ALREADY THE Collins of the second phase was beginning to take shape: the humorous, vital, tense, impatient figure which shoots through the pages of contemporary history as it shot through the streets of Dublin with a cry of anguish for ‘all the hours we waste in sleep’. People were already growing accustomed to his ways; the warning thump of his feet on the stairs as he took them six at a time, the crash of the door and the searching look, and that magnetic power of revivifying the stalest air. People still describe the way in which one became aware of his presence, even when he was not visible, through that uncomfortable magnetism of the very air, a tingling of the nerves. First to wake, he sprang out of bed and stamped about the room as fresh as though he were leaving a cold bath instead of a warm bed. He was peculiarly sensitive to touch and drew away when people tried to paw him. He seemed to be always bundling people out of bed, and not only the long-suffering O’Hegarty and O’Sullivan, who had the doubtful pleasure of sharing a room with him, but all the others, the quiet, simple people who had never thought themselves of use to humanity. Each of his gestures had a purposeful monumental quality; and his face that strange lighting which evaded the photographers but which Doyle-Jones has caught in his bust. One had the impression of a temperament impatient of all restraint, even that imposed from within, exploding in jerky gestures, oaths, jests and laughter; so vital that, like his facial expression, it evades analysis. If I had recorded all the occasions when he wept I should have given the impression that he was hysterical. He wasn’t; he laughed and wept as a child does (and indeed, as people in earlier centuries seem to have done) quite without self-consciousness.
Collins’ words and actions, considered separately, are commonplace enough; one would need a sort of cinema projector of prose to capture the sense of abounding life they gave to his contemporaries. People who submitted to their influence became intoxicated; work seemed easier, danger slighter, the impossible receded. People who did not were exasperated. ‘What insolence!’ they cried. ‘He doesn’t even say good morning.’ He said neither good morning nor good night; avoided handshakes as he avoided anything in the least savouring of formality; and when ladies accustomed to good society received him he had time only to ask if anyone was inside, and then brushed past them without a glance.
He knew he was a difficult man; he had no home, no constant refuge, passing from house to house and making demands upon its occupants as he did upon the men who worked for him; yet – though a week rarely passed when one of them, host or colleague, hadn’t occasion to complain – there were few who did not serve him cheerfully because of the occasions when a fine and sudden delicacy of feeling showed that he appreciated it. Outsiders, seeing how he worked his courier O’Reilly till the beads of sweat stood out on the lad’s face, grew indignant, but suddenly the natural good humour and kindness would break through and he would shout ‘Give us a couple of eggs for that melt!’ Or it would be someone else’s turn – his hostess’s, perhaps, whom he would bundle off to bed while he sent O’Reilly for champagne, merely because he thought she had a cold. He was a self-willed man – the consideration often came inopportunely and at random, like a misdirected kiss. […]
Collins was naturally a great businessman, and he shouldered his responsibilities in a thoroughly businesslike way. This energetic man, who kept a file for every transaction, who insisted on supervising every detail and went nowhere without his secretary, bore very little resemblance to the Collins of legend and none at all to the revolutionary of fiction. Beside him, Lenin, with his theories, feuds and excommunications, seems a child, and not a particularly intelligent one. He ran the whole Revolution as though it were a great business concern, ignoring all the rules. In his files can be found receipts for the lodging of political refugees side by side with those for sweeping brushes and floor polish. He might be seen a dozen times a day in shops, offices, restaurants, pubs, with solicitors, clergymen, bankers, intellectuals. He permitted no restriction on his freedom and cycled unguarded about the city as though the British Empire had never existed. In the evenings he might be seen at the Abbey Theatre, tossing restlessly in his seat, or in the summer at a race meeting, rubbing shoulders with British officers and Secret-Service men.
The other Collins, the romantic figure, ‘which this person was certainly not’, as his enemy Brugha said with the clarity of hate, and who has become by far the more widely known, was merely incidental; the real Collins, sitting at his desk, signing correspondence, found the necessity for the romantic figure’s existence a mere disturbance of routine. Collins, of course, had the romantic streak, the power of self-dramatization, which went with his daemonic temperament, but that is a different kettle of fish; his genius was the genius of realism. Answering a business letter in a businesslike way, he would be made aware of the English garrison as a sort of minor interruption and hit out at it as a busy man hits out at a bluebottle.
For the moment the bluebottle took the form of the English police system, which interrupted his work by raiding his offices and imprisoning his staffs: he proceeded grimly to get rid of it. The first victim of the new Intelligence Service was Detective-Sergeant Smith, known as the ‘Dog Smith’, the Uriah Heep of the force. In July 1919, after several warnings, he was shot down outside his own house in Drumcondra.
It was Collins’ first killing. Then, as afterwards, he did everything to avoid the necessity for it. With his strange sensitiveness he was haunted for days before by the thought of it. He was morose and silent. When the day of the shooting came, people saw for the first time the curious tension which was repeated over and over again in the years to come. The same scene occurred so often that it became familiar. O’Reilly was usually in waiting somewhere near to bring back a report. As he faltered out the words in answer to the quick glance of his chief, Collins began to stride up and down the room, swinging his arms in wide half circles and grinding his heels into the floor. For ten or fifteen minutes he continued this in silence; then he grabbed a paper and tried to read. But his eyes strayed from the printed columns to the window with an empty, faraway look. Then, raging, he turned upon the unoffending O’Reilly. […]
It was Christmas, which to a man of Collins’ temperament was sacred to festivity. His Christmases were always Dickensian, with plenty of drink, good food, relaxed discipline and wholesome good humour. It was a busy time for O’Reilly. There were the seamen, each of whom got a five-pound note and, if they were free, an invitation to meet him in a pub. There were presents to be purchased for the scores of people who had helped him during the year: the women who had sheltered him, the detectives who had given him information – all those not actually part of the movement whose sympathy made so much difference. Each of the presents went out with a little note which the recipient would not dare to treasure. Then, so far as possible, he paid each of his friends a short visit, as though to show what he was like off the job.
After lunch O’Reilly went off on his round of present bearing. Collins had had an early start and a busy day, and was hungry. Rather than give Mrs Devlin the trouble of preparing food, he, O’Connor, O’Sullivan, Tobin and Cullen decided to dine in town. It was four o’clock and only a hundred yards to the Gresham Hotel. The Gresham’s private rooms were booked, so they sat in the big dining-room and ordered a meal with wine. They were only halfway through it when a waiter appeared at Collins’ elbow.
‘You might like to know, sir,’ he said in a discreet whisper, ‘the Auxiliaries are in the hall.’
They had two minutes in which to prepare before the Auxiliaries burst in upon them, brandishing revolvers and rifles. They rose with their hands in the air. As a preliminary the Auxiliaries searched them.
‘Eh, what’s this?’ asked the man who was searching Collins, and from his hip-pocket produced a bottle of whiskey.
‘Stop!’ said Collins good-humouredly. ‘That’s a present for the landlady.’
He gave his name as John Grace. He must be the only revolutionary on record who did not say his name was Smith. The famous notebook was examined but the only word the Auxiliary officer could identify was one which he declared was ‘rifles’ and which Collins indignantly declared was ‘refills’.
When this hitch was got over, he made an excuse and withdrew to the lavatory under escort. O’Connor took up the whiskey he had left behind and invited the Auxiliaries to share it. A corkscrew was produced and another of the guests ordered a second bottle. Noticing his chief so long away, and filled, as they were all filled, with alarm only for his safety, Tobin made a similar excuse. To his consternation he found the officer holding Collins back over a wash basin where the light was most brilliant; teasing his hair about with one hand while in the other he held a photograph of the very man he was examining. The photograph was a bad one, but not so bad that recognition was impossible. To his immense relief the officer released Collins, and the two of them returned to the dining-room. ‘Be ready to make a rush for it,’ Collins whispered.
But it was unnecessary. The atmosphere in the dining-room had changed from distrust to maudlin pleasantry. The Auxiliaries departed, leaving five men almost crazy with relief. They drank whiskey in neat tumblersful, but it seemed as if nothing could quiet their nerves. They continued to celebrate in Vaughan’s Hotel. In a comparatively brief space of time they were drunk and indulging in horseplay, oblivious of their danger. It was the only occasion on which most of those present saw Collins drunk. O’Hegarty, who had missed the dinner party at the Gresham, was begging them to come away before Vaughan’s was also raided. They ignored him.
They finally drove to Mrs O’Donovan’s in a car and bundled themselves into bed. It was a Christmas none of them was likely to forget.