Conor reeled out to the porch and held the post, trembling, every inch of him. He heard her footsteps . . . and then . . . the sound of the door close. He turned slowly. Shelley was gone.
END OF PART FIVE
PART SIX
Sixmilecross
CHAPTER ONE
1905
Dudley Callaghan the mortician made contact with Conor in the Goit Side District of Bradford. The two of them waited for nightfall, then made by foot to Braddock's Coal Yard on Pool Alley. The door to the small adjoining house was opened by a severe, tight-lipped, fat old woman who led them down a short dark corridor into a bland musty room. Callaghan leaned against the wall staring like a blind man. Conor seated himself on one of the room's two chairs, which creaked under his weight. They waited. An hour passed with no word between them.
A noise out in the yard caused them to lift their eyes and catch a glimpse of a shadowed figure hastily crossing the black piles into the house. The door opened and Brendan Sean Barrett entered, looked to Callaghan and added for him to leave.
He was a smallish man, sallow of color, with eyes that must have been in a constant state of redness. His dress was that of a proper teacher's, but ten years old and hardly pressed since,. Both man and suit were seedy with age. His nerves seemed fairly well shot, attested by heavy telltale nicotine stains on the fingers of his right hand. He was the poet whose dreams had fled.
He was deliberately unpleasant, for that was his nature, the unfulfilled intellectual who continued to hold his audience in small regard. He reeked of disdain and suspicion. He disliked almost everyone, including the new young men who would be taking over the movement. He placed himself before the table as though it were a governor's desk, the ever present cigarette held in a just-so curl of his hand.
"Callaghan reported that you came into his establishment on Wild Boar Road and left without making contact," he said, immediately going to the attack.
"Aye."
"Why?"
Conor braced himself to do business with a man who was pressing, immediately making him feel uncomfortable.
"Dan Sweeney warned me to be careful. I had feelings I might have been followed."
"What made you think so?"
"I had been followed by Weed's men for the first two months I worked at the shipyard in Belfast. I'm playing on Weed's club. There was a brawl in Swansea and some hard feelings. Besides, I didn't like making contact with Callaghan with a room full of people. Anyone could have been there doing something besides praying for the dead."
"Anything else?"
"I had some personal problems. You might know about them, you might not. They've been solved."
"What?"
"A woman. It's done with."
Brendan Sean Barren gazed at him with his set expression of disregard, then opened the button of his jacket and untied a money belt from about his waist and slid it across the table "Hand this over to Dan Sweeney personally."
Conor took it, lifted his shirt and tied it about his own waist.
"There's three thousand. I think you'd better count it first."
"No need for that," Conor said. "We're trusting each other with a lot more than money."
The corners of Barren's lips turned up slightly. "We are going forward with the guns. O'Hurley and Hanly have been contacted. They are in."
Conor seized up for an instant, a feeling of weak swooning came and went and he returned to Barrett's unyielding glare. "How much did we have to pay them?"
"What makes you think that?"
"What makes you think I'm a fool? I don't know too much about them but I do know there isn't a drop of republican blood in their bodies. They're too comfortable and they like their status."
Barrett lit a cigarette with the butt of the old one and scratched the back of a hand always on the verge of bleeding from the itch. "You're right, of course. We had to buy them. One quid per rifle, one hundred for each delivery."
Conor's fist cracked the table. "Fucking thieves. It's half the cost of the guns themselves!"
"Well, we got them for a steal, one might say. Maybe next time we'll find a bargain-rate revolution for you to follow. Listen to me, then repeat. Proceed to Liverpool tonight. Take a room at the Moorfields Hotel opposite the Exchange Rail Terminal at Pall Mall and Titheborn . . ."
"I know the place."
"Good. Do not leave your room. You will be contacted by either Owen O'Sullivan or one of his sons, Brian or Barry. The one making contact will identify himself by handing you a copy of my pamphlet, "The Ultimate Tyranny." You will identify yourself by saying the words, "Oh, that's the one he wrote in Strangeways Prison." Beyond that, they know who you are and you will know who they are. They can be completely trusted."
"Does Duffy O'Hurley know that I'm the one?"
"No, not yet. It could abort. There's a touchy question of getting the train into O'Sullivan's foundry. If it's still clear when you reach Liverpool, you will be taken to O'Sullivan's works at Waterloo Road and Boundary Street, six o'clock tomorrow. There's a rail siding directly into their factory. The rifles, and all the necessary materials you requested to make the conversion, will be ready."
Conor repeated it to Brendan Sean Barrett's satisfaction, then he rose.
Conor wanted to ask more details. Beyond that he wanted to know something about the man opposite him. He wanted to know about Barrett's early heroic stands, his writings, his hunger strike, but the man before him was a waste, a shadow making no move to be civilized, much less friendly.
"You might as well know, Larkin, I've poor little faith in the plan."
"Why?"
"Everything we attempt of this nature goes wrong. There might be more harm in it than good if the price of those rifles means exposing people like Sweeney. But then again, Dan Sweeney is the chief of staff of our nonexistent army and he sees things one way. I see them another. However, I'm only one vote on the Supreme Council." Brendan Sean Barrett extended his hand with all the warmth of a disinterested bishop about to have his ring kissed. "I'll leave. Wait ten minutes before your own departure."
Conor watched him slither through the coal yard into the night. Dudley Callaghan returned.
"Is he always that pleasant?" Conor asked.
"He's gutted. I've worked on corpses with more life. Everything's dead in him except his mind. It refuses to stop working. He was a man you could love once. Be honored to just sit at his feet and listen to him expound."
They waited the designated time, each departing in a different direction. Dudley Callaghan went immediately to retrieve the first hundred rifles from their dump and ready them for shipment to Liverpool. Conor left for that city on the late train.
*
Coffins bound for Ireland were not uncommon on the Liverpool docks. More than half of Callaghan's clients were returned to the old country for burial and the same held true in all the "little Irelands" in the English cities.
On the late express of that same night two coffins, each containing twenty Lee-Enfield Mark I rifles, arrived at the freight depot of the Exchange Terminal. Three more arrived on the morning mail, all consigned to the O. O'Sullivan Foundry for decorative work and transshipment to Ireland. The large number of coffins had been decided upon so the weight of each was kept close to that of an average corpse, thus avoiding suspicion. In the future, when this route was firmly established, coffins from Callaghan would arrive at frequent intervals to be stored in Liverpool and held in readiness.
Brian and Barry O'Sullivan, lads in their mid twenties arrived at the freight docks with two flat-bed wagons, received the coffins and made to the foundry, a short distance away.
*
The hours of Conor Larkin ticked off agonizingly. This was the dirty end of the business, the loneliness in the empty room. The torn curtain, the sagging bed, the life in semi-shadow From here on out loneliness and waiting would be his brother and his sister. The limit of his discipline was called upon to close off thoughts of her or hunger for her. To l
inger in those kinds of memories would devastate him. Years of this were up ahead . . . he had to learn. He was now the disciple of Sweeney and Barrett. The rock was back in place before the entrance of the cave and he would never enter it again.
Nor would pacing the room and looking out to the street every few minutes or watching the clock be of much help. Discipline. Alone. Wait.
He picked up the pamphlet, "The Ultimate Tyranny," which he had found at a secondhand stall. It was crumpled with age. Brendan Sean Barrett was too arrogant to ask if he'd read it but still had enough life in him to say, "Read this, boy, I was once something myself in my own right." by BRENDAN SEAN BARRETT from his cell in Strangeways Prison, Manchester, 1880.
The British subjugation of Ireland constitutes the most abhorrent of all occupations. In ways it is even more cruel than the Spanish occupation of the Hispaniola Group (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo and Haiti). The Spaniards systematically destroyed two million native Indians and replaced them with imported black slaves, thus erasing their culture in a single stroke. Similarly, the Spaniards destroyed the three original American cultures, the Mayan, the Aztec and the Incan.
British conquest in areas such as India, the West Indies and the like shows a different pattern of intent. The British governed in these places by compacts with the local rulers, maharajahs, tribal alliances which declared loyalty to the Crown. Although much of British law, education, language and government was adopted by the native, the Crown kept an aloofness from them and each pursued his own unique culture.
The conquest of Ireland shows a throwback to the Spanish occupations in which the old was destroyed. The Spaniards simply murdered and replaced the old with the new. The British attempted to superimpose the new upon the old, allowing the native to survive or die on economic considerations.
British intent was not only to occupy, govern and exploit Ireland but to eradicate the Celtic culture and superimpose an Anglican culture upon a people totally alien to it. By guile, gun, coercion and quasi-legal manipulation, the British have attempted to divest the native Irishman of his language, his religion, his lore, his literature, his traditions and his customs. The ultimate goal, therefore, to first sterilize the Irish people, then rebuild them into Anglicans . . .
The Town Hall clock rang the hour in unison with a knock on the door. Conor opened it and faced a young man of good Irish looks.
"Larkin?"
"Aye."
"Barry O'Sullivan."
"Come in, Barry."
"I brought you a copy of “The Ultimate Tyranny” but I see you have one."
"Yes, that's the one written by himself when he was in Strangeways Prison."
At that the two shook hands warmly. Conor's bags were packed, for they had not really been unpacked. Barry took one as Conor tightened the strap about the other, looked around the room briefly, and they left.
As they turned on the waterfront at New Quay, Conor began to calculate in terms of distances and potential obstacles. They were, at the Prince's Dock, which held the Riverside Rail Station and the trains for the Belfast steamer. The Red Hand Express was always housed there when it was in Liverpool. Tracks continued to parallel Bath Street, which became Waterloo Road after a few blocks. They came to a halt at Boundary Street. O. O'SULLIVAN AND SONS, the sign read, BELL FOUNDRY AND REPAIR YARD. The rails led directly into a fenced enclosure, then into a large building.
Two men awaited them by the door.
"My brother Brian, my father Owen. Conor Larkin."
Brian seemed the twin of Barry in looks though a few years younger. The elder O'Sullivan was a Kerryman with a ready smile and the air of one who had been nothing but a republican all his life. The main shop of the foundry was impressive, a complete line of molds for rail bells, ship bells and other marine fittings as well as molds for tower bells. The shop did a potpourri of repairs, mostly on the small shuttle engines that worked the dock area. There was a complete forge as well and overhead block and tackle hoists.
"Quite a place you've got here, Owen. When is our train due?"
"Half eight."
"Come along, Larkin, let me show you what we've done."
As they passed out to the yard, Owen O'Sullivan told of his devotion to the cause, boasted he was a self-made man and otherwise advanced his own image to the newcomer. He was, indeed, one of the thousands of the dormant in the "little Irelands" of England and in Ireland itself who would be tapped somewhere along the line. Conor had learned that strongly during the tour.
A large storage shed was unlocked and they entered. The yards of oilcloth and buckets of grease Conor had asked for were waiting, as was the steel plate he needed to cover and conceal the cut he'd have to make on the water tender. Two boxes to hold the weapons were completed, cast in thin bronze and absolutely watertight.
"By God, Owen, they're works of art. I didn't expect anything this fancy. They're fit for a king's coffin."
"Aw, what the devil," he answered, "it's for the Brotherhood. Good-lookin' boxes, you think? I done the molds myself and me and the boys made the plate by night after the rest of the crew quit work." He walked to the far end of the shed and pointed to five coffins resting on the floor. "There's the bodies."
"From Callaghan?"
"From Callaghan. Dear departed souls for their final rest in Ireland. Barry, fetch me a crowbar."
The lid squealed open under his prying. There lay the guns. The four of them stared, just stared.
"We should say something profound," Owen said.
Conor reached down and took one up. He studied the piece from muzzle to butt, worked the bolt, snapped the trigger, opened the sights, aimed, then handed it to Owen O'Sullivan.
Conor rubbed coal dust on his fingers and grunted. He gathered they had been dumped in colliery pits around Bradford. "They're in terrible condition. I have no idea of where they're going to be dumped in Ireland or how much time we'll have to get them cleaned. We'd best get them protected as well as possible here. I saw you've steam in your shop."
"I do."
"Put your boys on the chore. Pull the bolts and we'll need a vat of hot soapy water, a vat of fresh water, then steam. We'll paint them up afterward with grease and wrap the lot in oilcloths."
"Got that, Barry?" his father asked.
"Yes, sir."
The bronze boxes, the covering plate and the guns were taken to the main shop. By half eight the gun cleaning was on at full gallop. Brian went outside to watch for the train. Nothing in sight. It would be hard to bring it in precisely on the minute. With the gun cleaning moving along well, Conor told the boy to stay out on watch.
Nine o'clock. Nothing.
As the minutes ticked off the tension began to rise. The guns were cleaned and ready. The first of the bronze boxes was attached to a block and tackle ready to swing into the tender car.
Half nine.
"What do you think we ought to do?" Owen said, showing the first tinge of nerves.
"Give it another ten minutes, then we'd better get the guns out of here in case the wrong people have found out. Do you have, a dump, Owen?"
"We've made provisions."
"Ten minutes," Conor said. "We load up, dump them and I'll go snooping around for O'Hurley. Come on now, Owen, don't look so grim."
"I didn't figure on this. Callaghan said the train was arranged."
"Probably a simple explanation."
Five minutes went by, then ten. Just as Conor was to call for the guns to be removed, Brian rushed in.
"It's coming."
The doors were cracked apart. The Red Hand Express was inched in. Duffy O'Hurley was alone in the car and climbed down unevenly. His eyes were bleary and his breath a blend of rare Irish whiskeys. Conor came before him.
"So it's you, Conor," O'Hurley said. "I thought maybe it was you . . ."
"Where in the hell have you been!"
O'Hurley grumbled uneasily and burped out a story that Sir Frederick had sent him on a last-minute trip. He was unable to cont
act O'Sullivan and inform him. Conor knew what had really taken place . . . last-minute fear. He had to decide on whether to buy the story or abort the plan. O'Hurley was tanked up on dutch courage and even at a hundred pounds a trip it might be a bad bargain.
"Where's Calhoun?" Conor snapped.
"I . . . I . . . I . . . didn't think he'd be needed at all. I left him off at a pub . . ."
"We're shorthanded and we've lost time. Where is he?"
O'Hurley scratched his head and tried to remember. It was useless. "What are you going to do with my baby?" he wailed.
Conor looked back and forth from the silent men to the guns to the tender. He made his judgment. "Brian, get this bastard some coffee. You get yourself sobered up!"
"But you said yourself it was too late . . ." O'Hurley mumbled.
Conor snatched him by the shirt with a strength he had never known before. "You're in and you're not getting out. You got it, Duffy?"
O'Hurley whined weakly.
"Now get a grip on yourself," Conor snarled. He climbed up on the tender and threw back the manhole cover to the water tank. "The fucking thing is full and so is the coal bin. Goddammit, Duffy, didn't anybody tell you to bring this in empty?"
"Jesus . . . I . . . I'm sorry . . . I got confused."
"Take the train outside to the yard and dump the water, then go find that goddam fireman of yours. Brian, you and Barry better start shoveling some of this coal out."
"What are you going to do with my baby?"
"Shut up, drive that train outside and dump that water. We've got time to make up."
As the train was eased outside, Owen placed a hand on Conor's shoulder. "We'll make it on time," he said softly. "The man's scared. You've seen men scared before. Only this one happens to drive a train we need and we can't replace him."
"I'm still thinking of calling it off."
"Conor, we've waited too damned long. What's more, we'll be dealing with a lot more frightened men before we're through. You better get him calmed down."