The Blood Dimmed Tide (5 page)

‘I wouldn’t count on it. In the military, devotion to routine and duty very often replaces intelligence.’

‘Can’t you see how dangerous Gonne is?’ Marley’s face dripped with ice-cold moisture. ‘Half of Ireland hangs on her every word and regards her as the widow of a martyr. She’s the living, breathing personification of Mother Ireland, the incarnation of Roisin Dubh. With the Republican leadership gone there is no one else who can unify the militant nationalist movement.’

Rogers leaned against the railing of the steps and drummed his fingers nervously. Marley’s restlessness had taken seed in him. ‘In unity there is strength, a truism no less valid for all its triteness,’ he remarked. ‘A coalition of these splinter groups led by Gonne could be a dangerous step towards an Irish revolution.’

‘And if Gonne returns to Ireland with a consignment of weapons, you’ll be the one held responsible.’

‘But what else can be done to deter this, other than throwing Gonne and every Irish Republican into gaol?’

‘I have a plan to discredit Gonne. I believe a more malleable figurehead can be persuaded to take her place, someone who would provide a focus for the disaffected Irish population, but who could be counted on not to cross certain lines.’

‘Who do you have in mind?’ Some of the caution had left Rogers’ voice

‘A poet with a penchant for spooks and stately homes − Mr William Butler Yeats. The rebels are a bunch of felons and diehards. They would embrace a figurehead like Yeats because without him they will seem a disorderly rabble to the Irish population. Nothing more than a gang of misfits and murderers. A man of letters like Yeats would make them appear civilised and principled.’

Rogers nodded. ‘Yeats is in receipt of a pension from the King. A sum of money that is vital to his livelihood. We should remind him of where his priorities lie.’

Marley grinned and winked. ‘I have a few acquaintances, rough fellows who could persuade Mr Yeats to cool his passions for Irish independence. A little skirmish on a darkened street would be enough to convince him he should keep his creative energies focused on wine, women and song.’

‘You’re speaking metaphorically of course.’

‘Naturally. Poetry is the language of the street.’

Rogers thought aloud. ‘And in the meantime, Gonne must be discredited to the Catholic population of Ireland. Not only the responsible citizens of that country but also those harbouring revolutionary sympathies.’

‘Most importantly of all, she must be discredited in the eyes of the radicals,’ added Marley. ‘This last area requires entirely different tactics from the first two.’

‘What are you proposing?’

‘A series of letters to the British and Irish press, ridiculing Gonne for her Anglo-Irish descent, and her illegitimate daughter. The letters would point out that her father was an English soldier and that she was born in Surrey, which would make her membership of revolutionary organisations such as the Daughters of Ireland invalid. An erroneous reference to how she still receives her father’s war pension should also be included.’

Rogers’ eyes glowed with enthusiasm.

Marley continued. ‘And if we could hatch a plot identifying her as an informant, this would ruin her reputation in the eyes of dangerous radicals.’

‘Very well. You must concentrate on exposing this conspiracy and negating Gonne’s role as a figurehead.’ A touch of friendliness crept into Rogers’ voice. ‘I will make more men available to you and funds, of course. Use whatever means you deem as necessary. And get in touch with me day or night if there are any developments.’

‘And what about Yeats?’

‘Tread carefully, to paraphrase one of his poems. He has connections in high places. In the meantime, I want you to make ghost-hunting your hobby, too.’

Marley nodded. His face was without expression.

‘What goes on in the afterlife will soon be the least of Mr Yeats’ worries.’

He pulled on his black cap and disappeared into the fog.

5

Queen of Wands

WHILE Yeats was busy talking to his apprentice magician in the study, Georgie waited anxiously for a signal from her new accomplice and former love rival. She was unable to sit and resume reading her crime novel, so with her sleeves rolled up, she brushed out the rugs in the sitting room and then dusted the shelves. When she heard the secret code of knocks they had devised, she rushed to answer the door, but there was no one there. The view from the doorstep was as cold and dark as an empty grave.

She was about to shut the door, when a woman in a Red Cross uniform appeared from behind a tree and ran up the steps. With the breathless haste of a nurse attending a medical emergency, the tall, red-haired figure of Maud Gonne brushed by Georgie into the hallway.

‘I met a policeman at the end of the street,’ she said between breaths. ‘I thought he was going to arrest me but instead I think he followed me here.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Georgie. ‘You look like some sort of vision.’

Maud’s hair lay in bright red ringlets and her face was powdered white. Her cheeks were pale as candles.

Georgie embraced her and drew back. ‘You’re shivering,’ she said.

‘So are you,’ replied Maud, and the two women broke into nervous laughter.

‘Is the uniform real?’ asked Georgie, helping her off with the blood-red cape.

‘No,’ said Maud. ‘Just a stage costume. But what a joy it is to wear with so much gloom in the air. Would you like to try it on?’

Georgie blushed slightly. Before falling under Yeats’ spell, she had been about to start a good job at the Foreign Office. She was regarded as sensible and level-headed, if not a little dull, and it had been hoped by London’s literary circles that she might steer Yeats away from his spookiness and personal melodrama.

‘It’s a little late for dressing up,’ she said.

Behind them, a floorboard creaked, and they both started.

‘If the authorities find me here, they’ll have me arrested, and Willie, too,’ said Maud.

Although what she said was probably true, Georgie found her manner a little over-posed. There was something searching about her gaze as she spoke, as though she were playing to an invisible audience. Georgie ushered her into the comfort of the sitting room where they sat by the crackling fire.

‘Willie never appeared at the Sesame Club tonight,’ said Maud.

‘I guessed as much.’ Georgie’s voice tightened.

‘What state was he in when he came home?’

‘Distracted. Definitely.’ Georgie paused. ‘I’m not worried that he might be unfaithful. It’s his detachment from reality that frightens me. Sometimes he appears to completely forget where he is.’

Gonne smiled. ‘Poor Willie, always the dreaming adolescent.’

‘I feel I’m married to a man who’s already attached.’ She stared at Maud. ‘Doubly attached.’

‘I followed him from a séance near Edgware Street. He looked frightened. There was something strange about his behaviour. Perhaps his silly occult games have become too real for him.’

‘No, there’s something else. Since our wedding, he’s become more and more obsessed with his supernatural investigations. Every evening, he returns home after midnight, exhausted, his hair in disarray, as though he’s been wrestling demons all evening.’

Georgie was still trembling. Maud hugged her, and the younger woman placed her head upon her shoulder, as if they were mother and daughter rather than love rivals. They stayed like that for a while until Georgie broke the silence.

‘I don’t know how this madness will end,’ she whispered.

‘Don’t confuse madness with a loss of control,’ said Maud. ‘Willie might be a great poet, but it doesn’t mean he can do whatever he wants, or subject you to these fears. He’s a husband as well as a poet, and someday soon he will be a father.’

For the first time a genuine smile appeared on Georgie’s lips.

‘It might be a good idea if the two of you were to leave London,’ continued Maud. ‘Remove yourselves from this circle of madness. A couple of months in Ireland would clear his head. His imagination is not the problem. It’s the forces that are preying upon it.’

‘But I fear that a trip to Ireland would make him worse. I don’t want to hear anything more about his ghosts, or ancient legends, or lost truths hidden in dusty libraries. All I want is for our marriage to work, and Willie not to be destroyed by this mad obsession with ghosts.’

‘Do you scold him?’

‘No.’

‘Good. To keep Willie’s attention a woman must either elevate herself to the role of an ethereal presence, or become his surrogate mother. You must learn to quell your temper.’

Georgie’s face coloured slightly with anger. ‘I won’t be an accomplice to my own subjugation,’ she said defiantly.

‘And that is good, also,’ said Maud soothingly.

‘Women have a place of honour and respect in his poetry, and the same should be true in his domestic arrangements. The same above as below, as he has written on numerous occasions.’

Maud nodded. She watched Georgie’s eyes glance around the room, her youthful mouth curled in dismay. She was too young to understand the quiet suffering and countless daily sacrifices that underpinned many apparently happy marriages.

‘I love him all the same,’ said Georgie, staring earnestly into Maud’s eyes.

‘And what about him? Does he love you?’

‘I believe he does.’ Georgie lowered her eyes, determined to hide whatever doubt might be revealed by them. ‘I’m not a mind-reader.’ She looked up at Maud again. ‘He walked past me in the sitting-room this afternoon and didn’t seem to recognise me. He looked lost. Dazzled, even. I’ve noticed other changes in his demeanour. He frowns a lot. Not the frown of someone vexed with his surroundings, but a frown at himself, the way a man might frown in a room full of blind people, certain that no one can detect his irritation.’

Maud regarded her with one of those soft full looks that melted the heart of Yeats in his youth. ‘I’m afraid that Willie has become a slave to his own vanity,’ she said. ‘This belief that the otherworld is eager to communicate its secrets with him.’

‘It’s more than vanity. Since our wedding, I can feel his growing despair. As if he’s had to finally give up the hopes and dreams of his youth. Embracing the spirit world has become a way of sublimating his desires.’

‘If that is the case, you must cut him off from his occult societies and these dreadful mediums he keeps visiting. Catch his attention when he starts babbling on about his ghosts.’

‘But how do I manage that?’ Georgie felt like an apprentice in the presence of a great master. She was more than twenty years younger than Gonne, and as well as youth, she had intelligence on her side, but her deference bordered on submissiveness. Gonne belonged to what was already regarded as a legendary age of Irish politics and theatricality.

‘You should live like Scheherazade and find a way to captivate your master with tall tales.’ Maud stared at her intensely. ‘Don’t be afraid of hoodwinking him in order to distract him from these infatuations. Remember, I speak from experience. For nearly thirty years, I have held his unwavering attention during all kinds of personal scandals and political upheavals.’

The sound of Yeats’ raised voice in the study distracted them.

‘I must go now,’ said Maud.

Georgie sprang up to hug her but Maud broke away like an actress returning to a demanding stage role.

Before she stepped into the street, she delivered one final piece of advice to Georgie.

‘Remember what I said. Look out for a new ghost for Willie. A good ghost. One that will take your side and keep him in check.’

Georgie watched her flowing figure disappear into the night. She thought how nice it would be to live like Maud and dress up in such lovely theatrical clothes, the opposite of the dowdy and virtuous garments in her own wardrobe. But then she dismissed the thought from her mind as mere attention-seeking vanity.

6

Six of Swords

THE morning after I received my assignment from Yeats, I briskly made my way to the bookshops on Charing Cross Road, and amid their dusty recesses acquainted myself with the latest texts on criminology. I placed a large order for books by the French author Alexandre Lacassagne, a specialist in the field of deviant behaviour, and a pioneer regarding scientific detection techniques, as well as Galton’s guide to the classification of fingerprints, and charged them to the account of the Order of the Golden Dawn.

The question of whether one succumbs to the irrational and its emotional storms is usually a conscious one, at least at the beginning. Recalling the events of the night before, I felt uncomfortable and anxious. I had given myself over to another world, a universe of strange spirits and haunting obligations that were beyond my understanding, blotting out the faculties of reason and common sense. Somehow, I had moved away from the role of impersonal weigher of facts, a trained investigator of the paranormal, to that of an unwilling participant in Yeats’ personal melodramas.

It was with relief that I leafed through the latest detective manuals. I felt the breath of new ideas and opinions. The fog had lifted overnight, and the city was drenched with spring sunlight, the rays untangling even the gloom of the Thames, and the raggle-taggle shadows of the run-down streets. A breeze picked up. I tucked my bundle of books under my arm and felt the freshening wind of science blow alongside me, wafting away the cobwebs of superstition and fear. I thought of my friend’s dismal ghost, and realised that I now had the opportunity and tools to gather evidence that the soul lived on after the death of the body. My mission would require effort and careful observation, as well as dangerous lines of investigation, but for the first time in months, I felt the glow of intellectual excitement. In the clear reality of a bustling city morning, the enchantment of the previous evening dissolved and I was left with the image of a coffin washed up on a stormy beach and a restless sense of curiosity.

A week later, I boarded the mail boat at Holyhead, bound for Sligo. Among the other passengers in the first-class cabins were an invalid soldier in a wheelchair helped on board by a red-haired nurse, an army major, called Blemings, accompanied by his young wife, and a tall gaunt man, wearing a black belt and cap, who stood smoking against the railings, watching everything with half-closed, inquisitive eyes.

A watch bell tolled on the upper deck, a cold iron jangle that chimed with the rattling shackles of dozens of Irish prisoners who were being lined up on the docks with martial impersonality. A row of prison guards made the men stand in falling sleet as the passengers in steerage boarded. From the first-class deck, I watched the guards prevent the paraded men from squatting or kneeling. The prisoners were Republicans, many of them barely out of their teens. Unlike their executed leaders, they had played minor roles in the Easter Rising, and were now being deported back to their homeland where they were to be freed at Dublin port.

Major Blemings wore a pained smile. ‘I don’t understand why the authorities can’t keep them locked up,’ he complained. ‘My advice to everyone is watch your possessions and hope the bloodthirsty ruffians don’t creep into your cabin at night to slit your throat.’

The man in the black cap mournfully agreed in a soft Irish accent. ‘Times like these no one is safe,’ he said. The glowing ember of his cigarette was reflected briefly in his dark eyes.

The slur of rubber knocking against the deck made everyone turn to stare at the tall figure of the Red Cross nurse, pushing the invalid soldier in his wheelchair. She was middle-aged with burnished red hair tied up in a bun, which when released must have extended to the full Celtic mane. There was an exhilarated look to her features, which were oddly familiar. Her eyes were bright, and a long strand of hair hung loose. She gazed around the cabin with a challenging look, and then wheeled the soldier to the shelter of a bulkhead. She wrapped him tightly in blankets and joined us at the railings.

‘How is your patient?’ asked the major.

‘Not in any immediate danger. Though he’s gravely ill from his wounds.’

‘Then he’ll not survive a rough passage,’ said the man in the black cap a little brutally. He tossed his cigarette into the dark waters below.

‘My patient has vowed to return to his birthplace should he shuffle there on his knees.’

‘Then it will be more penance than pilgrimage.’

Although the nurse looked composed, I could see the sinews in her neck muscles stretching with anger. She breathed heavily as though the air on deck had grown scarce. Then she walked back to the invalid soldier.

After the paying passengers had boarded, the ship was loaded with its cargo. The prisoners on the docks linked their arms, less a gesture of solidarity and more an attempt to remain upright and resist the rolling waves of exhaustion that passed through their ranks. After another hour had passed, the guards finally led them onto the boat. Unwashed, bedraggled and soaking wet, they dragged themselves up the gangway in the shambling crouch used by miners underground.

From my vantage point, I did not see any traitors or heroes among them, just a lot of humiliated young men, some rather scared, some isolated and lonely looking, all of them lacking any sign of tenacity or allegiance to a die-hard cause. Perhaps the government had deprived them of their moment of heroism and that was why they looked so hollow and defeated.

Eventually, the boat steamed out of the harbour, and the men were left to find whatever shelter or comfort they could on the quarter deck. The Red Cross nurse emerged from the cabin next to mine and walked among the prisoners, tending to the ones who appeared to be suffering the most. Their eyes lit up at her red-haired presence, as though something bright and warm was being brandished before them. She seemed perfectly at ease in the company of these down-hearted men, many of whom spoke only in Irish. It was as though she had known them all their lives. There were no signs of awkwardness or strain on her part, and her soothing words appeared to revive them.

It was a rough passage overnight to Dublin, the boat’s first stop. With no lights allowed anywhere on board because of the blackout, the deck of prisoners became a chaotic dormitory. To add to their discomfort, the weather was freezing cold. I had not imagined such a large boat could be gripped by frost while rocking from wave to wave in the middle of the Irish Sea. Snow began to fall, forming a pale coagulating slush on the decks. The boat drifted through the slowly descending flakes.

Unable to sleep with the rocking motion of the boat and its creaking timbers, I sat up and stared through the porthole at the gathering snow. From the cabin next door, I heard a door open and close gently. Pulling on a coat with deep pockets, I left my cabin and followed a single track of footsteps around the bridge and down to the lower decks.

A dark layer of greasy ice covered the wooden boards where the prisoners slept on the quarter deck. I walked along the dark edge of their bodies. Strangely, in that oppressive environment, a feeling of expansiveness overcame me so strongly that it circumvented the bonds of loyalty to country and King. I found myself giving cigarettes and some of the bread and cheese I had crammed into my pockets to one of the men, a mad-eyed, bearded young fellow. His hands were eager, and they were joined by a circle of other outstretched hands.

A figure carrying an oil lamp moved from behind a bulkhead at the far end of the cavernous deck. Its only identifying feature was a red cloak. The Red Cross nurse turned, her red curls falling about her pale face. She moved through the men on some mysterious wave of self-confidence, as though she were testing her middle-aged beauty on the soon-to-be-freed prisoners. They cleared a space for her, giving the impression they were expecting a stage performance. She spoke in a low angry whisper, which the creaking of the ship disguised, but I caught a phrase now and again. She was talking about patriotism and a coming war, and there was a raw energy in her voice. I stared at her and suddenly saw her in the right light. It was the same woman who had addressed the protesting widows outside the converted poorhouse.

‘Ho! What’s your name,’ whispered one of the prisoners.

‘Charles Adams.’

‘Well, Mr Adams would you mind feeding me, too.’

I handed him a hunk of dry bread and a slightly damp cigarette.

‘How do you cope with these conditions?’ I asked.

‘What conditions?’

‘The overcrowding. The cold and the hunger.’

‘We’re Irishmen. We’re used to these things.’

He hunched forward and lit the cigarette. A haggard look of exhaustion was thrown into sharp relief across his youthful features.

‘Officially, we’re not meant to be here,’ he said. ‘We’re the ghosts of the Easter Rising.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The British government sentenced us to death by firing squad, but fortunately for us, they grew tired of executing rebels.’ He snorted out two jets of smoke and jerked his head back defiantly. ‘Their offer was to go back home and give up the struggle or languish in gaol. But damn them, we’re not going to give up now.’

It struck me that the ship was a symbol of England’s relationship with its oldest colony, a union drifting in the dark towards a terrible new dawn, a hold of mutinous men trapped below decks.

‘I’m a law student, not a soldier,’ confided the young prisoner. ‘I didn’t even know the Rising was going to take place on Easter Sunday. I happened to be passing Boland’s Mill when I saw the rebels take up their positions. When I get back to Dublin I shall continue the struggle, only this time in the courtroom.’

The nurse drew her cape over her head and climbed a set of steps at the other end of the boat. In her absence, an agitated current seemed to stir the bodies of the prisoners. Someone coughed. A voice rasped from the darkness. A controlled, anonymous voice. ‘Don’t get carried away with your charity, Mr Adams. Ye and the nurse are only paying back England’s debts to Ireland. They’re six hundred years old and fathomless.’

I turned in the direction of the voice but there were only bodies slouching in various stages of sleep.

The next morning, before the sun rose, I got my first sight of Ireland. The rattle of the anchor chain woke me from a disturbed sleep. The engines slowed and the deck was full of footsteps. Through the porthole, I could see bonfires blazing on the wild hillsides of a subdued-looking coast. Under a blanket of feathery falling snow, the natives had gathered, determined to celebrate the return of their glorious rebels.

At Dublin port, the prisoners disembarked, free men now, to a crowd of cheering well-wishers. The gangplank was their last connection with grim reality before their feet temporarily touched dry land, and then they were lifted off as returning heroes by their supporters and carried away into the darkness of a winter morning.

The mail boat ploughed back into the Irish Sea. I went up to the bow deck with my books but was distracted by the sight of the waves rising higher and higher. A storm had been brooding behind the snow. The boat seemed to gather speed, as if plunging downhill. The deck tilted sharply with the surges, and I held on to the railings for dear life.

One of the passengers from first class had followed me to the bow. It was the tall man with the black cap and the hungry look to his face. I had caught his eye earlier that morning, and from then on, I seemed to become a focus for his attention. He stood at the opposite railing and watched me, his face darkening with angry curiosity as the boat toppled from wave to wave, and the sky grew warped and heavy with storm clouds. He seemed indifferent to the rolling pitch of the sea. I retreated below, but his presence stalked me as I wandered from deck to deck.

The storm reached its peak when we passed Belfast, prompting a recital of the rosary from the passengers in steerage. I had no clear recollection of the ship’s passage along the circuit of cliffs and silver strands that make up the Antrim coastline, other than that it felt like a grim descent down the course of a steepening cascade. Struck down with seasickness, I passed my time staggering from my cabin to the deck railings, where on several occasions I emptied my stomach into the whirlpool of the sea until there was nothing left to retch but bile. Like the sea, the nausea came in waves, lifting me from crest to crest of violent self-purges, then reducing me to a state of exhaustion in between.

At one point in my ordeal, my stalker joined me on the railings.

‘No one ever died of seasickness,’ he reassured me.

However, there was nothing kind or comforting about his facial expression. He grinned at me like a hangman at the gallows.

I was reluctant to open my mouth, afraid I would vomit again. The scorch of stomach acid hitting my throat reduced me to a coughing fit.

‘Drink this,’ he said, taking a small medicine bottle out of his pocket. With shaking hands, I tipped its contents into my mouth and swallowed them in a single gulp. He peered closely at me, his grin slowly sinking back into his skull. It crossed my mind that he might be a scoundrel, intent on robbing me. A large wave struck the side of the boat, and his silhouette was briefly wreathed in a halo of sea spray.