"The warships and the troop transports that sailed south some days ago—did no such thing. Once out of sight of land they changed course and proceeded to a rendezvous in the North Atlantic. Refueled and united they sailed to what most certainly will be a victory."
Welles looked around at the puzzled faces and could not stifle a wry grin.
"For even as I speak our forces are invading the island of Ireland. The first landings were made at six this morning, Greenwich Mean Time. It is now five in the afternoon in Ireland. The invasion is well under way and, with God's help, can but succeed. Can you imagine the expression on Queen Victoria's face when someone tells her this bit of news!"
"May that moment be long in coming," Abraham Lincoln said. "All of our efforts up to now have been bent on keeping that royal lady—and her armed forces—in the dark. If everything goes according to plan Ireland will be secured well before news of the conquest reaches England. When they do discover what has happened it will be too late to do anything about it. Short of mounting a counter-invasion, they will have little to choose from."
"May you be speaking the truth, Mr. President," Judah P. Benjamin said. "May the plans of our officers be successful, may this effort of arms succeed in every way. May victory be ours."
He did not add that victory was never assured in war. Quite the opposite in fact. Well what was done was done. He did not speak aloud his reservations or fears, not wanting to destroy this moment of happiness. But he saw Lincoln looking at him—the same dark look of deep concern on his face.
The deed was done. All that they could do now was pray that success would be theirs.
SUNDAY, 8 OCTOBER 1863—MIDNIGHT
It was a cool and clear night in most of Ireland. But to the west there were rain squalls over Mayo and Galway, down as far south as The Burren. But there is always rain in the west and no one took any particular notice. The country slept. Only the military were awake, the nightwatch on guard at the many British military establishments that marked out the occupation of the land. Soldiers stamped outside the brick barracks in the Curragh, just south of Dublin. Stood guard as well in front of Dublin Castle, walked the battlements of Belvelly Tower, one of the five towers that defended Cork Harbor. Peered down from the gunports of the Martello towers that guarded Galway Bay. Only the military marked the darkness of the midnight hour.
Or did they? To the east of Belfast, where Belfast Lough entered the Irish Sea, was the small fishing village of Groomsport. Little different from any other village on the shores of Ireland, except, perhaps for the signs on the seafront east of the harbor. DO NOT ANCHOR HERE they read in large letters: the two men who appeared out of the darkness knew them very well.
"Further on, Seamus, just a bit."
"It's right here I tell you, I was pulling on the nippers right up this bit of shore—"
His words broke off with a pained grunt as he tripped and stretched himself on the sand.
"Right you are, Seamus, and I'll never doubt you again."
"Tripped over the bloody thing." He reached down and with an effort he lifted the six-inch telegraph cable a few inches into the air.
"That's it! I'll never forget the day we dragged her ashore. Cut it here?"
"No. Get a sling on it. We'll cut it in the water, then drag the seaward end out as far as we can."
They passed a rope around the cable and each took an end. Gasping with the effort they lifted the cable, slid the rope along it as they stumbled into the sea, until the chill water was above their knees.
"Enough—jaysus, I'm knackered already."
"Can you hold it there? Let the weight rest over your knee."
"Just—about. Cut it before I'm banjaxed."
Seamus took the hacksaw from the bag that hung from his belt. Sawed industriously at the outer casing, then the insulation and the copper wires. Cutting the steel cable in the center was something else again and his companion groaned in agony.
"That does it!" he said as the last strand parted and the severed ends of the cable disappeared into the dark water.
"Find it—find the end..."
Soaked through, their teeth chattering with the cold, they finally found the severed end of the cable that went out into the sea. Once more they managed to tie the rope around it. Not lifting now, but dragging it along the shore until they could move it no more, their mouths just above the surface of the waves.
"Leave it before we drown ourselves. They'll not be patching this too readily."
They stumbled and splashed their way ashore and vanished in the darkness towards the boat to cross the lough. Fearful all the way that they might be seen, identified. Not until they were in the familiar streets of the Catholic Pound area did they feel any relief. They separated there and Seamus slipped through the unlocked door of his house and bolted it behind him. Nuala was still awake, sitting by the fire in the kitchen.
"You're a fair sight, you are, dripping from head to toe. You'll get a chill..."
"Some warm clothes, woman," he said, pulling off the soaked garments. "And put these in that hole in the back garden I dug between the potatoes. God save anyone in Belfast who is found with sea-wet clothing this morning. Did Sean come by?"
"He did. He said to tell you one word. Done. Said you would know."
"I do."
"I thought that he was living with his sister in Oldpark, after he had to leave the telegraph company, the consumption and all."
"He never left Oldpark this night—and you never saw him. A single word about him—or the clothes—and we're all dead."
"Don't speak like that, it's like a curse."
He patted her arm, sorry he had frightened her. "Make us a pot of tea, there's a good love. Just forget everything about tonight and everything will be fine." He breathed a silent prayer. Please God, may that be true.
Others were about at this hour. From Dublin to Cork, Galway to Limerick. Some of them were the telegraph men themselves, who had worked their apparatus that very day. Before they shut down for the night they had sent queries about earlier messages they had received. Asked for repeats of some. Their work done they now took great pleasure in severing the wires. They knew the places where they could be cut so that no one would notice. Where telegraphers could not be drafted for this duty, men simply climbed the poles and trees, severed the wires and rolled up yards of them. They worked fast: they knew what had to be done. By half twelve all of the electrical communication in Ireland was gone. Messages could be neither sent nor received in all the length and breadth of the island. With the underwater cable to Port Logan in Scotland cut as well—the island of Ireland was isolated.
No one in the great fleet expected to reach Ireland without being detected. Just west of the Blasket Islands, off the Munster coast, the British revenue cutter Wasp blundered into the outer screen of fast ironclads. Her captain had seen their smoke for some time, but never for an instant did he imagine they could be anything but British. Only when one of the warships turned in his direction did he think differently. He turned back towards land, but it was far too late. A shot across his bow, the sight of the stars and stripes—plus the menace of the big guns, brought him to a halt, rolling, dead in the water. The cutter was quickly boarded and captured. With her crew locked below and under guard, the warship turned and hurried after the attacking fleet, Wasp following slowly in her wake.
In mid-afternoon the attacking fleet of ships had begun to separate, forming three separate attacking forces. The first of these slowed their engines, just out of sight of Kerry Head and the mouth of the Shannon River, while the other two hurried north.
By dusk the second invading fleet had reached its destination. Just over the horizon was the Clare coast where they would be landing at dawn. The third fleet had been out of sight for hours, for they had to round Ireland to the north to reach their objective of Lough Foyle.
Ireland's three main cities all lay on the east coast. Belfast in the north, almost within sight of Scotland, which was just ac
ross the North Channel of the Irish Sea. Dublin in the center across the Irish Sea from Wales. And Cork, in the south, across the Celtic sea from Wales. This was the settled and populated east coast of the island.
But the wild west coast of the country was the most beautiful—and most empty. It was hard to scratch a living from the flinty soil, or take fish in the stormy sea. With the major cities all in the east that would certainly have appeared to be the place to launch an invasion.
But General William Tecumseh Sherman and General Robert E. Lee were never ones to take the easy and obvious way. In the past, during the war, they had moved armies by train, kept them supplied by train. They had used railroads to wage war in a manner never seen before. So when they had looked at the map of Ireland and had seen a wonderful modern network of rail—it appeared to have been designed for their military needs.
From Portrush on the north coast it was only sixty miles by rail to Belfast. It was much the same distance in the south from Limerick to Cork.
While in the center of the country the Midland Great Western Railway ran straight from Galway to Kingsbridge Station in Dublin. A few ancient Martello towers on Galway Bay, built when there was great fear of a French invasion, were all that stood in the way of American troops coming from the sea.
There would be three striking forces: three fighting generals. Dublin was the capital of Ireland so it seemed predestined that General Sherman would land with his troops in Galway, to strike east and take that city. With Grant still fighting the British in Mexico a man of his caliber had been chosen to attack in the south from Limerick to Cork. This was General Thomas J. Jackson, the Stonewall Jackson who won battles. To General Lee fell the shortest, and possibly the easiest, invasion route from Portrush to Belfast. But it might prove to be the hardest because the invaders would be striking through the Protestant loyalist heartland. These hard men would not welcome the Americans, as would the Catholic Irish in the south. Ulster was a question mark, which is why Lee had volunteered to lead the invasion there. A superb tactician, he could maneuver entire armies, first one way then the other. If there was to be stiffened resistance and rapid alteration of plans he was the man to match the occasion.
Overall it was a subtle invasion plan that would, hopefully, be simple enough to lead to victory. Three lightning strikes to seize the country by land.
But what of the massive sea power of the American fleet? What would be their role in this new kind of warfare?
Firstly, they had to see that the transports were safely sailed across the ocean. Once this had been accomplished their role had changed. Now they were blockaders—and floating batteries. The plan of attack that Sherman and Lee had developed could not be slowed down by unloading and moving artillery. Speed must be substituted for heavy guns. The Gatling guns would take their place in the landings and attacks in the west because they could attack alongside the infantry. Speed and overwhelming odds would, hopefully, assure victory there. But what would happen when the fast-moving attackers ran up against strongly held positions held by infantry backed by artillery? Plans had been made for this possibility. Now it would be seen if the new kind of battle could be won.
Engines were banked in the second fleet, while the signal flags called selected ships with orders. At sunset a dozen ships, both war craft and troop carriers, headed east for the Irish coast.
At the same time Patrick Riordan was pushing his boat into the waters of Galway Bay. Barna was a small fishing village, no more than five miles west from Galway city. Yet it was so rural that it could have been five hundred miles away. A mere dozen houses clustered around a single dirt track that meandered offacross the fields. Patrick Riordan's brother, Dominick, brought out an armful of lobster pots and dumped them into the boat, climbed after them in silence.
"I guess it's about time," Patrick said.
Dominick looked at the dark clouds banked up on the western horizon and nodded. He used the steering oar to push them out, sculling them forward with it while his brother raised sail on the single mast; it billowed out in the light wind. Blowing, as it almost always did, from the west. They tacked in silence across the bay.
"You have the lanterns?" Patrick asked. Dominick touched the bag with his toe.
"And it is the right day?"
"Paddy, you know all these things without asking about them over and over. We went to mass this morning, which means that it is a Sunday. The eighth day of October, the day we've been planning for all these long months. Sean told us that—and you have to believe your own cousin. And he gave us the money to buy the lamps and all. This is the right day, all right, and you should be jubilating." He pushed the steering oar hard over and they ducked their heads as the boom came about as they tacked in the opposite direction.
Dusk turned to night, a starless night as the clouds rolled in from the ocean. Neither of the brothers took much notice as they tacked again. A lifetime fishing these waters had stamped every part of them into their souls. The hills of The Burren to starboard were an even darker mass against the cloudy sky. On the next tack they were just aware of clearing Finvarra Point; the waves foaming on the rocks there barely visible. When they reached the mouth of the bay, and the Aran Islands, it was close to midnight. Lights in the occasional farmhouse moved by as they aimed for the outermost island and the sandy shore past the village of Oghil. Patrick jumped out and pulled the little boat grating up onto the sand: Dominick lowered the sail then dug out the bag with the lanterns.
"Should I light them?" he asked.
"Aye. It's time."
He lifted the chimney and fumbled out a lucifer from the waxpaper wrapping in his pocket, struck it on a metal fitting on the mast. It flared to life and the lantern caught. He blew the match out and adjusted the wick. Relit the match from this to light the second lantern. As they had been instructed, the lanterns were hung one above the other from the mast.
After securing the rope from the bow to the stump of a tree ashore, Patrick dug the stone crock out from under the stern bench. Dominick joined him ashore. Took out the stopper and drank deep of the poteen. Patrick joined him, sighing with satisfaction.
"So now we wait," he said.
No more than an hour had passed before they heard the distant throb of a steam engine from the darkness of Galway Bay. The sound stopped and they stood, trying to peer into the inky darkness.
"I hear something—"
"Oars—and a squeaking oarlock!"
The ship's boat appeared out of the darkness, slipping into the pool of light thrown by the lanterns. The sailors raised their oars as the blue uniformed figure in the bow jumped ashore.
"Sean," Dominick said, "so you're a soldier now."
"I always have been. But I didn't think it was wise to wear uniform when I was visiting youse." He saw the crock on the ground and grabbed it up. "In the boat with you now—and I'll take care of this." He swallowed a large mouthful and sighed with delight.
"But our boat!" Patrick protested. "We can't just leave it here."
"Why can't you? The good people of Oghil will keep it safe. Now—in with you. 'Tis a war we're starting this very day."
The Riordan brothers could only make feeble protests as they were bundled into the boat, which was quickly pushed out and returned to the transport. A hooded light revealed the rope ladder hanging over her side. They were up it, and Sean guided them to a ship's officer, who took them up to the bridge and into the chart room. A bull's-eye lantern threw a weak glow over the chart. The tall man who was examining the map straightened up.
"I am Captain Thrushton and I am in charge of this operation. Welcome aboard."
The two Irishmen muttered embarrassed responses; Paddy managed a sort of salute. They had little experience with the gentry, had certainly never talked with a ship's captain before.
"Look at this," he said, tapping the chart. "As far as I can tell I am in the channel here, lined up on your lights on the island."
"Not quite, your honor. The tide is on the make
and you will have drifted, putting your ship about here."
"And where is the first Martello tower?"
"Here, the Rossaveal tower on Cashula Bay. Only one gun."
"How far from Galway?"
"Next to twenty miles."
"Good. First boat's company will take care of that. The other two towers?"
"South side of the bay, here on Aughinish Island, the second on Finvarra Point near the Burren. Sixteen miles from the city. Three guns each."
"Excellent. I sincerely hope that you gentlemen will be in the lead boats when we make the attack."
"I'm no fighting man!" Dominick said, horrified.
"Of course not—nor do I want you anywhere near the marines and infantry when we attack. You will simply point out the places where we must land—then stay by the boats. Your cousin, Private Riordan, has made very exact maps of the area around the towers. Are there any other strongpoints defending the city? Any troop movements in the last months?"
"No changes that we could see. Soldiers there and there. The barracks, and around the harbor."
Stars And Stripes In Peril Page 24