Leon Uris (34 page)

“Guilty,” Roger answered.

“And in the next chapter we shall see how sweet and innocent Hester Glyn Gobbins deals with the ghosts of Hubble Manor.”

“Hubble Manor is a tomb, not for its lack of magnificence, but for the lack of its mistress. I’m having Ballystorrs redone for them.”

“Well, it’s nice to know one is appreciated,” Caroline said. “Did it ever occur to you that both a mistress and an heir might be alive and wandering about out there someplace?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve never stopped looking for them,” Caroline said abruptly.

Roger almost came to the point of making an inquiry. Was Molly yet alive? Did she have a son or daughter? Any clues as to where they may be? He did not ask and, in not asking, Roger answered all the questions she did not ask. Bedrock.

The oriel window with its aged thick beveled glass allowed in a sudden rainbow of elongated dots. She studied Roger in his slouch and for an instant seemed to be taken with pity.

“Old Jolly Roger is still old Jolly Roger,” he said in monotone. “The monster of Foyle, installed in me at my birth, is still alive and well, thank you. You look surprised, Caroline.”

“Actually, I am.”

“I’ve known the monster was there from the beginning and it never performed so well as when I put my father on the dole and took what was mine. We’ve done right well together, the monster and I. When I came to realize that the monster was going to make all my decisions for me, I said to myself, ‘Well, this is what good monsters do.’ I never have to choose between right and
wrong. Wrong is what is bad for the earldom. There is no evil; I’m powerless. What is right for the earldom are profits, power, and continuity. Oh yes, I have despised and wondered about my heartlessness all my life, but when one accepts that the monster knows best, one learns to live with it. I cannot control what controls me.”

“What game are you playing, Roger? At the moment you appear to control all the functioning cocks in the family, although I wouldn’t count old Freddie out. So, you want Jeremy to give up the ghost and sire a future earl…but the monster tells you to cover your bet and have Chris and Hester get cracking on their duties. Then why don’t you ask me for a divorce as well? I’d put my money on you making a couple of beautiful little monsters of your own.”

“Your side of the table is the one that needs the heirs, Caroline.”

“I’m sure you are aware that you have been cut back to the boundaries of the earldom. I love both my sons dearly. I would give what is left of my life to see Jeremy make amends for what he has done. Having said that, neither Chris nor Jeremy have any meaningful future in Weed Ship & Iron. They will inherit well, but they will never set foot in Belfast.”

“I don’t sail off into the sunset that easily, Caroline. No man, no matter how demented, gives his empire away to a daughter gone barren. Nor will you find that illegitimate child and bring him up as the Vatican’s gift to Ulster.”

“Good on you, Roger. You’re sounding like your old self again.”

“You and Freddie, no matter how powerful your seal, can’t break the human order of family. Family is older than the earldom, older than the Celts, older than the Normans, older than the Angles and the Saxons…older than mankind…a hand-me-down from the apes and before them, family was stands of trees and dinosaurs—ever see two colonies of lichen on a rock moving toward
each other? They don’t join—strong family devours the weak one. Freddie and I are up to here in some rather interesting deals with each other. We are going to work out an accommodation.”

The moment had arrived. Yet Caroline saw no pleasure in it.

“Roger, kindly ask your monster if that was a blackmail threat.”

“Try me,” he hissed, coming to his feet.

“Sit down, Roger,” she commanded.

“Are you telling me to—”

“Sit down and listen very, very carefully. The accommodation you seek has already been worked out. You are to resign from the board of Weed Ship & Iron. Freddie and I will put to you the choice of buying or selling all joint ventures. You will have your earldom and your sons.”

“You are being ridiculous, Caroline. Try this and I’ll bring Weed Ship & Iron down.”

“You’re interrupting me, Roger.”

He blinked and narrowed his eyes…so calm she was, so even.

“Sir Frederick Weed has passed ownership and control of Weed Ship & Iron to his barren daughter, Caroline. My father has borne the pain of forcing our marriage for decades. He absolutely despises you, despite your little joint gunrunning escapades. After his stroke Freddie wrote a diary and he initialed each page and signed it and it was certified before ten members of the House of Lords who, fortunately for you, do not know the rest of the book’s content.”

“That’s blackmail! He can’t bring me down without bringing himself down.”

“Ah, you’ve never really known Freddie. He’s a two-fisted gambler, my daddy. Freddie has had numerous small strokes since his first one. He’s eighty-two years old now, and he and I decided jointly he goes out his way, at a
big party. That is to say, Freddie doesn’t give a big rat’s ass if he is exposed or not.…However, Roger, that old monster in you has to be telling you to tread carefully, what?”

“You are a devil,” he rasped.

“Father’s diary has a companion volume detailing your dealings with Maxwell Swan—”

“Shit!”

“Uncle Max, just before he died toasting the king with a strychnine grin on his face, covered the volume in orange and presented it to me in exchange for his living out his life in piety and luxury in Jamaica.”

Caroline broke, voice quivering, “It’s all here, the murder of Kevin O’Garvey, the cover-up of the factory fire, and a few other murders and bribes and broken legs and riots.”

“All right…all right, let’s get ourselves together. The truth of the matter is, Caroline, that when Freddie goes, you can’t continue Weed Ship & Iron beyond your own lifetime.”

“That’s being taken care of, Roger. We’re going public on the London Stock Exchange.”

“You’re mad! Freddie is mad!”

“Please Roger, the guests are napping.”

“My God! Public ownership! Tax collectors crawling over your books like maggots…every little pissant solicitor in the British Isles reading your contracts…conspiracies on your board of directors…bribes…corruption…unions. A business, an earldom, a nation must be run by a single leader!”

“We sense that imperial man may be on the wane.”

“Gawd! Now you hear me, Caroline—publish those dirty little diaries if you dare and I dare expose you and your paddy boy, Conor Larkin. When the Orange mob learns about you fucking your croppy in the barn, they’ll have your guts on the pavement of Shipquay Street! See, madam, you’re not all that clean!”

“I am guilty of a lot of things, Roger, extravagance beyond
that of Marie Antoinette, blindness to a slave labor operation, guilty of a despicable arrogance in treating decent human beings as if they were dogs—all that—but I am not a criminal. Sorry to disappoint you, but I
have
been faithful to you. I didn’t want it that way, but Conor Larkin had too much decency, despite his low breeding, for the likes of us…just as Molly O’Rafferty has too much decency for the likes of us. As for infidelity, the Brigadier also supplied me with your little black book…some of whom you’ve been paying exorbitant amounts.”

Roger made a few disjointed gestures, cried, croaked, mumbled a plea. He was boxed in on every side. He slumped in defeat.

“Is the old monster back in its cage, Roger?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

“You will report to Freddie’s office promptly at three tomorrow afternoon. The papers are drawn up. Take your fucking earldom and piss off. In the future, I pray that a redemption is possible between me and our sons and that I can help them in worthwhile enterprises.”

A knock on the door was followed by a trio of maids. “May we draw a bath for the Countess?”

“Yes, that would be lovely. By the bye, his Lordship is running a slight fever. Do you suppose he might have his own room and a doctor?”

When they had gone, Caroline started for her bath, then turned.

“Freddie was right,” she said. “He said you’ve got too much blue blood to duke it out with a street fighter. When it came down to eyeball-to-eyeball, you’d cave in.”

Secret Files of Winston Churchill

I have reached the first major crisis of my career, requiring me to make the most serious decision imaginable.

No one, and I repeat,
no one
fought more vigorously for the
People’s Budget
of 1910, a signature event denoting the beginning of the era of the common man’s right to a higher standard of living.

To pass this budget I led the fight to threaten the dissolution of the House of Lords and fight off the Conservatives whose mentality is deadened with rigor mortis. They still live in the memory of an exploiting empire and massive military budgets.

I met the PM at 10 Downing today and he offered me the post of First Lord of the Admiralty. This not only means I must abandon my fight for more social reforms; it means a complete reversal of roles by becoming a leader in the arms race.

Asquith refused to take my “no” as an answer and was extremely compelling about the inevitability of a land war on the European continent.

As First Lord, I would be in charge of building a thousand-warship navy, the most powerful fleet the world has ever known.

I took a bundle of reports to study, written by our greatest experts in the military, intelligence, financial men, industrial wizards, scientists, and politicians and advised the PM I would give him an answer as soon as possible.

I am torn, utterly, horribly torn. There is no conclusion a sane and reasonable man can draw except that war will soon be upon us and there is no way we can finesse our way out of it. The German empire is in wretched shape and the Kaiser and General Staff feel that there is no way to prevent an internal collapse except to go to war against France and Russia.

What chills the marrow is the prediction of casualties. One million men from each of the major nations are predicted to be killed, a minimum of six million dead and God knows how many wounded.

All of my lovely dreams of the march of the common man with myself as their leader have now gone asunder. Although heavy of pain, I see no choice but to place myself at the pleasure of the Crown.

In addition to the gigantic task before me, this post is bound to make me leap forward toward the political goals I have set for myself.

My illustrious ancestor, John Churchill, the First Duke of Marlborough, never lost a battle or failed to capture a city under siege. I do not claim his mastery of field tactics and
engagement, but I understand the grand strategy that England must employ against Germany.

When the time comes I shall set down this strategy and it will dazzle our War Council.

I have accepted the appointment of First Lord of the Admiralty at the age of thirty-four.

The Conservatives and a good part of the press are howling like mad dogs over my appointment.

Well, we shall see.

Predictions of Sir Frederick Weed’s early demise failed to materialize. He stormed back, determined to get his empire in proper order. Weed went first into his own ranks, gleaning them for managers, executives, foremen able to think in twentieth-century terms. Those he could not find, he went out and stole from his competitors. A financial wizard from the Bank of England went on the board as did some of the foremost minds in the British Isles. The only thing Freddie questioned was why he hadn’t done this years earlier.

At first there were a lot of bad jokes and snickers in the corridors of power. It was soon evident that Caroline Hubble had inherited her father’s qualities of bossmanship. The snickering stopped cold as she took her seat at the opposite end of the long table from her father.

The day Caroline called to order and ran her first executive meeting, she showed an added dimension. Caroline obviously had the quality to extract the best a person had to offer. Had she not once helped create a masterpiece through a croppy blacksmith?

Naval shipbuilding was now going on at breakneck speed, beyond capacity. Belfast buzzed with full employment and high wages. With his new people making hard decisions, Weed was able to cut back his own role to an hour or two a day, often from Rathweed Hall.

The London office of Weed Ship & Iron, with its proximity to the heart of government and the financial world, became as vital as Belfast itself. Freddie had battled Caroline all her life to keep her in Ulster. Now, he could bestow on her the gift of London.

She took over the London end of the operation, cleared out three decades of rust, and yes, she thrived outside the landscape of Ireland, as one often does when one escapes captivity.

Caroline’s London home was arty and elegant but did not shriek of wealth. The informality of it was assured by its Chelsea location in the midst of her closest friends—actors, writers, artists, scholars, and all sorts of off-horse, out of the ordinary, fun people. It was the home she never had in the marbled museum of Rathweed Hall or the ancient castle of the Foyles. She became a force in the arts and drifted heavily into Liberal Party politics.

Long steeped in the brutal and myopic politics of Ulster, the Liberals were yet another reprieve from the Belfast graveyard. Caroline’s salon became a regular watering hole for their gatherings.

Her favorite was that odd fellow, Winston Churchill. The qualities Caroline had spotted in him from distant Londonderry were coming to fruition. She grew to be one of his very few confidantes, particularly on Irish matters. Indeed, Winston came to her with his dilemma before accepting the Admiralty post.

Frederick Weed knew that if he pouted too much about his daughter’s house crawling with Liberals he could have a seizure. On the other hand, he’d also learned in his eighty-plus years that Caroline would not be deterred. There was no possibility whatsoever of changing her childlike, bohemian, bolshevik tendencies.

Caroline entered middle age lovely. What had been lost from her overpowering beauty had been replaced by a calm grace, wisdom, and aura of grandeur one usually wins only through tragedy. To supervise a powerful
industrial complex and remain utterly feminine was perhaps her most endearing trait.

Her name in London became linked to Gorman Galloway, an untamed Anglo-Irishman of the other faith, who was saddled with an unfortunate and undivorceable marriage, as was Caroline. His wife lived in Dublin and his children, all Irish gems, were scattered about and in and out.

Galloway was mostly sane but occasionally pure mad Irish, always witty, an actor, producer, director, and a smashing writer. Mocking all political parties, he wrote magnificent, devastating social commentary, usually mercilessly jerking around the imperial union jackers.

Gorman was one hell of a fun fellow himself, with an adoring court at his feet and coattails. Though loosely tied, he and Caroline were looked upon as a rather committed couple despite the fact Gorman went off on outrageous binges that found him waking up in Cork or leading a suffragette rally in Bristol.

Caroline’s meetings with Roger were mercifully minimal. She was now out from under any pretense of a successful or congenial marriage and too powerful in her own right to be brought down by titters and gossip. Free from her early struggle with Freddie for equality, free from the labored years with Roger, and finally at peace with her unrequited love of Conor Larkin, Caroline was open and joyous but always aware the joy could be gone in a wisp.

Hester, bloodless and all, made Christopher more acceptable. Caroline was compassionate to Hester and understood Hester’s failure to become pregnant. Their visits were proper and of proper length and their conversation, noncontentious.

Gorman knew that when Caroline flashed that occasional look of terrible, terrible sadness it was for one of two men…Conor Larkin or Jeremy Hubble. Jeremy was still a subaltern in the Coleraines and he’d gotten very Irish with his drinking and even worse with his self-pity.

Caroline had searched herself weary for Molly O’Rafferty, a search kept alive by the faintest of clues that always turned cold.

Caroline knew that she would need to make a first gesture to Jeremy sooner or later. What she really wanted was for him to join her search. She wanted Jeremy to finally be a man and demand to find that son or daughter of his. As long as he drank his way through it, she would not come to him.

Caroline’s Chelsea parlor became a whirlwind of exciting times as the Liberals rode the winds of change in trying to uproot the British class system. The bull’s-eye of the target was the culpable hereditary powers vested in the House of Lords. Well, the House of Lords was not going to dismiss itself and abandon its privileges. At last the Liberals came up with a scheme. If Lords’ powers were not curtailed, the Liberals would create hundreds of new Liberal peerages and double the size of Lords.

Faced with the dastardly specter of a slew of ordinary street people being named to the aristocracy, Lords yielded. Henceforth, if a bill passed Commons and was rejected by Lords, Commons had the right to pass it twice. If Lords rejected it a second time, then Commons could pass it a third time and it automatically became law.

Into this political grab bag came the dying gasps of John Redmond and his Irish Party. Prime Minister Asquith, Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, and the Liberal Party didn’t really give a hoot in hell about Irish self-government. Nonetheless they needed the Irish Party in their coalition if they were to remain in power and so give their Home Rule Bill ambivalent sincerity.

The Third Irish Home Rule Bill was bloodless stuff. Under it the Irish could erect road signs, establish mental clinics, warden fishing streams, and trim hedges, but when it came to the hard stuff—defense, collection of
taxes, loyalty to the Crown, and a place among the nations—England remained all. All, to the point that any legislation passed by a Dublin Parliament could be verruled by the House of Commons.

This legislation was the most meager of symbolic gestures, but Redmond desperately needed that gesture. Redmond’s Irish Party was on its last legs and might well lose badly to the Sinn Fein in the next elections.

Despite the fact that the bill posed no real threat to the Unionists of Ulster, the mere words
Home Rule
were sufficient to open Pandora’s box.

In early April of 1912, the Liberal and Irish Parties passed the Third Home Rule Bill in the House of Commons by 110 votes.

On April 14, the House of Lords rejected Irish Home Rule, 326 to 69.

The Liberals slated a second reading of the bill in Commons for later in the year, but across the sea Protestant Ulster was in a frenzy. Having earlier signed their Act of Covenant, often in blood, the province erupted in massive rallies from end to end. As the Protestant protest lapped up on England’s shores, the Conservative Party leapt on the issue, sensing that any anti-Irish measure would gain popularity.

Protests, well financed from Ulster, swept England and Wales and Scotland. Conservatives fanned the fires with the goal of bringing down the Liberal government.

On cue, Rudyard Kipling penned a heroic new poem, soon memorized and recited with fervor by every Protestant school child in the British Isles.

Orange Ulster had declared war on anything within shooting range: Irish Catholics, Liberals, many of their own, and certainly everybody who disagreed with them.

For Roger Hubble, the Fourteenth Earl of Foyle, it was resurrection time. Armed with a wide-open mandate, Roger revived his Belfast connections. On matters of Unionism, Roger and Sir Frederick were still allies. Bringing in four of the most powerful Unionists in the province along with some high-ranking Ulster military, a series of attacks were concocted, each upping the ante against the British government.

The Ulster Militia, hitherto not quite legal, came out into the open for recruits after a public appeal by Sir Frederick himself.

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a spokesman for 170 Unionist clubs and Orange lodges with a membership of 17,000 men of military age pledged to enlist their entire membership the minute the Militia’s doors opened.

Lord Roberts, the leading general of India, tendered his resignation, presumably to assume command of the Militia.

Targeted retired British officers were contacted for hire to form a quasi-army with transportation, medical
corps, intelligence units, communications, and whatever else the Militia required.

Sir Frederick was peppered with questions at a press conference that followed. Is this not a private army belonging to a political party? Is it loyal to the Crown? Is it legal?

“The Ulster Militia,” Sir Frederick said cheekily, “may or may not be legal, depending on whose bull we are goring. We are only committed to the continued freedom of Ulster as part of the United Kingdom. That is legal! Furthermore, we will shoot anyone who denies us our British heritage.”

“Does that mean the Militia will shoot British soldiers?” he was asked.

“Sir, no British soldier would shoot a kindred Ulsterman. Anyone who would order him to do so is a traitor!”

In England the Conservatives picked up on the word
traitor
…and the Liberals scrambled to organize themselves against the next assault, lest they go down as being incapable of governing the nation.

With the Liberals on the defensive, the Conservative-Unionist coalition pressed on audaciously.

What was amazing was the civility with which Sir Frederick could work with his loathed son-in-law on Unionist matters. Roger had concocted a scenario that, if successful, might well be the jugular blow to Asquith.

It was a conspiracy of lovely delicacy.

The now Brigadier Llewelyn Brodhead commanded Camp Bushy in the placid environs where the river Shannon opened into Lough Ree. Camp Bushy was the main garrison for Ulster. Brodhead was imperial Ulster incarnate. His breath, his flesh, all that was him and his, belonged to the empire.

The Brigadier and Lord Roger were longstanding pals of the sort who always owed one another a favor.
Lettershambo Castle, the Militia arsenal of questionable legality, became out-and-out under Brodhead’s protection with Brodhead’s cooperation in the gunrunning.

Roger saw to it that the Brigadier was let in on a number of “good bets” with his insider information.

The principal troops at Bushy were the King’s Midlanders, but the Coleraine Rifles were also included. When Roger exiled Jeremy to the Rifles, Brodhead assured him he’d keep the lad under control and out of trouble, which he did.

When Christopher went to the Rifles, he was earmarked for rapid promotion and became a close aide to Brodhead. Chris was having a problem getting his wife pregnant and was given all the time off he needed to get the old job done.

With Brodhead and Captain Christopher Hubble in on the scheme, Lord Roger contacted Weed to set up a secret meeting and bring along three or four cronies who could deliver vast amounts of money.

When Roger unfolded the plan, tens of thousands of quid were laid in the center of the table. Their principal German arms dealer had purchased a shipload of heavy arms for the Militia, and two nine-hundred-ton vessels. It was done with the cooperation and assistance of the German government, keen on anything to disrupt Ireland or embarrass the British government.

The ship was in a Hamburg dock with her empty sister ship in the next slip, to be used as a decoy. A story was circulated that the pair were bound for Mexico where the ousted dictator, Diaz, planned a coup.

Enter Captain Christopher Hubble, in civvies but blond, erect, correct, polished, moustached, the very model of empire man.

Christopher left with a German crew under a German flag, but instead of the usual North Sea route, swung into the English Channel and up the Irish Sea where the ship was shadowed by a British destroyer.

The sister ship trailed, then switched places with, the arms boat in the middle of the night. The captain of the British destroyer, a member of the plot, deliberately followed the wrong ship.

Christopher’s boat slipped through the North Channel separating Ulster from Scotland. At the Rathlin Islands, the German crew was replaced by a crew of Ulster Militia. They raised the banner of the Militia and in broad daylight sailed down Lough Foyle to Londonderry.

Emergency inquiries from the Admiralty and War Office to Camp Bushy went unanswered as the arms boat unloaded into a waiting freight train, which whisked its cargo into the safety of Lettershambo Castle.