Tea was over when 47 came in. He was out of breath from climbing up the
stairs; but he seemed satisfied with life and pleased to see us.
“So you got here?” he said.
My wife made room for him beside her. “Come over and get warm,” his
wife said. When he came across she said eagerly, “What luck?”
His answer was to put a hand into a pocket and pull out an automatic
pistol.
“That’s better,” she exclaimed, almost happily. “Now I’ll stop
worrying. Have you plenty of bullets?”
“Enough,” he answered. “I hope you’ve got something left over there.
I’m devilish hungry. I’ll hide this thing in the mattress for the
present.”
He went off, and when he came back he had left his coat and hat behind.
He was given the best place by the fire, and was soon busy eating
everything that was left.
“Did you bring any news back?” she presently demanded impatiently. “You
never tell me anything. What did your ‘cousin’ say? Did you see him?”
“I did. It was dark when I got to the Central. There were any quantity
of loafers in the opposite doorways; but I think it was too dark to be
recognised. There was a bit of a delay while the sentry unchained the
gate. I had to give my ‘cousin’s’ name before he let me in. The hall
was full of soldiers. They look after themselves all right there. It
was a damned relief to be somewhere safe at last. I haven’t felt as
well off for months.
“My ‘cousin,’ who was away at the Castle, came in in a few minutes,
and we pushed a way up the crowded stairs, went past the out-of-work
sleuths at the bar, and into his bedroom. I told him what I wanted.
He produced a number of guns from sundry portmanteaux; but these were
not for me. One was as long as his arm. He told me he’d take me to the
Castle and get me something.
“He wouldn’t do anything until he had had something to eat. We went
into the dining-room. Depressed sleuths were at tea. My ‘cousin’ was
the same as usual, making a gesture do for a word.
“‘That was a bad show on Sunday,’ I said. ‘What are all the fellows in
here going to do?’
“‘They’ll stay here a bit until we’re re-sorted.’
“‘I suppose most of them are known to the opposition show now?’
“He nodded. ‘Several of the chaps were getting warning letters before
the Sunday show took place. We’ll have to shift ourselves about a bit.’
“‘Very busy?’
“‘Going all day. We’ve got two or three big fish in the net lately.’
“Presently, we left the depressed sleuths at tea, passed the
out-of-work sleuths at the bar, and pushed a way down the stairs, which
were full of men going up and down. It was pitch dark outside.
“The last thing my ‘cousin’ did, as we stepped into the dark, was to
raise his eyebrows for me to follow. He stalked like a great cat down
an alley, which is one of the ways to the Castle. There were sundry
loafers in the lane, of course. Two policemen, who touched their hats
to us, let us through the gate.
“It was too dark to see anything. We seemed to be crossing a great
yard. We skirted the lower edge of this, and the ghost of a charming
chapel moved past us, as foggy land goes past a steamer. We stalked
along a line of dreary buildings into a doorway among many other
doorways, and up a dirty wooden stairway. There were landings, and
doors which had not seen paint for years, and on the door was the
word ‘Intelligence.’ We mounted turn after turn, and came presently
to a shabby room with packing cases and odds and ends of ammunition
in it and nothing else. With a lift of his eyebrows and a wave of his
hand, my ‘cousin’ went off on his toes, and I sat on a packing case
cooling my heels. The electric light burned through a smeary globe,
there was nothing to look at--odds and ends of uniform, odds and ends
of ammunition. Outside the windows the dark was curling like a fog,
and there were occasional shouts from the yard. I waited a full ten
minutes, tapping my heels and feeling wonderfully safe.
“I seemed on land, and you”--he nodded to his wife--“out in the city,
a waif swimming in a friendless sea. Here were people ready to defend
my beliefs. Here were people who upheld my traditions. That profound
loneliness, which is the tragedy of an agent’s life, for a brief space
was no longer mine.”
47 had dropped his chin in his hands, and was looking into the fire. He
threw up his head.
“My ‘cousin’ came back. He was standing in the doorway before I heard
him. He lifted his eyebrows, and I slid off my packing case, and we
passed down the passage into another room with a cheerful fire and
people at work. This room was crowded with papers and typewriters, and
though the people there sat in glum silence and went on with their
work, nevertheless it seemed the best room I had ever been in.
“The fire was burning up, and in a box to the right was a mongrel bitch
with a litter of blind pups. They were never still, and tugged at her
all the time, rolling over with warmth and pleasure. A man sat on a
stool gazing at the coals, and now and then he would put his hand among
those rolling things, and the bitch would lick it. I envied that family.
“Another man smoked on the edge of a table, and a third man, a man
who worked so furiously that he never raised his head, was standing
with his back to a window, leaning over a high desk overwhelmed with
papers. On a sheet he had an endless list of names, down which he was
running a finger. With another hand he opened a directory and looked up
addresses, and constantly he referred to the stack of papers.
“This great round-up was bringing in a mass of information, and each
new bit of news opened up fresh avenues. I soon gathered from this
man’s exclamations that he was going through the latest batch of
information, and arranging fresh raids.
“He mentioned some name or other. ‘I am going to get the blighter
to-night, I think,’ he said. All the while we were there he continued
to run his finger up and down the pages and give instructions; and one
could visualise the lower end of the Castle yard and the great gates
through which we had come near which lorries, shaking with armed men,
waited to be loosed in torrents down the streets.
“My ‘cousin’ went to something, which was half a desk and half a
table, and opening it with an effort, for there was a great weight of
books and papers on top, he pulled out an automatic pistol somewhat
the worse for wear, took it to pieces, put it together again, loaded
it, and fumbling among debris at the bottom of the desk, he rescued a
spare magazine and a handful of nickel bullets. All these things were
presently handed over to me.”
His wife interrupted him. “Don’t tell me what you have brought back is
no good?”
“No; it’s tip-top,” answered 47, hastily. “It wants a good clean,
that’s all. I’ll fix it up to-morrow. Anyhow, I stuck it into a pocket,
and we went back to the Central for my ‘cousin’s’ guns, for he was
going to look up his wife in her flat. The one which was as long as
his arm he thrust into a tremendous pocket, and a second he kept in
another pocket, with his hand on it. So we sallied forth, and I have no
doubt on the way passed many a citizen of one persuasion or the other
prepared for eventualities like ourselves.
“In Grafton Street our ways parted. My ‘cousin’ lifted his eyebrows and
disappeared.”
“Are you still hungry?” his wife asked, as soon as 47 had done
speaking. “I’ll cook you something presently.”
“That’ll do me,” he answered, nodding his head. “This early curfew is
the devil. You people haven’t got too much time.”
“There’s an hour,” I retorted, looking at my watch. “It wasn’t much of
a pilgrimage here. You’re pretty snug. Up in the roof isn’t as bad as
it sounds.”
“No place like a top story,” 47 said. “No one has any right on your
stairs then. And there’s usually a skylight; and a man can put up a
good show through the skylight. The skylight here is pretty handy. Come
and look.”
“You’re not taking him on the roof?” his wife remonstrated.
“He can put on a coat. We won’t be a minute.”
“He’ll freeze.”
“Not me,” I said, getting up.
“Stick on something,” 47 suggested, getting up too. “It isn’t a bad
night.”
“You’re off your heads!” his wife retorted, from her chair by the fire.
We wrapped up, and 47 led the way through the skylight on to the roof.
The ascent was tricky, but no worse than that. One had to mount on the
banisters and haul oneself through the skylight, and one day the affair
would give way, and the escaping sleuth would be precipitated among the
advancing assassins. However, this did not happen this time.
“Don’t show yourself!” 47 ordered, as we shinned up. “People creeping
about roofs at night aren’t popular in this city.”
He bent double and crept behind a chimney stack, and waved me to
follow. I glanced through the skylight before I went. One could see
down half a flight of stairs. From here a man really could put up a
show, as he had said.
We were among the chimneys, like birds in a nest. We were in a forest
of chimneys, in a mountainous country of roofs. The house was on a
hill, the house was tall; we could see everywhere. The night was sharp,
and as a consequence the sky was filled with stars. And below, all
over the place, were the city lights. The roar of life came faintly
up from down there, and here we seemed removed and secure, as if this
perch were a rock which the sea of terror could not submerge. Yet, now
and again, some drops of spray seemed to outleap the waters and dash
against our mouths, as, with headlights which tore great holes in the
dark, the Crossley tenders, filled with armed men, raced through the
streets, and on their heels rolled armoured cars from which poked the
Lewis guns I could not see. We followed these grim processions as they
fled. Presently it was as if the city had become a pot, and we up here
were intoxicated by the rising vapours.
On 47 it acted as a drug. His tongue was loosened, he became prophetic.
“Can you feel it?” he said, cupping his hand as if it held water. “Can
you feel it coming up to us? Of course you can. I mean the terror,
the rage, the hate. Can’t you see through the dark to the police on
their way? Can’t you see through the houses as if they were glass,
to the hunted men? Loyalist and Republican--in all those hearts the
same passions--hate, and fortitude, and cruelty, and loyalty to their
beliefs, and terror. In this whirlpool of passion can the spiritual
endure?”
He peered between the chimneys. His face was a blur; but he began to
permeate the atmosphere with the feeling which he left out of his
lowered voice.
“Sometimes I think,” I put in, “that in the evolution of man the gods
choose certain people to develop by trial certain qualities. Courage,
fortitude, idealism--has Ireland been chosen for a year or two as the
forcing ground for these?”
“Who knows?” he answered vaguely. “These qualities are being bred here;
and treachery and cruelty and hate.”
“Don’t you feel the quality of this struggle is spiritual? Don’t you
feel something hard and pointed like a sword blade there, though
covered with the rust of every vile passion?”
“If there was nothing of the spirit here, could men be brought to
contend so long and so furiously?” he answered. “But what are we to do
with these passions, evil as well as good, that we have raised in the
name of idealism? Nothing that has been created can die.” He peered out
between the chimneys.
“Look down there,” I said. “Fear and hate and a certain exaltation. Of
course, in this struggle Sinn Fein has the exhilaration of the small
man against the big man. However right the big man may be, he cannot
have much zest in an unequal show.”
Then it was that 47 became like a prophet on the housetops.
“Truth! Truth! Who shall find truth in all this untruth? One begs and
begs for bread, and receives always a stone. Lies, lies, lies! Who can
get at the truth now? Can it ever be found? I am tired of stones. Who
will give me bread?
“No man down there wants the truth; no man down there would listen to
the truth; one wishes to shout his case louder than the other, that is
all. The people lie, the papers lie--it is lies, all lies!”
“And this thing which makes men mad is called patriotism,” I said.
He turned round from gazing at the city. “There you have it. There
is one voice speaking the truth. Patriotism, how it limits a man, in
judgment, in sincerity, in his horizon.
“Nowadays, can nationalism be other than a rather poor thing? It was
useful in the past, but it was only a stepping stone to better things.
First individual against individual, then family against family, then
tribe warring against tribe, nation striving against nation. Only
to-day the inspiration that all nations may be bound together. Has man
been deceived? Can nationalism and patriotism after all be false gods?”
I, harking back to his cry of “lies, all lies,” interjected: “Here is
the truth spoken by Loyalist and Republican in the golden age before
all men were liars:
“‘You started it,’ the Republican says. ‘For generations we asked you
for more generous legislation, and you made promises and broke them.
Then we took up arms.’
“‘My dear fellow, you have hit the nail on the head. We were
continuously unjust,’ the Loyalist answers; ‘but listen to the excuses.
Either the peoples of the British Isles are one nation, or else they
are several nations, of which more than one resides in Ireland. We
have to listen to so many opinions. You Sinn Feiners want to break
right away, the Nationalists want Home Rule, and the Ulster people want
things to stay as they are. Naturally, this decision does not help us
to do what we are disinclined to do.’
“‘The majority want a republic; the majority should rule,’ answers the
Republican.
“‘My dear sir, might I suggest the argument is illogical out of your
mouth?’ answers the Loyalist. ‘If the part, Ulster, must be given to
the whole, Ireland, then the part, Ireland, must be given to the whole,
the United Kingdom. And only a few who cry “Up the Republic earnestly”
and intelligently want that same republic. After the rising of 1916 you
had few friends, and the people have only been bludgeoned into desire
for a republic by the cries of the leaders, by the presence of British
troops, by the repression and the personal injustices attendant on the
political situation. This feeling is false, and would quickly pass on a
return of normal conditions.’
“‘There is a great deal in what you say,’ the Republican admits; ‘but
what of the atrocities committed by your people? How can we forget
those?’
“‘I cannot deny the atrocities,’ answers the Unionist; ‘but are you not
to blame? What is your army other than a collection of people who,
while it suits them, masquerade as peaceful citizens?’
“The Republican answers, ‘Your accuracy and penetration are
extraordinary. As a military unit we are corner boys and assassins; but
in the circumstances, how can we be otherwise?’
“‘True, very true,’ the Loyalist assures him, ‘on that last point I see
with you eye to eye. Against such odds there is no other method you can
adopt, unless you went in for passive resistance and boycotted England
on a grand scale; but, of course, a nation cannot be organised to that
type of cold-blooded resistance--it must have the stimulus of war. As
things are, if you were to come out into the open, your army would be
no more in a week. But if I give you that point you must give me this.
The excesses of the military and the police have been caused by the
type of war you wage. Our men don’t know friends from enemies, there
are no rules of warfare, consequently they take justice into their own
hands.’
“The Republican winks. ‘The intelligent among us realise this. The
outcry we raise is for propaganda.’
“‘Ah!’ cries the Loyalist, winking back, ‘it is the same with us, and
our shout of murder gang. We use it to stimulate our followers and
justify ourselves. Your leaders know and our leaders know that we are
both out to win, and we must use every trick and shift. For, of course,
we both have a contempt for the mob, haven’t we? The mob is necessary
to us, but its opinion is worth nothing. Once the mob enthusiasm is
raised, it will swallow any lie, it will shout any slogan.’”
My oration appeared to have sent 47 to sleep. I came to a full stop.
When he began, it was on a line of his own.
“An empire, an imperfect instrument, is nearer the co-operative ideal
than separate states watching one another. Therefore, when Ireland, a
part, demands to break away from the whole, it is an effort towards old
tribal days, and I am out of sympathy. And if the whole feel they are
endangered, in justice to themselves they are at liberty to deny the
demands of the part.”
“You grudge Ireland independence?”
He passed over my interruption. “But, of course, a vigorous national
life and a noble national ideal are undeniable advantages. Then how
reconcile these two things--the liberty of the nation with the safety
of all nations? It is the old difficulty of reconciling anarchy with
socialism, those poles with equally strong claims.” He paused and said,
“Yes, there is a way out.”
“Dominion status?”
He nodded. “That will allow Ireland internal development, and that will
keep her within the Empire, and there will be no breach made in the
nations.”
“Do you expect that to be the end?”
“I hope so.” He switched his mind elsewhere again. “It’s in bigger
things than Ireland I’m interested at bottom. It is in world
questions--the class wars and that kind of thing.”
“Would you regret working against Communism, if you were ordered to?”
“Not necessarily, for one can sympathise with a thing, and yet find
it unworkable, and a menace. In the van of all these movements march
men with the seed of truth, who are so far ahead of time that if they
leapt, and the world leapt after them, the world would fall into the
ditch. It is evolution which alone will bring the masses after these
people. And so these prophets must be destroyed that the world may not
fall into the ditch. I do not hate what I kill. I have nothing against
the body that collapses at my feet. I thrust with the sword of my mind.
My victim and myself, may we not both be honest men caught in the toils
of life?” 47 moved. “Here, I’m freezing. We must get inside.”
* * * * *
Herself speaking.
I was sorry for 47’s wife as Himself and I left her at the top of the
uncarpeted stairs. She looked small and tired, and very much alone, and
I have no doubt she felt all those things.
But I must hurry on. That night witnessed our first raid.
It was four in the morning, and bitterly cold. The knock at the door,
or rather the crash on the door, was shattering, and brought me
straight up in bed.
“Go back.” It was Himself on the landing. “Don’t be frightened. It
seems to be the Auxiliaries.”
I continued to sit up, shivering. There was the rush of many feet, like
the rush of hundreds of sheep after being penned up. The house filled
at once.
“Hands up!” somebody shouted. I visualised Himself shivering on the
landing with his hands above his head.
“Unarmed. Right. Put ’em down. What’s your name?”
Himself gave his name.
“Who’s in the house? Who’s in that room?”
“My wife.”
The door burst open, and armed men raced through into the room beyond.
They appeared to look at nothing, but I suppose they took everything
in. They had guns strapped up and down their legs and round their
bodies, and balmoral bonnets on the backs of their heads. One immense
specimen was left to guard me. He stood by the empty fireplace and eyed
me. I eyed him back again. Presently he smiled.
“You look cold,” I said, for he was shaking under his heavy coat.
“More tired than cold. Been at this without a break for three days and
nights. It’s----!” He left the rest to me.
A series of heavy thuds overhead made me look up.
“It’s all right,” he said soothingly. “Only the chaps searching. The
lady upstairs is a bad lot.”
“What?”
“I advise you to clear out. She’s coming into the limelight soon. Oh,
we know all about her.”
“She’s harmless enough,” I said. “She talks rather.”
“Some people blow too hard.” He pulled off a glove and breathed on his
fingers. “What a country! What a country! What brought you here? The
Irish are mean enough to pick the flesh off the bones of a flea.”
“Curiosity.”
“Well, it’s curious enough; but it will never be anything more than
England’s market garden, whether it’s a republic or part of the Empire.”
“There are some fine men in the movement.”
“Fine!” There was contempt in his voice. “And you an English woman!”
“Not English--Australian,” I corrected gently. “Therefore I may be
counted neutral, more or less.”
He laughed. “More or less. But which?”
I shook my head.
“All the same,” I said, “you do make a mistake in thinking the Sinn
Feiners are inferior.”
He caught me up, and refused to let me continue.
“Inferior! Of course they’re inferior! Look at them skulking round
corners; look at them hiding behind women. They can’t conduct an ambush
in a decent manner. Oh no; they must wait until the kids are coming
out of school, then they chuck their bomb. We can’t hit them then. Oh
no, they’re not a decent race. The German is honourable. The Turk is
honourable. The nigger is honourable. But not a Shinner. Stick up for
any mongrel race you like, but not the Irish.”
His torrent of words left me gasping.
“I’ve just come up from Cork,” he said, after a few moments’ pause. “If
you want to see the Irish patriot in all his glory, go to Cork.”
Himself came into the room. He had managed to seize a coat from
somewhere; but he was shaking with cold.
“I think they’re nearly through,” he said. “I hear sounds of going.”
“We have just been discussing the Irish,” I said weakly.
The sound of many feet clattering down the stairs cut my remarks short.
My new acquaintance joined the ebbing tide and was gone.