The Blood Upon the Rose (3 page)

As he spoke, Sean saw the argument develop into a tussle. One of the Volunteers grabbed the constable's coat, trying to drag him away. But the constable was a big man, and he threw his attacker off. The man staggered, tripped over a stone, and fell down. The constable stepped back, warily eyeing the other two who were moving towards him. Then all three turned their heads as an engine by the station roared into life and the first car started down the road towards them. The policeman glanced at it, and then stared back at his attackers. His mouth fell open in a wide O as the terrible truth burst like sunlight in his brain. He stepped back, raising one clumsy hand to wave at the car while he fumbled with the other for his whistle.

Sean saw the bomb coming through the air, but his mind did not register what it was. It came slowly, in a high lob from behind the hedge, turning end over end like a tiny rugby ball heading between the posts. It came over the policeman's head, hit the road between him and the cart, and rolled around in a little circle like a stone. Then it exploded.

The blast hit his face like a hurricane. But it was hot, as the Irish wind never is. He threw up his arm to shield his face, and stumbled back, hanging on to his friend, Martin, to stay upright. Then it was gone, and he saw the policeman writhing on the ground, clutching his leg. The three Volunteers were on the ground too, crawling oddly several ways at once.

‘For the love of Mary!’ shouted Martin. ‘Will the fools warn every peeler in the County Dublin ?’ Then they looked and saw the first car speeding towards them - faster than before, it seemed.

‘Come on, Sean!’ Martin shouted. ‘Get the cart!’ One of the three men around the cart had got to his feet, but the other two were still crawling feebly, like lost animals. The two young men ran to the cart and grabbed its sides, ready to push it out into the road. The car was nearly upon them. Sean heard the crack of gunfire. He heaved at the cart, but the great clumsy wheels wouldn't move.

‘We're too late, Martin!’ he screamed.

‘No! Don't worry about that one!’ his friend yelled. ‘Get the second car! That's the one the bugger's in! Come on, boy - push!’

But Lord French was in the first car, with Catherine, her father, and two other officers. The rest had stayed on the train. In an attempt, perhaps, to smooth over the quarrel, the Viceroy had insisted that Sir Jonathan O'Connell-Gort and his daughter accompany him, and had, most unusually, got into the first car outside the station, instead of the second. Catherine, trying to make amends to her father, followed in mutinous silence.

The chauffeur, wearing his leather gauntlets, driving helmet and goggles, shut the door on them politely as they climbed into the back. Lord French's personal detective, Detective Sergeant Halley, sat in the front beside the chauffeur. As they moved off, the Viceroy smiled at Catherine rather stiffly, trying to resume their conversation where he had broken it off.

‘When you are older, young woman, you will understand that this country needs firm government, like all other parts of the Empire. Firmness and justice, that is what is needed. I am not opposed to Irish people having a say in their own affairs, and neither is Lloyd George. It is my belief that we have held back on Home Rule long enough, and I daresay it is no great secret if I tell you I expect him to bring in a bill to the House this very week. So you will get most of what you want! Read the papers and see, if you don't believe me. But as for this murderous campaign against the police …’

‘It won't be enough!’ Catherine burst out angrily. ‘I do read the papers, my lord; I have read a lot about what Lloyd George has to say. He will never give us enough unless we fight for it!’

Lord French frowned. He flicked his gloves irritably against his thigh. ‘Do you really mean to tell me, young lady, that we should give way to a man with a gun, just because he asks us to?’

‘You gave way to the men of Ulster when they had guns! When the government was going to give us Home Rule before the war, the Ulstermen faced you with guns, and said they wouldn't have it. You didn't stand up to them then, did you? You gave in to them at the Curragh! Where was your firm government then?’

Lord French's mouth was set in a hard line, and for a moment he said nothing. Catherine noticed, with interest, that his cheek had gone suddenly pale, and then, equally swiftly, was flushing bright red. In a very cold, clipped voice, he said: ‘I imagine you were only a child then, Miss Gort, and you are little more than that now. But it may interest you to know that I resigned as Chief of the Imperial General Staff over that affair, and that I in no way endorsed the action of Mr Carson and the Ulster Volunteers. Perhaps you should tell that to your revolutionary friends, if …’

There was a muffled explosion from the front of the car, and a curse from the chauffeur. Catherine thought the car had backfired, but then it suddenly started to go much faster. She peered ahead, over the detective's shoulders, and saw a cart and some figures running around in the road.

‘What is it, Sergeant?’ asked Lord French.

‘Don't know, sir.’ Detective Sergeant Halley was pulling his revolver from his pocket. ‘I think …’

The window beside Catherine exploded. There was a blast of hot wind, glass all over her face and coat, and shouting. Detective Sergeant Halley was shooting out of the window, and there were bangs and rattles along the side of the car, as though someone was throwing stones at it. Lord French and her father had their pistols out, and French was pulling down the window on his side. The car was going very fast, bouncing and swerving wildly.

The sound of pistols being fired from inside the car was much worse than anything from outside. Catherine put her hands over her ears, then took them away again as she realized there was glass on the sleeve of her coat. She stared out of the broken window and saw two young men, a few yards ahead, standing by a farm cart. A revolver jerked in one man's hand, once, twice, three times, a puff of blue-grey smoke coming from it each time. The other young man had a bomb in his hand. She saw him take it out of his pocket, pull out the pin, and bend back his arm to throw.

She saw his face quite clearly. She would never forget it. It was a face that she knew too well.

Sean only saw the car itself, not who was in it. It surged up the road towards him, bouncing and swaying on the rough surface, and he saw a confused blur of faces behind the windows, nothing more. When he had taken the pin from the grenade everything seemed to slow down, and the crack of the pistol shots were pinholes in an eerie silence, waiting for the explosion. Only two or three seconds, but time had slowed down. He swung his arm behind him, thinking only: My hands are too sweaty, it will stick to them like glue, I won't be able to let go! And so he hurled it with extra, vicious force, straight at the goggled, helmeted chauffeur. But at the same moment the car lurched violently to the left, to avoid the still writhing body of the police constable. The bomb, thrown too hard, sailed over the car roof and burst on the road behind. And the car was gone, up the road towards Ashtown Gate and the safety of Phoenix Park.

‘Now! Get the second - that's our man!’ Martin, Sean and two others seized the great, heavy, lumbering cart and dragged it one, two, three feet further out into the road. Not far, but enough to make the passage between it and the hedge narrow, perilous. The second car was nearly upon them but it was going slower and an appalling hail of bullets was rattling on to it - far, far more than had met the first. Sean felt a rush of fierce, savage pride - they would do it this time, it was stopping, it was caught! He pulled the pin from another bomb and threw it easily this time, with skill and without fear, like a cricket ball. The bomb hit the door pillar, smashing all the windows on one side, and the car lurched feebly, hopelessly into the right-hand ditch. More bombs were coming now, from the hedges beside the road. They burst all around the car, but none seemed to go inside it. The chauffeur climbed out, his gloved hands above his head.

‘We did it!’ yelled Martin, his eyes alight with triumph. ‘We got the bugger!’

‘That's just the chauffeur!’ Sean yelled back. ‘We've got to be sure of French. Can you not get closer and put a bomb right inside it?’

‘Surely.’ Martin grinned. Sean had thrown both his Mills bombs but Martin had one ready in his hand. He dashed out from behind the cart into the middle of the road. Sean ran after him, a yard, two yards behind, revolver in hand, thinking to shoot French if he saw him.

Martin was still running when he stumbled and fell, nose down on the hard ground.

Sean had played a lot of Gaelic football but he had never seen anyone fall like that, straight down on his face without trying to break his fall with his hands. And the body was immediately, suddenly limp, like a rag doll. The grenade rolled out of the fingers, round and round in a little circle, like an egg. The pin was still in it.

‘Martin!’ he yelled. But as he ran forward to his friend the ground began to hop and skip all around him like a cloudburst. There was an enormous noise everywhere. He looked up and saw the army lorry pulled up at an angle across the road, and all the soldiers firing their rifles at him.

He picked up the grenade, bent low, and scurried back behind the cart, where two other Volunteers were shooting at the lorry with their revolvers. There was a great pain in his chest, but he had not been hit at all. ‘Martin!’ he said. ‘They shot him!’

‘Don't worry about that, son. We've got French!’ said the man beside him. There was a gleam of exhilaration in the man's eyes. Sean looked past the body of his friend to the shattered car in the ditch. How could they be sure? He pulled the pin from the bomb and hurled it, and this time it went straight and true, end over end through the air and in through the window. There was a huge echoing explosion and blast fragments came out of all the windows. That's for you, Martin, he thought.

The Crossley tender revved up its engine and came straight towards the cart. Sean fired his pistol once, twice, and then it jammed. His companion grabbed his sleeve, dragging him back. ‘Get away, boy! Come on, out of this!’

‘But what about Martin?’ Sean said.

‘He's dead, son. There's nothing to be done. But you save yourself and live - live for Ireland!’'

Then Sean was running, dodging and swerving from side to side, around the side of the pub to where he had left his bicycle. And so away, pedalling like a lunatic down the long road towards Windy Harbour and normal life in Dublin. Halfway down the road there was a herd of cows, shambling into the dairy on the edge of the city to be milked. Sean and his companions rode straight down upon them screaming like eagles, their coat-tails flapping in the wind behind them, and the cows panicked and began to climb up on each other's backs and push each other into the ditch.

Only when they had the cows between them and any pursuit by the army lorry did Sean begin to laugh, and then for a while he could not stop. He laughed as he pedalled, great long laughs of triumph and exhilaration, with the tears not far behind.

2.

THE BULLET-SCARRED limousine pulled up in a spray of gravel outside the Viceregal Lodge. The passengers piled out. Lord French, his revolver smoking in his hand, strode up the steps and barked orders at the astonished sentry. By the time Sir Jonathan, the other ADCs, and Detective Sergeant Halley followed him under the Ionic pillars of the elegant portico, the old general had servants and soldiers scurrying across the vast hall in every direction, their heels clicking urgently on the marble floor.

In all the flurry, Catherine was temporarily forgotten. She sat down, white-faced, stunned, on a little gilt chair in the corner. She was certain it had been Sean. That smooth, boyish face, the wide grin, the silly stick-out ears; there could be no doubt. That one second had burned a picture of him into her mind, as though her eye had been a camera. She could see him still, like a photograph - if only photographs could be in colour. He had been half-smiling, his young face flushed with excitement and determination, his arm bent back to throw the bomb. Like a hero, she thought. It was truly heroic - a young soldier of Ireland in action, taking up arms for the republic against the armed might of the British Empire! A young man in civilian clothes, a cloth cap and long tweed coat, daring to stand out in the middle of the street to attack a convoy of enemy soldiers!

Because of Sean, the Viceroy, that old fool French, was running around like a scalded weasel, his face bright red with indignation above his white moustache. So much for discipline and firmness!

Catherine began to laugh. And when she had begun, she found it hard to stop. Her voice echoed in the hall.

A butler spotted her and came over. ‘Can I be of assistance, madam? You were in the car, weren't you? I can see you were hurt.’

Catherine controlled herself with an effort. ‘What? No, I'm all right.’

‘Forgive me, madam, but your face is bleeding.’ He turned and clicked his fingers. ‘Mrs Boyd! Here, please!’

Catherine touched her cheek hesitantly. It was wet, slippery; her fingertips came away red. A short, middle-aged woman in a housekeeper's cap and apron came up.

‘Oh, my dear, that looks nasty! Have they shot you too?’

‘No, it’s just a cut, I'm sure.’ She stood up. ‘I’ll be all right, if I can just wash it. Don't make a fuss, please.’

‘All right, miss. I'll show you.’

Catherine followed the woman down a corridor, past a number of sculptures and paintings, and up a flight of stairs. She opened the door into a large bathroom. In one corner was a bath with a massive oak shower cabinet at its head; there was a window with stained glass in it, a window seat, some cane chairs and stools, and a large basin with a mirror.

‘You sit down there, dear,’ said the woman, pulling up a stool. ‘I’ll clean it up for you.’

The sight of her face in the mirror was a shock. Her small bob hat was awry; and under it, ragged fingers of blood trickled down a paper-white skin. She took off the hat, astonished. She didn't feel bad - how could her face be such a mess?