‘I don't know. Perhaps. There are the examinations, first.’
‘Quite. Bit unladylike, that sort of thing, don't you find?’
‘No. I like it.’
She could not believe it. Here was she, a girl who longed to identify herself fully with Ireland's struggle for freedom, sitting opposite this crusty old fool who was the epitome of everything that stood in its way. The man who, at the age of sixty-six, had been appointed commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force in France, and had had the ultimate responsibility for the fruitless blood bath of Ypres, in which her eldest brother, Richard, had lost his life. The man who had wanted to introduce conscription to Ireland, and had actively recruited thousands of young Irishmen to be slaughtered in the trenches of Flanders. The man who had arrested seventy-three prominent Irish men and women because he thought they were plotting to land German soldiers in Ireland by submarine. The man who had constantly asked for an extension of martial law to suppress and imprison the Sinn Fein volunteers whom Catherine so admired.
‘Did I not receive you at the Castle last year, my dear?’
‘No, my lord. I’m not a debutante.’
‘Really? Why not? You’re of an age, surely?’
‘Well …’ To her intense annoyance, Catherine had actually found herself blushing. Her father had rescued her with a lie.
‘It was an illness, my lord. We thought perhaps this year, if there is to be a ceremony.’
‘Hope so. Can't be sure. Depends on these damn Shinners, you know. Ideal time for potshots. But I don't want to disappoint the girls.’
Catherine remembered the long, bitter wrangles at home last year, when she had refused to be presented as a debutante at the Viceroy's court. She would have had to parade in Dublin Castle in an elaborate, bridal dress, curtsy to this stupid old man on his foreign throne, and let him kiss her.
It was not the kiss that Catherine would have hated, but what it stood for. It was a sign, she thought, not only of the power of all men over women, but of this man, the representative of the King of England, over all the defenceless women of Ireland. Both
droit de seigneur
, and the rule of the English. Over the past few years, she had come to hate both of those things.
And here she was in front of him, making ridiculous polite conversation. What would her heroine, Constance Markievicz, have done? Something, at least. I shall never have such an opportunity again, she thought. I must strike my blow for Ireland - here, now!
For a wild moment she thought of snatching a revolver from one of the officers, and shooting him. That was what a Sinn Feiner would do, if he could. But it was absurd - she was a good shot, but all the revolvers were safely buttoned down in the holsters of big, strong men. No; she would have to use words instead.
For the first time she forced herself to look directly into the eyes of the white-haired old soldier. He looked surprised and pleased; charmed, almost. French was well known to be fond of women but he had been about to give up hope of extracting any conversation from this dark-eyed, rather sulky young girl. The gallant gleam in his eyes annoyed her intensely.
‘Viscount French, why don't you leave Ireland?’
‘What?’ Lord French looked startled. A ripple of interest spread to the officers sitting nearby, rattling their teacups.
‘Why don't you leave Ireland and go home? Leave us all in peace?’
French coughed, and sat up in his chair. ‘Well, er, as to that, my dear, I couldn't leave Ireland and go home. I have my own estates here, as you know. In the County Roscommon. My family have lived here for generations, as yours have, I believe. At Castle French in Galway. I have just come from there now.’
‘You know what I mean. You are an Englishman, you represent the English king, the British Empire. You have no right to be here now, to hold the land in slavery. There has been a free election and the people have voted for a republic, for Sinn Fein. You are an invader in a foreign land!’
It was harder than she had thought. She felt tears in her eyes - partly from the strength of her own feeling, but also from a consciousness of the helplessness and absurdity of her own position. An officer at the end of the carriage neighed with laughter. She glanced briefly at her father's face, saw it was bright red, and looked resolutely away again.
French looked embarrassed; amused and annoyed at once. ‘Nonsense, young woman. Who the devil's been filling your head with such drivel? This is my country, just as much as it is yours and your father's. Surely you've been brought up to know that?’
‘I was brought up to know it, yes. But I've taught myself better. We've been stealing from the people for hundreds of years. That's why there's so much poverty everywhere - why so many had to go overseas in the Famine! That's why people like you and father are rich and have big houses and estates here - because we stole the land from the people!’
‘Catherine!’ Her father put his hand on her arm. 'Please - stop now! At once!’
‘No! I'm sorry, Father. You know how I feel - why shouldn't I say it? I don't want to live the rest of my life like a rich thief, stealing the land from the poor! I'm going to be a doctor, work for the people, serve them! And just because I was born into the same . . . class . . . as this man, it doesn't mean I support the terror he's waging against the people of Ireland. Arresting them, shooting and torturing them - just because they have voted for freedom!’
French had risen to his feet. His face was bright red and his hands were clasped behind him. He would have stood ramrod stiff, but the train was going over a bumpy patch of line, so he stood with his legs a little apart, rocking slightly to keep his balance. His voice was sharp, hard. It was clear he felt his hospitality had been grievously insulted.
‘I do not shoot men and there is no torture that I am aware of. My job is to ensure that the law of this country is upheld - no more and no less. Give me one example of unprovoked shooting or torture, young woman, if you please. One, go on - just one!’
Tears of frustration came into Catherine's eyes. ‘You arrest men all the time, and they are beaten and starved in prison. How do I know what happens in all the prisons? I have not been ...’
‘You have not been there and you do not know. Men are not tortured. I asked for an example of one man who has been shot without cause.’
‘Thomas Clarke, Padraig Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh, James Connolly - you had to tie him to a chair, didn't you, because he was so ill he couldn't stand!’
‘Those men were traitors. Tried by court martial in 1916 and found guilty of leading armed rebellion in time of war, with guns obtained from the enemy. They were given every benefit of law. You have a strange idea of justice, young woman, if …’
‘Thomas Ashe, then! Was that justice - to arrest a man for nothing, and then kill him because he would not eat? Thrusting a tube down his throat until he was throttled, like the poor suffragettes!’
French's face twitched. ‘Clumsy fool of a doctor. It should never have happened; we don't do it now. Anyway, that was two years ago, young lady, before I had this office. I asked you for one example - one - of a man or woman that has been shot without reason since I was Viceroy.’
‘Oh, without reason! Well …’
‘Unjustly, then. You imply that soldiers - or policemen, is it? Which? - go around this country, with my blessing, shooting men on sight. Tell me one instance, then, and I shall have it investigated.’
The atmosphere in the carriage was electric. No one in it could pretend not to be listening to the extraordinary, shouted argument between His Majesty's Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and this insolent slip of a girl. The men all stood around, watching, while she unconsciously exercised her woman's privilege to remain seated. Catherine gloried in it. Whatever happened, she was striking her blow! Only . . . she could not quite remember an actual instance . . .
‘Oh, there have been dozens of cases!’
‘So I hear. Tell me one.’
The men waited. Unexpectedly, the train rattled into a tunnel. In the sudden darkness, Catherine was again seized by her wild fantasy of snatching a pistol. But - where? Then the train came out into the light again, and the men were still in their places, swaying slightly with the movement of the train, waiting for her answer.
‘Your police break up election meetings with batons and bayonets! I saw them do it once. They charged an unarmed crowd ...’
‘Did they shoot anyone?’
‘No. But it was only by chance. They raided meetings of the Dail, with guns and armoured cars!’
‘Did they shoot anyone?’
‘N-no.’ Catherine shook her head angrily. There must be something wrong with her mind. She believed it so strongly, had heard it said so often - why could she not remember an example, now, of all times?
‘They did not shoot anyone because they are a disciplined force. Illegal gatherings have been broken up, it is true, men have been arrested, and the law has been enforced. But at no time since I have been Viceroy has any soldier or policeman shot an Irishman, unarmed or not. Whereas, as you surely must know, young woman, there are almost weekly reports of policemen being shot, in the street, by cowardly assassins. If those are the sort of men who represent your noble republic, then God help Ireland, that's all I have to say. Now if you will excuse me, I have work to attend to in the other carriage. Please stay and make yourself comfortable for the rest of the journey, and think about what I have said. Come, gentlemen!’
‘They are heroes!’ Catherine shouted, to his retreating back. But she was so choked with anger at her defeat that her voice was an awkward squeak rather than a shout, and he ignored it.
Her father had left with the others, and for the rest of the journey she had been alone. She sat in the comfortable flowery overstuffed armchair and stared out at the wintry fields of the country she loved. A surge of conflicting emotions boiled inside her, like the great Atlantic waves she loved to watch when they were forced into a narrow cove under the cliffs, and met the backwash of the one before. Sometimes she felt elated, as she thought how she had seized her moment, and told the Viceroy to his face things he had probably never heard before. She felt fury that she had lost the argument in the end, through a trick, a form of words. Perhaps no one had been shot, but the bulk of it was true - the oppression, the provocation, the internment! Then she felt embarrassment, and pain for what she had done to her father. She must have made him look a fool, in front of these men, and she had not meant that. She had often fought him in private, but never in front of others; that was not her way. But he shouldn't have tricked her and brought her here. He knew what she felt, he knew what she was like, surely - what had he thought would happen?
Several officers tried unsuccessfully to talk to her, but her father did not come back into the carriage until the train pulled into Ashtown Station. Then he was quiet, polite.
‘We have some unfinished discussions, and Viscount French has offered to drive us both, in his car, to the Viceregal Lodge. I hope you will come.’
She pitied him, and stood up dutifully. ‘Yes, Father, of course.’
Sean Brennan fingered the Mills bombs in his pocket. He had left the pub now and was walking slowly up the road towards Ashtown Gate. In one pocket were two Mills bombs, in the other a revolver. He had fired the gun several times before, but never thrown a bomb. His fingertips traced the criss-cross pattern of indentations in the metal. These were the weak spots in the little steel egg, he thought. The explosion would rupture the egg here first, sending little square shards of the thicker metal whizzing through the air to tear through flesh, cartilage, bone. He could feel the bombs through his coat pocket as he walked, bouncing against his hip. He was a medical student, he knew how bodies worked. He thought of the movement of the hip, the ball and socket joint where the thighbone moved back and forth in his pelvis as he walked; he imagined the tensing and loosening of the ligaments, the flexing of the muscles, the movement of the skin above. All quite painless, effortless. His fingers touched a ring in his pocket. One tug on that, and a few seconds later his hip would be smashed into a red mess, mincemeat pierced by shards of shattered bone …
‘There it is, Sean,’ muttered his companion, Martin Savage. ‘They're coming out.’
Sean turned his head, jerkily, and looked back at the station about half a mile away. The cars had started their engines, and stood there shaking and steaming in a line. Between the two, he saw a police sergeant, like a tiny puppet, saluting, and a number of khaki-clad figures strolling casually out of the station. At a little distance from the two cars was the army lorry, with the rifles of the soldiers bristling above it.
‘Don't look so sharp, Sean! We're just out for a walk, for the health of our lungs, remember?’
‘That's right. I'm sorry.’ He noticed with a slight academic interest that he felt warm. His mouth was dry, slight prickles of sweat formed on his fingers. I wonder what my eyes look like, he thought. I wonder if they widen. He seemed to hear everything very clearly, as one did before a thunderstorm. Someone was shouting.
‘You'll take it away, I tell you! 'Tis the Viceroy himself is coming through here!’
‘That we won't, old man!’
The voices came quite clearly to his heightened senses, although the speakers were nearly twenty yards away. At the road junction, the police constable was arguing with the three Volunteers who had control of the farm cart. The unhitched horse munched peacefully beside them. The cart was a vital part of the ambush. It was to be pushed out into the road to block the second car, which would contain the Viceroy. If they could run across the road with it quickly enough, it would cut Lord French off from the first car, and leave him stranded, at the mercy of their bombs and guns. More Volunteers were hidden on the rising ground behind the hedges opposite the pub, watching the argument with the constable.
‘They'll have to deal with that fool!’ said Sean's companion. ‘If he doesn't leave off this instant he's a dead man!’