Authors: Tim Vicary
Simon Fletcher was aware of the mountains of Mourne in front of him, a faint blur in the distance. Nearer, fields, a line of elms in a hedgerow above a sunken lane, newly bursting into leaf. In the hedgerow, primroses, new ferns uncurling, some bluebells, a foxglove. And a small paper target.
Tiny, at this distance. Concentric circles, a black spot in the middle. Bring the foresight onto the black spot, hold it there, just in the middle of the vee of the backsight . . . damn!
The weight of the rifle, the tension, made his arms tremble slightly. The foresight wavered from the target. Simon took a long, shallow breath, and let it out slowly. Get it right, he thought. They’re all watching. The sergeant, the other men waiting their turn. Charles, somewhere behind with his swagger stick.
Bring it back, that’s it, just under the spot. Steady.
Now!
The kick in his shoulder, the enormous ringing bang in his ear, surprised him. The barrel pointed up, high, over the elm towards the mountains. Damn.
The instructor, Sergeant Cullen, knelt beside him.
‘That’s right, sir. Not bad, but you jerked the trigger. Squeeze it gently like I told you. And lean into the butt against the kick, to hold it firm.’
Simon’s shoulder felt like a horse had kicked it. Grimly, he worked the bolt to bring another round into the breech, and pressed the butt against the bruise. Beside him, all along the line, other rifles went off, each flat crack seeming half as loud as his own. The scent of cordite, the sense of vast, lethal power, exhilarated him. I could learn to like this, he thought.
He brought the foresight down again onto the target, squeezed the trigger.
Five paces behind, Charles Cavendish stood, tapping his stick softly against the polished brown leather of his riding boots. He wore his khaki officer’s uniform, revolver holster at his belt, a gleaming Sam Browne belt across his chest. Under the peak of his cap the grey eyes crinkled as they often did out of doors with the look of a soldier or a countryman; and there was the hint of a smile on his lips.
The exercise was going well. When these men has finished, every man under his command would have fired ten rounds. The guns, brand new Mannlichers still in their travelling grease, were in perfect condition. The results of the shooting ranged from average to highly creditable. Some of the men – perhaps a third – were ex-Army, with a sprinkling of marksmen; but the rest, like Simon, has seldom or never fired such a high-powered weapon before. It was for them the exercise had been arranged. Most, under the skilled instruction of Sergeant Cullen, had landed at least half of their rounds somewhere on the target; and all, he felt sure, were immensely cheered and heartened by the exercise.
We must be the most powerful military force in Ireland now, he thought. If the government in London tries to impose Home Rule on us by force, they won’t be able to.
Of course the Nationalist volunteers, the Catholics who wanted Home Rule, had plenty of spirit; but they had little discipline and no arms worth speaking of. And the British Army, though well-equipped and highly disciplined, must have lost a great deal of morale after the Curragh Mutiny, when their officers had expressly refused to obey orders to march against the Ulster Unionists. That had led to the resignation of the Secretary of State for War, and an utter shambles in the British high command. And that was six weeks ago, when we were virtually unarmed, Charles thought. Whereas now, after the gun-running, we have the most modern rifles you can get. And the British Army in Ireland have only a fraction of the men we have.
And not a tenth of our spirit, Charles thought with a smile. I would hate to have a commission in the regular Army now. Half of their men would probably support us, if they dared.
‘Sir! Sir — Colonel Cavendish, sir!’
He turned to see a young boy, a sentry, running towards him across the field.
‘Yes. What is it?’
The boy reached him and saluted, panting for breath. Charles recognised him as one of a section which had been posted as scouts, to keep a lookout during the shooting. This boy had been with a corporal, at the edge of the field to the west.
‘Sir, British Army patrol, sir. Heading this way. They're marching along the road, sir, from the west!’
‘Good Lord! How many, boy? Where?’
‘About twenty or twenty-five. Maybe a platoon, Corporal Duncan says. You can see them better from that hill over there. They're about a mile away, marching quite quick!’
‘Come on then, let me see.’ Charles strode across the field, not running, keeping calm. He had three times that many men in this field alone. But an imp of excitement and delight filled him. What if the British Army had really come out in search of trouble? To punish the UVF, perhaps, for getting the guns?
The boy was right. From the hillock at the edge of the field, Charles's binoculars showed a platoon of men, infantry, in full gear with haversack and ammunition pouches, marching with their rifles at the trail. In loose order, moving quite fast. An officer a few paces in front. As Charles watched, the man turned and waved an arm as if to urge his men on.
A pulse started to throb urgently in Charles's throat. They'll have heard the shooting — they can't fail to know we're here, he thought. It could be. It really just could be that the war for the freedom of Ulster will begin here, in this field, today! And I will give the first command.
Wouldn't that be a story to make young Tom proud!
Swiftly, he scanned the road in the other direction, and the fields north and south. No one else in sight, so far. Just the one British Army platoon. He turned to the two men beside him, gave out a string of orders.
‘Right, you boy! I want you to take two men from that group over there who've finished shooting. Each of you go to one of the other three lookout posts and ask them to send one man to me with a full report on everything they've seen so far. Everything, you understand. You and the other two replace the men you send and make sure you keep your eyes peeled — I don't want to be surprised from any other direction. Got it?’
‘Yessir!’
‘Good! Now, Corporal, run to Sergeant Cullen and tell him that, as soon as those men have finished shooting, I want everyone except the scouts formed up in three ranks by platoons. And I want Robinson, Conroy, and McNeill sent to me up here, with rifles, right away. Off you go!’
‘Sir!’
As the man ran, Charles took another look at the approaching platoon through his binoculars. He noticed his hand was shaking ever so slightly. I could start the war now if I wanted, he thought, very secretly to himself. Maybe these men will start it anyway, but, whatever they do, I could destroy that platoon completely and claim they fired first, if I wanted.
But that's not what my standing orders are. Charles knew them off by heart.
Do not fire unless fired upon and avoid all provocation. To avoid any possibility that the Army or police should attempt to seize your weapons, UVF officers should ensure that their contingents are of sufficient size to render any such attempt hopeless.
Well, I've done the second, anyway, Charles thought. Now it's up to the British Army officer down there. He glanced behind him as he heard the first of Sergeant Cullen's barked orders and saw nearly fifty men hurrying into three ordered ranks. The three marksmen he had sent for came across the grass towards him.
‘Right, gentlemen. I don't want you to draw attention to yourselves — and on no account are you to, fire unless I give the order. But the rest of us are going to parade openly in front of that advancing platoon of the British Army. Do you see them, there? If by any chance I should give the order, and only then, you understand, I want you to be in a position where their officer and sergeant should be the first to fall. But you do not shoot unless I give the express order or fall myself. Is that clear? Now, let me show you where to hide.’
One of them spoke English, of a sort. Enough to negotiate with Mrs O'Donnell, at least. When Werner brought them to her, fresh from the ferry, they stood in the doorway of the little hillside terraced house and smiled. Blocking out the sunlight with their bulk, their heavy kitbags slung over their shoulders. All the little woman could see was three hulking shadows, the flash of teeth, and a glint of sunlight in their fair hair.
To Werner's relief she was undaunted. ‘So, away in with you then. It's the three of them like you promised, Mr White, is it? Wipe your boots on the mat now and put your things in the two rooms upstairs — it's the ones on the right, you'll see them plain enough when you're there. And then if it's a meal you're wanting, it's on the table at half past six prompt, mind you, I don't keep it waiting and it'll go cold and be fed to the dog if you're not there, good hot food too, you'll see no better this side of the water.’
She kept on talking as she led the way into the narrow hall at the foot of the stairs, and had to back out of the way into the kitchen as the three big men followed her. Their shoulders scraped the walls and one kitbag brushed the single framed painting, of a little girl with beautiful curly yellow hair dancing on a beach in sunlight. At the foot of the stairs the first one, Franz, the only one who knew any English fit to repeat, stopped, clicked his heels, and bowed to Mrs O'Donnell as though she were a countess.
‘It is a fine house, Mrs. I think we shall be comfort here. I hope your food is plenty hot and good too, so your dog get hungry, eh?’
Then he smiled and held out his hand, and the little Catholic landlady shook it, scowling a little to maintain her dignity, but pleased nonetheless.
‘Don't you worry about that, now. I know, what you boys like. I've two sons of my own in the merchant service and another in the King's, and it's their rooms you're having while they're away. My boys write to me from Rio and Boston and Hong Kong, they do, they see all sorts of wonderful things, but never any cooking to match their old mum's, that's what they say in every letter I get, I'll show you sometime if you like, if you can read good English.’
‘You show. I like that,’ Franz said, and moved quietly away from her up the stairs, leaving the other two, monoglot Germans, to shake the old lady's hand and mutter
‘Herrlich, gnadige Frau,
’ and smile in their turn.
The house was a three storey one on a corner of the terrace, and the two rooms upstairs were surprisingly large. Two iron beds in the front room, one ancient armchair, and a window giving a view down a line of steep cobbled streets to Belfast docks. Werner wondered if he had been wise, choosing a landlady as talkative as Mrs O'Donnell. But she lived in a Catholic area where there would be no support for the UVF. And there should be nothing to arouse suspicion about foreign sailors seeking lodgings so near the docks.
The three were called Franz, Karl-Otto and Adolf. They were all in their mid-twenties, six feet tall, and very broad across the chest. Franz had a charming smile and pimples on his chin; Karl-Otto had a nose that someone had pressed in, so that it zig-zagged puffily down his face. Adolf, the only dark one, had a thin face with receding hair and bony hands as strong as nutcrackers, with an anchor tattooed on the back of one and ship in full sail on the other.
They sat down on the beds and the chair and looked at Werner, and he felt simultaneously reassured and annoyed.
Reassured, because each of them was clearly capable of picking up two Ulstermen and putting them in his pockets if necessary; annoyed, because the job might take a little more subtlety and training than that, and he doubted if these boys had either.
Despite his rank as Major, Werner had almost no experience of commanding men. The very nature of intelligence work meant that he worked on his own. He was not even sure how much these men knew, or what he should tell them. He had still less idea how he should establish a good rapport with his team, or make them trust him. The thought that he might have to give them instructions every day about where to go, what to do, came as a great burden to him.
He launched into a lecture he had prepared about Belfast, the people in the city, and the political divide.
‘The Catholic people around this house, like Mrs O'Donnell, may be counted largely as our friends, because although they have little active interest or sympathy for Germany, they are a minority oppressed by the ruling caste which is divided against itself — the Protestants of the Ulster Volunteer Force on the one hand and the British Army on the other. It is our job to provoke a civil war between the UVF and the British Army, so that they destroy each other and provide no threat to the legitimate ambitions of His Imperial Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm in Europe. Exactly how we are to do this I shall explain to you later. The first thing . . .’
‘Major von Weichsaker?’ Karl-Otto, the one with the zig-zag nose, raised his hand. Like a boy in school.
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘Where can we hide the guns?’
‘Guns? What do you mean, man?’
‘Well, I'm sorry to interrupt you, sir, but that woman downstairs, I know her type. She'll be in here searching through our clothes and cleaning up the minute we're out of the house. If she finds the guns it won't look good. Are we to carry them all the time or . . .’
‘No!’ Werner thought of the police, the way sailors could get into a drunken brawl, lose their temper. On the other hand . . .
‘It's all right, Karl-Otto.’ Franz spoke, his smile calm, radiating competence and control. ‘I'll go down later and charm her. While I'm doing that you and Adolf can prise up one of these floorboards and put them under there. I've already noticed a loose one in that corner.’
Werner felt irritated. The men were supposed to be listening to
him
, he thought. But on the other hand he should be glad they had come all the way from Germany with their weapons safe, undiscovered by the customs. Perhaps they do know their job, after all.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Do that. And I'll save the rest of the lecture until later, if you like. The main thing is to keep your mouths shut and your eyes and ears open. For the rest, behave like normal sailors. Franz can buy newspapers and translate them for you. I'll be in touch most days, so if you want anything I can help you to get a feel of the place. But for the moment your job is to establish yourselves here — and wait. My job is to plan exactly what is best for us to do, where, and when. Until I am sure of that, we can do nothing. So you just settle in, enjoy the hot meals, and live in comfort. But be ready to move any time I want you. All right?’