Rebels

by Peter De Rosa

  ‘Sir,’ said MacDonagh, ‘I’ve been told by an absolutely reliable source that there is to be a rising in Ireland.’

  French arched a white eyebrow. ‘Tell me more.’

  ‘All I can say is it’s near and Irish extremists are in league with Germany.’

  ‘How near?’ said French.

  ‘Is Easter near enough?’

  ‘And the Germans are supplying them with arms?’

  ‘To be landed in the west of Ireland.’

  ‘Anyone else know?’

  MacDonagh said, ‘Admiral Bayly at Queenstown has been told. He’s stepping up patrols along Irish coasts.’

  ‘Can’t see any arms boats getting through our blockade.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ said MacDonagh.

  Next day, French had an appointment with a top Irish delegation that included Birrell, Wimborne and Friend. They discussed the general situation in Ireland. Wimborne was pessimistic, Birrell took the line that the Sinn Feiners were too ill-armed and disorganized to be a threat.

  When the meeting ended, French touched Friend on the arm. ‘Mind staying behind for a minute?’

  He repeated what MacDonagh had told him.

  ‘Interesting, sir,’ Friend said. ‘Aren’t you going to tell Birrell?’

  ‘Unwise, old chap. Politicians never could keep their traps shut, you know.’

  ‘Did MacDonagh tell you his source?’

  ‘Couldn’t. Intelligence chappies have this passion for the hush-hush, you know. Anyway, worth keeping an eye open?’

  The same Thursday, Countess Markievicz was as usual entertaining at Rathmines. After a childhood and youth spent in the luxury of Lissadell in County Sligo, she was now totally taken up with the Citizen Army, the women’s branch of the Volunteers and the Irish Boy Scouts which she had founded.

  Antique furniture had been pushed into corners, Persian rugs rolled up, oil paintings put out of harm’s way. Tea was provided for a big crowd in the kitchen where Madame was cutting slices of bread an inch thick.

  Connolly, who boarded there while his family continued living in Belfast, was sitting brooding by the fire. He had just had bad news. Nathan, yielding to Unionist pressure, had interned some key members of the Volunteers. They were in Arbour Hill Detention Barracks awaiting deportation.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a chant, ‘We want Mick. We want Mick.’

  Michael Collins had come back from London to take part in the rising. Young, slim, dark-haired, he had been in the IRB for some time. He was popular with the lads, being good with his mitts, a great singer of pub songs and full of Irish devilry. Word was he was going places.

  ‘Give us Emmet’s speech from the dock, Mick.’

  After not too much persuasion, Collins got to his feet. The hilarity subsided as he lost himself in the part of Emmet, a youth who knew that the next day, at noon on 20 September 1803, he was to be publicly hanged outside St Catherine’s church in Thomas Street.

  The Countess’s eyes brimmed with tears from the start, whereas Connolly sat gazing into the fire. He did not care for histrionics.

  In a Cork voice of bell-like clarity, Collins was declaiming, ‘I have, gentlemen, but a few more words to say. I am going to my cold and silent grave, my lamp of life is nearly extinguished, my race is run. The grave opens to receive me and I sink into its bosom.’

  Even Connolly went taut, hearing these famous lines.

  Collins, his magnificent dark head on one side, continued:

  I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world, it is, the charity of silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me rest in obscurity and peace; and my tomb remain uninscribed, and my memory in oblivion, until other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written.

  All of them semed to see the executioner lift up the severed head and cry, ‘This is the head of a traitor,’ and all had a single thought, ‘Will Emmet’s epitaph be written in our time?’

  When Spindler came ashore on 25 March, after the usual dull patrol, he already knew that his new command was named the Libau. He immediately went aboard the leading ship in the flotilla and, with Forstmann’s approval, finalized the crew.

  ‘I don’t want to seem paranoid,’ Forstmann said, ‘but there are spies everywhere, Karl, and this is top secret.’

  ‘Must be,’ Spindler said, ‘if even I don’t know what the hell it’s all about.’

  ‘You soon will,’ his Chief promised.

  Before noon next day, the crew, each with only a knapsack, were on an express train heading east, destination unknown. They alighted in the afternoon at Hamburg.

  Spindler was aching to see his new patrol craft, maybe a secret design. Instead, in dry dock, was a boat that compared with his recent command, looked like a liner.

  A second surprise: it was English, built in Hull. It had been trapped in the Kiel Canal at the outbreak of war. Its name, the Castro, had been blacked out but was still legible.

  On the bridge, it was uncanny, as if the English crew had left but a few minutes before. Documents were scattered everywhere, drawers pulled out, instruments abandoned. But the engines and boilers had been overhauled and the living quarters refurbished.

  Next morning, Spindler was told, he would begin the first stage of his mystery voyage.

  ‘One thing, Herr Kapitän,’ a tight-lipped official in a dark suit said. ‘Make sure no unauthorized person comes aboard, none.’

  In the morning, church bells were calling parishioners to Sunday service as the boat was towed by two tugs into midstream. Though his crew were in naval uniform, Spindler flew the flag of a German merchant ship.

  His orders were only temporary: to report back to Wilhelmshaven. No sooner was the Libau there than a bigger vessel manoeuvred into position to screen it from prying eyes. Only engineers with special clearance were allowed on board. Spindler’s own crew had to load the equipment in sealed boxes.

  Austin Stack was summoned to Dublin to meet with the Military Council.

  He gave a full account of his plans for landing arms at his home town of Tralee and distributing them in the west which they approved.

  ‘I’d be grateful,’ Pearse said, ‘if you could come to town again next month.’

  They checked their diaries and settled on 11 April.

  Stack returned home. In case he was picked up, he told his Adjutant, Paddy Cahill, under oath that there would be a rising on the 23rd and arms would be brought into Fenit on Easter Sunday/Monday morning.

  Cahill was shaken rigid. ‘Is that all you can tell me?’

  ‘It’s better so, Paddy,’ Stack said. ‘Dublin says it’s crucial that no shots are fired before the Republic is proclaimed there.’

  At Wilhelmshaven, Spindler had the name Libau painted on the side of his new ship. He mustered his crew and told them to drop hints in town that they were headed for Libau on the Baltic coast of Latvia.

  ‘Where are we headed, Herr Kapitän?’ someone asked.

  ‘You won’t believe this,’ Spindler replied, ‘but I haven’t the faintest idea.’

  He was more intrigued still when one of the Libau’s hatches was battened down and he was not allowed to look inside. That first night, an armed guard was put on the boat.

  In the morning, Spindler was at last allowed a full inspection.

  Below deck, there were big iron doors. He heaved them open, only to find himself staring at a blank wall beyond.

  In one of the cabins, under a sofa-bunk, he was shown a secret entrance. He clambered down it, through a series of manholes and concealed ladders, to a lower hold that stretched from one side of the ship to the other. One iron water-tight bulkhead, seemingly without an entrance, was false; inside, enclosing a big space, was a partition that could only be opened from inside.

  Anot
her hold below that was filled with a reserve of coal. It was obviously going to be a long trip in waters too dangerous to stop and refuel.

  He was given a written assignment to take command. Without it, he might, if captured, be shot as a spy. It read:

  ‘Holder of this, Lieutenant of the Reserve Spindler is herewith appointed to the command of auxiliary cruiser. (11.H.C.A. VII of 18.X.1907. Art. 3.)’

  The document was officially stamped and signed: ‘Wilhelmshaven, 30.3.1916. von Krosigk, Admiral and Chief of the Marine Station of the North Sea.’

  Impatient at the best of times, Spindler was now seething with curiosity. He had his official appointment at the highest level but still no clue as to what it might be.

  As April began, he was summoned to Berlin for an Admiralty briefing. Finally he knew his assignment was to transport men and arms for a rising in Ireland. The secret hold was to be the hiding-place of fifty Irish PoWs formed into a Brigade to fight on their own soil.

  He was introduced to a distinguished Irish civilian who, though not in good health, struck him as being a man of outstanding charm. His chief assistant, younger, sturdier, more military, assimilated better the details of the mission. Both were to travel with the Brigade.

  The Irishman with the beard knew no German so talks were held in English. He spoke passionately about the evils of English rule in Ireland and how this mission might both help the Irish cause and bring about a swift end to the war.

  Spindler’s mind was already working on the details: departure time, best route to avoid British patrols.

  He was delighted with all the arrangements until he looked at his calendar and saw against Easter the words: ‘Full Moon’.

  In spite of the impression he made on Spindler, Casement, sick and lonely, was in a black mood. He realized that New York and Dublin had written him off as a well-intentioned meddler, whereas he believed that he and he alone was in a position to grasp the cynicism of the Germans.

  Without German personnel and submarines, with only 20,000 rifles made at the turn of the century in Orleans, France, and captured from the Russians at Tannenberg, the Irish had absolutely no chance. To cap it all, they were being given ten machine-guns that his Brigade were not trained to fire.

  Not that the arms were likely to reach Ireland, anyway. The chances of a single boat beating the British blockade were minimal. That he himself was betrayed mattered less than that his men were doomed to death and the rising to failure.

  One evening he asked Monteith to give him the names of the men he could rely on. Monteith listed, with difficulty, a dozen. It made no sense to send the Brigade at all.

  At 3 p.m. on 3 April, they went to the German General Staff. Zimmer 178 overlooked the bank of the Spree.

  A determined Casement said to the two young Captains, ‘I am sorry to disappoint you, gentlemen, but your contribution to the expedition does not justify me in sending the Brigade.’

  Haughwitz and Huelson were stunned.

  ‘Sir Roger,’ Haughwitz said, ‘may I remind you that we have taken immense trouble with your men on the understanding that they would return to Ireland for a rising.’

  ‘True, but that depended on your country providing adequate back-up. You have reneged.’

  The discussion sea-sawed for an hour until Captain Nadolny joined them. He got the gist of the matter in seconds and was furious. The way things were going in France, his country would soon be calling up fifteen-year-olds and eating more potatoes than the Irish. He brushed Casement’s objections aside.

  ‘Your views no longer count. If our agreement of December ’14 no longer holds, your part in this is finished.’

  He made as if to shake Casement’s hand goodbye.

  Casement drew himself up to his full height. ‘What are you saying, Captain?’

  ‘Simply that you have broken a solemn treaty. That being so, those Irishmen now belong to me and I will send them wherever I please and that includes Ireland.’

  ‘Just try it,’ Casement said coldly.

  ‘I do not need your encouragement.’

  ‘If the agreement is dead, Captain, what may I ask is the status of the Irish at Zossen?’

  ‘Status? Oh, deserters.’

  ‘Who made them desert,’ said Casement, ‘except you? You intend sending deserters to Ireland?’

  ‘Listen to me,’ Nadolny said, red in the face. ‘To land the arms, we need the Brigade to provide gunners.’

  The courteous Haughwitz intervened to say, ‘If you do not provide gunners, Sir Roger, why should we provide guns?’

  ‘I will telegraph Devoy in America,’ said Nadolny, ‘to order the Brigade to go.’

  ‘Do that,’ Casement said, calmly. ‘He will refer back to me and I refuse to budge one inch.’ He pointed through the window to the river bank. ‘Take me out there and shoot me if you like. But I will never agree to my young men going to a certain death.’

  ‘I always knew you were a fool,’ Nadolny snapped, ‘I never thought you were a coward as well.’ He went to the door, opened it wide and said, in a voice quivering with anger, ‘If the Brigade is like you, there is no point in sending it, anyway.’

  Casement returned to his hotel. Pleased to have saved his men from virtual suicide, he now returned to the bigger matter of trying to stop a rising doomed to failure.

  He put in another request for a submarine.

  In Dublin, Pearse’s criterion of what constituted success differed from Casement’s. Dying in a noble cause, a blood-sacrifice, was success in itself.

  On the day that Casement withdrew the Brigade because a rising could not succeed, Pearse took the final decision for it to go ahead.

  He got the approval of MacNeill and the Volunteer Executive for three days of manoeuvres beginning on Easter Sunday, at 6.30 p.m. in Dublin, at 7 p.m. in the provinces.

  The ostensible aim was to test mobilization with full equipment. The real aim was a Republic.

  On 8 April, he published his General Orders in the official magazine, the Irish Volunteer.

  The Military Council had decided some time before that arms should not be landed until the rising in Dublin was off the ground. They presumed, with reason, that there would be no difficulty in conveying this change of date to the Germans.

  They had, after all, agreed a signal system which implied that the arms ship could be contacted at sea. Berlin could, if necessary, radio the skipper to hold back until the night of Easter Sunday/Monday. Not that it should be necessary. They were sending two messengers, Joe Plunkett’s father and sister, to make sure that the change of date was known.

  Plunkett Senior was given a verbal message for Berlin. As a Papal Count, he had a pretext for visiting Rome. On the way, he would go to Berne from where the German Ambassador in Switzerland would relay the message.

  At the same time, the Military Council sent his daughter Mimi back to New York with a coded message to be transmitted to Germany via their Washington Embassy.

  Their minds at rest, the Council met to put the finishing touches to the plans for the rising.

  Spindler was in Wilhelmshaven when he was told that he was to leave next day for the Baltic. In Lübeck, he would receive final instructions. Admiral Scheer, Commander of the Fleet, personally wished him success on his important mission.

  As soon as the ship left port at two in the afternoon, two large boxes were lifted out of a hatchway, containing Norwegian gear for the crew: plain blue suits, caps and sweaters. Even the black buttons on the clothing were stamped with the name of a Norwegian firm. It was like a pantomime as huge Bavarians struggled into uniforms far too small for them.

  The crew lined up for Spindler to give them their orders.

  ‘From now on, men, strict discipline must cease. No more heel-clicking or salutes, you understand. Shaving is forbidden. I want everything aboard to be relaxed. Learn to put your hands in your pockets. Try it.’

  It was not easy for well-trained men after weeks on patrol to behave like merchant seamen. Th
ey thrust their hands in their pockets, then withdrew them at once.

  ‘Keep them there,’ yelled Spindler.

  He retired to his cabin where his orderly, Bruns, brought him coffee on a tray.

  ‘From now on, your name is Henrik.’

  ‘Yes, Herr Kapitän.’

  ‘And I am no longer Herr Kapitän.’

  ‘No, Herr Kapitän.’

  ‘Listen, Henrik,’ Spindler snorted, ‘I don’t want you carrying that tray like an English butler. Look at your left hand.’

  Bruns had it smartly down the seam of his trousers. His fingers twitched as he did his best to look casual.

  God in heaven, thought Spindler, he probably stands to attention at the pissoir.

  They sailed down the Elbe again and passed through the Kiel Canal. Next day, they were in Lübeck. There Spindler was given his orders in great detail.

  The ship was to leave so as to arrive in good time at Fenit Harbour from 20 April at the earliest to 23 April at the latest. A pilot boat would lie in wait during those days at the entrance to Tralee Bay near the Island of Inishtooskert. This vessel would make itself known as follows: by day, one of the crew would be wearing a green sweater and by night two green lanterns would flash intermittently.

  Spindler was free to steer whatever course he chose and to adopt whatever measures suited him best when he reached his destination. Being without a radio, one thing he knew: once he left, he would be out of contact until he landed in Tralee Bay.

  On the day of Spindler’s briefing, Count Plunkett arrived in Berne. He repeated his message to the German Ambassador for transmission to Berlin. Time was short.

  That afternoon, Casement went to Zossen with the Brigade confessor to say goodbye to his men. His one consolation was that he had saved them from certain death.

  His face was lined and thin, and he was close to tears as he pretended to be going east to see what campaign possibilities were there.

  The reality was, he was only going to Ireland with Monteith and Sergeant Beverley so as not to seem a coward. The venture was a mere piece of gun-running and beneath contempt. Was this the Germans’ idea of a military campaign? A sick man who had never fired a gun in his life and a couple of soldiers disguised as sailors, each of them generously supplied with poison in case they had to take their own lives. Were they seriously expected to invade a Kingdom with 20,000 rifles and some cartridges?