One Man's Flag

by David Downing

  On March 24, Caitlin was back in Dublin, talking to Maeve’s friend Helena Molony on the first-floor landing of Liberty Hall and trying to enlist her help in arranging a quiet chat with James Connolly. Molony, an attractive no-nonsense woman in her mid-thirties, had once been Connolly’s secretary and now held that post in the Irish Women Workers’ Union.

  Their conversation was interrupted by the raising of voices below.

  “Excuse me a moment,” Molony said over her shoulder, hurrying off down the stairs.

  Keeping pace behind her, Caitlin saw two young men by the front door gesturing toward the basement stairs. “G-men,” they whispered. “Four of the buggers.”

  Molony hardly missed a stride and, much to Caitlin’s astonishment, pulled a gun from her pocket as she started down the next set of stairs.

  Caitlin went after her. At the bottom Molony stopped for a second, then marched along the corridor that led to the room with the presses. She strode straight in, raising her gun as she entered to point it at the intruders.

  One man had already gathered up an armful of papers.

  “You can’t take those,” Molony told him, waving the gun to and fro along the line of potential targets.

  Two of the men wore nervous smiles; the other pair just gaped. Presumably all four were armed, and Caitlin found it hard to imagine them letting a woman—even one pointing a gun—hold them there for long. For a few tense seconds, no one moved or spoke.

  Then Connolly walked in, brandishing his Colt .45. “Drop those,” he told the man with the armful of papers.

  The pile hit the floor with a thud. Copies of The Gael, Caitlin noticed.

  The two sides stared at each other, rather like children disputing ownership of a playground.

  “You can hurry along now,” Connolly said at last. “But don’t come back here for any newspapers, no matter who sends you. Or next time we’ll carry you out.” Stepping aside from the door, he showed them the way with an open palm.

  Four sullen faces filed out, eight feet clomped up the steps. Once the G-men were out of the building, Connolly and Molony shared looks of astonishment, then burst out laughing. “We’d better get the boys in,” Connolly said eventually. “The Castle might feel the need to respond.”

  The next few hours were frenetic, as young men from all over Dublin answered the summons, leaving their work and grabbing rifles to stand in defense of the hall and its leaders. There were few signs of nervousness, Caitlin noticed; on the contrary, the mood seemed euphoric, as if everyone were happy that a gauntlet had been thrown down. As the evening progressed and it became abundantly clear that the British were taking no action, the republicans’ confidence grew and the thought that a rising might even succeed didn’t seem quite so outrageous.

  Caitlin finally managed to interview Connolly in his office on the following morning. He still seemed energized by the events of the previous day and would occasionally leap from his seat to check on the square outside, where his men were busy drilling. “I think they’ve decided that arresting Helena and me would do them more harm than good,” he said, as much to himself as to Caitlin. “But who knows?” he murmured. “Our rulers are stupid one moment, cunning the next. So how can I help you?” he asked at last. “Helena says you have a proposition.”

  “I have a request,” she said. “But before I tell you what it is, I need to tell you who I am. Not to put too fine a point on it, I need to tell you whose side I’m on.”

  “You’re a journalist,” he said, a statement, not a question.

  “Yes. And I need to stress that this discussion is off the record.”

  “All right.”

  “I believe in Irish independence,” she began. “My brother died for it, as you know. I would never betray you or help the English. But if Irish independence were all I wanted, I might just as well talk to Eoin MacNeill, or any of the other Volunteer leaders. It isn’t. I’m also a socialist and a feminist, and I believe that the Citizen Army embodies these ideals. And last but not least, I am a journalist. A good one, I think, though others would be the best judge of that.”

  “No doubt,” Connolly agreed.

  “And it’s as a journalist that I can best serve my brother’s memory,” she went on.

  “Yes?” Connolly looked a little bemused, as if uncertain where all this was leading.

  She took a deep breath. “I believe—I know—that an insurrection is planned, in which the Citizen Army and the Volunteers will fight together. What I don’t know is when. I want to be here when it happens, but I can’t just wait here in Dublin—my newspaper needs me in London—”

  “Where did you come by this information?” Connolly asked coldly.

  “I was asked by the Volunteers—by a man named Mulryan, to be precise—to help feed false information to an Englishman I know. They wanted the English to believe that no rising was planned, and I managed to convince the man that this was the case.”

  “Ah. I was told about this. Not the details, mind,” he added, though Caitlin could see from his face that he knew the whole story.

  “I have proved my loyalty,” she said, pressing the point. “And you will not find a more sympathetic witness.”

  He mulled that over for a few seconds. “Assuming you are right and a rising is on the cards, you surely don’t expect me to give you a date?”

  “No, of course not. What I want is time to get here—a day’s warning, that’s all.”

  He shook his head.

  “Mr. Connolly, you are an intelligent man, and you used to be a soldier. I doubt you think you can win. So the only point of your insurrection will be to show the world that the Irish still want their independence and will give their lives to gain it. But what if the lives are given and the world never learns what really happened, because the English have kept out all the reporters who might have told the truth? You need someone like me, who writes for a big paper and whom you can trust to tell the true story. And I need to be here the moment it starts.”

  He shook his head again, but this time with a smile. “You make a good case,” he admitted. “But why not just stay on in Dublin? Then you could be certain you wouldn’t miss a thing.”

  It was the first thing he’d said that disappointed her. Only a man would think she had nothing but time on her hands. “I’m a European correspondent,” she told him, barely controlling her anger. “I can’t just sit here in Dublin for weeks on end.”

  He gave her a thoughtful look. “You’re asking me to take a huge leap of faith,” he said.

  “I’m asking you to take a very small risk for a very big gain. Here I am, an Irish martyr’s sister, who’s in a position to help you make your point to the world. And all I need from you is one day’s notice.”

  He inclined his head. “I’ll think about it. How can you be reached if I decide to do as you wish?”

  She was ready for that. “This is my address,” she said, passing it across, “and a phrase you could use to alert me.”

  “Kathleen Brennan has returned from America,’’ he read, “and is willing to be interviewed next time you’re in Dublin. Maeve.’’ He grinned. “That sounds innocent enough.”

  The six piles of hay were ready for lighting, along with sundry containers of water for dousing the subsequent blazes. A man with matches stood waiting by each pile, McColl and Mathilde at the northern edge of the wide clearing, scanning the western sky for the prearranged signal.

  It was a minute past midnight when they saw it—a couple of starlike flares floating down from heaven above the next town up the valley. The plane would be here in three or four minutes.

  Mathilde waited two, then shouted out that the fires should be lit. In quick succession the mounds of hay caught fire, and as the last one ignited, McColl heard the drone of the engine.

  It was almost on them before they saw it, a falling shadow against the st
arry sky, throttling down as it crossed the bushes that bordered the northern end of the field. A little too high, was McColl’s instant judgment, and the pilot seemed reluctant to land, hanging for what felt like an age about thirty feet above the grass, dipping, then rising again before touching down only twenty yards from the line of trees. In McColl’s estimation the plane was still going fifty miles an hour when it plowed between two oaks, catching a wing on each.

  McColl expected an explosion, but none came. He started running toward the plane, the field around him darkening in stages as each new fire was extinguished.

  The boxes of explosives were still tightly wedged in the empty observer’s seat. The pilot looked equally undamaged, save for a head that hung much too limply. He had no pulse; the force of the impact had broken his neck.

  The Belgians were already lifting out the explosives. “Let’s go,” Mathilde urged McColl. “There’s nothing you can do for him.”

  She was right. McColl leaned over and closed the young man’s eyes, then stepped back down to the ground. The tail of the plane was barely protruding into the field—there was a good chance it wouldn’t be spotted from the air, and if the Germans hadn’t seen the craft descend, they were unlikely to stumble across it. He wouldn’t be going home, but those charged with blowing up the bridges might still have surprise on their side.

  Safety Pins

  Two nights after the fatal landing, McColl was crouched inside a stand of trees looking down at the lines that followed the river. The Meuse rolled slowly westward a hundred yards beyond the tracks; the girder bridge that carried them over the tributary was slightly to his right. About half a mile to his left, only one light was showing in the village that lay between railway and river. This was the house where the German guards were billeted. The current man on duty was leaning against the bridge’s parapet and looked like he might be dying of boredom.

  It was a warm night, with only the faintest of breezes to stir the branches above. A waning moon played hide-and-seek behind slow-moving clouds.

  “It’s time,” the man beside McColl decided. Emile Mertens was well over six feet tall, with a bulk to match his height, a fairly extravagant mustache, and surprisingly cold blue eyes. His job was to deal with the sentry, McColl’s to plant the charges.

  When Mathilde had turned up that morning, he’d expected her to say that she’d found a passeur to take him across the border. What she’d actually told him was that one of her three explosives experts had backed out of that night’s operation. “His wife’s both ill and hysterical,” she said. “Can you take his place?”

  He hadn’t considered refusing.

  As Mertens got to his feet, McColl’s ears picked out a noise in the distance. A train was approaching from the west.

  Mertens heard it, too, and hunkered back down with an irritated sigh.

  Not much more than a minute went by before it steamed past on the line below—the trains that were heading down the valley, McColl had long since realized, made much less noise than those that were climbing. As this one rumbled past he caught himself noting its composition. Old habits.

  The taillight swayed past the cluster of houses and disappeared around the next bend. The sentry on the bridge stared after it, as if he wished that he were homeward bound.

  They started down the slope, McColl carrying the bag of explosives, Mertens a rifle and a fearsome-looking knife. Keeping close to the trees that curved down to the bank of the tributary, they reached a position some twenty yards from the tracks. The German sentry had his back to them, having resumed his contemplative stance by the parapet.

  Mertens handed McColl the rifle and began walking toward the unsuspecting German. McColl put the stick against his shoulder and took aim, just in case the sentry turned round. There was a fair chance that the sound of the shot wouldn’t reach the soldier’s billet, but if it did, they would just have to make a run for it. These days McColl’s leg felt almost as good as new, and the woods above were big enough to hide in.

  Mertens was light on his feet for a big man, but Nijinsky would have had a hard job traversing two ballasted tracks without making a sound. A final dash was the Belgian’s only hope, but the sentry had just enough time to evade the plunging knife, and both men crashed to the ground in a welter of arms and legs. Staring down the sights of the rifle, McColl knew that he couldn’t risk shooting and hitting his partner.

  He dropped the rifle and rushed to the Belgian’s aid, thinking to use his Webley on the bareheaded German. There was no need. As he reached the two men, Mertens was staggering to his feet, the sentry covered in blood and clearly breathing his last. Before McColl could do or say anything, the Belgian had lifted his victim onto the balustrade and tipped him over. There was a loud splash and the briefest glimpse of a white face before the body tumbled off downstream.

  Mertens picked up the German’s helmet and forced it onto his own much larger head. McColl collected his bag and set to work. He had done a training course in fixing explosives before his assignment to India, and one of the Belgians had given him a refresher course the previous night. At the Belgian’s suggestion, the slabs of gun cotton had been fixed to short lengths of wood, through which holes had been drilled for the detonators. Under the bridge McColl now set about tying these to the girders and connecting them via fuses to the track above. It had already been decided that the flat detonators would be clipped to the rails of the westbound tracks, as only trains in that direction were likely to carry ammunition.

  As he worked, it occurred to McColl that Colm Hanley had been shot for trying to blow up a bridge, on what he at least believed was enemy territory. Could Caitlin ever forgive him for what had happened to her brother? During that week in Dublin, it felt as though she had, but he might be kidding himself about that. So might she.

  The slabs were lashed to the girders, the fuses threaded through to the side of the rails. As he clambered back up the slope, he saw Mertens peering down the tracks with what seemed rapt attention. Following the Belgian’s gaze, he saw the reason. What looked like an electric flashlight was flickering to and fro. The dead sentry’s relief was on his way.

  “Are you done?” Mertens asked.

  “A few more minutes,” McColl said, lowering himself onto the sleepers.

  “Shit!” the Belgian muttered. “They’ll be here in two.”

  McColl tried to concentrate on the job at hand. For several seconds all his fingers felt like thumbs, and he had to force himself to take things more slowly.

  The flashlight was still some distance away—Mertens’s estimate had been pessimistic. McColl was taking comfort from this when the signal beyond the bridge clanked itself to go. A train would soon be with them.

  One fuse was done, the sentry’s relief still two hundred yards away. But now McColl could see that there were two of them. And if they weren’t dealt with, they would notice the detonators and stop the train.

  The second fuse fixed, McColl glanced up and down the line. In one direction the two German soldiers, now some eighty yards away, in the other a distant plume of moonlit steam announcing the oncoming train.

  “A beautiful night!” the German without the flashlight cried out, spreading his arms to encompass it.

  Mertens didn’t answer, and McColl stayed prone on the ground, not wanting to give the game away.

  “Are you growing deaf, Erich?” the same German shouted. He was obviously in a good humor.

  This time Mertens replied, raising the captured rifle and pulling the trigger. Whichever man he was aiming at, it was the one with the flashlight he hit, throwing him backward across the rails.

  His companion responded instantly, sinking to one knee, raising his own weapon, and firing at Mertens.

  The Belgian collapsed with a grunt, his rifle clattering onto the ballast.

  By this time McColl was running toward him, Webley in hand. As the barrel of the surv
iving German’s rifle swiveled in his direction, he threw himself forward, and the subsequent shot went over his head. Steadying himself, he took aim at the helmeted shape ahead and pulled the automatic’s trigger.

  The German fell back without a sound.

  “I’m finished,” Mertens was telling himself and the sky.

  McColl scrambled across the few yards that separated them, aware of the train growing louder behind him. Mertens had been right about his prospects—McColl had never heard a death rattle, but the sounds coming out of the Belgian’s throat were the ones he had always imagined.

  The approaching train couldn’t be more than a minute away. Where Mertens was lying, he would be hidden by the bridge abutment, but one of the sentries was in the middle of the tracks. McColl sprinted the thirty yards, hoisted him clear, and rolled first him, then his partner, down the slight embankment.

  Turning, he saw the engine round the bend beyond the bridge, less than half a mile away.

  He was tempted to just head up the slope toward the forest, but that would leave him on the same side of the tributary as the other Germans.

  He ran back toward the bridge, toward the oncoming train, praying the driver wouldn’t see him in the darkness. Across the sleepers he sped, conscious that one missed step could plunge him through the girders and into the river, where the train would probably land on his head. The bridge seemed three times longer than he’d thought, but at last he was clear of it and starting up the slope toward the trees as the locomotive pounded past.

  He saw the explosions reflected in the trees and couldn’t resist turning to see the consequences. As the bridge collapsed beneath the locomotive, both slid down toward the opposite bank, and the wagons behind crashed and thundered into the gap, piling into one another like a line of huge iron dominoes, until one exploded with staggering force, throwing McColl to the ground and turning night into garish day.