It was past eleven o’clock when I left my wife and wandered out of the
hotel and across O’Connell Bridge. The tide was high, and something
about the lights that lay upon the Liffey waters, and something about
the numerous bridges spanning the river, brought me dreams of Venice.
It is said there is truth in first impressions. I had a first
impression of Dublin then. In that shining summer weather the city,
which was at once so pleasantly conceived and so down at heels,
impressed me as some likeable person fallen upon a sick bed.
Was it that I was reading into the face of the city what I expected to
see? I had wondered at the suspicion of the guests in the hotel, who
sat surly and apart. Now against the embankment of the river shabby
men and youths leaned, cooling their heels. They smoked and spat and
contemplated the traffic, which was controlled by magnificent policemen
as tall as trees. There appeared to be a barbers’ strike in progress,
as outside the barber’s shop loitered sundry young men who would
have been the better for a shave. These people displayed a board with
“Strike on Here” printed in big letters, and whenever some customer,
maddened by a two months’ growth of hair, vanished into the shop, they
would shout after him in raucous tones, “Strike on there!”
The crowd looked worried and suspicious of itself, and surely it was
evident to him who had eyes to see that war, none the less real because
waged below the surface, was going on, and nobody knew who was for this
side and who for the other.
Yes, war--rumbling through the streets in the guise of heavy military
waggons, tramping round the corners in parties of tin-hatted soldiers,
flying up and down the quays in lorries choked with dapper-looking men
wearing Balmoral bonnets, rushing up this road and that in Crossley
tenders, filled with less romantic men in black uniforms and peaked
caps.
I passed over O’Connell Bridge, up Westmoreland Street, and out of it
between two grave stone buildings; that across the way an eloquent
curving place, once a parliament, and now suffering from a changed
greatness as the Bank of Ireland; this, to my left, the grave grey face
of Trinity, with its arch like a mouth, through which could be seen
cobbled walks removed from the wear and tear of the rest of the city.
Then to the left and up Dawson Street, past the Mansion House, an
uninspired building, into one of the noble squares that the city
possesses. The heart of this square was a public garden called
Stephen’s Green. I crossed the road, which was wide and straight, and
entered the park by a little gate in the iron railings.
The sun poured out of the sky, and the place was full of nurses and
babies. Two lakes, divided by a bridge, filled all the centre of the
place, and ducks and seagulls and small children disputed for bits of
bread round the edges. It was the scene one meets in all city parks;
but it was specially charming owing to the sun and the twisting walks.
I was looking for a chair when I discovered 47 strolling down the path.
He had seen me; he always saw me first. He looked just the same as when
we had said good-bye at Hyde Park Corner.
“So you came over?” he said.
“Yes.”
“You’ll find it worth while.”
The place was the best in the gardens for a talk. Two chairs were
beside us. We sat down with mutual consent.
“I have been over a week,” he said. “I put up at the Gresham. That’s
in Sackville Street. I had to get in touch first thing. I was to meet
my ‘cousin’ in the lounge of the Hibernian Hotel, Dawson Street, at a
quarter to twelve. After a talk with him I would know the lie of the
land better, and be in a position to set to work at once. A fellow
learns from experience how to cast the net as quickly and as widely as
possible.”
“How do you mean?”
“The commercial traveller bustles from business house to business
house, finds his way into the different billiard saloons, tests the
merits of the bars. The other people get going in their own ways.”
“I’ve never seen you in a hurry.”
“Never be in a hurry. Don’t delay in preparing the ground; but when
that is done the experienced fellow sits like a man beneath a tree,
waiting for the ripe fruit to drop into his lap. He has a golden rule,
which he never breaks. It is, do not ask a direct question. What he
must know must be found out indirectly while he is yawning and showing
at best a polite interest. So it follows his informant forgets what has
been said; but he does not forget.”
“Well,” I said, “what happened?”
“I found the hotel, which has a sort of Moorish lounge, and got a seat
where I could see everybody, the door among other things. It was twenty
minutes to twelve, five minutes to the time. I asked for nobody, I did
not even ask for a drink, as I did not want my voice to proclaim me an
Englishman and a stranger. I knew my ‘cousin’ would be on time, for
time with us is sacred.”
He leant forward in his old way, and began rubbing his chin on his
stick. It meant he was going to hold forth.
“Time, exact time, is sacred. On Tuesday morning, at twelve o’clock by
the nearest public time, Agent 1 will push his barrow round a certain
corner. At the same time Agent 2, who is cycling round the same corner
at the same moment but from an opposite direction, collides with Agent
1, and in the fracas which ensues they are hemmed in by the crowd.
Agent 3, who has been detailed to do a little business on the other
side of the road at two minutes past twelve, is agreeably surprised to
find everybody occupied on the opposite pavement and nobody watching
him. At four minutes past twelve a motor car numbered with a certain
number slows up at a certain bit of kerb, and Agent 3, who has
transacted his little business, gets in. But if Agent 1 is late, Agent
2 has no man to collide with, no crowd is drawn to look on, Agent 3
finds it impossible to transact his bit of business, and Agent 4 slows
his car up in vain. Somebody is going to get into trouble.
“The few people in the lounge seemed the tag ends of Horse Show week.
There were three or four women and half a dozen men, and they sat over
cocktails and coffee. Nobody was interested in me.
“At one minute to the hour I sat back and put up the sign, and a minute
later a man stalked through the door from the street. He took in the
room in a single aimless glance, and, still walking forward, answered
my sign. He smiled, I rose, and we met as if we were friends expecting
each other. We made the third sign, the one that is made with the
foot, and he asked the passwords and I answered. This was while we were
sitting down. He asked me to have a drink; but I wasn’t having any.
“‘Then come out,’ he said, ‘for a walk about.’ He made a motion of his
finger in the air like a man walking about. He spoke very quietly, and
asked questions with his eyebrows.
“We left the lounge and went down the hotel steps.
“My ‘cousin’ was between thirty and thirty-five. He was tall and very
lean. His chest was narrow, and sometimes he looked delicate, and
at other times as tough as whipcord. His face was as keen as a wild
animal’s. His black hair grew backwards. He was inclined to walk on his
toes, and he trod like a cat. You never heard him coming and going.
“He brought me here, and we walked and talked.” 47 jerked his thumb
to the left. “Up that end is a waterfall which feeds the lakes, and
all the time we seemed to be getting to that or leaving it. We watched
the children if we were disturbed, or talked about the birds, and my
‘cousin’--I can’t give you his name or number--was mad on them, and had
a cupboard at home full of pot plants.”
“Did he tell you how things are going?” I broke in.
47 pondered this. “He thought there was a lot of work to be done; but
the situation was getting fairly well in hand. The people over here
are fearfully hampered by the powers that be.” 47 looked carefully
round the gardens without turning his head. “Listen to this,” he said,
pulling some papers out of his pocket. “Here are one or two choice
little extracts from the rules of the Cumann na mBan, the woman’s
branch of the Irish Republican Army, of which Countess Markievicz is
the head. The Countess is said to go about with an armed escort, and to
carry a bag with a gun inside. The spring of the bag fires the gun. It
may be a legend. Here we are.
“As a start, members have to subscribe to the following declaration:
‘I, mindful of my high responsibilities as an Irishwoman, am resolved
to do my part in the service of the Republic. I enrol myself as a
member of the Cumann na mBan. I bind myself by personal attention
to duty as a member of this branch to aim at the highest degree of
efficiency which alone will make us a valuable unit in the Republican
Army. I pledge myself to keep perfectly secret all matters connected
with the Irish Volunteers and Cumann na mBan,’ etc.
“This is what I am after: Rule 11. ‘That Cumann na mBan should be
instructed in the use of firearms.’ Rule 12. ‘That Cumann na mBan
include detective work and the acquiring of information about the enemy
among its activities.’
“Dublin Castle has in its possession a full list of the executive of
the Cumann na mBan--this organisation of enemy spies--yet none of
these women are touched, but they are left to go about their work as
freely as they like. The Irish Republican Army states that it is at war
with Britain; the penalty for spies is death. These women could quite
logically be executed; they most certainly should be interned. But no,
not a finger must be lifted against them.”
“What else did you glean?” I urged.
“That these gardens were much used by the Sinn Feiners. My ‘cousin’
pointed out a man loitering on a little switchback path over there near
the waterfall. He warned me most of us were shadowed now and again,
but in most cases it was clumsily done. He warned me Sinn Fein was
everywhere, that one could trust nobody, that the rot was even in the
army and the police. The question was dividing fathers against sons,
and husbands against wives. He urged me to believe in nobody who was
not of the brotherhood: he need not have worried on that score.
“I was told to look out for men and women sitting together on the park
benches--the man dictating, the woman taking shorthand notes. That’s
how they often dictate their dispatches.
“My ‘cousin’ went on to say that after dark motor cyclists carried the
Sinn Fein dispatches through the empty streets. One passed his house at
great speed at a certain hour every evening, almost to the minute. He
meant to get him.
“He told me, as I had guessed, that the bars were the great places for
passing information. Important meetings were held in the houses of
trusted people and in the private rooms of hotels with good escapes.
“He ended by announcing the Irish could breed horses, grow flowers, and
conspire, and that was the sum total of their qualifications.”
47 came to the end of his oration. He had told everything in a level
voice, rubbing his chin on the top of his stick all the time.
“That’s amusing,” I owned. “You must keep me posted.”
“You’ll be wise not to see too much of us, though we’d both like to
have a talk with friends. They may start shadowing me at any time, and
it won’t be worth your while to be seen in bad company. I’ll tell you
where I hang out; but don’t turn up often. We’ll run across each other
now and then like this.”
“I don’t want a bullet into me on your account,” I assured him.
“Besides, I want to see as much of the other side as I can. Remember,
I’m going to keep strictly neutral. Do you hear?”
He grunted something, and did not seem much interested. Then he said--
“What are you doing now?”
“Looking for a flat, I suppose,” I answered.
“This is a good part of the town. The flats are very dirty, but you may
find something. We were tied to a top floor.”
“How’s that?”
“The top floor has many advantages, including the fact that it can
be defended better than another floor, and also that nobody has any
business on your stairs.”
He was getting up as he said this. He waited a moment, said, “We’ll run
across each other in a day or two. Good luck with your flat.”
He nodded, and was gone.