara. The tension between them had remained ever since London. If Mulligan was found and then, perish the thought, met with some tragic, fatal accident, Tara would be smiling again. Indeed, as would James. He closed the notebook.
“Thanks for that, Arthurs. Say, I think I have something of an appetite after all. Perhaps the girl can fetch some more of that delicious-smelling roast beef?”
“Of course she can. A drink while you wait, old boy?”
“Not a bad idea.”
Tom Cullen, tall, slim and boyish looking, was one of Michael Collins’s closest confidantes. Everything Collins had a hand in, Cullen had a hand in it, too, and was one of a small circle of men whom Collins trusted implicitly and had the greatest of faith in.
Tom Cullen now sat in the snug of a nondescript bar in Smithfield, studiously cradling, but not drinking, a glass of Jameson. Next to him sat Major John Arthurs of the Dublin District Special Branch. Arthurs had half-finished a glass of lager.
“You know, lad, I think it’s unfair to call you fellows informants. You’re patriots in my view. And doing your country no end of service.”
Cullen nodded. A month before, after introducing himself to Arthurs in a bar, he’d offered him information regarding the location of a rebel weapons cache in return for cash. Arthurs’s confidence was secured when the lead proved good. “Will this take much longer? I’d rather as not be seen in the company of British agents.”
“Relax,” Arthurs said. “You’re on safe ground. Now look here, I met with District Inspector James Bryant of Dublin Castle this afternoon, and I told him that we’ve got Collins in our grasp. I’m hoping the good detective won’t be disappointed, will he?”
Cullen looked at him. “No. He won’t. My information is sound.”
“Collins will be at the address you gave me? At the exact time when we go to pick him up?”
“The big fellow’s address changes all the time. But I can keep the detective up to speed, once I know where to find him. Where’s he staying?”
“Ah. That’s the tonic all right. I’ll introduce you to Bryant in due course. Very well, you can be on your way, Mr. Russell. Your name is Russell, isn’t it? Hah, don’t look so offended. I know it’s not.” Arthurs finished his lager and stood up. “We’ll leave separately, just in case. And thanks again, my boy. You’ll be paid within the week. This man Collins won’t know what hit him.”
At the headquarters of the printer’s union on Lower Gardiner Street, Michael Collins was sitting unusually still. There was a list in front of him, a list of names. He read it through for the fourth time, and sighed. “Well, it’s going to get nasty.”
Tom Cullen perched against the window sill, tapping his foot anxiously. “When?”
“Soon, I’d imagine.”
“I certainly hope so.” Cullen fixed him with a hard stare. “They know our names, every one of us. And you’re top of their agenda. Arthurs reckons he’s going to grab you at that nonexistent address I gave him, but for the rest of us, he already has his information spot-on. They’re closing in, Mick. Closing in fast.”
“Aye. And so are we. You’ve done a good job with them, Tom, playing the tout. It was worth the loss of a few guns.” Collins looked at the list in his hands. “What was that other name you said?”
“Bryant. He mentioned a District Inspector James Bryant.”
“Ah yes, here he is. A source in the Castle gave me his name awhile back. Bryant’s another spook, sent direct from Scotland Yard. He’s notched up a few scores against us, too. And he’s got to go. All those spies have got to go.”
The list was now a hit list, an assassin’s who’s who of names painstakingly gathered by IRA intelligence and informants over the previous months. Landladies, typists, cleaning maids, supposed touts like Cullen—they had been noting little morsels of information here and there, faces, movements, activities, and addresses and diverting it all in Collins’s way.
The British agents were good. Very good, in fact, and Cullen was not wrong in pointing out that they were on the brink of finishing off the rebel leadership for good.
But they had underestimated Michael Collins.
Collins rose to his feet. “It’s going to get nasty like I said, Tom. These fellows—Arthurs, Bryant, Charles Dowling, all the others—I want them buried in one go. Arrange a meeting and let’s put a team together. Before they do the same to us.”
Cullen nodded. “Now you’re talking, Mick.”
A Sunday morning.
At dawn a creamery truck pulled up outside O’Shaughnessy’s grocery on Brunswick Street. The driver climbed out, growled to his boy, and the youngster opened the flap at the rear to fetch the urns. Manfully grasping them in his skinny arms, he wobbled round the side of O’Shaughnessy’s to the yard beyond and laid them out one by one.
“That’s fine now, Paudie,” said O’Shaughnessy as he emerged, a bent-backed man with a long beard. He nodded to the driver. “Well, Seamus. Are ye all good? Sure I can settle with you next week for the milk, if ye don’t mind. But that’s a grand tarpaulin cover over the truck you have there. Are you worried about the sun souring the milk or what?”
Seamus, the driver, ordered his son back on board. He looked at O’Shaughnessy and touched his lips in a gesture of silence. “Pay me whenever you can, Hugh.” He inclined his head towards the covered truck.
O’Shaughnessy’s eyes widened. He blessed himself.
“Good morning to you, Hugh,” Seamus said.
They drove on. Seamus made more stops. Eleven-year-old Paudie carried the milk urns into the backyards of shops and restaurants. It being a Sunday, they were all closed.
When they stopped again near Arbour Hill, backed into a quiet alleyway, several hands suddenly tore the tarpaulin cover free. Men leapt from the truck, loading revolvers.
This time it was Seamus who blessed himself. “How many of you are about this business?” he asked the nearest man, a dark-eyed youth who was busily fastening his coat.
“Many, Seamus,” the man answered. “We’re all over the city. Take your boy home now. Trust me. The streets of Dublin will not be safe today.”
Adam was on a train, nearing Dublin. Having spent a fortnight drilling the recruits in the hills of West Cork, he was glad of a return to the relative civilisation of his home city.
A few recruits he’d weeded out early on. Too old, too young, too unfit. The rest weren’t Ireland’s finest either, but by the end of the two weeks they could shoulder their wooden rifles properly and even stage a mock ambush, learning how to use the natural cover of the terrain to conceal themselves.
Frustrating work, however.
He was relieved to see the outer suburbs of Dublin glide past the window. The early-morning train journey had been enlivened by the presence of several boisterous Tipperary football supporters, on their way to the capital to cheer on their county in a challenge match against Dublin. They were laughing and bragging and digging each other’s ribs, and Adam found himself becoming a Tipperary man by empathy, such was their infectious enthusiasm.
“And tell me,” one of them asked him in thick Tipp tongue, “where would a man take a decent sup of stout around Dublin? Sure I’ve never been up to the big smoke before. I’ve been to Cork—is it like Cork City?”
Adam scoffed. “It’s nothing like Cork City. Cork is the home of blackguards and boasters. Dublin is far more sincere and civilised.”
“That’s mighty!” The Tipperary man thumped Adam’s shoulder in bonhomie. “Will you watch the game with us? Sure and go on, we’ll have a great day out.”
Adam grinned. “I’d love to. But I’m afraid there’s somebody I must meet. Enjoy your football game.”
At the Shelbourne Hotel, James woke just before six. The sky outside his window was still black. As much as he tried, he wasn’t able to sleep again, unsettled by some strange premonition. After another hour, dull eastern rays began to herald the day’s commencement. Time to get up soon.
&n
bsp; But it was only a Sunday, he reasoned. And thus he might be forgiven a few more stolen hours of slumber. So he lay back on the pillows.
Church bells clanged at nine o’clock.
Tara heard a knock on her door. She got out of bed and looked through the window. A figure waited outside. Her heart leaped.
In her rush to get downstairs, she forgot that she was naked, so she ran back up to the bedroom and scooped a nightgown from the floor. With her hands shaking with excitement, she went below and opened the door.
“Morning,” Adam smiled, flourishing two tickets in his hand. “Fancy going to a football match?”
There were bands of men on Gardiner Street, Grafton Street, and Upper Pembroke Street. In the soft mist they moved quietly, boots padding along deserted roads, the city their own for this fleeting time. Sunday morning and people would be stirring from sleep, too early yet for Mass, time enough for a bath and a cup of tea.
Time that was running out for some.
Units spread out, fanning across the urban maze, closing in on known addresses.
Alone in a flat on Parnell Square, Michael Collins was watching the clock.
Major Charles Dowling awoke in a bedroom at Number 28, Pembroke Street. He’d heard a loud thump somewhere. For a moment he blinked in sleep-stupor and listened again.
Two wicked thuds erupted from downstairs, the sounds of a door shattering. Dowling pounced from his bed. A woman screamed. He roared through the walls, “Price, Woodcock. Wake up! There’s somebody down there, damn it!”
He grabbed his revolver and stumbled out to the landing, hammering his fist on the bedroom doors. “Wake up, there’s somebody—”
There was a man at the foot of the stairs. Dowling, fumbling in panic, tried to prime his pistol.
A single shot rang out. Dowling was flung against a sideboard and slid to the floor. He gasped, hand clamping on the quick surge of blood that flowed from his chest, but his strength deserted him just as fast. Darkness came in. The last thing he heard was loud voices, stomping feet on the stairs, and a blistering crescendo of gunfire.
Tara poured out two cups of tea and sat at the table. “Football, you said?”
Adam sensed her doubts, and he smiled. “Oh, come on. The tickets were free, courtesy of some overexcited Tipperary man on the train.”
“Gaelic football, I presume? My father used to play it.”
“Did he now?” Adam raised an eyebrow. “You know, you’ve never told me much about your parents before. I can’t remember you even mention them. Are they well?”
“No, they’re dead,” she replied, brushing some food crumbs off the table. “Football, yes, why not? I’ll have to get dressed.”
“It’s not for hours yet.” Adam watched her warily. “Tara, are you all right? Did I say something wrong?”
She didn’t answer but went to the wall mirror and pulled a face at the state of her hair. Then she turned back to him. “Hmm, something wrong? No, don’t be silly. Why would there be?”
“I was only being curious, asking about your parents.”
“I don’t want to talk about my parents.”
“Fair enough.” For an unsettled moment, Adam wondered if the beautiful Tara harboured more secrets than she let on. “Why don’t you get some breakfast on? We should eat before we leave.”
“I normally go to Mass on Sundays.”
“Let’s be sinful—skip the church and see some football.”
Finally she smiled. “All right. I’ll wash and make myself presentable. You can make the breakfast.”
“That’s more like it.” He relaxed. “You know what, I think today could turn out to be a whole lot of fun.”
At 28 Pembroke Street, Lieutenant-Colonel Woodcock had heard Dowling’s shouts. Woodcock’s wife screamed in their bedroom. She was at the window, gesticulating wildly outside to where men were clambering over the back wall into the garden.
“Dowling, stay put,” Woodcock yelled. Then he heard a pistol crack and a crash against the landing furniture.
“Goddamn it, assassins upon us.” He pulled his terrified wife back from the window. “Get down, darling, we’ll be all right. I said get down!”
Shaking, she lay behind the bed. Woodcock loaded a revolver and slowly opened the bedroom door.
There were bodies moving below, loud boots on the flooring. Woodcock saw the bloodied and lifeless Dowling lying nearby.
“Do you know,” he demanded, “that there are women in this house? You hounds!”
“We know it,” a voice answered calmly.
Before Woodcock could muster another indignation, several of them appeared on the stairs. They climbed it rapidly and the leader jabbed his gun at Woodcock.
“Drop it.”
Woodcock knew the desperation of his plight. He obeyed, released his weapon, and raised his hands. “You won’t hurt my wife. I forbid you. I’ll kill you if—”
“That’s quite enough,” the man answered. “Your wife won’t be harmed. We’ll have to inspect the other rooms now.”
More men shoved past him. Doors were kicked open, wardrobes opened, beds overturned. Then gunfire. A barrage of bullets thumped into flesh.
“Murderers,” Woodcock howled in fury. “Keenlyside and Montgomery were unarmed!”
“So are you,” answered the man guarding him. He aimed and shot Woodcock through the head, waited for the body to fall, and then tucked the pistol inside his coat. “Out, now. Everybody, lads, out now.”
As they thundered back down the stairs, a bedroom door opened. On unsteady legs, one of the other wives followed the attackers below, down the garden path and all the way out to the street. She cried out in sheer anguish. “I was just buttoning my blouse! Oh, please God, I was distracting him. You’ve killed my husband, and I was just buttoning my blouse!” She collapsed on the pavement, clasping her head. “Oh, I was just . . . you’ve killed him . . . please, God, no . . . ”
The squad of gunmen stopped briefly to look back at her. They blessed themselves, reloaded their guns, and hurried on towards the next block.
At the Shelbourne Hotel, James awoke for the second time. He yawned, stretched, and heaved himself up. Last night’s dinner was still on a tray on the floor, remnants of pan-fried monkfish and cabbage. He nudged it with his toe towards the door and opened the window to release the whiff of stale food and sweat.
The hotel was quiet, being a Sunday morning. He decided he needed fresh air, so he put on a pair of jogging shorts, a vest, and a light cotton jumper. He’d do a few circuits of St. Stephen’s Green and work up an appetite for breakfast. He went out to the hallway and left the tray on the carpet for the maids to pick up.
Then there was another noise.
Heavy footfalls on the fire escape stairwell. Somebody evidently in a hurry. It was a crude noise in the erstwhile Sunday peace of the hotel, and James turned to cast a haughty look at the culprit.
But he saw more than one. Two men in trench coats emerged from a door. They stopped when they spotted James.
A cold smile slid across the face of the first man. There was recognition in his eyes. James scowled in annoyance.
“Really, fellows. Where’s the fire? Is there a need for such bluster at this hour of the—”
He froze.
Both men pulled guns from their pockets.
James was dulled by sleep, caught off guard, and slow to react. He backed against his bedroom door, but it had self-locked and wouldn’t open. They strode towards him, and one of them asked, “Are you District Inspector James Bryant?”
A woman shrieked down the corridor. The maid had rounded the corner, and now encountering the unexpected sight of two big intruders with guns, she slipped to her knees and proceeded to scream her lungs dry. Both men glanced at her.
The interruption was enough to distract the moment.
James sprang at the nearest man, grabbed his pistol hand, and locked his free arm round his neck. The man jerked his head back violently and cracked James in th
e nose, sending a hot spear of pain through his skull.
The effect was tremendous; it gave him a surge of angry adrenaline, like a jolt of electricity. James forced the revolver up, squeezed the man’s trigger finger, and the shot was perfectly aimed to hit the second attacker in the chest. He staggered away, dropping his weapon. The first now struggled wildly to regain control of his gun and tried again to break James’s nose with the back of his head. James dodged the blow. The maid was hoarse with terror as both men grunted and wrestled and crashed against sideboards and oil paintings.
Amidst the battle, the gun discharged and fell on the floor.
James lost balance and stumbled backwards. His opponent doubled over and clasped his stomach with a bellow of agony. He tried to make for the stairwell, blood leaking through his fingers. The gun was still on the carpet. James snatched it up and roared at the maid to stay down. He fired the remaining rounds in the breech in quick succession, at both men, the noise a violent calamity inside the narrow hallway.
In the deafening after-silence, a stench of burnt cordite filled the air. James checked the bodies and then looked at the maid, putting a finger to his lips.
“Stop bleating, my dear. Go and fetch the manager. I’ve got a complaint to make about the clientele.”
CUMANN NA GCLEAS LÚIT NGAEDHEALACH
(GAELIC ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION)
GREAT CHALLENGE MATCH
(FOOTBALL)
TIPPERARY V. DUBLIN
AT CROKE PARK
ON SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 21
MATCH AT 2.45 P.M.
Adam and Tara had spent the morning strolling around the lush acres of Phoenix Park. They took a cab back to the city centre at lunchtime, to where the match crowd was thickening fast. They had sandwiches and tea in a café in Smithfield, the air loud with country tongues and pregame excitement.