by John Masters
‘Yes, sir. Just thinking.’ Ahead, gathering blackish clouds blocked the south-western horizon. To the west, the same layer of cloud glowed blood red from the sun setting behind it. Frank said, ‘I think I’ll have a tot of rum, sir.’
‘Of course.’
Frank found his flask and took a small swig. Holding the flask in his hand he said, and his voice was puzzled – ‘You know what I was thinking about out there, sir? Not when I was working – on the way out and back, with the sea all that way below, and the wind trying to pull me off … I was thinking of Anne, and my kids …’ His voice grew very intense – ‘And I was thinking of Anne’s new baby. I haven’t thought of any of them for months … since I knew about it. What does that mean, sir?’
Guy watched the sun as it seemed to dive in towards the sea, so rapidly did it pass through the cloud layer; compass bearing south-west by south; all instruments reading normal. They’d have some rough weather during the night, but she was a good machine. He said, ‘It means you love them all. And want to go back to them.’
It was full dark when Frank spoke, nearly a quarter of an hour later – ‘You’re right,’ he said, his voice choking – ‘Poor Anne.’
‘Poor Frank,’ Guy said softly. ‘It’s all over now though – war and all.’
Thursday 19 June
At almost the same hour, allowing for the difference in time zones, Billy Bidford was driving his Sunbeam across the Golden Horn, by the Bridge of Boats, into Constantinople; while Guy Rowland was bringing G-BGR in to land at the Argentine Army airfield outside Buenos Aires, to be greeted by a huge crowd, mostly of the British colony; but also containing many Argentine officials, ambassadors, consuls, and common people. G-BGR had covered the 8349 air miles in 85 hours 14 minutes flying time, spread over eight flying days.
Saturday 21 June
On this day Guy Rowland received a cable from Florinda, Marchioness of Jarrow – CONGRATULATIONS COME HOME QUICKLY. In Buenos Aires Guy read it, scrumpled up the paper, and threw it into the corner of the big hotel room, where it fell among the huge pile of similar cables and telegrams; he rang the bell for service and said, ‘Another bottle of champagne … whass your name? Manuel? Pedro?’
‘En seguida, señor,’ the waiter said, disappearing. Guy’s head slumped on to the table, and he began to snore. Frank Stratton came through the open door from his connecting room in the suite, stopped, stared sadly, and returned to his room.
Wednesday 25 June
At noon, Guy and Frank were making ready to board the Royal Mail Steam Packet vessel Andorra, bound for England. Buffalo G-BGR was being flown to another base by pilots of the Argentine Army, which had bought it with the intention of buying half a dozen more, and using the big bombers in their next border dispute with Chile. Guy was drinking champagne before setting out to the docks. He was not drunk this time, nor was he euphoric, just morose. What the hell was the good of champagne and brandy if they didn’t make you feel better, forget things, solve problems?
There was a knock on the door and Guy said curtly, ‘Come!’
The hotel manager entered, bowing – ‘Sir,’ he said. ‘The British Ambassador is here. He wishes to see you, and Mr Stratton.’
‘Show him in,’ Guy said. ‘Frank! Big cheese to see us. Come through.’
The manager re-entered with the ambassador. He had been at the airfield, and seemed a decent enough old stick, Guy thought; but he wanted to get off, to the ship, to his berth, to sleep.
The manager went out, closing the door behind him. The ambassador said, ‘I have a message from His Majesty’s Private Secretary … It is personal and for the moment, its contents must remain secret.’
He paused impressively. Get on with it, Guy thought. The King had probably sent a message of congratulations; Billy was probably getting one, too, in Constantinople.
The ambassador said, ‘His Majesty wishes to invest you both with the honour of Knighthood in the Order of the British Empire, as he has done to Captain Alcock and Lieutenant Whitten Brown. Before any announcement is made, I am instructed to ascertain that you will both accept.’
Guy shrugged, ‘Delighted … an honour.’
Frank’s jaw had dropped, and his eyes were popping out of his head. He stammered, ‘Me? Sir Frank? … Oh no, sir! I’m a mechanic. I don’t want to be a knight. I’d feel real daft!’
‘His Majesty knighted both members of the other crew,’ the ambassador said.
‘Yes,’ Frank broke in, ‘but Mr Whitten Brown’s an officer. You can’t knight a sergeant!’
The ambassador said, ‘His Majesty can dub or ennoble anyone he chooses, Mr Stratton’; and Guy said, ‘Accept it, Frank. If you don’t, I won’t.’
Frank turned on him, beseeching – ‘Oh, please sir, don’t say that. We’re all so proud of you, but it’s different for me. You know it is.’
‘Times are changing,’ Guy said. ‘They have changed. The war saw to that. If you’ve done the job, you should get the reward, whatever your rank or station. And you’re not a sergeant, you’re a civilian.’
Frank said, ‘Some other time, perhaps, next century perhaps, if they still have knights by then. Some other bloke, perhaps … but not me. I’d feel like a proper twerp, people calling me Sir Frank, with my head inside an engine and oil all over my face. No, sir, I don’t want it, and Anne would feel worse … Lady Stratton! Why, the other women would be laughing at her up their sleeves every time she went out.’
Guy said at last, ‘All right, Frank. But you are a ruddy knight, even without the K – a preux chevalier … I suppose Frank will get-a-CBE?’
The ambassador nodded, ‘That is what I was advised, if … as the Private Secretary’s cable put it – either of you did not think the knighthood appropriate.’
‘All right, then,’ Frank said, albeit still grudgingly. ‘I’ll be a CBE. Thanks.’
‘Thank His Majesty.’
The manager appeared, bearing another bottle of champagne. The ambassador said, ‘A toast, Sir Guy, and Mr Stratton … The King! God bless him!’
Daily Telegraph, Monday, June 30, 1919
SIGNATURE OF THE PEACE TREATY AT VERSAILLES
GREAT CEREMONY
From Perceval Landon. Versailles, Saturday.
The treaty is signed. After seven months of labour and anxiety unspeakable the great work of human regeneration which the Allies set before themselves in 1914 had been accomplished. Militarism, with all its disciplined brutality and unbridled lust of conquest, is at an end. At an end, too, is the German Empire. The world looks forward from today not only to a full generation of peace but to the hope of rising, during that generation, to a higher place, and, so far as human effort can attain that end, looks forward to the end of warfare itself. The signature of the terms of peace in the ‘Hall of Mirrors’ at Versailles today marks the close of an epoch as clearly and as certainly as did Wolsey’s great puppet show of the Field of the Cloth of Gold …
AT THE SIGNING OF PEACE
KING AND PEOPLE
Peace is signed.
The greatest war in history is over.
I join you all in giving thanks to God.
These ‘straight-flung words and few,’ uttered by the King from the balcony of Buckingham Palace, formed the climax of a great and memorable scene on Saturday …
Over, Cate repeated to himself. In France, and Belgium, Mesopotamia and Palestine, East Africa, Roumania, Italy, Austria, Russia … but not in Ireland. Nevertheless, the greater cloud had lifted. During the war he had felt tied to Walstone, to the people of the village, to the land itself. Now the war was over; he had much less land; and his responsibilities as squire seemed to have diminished – the people wanted to look after themselves, and were doing so. So he could get away for a time. He must take a holiday. The South of France? … not in the middle of the summer … Norway, Sweden, Finland perhaps, to see Lapps and reindeer? But it was impossible to think of such a journey without Isabel. He would not enjoy himself because he would be
thinking of her, what she would have said, what she would have done.
What he must do, instead of taking a holiday, was to make another determined effort to find Margaret, tell her his situation, and beg her to divorce him. The first step was to send her a message through the Agony columns of the Irish Times. She would see the message herself; or others would pass it on to her. And he must go to Ireland, and stay until he had seen her.
He returned to the Telegraph.
And yet there was no sense of rejoicing in the Galerie des Glaces; there was scarcely even a deep feeling of relief. Only the night before last the President of the United States had well said that whatever had been accomplished, there remained still more to do.
Chapter 25
Dublin: Friday, July 4, 1919
‘We will have nothing to do with Dominion Home Rule, or any other Home Rule … We avoid it as a thing unclean, we fling it back at them …’ Christopher Cate read on gloomily, the Irish Times reporting a speech made by Sir Edward Carson, the leading Ulster ‘Covenanter’, the day before; but a couple of days before that J. L. Garvin, in the Observer, had written that the Covenanters’ policy of ‘won’t have it’ was as dead as King William, and that the small Protestant minority had no right to stand for ever blocking the unification of Ireland, perhaps in some form of separate Dominion status subservient to a free Dublin. But …
The telephone rang and Cate hurried to the desk and lifted up the receiver. A man’s voice said, ‘Is this the party that was advertising in the Irish Times to get in touch with Mrs Margaret Cate?’
Cate said, ‘Yes. I’m her husband,’ thanking heaven as he did so that he had booked himself into the most modern hotel in Dublin, and perhaps the only one that had telephones installed in all its rooms.
The voice, which was that of an educated man, for all its slight brogue, said, ‘And what would be your purpose in wishing to see the Lady?’
Cate knew, from the papers, that Margaret had long been called the Lady among Irish revolutionaries of all shades, so he said, ‘I wish to marry another lady, and propose to ask Margaret to divorce me.’ He was tempted to give more details, in the hope of persuading Margaret to come to a meeting; but he had no guarantee that this caller was not in fact an agent of the Irish police, of Scotland Yard, or of MI5. Margaret was wanted by practically all the law enforcement and intelligence agencies of the Crown, for one reason or another.
The man on the telephone was silent for a few moments, then said, ‘Ah, personal.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I’ll get the message to her. You understand that it will take some arranging to keep any meeting free of the RIC, or G Branch of the Dublin Police …’
‘I understand,’ Cate said, thinking, of course, this may be G Branch speaking.
‘… which means time. How long will you be in Dublin?’
‘As long as necessary. This is a matter of the greatest importance to me. Do please impress that on Mrs Cate … And tell her, in case she may not have heard, that Stella – that’s our daughter – went to America in April with her husband. They are now living in Arizona, among the Navajo Indians. I can give her the address if she wants it.’
‘Very well, sir … I hope you will hear from your wife, through us. But that’s up to her, you understand.’
‘I understand,’ Cate said again. The man at the other end hung up. Cate followed suit. How long, O Lord, how long?
Margaret sat alone in a little back room with Michael Collins, their revolvers on the table, loaded, and two sawn-off shotguns propped against the walls close to hand. These were not loaded, but a bag of 12-bore cartridges, No. 3 shot, hung over the back of Collins’s chair.
‘It can’t be helped,’ he said quietly. ‘It was just a mistake.’
‘Don’t say you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs,’ Margaret Cate said. ‘If I’ve had that said to me once, it’s been said a hundred times.’
‘It’s true, even so,’ Collins said. ‘But this time it’s fairer to say that we all make mistakes sometimes. British secret agents have shot three of their own supporters, to my certain knowledge.’
‘But I was positive it was Loughran, the informer,’ Margaret said. ‘I couldn’t be mistaken.’
‘Well, you were, and it was poor Mr Ryan of Kilkenny, visiting his sister in Dublin, that got shot. He died for Ireland, though he didn’t know it. He knows now.’ He crossed himself with real reverence.
Margaret said, ‘Is there no hope for some middle way? You know, I felt the same as you do … but since last Friday, I can’t live with myself. There must be another way.’
‘Moderation is …’ Collins stopped, searching for the right word – ‘I was going to say it’s useless, but the truth is that it’s irrelevant.’
‘Only as long as we – you, your wing of the Volunteers – go on murdering police – Catholics, Irishmen – and the British answer with more repression, more martial law, and God knows what next … it’s irrelevant – but what if we stop, negotiate?’
‘Then you’ll be the ones we’ll be killing,’ Collins said grimly. ‘Ours is the only way. Believe me. You did believe me – you’re my best right hand, because you understood and had the guts to come and shoot … so many of the blatherskites just talk talk talk … I’m not giving guns to anyone unless they take the bloody things and shoot… If the British had any sense they’d go softly, understanding what the people are thinking, how their loyalties are torn. The Church thunders against our killings, at the same time prays for freedom for Ireland. The people would listen to the Church, turn against us, if they were given half a chance … So what do the British do? Suppress this, abolish that, arrest everyone in sight. If the people have to choose between us, for all our killings – and systematic, universal British oppression, there’s not much doubt which way they’ll go … especially if we can frighten them more effectively than the British can.’
‘How long will it last?’ Margaret said. ‘It’s getting like the war, going on forever … killing, killing.’
‘A long time,’ Collins said flatly. ‘The British aren’t called bulldogs for nothing. But the time will come when even they will realise that they can’t win here …’
‘Then the real fight will begin,’ Margaret said. ‘Irishman against Irishman.’
‘If it comes to that, so be it,’ Collins said. ‘We’re going to make an independent Irish republic, encompassing all Ireland, whatever it costs … You’ve got to get out of Dublin. G Branch have learned that you were the flower seller on O’Connell Street who shot Mr Ryan.’
‘I’m leaving tomorrow,’ Margaret said. ‘As a Red Cross matron with some nurses – all Auxiliaries, of course.’
‘Where to?’
‘Westport, in Mayo. There are half a dozen good men there, who spent the war running out information and supplies to German submarines. They’re itching to get back into action … the British Navy caught one of their skiffs late in ’18 and sank it, killing all four men on board.’
‘I remember.’
‘Well, they want their own back. I’ll arrange it.’
‘Good … What about that message from your husband?’
Margaret said, ‘I don’t know. If it was anyone else but Christopher he’d just set the other woman up as his mistress.’
‘It won’t be easy to arrange a meeting, with the RIC so stirred up about the killing of Mr Ryan … but it can be done. I’ll guarantee that if he comes it’ll just be him, no police or agents … and no one’ll know where he’s gone either.’
She stood, undecided. At last she muttered, ‘It’s so damned unimportant … so far away … unreal … Leave it for the time being. He said he’d wait as long as he had to. I’ll send a message from Freeport, in about ten days.’
Margaret, dressed in trousers and a light grey shirt, a man’s peaked cloth cap pulled down over her hair, followed Sean and Eamonn along the rough track leading to the cliffs. If she were interrogated now there would be no hope o
f escaping recognition; women in Ireland did not wear trousers except on some dangerous and illegal mission such as this.