Valiant Gentlemen

by Sabina Murray

  She stands up, leaving the knitting on the chair. The door to the parlor leads right on to the front hall so she leans there, in the entrance. Charlie is smoking and Herbie is untying his bootlaces, which she suspects is supposed to facilitate his not waking her up.

  “So,” says Sarita, “how was the lovely Bernadette?”

  Herbie transcribes an arc with his eyes and manages, “She was all right.” Charlie smacks him in the shoulder with the hand holding the cigarette, sending Herbie into the coat tree. There’s a lot of snickering.

  “Don’t tell her anything,” says Charlie.

  “I would prefer that,” says Sarita. “I shouldn’t have asked.” She raises her hands and steps back.

  “I wasn’t going to,” says Herbie. “Charlie thinks I tell you everything, but I don’t.” He manages to kick his boot off and stares his brother down. “I’ve been smoking since I was twelve and I never told her that.”

  “You just did,” says Charlie. And it is funny, thank God. “Can you make sure I’m up?”

  “What time?” asks Sarita.

  “Five.”

  “What makes you think I’ll be up?” But of course she will. She doesn’t sleep more than an hour at a stretch, and will just make it a point to check the clock in her waking episodes. She’ll lie in bed listening to them. Herbie snores, which might have something to do with the fact that he was a child smoker. And Charlie harrumphs, yells at people, straightens them out at intervals. She wonders how their fellow officers handle this, because Roddie wouldn’t share a room with either of them and, on holidays, had to bunk in with the girls. But her room in this little house is right beside theirs, and she’s glad they’re loud. She’ll stay up listening.

  IX

  Berlin

  June 1915

  Despite the lungs, Plunkett is tenacious. He’s a terrier and his diplomacy consists of sinking one’s teeth into another’s leg and hanging on until that person gives up. And what is Casement’s diplomacy? He proceeds with reason, knowing the facts, knowing what is worth compromise and what is not, but this Boehm, who’s been assigned to monitor the Brigade, has been unresponsive. The flickering awareness that he reads in Boehm’s face confirms nothing. Boehm is just wondering when Casement is going to land back in the hospital and Casement’s awareness of this makes him flustered, confirming Boehm’s assessment. To be honest, Plunkett has been the more successful in realizing his ends. Although he can’t seem to get his head out of the streets of Dublin and in order for this engagement to sustain, one has to bring England to her knees. That’s why they are in Germany.

  Plunkett is a good listener but has little patience with Casement’s long-range planning. Plunkett doesn’t think that sending the Irish Brigade into Turkey is a good idea, although where else will they fight? They can’t exactly remain in prison camps if they are, indeed, fighting alongside Germany. They can’t pretend that they’re soldiers if they have no weapons, no uniforms, no freedom. And Turkey is more than a convenient exercise.

  If the Turks break through the Suez Canal, then the English will lose Egypt. Ireland will act and then certainly India will take the opportunity to assert herself. Without India, there is nothing to fill the English coffers, and England will therefore be undone. But Plunkett seems to think it’s enough to push the English past the boundaries of Howth and Bray, and how long will that hold? And yes, one has to do something, but not that. A shoot-up on the streets of Dublin will only anger the locals and extinguish whatever momentum might be in play.

  “Are you all right?” asks Plunkett.

  “That’s the second time you’ve asked me that, so I’ll assume the first response was not satisfactory. I am still fine.” Casement likes Plunkett, who looks as fragile as he himself does. The Irish certainly look like they can use all the help they can get. Casement cannot live with the present, with his senses frayed and his mood as shifting and as beyond his control as weather. The future forks into a myriad of possibilities and each channel he explores in turn, and each is a horror. They don’t get the guns to Ireland and they stay in subjugation. They do get the guns to Ireland, resulting in pointless loss of life. They don’t form an Irish Brigade and are futile. They do form an Irish Brigade and are traitors to their own. Casement escapes to America and he is a failure. Casement is held in Germany and he is a prisoner. They sell to him to the English and he’s hanged. He thinks of the word happen and the ticking of time it implies, the fatalism of it. Things happen. What will happen? Because he’s waiting, like a child, like a vassal, for his cues from the Germans and how he got here, how this happened, he is not sure. “What did Boehm have to say today?”

  Plunkett shifts his head from side to side as he sorts it out. “We’re close. We’re at least discussing weapons. That rings as a vote of confidence.”

  “More volunteers?”

  “We’re up to eighty.”

  “Is it your charm?”

  “It is my bribery.” Plunkett pushes his glasses up his nose and settles into his chair. “I can promise the men good pay and good conditions. And my pragmatism has a certain appeal.”

  “What is the substance of your pragmatism?”

  “You’re not into contingencies, Roddie, but I’ve worked some out. If the Germans win, the men get Home Rule, and if not,” he makes a face here, as if he’s spilled something, “we’ll send them all to America with ten pounds and promise of employment.”

  “So Devoy too is losing faith in Germany?”

  “It’s not that bad, Roddie,” says Plunkett, who is willing to take a good deal of bad to get to a little good, probably a life-lesson taught to him by his pocked lungs. “Also Boehm’s agreed that the Brigade will only serve under Irish officers.”

  “How did you manage that?”

  “That,” Plunkett winks, “was my charm.” If Casement were a different sort of man, it would actually be more funny. Or less funny. “Here’s the declaration.” Casement takes the sheet of paper and reads it over. It says all it needs to, that the Irish are being armed by the Germans but are fighting for themselves, no more traitors than Wolf Tone for appealing to the French. It ends, With the help of our countrymen in Ireland and throughout the world, we hope either to win the Independence of our country or to die fighting for the glory of God and the honour of Ireland. “There’s some nice writing here,” says Casement. “And it’s wonderfully concise.”

  “I hear you gave them The Making of Ireland and Its Undoing.”

  Casement laughs, but it’s a sad laugh. “Did they not like it?”

  “Oh, they did. You know they’re short on paper in the camp.”

  Casement takes the joke. “I seem to have misjudged my audience.”

  “Don’t take it personally. They’re just not great readers. And I’m sympathetic to you, as you know.” Plunkett, when he’s not functioning as senior-level officer for the IRB, is an editor and poet.

  “Do you have a book with you?” asks Casement, suddenly hungry for the specific solace of poetry. “Or some poems?”

  “What? Of mine?”

  Casement nods. “Since I am a great reader.”

  “No, I don’t. I am, eh, incognito. And that’s a bit disappointing because I can probably count on one hand the number of people who have asked me for a poem in the last year.” Plunkett takes the flyer back from Casement. “I’ll scribble one down for you.”

  Plunkett pauses in his scratching, looks to Casement. “Don’t look so concerned, Mister Casement. I may not look like much of a soldier but it’s all up here.” He taps his head. “I’m a great strategist, trained and everything.”

  “I have tremendous faith in you, Joe.”

  Plunkett looks at the paper, shrugs, and hands it on.

  I saw the Sun at midnight, rising red,

  What a relief that this Plunkett hasn’t given him a love poem.

  Deep-hued yet
glowing, heavy with the stain

  Of blood-compassion, and I saw It gain

  Swiftly in size and growing till It spread

  Over the stars; the heavens bowed their head

  The thing reads like a meditation all the way to the end, Christ and metaphysics, tuberculosis and guns. That’s what this Plunkett is about.

  “Are you a man of faith, Roddie?”

  “It has its appeal, but I wouldn’t characterize myself that way.”

  “Well, I don’t often ask people that, but you’ve done so much good for the poor people in the Congo and in the Amazon, I just thought it was worth asking.”

  Truth is, Joe Plunkett, he did that for them. For the poor people in the Congo. For the Indians, certainly not for or because of God. God was used more as leverage for people with religion as in support this as it’s obviously the right thing to do. Then, he was always sure of the right thing. And now? Everyone seems to have righteousness on their side and if there is a God, he’s gone quiet.

  “You are a man of great faith,” says Casement.

  “And poor health. Did you like the poem?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “That’s the right answer. Here’s another question. Do you think you can get us the guns?”

  “Joe, I don’t think the Germans are inclined to be generous with me. And also I have serious misgivings about the use of the weapons.”

  “That’s not for you to worry about, Roddie. We have our leaders and meetings and all of that, and what you need to do is to help us out in your capacity.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “You are our man in Germany.” Plunkett looks suddenly serious, but he is still only in his twenties, and the grave look does not accomplish much. “You have leverage, you know that.” Casement shakes his head. “Yes, you do. Boehm has to give you something you want. What if you go back to America and let Devoy and Montieth and all know that the Germans are just jerking us around? We’re at a tipping point and the Kaiser needs us happy. It is generally believed that the Americans are about to enter the war. Now, I know—although you seem to be in denial—that America is likely to come in on the side of England.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Shipments sneaking into England on passenger ships from New York.”

  Casement folds himself deeper into his chair. He feels a tremor along his limbs.

  “Roddie, there is going to be an uprising in the streets of Dublin. You can’t do anything about it, and surely knowing the certainty of such a thing, you will work as hard as you can with whatever you’ve got to get us weapons.”

  How many times can a man break down without it being final? Nerves, they say. Malaria. Arthritis. All those doctors with their diagnoses, and how could they miss the truth of the matter, which is that his heart is broken? He is also suffering from the unavoidable reality that he is pathetic, that a man in middle age has no business being in love, that the state of it—nausea, intoxication, obsession—is for the young, certainly not for those with as much responsibility as he. How many people are counting on him, have always counted on him, and he has resolutely buried his own feelings and nature and respected this larger need? He runs the narrative through his head. Roger Casement could have stuck to it and created an independent Ireland. Instead he fell apart when he was rejected by his lover. Of course it’s more than that. There are nerves, malaria, arthritis, and also age. But age plays into love, makes one wish to win the hand as it might be the last. For old men, the bounty of the future is decidedly diminished and all in love are young.

  As the sand runs out, he panics that even the greater needs of Ireland are being lost while he flails about like a schoolboy trying to recover his bearings.

  Adler is always there with him, like a ghost, haunting his peripheral vision, his wrecked voicing of warped philosophies shattering Casement’s perspectives. What Casement has left in this cold hospital room, along with the collapsing body and quivering mind, is his untethered conviction. His courage. Something that Adler saw in him, and actually—was this love?—tried to talk him out of.

  “Sir Roger,” Adler had said, “courage? If you don’t have a choice, it’s not courage, and if you do, it’s no different than stupidity.”

  Of course it was funny, but hard to find funny because once you peeled back the humor, it was the very stuff of Adler’s religion.

  Casement had known there was someone else. Why wouldn’t there be? And he hadn’t let his mind explore the possibility that much because Adler always came back at some point, and maybe it was for money, but as that was the only kindness that Adler understood, it was not insignificant. But a wife? And Adler’s explanation?

  “It’s not that interesting. Men marry women.”

  “But Adler, you’ve married two.”

  And this had made Adler giggle, as if bigamy was a crime on par with having eaten all the biscuits. His wife? Margarette, a German, a woman that Adler can’t even have a viable conversation with. Adler is to bring her back to America. Apparently, Devoy has been bankrolling this wife whilst under the impression he was helping to support the other, the “Red Indian,” who is probably on the streets now with Adler’s child.

  Adler is not reliable and Devoy has been angling to pull the plug on him for months, but he is good at certain things. They are plotting to get Montieth into Germany and Adler is the only one who can do it. And they need Montieth, a military man, much decorated, who has spent sixteen years in the English Army. He has been drilling the Irish Volunteers, and will now be in charge of the Irish Brigade. Montieth was exiled from Dublin as a result of his refusing two English commissions and is now in America awaiting some sort of directive that will get him to Germany. And how did he get to America? Emigrated with his entire family as the English thought this was a good way to get rid of him. And how do we get this known rebel back into Europe with all the patrols prowling the Atlantic? The only person who can manage this is Adler. Although Adler won’t say how it’s to be managed, just collapses into a Cheshire cat smile and says they need to trust him.

  Loyalty? Courage? Bravery? Wouldn’t Adler add trust to that list of survival-instinct circumvention, also known as stupidity? Casement knows that Adler can’t tell them what his plan is because he has yet to figure it out. He’ll show up in New York and prowl the docks, make some friends, play some cards. He’ll identify a bribable steward and Montieth will find himself jammed into a closet for his journey, shuttled around should the patrols board the ship, and that’s if he’s lucky. Short on stevedores, men are often hired for this work with spotty background checks. Montieth could find himself shoveling coal the entire breadth of the Atlantic. This particular labor has been one of Adler’s educators and what has it taught him? Do anything to never do this again.

  Once Montieth is there, he will begin drilling the men. But for what? Will the Germans actually listen to him? His sixteen years in the English Army will at least be seen as valuable knowledge, and the Germans like virile feats, claim to like bravery, but are suspicious of the romantic perfume that the Irish attach to it, as if to the Germans bravery is the means to an end, a few meters into No-Man’s-Land, a grenaded English dugout, an excuse to burst into one of their cacophonous, juvenile, hearty songs that spring from a philosophic desire to be happy, destructive, and loud. But surely Montieth’s performance at the Battle of Ladysmith—he was lead horse of the gun carriage—will impress.

  This hospital room could be anywhere. Wrapped in the cold, white sheet, he could be in Dublin, convalescing, with Alice stopping by. He could be back in England after surgery, waiting for Ward to pick him up. But he has never been so alone, devoid of company, isolated in his opinions. His final urging to the Germans has been to say that arms can be landed in Ireland but should be hidden until the time when German naval power can reinforce whatever is managed on land. And all that smirking, that Deuts
che language that he should have learned but somehow didn’t, admonishing himself all the while with the memory of his expedient Bakongo—no, they don’t think it is in the best interests of the Central Powers to do that right now.

  The Germans insist that they will only supply weapons if the Irish use them immediately. Ireland is a beautiful tinderbox. The specter of conscription has already been raised and those who have not signed up in Ireland do not wish to be fighting this war and could well do just about anything—including participating in a different conflict—to avoid it. The Irish will have their rebellion, whether they want it or not. To Casement, it seems that the Germans have handed the Irish a grenade with the express instruction that once they have it they must pull the pin and not let go. And the Irish seem to think that if there’s a chance that some English person will be alongside when they do this, it’s not a bad deal.

  X

  The Vosges

  November 1915

  Ward is trying to get the man ready for the operating table without hurting him, but he’s frozen to the stretcher in a mixture of water and his own blood. How old is he? No more than eighteen. As Ward tries to pry him free with gentle rocking, his fingers hooked under the man’s torso, he sees the poor soldier’s face rigid in pain. All around him Ward can hear shouting. There are things that need to be done, things he could do. And after the rush, the stumbling with the stretcher over the uneven ground, the practiced duck beneath the beam that forms the transom of the surgery, his blinking adjustment to the light that shows the surgeon, up against the back wall, illuminated at his work like a figure from a painting by Joseph Wright of Derby, lit by a lamp held and moved by the nurse, work he himself has done, he thinks himself stalled.