I put my arms about him and sobbed out of control. He turned away, dropped to the bench along the wall and looked questioningly to the guard detail where the young officer in charge sniffed his nostrils like a rabbit
"I'll call you if I require room service," Conor said.
The officer grunted in contempt and left, locking and bolting us in.
"Has the room got ears?" I asked.
"God, no," Conor answered. "They may beat your brains out but they're far too proper to resort to anything as low as eavesdropping. How's Shelley?"
I nodded. "Fine, beautiful. As for yourself, I think we grew better-looking potatoes during the famine."
"I'll not be up for rugby this year," he said, lifting his shirt. I closed my eyes at the sight of his welted body thumped terrible shades of purple. I pulled my stool close, set my mouth near his ear and brought him up to date on everything. It was the first he'd heard that Kelly Malloy was dead and that Callaghan and the O'Sullivans had been taken as well.
I went on to explain the rest of it. The treachery of Doxie O'Brien, which he already suspected, and the secret negotiations with the British. I stated my personal happiness at the thought of him getting off with a light sentence.
"I understand the Brotherhood's problems," Conor whispered. "But I understand my own problem even more clearly. I understand it all, the days and nights of reading, the wandering and the pondering. All the years of groping. I understand it."
"What are you going to do!" I cried, frightened.
"I'm not completely sure. I am sure of what I'm not going to do. You see, runt, you can't just wait until the stars are in their right orbit to make your move in life, whether it's marriage or planting crops or having babies … or staging a rising. Oh, we can fool ourselves and say we'll wait till things are right but, believe me, they can out wait us. We can negotiate but they'll out negotiate us. After three hundred years of our faces in the mud and three hundred years of talking in circles, we've got to draw the line and test our mettle as a people. You see, we may not even prove ourselves worthy of freedom. We may not have what it takes. But we've got to find out. Maybe I'm not a good man for the Brotherhood because I can't still the anger in me any longer, no matter what my orders are."
"Look, you're not yourself. They've beaten you daft. Trust in me enough for guidance this once, Conor."
His black stare went right through me. "Look at me, man, look at me and tell me I don't know what I'm about. I'm Conor Larkin. I'm an Irishman and I've had enough."
I was so terribly ashamed. In my desperation to save him I'd forgotten so much. I was almost willing to throw away the very principles of my existence. He knew what he was doing, all right. I also knew at that moment that somehow I'd have to find a way to break my own vow of silence . . .
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The knocking on my door persisted me out of a heavy slumber. I staggered and groped, muttering that I was on my way, lighting the room and poking into my bathrobe. The air held a predawn chill so I allowed as it must have been Brotherhood business.
What a pleasant surprise to open the door and see the doorway filled with the tall and shapely person of Atty Fitzpatrick.
"Get dressed," she commanded, "I've a motorcar downstairs."
Volunteering no further information, I asked no questions. It was half four in the morning. Atty put on the kettle as I got myself together. We sipped a cup of tea and the stale remains of my bachelor cupboard, then made out to a stinging hoarfrost.
The driver was a Brotherhood lad of mechanical aptitude allowing Atty and me to bundle up in the back seat. Chugging into motion, we maneuvered southward through the empty streets.
"I got a call from Robert Emmet McAloon about an hour ago," Atty said. "The British are arraigning Conor and the other lads later this morning."
"It's five o'clock in the morning and it's Sunday. Where the hell are we going?"
"I'm not completely certain. Seems they've set up a courtroom someplace in the Wicklow Mountains."
"Oh, that's dirty business," I said.
My understanding of the agreement was that the' British would hold the arraignment on the assize circuit in a small inconspicuous town where the proceedings would receive little note and be over with before protests could form. It seemed they were twisting the agreement to trickery. This hour of a Sunday morning in a secret place smelled like an in camera session.
Atty went on to say that Bobby had agreed only after the British consented to allow Atty and myself as observers. Once again they had made a good deal, for we were the pair bound to silence.
"I don't like the half of it," I mumbled, discontented.
*
Past the last suburb of Dundrum we continued south, soon rising in the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains through silent sleeping Enniskerry, demesne of Powerscourt, a great stately home of Wicklow granite razed and risen time and again in the wars and ultimately ceded to a loyal servant of the Crown, Richard Wingfield. Its tens of thousands of acres equaled the grants of the Hubbles and when you add on a hundred more baronies and earldoms you can get an idea of who owned what in Ireland.
The location, however, did serve as gateway to alpine wonderment. Although our drive was ominous and cold, I still could not help but quicken at sight of the night curtain rising on the forests, the falls and the streams in a land of wee folk and wood kerns Atty and I were smitten by the rush of beauties beyond Great Sugar Loaf, up past Roundtree and the high reservoir of the Dublin waterworks.
We followed the River Avonmore to where it crossed the River Glenmacnass at the Vale of Clara, but a fairy's leap from the mystical ancient Celtic monastic ruins of Glendalough, which had been the fiefdom of St. Kevin.
A half mile beyond, Atty instructed the driver to turn onto an old military road that bisected the mountaintops east to west. It had been built by the British after the Wolfe Tone rising to deny future generations of rebels the cover of the high forests. In short order we halted before a barricade.
A British captain, eminently polite, requested identification, after which we were searched. The car and driver were ordered to remain as Atty and I continued on in a troop lorry up the twists and winds into the shadow of Lugnaquilla, the highest mountain in all of Ireland. We came to a halt where the River Ow plunged down past Aghavannagh.
We had arrived at a century-old barrack, a huge three-storied rectangular affair that still housed a contingent of troops to patrol the area. By queer coincidence, Charles Stewart Parnell once kept a shooting house at Aghavannagh which was still used by John Redmond, the present Irish Party leader. Otherwise we could not have been more removed and remote.
The barrack was ringed with troops at combat ready, requiring another identification and search before we gained entry. A Major Westcott finally escorted us into an abandoned armory hall which had been converted into a makeshift courtroom.
Atty and I sat alone for two hours under the surveillance of Major Westcott and a squad of his men. A bit before noon they began to filter in. First came Robert Emmet McAloon dowdier than ever after a sleepless night. He threw his bundles on the counsel table, nodded to us and exchanged a few whispered greetings.
Then came Sir Lucian Bolt. He was an icy number indeed, a hedgerow stone with eyes.
The prisoners, save Conor, clanged and rattled into the hall manacled and chained to one another under escort of a dozen bayoneted riflemen, and were placed on a long single bench at the side of the room.
It was a sad-looking lot, hill farmers from up in the heather, yet they seemed unintimidated. Born into an eternal struggle, they had committed the crime of continuing the strife as their fathers had done. Fighting the British caused no moral quandary, for it was a way of life that everyone in the little Sixmilecrosses around Ireland lived by rote. Never a grand-looking group in the best of times, prison and special abuse accorded republicans made them appear like a dangerous pack of animals.
I looked up to see Conor enter, bearded, limping and d
rawn. He gave us a crack of a smile. From the look in Atty's eyes I knew right then that any love she was capable of belonged to him. She reached for my hand in need of someone to touch and it was wet and trembling. Conor was separated from the others, locked to thick wall rings as though there were a mob outside ready to break in and free him. By the hush of the movements around him and the queer stare from Sir Lucian Bolt it was obvious the British respected the strength of this one unrepentant man.
The stone room, the chained prisoners, the preponderance of soldiers made the place seem more like something out of the post-Revolution era in France than a British court. All that was missing was the rabble in the gallery and the guillotine outside.
"All rise."
Sir Arnold Scowcroft, robed fit for a king's coronation, swept in with his entourage and seated himself at the head table. It was all over in a matter of minutes. Charges were read, some fifteen counts from stealing government property and illegally transporting it to membership in an illegal organization and violation of various articles of various coercion acts. By prearrangement Robert Emmet McAloon entered guilty pleas on two of the counts which were accepted by the prosecution. Thirteen counts were dropped by consent and the prisoners remanded to an unnamed penal institution to be sentenced at a later date and they were paraded out.
"We have the separate matter of defendant Larkin to dispose of, your lordship," Sir Lucian said.
"Bring the prisoner to the dock," the judge ordered, then broke into laughter. "I see we have no dock. Well, bring him before the bench."
Conor was unlocked and manhandled forward. Even in chains and rags he was imposing and more so because of his defiance. I was so afraid.
"Mr. McAloon am I to understand that the prisoner has refused counsel?"
"That is the situation, your lordship."
Scowcroft studied Conor with the contempt only an English lord could impart to a croppy. "Read the charges."
The counts tolled off against him, building a case of treason of the highest order. After a further contemplation of Conor, the judge became menacing in his undertone. "You are aware, are you not, of the consequences of continuing this charade without counsel?"
Conor looked around the room slowly. "I am certainly aware a charade is taking place," he said. The room jolted to utter silence.
“How do you plead?" the judge asked at last
Conor remained silent.
"Enter a plea of not guilty," Scowcroft directed.
"That is not my plea," Conor said.
"Perhaps you'd like to explain that to the court?"
"Yes," Conor said. "I do not recognize the existence, much less the legality, of this court."
Bobby looked to us puzzled but very interested. After a moment of digestion, Arnold Scowcroft became relaxed. He decided that, with all the travel to reach this secluded place and with all the other business dispensed of so quickly, he might enjoy a bit of sport. He leaned back in his chair, nodded and dared Conor to elucidate. "The court is interested in ascertaining how prisoner Larkin reached that conclusion."
"This court is illegal because your presence on Irish soil is illegal," Conor answered.
"And on what does the prisoner base that assumption?"
"On English common law."
Well, I'll tell you, you could have heard Charles Stewart Parnell and Daniel O'Connell stir in their graves if you listened hard enough.
"Take him away," Scowcroft said with a wave of the hand.
Bobby was on his feet! "The prisoner has the right to speak in his own defense," he said, citing one of the cornerstones of British justice. "Unless, of course, the court is satisfied to have the record bear out that he was silenced."
Sir Lucian Bolt came to the judge's rescue. "The Crown has no objection."
"I am prepared to allow prisoner Larkin to speak," the judge said, "but I advise him in advance that this is a court of law and his arguments will be restricted to issues and issues alone. You may go on, Larkin."
Conor took a few steps toward the bench and looked constantly from Sir Lucian Bolt to Sir Arnold Scowcroft.
"There are thousands of precedents in English common law of cases where a strong neighbor has used force by one means or another to impose his will on a weaker neighbor and such use of force as a method has always been deemed illegal in English courts. Without use of a proper legal library to support my argument, I will, nonetheless, attempt to cite a dozen or so landmark cases with which I am certain you are quite familiar."
Conor then went into the most magnificent extemporaneous dissertation I or anyone else within earshot had ever heard. At first, no one could believe the language coming from a man in rags and chains, then we all became totally swept up. He cited cases known to all lawyers of quarrels where force was declared illegal between neighbors in a close situation in cities, between farmers, between large estate holders, between municipalities, between counties and between British provinces on the mother island, Wales vs. England, Scotland vs. England. He went on to recite another dozen decisions, mostly made by colonial courts in the settlement of disputes between warring tribes and clans or provinces within a colony. His last set of citations dealt with international disputes in which the British had acted as arbitrator and, consistent with English common law, declared the use of force by a stronger neighbor on a weaker neighbor as no legal basis on which to settle a dispute.
"What you are saying through English common law is that you are desirous of existing with your neighbors in a country and a world where force is not permitted in the settlement of disputes because force by itself does not constitute right. As we know, by any definition, Ireland is the neighbor of England."
The place stood in awe. What I think astonished Sir Lucian Bolt, Sir Arnold Scowcroft and the other British who heard Conor's words was that such a profound theory emanated from a man representing a race which they truly believed to be inferior. I had the feeling that the legalists sensed they were hearing no idle rambling doomed to die in this room, but a statement which would be seized upon by every occupied people in the world who longed for their liberation. If English common law was an extension of God's supreme law, they were indeed in trouble in explaining their empire.
"If England had taken the position that we're going to have Ireland because we're stronger and we want it for exploitation, perhaps your presence here would be more understandable. However, the English went to enormous lengths to establish a legal basis for the entry" into Ireland. Obviously they wanted to say to future generations, "This is the reason we have come here." What was the instrument of English legality for the invasion of Ireland? It was a papal bull issued in the year of 1154 granting you my country. Who gave you Ireland? The document was issued by an English Pope on the request of an English King . . . for the purpose of amassing kingdoms for his sons. . .. You hold up this document and say in this year of 1908, "This is our right to Ireland. Was it legal even then? Did the Pope own Ireland? Didn't an armed invasion negate the legality of the papal bull, according to English common law?"
"Your lordship," Sir Lucian said, rising, "I don't see why the court has to be subjected to what has degenerated into a Fenian tirade."
"I see nothing the prisoner has said to be outside the guidelines laid down by the court," McAloon snapped.
Scowcroft drummed his fingers on the table top. It had gotten to a point where he was afraid he would have to make a ruling on Larkin's thesis and he was a legalist of extreme pride.
"I wish to hear the rest of what Larkin has to say."
Conor drew a breath and took a step toward the judge, pointing his finger.
"On the assumption that England's presence in Ireland was gained on shaky legal grounds, subsequent actions of a quasi-legal nature have no legal foundation in fact. Again, without the facility of a law library I am able to cite some four hundred pieces of legislation enacted against the Irish people to aid, abet and expand British presence in which a deliberate attempt was made to destroy a
n ancient civilization by laws repugnant to every concept of God and democracy and laws in contradiction to your own public vows to bring civilization to the Irish savage."
He stopped, swallowed a number of times to erase the dryness in his mouth, coughing a bit.
"Laws," Conor cried, "were enacted to destroy the Celtic concept of Catholicism which was the light and the flower of Western civilization at a time when England and the European continent writhed in the dark ages. When your attempt to impose the Reformation failed you then enacted laws and shamefully bribed the Irish bishops into replacing Celtic Catholicism with Anglo Catholicism totally alien to the Irish character. Laws were enacted in exactly the same measure to eradicate our language, an advanced system of government by the people, our economy, our customs, our heritage. Your legal basis of justification has come through convincing yourselves that we are an inferior race unfit to share an equitable life, even in our own land, and if we wished to continue to live in it we must become Englishmen. You have attempted to show the world and your own people that we are inferior and this gives you leave to treat us like animals. Nae, animals are fed, only Irishmen are deliberately starved in Ireland. Through the precedent of establishing the Irishman as a savage and the mission to rescue him from himself you have gone on to establish an empire in which you are also saving black, yellow and brown savages from themselves."
Now he paced with his chains clanging but no one was of a mood to stop him.
"These decades, generations and centuries of comic perversion of law and God, these self-serving acts of coercion, these instant laws that flip-flop or are enacted on a moment's notice according to your need of the day, these farcical unions imposed on unwilling people have always been carried out with total contempt for the savage. No Englishman really asks the savage how he would like to be ruled, for that is apparently the God-given right of your fine, advanced, Western culture and your mother of parliaments.