When Shadows Fall (35 page)

He bawled an order and the company hastily formed up into a something resembling a line. In their hands they clutched crudely hewn lengths of timber meant to represent rifles, and as they stood there in threadbare shirts and tattered boots, Adam doubted whether he had ever seen a more unconvincing body of troops.

“Anyone at all with experience?” he asked MacBarron.

“None. The fellows with experience are already serving with active units. Your job is to whip this lot up to the same standard.”

“No problem. Lloyd George and Churchill will be quaking in their slippers.”

They were strong, raw-boned men but baffled by his commands when he attempted his best drill sergeant’s bellow. He made them form two lines with two paces between each man and explained how they should stand, turn, and march to slow time, quick, and double. For the first hour they stumbled about like a gaggle of lost goslings, but they soon learned what his instructions meant and he roared at the few slackers who still weren’t holding their rifles properly. After another hour they knew how to wheel left or right without losing formation and to break file at a moment’s notice. As they paced up and down the field he shouted orders like, “Three files on the left. Right turn. Left wheel,” and bit by bit they grasped the art.

When several hours had passed and the light was weakening, he called a halt to the exercises and MacBarron told them they could go home.

“But in formation,” Adam warned.

As the column trooped down the road, shouldering their wooden rifles, MacBarron sat himself on a roadside boulder and rolled a smoke. “So, what do you think?”

“I don’t think they’re any great danger to the British Empire just yet,” Adam said, picking up his coat. “But they’re willing. I’ll give them that.”

“It’s their first day. They’ll turn out grand. You were once a clumsy recruit yourself, I’ll bet.”

“Indeed. You have me there.” Adam watched the line of heads disappear below a dip in the road, and he turned his gaze across the landscape. The sky was unsettled, leaden clouds over bare moorland, a hint of thunder in the air. He looked over the distant mountains and thought of the army garrisons at Dunmanway and Macroom and other places. Trained men, trained killers, armed to the teeth with Lee-Enfields and Webleys. And here, in this miserable spot, a few dozen men in tweed caps carrying wooden guns down the road. The carnage of bloody battle would soon visit these hills.

“Aye, Commandant. We’ll be just fine.”

Winston Churchill’s Temporary Cadets arrived in Ireland on the promise of ten shillings a day plus board and lodging. Charged with “a rough and dangerous task,” they were to supplement the ranks of the Royal Irish Constabulary and assist in putting down the IRA.

The sheer volume of men who came forward to volunteer quickly led to a shortage in official RIC uniforms, and the new recruits were obliged to wear a mismatch of army khaki and darker police issue. This appearance prompted one journalist to compare them to the “Black and Tans,” a famous pack of Irish hunting hounds. The humorous reference stuck, but their subsequent escapades in Ireland were not such a cause for laughter.

Along with the Tans, a second paramilitary body was sent to Ireland, made up of ex-officers who were paid the higher wage of one pound per day. This was the Auxiliary Division, instructed again to lend weight to the RIC, though they soon began to operate independently and conduct their own campaigns. While the Tans were a mobile strike force, the Auxiliaries also proved adept at gathering intelligence. Like the Tans they were ruthless and saw no wrong in punishing civilians for the sins of their rebel brethren. Like the Tans they earned an early reputation for drunkenness, violence, and general lack of discipline.

Not all those sent from England liked to get their hands dirty, however. A small few, a chosen few, who wore expensive suits and ate in exclusive restaurants, represented the biggest threat of all.

James Bryant had been summoned to meet a group of them now.

They liked to meet in a private lounge upstairs, where nobody from the restaurant below could hear them. It was an elegant but unobtrusive establishment on Grafton Street, run as a gentleman’s club, and membership was strictly by recommendation only. The lounge had a fireplace with a stag’s head mounted on the wall, a mulberry carpet covering the floor, and oak-panelled walls adorned with oil paintings. On the stinkwood table in the centre was an ashtray and a copy of the
Times
.

They were midway through their roast beef, eagerly discussing a forthcoming race festival at Punchestown, and one of them acknowledged James’s arrival.

“You’re a little behind the clock, old boy. Shall I fetch the girl?”

“No thanks, Arthurs. I’m not hungry.” James was out of breath and took a seat on the armchair. “Sorry to interrupt your dinner. Take your time. I’ll enjoy the fire while I wait.”

He flicked through the
Times
and had a cup of coffee to chase the Dublin cold out of his limbs. After a while Arthurs joined him in the other armchair. There was laughter at the dinner table, boyish spirits. James knew them, though. He knew he was in the company of some of the most viciously efficient spies in the entire service of the British Empire.

With the arrival of the Auxiliary forces in Ireland, James was now working alongside the F Company Auxiliary Division, Royal Irish Constabulary. The Tans and the “Auxies” had the job of disciplining the countryside, but the men in this room were a very particular and skilled group of intelligence agents, trained by Special Branch and MI5 and charged with finding and destroying the leadership of the IRA. They’d spent the past month or so establishing cover, posing as salesmen, insurance brokers, travelling musicians. Inside official circles they were known as the Dublin District Special Branch, and already they had massively reorganised and strengthened British intelligence operations in Ireland.

Arthurs took a leather-bound notepad from the bookcase beside him and handed it to James. “Names and locations, Bryant. Isn’t that what you wanted? Have a look through that. I think the boys have done rather well.”

As James scanned through the pages, his breathing quickened. For several minutes he was silent, then he sat back and swore softly. “And this is all good?”

“It was at the time of going to print,” Arthurs grinned. “But I’d advise that your side acts on it fairly fast.”

“Oh, we will. We have them, by God. We have the bastards by the balls.” He returned to the start and reread the entire report.

Tom Cullen, Dick McKee, Peadar Clancy, Liam Tobin. And Collins. Michael Collins, the myth himself. James couldn’t believe it.

“Damn it, Arthurs, we’ve been searching for him for months. We put a bounty on the blighter’s head, and we couldn’t lift so much as a photograph. How did your men find him?”

“He’s like a sprat in a deep pool, that one. He just keeps on moving. And I wouldn’t quite say we’ve found him yet, but we’re closing in on him.”

“But how?”

“Ah. Let’s just say he has a certain lady friend who works in a bank. We explored that little avenue, and it’s proving rather fruitful.”

“She’s giving you information?”

“The lady friend? Goodness, no. She knows nothing about us. But we managed to get one of our chaps into the bank, and he’s been discreetly following her trail. Collins meets her several times a month for some romancing, usually in private residences, sometimes in hotels or restaurants. He’s been building a rather large war chest, you know, gathering funds. We have a team of bankers looking into that. All in all, there’s enough of a pattern going on for us to strike at.”

“And once we have him,” James couldn’t help but smile, “we’ll have every last one of them.”

“And that’ll be an end to this dirty little war, and we can all go home,” Arthurs agreed.

There was one other name that James had missed initially. He stopped. “Hold on. This man, this one right here. You’ve found him too?”

Arthurs looked and nodded. “Mulligan. Yes, we’ve found him. A brigade commander in Wicklow, hiding out in a little hole in the mountains. I can even give you the exact directions for when your boys pick him up. One of Mulligan’s foot soldiers turned informant with the promise of cash, so we’ve gleaned some lovely details. Mulligan might be a wily sort, but we’ll run him to ground.”

James thought of Tara. The tension between them had remained ever since London. If Mulligan was found and then, perish the thought, met with some tragic, fatal accident, Tara would be smiling again. Indeed, as would James. He closed the notebook.

“Thanks for that, Arthurs. Say, I think I have something of an appetite after all. Perhaps the girl can fetch some more of that delicious-smelling roast beef?”

“Of course she can. A drink while you wait, old boy?”

“Not a bad idea.”

Tom Cullen, tall, slim and boyish looking, was one of Michael Collins’s closest confidantes. Everything Collins had a hand in, Cullen had a hand in it, too, and was one of a small circle of men whom Collins trusted implicitly and had the greatest of faith in.

Tom Cullen now sat in the snug of a nondescript bar in Smithfield, studiously cradling, but not drinking, a glass of Jameson. Next to him sat Major John Arthurs of the Dublin District Special Branch. Arthurs had half-finished a glass of lager.

“You know, lad, I think it’s unfair to call you fellows informants. You’re patriots in my view. And doing your country no end of service.”

Cullen nodded. A month before, after introducing himself to Arthurs in a bar, he’d offered him information regarding the location of a rebel weapons cache in return for cash. Arthurs’s confidence was secured when the lead proved good. “Will this take much longer? I’d rather as not be seen in the company of British agents.”

“Relax,” Arthurs said. “You’re on safe ground. Now look here, I met with District Inspector James Bryant of Dublin Castle this afternoon, and I told him that we’ve got Collins in our grasp. I’m hoping the good detective won’t be disappointed, will he?”

Cullen looked at him. “No. He won’t. My information is sound.”

“Collins will be at the address you gave me? At the exact time when we go to pick him up?”

“The big fellow’s address changes all the time. But I can keep the detective up to speed, once I know where to find him. Where’s he staying?”

“Ah. That’s the tonic all right. I’ll introduce you to Bryant in due course. Very well, you can be on your way, Mr. Russell. Your name
is
Russell, isn’t it? Hah, don’t look so offended. I know it’s not.” Arthurs finished his lager and stood up. “We’ll leave separately, just in case. And thanks again, my boy. You’ll be paid within the week. This man Collins won’t know what hit him.”

At the headquarters of the printer’s union on Lower Gardiner Street, Michael Collins was sitting unusually still. There was a list in front of him, a list of names. He read it through for the fourth time, and sighed. “Well, it’s going to get nasty.”

Tom Cullen perched against the window sill, tapping his foot anxiously. “When?”

“Soon, I’d imagine.”

“I certainly hope so.” Cullen fixed him with a hard stare. “They know our names, every one of us. And you’re top of their agenda. Arthurs reckons he’s going to grab you at that nonexistent address I gave him, but for the rest of us, he already has his information spot-on. They’re closing in, Mick. Closing in fast.”