The Germans, as he saw it, only wanted a diversion – for their own sake, not for Ireland’s. He wrote in his diary:
‘I go on – because I am fool enough, or brave enough or coward enough – I know not which – while I know it is hopeless.’
In Dublin, that 5 April, the Volunteer HQ Staff met in emergency session in MacNeill’s house in Rathfarnam. The Chief of Staff was growing more and more anxious.
Hobson had told him he was suspicious about Pearse’s mobilization orders for Easter. Some Volunteers, he said, were abusing their positions. MacNeill himself, on his travels around the country, had heard Easter mentioned as a deadline for some sort of action or revolt.
Those present included Pearse, The O’Rahilly, Kent, MacDonagh, Hobson and O’Connell. The numbers for and against a rising were about equal.
‘Tell me, MacDonagh,’ MacNeill asked his university colleague, ‘is there anything at all to these whispers of a rising?’
‘I honestly can’t say,’ replied MacDonagh, who was not a member of the Military Council.
Briefed by Hobson, MacNeill said, ‘I want you each to give me a solemn promise.’
They looked at him questioningly.
‘That none of you will give the Volunteers any orders outside of normal routine without checking with me personally beforehand.’
Kent and Pearse had no hesitation in promising. They were running a revolution not a Sunday school; they could not afford the luxury of a conventional conscience.
As he left the meeting, Pearse had one major concern. He trusted the Germans implicitly but it was clearly getting harder each day to keep the rising from MacNeill and the rest of his Executive.
He reported back to Clarke. Tom knew the absolute reliability of Kent and his brother-in-law, Ned Daly. As a precaution, he decided to co-opt MacDonagh on to the Military Council. It was a shrewd move. Apart from the fact that MacDonagh was an IRB man, as Brigade Commander he would be able to guarantee the unswerving support of the fourth of the commandants, Eamon de Valera.
*
In Tralee, Austin Stack sent Cahill to Dublin to get two green signalling lamps from McDermott for contacting the German arms vessel.
When they arrived, Stack said, ‘We won’t be needing them, Paddy, before Holy Saturday afternoon.’
That seemed to be a sufficient margin since the ship was not due for more than twenty-four hours after that.
The lamps were hung in the Rink, the Volunteers’ drill-hall in Tralee.
Confusion in Ireland was growing.
Like MacNeill, McCullough, President of the IRB was hearing rumours of a rising and it worried him. He went from Belfast to Dublin to talk with Old Tom.
‘Is there to be a rising soon or not?’
‘Why are you so worried?’ Clarke countered.
‘Level with me, Tom.’
‘I don’t know where you get your information from, Denis,’ Clarke replied. ‘But as God is my witness, I know absolutely nothing about a rising.’
McCullough relaxed. ‘You’d let me know if anything crops up. After all, I am President of the Supreme Council.’
‘You’d be the first to hear,’ Clarke said.
On 6 April, Count Plunkett’s letter from Berne arrived in Berlin. It read:
Ashling (Secret)
Dear Sir Roger,
I am requested, as a delegate sent by the President and Supreme Council of the Irish Volunteer Army to give you this urgent message from Ireland:
(1) The Insurrection is fixed for the evening of next Easter Sunday.
(2) The large consignment of arms to be brought into Tralee Bay must arrive there not later than dawn of Easter Monday.
(3) German officers will be necessary for the Irish Volunteer Forces. This is imperative.
(4) A German submarine will be required in Dublin Harbour.
The time is very short, but it is necessarily so, for we must act of our own choice, and delays are dangerous.
Yours very sincerely,
A Friend of James Malcolm.
Someone somewhere along the line had erred. Very badly. Paragraph 2 should have read ‘not earlier than dawn on Easter Monday.’
Nadolny read the letter and took it not as a modification but as final confirmation of plans already agreed. The Admiralty had already guaranteed that the boat would arrive no later than dawn on Easter Monday. It might even arrive earlier.
The letter was handed to Casement. That night, he discussed it with Monteith. ‘It proves,’ he said, ‘that the Volunteers depend absolutely on German troops and arms.’
Monteith had to agree that Section 3 of the letter made that plain.
‘I really hate what the Germans have done to us,’ Casement said. ‘For myself, I’d be glad to go to death on the scaffold or spend the rest of my days in an English jail, anything to get away from this country and these third-rate people.’
‘I think I would, too, Sir Roger.’
‘I only hope,’ Casement said, despairingly, ‘that, in time, people will see I may have been a fool to trust the Germans but not a scoundrel.’
Monteith and Beverley, a debonaire Sergeant in the Brigade with a certain artistic flair, were the only gunners now travelling with him.
He said, ‘You two had both better join me at the Hotel Saxonia while we are waiting for the boat.’
At Lübeck, Spindler double-checked that he had everything he needed: adequate coal, provisions for six months, plenty of water – and the arms in containers stamped with black and red shippers’ marks and labelled Genoa and Naples.
Next, he went through the Norwegian equipment: books, the latest newspapers from Christiania. His crew were even given forged letters and photos of their Norwegian girl-friends. From hot-blooded German bachelors there were catcalls and a few offers to swop pin-ups.
A routine was established.
Objects that might arouse the suspicions of a snooping British vessel were to disappear down through the sofa bunk into the hold. This became known as the Conjuror’s Box. There they stored German uniforms, arms, books, charts, flags.
On board, there had to be two of most things – Norwegian and German – from sardine tins to buttons and field dressings.
In addition to their own ship’s papers and charts they had phoney Norwegian equivalents, as well as letters from the supposed owners telling them to avoid waters infested by German submarines and to pick up pit-props at Christiania for Cardiff, Wales. Not one of the crew could read this material. If they were boarded by a British patrol with a Norwegian speaker they would be lost.
Once the arms were in the hold, they were camouflaged to a depth of several feet with pit-props, heavy tin baths and wooden doors. Every item bore the shippers’ markings and the destination: Genoa and Naples.
With the ship now disguised as a tramp, the name Libau was blacked out.
Having seen to all this, Spindler returned to Berlin for last-minute instructions.
The Chief of the Admiral General Staff said, ‘For the safety of your men, Herr Leutnant, keep them in the dark as long as possible about their mission.’
On Friday 7 April, Casement, with Monteith and Beverley, was summoned to the General Staff for a meeting with Nadolny, Huelson and Haughwitz. After talking them through the details of their departure, Haughwitz said all three were to return the following afternoon.
‘Here, you will change into sailors’ gear, then proceed to Hamburg.’ He coughed apologetically. ‘Might I suggest, Sir Roger, if you can bring yourself to do it, that you shave off your beard before you reach Ireland.’
Nadolny, pleased to be seeing the back of Casement, was unusually cheerful.
‘I am so sorry, my dear chap,’ he said, ‘there’s no private submarine for you. It is ausgeschlossen, completely out of the question. Never mind, it will all work out, I am sure.’
Back at his hotel, Casement took a surprise call from Heydell of the Admiralty. ‘I would be grateful if you could come round and see us at four th
is afternoon.’
‘About?’
‘A U-boat.’
Monteith waited at the Saxonia while Casement went excitedly to the Admiralty. There he was left in a waiting-room, catching up on back numbers of English papers, for over two hours.
The Germans only had a score of U-boats but lately, under pressure from America, the Kaiser had restricted their activity to military targets. The Admiralty was now debating using one on the Irish escapade, if only to get rid of Casement who endangered the whole enterprise.
At 6.30 p.m., Heydell came in, smiling, to say, ‘Good news. The submarine is on. We shall settle the details later.’
‘Fine,’ exclaimed Casement, ‘but you will be sure to land me in good time for the fight.’
Captain Stoelzel came running upstairs to say everything had been settled in a rush. ‘Yes, Sir Roger, you’ll be there in good time for the scrap. Can you come back tomorrow at 1 p.m.? In the meanwhile, not a word to anyone.’
Casement went back to his hotel and told Monteith the good news.
At 7.45 p.m., Haughwitz arrived. He seemed genuinely pleased that Casement had got his submarine.
‘But that poison the Navy supplied,’ he cautioned, ‘I’d still take it with you. You never know.’
At 8 p.m., Monteith got a call from the Foreign Office to pop round right away. When he got there, he was met by Herr Meyer.
‘Sorry to plague you so late at night, Lieutenant, but I need your final assessment of your prospects.’
‘That’s easy,’ said Monteith. ‘Nil.’
‘I don’t suppose,’ Meyer said, gloomily, ‘that I could persuade you to change your mind at the last minute.’
‘No, I intend to go.’
‘I mean try and get the Brigade to go with you? You have a wife and children in New York. There would be quite a considerable sum in it for you – and them.’
Monteith got to his feet.
‘Herr Meyer, until now you have acted as a man of honour. I’ll pretend you never said that.’
Meyer said, ‘I agree with you, Lieutenant. The suggestion was completely dishonourable. Sometimes one has to—’
He bowed his head.
The submarine was good news if a trifle late. Now it was a race against time. Casement naïvely hoped that the U-boat would have the edge on the steamer and get him home in time to cancel the rising. He did not grasp that the Germans were sending him by submarine simply because if he travelled by ship and it was boarded he would give the game away.
On 8 April, Spindler left Berlin for Lübeck, still without the final go-ahead. The Irish leader, he gathered, was being a nuisance. Was he accompanying the arms or not?
Not, it seemed, for he had no sooner joined his ship than he received a telegram: ‘Proceed to sea.’ With Count Plunkett’s letter misinterpreted and with his daughter, Mimi, still in mid-Atlantic with a request to delay the arrival of the arms ship, Spindler prepared to sail without a radio.
The next day, it was Sunday 9th, Spindler left the ship, to return half an hour later with a big, old shaggy dog of questionable breed. No tramp steamer was complete without one.
‘This,’ he told his crew, ‘is Hector.’
At 6 p.m., the ship slipped out of Lübeck. His orders: to rendezvous off Inishtooskert between 20 and 23 April.
He was glad there was no radio aboard. A wireless mast would alert the British navy that they were more than a tramp steamer. As ordered, he told his crew only the bare essentials. He gave them each a Norwegian name and made them practise getting their tongues round it. From then on, no German names were to be used.
‘First of all, men, let me introduce myself. My name is Neils Larsen.’
‘Welcome aboard, Herr Kapitün,’ they chorused, in good humour.
He handed round Norwegian phrase books. ‘These might come in handy for the odd swear-words. At a pinch, we can switch to Low German.’
‘Fine,’ someone chuckled, ‘who understands that?’
‘Now, men, everything on board that looks new – clothes, flags, books, instruments, and especially ship’s papers – they must be made old. Get to it.’
Within seconds, books were whizzing around decks and cabins until they were torn and dog-eared. Clothes were ripped and tarred. If anyone’s beard was not shaggy enough, a comrade was only too pleased to rub in oil and coal dust. Dozens of chalk marks and obscene drawings were put on the walls. Old Norwegian meat tins and newspapers were strewn everywhere.
Because he looked Scandinavian, a seaman named Mathieson was given the wheel. Someone had the job of teasing Hector to make him bark very loudly when required. Never were too many sailors to be allowed on deck at a time.
Finally, they all had to learn code-words to be whispered or spoken down the voice-pipe and the engine-room telegraph. In the evening session, Spindler taught them the most important of them.
‘ “Tyske” is Norwegian for “German”: that now means, “Stand by with naval ensign, uniforms and arms.” The Norwegian phrase: “Pedersen skall tom Kaptejn kim” (Pedersen is to come to the Captain) means: “Stand by to blow up the ship! Fuse ready!” ’
The crew shuffled their feet uncomfortably. Why did they need that?
‘Now,’ Spindler said with a grin, ‘if any one has any questions … he had better keep them to himself.’
To avoid the British blockade, he had chosen an arrow-head path. They would sail north long and leisurely between Norway and Shetland to the edge of the Arctic Sea. At the tip of the arrow they would turn south-west between Ireland and the Faeroes towards their destination: Fenit Harbour.
On the first night out, the boat’s name and markings had to be changed. A storm blew up so that the sailors, slung over the side and seeing only by the light of electric torches, received quite a buffeting. They painted in ‘Aud-Norge’ in letters five feet tall. Six-foot Norwegian flags – blue, white and red – were painted fore and aft. Wet and freezing, they managed to finish, fortified by large doses of brandy.
First light found a Norwegian tramp steamer, the Aud, rocking on the Baltic.
Each crew member had to find a handy hiding-place – behind hawsers and pipes – for his own weapons. They might be needed in a hurry if, say, they were boarded. Cook hid a number of guns under cold ashes in a disused oven.
A last chore. They threw overboard the last reminders of the ship’s original owners, including excellent English utensils.
Spindler once more assembled his exhausted crew.
‘If the signal given is, “Enemy ship in sight”, everything German has to be bundled into a big bag on the bridge – even sextants, telescopes, log-books, charts. You, Max,’ he pointed to an athletic-looking seaman, ‘will rush to the galley with it. Cook will pass it along to the Conjuror’s Box where the steward will grab it and fly down the ladder. Meanwhile, the rest of you will be replacing it all with Norwegian gear. Right, men. Let’s see how long it takes.’
At a signal, the Aud sprang to life. Amidst a whirl of activity, Max grabbed a final bundle, ran with it and it disappeared from sight.
Spindler checked his watch. ‘Two minutes exactly. Not bad for a first attempt. I am sure we will be able to knock a few seconds off that with practice.’
That morning of the 10th, just before entering enemy waters, Spindler took one last precaution.
He surrounded a large quantity of TNT with a three-foot-wide cement casing to increase the explosive effect. The detonating wires led to the upper-deck where the ends were concealed. To avoid accidents, the fuses were kept in a different place.
On his last night in Berlin, 10 April, Casement was the dinner guest of beefy-faced St John Gaffney, recently dismissed from his post as American consul in Munich.
He was looking very thin and ill; his clear grey eyes expressed not just pain but a certain bewilderment, as if the world had become too chaotic for him. His main worry was lest the Irish Brigade thought he had walked out on them.
‘Nothing of the sort,’ Gaffney
assured him. ‘And I promise you, Rory, I’ll take good care of them.’
But not even the best champagne could lift Casement’s spirits.
The loyal Monteith, meanwhile, wrote in his diary:
This enterprise is in my opinion a deliberate coldblooded attempt to get rid of Sir Roger Casement and myself, under the pretext of helping our country.
Without me and perhaps without Beverley the world will move along in the same way, but in Sir Roger Casement the world loses one of her best and greatest men.
It occurred to Monteith that though he might not be missed by the world at large, he would certainly be missed by his wife and children. It was all the more maddening in that he was going to die in a useless cause.
If only he could see his loved ones one last time.
*
In the Bronx, New York, it was Monday evening. Two little girls who lived on 137th Street were playing on the sidewalk.
The dark one, aged two and a half, was trying to whip a top. The older golden-haired girl was tapping an old cycle wheel and running after it.
A friendly, round-faced man with his hat on the back of his head stopped the wheel.
‘Hi, Vie,’ he said, like a benign uncle. ‘Long time no see.’ He handed her the wheel back. ‘Is your pa in today?’
‘No, sir.’
The man took out a bag of candy. ‘There, Vie, your daddy told me to give you that.’
The girl shrank back. Her mother had warned her a hundred times not to talk to strangers.
‘You can trust me. Now, where’s your daddy, darling?’
Just then Mollie Monteith ran down the steps, she grabbed both her girls and hurried them into the house.
‘Did you tell him anything?’ The girls shook their heads. ‘You’re sure?’
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