To Kingdom Come bal-2

by Will Thomas

  “Aye, but the dynamite we’re using is rubbish,” Garrity said. “It failed to go off at the Ship Street Barracks in Dublin last month. We made two earlier attempts that failed in London, and a bomb we left in Trafalgar Square the same night was a failure as well.”

  “What kind of explosives are you using?”

  “Atlas. American made,” Dunleavy answered.

  “I am familiar with the brand. It is industrial grade. Where did you get it?”

  “It was donated by an American Irishman from Cincinnati and shipped here on a freighter, hidden in a shipment of raw tobacco.”

  “There is your problem, gentlemen. Chances are it had been sitting in a warehouse for years until the fellow needed to get rid of it. He knew you were desperate and convinced himself he was doing his bit for Irish freedom in the Old Country. Then it had to endure an ocean voyage with all that salt air. I would wager that the cakes are sweaty and that there is a waxy residue in the bottom of the case.”

  “Yes, there is,” Garrity admitted.

  “Then it is a marvel you haven’t blown yourselves up. What you have is highly unstable. The nitroglycerin has separated partially from the kieselguhr base. It can explode at any minute, or the liquid can leak onto the wires around the primer, rendering the entire bomb inert. I strongly advise that you dispose of whatever you have left. A bomb is a tool and it should be reliable, like any other. It must go off when you want it to, or you have no control over it.”

  “Up until now,” O’Casey admitted, “it’s been ‘throw it all together and hope it works.’ No offense intended, Niall.”

  “None taken. We could really use your expertise, Mr. van Rhyn. You could help us strike a strong blow for the Irish cause and make us all heroes. What do you say?”

  “I say you are already heroes, Herr Garrity. Five years ago, I aided a group in Montenegro who were fighting Turkish tyranny. Now they live in a free country, thanks to young men just like yours. Provided we agree upon the terms, I will gladly help.”

  Dunleavy poured another glassful, his fourth, and studied us shrewdly. “We are not wealthy, Mr. van Rhyn. We are dependent upon the aid of various Irish organizations in America. What sort of terms are you proposing?”

  “It is not money I have need of, Colonel. I desire to have a permanent laboratory, without the fear that my door shall be kicked in during the night by the secret police. I have been incarcerated six times in the last four years, and I have had enough. My eyes are slowly failing me, and I am getting too old to jump from one country to another. I want a home and a place to continue my work. My work, gentlemen! A man is nothing without his work.”

  Dunleavy drained his glass again and set it down. “As a military man and a politician, sir, I’ve had to make several promises I was not sure I could keep, but what you ask is not too much. Aid us in our campaign against the Queen, and you shall have your laboratory.”

  Barker slowly put forth his hand. “A gentlemen’s agreement, then?” he asked. The colonel took his hand and shook it solemnly. I looked over. O’Casey and Garrity had broken into grins.

  “Gut,” Barker said, filling his glass with more schnapps. “I was intent upon leaving the country, but you make me take heart again. I believe I shall stay. It would be a shame to leave now when things are just beginning to get interesting. And as a German, I am, of course, concerned about English arrogance, especially regarding the seas. It is necessary that the Germans, the Irish, and the Americans show England that they shall not be cowed by its imperialist expansion. Who better than the Germans to be your allies, gentlemen?”

  I thought he was laying it on a bit thick, but it was obvious these Irish radicals were impressed by his speech. They would ally themselves to Satan if it meant they could have their own country. It occurred to me, then, to wonder what would happen if they succeeded. A country just thirty miles away led by bombers and anarchists would not, in my opinion, be a stable ally; and should they truly form an alliance with Germany, where already there were rumblings of discontent, it would form an imminent threat to English security. That is to say, to my security. If we didn’t stop these people, I could find myself with a rifle in hand on some foreign battlefield or, worse than that, in our own country. It would be 1066 all over again.

  “Mr. van Rhyn,” Dunleavy said, “we have done a desperate thing. We have planned a second attempt upon London within the month, using the very dynamite you have urged us to destroy. We are committed to this venture and shall go forth with our campaign, but if this dynamite is as dangerous or worthless as you say it is, we must find another source. Nowhere in these godforsaken isles will they allow an Irishman or an American to purchase dynamite, blasting caps, chemicals, or even so much as base materials. The Special Irish Branch and Scotland Yard are watching, hoping to catch us in the attempt. This dynamite is all we have in the way of munitions.”

  “You have adequately described some of the obstacles in our path,” Barker stated, “but allow me to ease your mind upon a few points. First of all, Mr. Penrith and I are very obviously not Irish and would be able to purchase materials forbidden to you. My name, as well, might open some doors, though it might close others. Rather than attempt to purchase the ready-made dynamite or nitroglycerin, the two of us will be able to make them ourselves. We would then be able to fashion our own bombs. I would suggest we purchase the equipment elsewhere, such as Amsterdam or Paris, where the officials are not so vigilant.”

  “They’re vigilant enough,” Garrity complained. “I’ve been trying to buy materials for weeks.”

  “You just leave that matter to Mr. Penrith and me, Mr. Garrity. I believe we can work around it. Within thirty days, we’ll have these Londoners dancing a jig again.”

  “Arrogant English aristocrats,” Dunleavy slurred. The drink had finally gone to his head and loosened his tongue. “Let’s see how they feel when half their monuments are in rubble. Let’s see how they feel when we blow their Queen’s head off her shoulders!”

  “He’s had too much,” O’Casey apologized, and he and Garrity helped lift Dunleavy out of his chair. “If I may, I’d like to call on you gentlemen in the morning.”

  We shook hands quickly, and they maneuvered the American out into the hall. I could still hear him as they escorted him down the corridor.

  “We won’t stop till the town’s in ruins. Dublin will be liberated from English oppression. And who shall be its new leader? Alfred Dunleavy, that’s who! What do you think about that, Mr. Gladstone?”

  12

  They let us alone the next morning, and we went into the dining room for a good breakfast. I thought it possible the colonel was sleeping off the effects of the whiskey he had consumed. It felt strange not attending a service on the Sabbath, but Barker explained that he could not risk having van Rhyn, that old anarchist, seen in a Baptist church. We read the newspapers until eleven thirty, when there was a sharp rap upon our door. It was Eamon O’Casey with a gnarled wooden stick in one hand and a gladstone bag in the other.

  “Fine morning, gentlemen. The sun is out,” he announced.

  “It is,” Barker agreed, finishing his tea. “How is the colonel?”

  “He is just getting up, but he requested to speak with you in the smoking lounge at twelve. He has asked me to express his apologies for being a bit concerned in his liquor last night. The month has been a rather strenuous one for him.”

  Barker nodded. “And where is Mr. Garrity this morning?”

  “He should be halfway to Dublin by now. He’s not an actual member of our faction but an officer of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and he acts as an advisor to the various factions, as well as constructing explosives for us.”

  “Ah. And what is in the bag?” Barker asked. “Surely you are not carrying the dynamite around with you openly, I trust.”

  “Faith, no.” O’Casey chuckled. “It’s just my uniform. Most of us faction lads are in a hurling club, and though it’s off season, we keep in shape by playing unofficial
games. We begin one in about an hour.”

  “What is hurling?” I asked.

  “Hurling? What’s hurling? Why, it’s the greatest game, the only game. A fellow’s only half a man if he hasn’t tried hurling; and if he has tried it, it’s in his blood, and there’s no going back. Why don’t you come with me and meet the boys, Mr. Penrith, while the older gentlemen strategize? It’ll give you a chance to see something of Liverpool, such as it is.”

  “Well, I don’t know …” I said, looking at my employer.

  “Go ahead, Penrith,” Barker said to me, and made a little gesture with his fingers that I interpreted to mean I was to stay alert and be his eyes and ears. “You’ve been restless all morning. You young pups go and play your games.”

  “Very well, sir, if you are certain you don’t need me.”

  Outside, O’Casey rested his stick comfortably against his shoulder as he took the stairs down to the lobby two at a time.

  “How was the ale last night?” he asked.

  “It was fine. I noticed you didn’t drink. That’s unusual for an Irishman, isn’t it?”

  “I’m in training,” he explained. “I’m captain of the local hurling team. I’ve never been a drinker, though. I’ve seen too many good Irishmen ruined by it.”

  “What did you read at university?” I asked.

  “Politics and economics. If I can see how other governments have dictated policy, perhaps I can help my own country. My father died in his pursuit of Ireland’s freedom. He was a great believer in Malthusian reasoning, that war, famine, and disaster are inevitable, since population increases geometrically while crop production increases arithmetically. It was the whole reason for the Irish famine in the first place. He was evicted from his own land and forced to go to Dublin for work. It is now my duty to carry on his dream to free Ireland. He was a barrister, who often took on cases against Her Majesty’s government, cases he felt were unjust to the Irish people. Eventually he was arrested on a vague charge of sedition. They put him in solitary for months. He starved himself to death in Kilmainham Gaol, in protest against the tyranny of the English government.”

  “How did you fend for yourself after your father’s death?”

  “My sister and I were befriended by an Irish patriot who stepped in and acted as a mentor to us. He helped pay for my schooling and took us under his wing. He helped set us on our feet here. But that’s enough about me, Mr. Penrith.”

  “Tell me more about this hurling.”

  “It is thousands of years old and was invented as a way to keep the Celtic warriors in shape between battles. There is a large field with goals, like for football, and two teams of fifteen players. Each of us has a stick called a hurley, and the purpose is to get the ball, or sliotar, into the opposing team’s goal for three points, or over it for one point. You can hit the ball to your own team members or balance the sliotar on the edge of the hurley, which takes a little practice.”

  “So, who’s the wee curly man?”

  We’d been progressing down Renshaw Street, when suddenly, there was a man at my elbow, walking as casually as if he’d been there all the while. He was a big fellow, too, with brawny shoulders and a red, meaty face under his cloth cap. I would put him in his late twenties. He had a stick over his shoulder almost identical to O’Casey’s, and the handle of his bag was looped around the end. For his size, he moved so silently, he’d been upon us before I saw him, despite all the training I’d received. Either this man was good, or I was not paying enough attention.

  “Fergus, this is Mr. Thomas Penrith, Mr. van Rhyn’s assistant, whom I was telling you about. Mr. Penrith, this is Mr. Fergus McKeller, the best right forward you’ve ever seen.”

  “Pleased to may-tcha,” McKeller said.

  “I was just explaining the rules of hurling to him,” O’Casey said.

  “That’s a good thing, then. It sounds like there’s been a serious breach in your education, Mr. Penrith. It all comes of having the terrible misfortune of not being born Irish.”

  “We’ll soon set your woeful ignorance to rights,” O’Casey agreed. “You can watch us play the English today, and if you’re interested, I’ll teach you the game.”

  We crossed Upper Parliament Street, and entered Prince’s Park. Traversing it, we came to a pitch marked out in chalk, with goals set up, and a clubhouse for the players to change.

  “Eamon,” McKeller snorted. “Will you look who’s here?”

  My eyes followed his to a tall, thin fellow wearing a black suit with a large red tie. He had a wave of black hair that flopped down over his pince-nez. He caught sight of us and waved.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” O’Casey muttered under his breath, but went over to shake the fellow’s hand.

  “That’s Willie Yeats,” McKeller explained. “He’s a Dublin boy who’s sweet on Eamon’s sister. Comes over on the ferry as often as he can afford. Tries to ingratiate himself with us.”

  “He’s not a part of the faction, then,” I stated.

  “He is, and yet he isn’t. He’s delivered a message now and then for Colonel Dunleavy and attended a meeting or two. He knows about us, but he’s not the type you’d trust to set a bomb, if you know what I mean. Studyin’ to be an artist, and doesn’t know one end of a hurley from the other.”

  I didn’t know this myself either, but I wasn’t going to bring that up. I went forward and met the young Irishman, while O’Casey and his friend went to change.

  “I have a message for you from Colonel Dunleavy,” he said to me. “Your things are being moved out of your rooms at the Midland and taken over to the O’Casey house.”

  “I wasn’t told of the arrangement before.”

  Yeats shrugged his thin, loose-limbed shoulders, and I realized that was all the information I was going to get.

  “Do you play?” I asked, pointing at the field, where the hurlers had begun to warm up and hit the ball about.

  “My good Mr. Penrith, I am quite useless at the game, and my hands are too important to me to risk being battered with a stick.”

  “Ah, yes. McKeller said you are an artist.”

  Yeats smiled, as if at a private joke. “Not much of one, I’m afraid. It is my father who is the artist. Actually, I prefer to think of myself as a poet.”

  “Ah, I love poetry,” I said. “‘The poet’s pen turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name.’”

  “You’ve read Shakespeare?” he asked, a surprised look on his face. It was an odd face, handsome at some angles, not so at others.

  “Yes, I studied him in school. And not long ago, I read a book about your Celtic legends.”

  Now he looked interested. “Was it Ancient Irish Myths and Legends?”

  “Yes, I believe that was the title.”

  “How fortunate to find a copy! There’s not much written on the subject so far. It’s mostly oral traditions. To tell you the truth, I’ve been collecting the old Irish fairy tales myself for months. I’d like to publish a collection of my own some day. Which was your favorite?”

  “I think the one about the Giant’s Causeway. That was Finn MacCool, was it not? Does the Causeway really exist?”

  “It does, though I have yet to see it myself. You can find a postal card of it in any shop in Dublin.”

  “I should like to see it sometime,” I said. I wanted to question him more thoroughly about his poetry and the old legends of Ireland, but just then the players were beginning the match.

  Hurling, as it turned out, was a rather simple game for anyone who had ever played football or hockey. The object was to get a ball into a goal at the far end of the pitch. There was a goalkeeper, several defensive players in back, mid-fielders, and forward offensive players attempting to score. Points were awarded for putting the ball over the crossbar or into the goal.

  That is the game in theory. In practice, it is two groups of men beating one another with sticks. They smote shins, pounded each other on the backs, and barely miss
ed cracking skulls, all in an attempt to get at the ball. It seemed as if a brawl was attempted, and, somehow, a game broke out. I could all too easily see how it had begun as a way to keep warriors in condition.

  The game continued for over an hour. The members of O’Casey’s front line, including O’Casey himself, were formidable, and many was the time the ball shot over the goal. The middle line was good as well, smartly turning the ball back to the forwards. The team’s weakest link was its goalkeeper. The fellow was terribly outclassed, the ball flying by his right ear, his left, between his hands, and behind his back. Every point made by O’Casey’s team was matched by another as the sphere flew unerringly into the goal. It was only by O’Casey’s ferocious efforts in the final minutes of the game, that the Irish team emerged triumphant by a mere three points. Another few minutes might have tied the game again.

  It being Sunday, the pubs were closed, but we were taken to a friend’s home after the scrimmage. The drinks were provided by the other team, who seemed not to bear any ill will for the various contusions, scratches, and missing teeth engendered by the competition. Their blue jerseys stood intermingled with the faction’s green. Everyone drank far too much stout, save O’Casey, who drank only water, and Yeats and I, who nursed a lone pint each for most of the evening. Yeats pestered O’Casey until he agreed to let him come home with us.

  Finally, we arrived at the O’Casey residence-Eamon, McKeller, Yeats, myself, and two mid-fielders who were twins by the name of Bannon. It was a tall, thin, four-story house, like many in Liverpool. O’Casey invited the others in, and after the hurling equipment had been deposited in a heap, we entered the parlor. The first thing I noticed as I stepped into the room was Cyrus Barker, sitting across from Dunleavy, with several pieces of paper and cups of tea between them. A conference had been going on. The second thing I noticed was the young woman pouring tea. Now I could see why Willie Yeats had been so eager to come back with us.