Rebels

by Peter De Rosa

  After a courteous but strained breakfast, Pearse went back to St Enda’s where he issued mobilization orders for 4 p.m. on Sunday outside their temporary HQ, Liberty Hall.

  McDermott sent notices that Volunteers were to stand by throughout the country to defend themselves against suppression by the Army. A close friend of his, Jim Ryan, went to Cork to make sure that J. J. O’Connell had not confused them there.

  In his lodgings in Tralee, Stack was breakfasting with Con Collins when young George Spicer burst in. ‘There’s a stranger in my da’s shop. Wants to see you, urgent.’

  Stack asked George to describe him. Big, burly, black hair, military moustache.

  It rang no bells. A trap, maybe?

  ‘Tell him I’ll be there in an hour or so.’

  When George ran home with this message, Monteith reacted angrily. ‘That’s not good enough. Go back and tell him to please be here in half an hour.’

  George said, ‘A lady down the road serves food. I’ll take you there if you like.’

  ‘Thanks, son.’ He and Beverley had not eaten for eighteen hours. ‘But as soon as the commander arrives, let me know.’

  They went and banged on the lady’s front door. She leaned out of her upstairs bedroom. ‘Down in a minute.’

  For ten minutes, they shivered on the doorstep. To Monteith this was a nightmare. First no pilot boat, and now they were waiting in full view for some peeler to pick them up. At last, there were sounds of life inside. Half a dozen keys turned in locks and they were let in to an unlit draughty kitchen. Soon the lady, talking non-stop, had a fire going and put a substantial Irish breakfast on the table. It was their first square meal since Wilhelmshaven.

  They gulped down their food and hurried back to the Spicers. A Volunteer called Joe Melinn called for his morning paper and Hanna told him about the two strangers. Peeping into the kitchen, he recognized Monteith at once.

  He rushed in and shook him by the hand. ‘Wait here, Bob,’ he said. ‘I’ll go home and get the pair of you a change of clothes.’

  When he returned he kitted Beverley out, complete with cap and overcoat. Monteith was grateful for clean underclothes but the suit was too small. The boots, too, were very tight and hurt his swollen foot. But with food inside him, with his clothes in front of the fire giving off a scorching smell and reminding him of Molly’s ironing, he was content.

  There was a fire, too, in the Volunteer HQ in Dublin.

  In spite of his late night, Hobson was the first in and he immediately started burning correspondence and lists of names. The police were likely to raid them before the day was out. As the staff clocked in, he got them to help. The offices reeked with burning when McDermott arrived.

  ‘Before you do anything else, Hobson,’ he said, ‘I reckon you ought to read this.’

  Hobson snatched the note. It said: ‘Take no action till I see you. Am coming in. Eoin MacNeill.’ In manipulating MacNeill, he thought sourly, the conspirators had had an easy task.

  All that morning he was burning papers and waiting for MacNeill who never showed up. Meanwhile McDermott reported back to Clarke. Hobson worried them. He had proved at Howth that he was second to none in grit and guile.

  ‘We shall have to deal with that traitor,’ Clarke said. ‘Here’s what we’ll do.’

  At about 10 a.m., Stack and Collins cautiously entered Spicer’s.

  ‘Good God,’ said Collins, ‘Bob Monteith. What the blazes is this all about?’

  Stack knew nothing about Casement coming to Ireland. He wondered if Pearse knew and if so why he had not mentioned it.

  Monteith said that Pearse must be told at once that Casement thought a rising in present circumstances was madness. Germany was providing no men, only antiquated rifles. He had difficulty getting through to Stack. ‘Shouldn’t you send a pilot out? The arms boat might be in the Bay this very minute.’

  Stack muttered, ‘I’d need to speak with Casement myself before changing my orders. Incidentally, where is he?’

  Monteith described how they had come ashore near a church with a steeple.

  ‘Ardfert,’ Stack said. ‘You must’ve landed on Banna Strand.’

  ‘We left him in a fort six miles or so from here.’

  Stack guessed this was the ruins of Ballymacquin Castle. ‘Either that or McKenna’s Fort, Currahane. We’ll try both.’

  While Stack was ordering a car, Monteith said to Beverley, ‘I’d be grateful if you’d guide them. My face is well known to the RIC. Besides, I’m practically a cripple.’

  Beverley, a quiet man, simply nodded.

  As the clock was striking 11 a.m., a Model T Ford arrived, driven by Moss Moriarty. Stack, Collins and Beverley, given the name of David Mulcahy, piled in. Hanna Spicer went along to give them a party air.

  Before settling down to rest Monteith asked if someone could take a message to Dublin. While he was waiting for him to come, he drifted into sleep.

  In a corridor at Liberty Hall James Connolly ran into his second-in-command, Mallin, a short, dark, handsome, self-composed man.

  ‘Have you been drinking, Michael?’

  Mallin shook his head.

  ‘Tell the truth, man,’ yelled Connolly, whose tongue could raise a blister on a plank. ‘Look at you, shaking all over like a dog from a stream.’

  ‘I have not taken a drink in a long while, Seamus.’

  ‘My God,’ Connolly persisted, dropping his voice, ‘we’re going out in a couple of days and your job in the Green is vital to us.’

  As Connolly stamped off Frank Robbins, a twenty-year-old bachelor recently appointed Sergeant in the Citizen Army, said, ‘What was all that about?’

  They went upstairs to a room overlooking the Liffey where Mallin, a silk-weaver by trade, kept a loom. He was in the process of weaving a bright piece of poplin. ‘The boss thinks I’ve been drinking.’

  Seeing his shaky hand, Robbins said, ‘Have you?’

  ‘I was in India, in the Army,’ said Mallin. ‘Contracted malaria. It comes back from time to time. Had it bad recently but I’m nearly better now.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell him that?’

  As he passed the shuttle through the thread, Mallin replied, ‘I guess I was too proud to, Frank. I thought he might have trusted me by now after me saving him in January.’

  ‘He’s on edge, Michael, we all are.’

  While Frank was filling shotgun cartridges, he pointed to the loom. ‘What’s that for?’

  ‘If I go, my wife’ll have nothing for the kids, y’ see. I’m hoping she’ll be able to sell this for about ten pounds to tide her over.’

  It was a small thing but it made Dobson realize the strain the married men were under.

  The Ford reached Ardfert at 11.30 a.m. and from there headed north towards Banna. On the way they met a horse-drawn cart driven by a local lad, twelve-year-old Martin Collins. On the cart was a boat.

  ‘That’s ours, all right,’ Beverley whispered.

  Behind the cart strode an RIC constable. Further on, they came across two more RIC men, Hearn and Reilly, searching the dunes.

  To add to their problems they had a blow-out. They were putting on the spare tyre when two more policemen came up and questioned them. On a Good Friday this was no routine work, yet who had alerted them?

  Stack explained, with a lightheartedness he did not feel, that they were on a picnic. When the police were out of hearing, Stack said, ‘Security’s too tight. We shall have to go back.’

  The others agreed. Even if they found Casement, they could only protect him by force, which Pearse had forbidden. Their one hope was that if the police did capture him they would not identify him.

  They made a detour to get out of the danger area. Even so they were stopped twice more by RIC patrols. Finally, the car was halted by a squad of four armed police, led by a Sergeant Loftus who asked them if they had any firearms.

  Collins produced a Browning pistol.

  ‘I’ll take that from you at present,’ said t
he Sergeant. ‘Anyone else?’

  Stack said he had an automatic but he would not give it up to anyone.

  While Collins and Beverley were invited into the Barracks, Stack stayed in the car for five minutes till he had had enough. With his gun in his pocket plainly pointed at the Sergeant, he said, ‘Am I to be kept waiting much longer?’

  ‘They’ll be with you in a tick,’ the Sergeant said jumpily. He gave Collins back his Browning. ‘Off you go.’

  They drove full-speed towards Tralee.

  At one in the afternoon, District Police Inspector Frederick A. Britten of Tralee phoned General Stafford at Queenstown, telling him that three strangers had come ashore and were probably hiding on the strand. There was also a rumour that the Germans had landed.

  Forewarned of this possibility by Admiral Bayly, the General told Britten to keep his men on full alert.

  ‘I’ll send you reinforcements by morning.’

  Twenty minutes later, the two policemen who had been searching the dunes approached McKenna’s Fort. Reilly sighted someone in the undergrowth.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ he ordered, levelling his carbine, ‘or I’ll shoot.’

  A tall pleasant-faced gentleman rose to his feet, smiling.

  ‘Shoot? Whatever for?’

  ‘Step forward, sir, please, and identify yourself.’

  ‘With pleasure. I’m a visitor to your charming countryside. My name is Richard Morten and my address is The Savoy, Denham in Buckinghamshire.’ Morten was Casement’s best friend in England. ‘Do you mind not pointing that thing at me.’

  Sheepishly, Reilly lowered his gun.

  ‘I’m an author,’ Casement went on. ‘I’ve written a life of St Brandon.’

  Reilly was observing the stranger’s wet trousers and the sand on his boots. With Casement at his most plausible, the two policemen were wondering whether to take him into custody when Martin Collins beckoned to the Sergeant.

  ‘What is it, son?’

  The boy held out his hand. In it were crumpled pieces of paper. ‘That tall gentleman over there, when he saw the Constable climbing over the fence, he threw them away.’

  The Sergeant patted the lad on the head. On two typewritten sheets were numbers in a foreign script and phrases corresponding such as ‘Await further instructions’, ‘Further ammunition needed’, and ‘Send another ship to …’.

  They searched the fort again, this time finding three overcoats. In one was a printed slip: ‘N 0113 Berlin nach Wilhelmshaven, April 11/12.’ It was Casement’s berth-ticket from Berlin which he had overlooked when emptying his pockets on the U-19.

  ‘What language might this be, sir?’ enquired the Sergeant.

  ‘ ’Tis not Irish, anyway,’ said Reilly.

  Casement’s vanity was badly dented. He had dined with American Presidents, been knighted for services to the Crown, had dealt firmly with the German General Staff; and, within hours of reaching Ireland, he had let himself be outsmarted by what Devoy would have called a kid and a couple of country cops.

  ‘Honestly, I have never seen it before.’ He did not even make a convincing liar.

  Finally came the clincher. Reilly found something in the dust. ‘German sausage, I bet.’

  The Sergeant pointed to the pony and trap.

  ‘I’d be obliged, Martin, me boy, if you’d give us all a lift back to barracks.’

  It was soon after 1 p.m. when Lieutenant W. H. A. Bee, RNR, on an armed trawler, the Lord Heneage, picked up a message from Loop Head.

  ‘Suspicious vessel sighted in Tralee Bay. Investigate.’

  A second message from Smerwick station followed. A foreign vessel had been seen the night before heaving things overboard.

  The Lord Heneage was now tracking the Aud, its big gun on the fo’c’s’le deck uncovered and ready to fire. Spindler saw it to the west through his glasses. It was bigger and faster than Setter II. With the capstan creaking and groaning, the anchor was weighed in double-quick time. He spat out his commands. ‘Due-west, full-speed ahead.’

  The hostile craft was less than nine miles away. They were not likely to have a drunken old soak examining their cargo a second time. He ordered all hands to the stokehold. His men rattled down the ladder and grabbed every available shovel.

  Taking the wheel himself, he sailed as close as he dared to the shore. Black plumes from the Aud’s funnel rose up the cliff face and wedged into crevices of the rocks. He kept calling through the voice-pipe the shortening distance between them and their pursuer and ignored all signals to stop.

  Directly ahead was their old friend, Setter II. It had stopped 500 yards from a shore battery. Spindler handed the wheel to his Second Mate, Strehlau. He needed to think.

  There was an exchange of signals between the shore battery and the Lord Heneage. This time, Setter II was bound to be less friendly. One thing he could do.

  ‘Strehlau,’ he ordered, ‘ram it.’

  Setter II hoisted a flag but in the still air it hung limply. It could only be signalling ‘Stop at Once’. On shore the guns were aimed and waiting for the command to fire.

  Spindler yelled down the pipe, ‘Prepare to light fuses and blow up the ship.’ Just then, as Setter II turned to port, a breeze unfurled her flag. He was astonished to see the signal was ‘TDL’, that is, ‘Bon voyage’. He grabbed the wheel from his second mate and swung it round to port, avoiding a collision with only a ship’s length to spare. He saw the red-faced skipper hanging on to the rail for dear life. Then the old soak took his cap off and waved it round his head, calling, ‘Three cheers for the Aud.’

  The commander of the shore battery was just about to yell, ‘Fire!’ when the cheers on Setter II made him hesitate. ‘What the bloody hell—?’ he roared.

  The Aud’s crew added to the confusion by waving their Norwegian caps in response as Düsselmann ran up the signal, ‘XOR’, ‘Thank you’. Spindler ordered the dipping of his flag in salute. The German command was similar to the Norwegian word that was the signal to blow up the ship. As a member of the crew stepped forward to unfurl the German ensign, the Chief Engineer lit the first fuse.

  Someone screamed, ‘Chief, you heard wrong!’ and he put the fuse out with his bare hands.

  The Aud was still only a mile out, well within range of the shore battery. Fortunately, Setter II and the Lord Heneage took five minutes to sort out the confusion before joining in pursuit. That breather was all Spindler needed.

  The Lord Heneage radioed Admiral Bayly: ‘Suspicious vessel sighted south of Tearaght, steering south-west.’

  Stack stopped the car at 1.30 p.m. near Killaham Cross, at the home of Mickeen Jer O’Connell. He asked him to look after Beverley.

  After a meal, O’Connell took him for safety to Mick Hanlon’s farm at Gloundallive, a mile from Ballyduff village. It was a desolate spot.

  ‘You’ll be safe here, all right,’ said O’Connell.

  Spindler yelled, ‘We’ve got to get out of here, and fast!’

  Düsselmann took the wheel and Strehlau worked the telegraph. The temperature in the engine room rose well above 100 degrees. Below, the stokers, with sparks flying off their shovels, were dripping with sweat. The pressure-gauge needle was well into the danger zone, and, in a ghostly blood-red light, they went on throwing in coal like devils in hell.

  Though the Aud could not go any faster, Spindler still urged them on. ‘More steam, you blackguards, or, by all the pigs’ snouts in Germany, I’ll blow the ship up.’

  More clanging of shovels, furnace doors opening and closing, a heavier throbbing in the heart of the ship. The chief engineer, stripped to the waist, black with coal-dust and sweating through every pore, poked his swollen face through the hatch at the top of the ladder.

  ‘If we go on like this, Herr Kapitän,’ he bleated, showing teeth and eyes of startling whiteness, ‘the boilers’ll burst.’

  ‘If we don’t,’ Spindler replied cheerfully, ‘we had better all make our wills.’

  After a heave for ai
r, the begrimed bullet-head shot below, leaving behind a thick odour of hot metal and oil. The clanging of revolving brass and steel grew louder, the water in the bilges thumped against the sides. They were travelling at an incredible 13 knots.

  Soon they were out of sight of the battery and by 3.30 in the afternoon there was no sign of their pursuers. Spindler informed his crew, ‘The immediate danger has passed.’

  The news was greeted in the engine-room with loud cheers. The Chief took steps to lower the pressure; slowly the needle moved into the black.

  ‘Soon we will be out of the Bay,’ Spindler said, though with their pursuers alerting their command, there were bound to be problems ahead.

  Once in the open sea, he had the whole Atlantic to choose from. With a brisk north wind blowing, he opted for the south. It fitted his story best; he was sailing under a neutral flag to Cardiff and Italy. A pity the weather was so damned good, especially with four hours of daylight left. If only they could hold out till dark, he would change course to due-west to avoid coastal interference.

  Then Spindler had a fresh shock. Sailing towards them from the south was a steamer that looked very like the Aud. As the distance between them shortened, he noticed it, too, was flying the Norwegian flag.

  Good God, he thought, if this is the real Aud, what a meeting this will be!

  He did not hang around to find out.

  At Ardfert Barracks, Sergeant Hearn telephoned Tralee about his captive and was told to bring him in at once in a side-car. At Tralee, Casement asked to see a priest.

  Fr Francis M. Ryan, a Dominican of Holy Cross Priory, was sent for. ‘I believe,’ he said, putting on a purple stole as he settled in a chair, ‘you wish to make your peace with God.’

  The prisoner knelt beside him, and the priest blessed him in Latin. ‘Now, my son, how long since your last confession?’

  ‘This,’ Casement whispered, ‘is my very first, Father, and I want you, please, to listen very carefully.’

  Apart from stiffening a little, the priest gave no sign that this was out of the ordinary. Casement identified himself, explained briefly what his mission was and begged him to warn the Volunteers not to try and rescue him.