She realized she was being swept along by the moment, but in that moment she didn’t care. Pearse’s naming of Irishwomen alongside Irishmen was a wonderful bonus, proof that she’d been right to trust the republican leadership in matters of gender. Things would not change overnight, but what a start this was.
Pearse was still speaking, promising fair treatment for all on the island and votes for men and women alike. He insisted that the rebels would defend their new republic with honor and make whatever sacrifice was necessary for the common good. Young men were already passing out printed copies of the declaration, and once he had finished reading, Pearse turned and walked back inside.
Connolly was more reluctant to leave, and Caitlin took a chance on approaching him as he stood there surveying the street. A rebel quickly moved to head her off, but seeing who she was, Connolly told him to let her through. “A great day,” he said. “I’m glad you could make it.”
“So am I,” she replied. An idea suddenly came to her, both sensible and cheeky. “Mr. Connolly, wherever I’ve worked as a journalist, I’ve needed accreditation from the local authorities. Now that Ireland has a new government, perhaps you could give me something in writing. It would make it easier for me to get around.”
Connolly laughed. “Why not? Come with me—I’ll do it now.”
Inside the post office, it sounded like a construction site as the rebels readied the building for defense. Following Connolly up the stairs, Caitlin found herself hoping that they weren’t just going to sit behind barricaded windows and wait for the English. Surely there was no future in that?
Connolly had already set himself up in the manager’s office. Seating himself at the desk, he reached for pen and paper. “I can’t say I have much experience in this sort of thing,” he said. “Perhaps you’d care to dictate?”
After she’d done so, he passed across the finished article, having signed it “James Connolly, on behalf of the Provisional Government.” One day she’d have it framed, Caitlin thought. “Can I ask what happens next?” she said, placing it in her bag. “I assume you’ve taken other positions.”
He reeled them off. The four Volunteer battalions had HQs at the Four Courts, Jacob’s Biscuit Factory, Boland’s Bakery, and the South Dublin Union; the Citizen Army had been sent to Dublin Castle and St. Stephen’s Green. “I can’t tell you what happens next until I hear how everything’s gone.” He gave her an impish smile. “For all I know, the English have already surrendered.”
“Well, armed with this”—she raised the letter—“I shall go and see.”
There was still a host of onlookers outside, and as she emerged, Caitlin was briefly the focus of their attention. They were like theatergoers at intermission, she thought, waiting impatiently for another act to begin.
Walking south toward the river, she found herself back in the usual Dublin, albeit one whose policemen were all on leave. There were no surging crowds, no scurrying troops, no rattle of gunfire or plumes of smoke.
After crossing the Liffey on the Ha’penny Bridge, she worked her way toward Dublin Castle, the seat of British rule. The crenellated battlements were looming above the roofs ahead when she turned a corner and found herself facing a British army barricade.
“You’ll have to go back, miss,” a sergeant told her.
“Why’s that?” she asked indignantly.
“Because there’s rebels on the roof of City Hall,” he told her. “And they’re shooting at anything that moves.”
“Have they taken your Castle?” she asked innocently.
“No,” he told her. “They just shot the poor bugger on the gate and bolted into City Hall.”
Connolly would be disappointed. She didn’t place any credence in the soldier’s description of how it had happened, but she instinctively knew he was telling the truth about the rebel failure to take the Castle. Looking up, she could still see the wretched Union Jack fluttering against the sky.
Her next three ports of call offered more in the way of encouragement. She saw no sign of British troops on the mile walk to Boland’s Bakery, and the men who had occupied it, though seemingly few in number, were all in high spirits. Their leader, Éamon de Valera, pointed down the road that ran southwest to Dún Laoghaire. “If they come, they’ll come that way,” he told her. “And all my best marksmen are in these buildings,” he added, indicating several with excellent lines of fire.
At St. Stephen’s Green, a mile to the south, she discovered that another policeman had been shot dead, this one by Countess Markievicz, whom Connolly’s man Mallin had appointed as his deputy. Beyond the congealing pool of blood, Caitlin could see men digging trenches out on the green. When she asked a Citizen Army officer why, he just shrugged, which only increased her doubts. Why would any army dig itself into a space surrounded by high buildings? She hoped there was a good explanation but found herself remembering her talk with Jed McColl and his disdain for the military mind. Why should the good guys be any less stupid?
Jacob’s Factory gave her fresh grounds for hope and despair. It was full of eager young men, “walking on air” as one lad described it, all fighting together for what they believed in. And outside on the pavement were a crowd of barracking women, all shouting that the rebels should be fighting the Germans, the way their husbands and sons were. Both sides considered the other traitors, and after all she’d learned from the working-class women of Lawrence and Paterson, Caitlin found it distressing that Dublin’s poorest were the rebels’ bitterest foes.
By nightfall she was back at the GPO, having put off visiting the other strongholds until the following day. By this time a detachment of Cumann na mBan had joined the garrison, Maeve among them. Most of the women, her friend admitted to Caitlin, had been sent to either the kitchen or the first-aid room, but some, herself included, had been chosen to serve as messengers between the different battalion HQs. “I know it’s not perfect,” she said defensively, “but if we get our chance to fight, we’ll take it, believe me. And it could be worse—down at Boland’s Bakery, de Valera has refused to admit any women at all. He wants to spare us the horrors of warfare,” she added contemptuously. “Well, we never thought it would be easy.”
A series of shots outside drew them to the shuttered window.
“They’re just trying to scare off the looters,” Maeve decided after looking through the slit.
“Looters?” Caitlin said, surprised.
“I’m afraid so—it’s been getting quite ugly out there. You should be off before it gets worse.”
Caitlin hadn’t given any thought to where she would sleep.
“The English might come in the night,” Maeve said. “And you won’t be much use to us trapped in here.”
Which made sense. Caitlin gave her friend a good-bye hug and, at the suggestion of one of the rebel sentries, left by the Henry Street entrance. Out on Sackville there were shadows moving inside the looted shops but no sign of police or soldiers, and along the banks of the Liffey the bars were still serving drinks as if nothing had happened. Caitlin had half-pints of Guinness in two of them and listened to stray conversations, trying in vain to discern whose side the city was on. Feelings were mixed—it was as simple as that. Heroes or “idjits” or something in between.
Back at Maeve’s she reread the proclamation and decided her own feelings were mixed as well. She loved the words, had no quarrel with the aims. But several times that day, she had found herself doubting the political and military sense with which those aims were being pursued. Perhaps tomorrow would prove the rebel leaders right and herself wrong. She hoped so. The men they led were so few.
After seeking out the British consul in Maastricht and securing the wherewithal to buy himself a ticket, McColl took a northbound afternoon train. It was less than two hundred kilometers to Rotterdam, but a lengthy stop at Eindhoven and a surprisingly funereal pace ensured a late arrival. He took a cab to the
Maas Hotel, where he’d stayed on his only previous visit and which he knew was only a short walk away from the Service’s local office. The bar overlooking the river sounded lively enough, but he decided in favor of an early night.
At breakfast the next morning, two of the adjoining tables were occupied by Germans, but the nationals who had seemed so intent on killing him forty-eight hours earlier were now more interested in sharing his marmalade. He smiled and passed it over.
Outside, the sun was shining, the word ierland plastered across the billboards that lined the newspaper kiosk. Dutch wasn’t one of his languages, but Ireland seemed a pretty good bet. Had Cumming’s fears proved founded?
The local office occupied an entire floor of a sizable building. This was divided only by thin, head-high partitions, which offered panoramic views of the Maas River to the south and the docks to the north but made it impossible to conduct private conversations in anything louder than a whisper.
Cumming’s man Richard Tinsley was short and broad-shouldered, with complexion and eyes that suggested an outdoors past. “Let’s have coffee in one of the hotels,” he suggested.
“I’m staying at the Maas,” McColl told him.
“You and a dozen German agents,” Tinsley noted dryly.
They went to the nearby Weimar. Tinsley ordered café au lait and pastries for them both, then sat back and listened, a worried look on his face. “Well, at least the group in Liège is still operational,” he said once McColl had finished with a brief account of his last few days. The unstated implication, that other groups had not been so lucky, was left hanging in the air.
“I assume Cumming wants me back in London,” McColl said.
“As soon as possible,” Tinsley concurred. “And you can take some reports back with you. There’s a ferry this afternoon, and the train for the Hook leaves at one, so I’ll get them to your hotel by noon. They’ll be heavy,” he added with a wry smile. “A few months ago, I sent another batch of reports with a messenger. When the Germans boarded the ferry, he had the wit to throw the package overboard, but the damn thing didn’t sink. So now we add some weight.”
As they were getting up to go, McColl remembered the kiosk headlines and asked what Tinsley knew.
“Oh, some sort of fracas in Dublin,” he said dismissively. “Some hotheads seized the General Post Office for some reason. Maybe they’re stamp collectors. It’ll all be over by now.”
Human Sacrifice
It was barely light outside when Caitlin was awakened by gunfire. A single machine gun, she thought, and several rifles. Somewhere south of the Liffey.
It wasn’t yet five o’clock, and she lay there for a while, unwilling to get up and face the day. It seemed all too likely that the Rising’s finest moment had already been and gone, and the thought of witnessing a long and bloody fall from grace was painful to contemplate.
When the guns fell silent and a bird outside the window filled the gap with song, she found herself dabbing tears from her cheeks.
It was still mostly quiet when she finally left the house and walked down an empty Mary Street toward the GPO. Every now and then, a single shot was audible in the distance, but the area around the post office was almost deserted. Yesterday’s looters were probably sleeping off the excitement, the authorities still holed up in their Castle, busy making plans. No trams were running on Sackville Street, but a few pedestrians were presumably headed for work. Much to Caitlin’s surprise, The Irish Times had been published that morning; rather more predictably, it hardly mentioned the Rising.
With Connolly’s accreditation, she had no trouble getting into the GPO. Yesterday the building had felt like a human anthill, with people rushing in every direction, but eighteen hours of organization had worked wonders. Every street-facing window was now barricaded and guarded, and the various weapon caches had been sorted and stored in several rooms. Fire extinguishers were everywhere, and out in the backyard several men were shoveling sand into mailbags. A makeshift hospital had been set up and the staff canteen turned into a mess hall for feeding the rebel garrison. At one table she saw Patrick Pearse and Seán McDermott deep in conversation, their breakfasts growing cold.
According to another Cumann na mBan woman, Maeve was out on messenger duty, so, more in hope than expectation, Caitlin dropped by Connolly’s office. As usual the door was open, and, seeing her standing there, he gestured her in. “What’s it like outside?”
“Quiet,” she said. “But there was a lot of firing earlier. Across the river somewhere.”
“The British captured City Hall during the night,” he explained. “And there’s been quite a battle at St. Stephen’s Green. We’ve had to give up some of the park.” He sounded less worried than she would have expected.
“Will you able to hold the Green?”
He didn’t answer that. “What are people saying?” he wanted to know. “Do you think most people support us?”
“A lot do,” she said. “But many don’t. Many have sons and fathers in France.”
“I know. And if I were them, I might feel the same. We shall certainly have to earn their good opinion.”
“And how will you do that?”
Connolly smiled. “By the way we conduct ourselves in the coming days.”
Like her, she realized, he harbored no illusions of victory.
“Where are you off to this morning?” he asked.
“After what you’ve just told me, St. Stephen’s Green.”
“Well, be careful,” he said, getting up. As they shook hands, he had a thought. “Would you consider it compromising to carry a message to the CO down there? His name’s Mallin—you probably know him.”
“I know him by sight.” She hesitated. Acting as Connolly’s private messenger would dent her journalistic integrity in many people’s eyes, but it wouldn’t change what she reported. And it might help her get through any rebel barricades. “I’ll take your message,” she told him.
He hurriedly scribbled it down.
Outside, a decent crowd of onlookers was slowly coalescing, but there was still no sign of police or soldiers. She walked south toward the river, the sealed envelope safe in her bag. The fact that Connolly had trusted her with it seemed touching and faintly absurd. And wonderfully Irish.
The sounds of battle were louder on the other side of the Liffey, but there were plenty of people out on Grafton Street, strolling along and inspecting shop windows as if nothing else were amiss. As she neared St. Stephen’s Green, two rebels with rifles shouted for her to go back; she had to show them Connolly’s letter before they would let her pass. One rebel agreed to escort her, and after a tour of alleys they arrived at someone’s back door. “This is the College of Surgeons,” he told her. “You’ll find Micky Mallin upstairs.”
She found him on the top floor, looking out through a slit in a barricaded window. He took and read Connolly’s message, carefully folded it, and placed it in a pocket. “How are things at the GPO?”
She told him, then asked about his own situation.
“Have a look,” he invited her.
The park had been mostly abandoned, and at a very obvious cost—there were several corpses out in the open, and heaven knew how many more among the shrubs and trees. “The English took the Shelbourne Hotel in the night,” Mallin explained, “and put a machine gun up on the roof. We only found out the damn thing was there when it opened up.”
He had no problem with her talking to his men—“You won’t find any who regret being here”—but warned her against leaving by the front door—“Likely as not, one of their snipers will pick you off or at least have a damn good try.”
She talked to three of the rebels, one alone and two together, and all seemed unrepentant. After leaving by the back door, she made her way to the nearby Jacob’s Factory, where the “separation women” were still crowding the pavement outside and still hurling abuse at
those within. There was no sign of the authorities.
She interviewed several rebels and spoke to their raucous critics outside before heading back toward the Liffey, in hope of visiting the rebel-held Mendicity Institute. But after cautiously trying several approaches, she was forced to concede defeat—all were covered by men on the ground or snipers on the roofs, and if she managed to find a way in, there seemed little chance she would ever get out.
The Four Courts was a relative oasis of peace, and she was able to share a late lunch with its Cumann na mBan contingent. Here, as everywhere else that day, she heard only the faintest echoes of her own doubts. How could they win? For some the answer was easy—help was on the way. The Germans had landed in the west and were even now marching on Dublin; the countryside had risen, and volunteers were boarding trains and buses, even walking to their aid. The wisest among them were much more skeptical but generally held their tongues—as one young man told her the latest “news,” a friend behind him rolled his eyes.
As everyone knew, Casement had been arrested the previous weekend, not long after stepping ashore from his German U-boat. The weapons he’d brought with him were now at the bottom of Queenstown Harbour. Caitlin was surprised he’d gotten as far as he had, and the thought that another shipment was on its way—this one with German troops—seemed sadly implausible. As for the rest of the country . . . well, so far only a few Volunteers had made their way to the capital. Most Irishmen and -women seemed disinclined to play a part.
There was certainly no sign of Dublin rallying to the rebels’ cause, as she found that evening touring the still-open pubs. A few old souls were wearing smiles that could light up the darkest tavern—for them the rebellion was a thing of beauty, no matter how well or badly things went. Others were really angry. Why not wait for the promised Home Rule? Why cause all this heartache for the sake of a stupid flag?
These were the two extremes, and much to Caitlin’s dismay there seemed more support for those saying no than for those with the shining eyes. Most people, of course, just wanted the whole thing over, the trams back running and the bakeries baking. Until that joyful day arrived, they would grumble and keep their heads down, cursing the inconvenience caused. And a few, as she noticed on her way home to Maeve’s, would make the best of a very bad job and help themselves to some restitution from the many unguarded shops.
One Man's Flag Page 33
