“A widower. Auntie Margaret died of the influenza a few years ago.”
“Perfect,” said Collins, without emotion.
“That’s cold.”
“Do the right thing, Eoin, and ask.”
“I will.”
“As for Yeats, good God,” said Collins. “Who put you up to that?”
“Róisín.”
“I should have known.”
“The Countess Markievicz is in it. And Róisín loves the Countess Markievicz!”
“Ah, Commandant Connie.”
“‘She rode to harriers,’ Yeats wrote.”
Collins laughed. “Harriers, my arse. Do you know why women ride horses?” Eoin shook his head. “Because it’s the next best thing to ridin’ a man!”
“You’ve a filthy mind.”
“And I bet you can’t wait to tell Róisín.”
“Well,” Eoin smiled. “I never did understand the attraction between women and horses—until now!”
“I’m gonna tell Róisín,” the Commandant-General threatened.
“Don’t you dare!”
“Did you know Yeats joined the IRB in London back in the last century?”
“Maybe you should call him to active duty!”
Collins roared at the inane thought. “Fookin’ poets. I’m still cleaning up their mess.”
“You shouldn’t speak that way about Pearse and MacDonagh,” said Eoin, earnestly.
“You forgot Joe Plunkett,” replied Collins. “He liked to scribble, too.”
“Yeah, poor Joe. I saw his widow, Grace Gifford, in Grafton Street the other day.”
“How did she look?”
“Mournful. It’s obvious she’ll never recover.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” continued Collins. “They were all good men, but they were not military men. The only men with a clue that week were Clarke, MacDiarmada, and Connolly. I’d march through hell for those three.”
“Ah,” said Eoin, “but the touch of the poet does add the romantic to the equation.”
“You were there. There wasn’t any romance in the GPO at all.”
“Except me and Róisín.”
“Ah, so it’s finally ‘me and Róisín’ now, is it?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Poets,” mused Collins. “All poets are interested in only one thing—getting shagged!”
“Even Patrick Pearse?”
“Oh,” said Collins, “for fook’s sake, cut our first President some slack.”
“But you said . . .”
“I say a lot of things. I don’t know about poor Paddy and all that other stuff, but he was a good man, a brave man. A man who truly loved Ireland.”
“But you said . . .” tried Eoin again.
“You know,” replied Collins, “I bet that wall-eye of his must have had something to do with it. He was very self-conscious about it. Maybe that’s why he was so shy with the girls. He didn’t have many friends, maybe only MacDonagh and his brother Willie. He liked to give speeches, I’ll say that. But there’s a time to give speeches, and there’s a time to make war. Sometimes I think Paddy confused the two. He was an odd duck. But he did his best. I feel sorry for him in a way. May God protect him.” Eoin couldn’t get a word in edgewise. “But you said . . .”
Collins gave a low laugh. “My cynicism is having an adverse effect on you. You shouldn’t believe everything I say.”
“I don’t—anymore.”
Collins smiled—and, giving away his secret—replied, “I guess I’ve given birth to another ‘terrible beauty.’”
136
“What we need,” said President de Valera, “is some sort of big action in Dublin.”
The President had gathered Collins, the phlegmatic Austin Stack, Cathal Brugha, and Oscar Traynor—another Dev man who had taken over the command of the Dublin Brigade from Dick McKee—at a safe house in Herbert Park. He was obsessed with his “big action,” and he wanted it soon.
“We must bring worldwide public opinion to our side,” the President said.
“It already is on our side,” replied Collins. “We are David. The British are Goliath.”
De Valera cleared his throat. “Exactly.” He paused, as only Eamon de Valera could pause. “We must show the flag. We have to take on the Crown forces and show the world that we are capable of battling the British on equal ground.”
“I don’t think that is wise,” said Collins.
De Valera remained silent. Brugha would do the President’s lifting. “And why isn’t it wise?” Brugha demanded.
“We are a small army,” replied Collins. “We cannot afford big battles. If we have two big battles, we won’t have an Irish Republican Army anymore.”
“Nonsense,” offered Stack. A wary Traynor remained silent.
Silence filled the room until the president spoke again. “We disagree.”
“What do you have in mind?” Collins finally asked.
De Valera nodded at Brugha, and the blustery Minister for Defence took the floor. “I have planned out two areas of conflict. One, an attack on Beggar’s Bush Barracks. And, alternately, the destruction of the Customs House.”
“What do you mean ‘destruction’?” asked Collins.
“Burn it to the ground.”
Collins looked intently at Brugha. “Why?” he finally asked.
“Because it is the center of British administration in Ireland.”
“But,” challenged Collins, “how does that help us in this war?”
“It disrupts,” replied Brugha.
“This country is so disrupted,” shot back Collins, “that another disruption like this hardly makes any sense.”
“Nevertheless,” interrupted the president, “in the next fortnight, we shall settle on one of these two targets.”
“We expect your help,” added Brugha.
“Help?”
“The Squad could be of major help here,” offered Brugha.
“There are other active service units,” replied Collins.
“But yours . . .”
Collins cut Brugha off. “ . . . Is the best?”
“They are efficient,” said the president.
“They are the reason we’re so close,” snapped Collins.
“To what?” asked Stack.
“A fookin’ truce,” said Collins, rising from the table, his patience ebbing. “Let’s stop fookin’ around and get a truce done. It’s going to come sooner or later. Let’s make it sooner.”
“Michael,” said de Valera, drawing the name out. For a moment, Collins thought de Valera was going to criticize his language, but he didn’t. “This big action will accelerate the truce negotiations.”
Collins leaned forward and put his ten fingertips down on the table, his massive shoulders blocking out the light as he directed his words at the sitting president. “I hope you realize that we are almost done.”
“Done?” asked the president, looking up. “What do you mean ‘done’?”
“Done, as in finished,” snapped Collins. “Our meager weapons have no ammunition. Our men are imprisoned. I am . . .” Collins stopped to correct himself, “ . . . we are running this revolution on fumes. There’s almost nothing left. Get the truce done—before we are done.”
“You are expected to follow orders,” shot Brugha.
Collins ignored Brugha and spoke directly to the president. “I know I am not the most popular man right now, but you’re still my Chief. I may not like your orders, but I’ll follow your commands to the letter.” And, with that, the Minister for Finance turned and walked out of the room.
137
EOIN’S DIARY
I got an awful shock today.
Yesterday, Christy Harte up at Vaughan’s Hotel rang to tell me that Uncle Charlie had been around looking for me. He told Christy he’d return today at five o’clock to see if he could catch me.
So I went up to Parnell Square this afternoon, and, as I was about to walk into Vaughan’
s, I turned left and saw Lord Nelson up on his Pillar, over the rooftops, keeping an eye on me from Sackville Street. Somehow, I took it as a bad omen. When I entered the lobby, there was Uncle Charlie waiting for me. What shocked me was that he had Frank sitting beside him. I shook Charlie’s hand and gazed solemnly at Frank, who now looked like a young man, he had grown so much. I can be awkward in moments like this, and I didn’t know what to say to Frank. “Aren’t you happy to see me?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, sorry that it had come out of my mouth. I have trouble lying, and that’s one of my problems. Even in clumsy situations, I tend to say the truth. Sometimes I should just keep me gob shut. “Of course, I’m happy to see you,” I finally blurted out. But my curiosity was on the march. “But what are you doing back in Dublin?”
Frank looked at the floor. “The rumor is there’s some kind of big job coming up, and I was ordered to town.” Frank looked up at me. “I hear you’re a big shot now,” he said, with a smile. “What the hell is going on?” I wanted to tell him nothing, either about my rank or the Customs House attack, which was planned for next week. “You still seeing that vixen from the canal? She’s a nurse or something, right?”
“Róisín is not a vixen. A vixen is a fox. Róisín is a lady. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” came the reluctant answer.
“You also ask too many fookin’ questions for a Volunteer. Do you understand that?”
Frank gave a contrite nod and then asked, “Mary and Dickie still in the orphanages?” I nodded and wished there was an orphanage I could put Frank in.
The three of us stood facing each other, none of us speaking, when the door burst open and Mick unexpectedly came rushing through, his trilby pulled over his eyes. He stopped in front of us, turned to Christy, and nodded. “The three of yous,” he said, gesturing with his attaché case, “upstairs!” We followed him up to the fourth floor. He stopped at the fire escape ladder opposite the door to his office. “If there’s a raid,” he said, gesturing, “up the ladder. Last man pulls the ladder with him.” He opened his office door, and the three of us went in with him. “You must be Uncle Charlie,” Mick said.
“I am,” Charlie confirmed quietly. “And you must be the bold Michael Collins!”
Mick laughed. “I am. Your ‘gifts’ were most welcome!”
Mick turned to Frank, who stood stiff as he saluted. “General!”
Mick looked bemused, and I was embarrassed. “Frank,” I began, but Mick would have none of it.
“Frank,” he cut me off, “what are you doing back in town?”
“General,” he stuttered, obviously shocked to be in Mick’s presence, “I was ordered to town.”
“Why?” Mick persisted.
“There’s a big job coming up. That’s all I’ve been told.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear, Frank,” Collins said with a laugh. He then turned to Uncle Charlie. “Mr. Conway, I hear you served in the British Army during the Great War.”
“I did, indeed,” said Charlie. “In the Royal Field Artillery.”
“Rank?”
“Corporal.”
“The oldest corporal in the British army!” chided Mick to my uncle, who was twenty years older than him.
“Considering,” Charlie replied, with a sly smile, “that I put twenty years in overall, I guess I was the oldest corporal in the field artillery.”
“Twenty years!” said Collins, clearly interested. “Tell me about your service.”
“There’s not a lot to tell.”
“There’s twenty years,” insisted Collins, and I could see that Mick had that look in his eye, like he had just stumbled on the Hope Diamond or something.
“Well,” began Uncle Charlie, “I first joined the Royal Dublin Fusiliers reserves in 1885, the year my dear father died. We needed the money.” This was all news to me, and I was fascinated to hear about my long-dead grandfather. “In 1888, I joined the regular British army, and they shipped me to India for seven years.”
“What did you do in the army?” grilled Mick, as if this were an interrogation.
“I made saddles and was a horse handler,” laughed Charlie.
“Ah,” howled Mick, “a Jackeen horseman!” It wasn’t that unusual, but it certainly wasn’t the image I’d had of my Uncle Charlie.
“After India, I also fought in the Second Boer War before I came back to Dublin in 1902 and went to work for Guinness.” I looked at Mick, and his eyes gave me a knowing look. The tales of Gogarty came to mind. Was Uncle Charlie one of Becky Cooper’s clients back in 1902?
“Weren’t you a little old for the Great War?” I asked.
“A wee bit,” said Charlie. “My wife and your dear mother thought me daft, but I thought it was my duty to my country. I had to fight to get in. At first, they didn’t want me.”
“So you know what it takes to be a soldier,” said Collins.
“I know too well,” Charlie replied in a quiet voice.
“Where did you serve?”
“Gallipoli, and all over France.”
“Gallipoli. Heavy lifting,” said Collins. “Mister Churchill’s adventure.”
“Hernia heavy lifting,” my Uncle Charlie said, dryly, before adding, “Churchill’s adventure—our misfortune.”
A knock came on the door. I pulled on the front of my jacket, revealing my Webley in its holster. “Yes?” I said.
“It’s me, Christy.”
I opened the door, and Christy had tea, cakes, and sandwiches. I closed my jacket but not before I caught the looks on Frank’s and Charlie’s faces. They were shocked that I was armed. The tray was placed on Collins’s desk, and the tay was poured.
Collins, tea cup in hand, turned to Frank. “And what kind of soldier are you, Frank?”
Frank stood mute for a moment, before replying, “I hope I’m a soldier good enough and capable enough to die for Ireland!”
“Jaysus!” I spat. Uncle Charlie was obviously distressed at such fatalistic talk.
“Hush,” snapped Collins in my direction. “I don’t want any of my soldiers dying for Ireland,” said Collins, pointing his index finger at Frank. “No one ever won a war by dying for his country, is that understood?”
“Yes, General,” Frank said, meekly.
“Are you staying with Charlie up in Stoneybatter?”
“Yes, General.”
“Is he giving you any trouble, Charlie?”
Charlie bit his lip before saying, “No, he’s been a good lad.” Charlie, like me, is a lousy liar. It must be a Conway trait.
“Well,” said Collins, “if he gives you any problems while he’s in town, let me know. I’ll straighten it out.” Frank was looking the most contrite I’d ever seen him. “So you’re in town for the so-called ‘big job,’” said Collins.
“I am, General.”
“Well, remember, a good soldier should be seen and not heard. Is that understood?”
“Yes, General.”
Mick turned to my uncle. “Charlie, I was talking with Eoin about asking you for a favor, soldier-to-soldier.”
“Don’t you mean general-to-corporal?”
Collins smiled. He was beginning to appreciate Charlie’s ultra-dry sense of humor. “I always need ‘safe’ houses. You may have read in the papers recently how we lost two important offices, in Mespil Road and Mary Street. Would you be willing to help me out?”
“I might.”
“Now,” continued Collins calmly, “I know this must be a hard decision for you, being a member of the Dublin Fusiliers for these many years, but this is a very important time for Ireland.” He paused to let it sink in to Charlie that he really needed his help. “Why did you give me those guns?”
“Because I don’t like bullies,” said Charlie. “That’s why.”
“I don’t like bullies, either,” said Mick, turning on that charming smile of his.
“Mr. Collins, I was willing to give my life for the Crown in two wars. I’m sh
ocked at what they have done to my city. Half of it is rubble, and it’s not safe to walk the streets without being searched by Auxies or Tans. I was regular British army. We were not thugs. I didn’t fight in two wars to be a prisoner in my own city.”
“We need the help of men like you,” said Collins, and Uncle Charlie nodded his head.
“I was shocked when the Rebellion took place,” Charlie whispered. “I didn’t agree with the leaders, but they were men of conviction, and I admire that. I was a great admirer of John Redmond and the Irish Parliamentary Party.”
“Good Jaysus,” muttered Collins under his breath, trying not to reveal the full extent of his scorn for Redmond and his IPP.
“I was particularly upset over the hangings this past March,” continued Charlie. “Especially young Whelan, who they say shot Derek of Suez. Everyone says he was innocent.”
I cut in on Uncle Charlie. “He was.”
Charlie had this look on his face, which prompted Collins to say, “Just take it as fact from someone who positively knows, Thomas Whelan had nothing to do with Bloody Sunday.”
“So Thomas Whelan was a scapegoat,” said Charlie, slowly.
“And there’s no scapegoat,” added Collins, “like a dead scapegoat.”
Charlie looked at Collins, and another queer look crossed his face. “Hanged,” he began. “I never liked that word. Pictures are hanged. It’s such a refined word. So dainty. ‘Hung’ shows the necessary violence. In that word alone, you can hear the snap of the rope.” Collins stared at Charlie, and Charlie stared back. “This is hard for me to comprehend,” Charlie said at last. “These are not the fair English ideals I fought two wars for.”
Collins got up from his chair and bent down over the sitting Charlie. “I hope you know that Ireland, not Britain, is now your country. Let that sink into your heart.”
“You’re right,” Charlie agreed. “You can use my house anytime you need it.”
“Thank you, Charlie Conway.”
“Thank you, Commandant-General.” Collins gave a loud laugh. “What’s so funny?”
“It’s nice being referred to as ‘Commandant-General’ by a member of your family who isn’t jeerin’ me!” I blushed and stared at the floor. Collins stood up. “It was lovely meeting the two of you,” he announced, letting them know the impromptu meeting was over. “If you ever need anything, Charlie, let me know. You too, Frank.”
The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising Page 43
