Rebels

by Peter De Rosa

  They said, ‘No.’

  Mollie picked up the phone and put through a call to Devoy.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, Mr Devoy, but those British Vigilantes have been getting at my kids again. Hadn’t I better move house?’

  On 11 April, the Aud was sailing along the Danish coast when Spindler heard the rush of a submarine’s bow-wave and the ringing of its telegraph as it surfaced.

  He thanked God it was a U-boat.

  When the Commander hailed him from the conning tower, Spindler chuckled to himself. He had met him only a couple of days before in Kiel.

  ‘State your port of origin and destination.’

  Spindler pretended not to know any German, so they conversed in English, the lingua franca of the sea.

  ‘We are from Danzig, Herr Kapitän,’ Spindler called out. ‘Heading for Christiania.’

  ‘There is a danger of mines here,’ the Commander told him. ‘Follow me and I will see you safely through.’

  Spindler whispered to his mate, ‘Perfect gentlemen, these Germans.’

  *

  On 11 April, Major Price, the Intelligence Officer at Dublin Castle, sent a report to Sir John French in London.

  While the Irish in general were loyal to the Crown, he said, the Sinn Fein Volunteers were practising drill, rifle-shooting, night attacks, and running officer-training camps. They seemed to have considerable funds for arms, though often they stole them.

  Hundreds of home-made grenades had been seized by the police, and only two days before they had captured guns, revolvers and bayonets from Sinn Feiners on their way from Dublin to Wexford.

  Price gave it as his opinion, backed by General Friend, that a rebellion was on the cards. The Sinn Feiners were only looking for an opportunity.

  Sir John French found nothing substantially new in it. He remembered the boss-man Birrell saying very clearly on two recent occasions that the Sinn Feiners simply could not compete with Crown forces.

  ‘File it away,’ he said to his secretary.

  On that day, Stack went to Dublin for a last meeting with the Military Council.

  ‘I have kept those in the know to a very few whom I trust,’ he said. ‘But we are quite ready.’

  ‘And,’ asked Pearse, ‘you will be able to keep the Army and the police in their barracks till the arms are distributed?’

  ‘Certainly, sir.’

  ‘You have stressed,’ said Pearse, ‘that not one shot is to be fired until the Republic is proclaimed in Dublin.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Stack. ‘I’ve even warned the pilot not to go out signalling before Sunday evening.’

  ‘The arms boat will not arrive until the morning after the rising,’ Pearse said confidently.

  ‘Then,’ Clarke said, in conclusion, ‘I think things are all sewn up in Tralee.’

  In Berlin that evening, Casement, Monteith and Beverley were driven to the General Staff for their final briefing.

  Monteith, worried about Casement, suggested that he stay behind.

  ‘No!’ Casement had a reason for going that his friend still did not suspect, ‘I must go.’

  Nadolny said cynically, ‘Of course. After all, Sir Roger, you have your honour to think of.’

  Monteith said, ‘He’s ill, can’t you see that?’ He rounded on Nadolny. ‘Why send him to certain death? England is thirsting for his blood. And there is no point to it.’

  ‘Please,’ Nadolny said brusquely, ‘we will take the next item on the agenda.’

  He handed Monteith the code for communicating with Germany in case the Irish operations were prolonged and they needed more arms. ‘Sectpol’ was the calling-up signal.

  ‘Any messages with that prefix,’ Nadolny said, ‘will be transmitted without delay to the General Staff in Berlin.’

  They were each given a berth-ticket for a separate sleeper on the train.

  ‘Remember, gentlemen,’ Haughwitz emphasized, ‘if you meet in the corridor or the washroom, act as if you are complete strangers.’

  Back in his hotel, Casement made the last entry in his German diary:

  The last days are all a nightmare, and I have only a confused memory of them, and some periods are quite blank in my mind, only a sense of horror and repugnance to life. But I daresay the clouds will break and brighter skies dawn, at least for Ireland.

  I am quite sure it is the most desperate piece of folly ever committed; but I go gladly. If those poor lads at home are to be in the fire, then my place is with them.

  It was late that night when, with his companions, he caught the overnight train to Wilhelmshaven. Next morning, Wednesday, they boarded a steam cutter for the U-20 which was about half a mile out, taking on stores.

  The Captain, Walther Schwieger, was checking his orders. He was to be one sea mile north-west of Inishtooskert Island just after midnight on 20 April onwards. Between 20 April and 23 April, the Aud, under Norwegian colours, would rendezvous at the island and take off his three Irishmen. If the U–20 was late, the steamer had orders not to wait. It would be guided in by pilot boat to Fenit and discharge its cargo. The pilot boat would then return to Inishtooskert to collect the Irishmen. If the U-boat failed to make contact with the steamer or the pilot boat, the Irishmen were to be put ashore in a rowing boat.

  One thing was paramount: there was to be no landing from the U-boat prior to 20 April. If, on the other hand, they failed to make their destination by the 23rd, they were to abort the operation.

  Pictures were taken of the passengers as they boarded. Casement had doom in his eyes. He shook hands with Schwieger who, single-handed, had almost brought the United States into the war by sinking the Lusitania.

  Monteith noted that the U-20 had four torpedoes. Two were in the chutes, the others slung above. It also had a wireless.

  At breakfast, which had been held up for the visitors, Casement asked casually how fast the submarine was.

  ‘When submerged and under electrical power,’ Schwieger replied, ‘we can travel at 8 or 9 knots. On the surface, with heavy oil engines, at 12 knots.’

  After breakfast, when the order was given to submerge, the visitors were sent centre-wise to the Captain’s cabin. The majesty of silence was broken only by a little rattling noise, made by the diving fin connections, and the faint swirl of water as it rushed into the tanks, and the sharply uttered, ‘Achtung,’ and, ‘Jawohl, Herr Kapitän,’ as the seamen responded to commands.

  Down, down, they went, slower as the water pressure increased, encased in steel, their ear-drums popping.

  Casement, the eternal diarist, wrote, as an aid to memory, ‘Left Wicklow [Wilhelmshaven] in Willie’s yacht.’

  That afternoon, among the bunch of coded wireless messages picked up on the east coast of England was one of particular interest to Room 40.

  It contained the signal ‘Oats’. It was an alert from British agents on the Continent. Casement had left Germany bound for Ireland. ‘Hay’ would have meant a hitch.

  A pretty woman secretary entered Captain Hall’s office. ‘He’s on his way, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Ruth.’

  Putting various Intelligence reports together, Hall now knew that a submarine and an arms ship were on their way to Ireland. He also believed from various intercepts that a rising was planned for 22 April.

  ‘Right,’ Hall said, ‘alert our subs to find the boat and the U-boat and keep them under surveillance.’

  French’s Adjutant-General had asked the Irish Office if they were still convinced no Irish rebellion was on the cards.

  Nathan answered: ‘Though the Volunteer element has been active of late I do not believe that its leaders mean insurrection or that they have sufficient arms if they do.’

  Birrell was feeling in low spirits at this time. Cabinet intrigues were getting him down. He was desperately hoping for an Easter break with his two sons in the west of Ireland where he would be able to breathe more easily.

  Nathan cheered him slightly by telling him that things seemed to be i
mproving. True, that ass Wimborne was still talking of deporting trouble-makers like Clarke and Connolly, but a number of arms finds was lifting morale in the Castle. They also had well-placed informers in the ranks of the Volunteers.

  Nathan wrote: ‘We are at last getting some information as to what is going on here – for the first time since I have been in the place.’

  In the basement of St Enda’s, Pearse, with the rising only thirteen days away, watched as two former pupils of his, Bulfin and Desmond Ryan, with other young IRB comrades, were busy manufacturing bombs and handgrenades.

  The bell on the front door rang. Pearse was called up to see a visitor. It was Paddy Cahill from Tralee.

  They went into the study to the right of the entrance hall. The news from Stack was encouraging. The planning was almost complete.

  Pearse wanted Stack to know he was sending Sean Fitzgibbon of the Volunteer HQ to help plan the unloading of arms. He did not mention his one worry about Fitzgibbon: he was not a member of the Brotherhood. In fact, he was a MacNeill man. He hoped this would not make any difference once the rising was sprung upon the Volunteer movement. But it was another calculated risk among many, another possible avenue of failure.

  The U–20 was only a day and a half at sea when it broke down.

  Casement was convinced that this was a delaying tactic to make sure he did not reach Irish shores before the arms ship. In fact, the crank actuating the diving fins had snapped. The skipper had no option but to put in for repairs.

  He wirelessed ahead to the German base at Heligoland.

  The message was picked up, decoded and passed on to Hall.

  ‘So,’ he muttered, ‘that’s where the blighters are.’

  He was now able to anticipate their path.

  ‘Ingenious bastards,’ he grumbled. ‘They’re going the long way round.’

  With a thousand other more important intercepts to deal with in the main theatre of war he found it somewhat hard to take this Irish expedition seriously. Still, he owed it to colleagues in the Senior Service in Ireland to alert them. Not, of course, in such detail as to compromise his secret weapon. He was only prepared to give hints which the enemy would judge had been obtained from other, more orthodox sources.

  Joe Plunkett was a patient in Miss Quinn’s Private Nursing Home in Mountjoy Square, Dublin. Though pale and exhausted, his mind could not rest. The first stages of his plan to deceive MacNeill had gone well. Now for the final act.

  He asked his friend O’Connor to take the forged document to Kimmage to be printed in its entirety.

  ‘Tell them, Rory, to leave out capitals and all punctuation because they are lacking in the original.’

  It was a neat touch.

  O’Connor took the document to Joe’s brother George and Colm O’Lochlainn at the Plunketts’ family home where they had set up a small handpress.

  When they ran their eyes down the page, they were staggered. Here was proof that the Castle was preparing to take over the Volunteer HQ, St Enda’s, Liberty Hall and many other centres. The Administration also intended rounding up MacNeill, who was O’Lochlainn’s teacher, Pearse, Connolly, Clarke and Joe Plunkett himself. They were even going to raid Archbishop’s House, Drumcondra. That last was verging on the incredible. Archbishop Walsh was on record as saying repeatedly that violence against the British was a mortal sin and could not be justified.

  Work was almost finished when O’Lochlainn was bothered by the fact that in the document the Archbishop’s House was called Ara Coeli.

  ‘That’s the name of Cardinal Logue’s House in Armagh,’ he said.

  He made Jack Plunkett go by motor bike to ask Joe about that. He returned within the hour.

  ‘Joe said just change it to Archbishop’s House.’

  In Tralee, Stack’s first choice of pilot had let him down. He asked Pat O’Shea, a young student-member of the IRB, to meet him at his office in Dr O’Connell’s law firm. Putting his finger to his lips, he led him upstairs to an empty room where he told him of the rising.

  ‘German vessels are heading this way laden with arms for the Volunteers. I want you, Pat, to find me a pilot.’

  ‘When for?’

  ‘The arms’ll be off Inishtooskert on the night of Easter Sunday or the morning of Easter Monday, not before.’

  O’Shea said, ‘Mort O’Leary of the Maharees is your man.’

  ‘Right,’ Stack said. ‘Have him come to Tralee on Saturday 22 April for final instructions and pick up a couple of green signalling lamps from the Rink.’

  Next day, Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly, Commander of the Western Approaches, stationed in Queenstown, County Cork, received an intriguing piece of information from Room 40. It was a combination of intercepts and information, not wholly accurate, from agents on the Continent.

  ‘A ship left on the 12th accompanied by two German subs. Due to arrive the 21st and a rising timed for Easter Eve (22nd).’

  Bayly passed this on to his army counterpart, General W. F. H. Stafford, Commander of Queenstown defences which included eight southern counties. He also alerted Galway.

  On that same Friday, 14 April, Mimi Plunkett finally made it to the offices of the Gaelic American in Manhattan. She went to the rest room and extracted a coded message hidden in her underclothes.

  Devoy was not expecting her. He had a gut-feeling that something was very wrong. For safety’s sake, he took her to the offices of a colleague, some distance away.

  The message, when decoded, read: ‘Arms must not be landed before night of Sunday 23rd. This is vital.’

  A shaken Devoy immediately called the German Embassy but it was Friday, after 5 p.m. No one answered. That night, he did not sleep a wink.

  First thing in the morning, he handed in a typed copy of the message to Papen, with ‘goods’ substituted for ‘arms’. The military attaché promised that as soon as the lines were open that evening it would be wirelessed to Berlin.

  *

  The U-20 arrived at Heligoland, the Gibraltar of the North Sea, at 3.30 in the morning. Engineers said repairs would take time.

  Two hours later the Irish party transferred to the U-19. A twin of the U-20, it was commanded by twenty-nine-year-old chunky, cheerful Lieutenant Raimund Weisbach.

  Schwieger, having memorized his orders, had burned them as a precaution. Weisbach, therefore, received only a verbal briefing.

  While Casement fumed at the delay, Monteith made use of it. Knowing they might have to go ashore on a small boat, he practised stopping and starting the outboard motor in Heligoland harbour. On one start, the engine backfired and sprained his wrist. It was very painful and began to swell at once.

  To Casement, this was just one more bad omen. ‘How will you be able to handle a machine-gun?’

  ‘I’ll manage,’ Monteith said, through gritted teeth.

  The U-19, with the small boat stowed on board, was ready to set off at 1.30 p.m. Weisbach said the journey would take five days. They were to travel on the surface, except for a regulation ten miles a day below.

  While he felt well, Casement did all he could for Monteith, even cutting his bread for him. He told the crew, ‘If Ireland is victorious in this rising, I’ll see you have sent to you the best Irish eggs and butter.’ During recreation he waved a green flag and sang Irish rebel songs to a guitar accompaniment.

  By the 15th, in rough, open sea, he was sea-sick and unable to eat. The black bread and ersatz coffee tasted of diesel oil. His saliva would start an engine.

  The three Irishmen were with four others in a cabin meant for four. The air was foul; condensation dampened and verdigrised their clothing and bedding; the smell was indescribable. The incessant ringing of bells and the engine noises made sleep impossible.

  Monteith and Beverley, in oilskins, went up the conning tower for fresh air but Casement could not manage it. He lay in his bunk, getting weaker and weaker.

  While Casement was fighting nausea, Bernstorff in Washington received Dublin’s note sent on by Devoy. He, to
o, was shaken that, at this late stage, they wanted the arms shipment delayed until Sunday 23 April.

  Because this note was top secret, it was not sent from Sayville.

  Hall had long been aware that Bernstorff was contacting Berlin by an unknown route. He guessed it was from Argentina through Chile but exactly how he did not know. In fact, the messages were transmitted from Buenos Aires to Valparaiso and thence to Mexico City where the Swedish chargé d’affaires encoded them on the American transatlantic line. Messages on the Swedish Roundabout took about four days to reach Berlin.

  Bernstorff used this route to relay Dublin’s note to Berlin.

  At Queenstown, Admiral Bayly planned on the basis of Devoy’s telegram of 10 February. Room 40 did not communicate the precise location of the arms landing, Tralee, nor the exact date of the rising, Easter Sunday.

  But, both at sea and on land, the British were on the watch in the west.

  This was something that Pearse and Clarke, still thinking in terms of informers, did not even suspect.

  On the Aud, Spindler knew that the 16th, Palm Sunday, was critical. It was the day he would have to try and break through the British line.

  At 4 a.m., the entry in the log read: ‘Weather: overcast, increasingly misty, occasional heavy showers, wind, south-west 4, freshening, corresponding sea.’

  The ship was averaging 10 knots. With 150 nautical miles to cover, he calculated he would arrive in the middle of the enemy line at about 8 p.m. That was fine. It would be dark and at the hour of a change of watch. Also, on a Sunday, extra rum was handed out, so the watch tended to be less vigilant.

  Room 40 picked up a message from a British submarine.

  Ruth entered Hall’s office. ‘They are tailing the German steamer, sir.’

  ‘Good,’ Hall said, ‘make sure they stay there till they reach the Tenth Cruiser Squadron. Just keep us in touch but no one is to get too near. It may be armed with torpedoes and there’s one, possibly two U-boats in attendance.’

  On Palm Sunday, at Liberty Hall, Connolly put on uniform for the first time and, flanked by Michael Mallin and a beaming Countess Markievicz, marched out into a packed Beresford Place. The occasion was a ceremony that had been planned for some time.