by Leon Uris
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The slits behind which Long Dan Sweeney's eyes lived were horrendously magnified by glasses of ancient vintage. He squinted close to Conor's drawings and calculations. Most were views and cross sections of the tender car.
"All right, explain very slowly what I'm looking at," he said.
"Actually, it's quite easy," Conor said, leaning over Dan's shoulder and using a pencil as a pointer. "The tender holds six tons of coal and three thousand gallons of water. The coal bin is in the front and its floor is tilted at a forty-five-degree angle to keep the coal sliding forward by force of gravity."
"Yes, I see that."
"The balance of the tender is a water tank in a U shape, running along both sides of the coal bin and across the rear of the car. It's like a thick horseshoe wrapped around the coal bin on three sides."
"I've got it."
"The water tank is the hiding place. It's filled through a manhole located on the rear top of the tender. My idea is to cut out two trap doors, carefully concealed, and large enough to lower two waterproof metal boxes down into the tank one box on either side."
"So the boxes will ride right down in the water?"
"That's it. The guns would be in them. In order to load and unload all we'd have to do is lower the water level, open the trap doors and send a man down to open the boxes."
Sweeney puckered at the simplicity. "Two boxes of guns would displace quite an amount of water, wouldn't it?"
"It won't matter for several reasons," Conor said. "Duffy O'Hurley is known in train circles as a pounder, a black smoke man. He uses half again the fuel a conservative driver would use. He's fueling up all the time. No one counts the lumps of coal going into Sir Frederick's private engine. Our position is not to get greedy and keep the boxes small enough so the water loss won't be a factor."
"How many guns?"
"I made my calculations on the British Army Boer War standard, the Lee-Enfield rifle."
"That's the most of them," Dan said.
"Considering their size and weight, we could go fifty rifles a box or one hundred for each round trip."
The tea whistle caused Long Dan to withdraw his glasses. He rubbed his prison-tortured eyes, steeped the stuff and poured it into two unwashed glasses.
"The beauty of the plan is that the train makes five round trips to England a year. It comes and goes on a train ferry owned by one of the Weed shipping lines and docks right at the Ship & Iron Works. The train itself never undergoes a customs inspection. The rifles can sit in the yard or ride around Ireland until the train deadheads.”
"Deadheads?"
"Rides empty, with just the driver and fireman. It makes innumerable runs to Derry and Dublin and Cork, as well. Potentially it can deliver the guns anywhere along these routes. A few minutes' stop at night alongside a country crossroad could effect a swift transfer."
The old Fenian had trained himself never to show emotion or reaction. It was difficult as he returned for a second and third look. Without the guns in Ireland nothing else could really move, no units could be formed, no real training. When he took on the responsibility of getting them over, he wanted a number of different plans so if one failed he could still use the others without giving away the entire operation. Larkin's idea was brilliant but how long could it hold? Five hundred rifles a year if all went well. As yet there were no acceptable alternatives.
"What will you need?" Sweeney asked.
"Two things. First, can you move the rifles from their dump in England to Liverpool? The tram always arrives and leaves from there."
Dan nodded that it was possible.
"Secondly, I'll need a shop, preferably in Liverpool, to convert the tender and build the boxes."
"We've a good man there. Give me a list of materials. How long will it take?"
"Several hours at most. I'll cut those trap doors so they'll be impossible to detect with the naked eye."
"Well, with my eyes, anyhow," Dan said. Larkin's covered it all, Sweeney thought. He wanted to show a gesture of appreciation but merely gave off one pat on the shoulder and took up a pace. He liked Larkin and looked forward to his visits to Belfast. He enjoyed visiting with Larkin. The man always had something positive to report. So far, he showed qualities to become a top commander. Yet years of self-discipline disdained intimacy. All the men he had really ever cared for were dead. It was a mistake to get to like people who would die on you. He returned to thoughts of the plan.
"It all boils down to the driver and fireman," Sweeney said. "What about them?"
Conor shrugged. "I don't know too much. O'Hurley is in complete charge of the Red Hand. He can take it on trial runs, into the shop for repairs and modifications, complete freedom."
"Got any hunches about them?"
"O'Hurley blows Irish all right. He's a bachelor and about what you'd expect out of the train fraternity. Big, rough, likable. The fireman, Hanly, seems to be a follower. He's married to O'Hurley's sister. Stiff as a board when he's not shoveling coal. My guess is that he'd go along with O'Hurley. They're both out of Tipperary, been on Weed's payroll a decade, drink like fish but always show up sober for the job and glory in it. My own relationship with them is perfect."
"Just keep a normal friendship going," Sweeney said. "Don't probe. If you pick up some leads in a natural way, so much the better. You're not to take any chances by talking to him about the guns. If he reacts wrong, it would mean your neck. We've some contacts at Dublin Castle and we'll get a background on them. Do you need the drawings any longer?"
"No, it's all in my head."
“Burn them."
"Aye."
"I've got to talk this over with a few people. As soon as we get the information on O'Hurley and Hanly I'll be back up. You'll be contacted in the usual way. I may have to go to another location next time. This one is sprouting eyes."
Conor gathered up the papers and put on his cap. "Single me out in your prayers, Dan. I'm playing my first game as a Boilermaker Saturday evening. Pray I don't break a leg and get left behind."
"You'll do all right, Larkin."
They shook hands briefly. Sweeney was already back at the table studying another matter before Conor reached the door. He looked up.
"Conor."
"Aye."
"Good work."
"Thanks, Dan, thanks a lot."
CHAPTER TWELVE
It would be a few hours before Shelley got off work. Conor rode into Gresham Street aboard Belfast's new pride, the first of her electric tram lines, and debarked into high carnival-like spirit. The street was filled with hokeypokey men who hawked refrigerated, flavored iced milk and sparks flew out of the knife grinder's wheel, the barrel organ played to a few corners and a pair of sandwich-board men lolled past the shops of saddlers and shoemakers and tailors. Conor waded through the crowd to the row of pet shops just beyond the open-stalled Smithfield market. Homing pigeons were all the back-yard sport these days and a birthday was coming up for Matthew MacLeod.
"What can I do for ye, mister?"
"I'll be needing a pair of very, very fine homers."
The shopkeeper sized Conor up as a gentleman of some means, dressed as he was in a fine covert coat and cashmere trousers. He wiggled his forefinger and led him secretively to the rear of the store, then slowly, lovingly drew back the cover on a cage holding a beautiful set of white doves. "Tumblers," the shopkeeper said, "never had a luvlier pair."
After terse bargaining, he paid the man and made arrangements for delivery on Matthew's birthday and returned into the hubbub, browsing along the lane of secondhand book stalls. The air was punctured by the beating of drums on the corner.
"Drink is ruination, the handmaiden of Satan and the destroyer of Christian families!" cried an intemperate temperance preacher holding aloft a bottle of alcohol with a large chunk of meat floating in it. "Do ye want yer liver lookin' like this!"
Conor drifted onto Royal Street, a fine broad way leading into the newly finished Ci
ty Hall. He never failed to wince. The presentation of his gates was scheduled to take place just before the tour. The Linen Hall Library which once occupied that exalted ground had been moved over the way. He buried his face in newspapers and periodicals from about the world, checked the card catalogue and put his name on the waiting list for some of the newer titles.
With time left to kill, he retraced his steps into the Grand Central Hotel, through the lobby and in a half jog made down the marble stairs to the barbershop. Good, an empty chair. "Shave and friction; I've got but twenty minutes."
The barber looked his customer over, then to the wall filled with rows of personal shaving mugs, some of which were kept there by traveling salesmen. "I don't have one here," Conor said as the apprentice boy relieved him of jacket, collar and cuffs, then returned with the first of the hot towels. As Conor was stretched, the barber threw out the usual inquiries. Traveling? Visiting? On business? From where? To where? He stropped the razor and inspected Conor's beard, stropped and inspected. "And how would youse like yer shave?"
"In silence," Conor answered.
*
The day started off on tenterhooks for Shelley MacLeod. She had awakened in Conor's arms as she had for several nights, remembering the cold decision, now determined to go through with it. Conor got her home with the dawn and continued on his way to Weed Ship & Iron. She arrived at Madam Blanche's Salon on Bedford Street in a noticeable state.
Blanche Hemming served in the dual capacity of best friend as well as employer. One look at Shelley and she was whisked through the sewing room to her office. Shelley insisted she was not ill.
"Did you see David? Was there a fight?" Blanche pressed.
"David doesn't fight, you know that. I wish to God he would, sometimes."
Blanche nodded knowingly. "You certainly gave him enough messages in the past few weeks. He should have stood on his hind legs and roared."
"That's not his style," Shelley said. "I'm going through with it, Blanche."
"Are you sure about Conor Larkin?"
"I don't know. How can you know? It's been so sudden. Oh, it's mad and it's wild but I don't know if it's for a day or a year. I do know Shelley has had a good look at Shelley. I can't play this game with David." She studied herself in the mirror uncomfortably. "I look a wreck."
"Just stay here and get yourself together."
"I've a fitting for Lady Dryden in ten minutes."
"I'll take it," Blanche said.
Shelley stared at the telephone for a full five minutes before lifting the receiver and cranking for the central exchange. "I'd like 492," she said.
"Government House, Department of Ulster."
"Put me through to Mr. David Kimberley, please."
"Kimberley here."
"David, it's Shelley."
He looked about his office quickly as he always did when she initiated the call as if to see that the door was locked and there were no eavesdroppers. His voice trailed down to just above a whisper. "Yes, what is it?"
"I'd like to see you this evening before you get away to Dublin."
"That's going to be rather difficult," he answered.
"I'm afraid it's important," she insisted.
He knew it must be urgent, for she hardly ever made the demand of him. He whipped his engagement calendar out and scanned it, marking off the late afternoon appointments.
"Will four be all right?"
"Yes, that will be fine."
It was nine o'clock now. Seven hours. Shelley braced herself for an agonizing passage of time.
At his end of the line, David Kimberley paled. She had called off a number of visits in the past weeks. It was rather obvious she had been seeing someone. It had happened before. He had a dread of Shelley coming to that day. Her note of solemnity set his mind treadmilling
*
In the days that followed her first meetings with Conor Larkin, Shelley found her placid existence upheaved. He was an entirely new sort of person, neither Shankill nor gentry. Actually, he fell into no category except his own. At first there was confusion at being invited to a poetry reading and a rather grim prospect of two hours of it. That was when the first light of him came through. Before they entered the hall he had gone over it with her, explained the hidden meanings, nuances, seemingly confused passages, the poet's own torments. As the words poured from the lectern, suddenly there was something where there had always been nothing. The rest of it, theater, concerts, lectures, opened her mind gloriously.
It was those late parts of the evenings when the easiest rapport she had ever known with a man plunged them midnight and time fleeted unaware. Shelley found herself intensely desiring to absorb his thoughts, but it was more . . . an unexplained outcropping of silliness that came on waves of sheer gaiety. She delighted when he was happy, for she sensed that laughter had not come easily and she discovered ways to make him laugh. While they seemed to be unlocking each other rapidly, the presence of someone and the anticipation of meeting someone took on new meaning. Both reached out, trying desperately to touch one another over a vast, dark empty space.
Then came that Sunday, and the night after and nights after that. She believed that making love to him would take her beyond any place she had been. She had not known a man could be so gentle, thoughtful and tender, yet so commanding. He was the wildest of men with exquisite control and he could arouse her with words and looks as well as with touch. He could arouse her by just staring off into space. It was a moon trip from the beginning and it never came down.
*
Shelley MacLeod was among a tiny number of women who had successfully escaped the predestined doom of Belfast's working class with its limited choices of the mills or, at best, marriage to a man with a steady job. There were a few lady schoolteachers, clerks, nurses, almoners and the like, but choices were severely limited.
She had been different since childhood, a strange withdrawn little girl portrayed by great, sad green eyes. Her waking hours were spent in lonely pursuit of the illusion that she was a fine lady who had flown the Shankill.
As she grew older, she taught herself painstakingly to speak without trace of the confusing Belfast accent and to carry herself erect and display proper manners. The illusion was the fortress moat against the reality of borderline poverty which always hovered about and of the ugliness imposed by a neurotic mother who darkened every life she touched. Hatred spewing like poison bile from fanatic preachers worked its way into every fiber of her mother and mildewed her home and pained her husband and children. Shelley clung to her brother Robin as her only close friend during her growing years, and pitied her father, who was helpless in contending with a growing madwoman. Being one of the Belfast poor had destroyed her mother early in life.
When Robin ran off to sea, Shelley could no longer bear it and fled to England, lied about her age of fifteen, and wormed her way into employment as a maid in a manor house in Essex. The job granted little personal freedom, so the illusion was carried on once again by observing the finery of life about her, and she dreamed of it desperately in her closet-sized quarters. Shelley was driven further into herself when she discovered she was a commodity who would be afforded poor little dignity because of her low status. A pair of extremely unpleasant experiences, one with a head butler and another with one of the master's sons, could well have spoiled a lesser determination. Part of the retrenchment that followed was raw determination to break clear of the institutionalized class system.
When her mother died, Morgan came begging her to return to Belfast. The man was mired in guilt over the life he had given her, and Shelley came home. After a proper mourning period, Morgan began his courtship of Nell MacGuire, a fortyish spinster and a stalwart member of his church. Nell held an enviable position as governess to the three children of the Baron and Baroness of Ballyfall, Lord and Lady Temple-Wythe.
When she accepted Morgan's proposal of marriage, Nell urged Lady Temple-Wythe to give Shelley a try at her position and, although the gir
l was not yet twenty, her years of self-training caused her to succeed famously. She became rather close to her ladyship and when Lord Temple-Wythe passed away from a stroke, she was the widow's comrade and confidante. Shelley raised the children with a steady, loving hand.
Remarriage for Lady Temple-Wythe meant a move to England. Although Shelley and the Baroness and her children were close, the idea of aging as a governess was not in her making. She had seen her benefactor through a difficult period and taken her own step into self-sufficiency. It was time to move on. Despite the Baroness’ implorations, she remained in Belfast.
Haute couture establishments in Belfast could be numbered on a single hand with two fingers to spare. Those who could afford it generally refrocked during the London season or on a trip to Paris. A few posh establishments existed for the gentry and the new rich of the gold coast. Over the years, Lady Temple-Wythe had dropped a few thousand in Blanche Hemmings' Salon. The favor was returned by giving Shelley a position.
Shelley MacLeod fitted in easily. She had charm but retained a trace of champagne snobbery and handled her clientele delicately without being solicitous. No one would have believed her from the Shankill. Independence was her foremost trait.
As she befriended Blanche Hemmings, she was guided through the discreet game of charming those gentlemen most likely to open their pocketbooks. The most vulnerable and highest spenders proved to be those playing the mistress game. There was an annual buying trip to London, her blessed independence and a small group of friends in the fashion business and a social life outside the Shankill.
But Shelley rediscovered what she had already learned as an upstairs maid in England. The gentry prowled for females with no less vigor and much more cunning than the Shankill lads. She had frightened off prospective suitors in her own neighborhood and this had good and bad results. She would not have to spend her Saturday nights wrestling out of unwanted clutches or find herself bored in that man's sporting world. Yet there were fine lads about, many whose very earthiness was attractive. She would not get serious with them because she could not accept the Shankill life as the end. There was much sheer joy in Shankill life which her father and brother thrived on. For them the neighborhood was the joy of life itself.
