Women of Courage (91 page)

An elderly waiter pushed aside a swathe of dangling greenery. ‘Count von Hessel? I’m sorry to trouble you, sir, but there is a gentleman to see you.’

‘Oh? Send him through, please.’

In a few moments the greenery was moved aside again, this time by a large, healthy-looking Irishman in a thick coat and flat cap. He looked suspicious and ill at ease in these surroundings, as Andrew had expected he would.

‘Count von Hessel?’

‘Yes.’ Andrew smiled, stood up, clicked his heels together with a small bow, and held out his hand, in the way that his mother’s German relations did. The Irishman shook hands, frowning.

Andrew said: ‘And you?’

‘Er - Daly. Patrick Daly.’

‘Will you sit down? Some tea, perhaps?’

‘No, thank you.’ Paddy Daly glanced irritably at the ancient residents, who were scrutinizing him avidly from their table behind two potted palms. ‘Look, is there somewhere else we could talk? It’s a private - a business matter.’

‘As you wish.’ Andrew turned, and bowed politely to the old people. ‘You will excuse us, I hope. Some day I must speak to you of the delights of the Hotel Otto von Bismarck in Dar es Salaam. This way, please, Mr Daly.’

He led the way to his rooms on the third floor. He had a sitting room and a bedroom, both facing out on to the street. Andrew lit the oil lamp and indicated an armchair, but before he sat down, Daly walked to the window and stood there, gazing out.

‘A fine view you have, Mr Hessel,’ he said.

‘It is a beautiful city, in the daytime,’ Andrew agreed. But now, at four o’clock, it’s getting dark, he thought. And no doubt you make a fine silhouette there in the lamplight, for whoever is watching from the street outside. So now your friends know which room I’m in. It’s as good a way of signalling as any.

‘I have a letter for you.’ Daly held it out.

Andrew broke the seal and read.

Dail Eireann

c/o The Mansion House

Dublin

14 January 1920

Count Manfred von Hessel

Lambert Hotel

Dear Count von Hessel,

I have received your proposal which is, on face value, very interesting to me. I will meet you within the next few days. The arrangements will be made by the bearer of this, whom you may trust absolutely.

Michael Collins

Minister of Finance.

Andrew refolded the letter, slipped it back into its envelope, and tapped it on his knee reflectively.

‘So, Mr Daly,’ he said. ‘You are a colleague of Mr Collins. Shall we say a soldier of the Irish Republic?’

‘You can say that,’ Daly agreed.
And who the hell are you?
he thought, as he studied the face before him. The left cheek was horrifically scarred; the white ridge of the scar zigzagging across it like the track of some drunken, sharp-toothed snail; but the rest of the face was sharp, cold, intelligent. Daly had not met any Germans before. He only knew of the propaganda stereotype: square head, bulging eyes, broken, snarling teeth. This man was nothing like that; but then of course he wouldn’t be. That was all lies put about by the British. This man seemed suave, confident, with the arrogance of an English landlord. Yet he had those funny foreign mannerisms, and the accent seemed genuine enough.

Nonethless, Daly was suspicious. Bluntly, he said: ‘You say you’ve got some machine guns to sell. Where are they?’

Andrew raised an eyebrow. He took out a cigarette case, offered one to Daly, and, when the Irishman refused, tapped his own reflectively against the hard metal of the case before lighting it. His voice, when he spoke, was deliberately sharp.

‘I had asked for my proposal to be kept in strictest confidence, but I see you know everything. How many others, then?’

Daly was impressed by his tone. ‘Not many. Only the inner council. I’m the officer in charge of the Dublin Squad. I have to know. Where are these Maxim guns?’

‘In Germany.’ Andrew took a drag of his cigarette and waved his hand contemptuously around the hotel room. The gesture asked:
You think I could hide them here?
He gazed at Daly calmly, assessing his strength. No fool, he thought; no weakling either. He doesn’t trust me, and if he decides his opinion is right, he’ll kill me without a thought.

Andrew decided to humour him. ‘I have the pistols here, of course. You will like to see them, perhaps?’

He got up and fetched a folding leather bag from a wardrobe. He lifted out an oilskin bundle, unwrapped it carefully, and held out an automatic pistol. It was heavy, clean, well-greased.

Daly looked mildly interested. ‘I’ve used them. 9-mm Parabellum. But it’s got a longer barrel than ours.’

‘Correct,’ Andrew said. The weapon was nearly a foot long. ‘This is the artillery model. Much more accurate than the small one, and the sight - is that how you say? - this aiming part, is good for 800 metres. Also, it is possible to fit with this - what we call snail magazine - to hold thirty-two cartridges instead of eight.’

Andrew passed over the pistol and magazine. Both were empty; there was no sense in taking unnecessary risks. Daly played with them curiously for a few moments.

‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘But it’s a big thing to carry round in your pocket. Have you not got any of the smaller ones?’

‘Unfortunately not. Most officers at the front required the best possible aiming power. I have also this.’ Andrew unwrapped a second oilskin bundle, to reveal an equally large pistol with a magazine in front of the trigger guard, and a large red number 9 stamped on the butt. ‘Mauser Selbstladepistole C-96. Also fires 9-mm Parabellum cartridge.’

Daly examined that too, clearly impressed with the weight and quality of the weapons. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Still, it’s a pity you didn’t bring the Maxims.’

Andrew reached inside his jacket pocket, took a photograph out of his wallet, and passed it across. ‘You have not seen a Maxim, perhaps? Here. I have twenty like this.’

Daly looked at the photograph. Despite his suspicion, he was fascinated. The gun was short: about two and a half feet long, perhaps. It was mounted on a low four-legged stand slightly longer than itself. There was a periscope sight at the rear end, and the gunner presumably gripped the gun and fired by looking through this and holding on to two handgrips just below it. There were pads on the rear two legs of the stand, for him to rest his elbows on. There was no stock, so he imagined the stand absorbed most of the recoil. The bullets were fed in by a belt from the side, and a curious long rubber hose trailed from the covered muzzle, ending in what looked like a squashy foot-bellows.

‘What’s this?’ he asked, pointing.

Andrew smiled. ‘The gun is water-cooled, you understand? When the barrel is hot, the water becomes steam. But we do not want the enemy to see steam rising from our firing positions, and also it wastes water. So the steam goes down this tube, into the bag, and it … how do you say? It cools and is water again.’

‘It condenses,’ Daly said. It looked a highly effective piece of precision engineering, almost like a telescope, rather than a gun. The bottom of the stand had a number of solid-looking screw calipers around it, no doubt to enable the gunners to aim it precisely at a pre-set target.

Andrew was gratified by the Irishman’s obvious interest. Elaborating his role as arms salesman, he said: ‘That is the most efficient weapon of its kind in the world. I myself have seen two of them destroy a battalion in five minutes.’

It was nearly a true story. Andrew himself was one of the four who had survived. He felt a sudden rush of pain and anger at the memory, and stilled it by biting the inside of his lip.

‘A beautiful piece of German engineering.’

‘Thank you.’ Andrew remembered how quiet the water-cooled Maxims had been, after the bludgeoning artillery.
Tick, tick, tick
- like a distant woodpecker. And we all fall down.

Daly handed the photograph back, and met his eyes. ‘It looks too heavy for us to use in the city, of course, but out in the country - it’d be pure bloody murder.’

‘As you say.’ Andrew took a soothing drag on his cigarette, and watched Daly calmly.
You’re hooked now, Paddy
, he thought. ‘So how did you get them, Mr Hessel?’

‘I was an officer in the General Staff, with responsibility for - what is it you say? - supply. I control the trains from the factory to the front. When the armistice comes …’ He shrugged and blew a smoke ring. ‘The railway runs close to my father’s
Schloss
. Underneath it are many cellars.’

‘So how will you get them to us?’

‘That is my problem. First, we must make an agreement about the money. And for that I need Mr Collins.’

‘This country isn’t rich, you know,’ said Daly.

Andrew stubbed out the cigarette decisively. Humouring Daly had gone far enough, he decided. ‘Perhaps not. But I don’t negotiate with you. I make my business with Michael Collins only, understand? Him and me alone together.’

Daly scowled. ‘Oh no, you won’t be alone. Mr Collins is a bit too important to us for that. The most important man in Ireland, probably. I’m his bodyguard.’

That’s a pity, Andrew thought. But he waved his hand again, dismissively. ‘All right, guards, I do not mean guards. I mean, the business of the guns must be made between him and me alone, you understand? I will not negotiate with any underofficers.’

Daly nodded. ‘That’s clear enough,’ he said. ‘He’s the boss. But it won’t be for a day or two. Mr Collins is a busy man.’

‘I too am busy. I leave Dublin on Friday. If you do not want the guns, say so. Otherwise, I must know where and when to meet.’

Oh no you don’t,
Paddy thought.
No appointments booked days ahead, so that you can have a regiment of tanks waiting outside when we get there.
He said: ‘You’ll find that out when I come and get you. Not before.’

Andrew thought carefully. This was what he had feared. Radford had insisted that the police must be involved; but conditions like this were going to make it impossible. If so, Radford would just have to accept it.

He said: ‘You do not trust me with an address?’

No, I don’t, Paddy thought. But on the other hand, it’ll be a test. And we’ve got young Sean outside to follow it through. He said: ‘Do you know Brendan Road?’

As he spoke, he watched Andrew’s eyes carefully. Was there a flicker there, a slight involuntary acknowledgement that he had given away a vital piece of information? Paddy wasn’t sure. The cold, hard nature of the man had begun to impress itself upon him. Perhaps the German was genuine. Certainly he could have been a soldier - a tough one at that. He knew what he wanted, too; and the story of the guns was plausible enough.

Andrew said: ‘No. But I can hire a cab, if you tell me the number.’

Daly said: ‘Forget it. It’s better for me to meet you here. I’ll come tomorrow - either between ten and half past in the morning, or between four and five in the afternoon. Will that do?’

Andrew could think of no reasonable objection, so he agreed. Daly stood up to go. Before he left, he strolled casually to the window again, where anyone in the street outside could see him.

When he had gone, Andrew slipped through to his bedroom, where the lamp was not lit. He stood as far back in the room as he could, so that no light would shine on him from outside.

He saw Daly cross the street quickly. There was a young man in a flat cap, lounging in the doorway opposite, who made the mistake of watching Daly all the time as he crossed the road. Daly did not stop or turn his head as he walked past the young man, but Andrew thought some words passed between them, nonetheless.

He smiled, stood still, and watched his watcher watching him.

It was cold in the street, and shortly after Paddy Daly came out, it began to rain. Sean turned up his collar and shrank back as far as he could into the doorway. Even so, he felt conspicuous. It was clear he had no business in the building, and he had been there an hour already. Then a man came out of the door, unexpectedly, and Sean moved away with a hurried apology.

He took to pacing up and down the street, looking as though he were going somewhere, but never allowing himself to get quite out of sight of the hotel entrance. The rain settled into a steady downpour, and began to soak through the shoulders of his coat and drip from the peak of his cap.

He still hadn’t even seen the German. Paddy Daly hadn’t stopped to speak to Sean in the street, but he had sent a complete description to him, via Frank Brophy, the lad who was watching the back. ‘He’s a tall fellow,’ Frank said. ‘Twenty-five to thirty years old. Left cheek all scarred to hell. Quite fit, strong-looking, like an army officer. Black hair, little pencil moustache. Very cool-looking customer, Paddy says. Not likely to be any others like him in that hotel.’

I hope not, Sean thought. In some hotels there are dozens of men like that. Even with a few scars, missing eyes, faces half blown away. But very few came and went into Lambert’s; and certainly most of the customers here were old.

The street became busier after six o’clock, and Sean stationed himself directly outside the main entrance, a damp newspaper in his hands. The oil lamp in the German’s room was still on, he noticed. The smell of cooking drifted out towards him, and an ancient couple paid off their horse-drawn cab and stepped into the foyer. Sean imagined the German officer marching smartly downstairs, bowing stiffly to all the waiters, and settling down with a sigh of satisfaction in front of fresh warm rolls, butter, and a piping hot bowl of soup.

He began to think of Catherine.

They were due to meet later that evening, at the Gaelic League. It looked as though he was going to disappoint her. He had left a note there earlier, for her to find. The note apologized but didn’t explain why. She would have to realize, if he was on active service, he couldn’t always be clinging to her skirts.

Active service, indeed! The rain had begun to trickle into his socks now. A sudden, painful vision came to him of Catherine in his room by the hot, blazing fire, with no skirts on at all … It was so overwhelming he nearly walked away that very moment.