Leon Uris (77 page)

“That’s ghastly.”

“That’s how to put traitors down, and I daresay the world won’t give a piss in hell what the Turks are doing to the Armenians. Of course, we British are a bit too civilized for that, aren’t we?”

“Were we all that much better during the great famine!” she snapped. Your lousy crowd, she thought, had better get used to people winning their freedom. That’s what this country is going to be all about.

She stood up and started clearing the table testily.

He reached in his jacket pocket and tossed the pistol and its six rounds on the table.

“Sit down! Over there!” he commanded.

As she attempted to speak he repeated the command with a raging voice.

Caroline sank into the sofa while he took up a chair opposite her. He had a small revolver trained on her.

“Don’t move a hair. I’m a crack shot with this.”

“It would have been very much nicer if you simply inquired about the pistol. I’ve carried it for personal protection for twenty-five years. Roger gave it to me.”

“Six rounds of ammunition for two round chambers…hidden in a secret pocket…you see,” he said, breaking into a sob but still holding the weapon at her. “I thought last night was real! You were toying with me all the time! You’re a dirty Irish traitor! You’re a whore! You are no better than those wanton Eurasian sluts!” He snarled and wheezed, the sweat near boiling from the red anger of his
face. “You know who has her lover boy in London! I’ll tell you. Your whore slut sister, Lady Beatrice…and I thought…I had…the one woman in the world…who was not a pig. All right, pig! Dance for me…I mean dance for me! Now!”

“Sorry, General, I will not dance for you.”

“Well, we’ll see. We’ll see how close I can come to that lovely face of yours, before I blow it to pieces. You’ll notice my pistol is also what a lady would carry. I’ll put it in your hand after I split your head in half. When they find you…simple case of suicide…mother’s grief…”

“Brodhead!” a man’s voice boomed out.

The shock diverted him with its roaring suddenness. He turned about, looking, and in that instant Caroline was able to duck behind the stone fireplace.

Three shots boomed out from the direction of the staircase to the balcony. Brodhead fired back at a figure moving down the stairs. Rory was hit and tumbled down to the bottom of the steps.

Brodhead staggered up from his chair, screamed, then slipped to the floor, his pistol sliding out of reach and blood gushing from his chest.

Caroline came into the center of the room. Brodhead reached for his pistol. Caroline quickly picked up Rory’s and aimed. Her hand was solid as steel. As Brodhead’s fingers touched his pistol, Caroline fired, and she was dead true.

“Rory! Rory!”

He propped his back against the steps. “Listen up-no time for panic or discussions…ask only easy questions…move quickly…”

“Hit? Where?”

“Shoulder…neck…see if bullet passed through…”

She leaned him forward, ripped his shirt open, and felt his back. Blood and a hole. “Yes, it went through. There’s blood on your back.”

“He dead?”

“Very.”

“Get his pistol.”

He examined it and nodded. “Good. Small caliber. He meant to do your face in up close…. Vodka…poteen…”

“I’ve got it.”

Rory pointed to his own mouth and she fed him several large gulps. “Give me something to bite on…then pour vodka in wound….”

Caroline grabbed a towel, folded it, and slipped a corner of it into his mouth. He nodded and clamped down. In went the vodka. Rory bordered on fainting…his eyes rolled back, but he brought himself to bite down one or more time. Caroline filled a second towel with the remains of the vodka and sponged his face and tears and snot.

“Ice?” he groaned.

“Yes, there was some in the ice shed. I brought it in last night.”

“Pillow case, fill in ice…front…back…then wrap it on…immobilized arm.”

“Iodine first?”

“No…vodka is fine…bullet probably cauterized wound.”

Rory drank in great deep gulps while she quickly cut up sheets, packed the ice, and with his directions bandaged his arm against his body.

“Tighter…more booze…drink…watch bleeding…”

Calm, thank God. The blood color of the wound was lightening. Good.

“Are you going to go into shock?”

“Fuck no!”

“Oh, my baby, my baby,” she let herself go, “make it for me, baby.”

“Aye…do my best…the plan is fucked…we have to think smart.”

“The pain?”

“Bad…upstairs…balcony…medical kit…morphine.”

As Caroline found it she looked up to the rafter and
saw where he had been hiding. God only knows, he might have been there for days.

“Easy on the morphine…about third of syringe…don’t want to go under…”

In good time the morphine took hold, and although woozy, he was comfortable. The bleeding slowed further. Shoulder blade, collarbone, dislocated? Jesus, what?

“I can talk better.”

“How long have you been hiding up there?”

“When I left you in Belfast, I reported to a hospital and private doctor in Scotland, then doubled back to Ireland. Almost four days in that crawlspace.”

“Oh my darling!” Caroline cried, holding his head to her. “I love you so, Rory. The moment you walked in my house and told me I’d find a path to take to make life worth living, I was already walking on it. You are my path to life, Rory. I asked God…I asked God…if it were wrong of me to start feeling alive again, as though my sons were still living through you…as though Conor Larkin were still alive.”

“I love you that way, too, Caroline.”

“It can’t be wrong then. I see Chris coming down off his high horse and Jeremy rising to manhood, and you are the two of them wrapped into one. Are you going to make me a grandmother, are you?” and she wept unabashedly. “You might have gotten killed too.”

“No way I was going to leave you alone. You hurting over last night?”

“It’s all right,” she whispered. “It was the right way to go about it and the right thing to do.”

“Dry your tears, huh…and let’s figure a way out of this mess…let’s see if I can stand.”

He fought to his feet then sank to his knees again. “Can you drive the car in?”

“No, the path is too narrow. I’ve a large-wheeled pushcart.”

“I’m too heavy for you to handle, darling. Here’s what
we’ll do. You pack and clear out and tie the ribbon on the gate. When you’re clear, there’s a pair of Brotherhood lads in the duck blind nearby. They’ll see the ribbon and come and tidy up, deal with me, and remove the body.”

“I’m not leaving you,” she said.

“They’ll see your face.”

“I’m not leaving you,” she repeated.

“I think it’s quite safe. Only other men I saw in Ballyutogue were these two, Boyd McCracken and his son, Barry. Boyd was with Conor at Lettershambo.”

“I trust them,” she said without hesitation.

“Then get them in here.”

In ten minutes Boyd and Barry were in the lodge and sized up the situation. Rory was made comfortable on a makeshift bed on the rear seat. Every constable and soldier knew Countess Hubble and would pass her through automatically.

Caroline hugged Boyd and his son with compassion and affection they would remember all their days. They started her car and moved back to the lodge to clean things up and remove Brodhead’s body.

“Here’s what we do,” Rory said. “Full syringe of morphine. Every twenty minutes stop and see if my pulse and heart are steady. If I begin to lose pulse, there’s a couple vials of smelling salts to pick up the old heartbeat…. Use back roads around Derry to clear it…then find a telephone…Atty is waiting in a safe house in Belfast…. She’s to give you the name of a safe doctor as soon past Derry as possible. I can’t make it all the way to Belfast.”

She gave him the shot, tucked him in, and kissed his cheek. As his eyes fluttered shut she said, “Don’t worry, son, I’ll bring you through.”

“My dear, dear, dear Caroline,” Churchill said, leaping from behind his desk, holding her hand and kissing it. He took a look at her from arm’s length and his eyes misted up. “It’s been so long since you were in London. How is Sir Frederick?”

“About the same. Unfortunately he is a cat who has used up eight and a half of his lives. You, dear Winston, are only making your third comeback.”

“Minister for Munitions isn’t exactly First Lord of the Admiralty, but I feel I have a use and even perhaps a future.”

“And I predict that your future will make your failures very small potatoes.”

“Dear Caroline, loyal comrade. Your affection and support have been a pillar of my strength. You know, I still feel faulty in your presence.”

“Quite honestly, Clementine has told me how you have suffered over our losses at Gallipoli.”

“She shouldn’t have. I don’t believe in public displays of grief.”

“You have suffered,” she said.

“I’m doing my all to mold my agony into a determination to make something of my life that will make those wrongs palatable. I cannot still my prodigious will to be a leader. I may not be able to come to peace with the reality that my hold over the life and death of others must always be a part of it.”

When they were seated, Winston saw that Caroline bore her look of unusual power that spelled a conversation demanding absolute candor.

“We are going to have to talk about Gallipoli and some other unpleasant matters, and I am going to do most of the talking.”

“In that case, I’ll do most of the listening,” he said.

“I have analyzed the Commission of Inquiry reports and your own testimony, syllable by syllable. You were the chief architect of a blunder. We need not go over what was wrong. The bottom line was that even if we had the Greek and Italian armies, the success of the venture would still have been very much in question.”

His eyes chilled on her.

“I adore you for accepting the role of scapegoat with grace and dignity. You have never pointed the finger at anyone else. You have heard lies and cover-ups of the generals and admirals and kept your silence. You alone, Winston, have been humiliated. Most of it was due to the incompetent generalship of men you had no power to control. You had the War Council and the nation behind you in the beginning. They all deserted when things went wrong. I know you’ve suffered for me and my loss. I like your stuff, Winston.”

“I am most humbled by your words, Caroline.”

“I am aware that Asquith is quietly bringing you in as a consultant to him on the Irish situation.”

“You know correctly, as usual.”

“May I speak to you from here on out as an Irishwoman.”

Winston Churchill was stunned.

“The executions in Dublin are fast becoming one of the great political blunders in the history of the British nation. It has fingered England for acts of terror and injustice. This blunder has ennobled the Irish cause and through it you have done what the Irish were incapable of doing by themselves. You have united them.”

Well, that was the damned truth if it was ever spoken.

“Anglos always loved it in Ireland, but now, man, you’re going to get voted out.”

Churchill drew on the comfort of a cigar, but her eyes went right through the smoke.

“Casement, though legally tried and executed, was the worst miscarriage of justice in our times. By hanging a great humanitarian, you not only spat on the Irish people, but you have told future generations they have no legitimate aspirations. You have said, as never before, ‘We British think you Irish are pigs.’”

He started to speak out, but she banged her fist on the desk, un-Caroline-like.

“You have a problem,” she continued. “In two years the Irish people will vote in a party to recognize the provisional government of the Easter Rising and pull out of the British Parliament. You have two thousand Irish prisoners of war in Fronach in Wales. You have eighty people under death penalty who say they are Irish citizens and not British. Well, what will you give them, Winston? The right to become British again?”

“When we do have women’s suffrage and you win your seat in Westminster, Caroline, I suggest you will be the most troublesome backbencher in our history.”

“You’re frightened half to death to have the Irish at the peace table because when they win a measure of freedom, it will go off like a chain reaction throughout the Empire.”

Churchill’s affectionate regard for this woman was equal to his respect for her as a skilled adversary.

“I have heard very little from you that I would disagree with. Of course, I’d only agree in private. I’d deny it in public,” he said.

“Asquith wants the Irish on the back burner until he gets his peace treaty. Then you can deal with the colony. You know that once you get them at the conference table, you’ll negotiate them out of their socks and underwear.”

“Well, thank God I won’t have you to face across the table, Madam Countess.”

“In Ulster we’ll end up being British. The rest of Ireland will become something like the Belgian Congo Free State.”

“Not all that bad, Caroline. You have very well established your foundation for something. Now, what is it?”

“Knowing that some measure of Irish freedom is inevitable, why the hell did you and Asquith send Llewelyn Brodhead over with a scorched earth policy?”

“The Easter Rising was a bolt from the blue. We knew we had to clamp a lid on until we were ready. We feel now that Brodhead was the wrong man to send, but once sent, it would be too much of a loss of face to recall him. Speaking of the devil, he hasn’t reported to the Castle for several days. He’s overdue from a fishing retreat.”

Caroline had won stage one.

“Brodhead or no, there will be no more executions at this time.”

“Brodhead blundered at Gallipoli, at the Nek, and Chunuk Bair,” Caroline said suddenly and bluntly.

Winston, thrown totally off balance, reddened.

“My sons’ deaths were a direct result of his incompetence and sheer panic—right or wrong, Winston?”

“For God’s sake, Caroline!”

“You owe me two, said Aladdin to the genie, yes or no? You owe me two, and I’m collecting if either one of us is ever to have a decent night’s sleep again.”

“Llewelyn Brodhead lied at the inquiry. The Nek was butchery. He should have evacuated Chunuk Bair seven hours earlier and he would not have evacuated at all if Colonel Malone had not disobeyed orders. Anything else before I am granted my leave?” he asked.

“We’re about halfway there, Winston.”

“What is your point! I demand to know your point!”

“Brodhead mutinied on the eve of war, threatening the Crown with losing half its officer corps. He helped us win world denunciation in the Boer War. How would you rate him as a British general?”

“I shall not now or ever denounce the magnificent role
England has played in world civilization. This little people of ours has been the light of mankind for centuries, opening a world to trade, to the instillation of a culture and system of justice and government second to none. We have done for the world many times over what the world has not been able to do for itself. When one is burdened with such an enterprise, mistakes are made. In the producing of men to hold and enshrine our noble works, yes, there are going to be foul mutations. The system is so large and so powerful, incapable men suddenly find themselves in mighty positions because of war. Llewelyn Brodhead is a beastly mistake.”

“And you shouldn’t have sent him to Ireland?”

“No.”

“And you can’t recall him.”

“No.”

“
You still owe me one
, Winston. Yes or no?”

“Caroline…”

“You owe me one
. Yes or no?”

She was tenacious and had him boxed in, cleverly. He dreaded what that debt was going to be.

“I owe you one,” he said, “but I am not certain if I am prepared to pay the debt off now.”

“Are we sworn to secrecy?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“I killed Llewelyn Brodhead.”

No further conversation was possible until a bit of whiskey opened the passages.

“I lured him to his death in the most ancient of ways and I shot him. My confederates removed his body and dispensed with it and his vehicle in such a manner he may never be found.”

“Your confederates?”

“The Irish Republican Brotherhood. Well, Winston, is it the Tower of London or are you going to pay me the one you owe me?”

“This is dreadful!”

“Let me put it this way, Winston. I am at peace with the assurance that God will dispense me better justice than England has the Irish. Llewelyn Brodhead was going to make a Gallipoli out of Ireland.”

This was a battlefield kind of decision he was required to make, a fast and smart one. England would be shaken, half to the ground, over a scandal like this. The well of sympathy for Caroline Hubble could conquer the bloody world! Mere word of the assassination would create the kind of furor that would bring Ireland to the peace table.

But what of the other parts of it? Is it a greater evil to destroy a known evil? Oh my dear Winston…he told himself…how many foul deeds had he buried for the sake of England? He, himself, had ordered assassinations. That, too, was part of the business of running a government. Just another secret in a lifetime that would gather many more.

And the final part of it. He had adored this woman since childhood. She was worth a hundred Llewelyn Brodheads. She had to do this to stop her own dark and depressed descent to death. Maybe, just maybe, he too would lose his own nightmares of Gallipoli.

“I am prepared to settle our account,” he said.

“No one knows that I have contacted you on this. It is our secret to the death.”

He nodded.

“I blundered my assassination attempt, wounding him badly. He still had enough left to come after me with his pistol. A young British officer, secretly in the Brotherhood, saved my life and in doing so was grievously wounded.”

“Please go on.”

“This young man, Lieutenant Landers, was one of the heroes of Gallipoli. He and Jeremy were like brothers. He won the Victoria Cross.”

“I know who Captain Landers is,” Churchill said.

“Give me his life.”

Winston stood and a lot ran through him. “I owe Landers as well,” he whispered. “What must I do?”

“He’s in a safe house in Belfast. As you are aware, ships are now able to travel to New Zealand unescorted and without convoys. Several regular troopships have been partly converted to hold a hospital facility.”

Oh, this woman, this glorious woman. She was playing like a chess master now.

“So, we’ll put him aboard in a hospital cabin,” Winston said.

“First things first,” she answered. “There are tens of thousands of records of killed in action, missing, prisoners that are in turmoil, unaccounted for, a general mess…right?”

“Right, as usual.”

“Find the records of Lieutenant Rory Landers, New Zealand. He enlisted under that name. Make a final entry in the Landers record that he died aboard ship en route to New Zealand after emergency surgery and was buried at sea with full honors.”

Winston understood perfectly.

“But before you do, make a duplicate of the Landers record, only the party’s name will be Rory Larkin. His record should be changed to read that he was evacuated from Gallipoli and taken to the base hospital in Alexandria where he spent several months; was sent back to New Zealand and discharged.”

“So, Landers is dead.”

“And Rory Larkin was never in England or Ireland.”

Damned shame, he thought, that he didn’t have her planning some of the campaigns. “You are entirely correct, Caroline. Thousands of war records will never be unscrambled. As long as I am engaging in something disgraceful, I’m glad it’s for you.”

“Us,” she said.

“Yes, us. Tell me, Caroline, is he one of
those
Larkins?”

“Yes.”

“I take it he’s a good chap.”

“Aye, mon, that he is.”