‘Will you look at her now? She’s the Madonna herself!’
‘God bless you, Mary Brennan.’
Some dropped to their knees, and all crossed themselves, their eyes tracking her across the beach, down the strip of wet sand that had been made for her to pass. It was like an aisle in a crowded church, and the stone marker was like the altar, and the sea and sky beyond was the great west window.
One or two of the pilgrims tried to reach out to touch her, but the priest and Eamonn brushed their hands away. When she got to the marker the crowd flowed back over the sand and the aisle disappeared. She was not a tall woman, and now surrounded on three sides she could barely be seen.
‘Will you stand on the stone, Mary?’ said her brother gently.
He helped her up with one strong arm. As the people in the crowd saw her pale face appear above them, against the fading light of the sky, they fell silent and waited for her to speak.
Mary had prepared what she wanted to say. But now, seeing that mass of humble faces gazing up at her, she didn’t know how to begin. It was borne in on her for the first time that her own truth was of very little importance here. And yet she had nothing else to give them.
After the silence had gone on so long that she knew she must speak, she said, ‘Well, I’ve come back.’
This was met by a wave of laughter. The laughter was affectionate. Voices called, ‘Welcome home, Mary.’ She waved as if she was on the deck of a ship coming into port. They all waved back. It was funny, and very touching.
‘I’ve been away so long,’ she said, ‘because I didn’t know what to say to you. And I don’t know what to say now. All I know is, I’ll not lie to you. The child who stood on this beach all those years ago is gone. She won’t be coming back. Instead, all you’ve got is myself, and I’m just nobody at all.’
When she had been thinking about what she would say, Mary had been frightened at how the pilgrims might receive it. She thought they might be angry with her for letting them down. But now, looking round from one rocky slope to the other over this mass of listening faces, all she felt was love. She could hear the soft exclamations, saying, ‘God bless you, Mary,’ and ‘I’m praying for you, Mary.’ There were many she knew in that crowd, and many more she had never seen before. Father Flannery had told her there would be newspaper men there, and cameramen. They had been asked to show proper respect, and not to intrude on her return to Buckle Bay.
‘If you’re hoping I’ve come to see visions tonight,’ she said, ‘then I’m going to disappoint you. Whatever I saw all those years ago was meant for the eyes of a child. I’ve seen no visions since then. I’ve heard no voices. I don’t even know anymore what it was I saw and heard back then. It’s like a dream to me. So there’s no need to listen to what I say any more, or to try to touch me. I’m just Mary Brennan from Kilnacarry, Eileen Brennan’s little girl. My da died at sea the year I was born, there’s many of you know that. My sister Bridie had the measles so bad it nearly killed her. My mam makes pinafores, or she did until the arthritis got to her fingers. I wasn’t much of a student at school, though I did like it when Mr O’Donnell read us poems in that fine voice of his, and I’ll never forget the taste of my first cigarette, given me by Brendan Flynn.’
A hand went up in the crowd.
‘Oh, you’re here, are you, Brendan?’
The crowd laughed. Mary felt as if she had now come home.
‘So here I am, come to let you all take a good look at me, twenty-nine years old and neither married nor earning my own bread, and God help me, I’m not even a nun.’
The laughter rolled like waves over the twilight beach.
‘You’ve no call to listen to me anymore. But I’ve not forgotten the words I spoke when I was a child. All I can do tonight is speak those words again. Love each other, and love our Father in heaven.’
She had no more to say. She looked down and saw Father Flannery smiling up at her and nodding. She reached out her hand for Eamonn to help her down. Then a voice called from the crowd.
‘What about the warning, Mary?’
‘I’ve no warning to give you,’ she said.
‘When will the great wind come?’
‘I know nothing,’ she said. ‘I’ve come home because it was wrong of me to hide myself away. But I’ve no message for you.’
She then jumped down from the stone, and protected by Eamonn and the priest she made her way back across the beach. The newspaper men now came pushing forward, and asked her questions.
‘You say you’ve no message, Mary. But why come back today?’
‘No reason at all,’ she said. ‘One day is as good as another.’
‘Will you be walking on the beach alone, Mary?’
‘Little enough chance of that,’ she said.
‘You said time is running out. Do you think time has now run out?’
‘What do I know about that?’ she said.
They took pictures, the flashes dazzling her eyes. And so, slowly, the crowd dispersed.
The Brennans went back to the priest’s house, where his housekeeper had prepared them a dinner.
‘You did well, Mary,’ said Father Flannery. ‘You did well.’
‘They’ll be so disappointed, Father.’
‘You were grand,’ said Eamonn. ‘I could sooner swim to America than I could stand on that stone and talk the way you did.’
‘Will Betty Clancy crow over you, Mam?’
‘No, no,’ said Eileen Brennan. ‘You did us proud.’
‘I shall be interested to see what the pilgrims do now,’ said the priest.
‘They’ll go home,’ said Mary. ‘It’s over now.’
‘I’m not so sure. I was hearing them as we came back. They’re not done with you yet, Mary. They’re saying God has brought you back to Kilnacarry for a reason.’
42
At 10 p.m. Moscow time on Monday evening Khrushchev was informed that Kennedy was to address the American people. He was scheduled to speak on all networks, both television and radio, in four hours’ time. Khrushchev understood at once that the crisis was about to break.
‘This could be war,’ he said.
The missiles he had sent to Cuba were designed, by making the Soviet threat balance the American threat, to bring peace to the world. Now he faced a possible invasion of Cuba, and following that, a possible nuclear exchange.
‘Two more weeks! That’s all I needed.’
He summoned the members of the Presidium to the Kremlin. The Zil limousines sped through the night streets of Moscow, bringing Mikoyan and Koslov and Podgorni, Brezhnev, Voronov and Kosygin. Marshal Malinowsky attended, representing the armed forces.
‘It’s most likely a pre-election trick,’ Malinowsky said of the upcoming television broadcast. But he knew as well as Khrushchev that his GRU had been reporting unusual US military activity in the Caribbean. A convoy of military planes had left for Puerto Rico. The number of bombers on duty in Strategic Air Command had increased. The US Navy was running an exercise round the island of Vieques code-named ORTSAC, which was CASTRO backwards.
‘Ortsac!’ snorted Khrushchev. ‘That’s not a code. It’s a taunt.’
He told the Presidium members that he expected them to spend the night in the Kremlin. There were grave decisions to be made.
‘We must face the possibility that Operation Anadyr has been discovered, and that action will be taken against Cuba.’
The first matter to establish was how many ships had reached Cuba and how many were still at sea. The three R-12 missile regiments were in place, as were the Lunas and the cruise missiles. The two R-14 regiments were still arriving. The Yuri Gagarin was two days away. The Nikolaevsk, carrying two thousand soldiers, and the Divnogorsk, were in mid-Atlantic. The freighter Aleksandrovsk, carrying twenty-four nuclear warheads for the R-14s, was still in international waters, half a day’s sailing from Cuba.
‘If they want to play games with us,’ said Khrushchev grimly, ‘they’ll find we’re
ready. If they show their teeth, we’ll show them our claws.’
‘But we have no wish to go to war, Nikita Sergeyevich,’ said Mikoyan.
‘To avoid war, we threaten war,’ said Khrushchev. ‘The only thing the Americans respect is strength.’
The members of the Presidium settled in for the tense vigil. All they could do while waiting was make provisional decisions. How was the Soviet force on Cuba to defend itself in the event of an attack? They would be heavily outnumbered by an American invasion force.
‘Do we sacrifice our assets on Cuba?’
The mood in the Presidium that night was grim but defiant. The twelve members voted to authorise General Pliyev, in command of Soviet forces on the island, to use tactical nuclear weapons in the event of a US landing. Marshal Malinowsky warned that this would give the Americans the pretext to use their own nuclear weapons. The order to Pliyev was held back until American intentions became clear.
Shortly after 1 a.m., an hour before President Kennedy was due to deliver his television address, an advance copy of his statement was cabled to the US Embassy in Moscow. Fifteen minutes later it was in Khrushchev’s hands. He scanned the document at speed.
‘No invasion,’ he said.
The mood of the Presidium was transformed. They digested the details of Kennedy’s ultimatum.
‘Naval blockade. Demand that we remove the missiles. No bombing. No attack.’
Khrushchev looked round his colleagues’ faces in triumph.
‘The missiles scare them. We have saved Cuba.’
There followed a series of rapid decisions designed to convey simultaneously a proud defiance and a willingness to compromise.
‘First,’ said Khrushchev, ‘we finish what we’ve started. I want as many of the missile sites as possible operational as soon as possible. Have them work through the night. Order the Aleksandrovsk to make for the nearest Cuban port at top speed. As for the other ships, order them to turn back.’
‘Not without protest, Nikita Sergeyevich!’
‘Of course we protest! This naval blockade is an outrageous demonstration of American imperialism! This is piratical aggression in international waters! This is a crude attempt to interfere in Cuban affairs! The USA is single-handedly preparing to unleash the Third World War!’
The Presidium note-takers busily followed the rush of words pouring from the chairman’s lips.
‘We must galvanise world opinion,’ he said. ‘Every action we take, every statement we release, must show the world these two simple truths: America is the aggressor, and the Soviet Union is now too strong to be pushed around.’
As the statements were being drafted by a team in the Foreign Ministry, Khrushchev requested his colleagues to remain in the Kremlin, to avoid revealing that they had gathered in emergency session. No more Zils roaring through the night. He himself settled down to sleep, fully dressed, on a sofa in the anteroom to his office.
‘You remember the French minister who was caught with his pants down on the night of the Suez crisis?’ he said to the faithful Troyanovsky. ‘My pants will stay up.’
*
At 2 a.m. in Moscow, and 11 p.m. in Ireland, and 7 p.m. in Washington DC, President Kennedy made his broadcast from the Oval Office. He wore no make-up, and looked white-faced and grave. Alerted by a series of rumours in the press, Americans tuned in in record numbers, more than a hundred million of them. The address was carried over a network of Florida radio stations that could reach Cuba, Kennedy’s words accompanied by a Spanish translation. The broadcast was also relayed live via the Telstar satellite to Europe.
‘Good evening, my fellow citizens,’ the president began. ‘This government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military build-up on the island of Cuba. Within the past week unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.’
The president told the shocked nation that the Cuban missiles could strike as far north as Hudson Bay, Canada, and as far south as Lima, Peru. He called them weapons of mass destruction.
‘The 1930s,’ he said, ‘taught us a clear lesson: aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked, ultimately leads to war. This nation is opposed to war. But now further action is required – and it is under way; and these actions may only be the beginning. We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of worldwide nuclear war, in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth. But neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced.’
He then laid out the steps he was taking: a naval quarantine to halt the build-up of weapons reaching Cuba, a demand that the missiles be removed, and a threat that any hostile move anywhere in the world would be met by whatever action was needed.
‘The cost of freedom is always high,’ he said, ‘but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose: and that is the path of surrender or submission. Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right. God willing, that goal will be achieved.’
43
On Tuesday morning the people of Kilnacarry woke to the news of President Kennedy’s speech. The pilgrims emerged from their bed-and-breakfast rooms and caravans to discover that the world was on the brink of nuclear war.
Mingled with the dread and horror at this prospect there was much nodding of heads, and an unmistakable air of satisfaction.
‘You see it now,’ they told each other. ‘Mary Brennan comes home, and the very same night, what do they tell us? It’s the end of the world, sure enough.’
‘You’ll not have forgotten our Mary’s warning. The great wind, she said.’
By the time Mary herself was up, there was a crowd round the Brennan house, and Eamonn had bolted all the doors and closed the shutters.
‘I knew nothing about it,’ said Mary, frightened.
‘They’ll not believe that now,’ said Eamonn. ‘You’re a prophet now.’
*
In London, in the corridors of the Foreign Office and the Department of Defence there was frantic activity. A series of overlapping meetings addressed the question of how Britain should respond. Sir Harold Caccia, Permanent Undersecretary at the Foreign Office, predicted that the Russians would enter West Berlin within hours. Sir Thomas Pike, Chief of the Air Staff, told his fellow chiefs of staff that they would have a maximum of forty-eight hours before the Americans launched an attack. Once the shooting began on the far side of the Atlantic, they must assume it would spread to Europe within hours, if not minutes.
The giant dish antenna of the Jodrell Bank telescope was requisitioned by the RAF to track incoming Soviet missiles. The sixty nuclear-tipped Thor missiles in their bases across East Anglia and Yorkshire were ordered to Readiness State Red, which required launch crews to take their missiles to Stage Two hold, erect on their pads, eight minutes from lift-off. American authorisation officers, required for the dual key authorisation of nuclear attack, were ordered to remain in the launch control trailer for their entire shift, without taking so much as a toilet break. At the V-bomber bases the Vulcans were loaded with thermonuclear weapons and held on Quick Reaction Alert, the crews eating and sleeping by their planes in full flight gear. On the Alert Alpha signal, which was the prelude to the final order, the bombers would take off and disperse to a wide spread of airfields, so that in the event of a missile attack some proportion of the force would survive.
At every meeting, up and down Whitehall, the central question was: why had Khrushchev done it? If his intentions were aggressive, if the Soviet Union’s goal was the domination of the West by military power, then war was not only inevitable, it was desirable. The difficulty was that until the Russians made the next move, no one knew how much force would be needed to contain the threat. The United States had responded to the crisis with a holding manoeuvre, the naval blockade. T
his handed the initiative back to the Russians. The Russians must now decide whether to let their ships pass the quarantine line or not.
In the defence staff meeting which raged all morning Rupert kept returning to his core point.
‘This is not a military stand-off, it’s a moral stand-off. If this is going to be a shooting war, our goal must be to make them shoot first. Kennedy said it in plain words: “Not the victory of might, but the vindication of right”. This is all about righteousness.’
‘For God’s sake, Rupert,’ said Grimsdale. ‘This isn’t a philosophy seminar. The bloody balloon’s about to go up.’
‘And what are we sitting here doing? We’re asking ourselves, Why has Khrushchev done this? What’s he going to do next? That’s what matters. Not how many warheads are going to survive a sneak attack.’
‘So it’s an intelligence matter. That’s me. And I’m telling you, all our analysts are saying this isn’t about Cuba at all. This is about Berlin. Cuba’s a bargaining chip.’
‘If this is really about Berlin,’ said Mountbatten, ‘we’re in trouble. Berlin is non-negotiable.’
‘Even when the other guy holds a card saying nuclear war?’
‘He can’t play that card.’
‘How do you know that? Khrushchev’s a gambler. Always has been.’
‘He’s a canny gambler,’ said Rupert. ‘He’s not going to launch World War Three. He’s going to try to push us to a place where we threaten nuclear war, where we strike first, and we’re the villains of history.’
‘So we let them blackmail us? We let them win?’
‘We shouldn’t be waiting for them to make the next move. We should be taking control of the debate. We should be in negotiations with the Russians right now, offering a reasonable deal to defuse the crisis. Then if they don’t play, they’re in the wrong.’