A Winter of Spies

by Gerard Whelan

‘They won’t get away with this, Sal,’ he said. ‘And they won’t hurt your Da.’

  Sarah thought of Mick’s terrible face. She thought of what Simon had said: that Mick had been lucky. She felt she was going to cry.

  ‘They have an army, Simon,’ she said. ‘They have all the power. They make the law, then they break it themselves, and it don’t matter because they own the police as well. And what are youse? A few young fellas with guns. How are you going to protect my Da – can you tell me that?’

  Simon’s hand fell from her shoulder. ‘Don’t fret, Sal,’ he said. ‘We have things in hand. Remember that day in the lanes when you took my gun?’

  Sarah nodded. She could feel tears of sheer helplessness start to form in her eyes.

  ‘You were as brave as anyone I ever saw that day,’ Simon said gently. ‘You didn’t let me down. Don’t let your Da down now.’

  ‘Where’s Hugh Byrne, Simon? Did Collins get him out of town?’ She almost wanted Simon to say no. She’d have felt safer.

  ‘Hugh’s in Wexford,’ Simon said. ‘Doing a job. But the rest of us are still here.’

  Sarah nodded again. This new Simon was as unafraid as Byrne could ever be.

  ‘I’ve things to do now,’ Simon said. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  He walked out to the car. Sarah shut the door behind him. Upstairs she could hear Da and Ma helping Mick to bed. Mick was groaning with the effort. On the lino of the stairs she saw drops of his blood. She went into the kitchen. It was silent but for the ticking of Ma’s old clock. Sarah looked at the clock, and her clockwork image of history came back to her. Were all of them trapped, then, in its mechanism?

  She thought of the stories Jimmy had told her about a game he’d played using this clock, back in the old days. Jimmy, at Sarah’s age, had used the clock as a doorway to another world in his imagination. He’d sit and look at the stopped clock and daydream of adventures in that other world, where the problems of real life were far away. Real problems then had seemed as distant to him as they had to Sarah hardly an hour ago, when she’d sped along the roads in Moore’s big car. She shivered now even thinking about Moore, wondering whether he’d had a part in Mick’s beating. What was his game?

  There was another knock on the front door, and Sarah shivered again. These days it seemed trouble was a knock on the door. Then she heard Jimmy’s voice.

  When I open this door, Sarah thought, I’m a different person. I’m the best and bravest daughter in the world. But as she went to let Jimmy in, she somehow didn’t feel very brave. Instead she felt – as so often in the past few days – as if the world she knew had shifted away from her, the clockwork of history had moved her yet again, and she was nearly a stranger in her own life.

  PART 5: ON THE SPOT

  19

  A NEW PLAN

  BY THE TIME DOCTOR MAHON CAME Ma had cleaned Mick up and washed his wounds. But there was no disguising his swollen face, and even the doctor flinched when he saw it.

  ‘And this,’ he kept muttering as he examined Mick, ‘is supposed to be law and order.’

  He reported in the end that the damage wasn’t as bad as it looked – which wasn’t saying a lot, as it looked awful. There were several ribs broken, as well as three fingers of Mick’s right hand, and he’d lost a few teeth. Otherwise it was mainly a matter of cuts and bruises.

  ‘A bad beating,’ the doctor told Da, ‘and he’ll be sore for days, but there’s nothing that can’t be fixed. I’ve taped up the ribs and the hand, and given him something that will make him sleep for a while. The main thing now is rest and quiet. Don’t let him move far.’

  Jimmy went up to see Mick when the doctor left. Mick tried to make some joke about his appearance, but he wasn’t able to form the words with his swollen lips. When Jimmy came out of the room, Sarah was shocked to see tears in his eyes. Jimmy wasn’t a person who showed his emotions much. Instinctively Sarah took his arm and led him down the stairs into the kitchen.

  Downstairs Ella was coming and going, filling bags. She was surprisingly calm. ‘She was like that in the Rising too,’ Jimmy said. ‘She got things done. Some people are like that – they’re terrified when danger is only a threat, but when it comes they’re cool as cucumbers.’

  Sarah told Jimmy about her meeting with Moore. ‘He knew all along about Mick,’ she said. ‘Instead of warning me, he tried to get me to inform. I thought he was going to help us.’

  ‘Maybe he thinks he is helping,’ Jimmy said, but that made no sense at all to Sarah.

  ‘It’s all lies,’ she said. ‘I feel like everything anyone tells me is all lies.’

  ‘That’s the way that it works,’ Jimmy said. ‘Wheels within wheels.’

  They could hear Ma and Da’s voices raised upstairs. The voices quietened, but they muttered sternly. Then Ma and Da came down, still arguing. Jimmy and Sarah heard their voices from the hall.

  ‘You heard the doctor,’ Ma said. ‘Mick can’t move far. And if he’s not going far then I’m not going far either.’

  ‘Talk sense, woman,’ Da said.

  ‘Sense? Is it sense you’ve been talking this past year? My house full of killers, my family in danger. How many more times are they to risk losing their father? And for what? For the sake of Ireland? For the sake of “honour”? Well curse Ireland and honour. It’s precious little good we ever got from either.’

  ‘There’s things that just have to be done, Lil,’ Da said.

  Ma snorted a laugh. ‘I’ve heard that one before,’ she said. ‘Well, there’s things I have to do too, James, and I’m as set on doing them as anyone.’

  The children had heard Ma and Da argue before, but they’d never heard such bitterness in Ma’s voice. Jimmy jumped up and went out into the hall.

  ‘Jimmy,’ Da said, ‘get your stuff ready for Ringsend.’

  There was a moment’s silence, and then – Sarah could hardly believe her ears – Jimmy said: ‘No, Da.’

  ‘What?’ Sarah had never heard her Da sound so shocked. She went out into the hall herself. The other three were just standing there. Ma and Da were both staring at Jimmy.

  ‘I said “No”,’ Jimmy said. ‘We’re in this together. We should face it together. Send Sarah away if you like.’

  ‘No!’ Sarah said. She was horrified at Jimmy’s suggestion. ‘We all stay or we all go, but I’m going nowhere on my own. This is my business too. I’m more involved than you are, Jimmy.’

  Da threw up his hands dramatically. ‘My God,’ he said. ‘Can a man get no obedience in his own house?’

  ‘Since when,’ Ma asked, ‘did you ever think you were the boss here?’

  ‘Aye,’ Da said. ‘I suppose I knew better than that. Listen – what if I ask the Breens to take Mick in? He can make it down the steps, surely. Will youse all go down there if they’ll take him?’

  ‘We can’t risk bringing trouble on the Breens,’ Ma said.

  ‘Mrs Breen would be glad to help,’ Sarah said. ‘Even if it’s only to best the Tans. You know how she hates them.’

  Ma hesitated. She knew Sarah was right. And all of this arguing with her own family disturbed her. She was taken aback by the depth of her own anger, and welcomed the idea of some compromise.

  ‘Go down to the basement,’ she told Sarah. ‘See if the Breens are home. Tell them James and myself will be down in a few minutes.’

  Now Sarah was happy enough to do as she was told. If they tried to send her off to Ringsend, she wouldn’t go without a fight, certainly not if neither Ma nor Jimmy went. But Breens’ was different. In Breens’ she’d be right there if anything happened. She’d know straight away what was going on.

  It was as well for Sarah’s peace of mind that she didn’t hear an exchange between Jimmy and Da that took place after she went out. Ma had gone upstairs to tell Ella about the new plan. Da was looking at Jimmy with something like respect. ‘You’re growing up,’ he said to his son.

  ‘I hope so,’ Jimmy said. ‘Da?’

  ‘W
hat?’

  ‘Why are you so anxious to get rid of us all?’

  ‘Are you mad? Because I think the Tans will be coming here.’

  ‘There’s more. There’s something you’re not telling us. You can fool Sarah, but you can’t fool me. You’re only one man, Da; you can’t protect us from everything.’

  Da looked at him carefully. Jimmy had always been clever; he never took things at face value. He was seventeen now – boys younger than that were out fighting. But those other boys weren’t his children.

  ‘I can try, Jimmy,’ he said. ‘Right or wrong, at least I can try.’

  20

  AUXIES

  THE BREENS WERE HORRIFIED when they heard about Mick. They welcomed the idea of giving the Conways shelter.

  ‘How can you doubt us?’ Mr Breen said. ‘We’ve all been through so much together. You must come down here, all of you, and welcome.’

  Da felt obliged to warn them of the possible danger. ‘What if they raid here too?’ he asked.

  Mrs Breen drew herself up to her full height, such as it was.

  ‘My husband and I,’ she said, ‘fear no guttersnipes. When people turn their backs on friends out of fear then the country really is lost.’

  The Conways and Ella brought their packed bags downstairs to the basement, along with bedding for the night. Ma, Da and Jimmy helped Mick downstairs after he woke. He didn’t want to go, until Da told him that it was the only way of getting Ma out of the house. It was a slow, painful progress, but Mick put a brave face on it. Mrs Breen was appalled when she saw the state he was in. Her husband was more outraged than anything else.

  ‘I’ll keep you company upstairs, James,’ he said quietly to Da. Da could hardly believe his ears.

  ‘Don’t you think that you’re risking enough as it is?’ he asked.

  ‘What those people fear most in the world,’ Mr Breen said, ‘is witnesses. They can do nothing to me. Even they’d have trouble picturing me as a rebel. If they do come, having me there might save you from ending up like poor Michael.’

  Da shook his head. ‘They’ll come,’ he said. ‘And when they come no witness will matter to them.’ Da was certain that nothing would happen till after dark. ‘They like the dark,’ he said.

  ‘Bad things usually do,’ said Mr Breen.

  The Conways and Ella stayed upstairs until the afternoon. Now and then one or other of them would go down to sit with Mick. Mrs Breen was taking the opportunity to fuss over him. His sore mouth meant that she couldn’t stuff him full of food, so instead she was stuffing him full of soup. They’d made up a bed for him in their spare room, and when Sarah came down to see him he begged her to finish a bowl of broth that was on a tray beside him.

  ‘I don’t want to insult the woman by leaving it,’ he said, ‘but it’s the third bowl she’s given me, and I’m about to burst.’

  As darkness fell Da made everyone else go downstairs. He’d persuaded Mr Breen to stay home. ‘If anything happens,’ Da told him, ‘I’ll be depending on you to mind my family. That would put my mind at rest far more than having you up here.’

  Mr Breen agreed with obvious reluctance. He’d seethed with silent anger all afternoon. You could see that the sight of Mick in his dilapidated state had done something to him – the Tans had overstepped some private line or border in his mind.

  All evening one or other of the Conways could be found at Breens’ front window, watching the gate. It reminded Sarah of a similar scene upstairs in their own kitchen, when they’d stood watching the Tans outside in the street on that Sunday of the raid on Phelans’. It was less than a week and a half ago, but it seemed like something from another lifetime.

  ‘I knew this day would come,’ Ma said. ‘Sometimes I feel like I’ve spent half my life waiting for something terrible to happen to that man.’

  Even yesterday Sarah would have found some reply. It was all for Ireland, she might have said. Now she had nothing to say. She was hardly even afraid, she felt so numb and helpless. She racked her brains to think of some way she could help, but there was none that she could see. It was out of their hands.

  ‘Maybe they won’t come,’ she offered, not believing it.

  ‘Maybe not tonight,’ Ma said wearily. ‘But what about tomorrow, and tomorrow night? How long can we live like this?’

  Jimmy had been oddly silent since they came down, Sarah noticed. He was brooding about something, and she suspected that it was more than just the situation here. Once or twice she caught him whispering urgently in a corner with Ma. They stopped when they saw Sarah looking. She felt a growing suspicion that someone was still keeping secrets, and she wasn’t happy with the idea. She was sick of secrets.

  As the evening passed the tension tired them. Finally Jimmy insisted that he was going up to see how Da was. Ma didn’t like the idea, but Jimmy was dogged in his insistence. Sarah was seeing a new side to her brother today, a far more determined one. Maybe reading too much was good for you after all.

  ‘If you’re going up,’ Mrs Breen said, ‘then take your father up some food. He’ll have been too distracted to eat, you’ll find.’

  Ma, who liked to see herself as the family provider, hadn’t thought of that in her worry. You could see she was stung by her own lapse.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘I know your Da. He’ll not have eaten a bite.’

  She and Mrs Breen quickly packed a basket and gave it to Jimmy, who waited impatiently while they stuffed it with far too much food.

  ‘Janey, Ma,’ he said, ‘there’s enough there for a week.’

  ‘What harm,’ Ma said, at last satisfied that they’d packed enough. ‘Better too much nor too little.’

  Jimmy took the basket and went out. The room lapsed into quiet if not calm. Mr Breen and Ella were in the back room talking to Mick. Ma, who’d been grateful to be busy for a while, sat again and looked into the fire. Mrs Breen looked at her pityingly.

  ‘You mustn’t resent James,’ she said. ‘He’s a fine man. I don’t know what he’s involved in, and I don’t want to know. But I’m certain that he sees it as his duty.’

  ‘Duty,’ Ma said, and there was both tiredness and loathing in the way she said the word. She nodded over at Sarah. ‘Them childer,’ she said, ‘are all the duty I care about.’

  In the silence outside engines sounded clearly, approaching. Sarah’s heart leaped in terror. She jumped up and went to the window, with Ma and Ella behind her. The window was at ground level, and the hedge hid most of the street. But Sarah’s stomach churned when she saw that the streetlights were unlit. They should be on by now. Then she saw the tenders pass, their headlights aglow, the dark mass of soldiers or Tans in the back. Sarah’s breath came easier as she watched.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she hissed, as though the men outside might hear. ‘They’re passing by.’

  ‘No,’ Ma said. ‘Wait. That’s how they do it.’

  The three women stared out into the night as the last tender passed. A dark mass rolled silently up in front of the house. It was another tender, with no lights showing. Men began to leap silently from the back.

  ‘Oh sweet God,’ Ma said. ‘Oh dear sweet God.’

  The first of the raiders came through the gate. They moved quickly and purposefully. As they reached a point where the lights from the house fell on them, Sarah felt herself go cold. The men’s faces were blackened. They wore tam-o-shanters and Glengarry caps rather than the Tans’ peaked ones. They were even more frightening than Tans: they were Auxiliaries.

  ‘Auxies,’ hissed Ma. ‘My dear sweet God and his blessed mother look down on us now. And Jimmy upstairs!’

  A figure in a broadbrimmed hat came through the gate and pushed its way to the front. It was a man dressed in civilian clothes. In the dim light his white face, not blackened with burnt cork like the others, was clear even through the lace curtains. But Sarah didn’t need to see his features. His walk, his hat, the cane he held, had already told her that this was the man she most feared.
It was the agent Fowles, come for his revenge.

  21

  MUFFLED WORDS

  THEY HEARD THE THUD OF FISTS, boots and rifle butts on the front door upstairs. There were angry shouts and curses in British accents. Somebody came to the door and there were more shouts. The sound of many boots pounded in the hallway overhead.

  Mr Breen and Ella rushed out of the back room.

  ‘They’re here, Ella,’ Ma said. ‘Auxies.’ Her voice was nearly breaking.

  You could clearly hear the pounding of boots running here and there above. There were sounds of things breaking.

  Ma buried her face in her hands and began to sob. Sarah, by now quite numb, put her arms around her. Ella came over.

  ‘If it was even a proper raid …’ Ma sobbed. ‘The army have rules at least.’

  ‘Keep a hold of yourself, Lily,’ Ella said.

  Someone came down the steps, and there was a knock on Breens’ door. Mr Breen rushed to open it. He came back with Jimmy. Jimmy’s hair was mussed, and his lip was bleeding. Ma looked up, and Jimmy saw her horrified face.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I just got a few slaps. They threw me out.’

  From upstairs the rough boot-treads and breaking sounds continued. They all stared at the ceiling.

  ‘Disgraceful,’ Mrs Breen muttered over and over. ‘Disgraceful.’

  Mick appeared, clutching the doorframe of the back room. ‘They’re here, I see,’ he said.

  ‘Aye,’ said Ella.

  ‘It’s Auxies,’ said Ma. Sarah realised that Ma hadn’t seen Fowles. Ma knew that Da was in danger, but she didn’t know how big the danger was.

  ‘There’s about a dozen of them,’ Jimmy said. ‘They just started breaking things.’

  ‘Did they ask youse anything?’ Mick asked.

  ‘They asked if I was Jimmy Conway. When I said that I was they gave me a few slaps and ran me out. He said … he said he wanted a few words with my father. Maybe he’d talk to me later, he said.’