Trinity: A Novel of Ireland

  Christopher and Jeremy neither loved nor hated one another, but came to accept the queer fate of the order of their birth and priority of their abilities. The younger man had once coveted the title he would never own but he realized the awesome power and wealth he was coming into and that he could acquire a title of his own.

  Among the immediate family only Caroline remained as Jeremy's intimate. He did not see his mother often these days as she spent more and more time in London away from Ulster in what was an unofficial and unspoken separation from Lord Roger.

  *

  It was well past midnight when Christopher made it to Jeremy's quarters. Captain Christopher Hubble had returned from General Brodhead's quarters with the balance of the resignations. It was a bit sticky at first but as the fever grew the holdouts succumbed. Everyone had their quid in now, except for one, Lieutenant Jeremy Hubble.

  He was awake, for he knew Christopher would be coming back, and he got himself well pissed in anticipation. He lay on his back staring ceilingward as Chris contemptuously studied, then flipped the empty bottle into the trash basket, pulled up a chair next to his cot, planted a foot in its seat and hovered over him. Jeremy blinked in red-eyed discomfort.

  "Well, what's it all about?" Christopher demanded.

  "Father will just have to hang my portrait facing the wall in the Long Hall."

  "Turn around, I cant talk to your back."

  Jeremy came to sitting.

  "All right, Jeremy darling. You've, got me here in the middle of the night pleading with you. I know it looks lovely on paper if the Viscount Coleraine of the selfsame Coleraine Rifles is the single officer in Camp Bushy who chose not to resign. I know how incredibly humiliated Father and Grandfather will be. I realize how amusing it will be for you to bring us all to eternal shame . . . but, Jeremy . . . who is kidding whom? You haven't got the guts to go through with it"

  "Oh, haven't I?"

  "No, you haven't. I know that all you're in it for is to have me standing here, half the night shouting and begging. By the light of the new day you will forthwith hand in your resignation, so why don't you be a good lad, do it now, and let me get some sleep?"

  "Fuck off . . ."

  "I've a notion to and let you see what it's like tomorrow when all your mates have a good go at old turncoat Jeremy."

  "You'll not force me to sign the bloody thing . . . I don't believe in it . . . I don't share your hatred of Catholics."

  "Oh, you don't believe in it. Well, that's different then."

  "No, I don't believe, in it," he said, weaving off the bed and staring down at the parade ground.

  Christopher stomped to the door. "I'll advise General Brodhead we'll just have to go in one short of unanimous." He opened the door and slammed it but did not leave the room. Jeremy whirled about in panic.

  "You bastard!" Jeremy said.

  Christopher withdrew a folded paper from his inner pocket, tossed it on the desk and unscrewed the cap of his fountain pen. "Sign it," he said.

  Jeremy's face tightened. He glared at the letter, then at his brother.

  "You know, Jeremy, if you succeed in holding out alone, the worst possible thing might happen to you. You might have to go out on your own and attempt to earn your own living."

  "Can't you understand just once?" Jeremy cried. "I’ve reasons . . . deep reasons . . . I mean them. Just once, can't you see that . . ."

  "What reasons?" Christopher asked coldly.

  "It's like . . . well, signing something against my own son."

  "Molly O'Rafferty isn't coming back, not now or ever," Chris said.

  "Stop it! Stop it!"

  "Not coming back," he repeated.

  "You've no . . . bloody feelings . . . you fucking ghoul . . ."

  "Oh, stop your whimpering, Jeremy. If you'd cared about your child, you would have made your stand four years ago. I'm getting a little sick of this role of the scorned, broken lover dwelling in the haunts of his beloved. It's nothing but a bloody crutch and you know it. You know the consequences of not signing this as well as I do. Now, let's get it over with."

  Jeremy slumped in the chair before the desk. "I suppose your resignation was first in," he grunted.

  "That's right. Mine came two minutes after the order to occupy Ulster."

  "That's us, isn't it? Christopher is always number one and Jeremy is one hundred and forty." Jeremy laughed sickly. "That's what is between us. Sign this, sign that. All my life you'll be standing over me sticking papers in front of me."

  "For the compensation you're getting, you should be the last to complain."

  Jeremy chewed at his lip, trying to muster up courage for a final defiance, breaking into a sweat, looking for something more to drink, avoiding Christopher's stare.

  "If I open your door again," Christopher warned, "I'll go through it this time and leave you with the consequences."

  Jeremy began to sniffle, then sob. He looked up in teared and glassy-eyed hatred, snatched the pen and scrawled his name to the resignation.

  *

  "Who was that, Alan?" Matilda Birmingham said, half asleep.

  "Winston," her husband answered.

  "Churchill? Good Lord, it's three o'clock in the morning."

  "Yes, I know," he said, tumbling out of bed, padding to the closet and fishing for his lounging jacket. His wife was up after him, prepared a tray of tea and left it with him in his study.

  Since his resignation as party Whip, Alan Birmingham had become one of the most vociferous back benchers, applying a continuous needle over his party's vacillation on Home Rule. In fact, Birmingham had taken over as ringleader of a group of young turks in ridiculing Asquith's timidity. Although a lid of secrecy had been clamped on the Camp Bushy mutiny, Birmingham had gotten wind of it and knew that General Llewelyn Brodhead had been locked up in meetings in London with other military leaders.

  Churchill greeted him postured in his best crisis manner and apologized about the hour.

  "We have reason to believe you know about this dreadful business with the King's Midlanders," Winston said.

  "I do," Birmingham answered.

  "And the Cabinet suspects you're going to have something to say about it tomorrow in the House."

  "Your suspicions are well founded."

  Churchill grunted and regrouped himself as Birmingham poured them tea. "Alan," he said slowly, "I'm going to appeal to you to let the matter pass over."

  "I'm not sure I understand you, Winston."

  "Let it die."

  "Do nothing?"

  "That's right," Churchill said.

  “A hundred and forty British officers, including their General, have staged a mutiny. You're not suggesting we condone mutineers along with everything else, are you?"

  "It's not a question of condoning them," Churchill answered. "Alan, we've been going around about this for twenty solid hours. Asquith and the Cabinet, and myself in concurrence, have concluded that if we attempt to discipline these people we may be opening a Pandora's box."

  "I suggest you're opening a Pandora's box by ignoring it. Just where do we draw the line with these people, Winston? The next thing you know they'll be running guns in broad daylight."

  "Come now, Alan."

  "Well, I can tell you what I'd do," Birmingham said testily. "I would have Brodhead arrested and relieved of his command this instant, send a new commander to take over the Midland Division and give the rest of those ruddy bastards precisely one hour to withdraw their resignations or face a general court-martial."

  "Your point of view was expressed quite adamantly at the meeting," Churchill said.

  "But it's the only course of action."

  Churchill held up his hand like a traffic officer. "Not all that cut and dried."

  "What are you suggesting?"

  "Far from being received as a mutineer, Brodhead is being looked upon as some, sort of hero at the War Office."

  "But of course," Birmingham retorted. "The old imperial military machine i
s out to cut the Liberal Party's throat, we know that. They've got to know here and now who is ruling this country, Winston."

  "We have been advised by the Chief of Staff," Churchill said, "that if we prosecute this bunch we can anticipate resignations of a third of the entire officer corps. In addition, we've a dozen or more Ulster-born generals in tremendously important positions."

  "But, my dear chap. That's just ordinary blackmail."

  "With the possibility of war in the near future, Alan, it is no time to risk losing half our commissioned officers."

  "I say let the beggars resign. If we can't control the military in a minor crisis in Ireland, how the devil are we going to control them in the conduct of a major war?"

  "Alan. . ."

  "No, dammit, there is a right and a wrong, Winston. What would happen tomorrow it the Conservative Party also decides to raise a private army and the day after that we Liberals decide to do the same? By God, political parties in a democracy just don't go about raising private armies!"

  "I'm going to have to appeal to you on the basis that it is our appraisal, our astute appraisal, that we cannot run this risk. It will simply destroy our foreign policy as well as the confidence of our allies. Berlin would love nothing more at the moment than to see half our officers chuck it."

  "Indeed," Alan mulled. "Do you have any idea of what we're buying? If the province of Ulster is eventually excluded from the Home Rule Bill, and I suspect you've not the guts to do otherwise, those Unionists are going to establish a tyranny there, a tyranny with our stamp of approval."

  "There's a war almost on us, Alan. Our imperative duty is to see to it that we're prepared and that we win that war. We can't risk our officer corps over a tempest in a teapot. We are all coming to the notion that the Irish solution will have to be delayed anyhow."

  "I see. Then you intend rescinding the order to move the Midlanders into Ulster."

  "We do."

  Birmingham shook his head in disbelief. "We've built a catalogue of mistakes eight centuries long in Ireland. In the end, we are going to be sucked into Ulster. I beg you, don't come to me two decades from now and tell me I was right out of hindsight. If we don't take the bold action required this moment, then we shall be placed in molasses up to our necks and wallow about in it helplessly, unable to extricate ourselves from Ireland for time immemorial."

  Six hours before the King's Midland Division was to cross into Ulster, the order was rescinded. The division remained on duty at Camp Armand Bushy. General Sir Llewelyn Brodhead and his officers did not receive so much as a mild reprimand.

  *

  The Ulster Volunteer Force established its own legality by government refusal to act and it burgeoned in size and arrogance. By midsummer of 1913 over fifty thousand men had enlisted and they continued coming in at a rate faster than they could be absorbed.

  The three provinces of Catholic Ireland watched all this with growing resentment until spontaneous brush fires sprouted about the country.

  In late December of 1913 a mass meeting was called in Dublin to form a counterforce against the Ulster Volunteers. The outpour was enormous. Seven thousand men filled the rink in the Rotunda Gardens, overflowed into the adjoining concert hall and another five thousand were turned away.

  The Irish Home Army was declared and four thousand men enlisted on the spot At the core of this new group were, a number of legal organizations with heavy republican leanings such as the Gaelic League and the Gaelic Athletic Association. Dublin Castle and London were eager to move against this Home Army and outlaw it but were unable to do so in light of the Ulster Volunteers.

  So there it was, England on the verge of 1914, with two private armies existing in her Irish provinces. London was able to draw small comfort in that the Catholic army was pitifully unarmed and without the professional overseers who guided the Ulster Volunteers. It seemed organized with traditional Irish raggedness.

  But for the Irish Republican Brotherhood formation of the Irish Home Army was the key to open the golden door. This tiny clandestine group of two thousand men was entirely ready. Long Dan Sweeney gave the command and the Brotherhood members joined the Home Army in total and quickly infiltrated its upper echelons, seizing key positions and commands.

  The Irish Home Army grew beyond expectations until London became alarmed. Then, and only then, did Asquith declare an end to all gun importing into Ireland. The Unionists waged no protest, for by this time their weapons larder was well stocked and they held a fifty-to-one gun superiority over the Catholics in the south.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  HAMBURG, MARCH 1914

  Herr Ludwig Boch flipped through the pages of documents, singing softly beneath his breath as he did. Satisfied that everything was in order, he gathered them all up, stuffed them into his briefcase and snapped his pocket watch open. It was a time until the meeting. He lit a cigarette and puffed contentedly, watching the rings expand as they drifted about his office.

  Ludwig Boch, a short plump sixty, had reason to be pleased with himself. He had not been among the large weapons traders, those mystical international figures who flitted covertly about the Continent, but he had carved his own unique niche and he verged on closing the arms deal of his life.

  Boch had the usual chain of contacts in the military, the Foreign Ministry, customs and the Armament Board. What he had done differently was to play the Irish fiddle with consummate success. More than any other arms dealer, Boch had sold the idea that it would be to Germany's advantage to get arms into Ireland for both sides and let Protestant/Catholic conflict become a thorn in England's side.

  It had proved a windfall. Recently Protestant agents were offering to buy in large quantities and at premium prices. It had to be deft sleight-of-hand, because on the surface the Ulsterites seemed fanatically loyal to the British King. However, the political analysts in the Foreign Ministry confirmed his own conclusion that guns supplied to the Ulsterites had every chance of being used against the British. Their stated loyalties were paper-thin. Berlin believed that. Good luck for Boch.

  He did have fears he wouldn't be able to deliver the most recent order. The Ulsterites were asking for automatic weapons and mortars which were in short supply and the German Army now had a priority on all production. He was both delighted and amused when approval came down from Berlin, as well he should be. There were eight hundred thousand marks clear profit in it for him.

  Boch knew that arms exports from Germany would come to an abrupt halt when war broke out on the European continent and war was a foregone conclusion. He and the others in his trade rushed about madly to fill their orders before their grisly markets dried up.

  With this shipment his nest was feathered for life. He would close shop, emigrate to Argentina and reap his rewards.

  *

  A few miles removed from Ludwig Boch's inconspicuous office in the St. Pauli waterfront district, Christopher Hubble paced his suite at the Four Seasons Hotel. Until this moment it had all been a lark, but now he was growing nervous. There, was an hour to go until rendezvous. Perhaps a walk. He donned the tweed Norfolk jacket and matching shooting cap that earmarked him as an Englishman and stepped out of the hotel, strolling along the Inner Alster Lake watching the sailboats until the Rathaus bells chimed the hour, then he grabbed a taxi.

  "Shuemans Austernkeller, Jungfernstieg," he said in passable German.

  *

  By the time Christopher had completed his active service, he had been promoted to major, one of the youngest in the Army, and a high personal favorite of General Sir Llewelyn Brodhead. As tradition required, he remained in the active reserve in the Coleraine Rifles.

  After talking it over with his father and grandfather, all concluded that Chris could best serve for the present on the general staff of the Ulster Volunteer Force and he was received there with open arms by Lord Roberts.

  Chris proved to be Johnny on the spot when a minor crisis came at the end of 1913 with the government order to cease all arms sh
ipments into Ireland. At the moment the Ulster Volunteers had expanded to upward of a hundred thousand men and their arsenal held a rifle, per man. What caught Lord Roberts and his staff short was a shortage of automatic weapons and light artillery in the form of portable mortars. Chris convinced his commander to talk things over with his father and grandfather despite the arms ban and they, in turn, took it up with the Unionist Executive.

  They reached a decision to get the weapons despite government orders to the contrary. The purchase was underwritten by the industrialist and gentry establishment and Maxwell Swan traveled to Germany to contact Ludwig Boch. At first Boch, their most reliable supplier, felt the order would be impossible to fulfill because of the German army's priority on weapons but to his own amazement the permits came through. Young Chris was then personally dispatched to Hamburg to personally bring the weapons to Ulster.

  *

  Otto Scheer disliked Christopher Hubble the instant they met, but the money was too good to let that interfere. Small pangs of conscience had invaded Scheer, who was a reserve officer in the German Navy, a U-boat man. He knew that if he and the young Englisher met again they would do so as enemies and most likely through the cross hairs of a gun sight.

  For the time being, Scheer had been hired as a mercenary, a gunrunner for the same British they would be fighting. Boch said it had the approval of the German government. Well, such was the crazy world of Ludwig Boch. A firm hand as a North Sea and Baltic ship's captain, Herr Scheer had drag netted the St. Pauli district collecting a scavenger crew lured by the bonus money.

  He grunted reluctant approval of the arrangement that made Christopher Hubble titular captain of the ship even though he would be sailing it under a German flag.

  They went over the entire plan from Ludwig Boch's acquisitions and manifests and the journey route. Schnapps, which Christopher considered a vulgar drink, was ordered by Herr Boch to toast consummation of the deal and halfhearted handshakes completed the luncheon.