The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising (5 page)

8

T
he great escape began. Eoin, Abraham Weeks, Jack Lemass, and about ten others, one by one and under heavy fire, headed for a building just opposite the GPO on the east side of Moore Street at Henry Place. Eoin kept low, like a sprinter on the blocks, only moving. He could actually hear bullets whizzing by his head. He thought that if he could only get to Moore Street, he might be safe. Then he heard an awful howl and turned to see Abraham down, with blood draining out of his back. Abraham’s terrified eyes beseeched him for help, and Eoin backtracked to help his new friend. He put his hand under Weeks’s arm and tried to pull him into Moore Street, but Weeks was too heavy. Then Jack Lemass came up and put his hand under Weeks’s other armpit, and, together, they managed to pull the poor man to safety.

Once inside Moore Street, they forced their entrance at the first building. They propped Weeks against a wall, and many of the men immediately started digging. Abraham just sat there, his eyes open, not saying anything. “Abraham,” asked Eoin, “are you alright?”

“Don’t,” said Lemass as gently as he could. “He’s dead, Eoin.” Eoin couldn’t believe it. “Leave him, Eoin. We can’t help him anymore. Let’s get to work and save the living.”

The plan was to secretly get down Moore Street—burrowing building to building—as far as they could and see if there was any chance of regrouping to fight, or, at the worst, escape. “Jaysus, Jack,” said Eoin, “they’ve turned us into fookin’ navvies!” Lemass kept on hacking at the brick wall with his hammer, trying to get into the next house. Eoin pulled the brick and mortar debris away from Jack and tossed it to the rear. Other Volunteers searched for any makeshift tools they could find. Spoons and forks were plentiful, and a garden spade was considered a major discovery. Pretty soon all the men were assaulting the wall in shifts, as Eoin continued to clean up after them, blood now seeping through the seat of his pants.

It was exhausting work, and, by early Saturday morning, they had made their way through several buildings and into 16 Moore Street. Finally, out of exhaustion, both Eoin and Jack had fallen asleep in the corner of a strange bedroom. Eoin was covered in soot and blood, and Jack had begun to take on a sinister look because of his five-day growth of beard. Eoin wished he could shave also. At daybreak, they were awakened by others coming into the room. Eoin opened his eyes and saw that they had been joined by Padraig Pearse and his brother Willie, Tom Clarke, the sick Plunkett, the stiff-legged MacDiarmada, and Connolly, who was in agony from the gangrene that had infected his ankle wound. He was also heartened to see that Captain Collins—his fancy uniform now singed from the GPO’s fires—had accompanied the leaders and about a dozen other men. As Eoin looked around, he realized that five of the seven men who had signed the Proclamation were now in this room. He didn’t know if he should be thrilled or terrified.

The leaders were huddled, trying to figure out what to do. One of the GPO nurses, Miss Elizabeth O’Farrell, was sent out to meet the British and discuss terms of surrender. She was a friend of Róisín’s from the
Cuman na mBan
. Róisín said that she was a midwife over at the Hollis Street Maternity Hospital. She was keeping a close eye on Connolly. She returned and took Padraig Pearse with her on her next sortie to Parnell Street. She returned alone and spoke to Clarke and MacDiarmada.

“Alright, men,” said MacDiarmada to us all. “This is it. We’re going to get Jim Connolly out first, and then the rest of us will surrender. Commander-in-Chief Pearse has made all the arrangements with the British. You men will be treated as prisoners of war.”

MacDiarmada’s words were met with curses and shouted shibboleths reminiscent of the North: “No surrender!” There was discontent in the ranks because the men didn’t want to yield, especially the London Irish, who had traveled from England for the Rising and were afraid of being conscripted if they gave up. Collins, London Irish himself, was brought in to mediate and then huddled with MacDiarmada for a few minutes.

MacDiarmada, dragging his stiff leg, walked to the center of the room, and Collins raised his hand for quiet. “We’re hopelessly beaten,” he began. The men were attentive as they listened to MacDiarmada, who was widely admired by one and all. “We haven’t a prayer of fighting our way out of here. You’ve already fought a gallant fight, every one of you. You gain nothing, you lose everything if you try to continue. You think you’ll be killed, do you, if you surrender? Not at ’tal. Some of the rest of us will be killed, but none of you. Why should they kill you? And why should they put you in the British army? You’d be no good to them. They’ll send you to prison for a few years, that’s the worst. But what does it matter, if you survive? The thing you must do, all of you, is survive, come back, and carry on the work so nobly begun this week.”

“What will happen to the leaders?” Arthur Shields demanded. MacDiarmada did not immediately answer, which upset the men. “Those of us who are shot can die happy,” he finally said, “if we know you’ll be living on to finish what we started. I’m proud of you. I know also that this week of Easter will never be forgotten. Ireland will one day be free because of what you’ve done here.” There was still grumbling in the room. “No,” said MacDiarmada. “For the sake of Ireland, for the future of Ireland, you must obey Commander-in-Chief Pearse’s orders. We did our job. We held Ireland for a week, and by doing that, we’ve saved Ireland’s soul.”

The men were still growling their discontent, but they slowly came to realize it was over. Small groups gathered together to share a smoke. Some said their final rosary before capitulating.

Connolly was carried out first, and then Willie Pearse went out into Moore Street, door to door, calling out, “Any Volunteers here?” Slowly, doors opened, and men came into the street in twos and threes. When all the Volunteers had mustered, they started walking back up the street under a white flag, led by Willie Pearse and Clarke. Plunkett and MacDiarmada, due to their infirmities, tried to keep up in the rear. There, they were joined by Collins, Eoin, and Jack Lemass. They then marched into Henry Street and out into Sackville Street, surrendered their weapons, looked at their beloved Dublin in ruin, and wondered if it all was worth it. Silently, Eoin said a prayer for the lost London Jew, Abraham Weeks, who had somehow managed to become an Irish patriot as a member of the Irish Citizen Army.

9

E
OIN’S
D
IARY
S
UNDAY
, A
PRIL
30, 1916

T
hank God we survived the night. The British have us on the march, and the rumor is that we’re on the way to Kilmainham Gaol
.

Last night was the most terrifying night of my life. After the surrender, we were trooped up to Parnell Square and forced to quarter for the night inside the Rotunda Hospital grounds. It was cold and damp, and there was no food, water, or sanitation. Men were pissing and shitting on the grass.

Captain Collins kept an eye on Jack and me, and the British Tommies were decent enough. Things changed when the fellow in charge of the troops showed up. He was one of those British officers with a thin pencil mustache and a riding crop, the kind you’d see going out to the RDS in Ballsbridge for the Horse Show in August. Stiff upper lip and all that. Then the Dublin Metropolitan Police showed up.

“Oh, Jaysus,” said MacDiarmada to Collins. “The G-men. And they’ve got Superintendent ‘Butt’ Brien with them. We’re done for.”

“Who are they?” I asked, innocent enough.

Collins looked annoyed at me, but MacDiarmada smiled and said, “This is part of your education, Eoin. Those are detectives of ‘G’ division of the Dublin Metropolian Police. Those are the boyos who are paid to keep an eye on lads like us.” MacDiarmada turned to Collins and said, “Next time, Mick, eliminate them.” MacDiarmada paused before adding, “Just like they’ll eliminate me.” I knew what he meant by “eliminate,” and it frightened me. Collins nodded that he would.

Mick was about to slip me a malted milk tablet when it was knocked out of his hand by the crop of the British officer in charge. “No food here, Fenian scum.”

Collins stood his ground. “He’s only a boy.” “And what would that make you? The fucking Fenian Pied Piper?” The officer struck Collins on the shoulder with his crop, knocking his lone captain’s insignia away. Collins was silent, but he did not cower. I thought I was going to pee in my pants. The officer passed Collins and me by, but he pulled MacDiarmada out of our group. “Is this one of the leaders?” he asked Butt Brien, who seemed to know Seán by sight. I don’t know why they called him “Butt,” but I had an idea. He was just over five foot tall and must have weighed fifteen stone. He looked like a walking arse.

“John McDermott,” replied Brien, resplendent in his trench coat. “IRB organizer from Belfast, and signer of the proclamation.”

“Come here,” the officer said, using his crop to turn MacDiarmada around. “Up front, big man,” he said, and gave him a good push with the crop to get him going. The officer continued pushing the limping MacDiarmada along. “Here,” he said, “let me help you.” He pulled Seán’s walking stick from him and threw it away. “Now move!” I could see he had Willie Pearse, Clarke, and now MacDiarmada. The officer then made a great show of tormenting Tom Clarke. “This old bastard is the Commander-in-Chief. He keeps a tobacco shop across the street. Nice general for your fucking army.”

He started pulling Clarke’s clothes off him. First the jacket and then the shirt and the pants. I couldn’t look anymore.

“Who is he, Tommy?” I heard Collins ask a British soldier who was guarding us. The poor Tommy was also embarrassed and turned his eyes away. “Who is he? You can tell a fellow Londoner.”

“You from London?”

“I am,” said Collins. “Who is he?”

“Captain Percival Lea Wilson,” was all the soldier said and then turned and marched away. Out came Collins’s notebook, and down went that name.

“What are you going to do?” I asked. But Collins did not respond; he just turned his back on me. For the first time, I saw a different Collins—no more strut; all his energy had suddenly evaporated. For some reason, I had never felt more alone. I went to the end of the yard, almost underneath the entrance to Vaughan’s Hotel, and huddled by myself in the cold. Then everything went silent as sleep took me away for the rest of the night.

In the morning, I saw the spire of the Findlater’s Church at the corner of North Frederick Street begin to materialize at first light. I looked at all the sleeping rebels. They were packed like sardines; the only sign of life was the occasional snore or cough. Wilson had left. So had Clarke and MacDiarmada. The only rebel I saw standing was Captain Collins. “What are you going to do?” I said, again asking the question of hours before.

This time, Collins was more talkative. “Someday,” he said, “I am going to even the odds. Now the English terrorize us. Someday I will terrorize them.”

“How will you do that?”

“I think, Eoin,” said Collins as he placed a hand on my shoulder, “Seán MacDiarmada has already told us how that will be done.”

“But that would be a sin,” I finally said.

“It would be a mortal sin not to,” said Collins, and I knew a new page was about to be turned in Irish revolutionary history.

10

T
hey marched the rebels out of the Rotunda grounds, along Parnell Street to Capel Street, over the Liffey, and along the southside quays toward Chapelizod. As they came to Kingsbridge Railway Station, the “separation women” came out to jeer them. Their husbands were in French trenches with the British army, and, because of the rebels, there would be no separation allowance this week—or for many weeks to come, for that matter. The torching of the GPO had taken care of that.

“Jack,” said Eoin to Lemass as the Tommies fought to keep the citizens away from the rebels, “do you t’ink they’ll let us go?”

As a rotten tomato sailed over his head and landed in the Liffey, Lemass gave the only sane answer. “Jaysus, I hope not!” They kept marching right past Kilmainham and ended up in Richmond Barracks.

They were paraded into a huge gymnasium, and the G-men of the DMP started sorting them by importance. Eoin and Jack ended up on one side of the room while the big shots—Clarke, MacDiarmada, the brothers Pearse, Plunkett—were on the other. Eoin saw that Collins’s dandy uniform, now full of soot and Eoin’s own blood, had landed him with the leaders. “I hope Captain Collins likes Australia,” said Jack to Eoin, referring to the place where the British put the “penal” in penal colony.

The G-men were organized. Tables had been set up, and two or three to a group sat waiting for the rebels, cards and pencils at the ready.

“Name and address?”

Eoin supplied the answers.

“Where were you fighting?”

“Jacob’s,” said Eoin and then paused. “And the GPO,” he added, for good measure.

“Why?”

“To free Ireland.”

“Are you in the Volunteers or the Citizen Army?”

“No.”

The detective looked up in surprise. “How old are you?”

“I’ll be fifteen in October.”

“Fourteen,” said the cop aloud, as if to shame Eoin. “In a few years, you can join the British army,” he added.

“I’m Irish, not British,” said Eoin. “Why should I want to join the British army?”

“Next!” the detective said, shaking his head.

Eoin was marched to the other end of the room, where Lemass had preceded him. “Jaysus, I’m hungry,” said Eoin.

Lemass smiled. “Me, too.”

Eoin looked across the room and saw that Collins was staring at the two of them. Collins was also happy to see that the G-men were busy with their interrogation cards, crossing their Ts and dotting their Is. It was turning into bloody clerical chaos. Collins knew that the English were a nation of glorified clerks. In a blink, Collins walked across the room to where Eoin and Jack were standing. “Captain Collins!” exclaimed Eoin.

“Jaysus, boy, call me Mick.” Collins silently thanked Percival Lea Wilson for batting away his captain’s insignia.

“Hey, mate,” said a Tommy to Collins.

“Yes, sir.”

“No funny business. No talking. Get in line and give your particulars to the detectives.”

“Yes, sir,” said Collins, as he winked at the boys, aware that he had just torn up his ticket to Kilmainham Gaol and a possible firing squad.

Eoin and Jack ended up in a billet with about fifteen other teenage boys. Collins was long gone, segregated away from the leaders, but earmarked for prison in Wales with most of the GPO rebels. The floor was the boys’ bed, and the only food was three war ration biscuits each. That night, Eoin dreamed of Jacob’s chocolate Gold Grain crackers.

The man in charge of the rebel children was Sergeant Martin Boyle. He was fat and red and had trouble closing the collar of his tunic. “Jaysus,” said Eoin, “the only reason he’s in Ireland is that they couldn’t find a French trench big enough to fit him into.” Lemass suppressed his laughter.

“Listen up, boys,” said Boyle as he stood in front of them. The young rebels knew from experience with this type of man that the most important thing to Sergeant Boyle was his forthcoming pension, which he had to be pretty close to receiving. “The rules will be followed meticulously,” barked Boyle. “Violators will be severely punished. Follow the rules, and all will be well. Any questions?”

One lad in the back stuck up his arm. “What does ‘meticulous’ mean?”

Sergeant Boyle ignored him. “Okay boys, fall out.”

It wasn’t long before a priest was allowed in to see them. He introduced himself as Father Patrick O’Flanagan and said he was from the local parish of Inchicore, and that he was also one of the Catholic chaplains at the barracks. “Any complaints?”

It was unanimous—everybody was hungry. “I’ll take that up with Sergeant Boyle,” said the priest.

“Good luck with that one, Father,” said one of the boys.

“Ah, old Boyle is alright,” said O’Flanagan. “Sure he’s a Kerryman and has ten boys of his own.”

“What’s he doing in the British army?” asked Lemass.

“The same reason some of you have relatives in the British army—it’s a job.” The priest smiled. “Go easy on Boyle, and you’ll see he’s a decent sort.”

The boys were dubious. The priest talked to each boy and even heard a few confessions. Eoin and Jack passed on the confession, because they believed they were still in a state of grace from Easter mass. Near the end of his visit, the priest gathered the boys around and gave them his blessing. Then the sergeant returned. “Sergeant Boyle,” said O’Flanagan.

“Yes, Father.”

“These poor boys are hungry. Look at this little fellow,” he said, putting his hand on Eoin’s shoulders. “Could you find some cakes and tea for the lads?”

“We’ll see,” said Boyle, and Eoin lost hope, because whenever his mother didn’t want to give him a negative answer, she would only answer, “We’ll see.”

“I’m leaving now,” said Father O’Flanagan, “but I’ll be back to see you tomorrow.”

Eoin found incarceration boring. The highlight of the day was going to the toilet. They would be taken by a Tommy across the yard, where they would be left to do their business. “Why did you want to kill us?” asked the young Tommy guarding Eoin. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen himself.

“Why are you in
my
country?”

The soldier ignored the jab. “Are you hungry?”

“What do you t’ink?”

“If you come back tomorrow morning, I’ll see if I can get you something.”

“Thanks,” said Eoin.

And the Tommy was good to his word. On Tuesday, he brought a half loaf of bread and a big lump of butter. “Don’t eat it all at once,” advised the Tommy. Eoin had no intention of doing so—he brought back the bread and butter for Jack and some of the other boys. It only amounted to a small slice each, but it was better than nothing.

That evening, another boy was added to the teenage battalion—Vinny Byrne, lately of Jacob’s Biscuit Factory. Eoin introduced Vinny to Lemass and the other boys, and Vinny brought as much news from the outside as he knew, which wasn’t much. “I t’ink the citizens are still cross with us,” said Byrne slyly.

Tuesday evening Sergeant Boyle showed up with cakes and a bucket of tea. “Behave yourself, lads, and there will be more,” he said. The lads agreed that old Boyle wasn’t a bad sort at all and that Father O’Flanagan had been right.

Wednesday, May 3rd, just before dawn, Eoin’s uneasy sleep was shattered by shots. Jack and Vinny were wide awake also. “What is it?” asked Eoin.

“The executions at Kilmainham,” said Lemass somberly. “They’ve begun.”

Half an hour later, there were more shots, and more a half-hour after that. Three were dead before the sun rose in the sky. The three boys didn’t say a word. After a breakfast of more army rations, Eoin went to the bathroom. His Tommy was there with more bread and butter for the lads, and although Eoin didn’t say a word, the Tommy knew what he was thinking. “Those were the first three,” he said.

“Do you know the names?” asked Eoin.

“Patrick Pearse, Clarke, and MacDonagh.”

Eoin felt like he had swallowed his heart. He returned to his billet and told the rest of the boys. “Commandant MacDonagh,” said Vinny, tears filling his eyes.

Eoin remembered MacDonagh’s concern for him when he sent him to the GPO. He could still hear him telling him, “Just be careful, son.” Lemass felt the same way about Pearse and Clarke, whom he had dealings with through de Valera. The rest of the dreadful day was only unusual because of the silence that had overcome the raucous rebel boys. The only light in their day was when Sergeant Boyle again brought them cakes and tea in the evening.

It started again as a volley of shots rang out on Thursday at 3:45 a.m. Half an hour later, the process was repeated. Another half-hour, again. And then again one more time. Eoin made his way to the bathroom. As he peed, the Tommy simply said, “Willie Pearse, Plunkett, Daly, O’Hanrahan.” Eoin accepted his bread and butter and dutifully relayed the information to the rest of the boys. On Thursday evening, the boys settled down to an uneasy sleep, dreading what their deadly alarm clock might bring early Friday morning.