The Secret Generations (19 page)

It was now that Steinhauer felt the moment was right to send
‘The Fisherman’ into action – to put him ‘in place’ as the next generation of the trade would say.

It took five days to brief him. The docks and naval bases would be his first concern, though there were also other things.

‘Never stay in the same place for more than a few weeks at one time,’ he cautioned the big man. ‘Keep moving, remain in touch, using all the methods we have taught you.’

Steinhauer had received the descriptions of the way
‘The Fisherman’ had axed the Irish traitor to death. He could never admit it, but Ulhurt frightened the bowels out of him.

‘
The Fisherman’ travelled, by various routes, to England. He then went to Scotland for two weeks; renewing his acquaintance with Mrs MacGregor of Invergordon, before moving south to London. He absorbed background. In the event of hostilities, Hans-Helmut Ulhurt would be fully operational.

Chapter Eleven

The man whom James Railton knew as
‘C’ was, of course, the naval officer, Captain Mansfield Smith-Cumming: in charge of the new intelligence service’s foreign department, eventually to become the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6; just as his opposite number’s – Vernon Kell’s – department would be designated MI5.

Giles Railton was in constant contact with these departments, and shared many secrets with them. Both were passing through the fledgling stage, learning their trade in a somewhat leisured fashion. By recruiting men like James, C was preparing himself against the day of possible war.

The seasons of the following year, 1913, ran their usual course. By mid-summer, it became known among the family that James and Margaret Mary had lost no time. There was to be yet another Railton.

In the world of the secret trade, Patrick Quinn had retired, his place as head of the Branch being taken by the astute Basil Thomson
– a professional of military bearing and ruthless instinct, yet a man who could charm when necessary. Also, to Vernon Kell’s particular relief, appropriate changes had been made to the Official Secrets Act.

It was during the summer of 1913 that Giles again turned his attention to his daughter-in-law, Bridget, in Ireland, deciding to visit her, and meet in the most clandestine way possible.

He knew the risk, and conveyed it to Smith-Cumming and Vernon Kell. They were all three aware of the precarious situation surrounding their agents working in Ireland.

Parliament was set to push through the Home Rule Bill; but division within Ireland itself appeared to become more clear
cut as each day passed. In Dublin, the Bill’s third reading in the House of Commons was hailed, in January 1913, as a great national triumph. In Ulster, however, it was a different tale. Nine months later, almost a quarter of a million Ulstermen were to sign a ‘Solemn League and Covenant’ in their own blood, swearing to resist Home Rule at all costs.

‘
It’s only a matter of time,’ Giles told Bridget. They met at the corner of a wood, near the ancient beauty spot of Glendalough. It was five-thirty in the morning, the sky soft pearl, heralding a beautiful day.

Only Giles knew that three of Vernon Kell
’s men, who had travelled independently, watched from safe vantage points. He had brought a heel of bread and some cheese which the pair ate as they talked.

‘
I know it.’ Bridget lived in fear, and Giles was aware of it. Her bravery sometimes staggered him.

‘
Neither side appears to have arms in quantity as yet. But it will happen, and soon. Then there’ll be much killing.’

‘
The Unionists have the means, or so the people who talk to me say.’

‘
Tree enough. People like Carson and Craig can ship arms into a hundred different places. But your people – the old Irish Republican Brotherhood – have their ways also. You’re still seeing them? They suspect nothing?’

‘
If they do, nobody shows it.’ She did not smile, the subject was too dangerous for smiles.

Giles considered the terrible plight of the double agent.
‘We must find some genuine information for you to give them. Something that will make them even more confident about you.’

They talked for another half-hour
– Bridget passing on names and addresses of Fenians she knew to be active; Giles going over new possibilities of communications. He wished it was Malcolm and not the girl, but Malcolm did not even know he was in Ireland.

‘
Soon,’ he told her, before leaving. ‘As soon as we can plant something genuine, I’ll let you know. Take care of yourself, and watch them, every single one of them.’

At home, as the year drew to a close, Margaret Mary Railton
gave birth, on 20 November, to a fine son – Donald Giles. James was a father at the age of just twenty years, and like a child himself at the very idea of it.

Christmas passed at Redhi
ll, with most of the family present, all but the Grenots, and Malcolm and Bridget. Almost before they were aware of it, the year crept to its end. The Railtons, wherever they were, heard the bells toll midnight on 31 December, and knew they now lived in the year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Fourteen.

Nobody realized they were moving closer to blackness and terror.

The old ways were as good as gone. A new era had dawned.

*

Padraig O’Connell sat by the roadside, in the early morning of a new day: 28 June 1914. The sun had just tilted over the horizon, spreading light down over the Wicklow Hills, touching the outcrops of stone, bringing the fir trees to life.

Somewhere, up to his right, a deer moved fleetingly, against a copse. Then he saw his contact, coming on foot across the fields.

They greeted one another as strangers who might be passing on a summer walk.

‘
Well, so,’ Padraig’s head turned towards his contact, still as stone.

‘
Well?’

‘
How much has been passed on? What do they know in London from their officers in Dublin?’

The contact looked at him steadily in the eyes.
‘They know what all Ireland knows. That the Ulster Volunteer Force is now well armed – to the tune of some forty thousand rifles.’

‘
Nothing else? No secrets?’

‘
Only rumour. They’ve been told that arms have been purchased in Germany, and will be on their way to the Home Rule Volunteers within the month. The rumour is that Casement is behind it, and that they’ll be landed somewhere near Kingstown.’

Padraig smiled to himself, for this last was a piece of nonsense he had hoped would be accepted as truth. Sir Roger Casement, and his friend, Erskine Childers, had bought arms for the Home Rulers to defend themselves against the Ulstermen. But they would be landed a long way from Kingstown.
‘And that is all? Everything that’s gone?’

‘
Everything.’

‘
You swear to me?’

‘
I swear.’

‘
Well, you take care now. If anything else is passed back to London, let the boy know, and I shall be with you quickly.’

‘
I’ll keep my side of the bargain, have no fear of that.’

The contact began to move away, then stopped, and faced O
’Connell. ‘I do this for one reason only. I love my wife more than my country. I want her left alone, and in peace. I want her safe.’

‘
And you run when I tell you to run,’ Padraig O’Connell gave him that twisted leprechaun smile. ‘You can run for me over this business of rifles for the Brotherhood.’

Malcolm did not respond, making to move away again. O
’Connell called, as if he had gone further back up the road, ‘It would be for your own benefit, and remove all suspicion from you,
Mister
Railton.’

‘
Yes?’

‘
Oh yes. You’re after having the confidence of many officers in Dublin, so.’

‘
Some.’

‘
Then, if I give you the date and place of the landings – for the guns and ammunition, I mean – you could pass it on.’

‘
Defeat your own cause?’

‘
Not if I give it to you a shade out of true, like a few degrees out. Enough for the soldiers to arrive, near the right place, and an hour late.’

‘
I see.’

‘
Do you now? Good. Then that’s what we’ll do. The date, my friend, is to be 26 July. Next month. In the small hours, and at Howth. You know Howth?’

‘
Just North of Dublin, yes. In the small hours, you say?’

O
’Connell wagged a finger. It was not a gesture of fun, but rather almost obscene in its warning. ‘I’ll give you a more precise time nearer the date, but it’ll be a couple of hours late, so don’t be taking liberties,
Mister
Railton. You’ll be the only outsider to know. Your stock with your Dublin officers will be high enough for being almost right when the police and army arrive just too late to catch the lads. You follow me?’

‘
Oh, I follow you.’ Malcolm felt the bile in his own mouth.

O
’Connell still smiled as he watched the tall, loping figure disappearing up the road. The English can be such fools, he thought. Both of them – the Irish Railton and her English husband – both working for him and the cause, and neither knowing what the other did. If one tried to be clever, or false, the other would almost certainly give it away, and if that happened… He cocked his head, closed one eye and levelled the forefinger of his right hand at a stone, the thumb back like the hammer of a revolver. Jerking the thumb forward, Padraig O’Connell made a noise like a small pistol shot.

*

On that same day – 28 June 1914 – the Railtons gathered at Redhill Manor.

Charles and Mildred were there, with Mary Anne
– who, even after her coming-out, was still pestering to become a nurse.

Giles arrived quietly.

Andrew and Charlotte were alone, for Rupert was at sea; Caspar with his regiment; and Ramillies in London – now a junior member of the Foreign Service, he was required for duty. On instructions from his grandfather, Giles, he had not told his father exactly for whom he was working.

Andrew spoke a great deal about the possibility of going back to sea before long. There was much talk in Admiralty circles of a new DNI, the favourite being Captain Reginald Hall
– known to all as ‘Blinker’, because of a slight tic which manifested itself by a constant blinking of the eyes. Hall was later to be promoted to Rear-Admiral, and eventually gained a knighthood.

Churchill was still blowing a gale through the hallowed Admiralty, and Andrew had been right in thinking the First Sea Lord
– Bridgeman – would not last. His tenure had run for barely a year, and Winston was organizing, and reorganizing, with characteristic enthusiasm.

As for James and Margaret Mary; well, they knew what they were there for; and the new baby could be cosseted by all.

It so happened that on the previous evening James’ old friend, Richard Farthing, had telephoned, asking if he could drop in for the day. Nobody objected, though Sara did not seem over pleased.

That morning, John Railton awoke with a slight headache. He bathed, dressed, and went down to breakfast, quite content, for the morning was beautiful and appeared set fair for a perfect summer day.

Someone suggested a game of croquet later.

John mentioned Dick Farthing
’s visit, and Sara frowned. Andrew said he wanted to laze.

James and Margaret slipped back upstairs; undressed; locked the door; and laid themselves on the bed again. Margaret Mary took his hands in hers and began to kiss them, placing each finger, by turn, in her mouth. James found this highly rousing.

*

‘
I think I shall take a walk,’ John Railton said, as they finished breakfast. It was a little after ten. ‘Anyone coming? The rose garden?’

‘
I’d love it.’ Sara wanted to please him. John Railton had done so much for her; living at Redhill Manor had really changed her life and broadened her perspective.

James and Margaret Mary reappeared, and said they would come out shortly. Both Andrew and Charlotte caught the look which passed between the young lovers. Privately, each wished for their own you
th once more. Not that they complained about being more mature lovers. To be alone at Redhill Manor, without the ties of their brood, was stimulating.

Sara took John
’s arm, and they left, following the route out through the drawing room.

The roses looked beautiful: great crimson miracles, like blood among thorns of greenery. It was the best part of summer, John said. June was the best month. He even quoted a single line from Browning:
‘All June I bound the rose in sheaves.’

Then he picked a perfect bloom and handed it to Sara. She said it was lovely, and John told her that it paled against her own beauty.

‘You’ve been the light of my life, Sara.’

‘
Oh, John you’ve pricked your thumb.’

‘
It’s nothing,’ he sucked the blood away and laughed. Then they heard the sound of a motor.

‘
Dick’s new toy coming up the drive.’

Dick Farthing had just bought a Ford
‘Tourer’, of which he was immensely proud.

‘
Let James and Margaret take care of him,’ Sara whispered. ‘It’s nice to have the rose garden to ourselves. Lord, the air is so sweet.’ She took a deep breath, smelling the grass and roses, the corn from the upper meadow, and the freshness of the morning. ‘There’s no smell like an English summer,’ she said. Then, ‘Oh, damn, I wanted to be alone with you.’

John Railton looked up and saw James and Margaret Mary, hand in hand. Then he spotted Dick Farthing, the lopsided smile on his face.