A Winter of Spies

by Gerard Whelan

  ‘One wrong word is enough to drag trouble down on us all,’ he’d say. ‘These are poison times.’

  ‘Da wants to pretend that none of this is happening,’ Sarah would complain to Jimmy. ‘But it is – it’s happening, and it’s glorious, and we should all be a part of it.’

  ‘Da is trying to protect us,’ Jimmy always said. ‘He’s trying to protect all we have now. You don’t remember what we lived like before – you were only a child.’

  Sarah did understand, really, but sometimes it was hard to be patient with Da. Anyway it was impossible to stay away from politics in Dublin. You could hardly go for a walk without finding yourself stopped and searched, or risking being in the middle of an ambush that flared up out of nowhere. There had even been trouble on the docks and the railways, with the dockers refusing to handle army munitions and the train drivers refusing to carry armed police or soldiers.

  ‘Not that it does much good betimes,’ Da had said. ‘When a Tan sticks a gun under a fellow’s nose and tells him to drive, then he drives. What else is he to do?’

  Neither Da nor Mick had supported the railway workers’ campaign, and that was the thing that shocked Sarah most of all. It was true that hundreds of workers had been dismissed for their actions, but still, she thought, there was such a thing as suffering for your country. And Da had always been such a strong trade-union man, too. Big Jim Larkin and James Connolly, the union men, had been his idols. Da never even mentioned James Connolly now. Sarah did love her father, but it seemed like a shocking betrayal.

  ‘All you can do at a time like this,’ Da would say, ‘is keep your head down and hope for the best.’

  5

  GUNS

  Sarah’s bloodthirsty talk didn’t go down well with the rest of her family either. When she heard of some new murder or looting she’d yearn aloud to be facing the Tans with a gun in her hand.

  ‘Lord save us!’ Ella would say if she heard her. ‘Don’t talk like that, child!’

  ‘Pay her no mind, Ella,’ Ma would say. ‘You’re only encouraging her.’ Ma refused to be shocked, which sometimes only made Sarah try harder. It never really worked. If she went too far Ma would fix her with a beady eye that promised trouble, and Sarah would find herself falling silent. Ma never made threats; she didn’t have to. One day, Sarah promised herself, she’d stand up to Ma – even stand up to Da. But she was in no hurry.

  Jimmy would sometimes act like Ma when he heard Sarah spouting off about shooting and fighting: he’d ignore her until she shut up. At other times though he’d lose patience with her, and give out. Sometimes it was a sort of a game that she played with him, seeing how far she had to go to make him lose his temper. He tended to react best if you talked about guns a lot. Jimmy hated guns.

  ‘There’s a badness in guns,’ he’d say. ‘A sickness. And the fellow who does the shooting can get sicker than the fellow he shoots at. Ah, what’s the use? You don’t even understand what I’m saying to you.’

  That much was true. Sarah had no time for such daft talk. It came, she thought, of reading too many books. She’d call Jimmy a dry old stick, and cowardly.

  ‘There you go again letting on to be an ould fella,’ she’d say. ‘It’s a lot that you know about anything, I’m sure!’

  That always made him angry. ‘What do you know?’ he asked her one time. ‘You’re only a kid. I seen people being shot.’

  ‘So did I!’ Sarah boasted. ‘Well, nearly! I would have, only Ma stopped me from going to look. That time in Camden Street, when we were going to the shop. That policeman got shot in Aungier Street, and after it we saw Martin Ford hurrying off and later you said, probably …’

  But Jimmy clapped his hand over her mouth and looked around wildly. ‘For God’s sake,’ he hissed furiously in her ear, ‘will you watch your foolish mouth! Don’t ever, ever say things like that out loud! No names, damn it!’

  Even Sarah had to admit that he’d been right to hush her up that time. But that was months ago, when she really had been a kid. And even now she sort of resented the fact that Ma hadn’t let her go look at the shot policeman.

  Shooting seemed to bother all of them – except for Sarah, that is. She thought it was exciting. ‘How many men did you kill in the Rising?’ she used to ask Mick now and again. It always annoyed him, and she knew that; but it was some way of getting a reaction out of him. Not that he’d ever actually answered her, barring the one time. That was in September, just after the Black and Tans had burned Balbriggan. Mick had seemed terribly angry about that, though he tried to hide it. Sarah had more or less jeered him about his attitude to violence then.

  ‘What answer is there to that class of thing,’ she’d demanded one night when Mick had had a few drinks, ‘only to pick up a gun? You did it yourself, Mick, in the Rising – or did you shoot it at all?’

  She knew she was being cruel, but she couldn’t help herself. Balbriggan wasn’t far from Dublin. It was just beyond Skerries, where she’d been with Da on summer outings. Mick had friends out that way. Twenty-five houses had been burned in Balbriggan, and several people bayoneted to death. The people of the town had slept out in hedges and ditches in the open country, fearful of the Tans’ return. Worse things had happened down the country, of course, but this was right outside the city itself.

  ‘How many did you kill in the Rising, Mick?’ she’d taunted him again. But this time Mick had reacted in a strange way. He’d turned white, his face hardening until it was an ugly mask.

  ‘I killed one that I know of for sure,’ he’d hissed in a strange voice, not like his own at all. ‘It was enough for me.’

  Then he’d stormed out, and hadn’t come around for the rest of the week. Sarah had been frightened of the change she’d made in him. The hard, white face staring at her hadn’t looked like her uncle Mick at all. The hissing voice had sounded like something from a ghost story. Sarah hadn’t teased Mick since. But it was soon after that she’d found the prospect of a new game – because in a way all of this was really only a game for Sarah. She knew that herself. It was a game, and at the same time it wasn’t a game. She didn’t know what the right word for it was.

  The idea had struck her when she heard the young men, Mick’s friends, talking one night. They’d thought she was paying no attention. Da wasn’t there, and they were discussing their business, a thing they very rarely did under the Conways’ roof. If Da had heard them he’d have thrown them out straight away.

  Someone they knew had been found with a gun and arrested. He’d only been moving the gun from one place to another, but he’d been caught by a random search. Martin Ford and Simon Hughes were discussing the best way to move guns. Women were less likely to be searched by soldiers, they reckoned, and children – especially girls – were the best of all. Even the Tans hardly looked twice at a young girl. Sarah, listening, had smiled to herself in a superior way. It was like she’d heard Da say: the military mind had no imagination.

  Afterwards she’d offered her help to Martin Ford.

  ‘If you ever need a gun moved,’ she said, ‘then I’m your woman.’

  Martin Ford looked horrified. ‘You’re what?’ he said.

  ‘I’m your woman. If you want a gun moved.’

  ‘Your father,’ Martin Ford pointed out, ‘would skin me alive.’

  ‘My father,’ Sarah said, ‘needn’t know.’

  Sarah hadn’t actually considered what might happen to her if she was caught carrying a gun. But she didn’t like to think about her father finding out. If that happened she’d be in real trouble. She’d rather face a lorryload of Tans than face Da in a temper.

  Anyway, Martin Ford had resisted her offer, though she’d repeated it several times. He wouldn’t even let her talk about it. Until this morning, when he’d been desperate. He’d met Sarah in the street and told her Simon was trapped in the lanes. The three of them had spent the night in Phelans’, and had been caught out by a surprise raid. Byrne and Martin had got out through the lanes, but Sim
on hadn’t made it in time. Now they expected the lanes would have Tans in them, and Simon might have to choose between surrendering and shooting it out. It wasn’t much of a choice.

  Without a gun, though, there was a chance that Simon might walk away even if he was stopped. He’d done it before. His English accent was a great help. But if the Tans caught him with a weapon he was finished – ‘shot while trying to escape’ was what they called it now. With that accent, they’d take Simon for a traitor pure and simple. He’d probably be dead before he even got to Beggars’ Bush barracks, down the road.

  It had suited Sarah very well to brave the Tans. It felt good to be finally helping in the struggle, and it would show Martin Ford that she was capable. It had all gone very well. Now, she thought, he’d let her help again. At last her family was playing its part: she’d save the honour of the Conways, even if she had to do it in spite of them. All she had to do now was to make absolutely certain that none of the family found out what she’d done. Saving the honour of the Conways didn’t seem to count for much with Da any more. Sarah wondered whether the native government would give out war medals after the English were gone; it would be nice to have a medal of her own.

  PART 2: A SECRET WAR

  6

  NEW NEIGHBOURS

  ON THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY AFTERNOON Sarah sat out in the garden with Mrs Breen. Mrs Breen was over seventy now, but she was a great believer in the benefits of fresh air. She liked to sit outside on reasonably mild days, even in winter. Sarah often joined her in the garden seat.

  Sarah liked Mrs Breen very much, and the old lady seemed to feel the same way about her. She’d told Ma once that she liked to think of Josie and Sarah as the granddaughters she’d never had. Sarah, though, was her special friend.

  They sat now, side by side, on the metal seat. Mrs Breen was knitting. Sarah sat watching the thin fingers expertly working the long needles. She hadn’t seen this piece before.

  ‘What’s it going to be?’ she asked.

  Mrs Breen smiled without looking up from her work.

  ‘A scarf,’ she said. ‘For Jimmy, for the winter.’

  ‘It’s a lovely colour,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Do you think so? I thought he might find it a bit gaudy.’

  Sarah giggled. ‘Sure, what harm if he does,’ she said. ‘I’ll only rob it off him anyhow, and I think it’s lovely.’

  Mrs Breen gave her little laugh. She loved having children in the house. It brought a place alive, she always said. She knew Sarah could be a bit wild, and Lily Conway was forever giving out about her dangerous rebel talk. But Mrs Breen had never heard her say anything too extreme. Besides, as she always said, there was no harm in it so long as it was just talk.

  ‘I hope tomorrow won’t be anything like last Sunday,’ Sarah said. ‘That was a bad thing in the street, with all them soldiers.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mrs Breen said, shaking her head in disapproval. ‘And those low curs of Black and Tans, too. Though some of the troops are not much better nowadays. It’s shocking. Sometimes lately I think our boys are better out of it.’

  The Breens were lifelong loyalists. They’d had two sons – ‘our boys’ – both of whom had joined the British army. The elder son had been killed in the Boer war, twenty years ago now; the second had died in an accident in Egypt in 1908, the year before Sarah was born. Mrs Breen often talked about them. She couldn’t understand how things had changed since their day.

  ‘Even the army’s not what it was,’ she’d say. ‘It’s because of that awful war, of course. So many fine young men gone.’

  Like most people the Breens loathed the ‘Auxies’ and the Tans, but nowadays they’d lost their illusions about everything official, even the government. They weren’t stupid, and had to know that some of the visitors who came to Conways’ were suspicious characters. But they never mentioned anything.

  Sarah never talked about politics with the Breens. She was sure she could tell Mrs Breen anything, but still she was careful. She didn’t want to offend the old couple.

  ‘They stopped our Josie that day,’ she said now. ‘And Mick, and their friend.’

  ‘My husband told me,’ Mrs Breen said. ‘He stopped to see if he could help. The Black and Tans asked him to vouch for them.’

  ‘I suppose the Tans were nervous. Someone shot at them.’ She tried to keep the gloating from her voice when she said it.

  ‘I heard the shooting,’ Mrs Breen said. ‘I thought I’d taken a turn, that I was hearing the shooting from the Rising all over again. Nine o’clock on a Sunday morning, too – even the Lord’s Day isn’t safe from their wars.’

  A horsedrawn cart was coming slowly down the road. Sarah looked at it curiously. ‘There’s someone’s luggage,’ she said.

  The cart was empty except for a pile of trunks and cases. The driver, a little man with a short pipe in his mouth, tipped his hat to them from his high box.

  ‘Am I right for Ryans’?’ he asked them. The old horse pulling the cart stopped walking.

  Sarah jumped up and ran to the hedge. She pointed to the house next door. ‘That’s Ryans’ there,’ she said. ‘Is it someone for the rooms?’

  The driver shrugged. ‘The divil a bit of me knows anything about that,’ he said. ‘They tells me nothing. I’m to bring these bags here for a Mr Moore.’

  The furnished rooms the Ryans kept on their top floor had been empty for a month. Sarah and Josie had been curious to see who might move in.

  ‘Is Mr Moore old?’ she asked the driver. ‘Have he a family?’

  The man took the pipe out of his mouth and spat down on the road. He gave a little cackle. He had a lazy eye, Sarah noticed. His right eye was looking at her, but the left one looked off to the side.

  ‘Boys a man,’ he said, ‘but you’re a curious class of a child. How would I know if he have a family? He might have a troop of elephants for all I know. Or a troop of dancing girls for that matter.’

  Mrs Breen came down the garden. She heard the reference to dancing girls and frowned.

  ‘That house next door is Ryans’, my good man,’ she said in her best voice. ‘The young lady has told you so.’

  The driver looked at the house next door. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘the steps is not too bad. I done worse lifting anyhow.’ He tipped his hat to them again. ‘Thanking you, ladies,’ he said, and slapped the reins softly on the back of the big horse. ‘Get up there, Mags,’ he said.

  The horse moved slowly on. Mrs Breen whispered a warning to Sarah about being over-familiar with strangers. They might be drunk or anything. One never knew. She hadn’t finished when a motor car came down the road at speed. It pulled up behind the cart at Ryans’ gate.

  ‘A motor car outside Ryans’,’ Sarah said. ‘It must be Mr Moore.’

  ‘A motor car driving at a reckless speed,’ Mrs Breen said. ‘He must have been travelling at twenty miles an hour! Where are our brave auxiliary policemen now?’

  But Sarah was goggling with open curiosity at the car. Two men got out and talked to the cart driver. They were handsome enough, but a little old. The motor car was nice, though. Sarah had never been in a car: to take a long drive in one was an ambition of hers. That and helping to free Ireland.

  The cart driver was standing in the bed of the cart now, holding up a black valise. The younger of the men from the car was gesturing to him. He was a pale man with black hair. He wore a broadbrimmed black hat and flourished a cane.

  ‘That’s the one. I’ll take that,’ Sarah heard him say. He had an Irish accent.

  When Sarah looked at the other newcomer she saw that he was looking back at her. Mrs Breen was saying something to her about not being nosy. But the second man was walking towards them, a little smile on his face.

  ‘I say!’ he said. ‘Hello there!’

  Mrs Breen nodded to him. The man was in his thirties, Sarah guessed. He was tall and straight, and was dressed in a dark tweed suit. He had the accent of a well-off Englishman, much posher than Simon Hug
hes’s. His face was deeply tanned, his hair combed flat and gleaming with oil. He wore a thin, waxed moustache. It was neater than Simon’s, but Sarah didn’t think it looked as nice. The man strolled up to the hedge.

  ‘Good afternoon, ladies,’ he said, touching the brim of his hat. ‘Or should I say “neighbours”.’

  ‘Ah,’ Mrs Breen said. ‘You’re taking the Ryans’ rooms, then?’ She had no objections to talking to strangers in tweed suits with nice accents, Sarah noted.

  ‘Indeed,’ said the man. ‘My name is Moore, Rory Moore.’

  ‘Honoria Breen,’ Mrs Breen said. ‘How do you do. You’re an army man?’ Sarah saw an odd, dark look flash

  across the stranger’s face, but then the bland smile was back.

  ‘Ex-army,’ he said. ‘You could tell?’

  ‘But of course!’ Mrs Breen said. ‘It’s in the bearing. One can always tell a real army man. I had two sons in the forces – before the war.’

  ‘Yes,’ Moore said. ‘Well, it’s all in the past for me, I fear. I’ve come down in the world – I’m in business now. My friend Fowles and I are investigating business opportunities in Dublin. He’s another old soldier.’

  ‘Business opportunities?’ Mrs Breen sounded surprised. ‘I’m afraid, Mr Moore, you’ll have difficulty in these troubled times.’

  Rory Moore’s smile actually broadened a bit. ‘People have to eat, madam,’ he said. ‘They must have clothes. And the government is keen to encourage investment. Where there’s trouble, I fear, there’s opportunity. It’s sad, but it’s the way of the world. And the army is here, of course: they have their needs too.’