Women of Courage

by Tim Vicary

  Sir Jonathan looked round him, trying to assess the situation. He noticed the embarrassed typist on her chair and realized she must be a female chaperone. Behind Kee was a big, young, stolid-looking detective, standing motionless like a sentry. Kee himself was holding his emotions in, but obviously angry; whether with Catherine or himself, Sir Jonathan was not quite sure. Catherine appeared to have been crying; but there was a sharp, defiant light in her moist eyes, which Sir Jonathan recognized, together with her straight back and slightly lifted chin, as the signal for a major argument. It also, probably, meant that she was guilty of something dreadful.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Tell me from the beginning.’

  The bald facts of the story that Kee told him hit Sir Jonathan like a series of blows in the stomach. Throughout it he stood quite still, rigid almost, like a man on parade. He watched Catherine’s face and saw that the story was true; and a sense of vast desolation and weariness seeped through him. His right leg trembled, and for a moment he thought he would have to sit down; but that would be too humiliating. He stood stiffly, and anger began to flood through him and give him strength.

  He confronted Kee first. ‘You have known this for over three weeks, and never told me?’

  ‘Suspected, sir. We weren’t sure until a couple of days ago, and we only arrested the young man this afternoon.’

  ‘That’s not the point. You have had spies following my daughter for over three weeks, while all these alleged events took place, and yet you never saw fit to inform me, her father.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. But my duty is to catch Sinn Feiners, which is what I’ve done.’

  Kee felt some sympathy for the man. He imagined how appalled he himself would feel in a similar situation. But it would never arise, he thought. Not with my children. Never.

  Sir Jonathan turned to Catherine. Her very silence so far was an admission of guilt. ‘It’s all true, then, I take it?’

  She said: ‘I love him. I’ve nothing to be ashamed of. He’s a brave man and an Irish hero.’

  No one spoke, and it seemed to Catherine that the words echoed unnaturally loud in the little room, mocking her. Do I believe a single word of that now? she wondered. But if I don’t, there is nothing left. I’ll go mad, like Mother.

  And I believed we were coming closer, Sir Jonathan thought. It’s all there in that face: the defiance, the illogical hatred of England with which Maeve used to confront me. But Catherine has a stubborn strength of will that Maeve never had. The determination behind those dark, haunted eyes - that’s mine, not Maeve’s.

  He said: ‘We won’t discuss that here. Inspector, she has identified the young man, you said. Do you have any more questions for her now?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It’s my belief that Brennan must have told her something of his plans, and who he tried to kill.’

  ‘Did he?’ Sir Jonathan asked Catherine.

  ‘No. He wouldn’t be so foolish. Anyway, I don’t intend to answer any more questions. I was about to leave when you came in, Father. Unless I am under arrest, that is what I shall do.’ She looked at them, and then made a step towards the door.

  ‘Catherine!’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘The Assistant Commissioner was murdered the other night. Shot down in cold blood in the street. Would your Sean Brennan have had anything to do with that?’

  ‘I really couldn’t say, Father.’

  ‘Could you love a man who had done that? Shot an unarmed man in the street like a coward?’

  Her eyes filled with tears. She didn’t answer. After a pause she took another couple of steps towards the door. Her father grabbed her arm and turned her to face him.

  ‘Did he do it, girl? Did this Brennan kill Radford?’

  ‘No!’

  For a moment the two of them stared into each other’s eyes, defiantly. Sir Jonathan let go of her arm. She put her hand on the door handle, but Foster’s hand closed over hers.

  ‘Am I under arrest?’

  Kee shook his head. Foster took his hand away, and Catherine walked out into the corridor, alone.

  Davis had been busy. He had contacted the Royal Barracks in Benburb Street and arranged for a platoon of soldiers to be ready for a search operation under the direction of Detective Inspector Kee later that evening. They had asked him for the address but he had said that for security reasons the Detective Inspector would only tell them that when he arrived to take charge. The major on the other end of the line had been a little huffy, but Davis had been adamant. There were too many security leaks these days, he said. Procedure must be followed strictly.

  Then he had walked around the corner into the small newsagent’s shop in King Street. There was a phone in the back office which Davis was free to use any time. He dialled one of the numbers which Paddy Daly had given him. A woman’s voice answered.

  ‘Hello. Clancy’s Joiners and Decorators.’

  ‘Good afternoon. Is Mr Daly there, please?’

  ‘Just a moment. Who shall I say is calling?’

  ‘Mr Hanover. It’s about a new job I need a price for.’

  There was a pause. The line crackled. A man’s voice came on the line. ‘Paddy Daly here.’

  ‘Oh, hello, Patrick, this is George Hanover.’ They had settled on the name of the English king as a code word long ago, to show that the message was about a raid. Clancy’s office, at the other end of the line, had a notice outside saying that all kinds of household decorations were undertaken. Davis tried to make all his calls sound like those of a customer placing an order.

  ‘Yes, Mr Hanover, sir. What can we do for you?’

  ‘There’s a house in Phibsborough I’d like you to look at: 47 Berkeley Street.’ That was the address Sean had given Kee. Davis was worried that there were probably other Sinn Feiners living there who Kee would arrest when it was raided. Files, too, perhaps; arms. ‘Could you go there today and give me a quotation?’

  ‘Today is it? We’re a bit pushed. What sort of time?’

  ‘My friends will be visiting the place in the evening. If you could have checked it out before then I would be most grateful.’

  Daly caught the urgency in his voice. ‘Right sir, we’ll do that for you. Is it every room you want seeing to?’

  ‘Every room. And Paddy, there’s another thing. I’ve got a young friend of yours staying with me. He’s likely to be with us for a few days, I should think.’

  There was a sharp intake of breath at the other end. Then Daly said: ‘Who would that be, then?’

  There was no code for this sort of message. Davis said: ‘Brennan, Sean Brennan.’’

  ‘Holy Mary Mother of God.’ Davis imagined the distress at the other end. When he had recovered, Daly said: ‘Well, give the poor lad my blessing. We’ll try to arrange a visit as soon as we can. Would you be able to get round for a chat some time?’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ Davis said. ‘Can’t give you a time now, though. We’re very busy here.’

  ‘Sure you will be. Oh, one more thing, Mr Hanover.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Our friend that’s visiting you. Brennan. He doesn’t live in Berkeley Street, you know. It’s another place entirely. Tell him his place’ll be empty by this evening, too, will you?’

  David heaved a sigh of relief. The address Sean had given Kee was a false one, anyway.

  ‘I’ll do that, Patrick.’ He hung up, left a few coins by the phone, and walked back through the newsagent’s into the street. If he had time, he thought, he might be able to see Sean before Kee had finished interrogating the girl.

  Catherine stood with her father in the downstairs drawing room. Like the dining room, in which she had made her bargain with him all those months ago, it had once been used as a ward for wounded soldiers. Then it had been dirty, carpetless, defaced by the blood, graffiti and despair of those who had used it as a hospital. Now the carpets were thick and soft, the walls were repapered in crimson and cream, the portraits gazed down again with their ponderous gloo
m. There was a harp and a piano in the corner, and a bright fire blazed in the grate.

  Sir Jonathan stood with one hand on the mantelpiece and glared at her. He was still in uniform. The firelight gleamed on his polished leather belt and riding boots, and lit the little coloured flashes of medal ribbons. His back was straight and his face was hard with anger, but Catherine had the sense that underneath it all he was tired, tired to death as she was.

  She sat as far away from him as she could, on a music stool in the corner by the harp. She had deliberately not lit the lamp, so she was half in shadow.

  ‘You were my last child,’ Sir Jonathan was saying. ‘You have defied me enough times before but this time we made a bargain which I thought you would keep. I did not marry Sarah Maidment, I have made everything over to you in my will, and now I find that all this time you have been going behind my back, like a … street girl, it seems. Sleeping with a murderer.’

  ‘He’s not a murderer, Father, he’s a soldier. He fights for his country like you did. And Richard and John, too. They killed Germans, didn’t they? Wasn’t that murder as well?’

  That hurt. When she saw his pain she wished she had not said it. But she was in too much despair to think clearly.

  ‘If you think that, Catherine, you must be as mad as your mother was,’ he said quietly. ‘Your two brothers were fighting in uniform in the most terrible war the world has ever seen. They gave their lives for king and country. You cannot compare them for a moment with swine who skulk around in back streets in plain clothes, and dash out like cowards to shoot men in the back.’

  ‘Sean’s not a coward.’

  ‘Of course he is, they all are. Cowardly murderers who stab us all in the back, like Pearse and his rabble did in ‘16. No better than Whiteboys who cut off the tails of cattle. If he wasn’t a coward he’d have joined up to fight for his country.’

  ‘Father, this is his country. That’s what he’s fighting for - they all are.’

  ‘And you think Ireland will be a better place when it’s ruled by a bunch of murderers, do you? Is that what you think?’

  ‘I think it already is run by murderers.’

  She had thought that at that point he would end the conversation entirely, and perhaps throw her out into the street, to take her chance with such of Sean’s colleagues as she could find. She had thought of that possibility on the way home, and wondered if she should go to Parnell Square and throw herself on the mercy of whoever she could find. But she had her pride still. Only Sean, in the movement, had really accepted her. Once. Without him there seemed no point. There was a terrible loneliness in leaving the only home she had, with nowhere to go. So she had come back here, more out of inertia than anything else.

  She felt enormously tired now. The day had been too full of shocks: the discovery of what Sean had done, his rejection of her, his arrest, and now this. Despite it all she bore her father no ill will: he had even tried to protect her, in his way. It was just that he was so utterly, hopelessly wrong.

  To her surprise he flushed, as if embarrassed at the last point. ‘If he did kill someone he’ll be hanged, you know.’

  ‘That’s what I mean.’

  To his surprise she did not cry at the thought of Sean hanging. She swept her hands idly, irritatingly across the strings of the harp, then stilled the sound with her arm. She stared at him out of the shadows, still clasping the instrument, which he knew she had never learnt to play. Her arms, in the sleeveless turquoise dress, were bare, and the line of her neck and shoulders was quite slender and beautiful. Her small, delicate face, framed by the short dark hair, watched him so seriously; pale, intent, determined. He thought she would make a marvellous portrait, just like that, if any artist could capture it. A portrait of what, exactly? Of a new type of young woman that I can’t understand or control at all, it seems.

  How did I get a daughter like this? She had that look on her as a child of four or five, I remember. And she would scream and kick the house down if she didn’t get what she wanted then, too.

  But, by God, she can’t have what she wants this time.

  He said: ‘I take it the story the police told me was true.’

  ‘The details were true. They missed out the fact that it was all done in love. I don’t expect policemen can understand that.’

  ‘No one could understand a girl like you falling in love with a murderer.’

  ‘He’s not - Father, you don’t know he is a murderer.’

  Sir Jonathan said nothing. He moved away from the fire, and stood looking down at her. The firelight flickered on her smooth, defiant face. He felt an immeasurable sense of desolation.

  He said: ‘You know, though. Don’t you, Cathy?’

  She turned her eyes away.

  He walked to a cabinet in the corner and poured himself a whiskey. For a while neither of them spoke. Sir Jonathan was glad the room was dark. If his daughter was crying he didn’t want to see. He hoped she was. It would be some small sign of decency, of shared human values.

  But I have sinned, too, he thought. I must have done, to have all this inflicted on me. I betrayed her mother, and that was done for love. The boys understood that but this child never forgave me. Now she is all I have left. And she has betrayed me. Perhaps that is my punishment.

  I have a duty to try again.

  He said: ‘If he is a murderer, that policeman could lock you up as an accomplice. You realize that, don’t you?’

  ‘He’s got no evidence.’ Her voice was quite dull and flat.

  ‘Did you help him, Cathy? Did you help this man to kill a policeman?’

  She shook her head. ‘He wouldn’t have let me if I’d asked.’ Then she looked up at him suddenly. He was sitting on the arm of a chair quite close to her, gazing down into the whiskey glass. His shoulders sagged: he looked utterly forlorn. Catherine saw how he might look as an old man. She put her hand on his shoulder.

  ‘No, Father, I didn’t help him kill anyone.’

  She took her hand away, stood up, and walked across the room. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed. I can’t talk about this any more today. I’ll go mad.’

  Like your mother, he thought, as she went out of the door. I’ll go mad - that’s what Maeve said, and she did it, too.

  He poured himself another whiskey, and sat staring gloomily into the fire. At least my daughter is not a murderess, he told himself; I’m sure she was telling the truth then. Is that what life has come to - to be glad I can believe a thing like that?

  25. A Soldier of the Irish Republic

  SEAN SAT on his bed in his cell, and confronted his fears. There were a number of them. He was afraid that he might be beaten and tortured; he was afraid that he might betray his friends; he was afraid that he might be shut in here for life; he was afraid the police would find out about the murder of Radford; he was afraid that he would be hanged.

  He sat on the narrow, hard bed and forced his brain to examine these one by one. He had heard many stories of beatings and torture; all the Volunteers had. Men had had their arms twisted, fingernails crushed with pincers, fingers bent and broken, pistols held to their heads; in the hunger strikes in Belfast prisoners had been hosed down and had their hands fastened behind their backs for weeks, so that they were unable to undo their trousers to use their chamberpots.

  So far little of this had happened to Sean. He had been punched and beaten on the first day, but since then the Ulster detective had behaved with reasonable correctness. He had shouted at him certainly, and repeated the same questions again and again with wearisome regularity, but no more. So long as this man was in charge, then, it seemed likely there would be nothing worse.

  And without torture he would not betray his friends or admit to the shooting of Radford. There was no need for it. He had found the right formula. ‘I am a soldier of the Irish Republic; I refuse to answer that question.’ He had said that for two days. He believed he could keep on saying it for ever.

  So there remained the fear
s of being shut in, and of being hanged.

  Others have been imprisoned for Ireland before me, Sean thought - all the greatest men of our nation. Parnell, though in a better cell than this; Wolfe Tone, Napper Tandy, Robert Emmet, O’Donovan Rossa, Padraig Pearse, Thomas Clarke, Sean MacBride … the list went on and on. The heroes of 1916 had died in Kilmainham, but others had suffered in Mountjoy. Sean felt proud to be in such illustrious company; already he had found several names carved on the cell wall, and begun to add his own. But it was the living death, year after year in a stone tomb, with the walls closing around him, that he feared. Still, others had survived it: Thomas Clarke had been in gaol for fifteen years, breaking stone, sometimes forced to lap his food from the floor with his hands behind his back - but he had come out, to marry, run his newsagent’s in Amiens Street, and be the first signatory of the Declaration of the Republic in 1916.

  And then be court-martialled and shot.

  If he could face it, Sean thought, so can I. It is an honour and a duty, the other side of what I have prepared for. Outside, I had to be ready to face death and kill for the Republic; in here, I must suffer. Become a martyr if necessary. ‘From the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations,’ Pearse said. The side that can suffer longest will win in the end.

  The key to survival was to accept your fate, not fight it. It would be easier without choices and hope. He could choose, he realized, to hang or to be imprisoned. If he admitted nothing they were unlikely to hang him, because they had no evidence. But if he wanted to die, all he had to do was tell them that he had killed Radford. When the heavy cell door closed on him, and he thought of all the years he might spend here, he was tempted.

  But then there were the hopes. In a few short years the British might be thrown out of Ireland, and then he would be freed, a national hero. That was a fine hope, for it involved no action on his part. The other hope was more practical. It was the possibility that one of the detectives might arrange an escape.

  The man - Davis, he was called - had come to see him on the first evening, when Sean was still in the police cells. He had come in hurriedly, and gabbled his message in a low murmur.