Irish Gold

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “Thursday morning.”

  “A long weekend, is it? Well, enjoy it. . . . Oh, incidentally, Dermot, here’s an envelope whose contents you might want to peruse before the day is over. . . . And now, Nuala Anne, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to take my leave. And as a parting shot, you know well that the dead don’t walk in the daylight, do they now?”

  “They do nor,” she agreed. “I’m sorry, Patrick, that I misspoke.”

  “Not at all. If I don’t see you, I’ll see you.”

  As he disappeared into a side street and strode towards the Liffey, Nuala whispered, “They usually don’t walk in the daylight.”

  “I’m not about to argue, Nul. However, he does work for the American government.”

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  “At any rate he’s on our side.”

  “He focking well ought to be!”

  We walked silently for a few moments along Dame Street as I pondered the truth that Nuala was not only unpredictable but indecipherable. A member by her own half-ironic admission of Europe’s last Stone Age race.

  “Now we’ll be stopping in at Bewley’s for midmorning tea, won’t we, Dermot Michael, and you’ll be telling me the truth about all these strange doings, the whole truth?”

  “Haven’t I been promising to do just that?”

  “And you’ll do it now.”

  “Yes, ma’am, and yourself wanting another meal after that breakfast you destroyed.”

  “Only one scone.” She took my hand and led me down Grafton Street.

  She had two scones, actually, with the usual thick amounts of butter and jam. I had four. We argued about her use of marmalade, which I thought was a sin against nature and which she thought was “altogether grand.”

  Then she said crisply, “Now, Dermot Michael.”

  So I told her everything, except about my reaction to Angela Smythe and that person’s late-night visit, which I converted into a phone call.

  She listened impassively, absorbing it all.

  “Focking eejits,” she said when I was finished.

  “Who, Nuala? Am I included?”

  “Saints protect us and keep us, no!” She touched my hand. “Sure, despite yourself aren’t you Sean Connery with wavy blond hair? I mean the eejits that think the Irish people would ever agree to become part of England again, no matter how fancy the Union might be. Most of us aren’t revolutionaries, but I’m thinking a plot like that would turn us all into Sinn Feiners over night!”

  “That’s what I was thinking too.”

  “So what’s in the envelope?”

  “What envelope?”

  “The one your man gave you on Dame Street, isn’t it now?”

  I had forgotten the envelope from Patrick.

  I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled it out. Plain white envelope, inexpensive not to say cheap.

  As I opened it, Nuala peered over my shoulder, a bit of scone still in her hand. 007 had an assistant now, who, given half a chance, would take charge—as the womenfolk never did to Sean Connery.

  Even then, however, I was the assistant.

  I took out the single sheet of paper and unfolded it. It was a Xerox of a handwritten document on the top of which was neatly printed in large block letters:

  CONSORT OF ST.

  GEORGE AND

  ST. PATRICK

  “Brigid, Patrick, and Columcille!” Nuala exploded.

  “And all the other saints of Ireland.”

  I glanced down the list of perhaps fifty English and Irish names, many of them prominent—journalists, writers, artists, civic leaders, politicians—all in careful alphabetical order.

  Brendan Keane was on the list with the letters “T.D.” after his name—a member of the Dáil, the Irish parliament. There were five or six others with the same identification and maybe a dozen with “M.P.” after the name, members of the British parliament; a couple of them were, I thought, from the Six Counties of Northern Ireland, one of them a member of Mr. Major’s government. Keane was the only member of the present Irish government on the list, though one of the other T.D.’s was a prominent spokesman for the opposition.

  “The Longwood-Joneses are on the list,” I observed to Nuala.

  “Sure, wouldn’t they be?”

  “I wonder why so many prominent people would be mixed up in such a daft idea.”

  “I’d be ready to wager that your man’s father and grandfather were on it before him. And the others, well, wouldn’t some of them be in it for the money?”

  “What money, Nuala?”

  “Roger Casement’s gold. Wouldn’t they be using that to finance the whole foolishness? Daniel O’Kelly had told the stranger where the gold was.”

  “Or more likely the stranger’s spies followed him just like Ma did.”

  “Daft and dangerous, Dermot. . . . Why did Patrick give it to you? Wouldn’t it be better to have turned it over to the Irish government?”

  Her mind worked too fast, too fast altogether. I was, after all, Sean Connery, wasn’t I?

  Not hardly.

  And what was there about that list that bothered me? Damn, it was the face that almost floated in and out of my internal vision, a familiar face yet mysterious, lurking in the fogs just beyond the threshold of my consciousness. A dangerous face. Whatever was wrong with the list was perhaps not as important as that brooding face, but it still might be important.

  “Maybe he doesn’t want them to know that his crowd is watching them so closely.”

  “Or maybe he’s not sure who else in the Irish government might be involved.”

  “Or maybe . . . maybe there’s some other things we have to find out first. It wouldn’t do at all, for example, if the C.I.—uh, the American government found the gold, would it?” I was trying to think furiously to keep up with Nuala’s racing mind.

  “Should we turn this over to someone?”

  Note the “we.”

  “To whom, Nul? As you say, we don’t know who in the Irish government we can trust.”

  “So it’s off to Cork and Galway on the weekend, is it?”

  “I’m not sure that—”

  She cut me off. “If you don’t go, sure, won’t I be riding back on the train and climbing Mamene by myself?” She filled my teacup. “And don’t I know pretty well from herself where it was—or where it used to be? We’ll have no more talk of backing out of this one. I’m no focking patriot, but I won’t let me children be part of focking England again.”

  “I thought you didn’t want children?”

  She turned purple with embarrassment. “In case I should change me mind!”

  “Will the gold still be there?”

  “Why else would they be so worried that you might find it in your searches for the truth about Nell Pat and Liam? Wouldn’t it be hard now to ship it away? And the paper trail it might leave? The odd bar of gold now and then would take care of the matter, wouldn’t it? Maybe only one person knows where it is. That would fit this daft business, wouldn’t it?”

  It would indeed. I needed time to think. Or maybe with Nuala in charge I wouldn’t need to think, just do what I was told. “You’re sure you want—”

  “Didn’t I say that matter was closed altogether?” She stood up. “Now you finish your tea and them last scones and I’m off to class. There’s a lot of translating to be done this week. I want to know what happened before they left for America and herself pregnant, poor woman. . . . Oh, by the way, Dermot Michael, may I have me knife back?”

  “Your friend’s knife, isn’t it?”

  “She gave me the use of it, didn’t she?”

  I handed it back to her without trying to warn her not to carry it again. Such a warning would be a waste of time.

  Off she went, head up, back straight, rear end switching defiantly.

  My heart sank, not because Nuala was now in charge. There was nothing wrong with that. Despite my chauvinist impulses, if she was quicker than I was, let her take c
harge.

  I didn’t really believe that, of course. But at that moment it was necessary for me to believe that I did.

  If only she gave me a little time to think.

  No, my heart sank because I realized how much I would miss her when I flew back to Chicago.

  An image of her in skimpy white lingerie returned, a picture that had not been erotic in last night’s horrors but that was now deliciously appealing.

  Could I really give her up? I asked myself as I prepared the last scone for consumption. Could I ever give her up?

  –– 42 ––

  I WAS talking with some other prisoners on the night of August 23, 1922 (in Kilmanhaim Jail) when the news came that Michael Collins had been shot dead in West Cork. There was heavy silence throughout the jail and ten minutes later from the corridor outside the top of the cells I looked down at the extraordinary spectacle of about a thousand kneeling Republican prisoners spontaneously reciting the Rosary aloud for the repose of the soul of the dead Michael Collins. . . . I have yet to learn of a better tribute to the part played by any man in the struggle with the English for Irish independence.

  —Tom Barry

  Like the other Republican prisoners, Tom Barry was an enemy of Michael Collins in the Irish Civil War.

  –– 43 ––

  August 23, 1922

  Mick Collins is dead.

  I’m crying something terrible as I write these words. They killed him. I hope and pray that me Liam had nothing to do with it.

  But, sure, where else would he be?

  Liam would never shoot the general if he knew it was him. That divil incarnate Daniel O’Kelly wouldn’t tell him. He’d trick him into it—and then maybe kill Liam and blame him for it.

  If Liam actually fired the gun, he’s a dead man. The Free Staters will kill him if O’Kelly doesn’t. If he isn’t killed, he’ll hate himself for the rest of his life because he let himself be tricked into pulling the trigger. With my big mouth I’ve been warning him for trusting O’Kelly too much. That will make him feel more guilty.

  What will happen to our love then?

  And myself knowing I’m pregnant for certain now.

  Glory be to God, what are we going to do!

  The church was filled at Mass this morning and everyone weeping and sobbing for General Collins and this being Republican country.

  I said two rosaries for him and one for poor Kit Kiernan.

  ’Tis clear to me now that the fella in the fancy suit was after paying for the death of Michael Collins. I’ll have to tell Liam that and take him up to the cave with the gold when he comes home.

  If he comes home.

  I’ll be praying for him and for General Collins.

  Mother of God, take care of us all.

  Is it my fault for not telling Liam what I saw in front of the pub? Am I as guilty for the death of Michael Collins as the man who pulled the trigger and the man who paid him to pull the trigger?

  I don’t know! I don’t know!

  Maybe I should talk to the young priest about it and himself so kind and understanding.

  But would he give me absolution?

  If me poor Liam is already dead, won’t it be my fault?

  –– 44 ––

  August 30, 1922

  Liam came home last night.

  I was in me bed, covers off and only in me shift because we’re perishing with the heat these days and the moon being full.

  There’s a knock at the shutters and a whispered voice and I’m wondering if it’s a dream.

  So I open the shutter and it’s Liam and himself with a great blond beard and I’m beside myself with joy. Mother of God, I thinks to myself, at least he’s still alive and we have a chance of beginning again.

  “Nell,” he says gentlelike but with a terrible hunger in his eyes, “I’ve been longing for you all these days.”

  “Well,” says I, “here I am so you can stop longing.”

  When your man needs you something desperate, you’re a total eejit if you don’t give yourself to him.

  He pulls off me shift, violent like, so I know he needs me real bad.

  That makes me terrible happy and myself needing him almost as bad.

  I tell him not to make too much noise because it will wake me ma and da, so he’s very quiet.

  Even though he wants me real bad, he kisses and caresses me and plays with me in the moonlight till I think I’ll lose me mind altogether.

  “The look of you, Nell Pat, is almost as good as the possessing of you.”

  “Possess me now, Liam me love,” I say, “or you’ll have a woman on your hands whose been driven out of her mind.”

  “Is that true now?” He grins. “Well, sure a little bit more of tormenting of you shouldn’t do any harm at all, should it?”

  It didn’t do any harm, though I thought I’d die with pleasure before he was finished with me.

  We lay there in bed, the sweat covering the two of us and breathing heavy and holding hands and myself knowing that I’d die without him.

  So he begins to whisper the story of the strange mission he went on with O’Kelly and I understand that he doesn’t know General Collins has been murdered.

  Liam is carrying his Lee-Enfield and the commandant, as an officer, has a Mauser in his holster.

  They had taken a long roundabout journey south, on foot for a time, then in a motor car from Ennis, then on foot again through Limerick and by horse through Kerry, then on foot again into the mountains so that Liam didn’t even know where he was.

  In Cork, I tell myself, between Crookston and Bandon, not all that far from Sam’s Cross where the general was born.

  It’s late in the day and growing dark and his commandant leaves him in a hedge and goes away to meet someone. Then he comes back and they climb a high hill on the east side of the road and hide behind a barn. There’s a lot of fellas drifting along the road and over the hill—the lads who have been driven out of Cork, O’Kelly tells me man, by the National Army.

  Tis the first Liam knows that the National Army is in Cork.

  Daniel takes Liam’s rifle and gives him the Mauser pistol. He empties the bullets out of it and puts in a set with a cross cut on the front—dum-dums that explode on contact.

  They look down at the other road, which is running through a kind of gloomy valley, and Liam sees a group of troops on the west side of the valley waiting in an ambush in a laneway above the road.

  “Eejits,” says O’Kelly. “What they are doing here?”

  As Liam and O’Kelly wait, most of the troops—they have no uniforms, so they’re probably Irregulars—drift away. No discipline at all, says Liam. That’s the curse of the Irregulars.

  There’s only four of them still in the laneway as the day comes to an end. A light mist is blowing in, like maybe it will rain at the end of a hot summer day.

  Then, all of a sudden like, there’s a convoy coming around the corner, first a motorcycle, then a yellow motor car and a couple of tenders, then bringing up the rear an armored car. Brits, Liam thinks, wondering what’s happening. He knows that the Irregulars are still fighting the Brits as well as the National Army. Surely the National Army doesn’t have an armored car yet. Maybe this is a big ambush, though there’s not enough men down there to stop an armored car.

  There’s a fierce lot of shooting, with no one hitting anyone else. It’s so dark now that me man cannot even see the color of the uniforms in the convoy. He still reckons they’re Brits.

  Then the shooting stops and Liam can hear the Irregulars running away. No discipline at all, he thinks to himself.

  Suddenly there’s an explosion right next to him and Liam realizes that O’Kelly has fired a shot.

  There’s some answering fire but it doesn’t come close. O’Kelly keeps firing and they fire back but in the opposite direction. Then down the hill on their side, some more people begin to shoot. The rest of the Irregulars, arriving after the battle is over. It’s so dark now that Liam can barely
make out anyone, but he thinks he sees someone faceup on the road, by the looks of him an officer. He thinks maybe they’ve killed General McCready of the British Army.

  Finally they’re out of ammunition and doesn’t O’Kelly say, “Let’s get out of here, Liam, me lad. We’ve done a fine day’s work.”

  They run up the road towards the top of the hill and the troops now firing after them but not hitting either of them.

  Then Daniel throws the Lee-Enfield to Liam, takes the Mauser back, and says, “We’d better split now, me lad. See you back in Galway.”

  And off he goes in the night, leaving Liam with a rifle and no bullets except for the dum-dums that are in it.

  Me man knows they’re on the run and while he doesn’t want to lose the rifle, he knows it will make him a marked man if it’s murdered an English general. So, smart fella that he is, he throws it down the side of the hill and takes off up the mountains.

  I’m thinking to myself that he’s a smarter man than Daniel O’Kelly thinks he is.

  It’s only days later when he stumbles into Mallow that he knows where he is and begins the long walk back to Galway.

  “And you’re the first one I’ve talked to since the ambush.”

  I’m glad because he’s innocent of murder.

  “I’ll tell you who that gombeen man killed, Liam Thomas. It was General Michael Collins. And he left you there to be arrested and accused of the crime. And he was paid to do it.”

  –– 45 ––

  IN THE morning a steamer set off from Dublin to bring the body back. It passed another steamer flying the new state’s colors at half-mast. There was wild talk of a massacre of prisoners by way of reprisal. Mulcahy, rightly interpreting the dead man’s thoughts, resumed the negotiations where his death had broken them off. But he did so unknown to his colleagues. The day of lofty ideals was over.

  It seemed as if life could never be the same again. The greatest oak of the forest had crashed; it seemed as if it must destroy all life in its fall. It did destroy the Sinn Fein movement and all the high hopes that were set in it, and a whole generation of young men and women for whom it formed a spiritual center. It destroyed the prospect which, we are only just beginning to realize, Collins’s life opened up; fifteen years—fifteen years—perhaps more, perhaps less—of hard work, experiment, enthusiasm, all that tumult and pride which comes of the leadership of a man of genius who embodies the best in a nation. . . . Collins had spoiled them for lesser men.