by Leon Uris
Amid the head scratching, Mr. Edwin Cowley, the owner, finally boarded. There was a confused consultation. Cowley ranted right off that it was obviously the work of thugs from the Catholic side of the river. It was also obvious to Edwin Cowley that it was an insult to all that was good in Ulsterism and to the Crown as well. He stormed off his half-sunken ship in quest of Orange fellows. There would be a riot on the Bogside to pay for this.
The authorities were, more concerned at the moment with the mess. For all practical purposes the Londonderry harbor would be out of business for at least a week.
*
"We've got about three hundred pounds of dynamite left," Charley Hackett said after the survey.
"Will it be enough?"
"We won't know till we spark it."
"All right," Conor said. "Saddle up. Everyone goes except Dan. You're going to have to handle the machine gun by yourself for the time being."
"Sure," Dan said, drying his glasses, placing them on carefully and failing to see very much in front of him.
"We've got a potful of time to make up," Conor said. "Let's go."
The storm, which had been both killer and tormentor during the crossing, was now our ally with its protective cover. Conor chucked the original plan, which called for us to crawl down the beach to the caves. Instead, he ordered everyone to run standing up as far and fast as they could go.
Conor and Charley Hackett bore the brunt of it, packing a two-hundred-pound spool of wire on a stretcher. Boyd McCracken found the proper cave. We sloshed in after him, got deep and onto dry ground, then fell and lay panting.
A candle was lit. Glistening icicles of rock revealed a fairy's den. Boyd pointed to a minuscule opening. Conor tied a rope to the stretcher, then around himself like a harnessed horse. We followed Boyd, one after another on our stomachs. The crawl was agony. With forty pounds of dynamite on my back and a submachine gun and ammunition the space narrowed in places to two feet by two feet. Jagged rock clawed my flesh and tore at my pack. Blackness added to the horror.
I could hear Conor grunt as he pulled the stretcher a few niches at a time. . . grunt, gasp, grunt, gasp.
"Cave-in," Boyd called in the blackness. I saw the faintest light from his torch as I lay entombed in rock and swooning into a nausea of claustrophobia. Boyd called back again that he could get it clear with bare hands. I crossed myself in thanks as the line began to slide forward again.
The path of torture, widened into a cavelet room. No time to collapse again. Conor, still in the passage, passed the rope forward and all of us tugged in unison to get the stretcher through. No ounce of strength was left untapped. It came into the cave let just in time, for although it had been sewn four layers thick it was badly ripped.
Conor's torch played over the den, then stopped. "That's it, the tunnel entrance," he said. "Gather in. We're going to have to improvise some changes. Boyd first, Charley in a one-minute interval, then Seamus, then Pete. If the wire fouls, the front man begins to work back until he finds the snarl. I'll have to handle the reel here by myself."
Conor had again saddled himself with a brute-strength job that would have sorely tested two men. He braced to balance two hundred pounds in his hands as Boyd entered the tunnel with the wire. One after the other we took the wire into the tunnel on hands and knees.
*
"There it is, lads," Boyd said, flashing his light on the brick wall. "I'll carry the wire in. Follow me, Charley. Gilmartin, stay and keep it free. We've a sharp bend. I'll jerk the line three times to let you know when I reach the boiler room."
Working like a safecracker defting a combination lock, Boyd McCracken slipped the bricks away like a Chinese puzzle and opened up a man-sized hole, Boyd drew his pistol. The others followed suit. He inched through the opening, doubled up and slid headfirst through the rear of a fireplace flue, then down through the fireplace itself.
We followed. It was a vast room in bluish-black darkness pierced by the single torch light in Boyd McCracken's hand. He turned the light on our smutty faces, taking count. All were in except Gilmartin, who was feeding the wire through. We stole over the stone floor to a great wooden door and slid the bolt. A light cracked into the room from the corridor as we bunched up behind Boyd.
He peered out. The hallway was clear. He pointed to another door some forty feet down the line and slipped out, hugging the wall. One by one we oozed after him, ganging up again before the boiler-room door.
Boyd handed the end of the wire to Charley Hackett, darted to the door, pressed his ear to it, flung it open! He stepped in, brandishing his pistol. Nothing. Another signal and we poured in as he lit up the single bulb. We dumped our packs, placed them together before the largest of the pipes and duct, then moved out. With Pendergast gone in the crossing, Charley had only Jennings to wire the stuff into the ducts.
As the others fled back, Boyd and I took up our rear guard post at the junction of the corridors. It was a perfect position with a clear view to the only entrance to the cellar. Anyone trying to get to the wire would have to turn a corner blind and right into my path of fire.
The moments went by with brutal slowness . . . eight nine . . . ten . . . fifteen . . . sixteen. Come on, Charley, for God's sake! Jennings bolted past me, giving a signal that it was about done.
Another three minutes . . . Charley showed. The instant he did we all froze. A shadow fell over the stairs at the end of the corridor. Someone was coming down!
We gaped. I froze an instant and then . . . somehow, I knew what had to be done.
I signaled for Charley Hackett to get back into the tunnel and I nodded for Boyd McCracken to do the same.
*
Gilmartin had held a position near the fireplace, counting everyone as they went through. Charley and Boyd reached him at the same, instant.
"Let's go," Charley said.
"Where's Seamus?"
"Someone's prowling around. He's got to stay."
Gilmartin winced aloud, started back over the room. Boyd grabbed him.
"No use getting us all killed. Get in the tunnel, Gilmartin."
He wavered a moment, then turned and fled with the others. Feeling the wire lightly as they tore back, tears of agony fell down their cheeks for the man left guarding the line. Several minutes into the passageway, they heard it and stopped. Machine gun fire!
"Oh, God!"
"Move, goddammit, move! We've got to get back to Conor . . . move . . . move . . . move . . . move!"
Crouched and in a dead run, they hurled themselves back to the cave in half the allotted time.
"Blow it!" Charley screamed to Conor at the detonator.
"Seamus!" he cried.
"Blow it, Conor! Blow it!"
Conor crouched over the box, hand on plunger, eyes wild . . . "Seamus! Seamus! Seamus!"
"He hasn't got enough ammunition to hold more than a minute. Blow it! They'll cut the wire!"
Charley Hackett came at the detonator. Conor rose like a crazy man, leveling his pistol at Charley's forehead. He took a step back and whirled the pistol around, menacing the others, then dropped it to the cave floor, fell to his knees and emitted a hideous scream . . . "Forgive me!"
He lay over the plunger, making contact.
Everyone looked up in hushed terror. Nothing happened. And then they were hurled around the cave like matchsticks!
*
Dan Sweeney's eyes widened, for no man had seen the half of it before. The land about Magilligan Point leaped and jumped as though it would be torn off and thrown into the sea. The light was the light of a thousand hells, a rage, of oranges. Debris hurled against the Martello tower like a shower of hailstones.
Another explosion . . . and another . . . and another!
The wrackers on the opposite shore fell to their knees in fright. They saw it on the coast of Scotland and it lit the heavens at Derry twenty miles away. The sea heaved wildly from it and heads rang from its terrible sound.
The storm was done. Dan Sweeney sigh
ted over the open field before the tower. Minutes passed and then he heard distant sirens.
There! Up the beach. He swung the gun around.
"It's us, Dan!"
Dan left his post, hobbled down the steps and flung the tower door open. In they limped, Gilmartin, Conor Larkin, Charley Hackett, Boyd McCracken, Jennings and four others bashed up from the impact, even at their distance, from three hundred tons of freed dynamite.
They swabbed at their gore, tied tourniquets, shot morphine, wrapped bandages. Distant flashes of torchlight and barking dogs were heard.
Conor lifted his bloody head.
"Take them back over, Gilmartin," he said. "Take them back. See . . . I made, the waters calm for you."
"It's my position to stand here with Dan," he answered.
"Sorry. Orders have been changed."
"Dan," Gilmartin protested. "Tell him to take them back."
Dan seized Conor and shook him. "Take your people back, Conor!"
Blood spurted out of Conor's mouth as he opened it to speak. He wiped it with the back of his hand. "Poor little runt. He had to come. He just had to come."
"What of Atty!"
"That is the crudest joke of all, allowing myself to believe for a single crazy moment there was a life before death. I've done what I came for and that will have to be enough. I can't take any more."
"Aye," Dan whispered. "I know that feeling well." The old man turned to Gilmartin. "Kindly make your departure as swiftly and quietly as possible. Mr. Larkin and my good self have had our fucking fill of terrible beauties."
As the first shots rang out in the direction of the tower, Long Dan Sweeney and Conor Larkin positioned their gun. Gilmartin pulled back swiftly through the grass, dragging the large curragh over the sand and dumping in the half-dead remains of the raiders. As he slid into the water, they sighted in.
"We are all absurd actors on the stage of the diabolical," Conor whispered. "The English killing Germans for the freedom of Belgians and us killing Englishmen for our own freedom."
He put a flare into the signal gun and shot it. It arched away from the tower, lighting the field of sea grass and exposing the advancing enemy. Red tracer bullets streaked from their machine gun. Startled men keeled over like a scythe cutting wheat. Others dropped to their stomachs and inched forward respectfully. The tracers streaked out again in deadly red fingers.
*
GALLIPOLI, TURKEY
The tracers streaked out as a flare turned the battlefield to daylight again. Christopher slid into the muddy hole, collected his thoughts, then crawled over to the fallen officer and rolled him over. The pyrotechnics glowed over the man's face. It was Jeremy. His brother was dead.
He closed his eyes for a moment as the racket above him set up near solid sheets of fire.
"Major Hubble," his sergeant major gasped, crawling alongside" They cutting us to pieces. I say, sir, what are the orders?"
"I say we give it a go."
"But, sir, we'll never reach those machine gun nests."
"One more charge, man, one more charge." He crawled to the lip of the shell hole looked to his right and left to what remained of his battalion, raised his pistol, jumped out into the field and rushed forward. They followed. The Turks had them in a cross fire. The massacre heightened.
THE KING AND QUEEN DEEPLY REGRET THE LOSS YOU AND THE COLERAINE RIFLES HAVE SUSTAINED BY THE DEATHS OF YOUR SONS, MAJOR CHRISTOPHER HUBBLE AND LIEUTENANT JEREMY HUBBLE, AT GALLIPOLI IN THE SERVICE OF THEIR COUNTRY. THEIR MAJESTIES TRULY SYMPATHIZE WITH YOU IN YOUR SORROW.
PENBURTON, Private Secretary
Buckingham Palace
*
The door of the Martello tower creaked open cautiously. A line of soldiers slipped up the circling stairs, tensely alert Suddenly the platoon leader signaled them to halt. He inched closer, lowered his pistol, held it on the pair and studied them.
"Get the company commander up here," he said shakily.
In a moment the company commander dashed up the steps and stopped alongside him.
"Only two of them?" the company commander said.
"Yes, sir, only two. They ran out of ammunition."
The platoon leader knelt first by Dan Sweeney, then Conor Larkin.
In . . . out . . . go . . . dusty bluebells . . .
In and out . . . dusty . . .
In . . . bluebells . . .
I'll be your master.
"The old one's dead but this one still seems to be alive, sir."
Follow . . . Londonderry
Follow me . . . Cork and Kerry . . .
… so light. . . and. . . airy. . .
"Look, sir, he's opening his eyes."
"Can't talk, can you, fellow?" the company commander said. "Well, you ought to be proud of yourself . . . that was quite a show . . ."
Shelley . . . bluebells . . . Shelley . . .
"Shall I get a stretcher for him, sir?" the platoon leader asked.
The commander's boot reached beneath Conor and flipped him over on his back. "No, poor devil's cut in half. Half his guts are on the floor."
Daddy . . . daddy . . . daddy . . . daddy . . .
"Here, give me your pistol. I'll put him out of his misery."
Daddy . . . daddy . . .
The report echoed sharply off the stone walls.
Daddy . . . daddy . . . Atty . . . Atty . . . atty … aty … at
EPILOGUE
When the British returned the bodies of Long Dan Sweeney and Conor Larkin, Garrett O'Hara, commander of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, seized upon the moment.
Defying an order from Dublin Castle, the two were placed in state in the rotunda of Dublin's City Hall. Dan Sweeney had been remembered in household, pub and school as an Irish martyr of the Fenian Rising of the last century. Conor Larkin had no small measure of fame from the Sixmilecross incident. All of that was overshadowed by the enormity of the destruction of Lettershanbo Castle.
Casketed under a finely lighted dome, twelve sentries from the Irish Home Army stood by each of the pillars as an honor guard.
Thousands passed in homage. After three days in state, Dan Sweeney's procession was joined by a hundred thousand Dubliners who marched in ragged dirge step to the grounds where Daniel O'Connell and Charles Stewart Parnell lay. Sweeney, "the unforgiving Fenian," was not set down until Garrett O'Hara delivered an oration destined to change the course of Irish history. Speaking in the ancient tongue, he lashed the millennium of tyranny with exquisite rage. And over the land, long-dormant republican stirrings were heard at last.
Conor Larkin was accompanied back to Derry by Atty Fitzpatrick in a simple, cortege of a hearse and a single car. Yet in every town along the route it was stopped and children laid flowers on his coffin, women wept, and Brothers and members of the Irish Home Army escorted it as an honor guard to the next town. Then, at last, Father Dary Larkin put his brother to rest alongside their father in St. Columba's churchyard in Ballyutogue.
Ten months later, members of the Brotherhood leading a few hundred Home Army men staged an aborted rising in Dublin. It was on Easter Monday of 1916 that a terrible beauty was born by a declaration of independence.
The leaders of the rising were sentenced to death by a secret tribunal and they were shot by firing squads at Kilmainham Jail. Kilmainham Jail, the Irish hall of martyrs which had housed Parnell and Wolfe Tone and Emmet and a hundred more of that pesty ilk. By execution of these men, the British blundered into outraging the Irish people and converted the rising into Ireland's most glorious defeat.
When all of this was done, a republic eventually came to pass but the sorrows and the troubles have never left that tragic, lovely land. For you see, in Ireland there is no future, only the past happening over and over.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Leon Uris, born in Baltimore in 1924, left high school to join the Marine Corps. In 1950, Esquire magazine bought an article from him — and it encouraged him to begin work on a novel.
The result was his acclaimed bestseller Battle Cry. The Angry Hills, a novel set in wartime Greece, was his second book. As a screenwriter and then newspaper correspondent, he became interested in the dramatic events surrounding the rebirth of the state of Israel. This interest led to Exodus, his monumental success which has been read by millions of people. From one of the episodes in Exodus came Mila 18, the story of the angry uprising of Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto. Exodus Revisited, a work of nonfiction, presents the author's feeling for the land and the people of Israel. Mr. Uris is also the author of Armageddon, Topaz, QB Vll, Trinity, Ireland: A Terrible Beauty, and Jerusalem, Song of Songs (the last two with Jill Uris).
At present, Leon Uris lives in Aspen, Colorado with his wife, Jill.
