14

The girl rapped quietly on the door.

Pamela opened her eyes at once, surprised that she’d slept after all. She was curled inside Douglas, and the feel of his body naked against hers shocked her. Because he was behind her, she couldn’t see him, but then she realized his hand was on her breast. She raised the blanket slightly to look at his hand, confirming with her sense of sight that this was real, he was real, he had come home. They’d made love repeatedly through the night. Dawn had come without their having slept. Then, apparently, they’d drifted off in weariness and contentment.

And now Margaret was at the door with their breakfast tray. “Come in,” she called.

Douglas stirred, but then held her closer, cupping her breast more snugly. She pressed the blanket down at her throat as the door opened.

“Good morning, ma’am.” Margaret put the tray on Pamela’s dressing table, then curtsied. “Shall I draw the curtains back, ma’am?” The servant drew the curtains before Pamela could ask her not to. The morning light spilled into the room, through the dull filter of rain. Pamela would happily have stayed inside her husband’s snug embrace, but it was just as well. He had his appointment this morning. Margaret curtsied once more and left, closing the door behind her without a sound.

Pamela listened to Douglas breathing. He was asleep again. She wondered if he was dreaming. Would he believe it, when he awoke, that he was with her? She pushed the curl of her body back against him, then turned inside his arms. She savored the long, still embrace, but her leg brushed against his erection, which aroused her in turn. She kissed him in a sisterly way, lightly on his cheek and brow, and when he opened his eyes she kissed him more sensually, forcing her tongue into his mouth. His knee went between her legs as he kissed her longingly in return.

It was only in entering her that Douglas fully awoke. The night before he had ravished her repeatedly, but now the rhythm of their stroking was different. She too moved more slowly. They watched each other’s faces. As they began, physically, to rise and fall, they did so together, quietly and unfrantically.

Afterward Douglas served Pamela her breakfast. While she sipped at her coffee and milk, watching him, he stood at the dressing table, above the spread of newspapers. She waited for him to speak, but when she saw that he was reading pages for the second time, she said, “The newspapers tell you nothing.”

And a good thing, too, Douglas thought. Last month we lost at Artois, and this month at Loos, with the Germans inflicting twice as many casualties as they took. Why should newspapers tell wives and mothers that? He did not know what to say.

“So, of course,” Pamela continued, “we think the worst.”

“It isn’t the worst, darling. And it isn’t the best. It’s somewhere in between.” Douglas said this absently, while staring at an item about the Mediterranean fleet. Two battleships, Exmouth and Venerable, had steamed into the Aegean, and others were to follow. Douglas guessed that the long-awaited withdrawal from Gallipoli was under way. Like all British officers in France and Belgium, he hated those responsible for that second pointless front. The shells and soldiers wasted in the Dardanelles all through the spring, summer, and autumn could have made the difference not only at Ypres, but at Neuve-Chapelle and Festubert. He clenched his fist and nearly cursed out loud, but he didn’t. Gentlemen did not inflict the disasters of their wars or businesses upon their wives.

He picked up the newspaper, fixing upon another item. “Parliament’s going to pass the Military Service Act.” He looked up at her. “Conscription.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“It’s because no one’s volunteering.” He crossed to the bed and sat, adjusting his dressing gown, reading all the while. “Asquith says the spirit of patriotism must be what motivates us.” Douglas laughed, thinking, But what if the reason no one’s volunteering is that we’re all dead? The irony of the conscription debate struck him, and the outrage of it. It was the surest sign of England’s jeopardy that these waistcoated old men, safe in their paneled chambers, should be preparing for the first time in the nation’s history to force boys into battle against their will. England’s first sons, her best and bravest and most brilliant, had failed utterly to counter the German thrust, and now the geniuses of Westminster were going to send catchers out with nets to snag the ne’er-do-wells, cowards, and alley cats to see what they could do. By November of 1915, in fifteen months, England had gutted herself. How great could Great Britain be now if she had to force her sons to fight in her defense? “The living shield,” they called the army; now it would be the unwilling one.

In the Times account of the conscription debate he came across the name of his father’s old nemesis, Sir Edward Carson, the Irish M.P.—the man Hugh Tyrrell regarded as a mob-baiting bigot who depended on the fear and hatred of Ulster Protestants for his power. Douglas remembered that the only time Carson had ever spoken well of Catholics was when he’d teamed up with them to bring down Parnell. And now he was approaching the peak of his power because Asquith, the Liberal prime minister, needed his support to maintain his party’s majority. Asquith had introduced the Irish Home Rule bill in 1912, but to appease Carson, he had backed off. It was obvious that Carson’s plan was to use the emergency of the war to scuttle Home Rule altogether. Now, in the conscription debate, he was once again using England’s plight to beat down Ireland, arguing that conscription should apply to Irish men as well as English. Nothing would inflame revolutionary sentiment more, of course, and Carson’s wild speech alarmed Douglas as he read it. The man intended more than simply filling the ranks with new recruits. And Douglas realized that, to Carson, the trenches of France would seem the perfect place to resolve the age-old Irish problem.

“Good Christ,” he muttered.

“What, darling?” Pamela reached across the bed to him.

Staring at the text, he said, “Sir Edward Carson.”

Pamela nodded. “One of Jennie Churchill’s beaux.”

Douglas looked up sharply. Carson’s love life was irrelevant. It pained him that his wife was more aware of the figure Carson cut in London social circles than of his central role in the growing Irish crisis, and once more he realized how very much separated them. To her, Ireland would never be more than her husband’s losing wicket.

“This is what Carson says about the war.” He read the line aloud, with unveiled bitterness, thinking of the boys he’d ordered out of trenches, thinking of Billy O’Day. “‘The necessary supply of heroes must be maintained at all costs.’”

The Admiralty anteroom in which Douglas was asked to wait looked out on Trafalgar Square. He stood at the windows, staring through the gloom of rain at Horatio Nelson’s pillar. In Dublin its miniature stood on Sackville Street. He was struck by the contrast between his own situation and the heroic ideal of Admiral Nelson, the embodiment of England’s glory. Tyrrell was an Irish army officer about to make his formal report on the treason of a knighted Irish foreign-service officer. Below the surface of his shame were layers of a deeper shame, and he dreaded revealing any of it to the board of officers before whom in moments he would be standing. He could picture them easily, stolid, impressive Englishmen, older versions of his Oxford classmates or of the Lincoln’s Inn barristers and benchers who always managed to convey, without ever being rude, their assumption that Douglas, for all his winning ways, was of a separate species.

He stared out at the bustling midday crowd that swirled through Trafalgar Square. All those Englishmen in their carriages, trams, and automobiles, all those clerks on their way to stools in the City, shopgirls to counters in Piccadilly, war bureaucrats to desks in Whitehall; all those Englishmen whipping past the huge gray pillar on which their hero stood. But they weren’t heroes, were they? Just Englishmen. Whatever their class, background, or function, everyone in that square took for granted a note of identity that Douglas Tyrrell permanently lacked.

But now his first question nagged again. He was army. Casement was Foreign Office. The issue was Ireland, which should have meant Home Office, but he’d been ordered to appear here at Admiralty Arch, in the offices of the navy. Why was the navy involved in the question at all? He stared out at the stone figure of Horatio Nelson, as if he would answer. Nelson was posed like Napoleon, hand in his blouse, eyes on the far horizon. Douglas remembered reading that Nelson had made a point always to bring with him his coffin, which he’d had carved out of the mast of an enemy ship. To carry one’s coffin with one, Douglas thought, was it grim madness or only prudence? Eccentricity or a wise, moderating reminder of one’s mortality? Whatever it was, Nelson’s habit was justified when he was laid out in his faithful casket at Trafalgar. Tyrrell shuddered and then had a strange thought: Ireland is England’s coffin, and that’s why she must cling to her.

The door opened behind him.

“Captain Tyrrell?”

Douglas turned around. A navy lieutenant was waiting for him by the open door. As Douglas crossed toward him, his eyes went past the navy man to the room beyond, an ornate gracious chamber with a large Persian rug and a delicate crystal chandelier. Its candles had been electrified and were now illuminated. Below the chandelier was a broad table along the far side of which sat half a dozen men. They had all raised their eyes to watch Tyrrell enter.

The man seated in the center he recognized at once as Lord Kitchener, the secretary of state for war, whose staring face, eyes wide apart above a drooping walrus mustache, was familiar from all those recruitment posters. His presence at the meeting shocked Tyrrell and made him understand that the concern was with more than the fate of Irish soldiers in a German prison camp, more even than the disgraceful behavior of Sir Roger Casement.

He strode to the center of the room and stopped in front of the table before saluting smartly.

“Be at ease, Captain.” Kitchener nodded at the navy aide, who brought a chair. Douglas sat. None of the other men were familiar to him. Two wore the uniform of navy admirals. One other besides Field Marshal Kitchener was dressed as an army general, one as an army major. The last man wore civilian clothes.

Kitchener leaned toward Tyrrell and spoke in a resonant, articulate voice, “Captain Tyrrell, my personal compliments. Reports of your conduct precede you, and speaking for my colleagues, I salute you.” Kitchener threw glances left and right. Several of the men nodded and one tapped the table in front of him. Kitchener continued, “Let me begin by making the introductions. You know of me perhaps.” He smiled.

“Yes, my lord.”

Kitchener indicated the others in turn. “This is General Lovick Bransby Friend, the general officer commanding the army in Ireland. Major Ivor Price, the military intelligence officer for Dublin Castle. Admiral Sir Edward Hamilton, naval intelligence chief. Admiral Sir Neville Gates, commander-in-chief of the home fleet, and finally, here at my left, Undersecretary for Ireland, Sir Matthew Nathan.” Kitchener put his hand on Nathan’s arm. “An august gathering, wouldn’t you say?”

“Indeed so,” Nathan chirped, but his eyes looked vacant behind thick spectacles.

But for two exceptions, these were the quintessential Englishmen that Douglas had expected to face, and they eyed him with a certain implicit hauteur. The exceptions were Kitchener himself, a would-be Nelson, the closest thing England had to a hero in the nightmare Boer War. Douglas suddenly remembered what one never saw referred to anymore, that Kitchener himself was Irish-born, and wondered if that explained his presence here. The other exception was Nathan, the man in charge of administering the Irish executive from Dublin Castle, and what made him different was the simple fact of his being Jewish.

Kitchener cleared his throat, and from a file that included, no doubt, a copy of the report Tyrrell had submitted, he withdrew a photograph.

It would be Casement’s photograph, Douglas guessed, and he realized that this must be a formal hearing for the certification of evidence. If Casement was to be cited for treason, Douglas would have to make the charge. As Kitchener slid the photograph across the table, Douglas was aware of the irony—a pair of Irish-born servants of the King leading a third up the King’s scaffold. “Captain, would you look at this photograph, please?”

Douglas took it. To his surprise it was not Casement or even Casement’s Irish accomplice. It was the fat-faced German who had escorted them. “I’ve seen him, yes.”

“He was with Casement?” Hamilton asked.

“Yes.”

Hamilton glanced at Kitchener, triumphant satisfaction in his expression. “As we thought. If Admiral Bremer is orchestrating this, it’s everything we fear.”

“Admiral Bremer?” Against protocol, Tyrrell expressed his surprise. “The man wore the uniform of an army colonel.”

Hamilton shook his head. “He’s navy. He works for Tirpitz. The German-Irish conspiracy is a navy project.”

“I’m sorry, sir . . .” Tyrrell looked at Kitchener, whose nod gave him permission to speak. “. . . My understanding is that German lines between the branches are quite severe, and the army has responsibility for prisoners.”

“We’re not talking about prisoners, Captain,” Admiral Hamilton said. “We’re talking about the German invasion of Ireland. If the army was laying out the plans for it—General Alfrink, for example, or Ludendorff—there would be reason to treat the entire matter as a feint to get us to commit troops to Ireland, weakening our position on the Western Front. But the navy would not concern itself with such a strategy.” Hamilton faced Kitchener. “It’s Bremer and Tirpitz, my lord. We must regard it as a deadly serious prospect.”

“With your permission, sir, but I made the point in my report that the German effort failed utterly. Not one of my soldiers volunteered for the so-called Irish Brigade.”

General Friend, the commander in Ireland, spoke. “Doesn’t matter, my dear Captain. There are other camps than yours. And now, of course, even at your camp, one presumes the Germans have sweetened the offer. Lord Kitchener”—Friend craned past Hamilton—“you simply must disband the Irish regiments, or at the very least put them under the command of English officers. We can’t have them used in this way.”

“General, we refused to be used. That is my point . . .” Douglas failed to keep the edge out of his voice.

No one else commented on Friend’s remark. It was impossible to tell whether the stone-faced Kitchener agreed or not.

Admiral Gates of the home fleet, a lethargic man, had preoccupied himself with the grain of the mahogany table. Now he spoke without raising his eyes: “Whether the Germans succeed in recruiting prisoners for their Irish Brigade is of no relevance.” Gates paused, shifting in his chair, but his eyes remained fixed upon the table. “If an invasion were to succeed, an Irish Brigade would function as a rallying point for imbecile Irishmen and their cousins in America. But if an invasion succeeded, the Germans would do quite nicely with or without the support of the Irish people and we would have a far graver problem than the opinion of the Americans.” Gates stopped abruptly and a long, charged silence followed.

Tyrrell stared at the men, baffled, while Gates resumed his play with the surface of the table. Douglas noticed for the first time a brass plaque fixed to the edge: “This table, made from the wood of the Golden Hind, was presented by Sir Francis Drake.”

Finally Kitchener leaned forward and looked at Hamilton. “If we’re going to ask Captain Tyrrell to help us here, perhaps it would be in order, Admiral, to explain things to him.”

Hamilton coughed, then stood up. He crossed to a large map of the British Isles that included all of the North Sea and much of the North Atlantic. Pins of various colors representing ships dotted the blue stretches, with a heavy concentration of black pins in the sea between England and the northern coast of Europe. Hamilton studied the map for a moment, then turned to look past the other officers at Tyrrell. “Captain, your report gives us the first confirmation we have that the initiative for an invasion of Ireland lies with the German navy. Therefore, we know that the aim of such an invasion is neither to draw off our strength from the Front nor to influence opinion in America by forming an alliance with Irish nationalists, though both of those consequences could follow. The aim of a German invasion is the establishment”—Hamilton stabbed at the map—“of a major U-boat base in the west of Ireland.”

He swept his hand in an arc down from the Dingle peninsula. “U-boats have a limited range, in the hundreds, not thousands, of miles. Our pincer at the Dover straits forces U-boats coming out of Zeebrugge to make the north-about passage around the Orkneys. By the time they reach the open sea, half their fuel is spent. Limited range is the U-boat’s biggest problem, and till now it’s been our salvation. But that could change. An Irish base would give the Germans absolute control over the North Atlantic sea lanes. Merchant shipping from America would be stopped cold. When America comes into the war—and it is delusion of the first order to think she won’t, particularly because of concern for so-called Irish freedom—German submarines will be in a position to interdict every form of American supply. From Zeebrugge the U-boats now control the North Sea and they threaten the Channel. From Cork, Galway, Tralee, or Kilrush, or from a combination of those harbors, they would control access from the North Atlantic.” Hamilton stopped, visibly affected by what he’d said. He returned to his chair and sat.

General Friend leaned toward Tyrrell. “The Germans are turning out three new U-boats a week, and our navy is not destroying them.”

Gates cast a harsh look at Friend, but the army man ignored him.

Tyrrell sensed that they were waiting for him to speak, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. The implication of Casement’s perfidy stunned him. The two who had yet to speak were Price, the intelligence man, and Nathan.

Nathan was fifty-two years old. Long service in delicate positions with the Colonial Office—he’d served as governor both of Gold Coast and Hong Kong—as well as an association with Lloyd George, then chancellor of the exchequer, had prepared him for his recent appointment to Dublin. His job was to prepare Ireland for Home Rule while damping down the malcontents on both extremes who had reason to oppose it. Some of his colleagues who might have scorned him for being Jewish agreed he was the right man for the job; what better qualification for ruling the Irish than to have previously been the governor of black men and yellow?

Now he stroked his mustache and, aware of Tyrrell’s eyes upon him, he said, “Obviously, Captain, given these prospects, there are various measures we must take.”

“Yes, sir.”

“These gentlemen are concerned with military measures. My concern is somewhat broader. We must counter, for example, any tendency among the Irish to sympathize with the German cause. Casement’s behavior is despicable. Even Irish nationalists would find the effort to inspire sedition among your men reprehensible.”

Tyrrell saw at last why they were telling him this. “You want me to testify publicly to Casement’s treason. I would do so willingly.”

Nathan shook his head. “We haven’t come to that. It is a delicate matter. One doesn’t wish to express alarm in public. We mustn’t advertise the activities of insurrectionist groups and thereby lend them significance they lack apart from Berlin’s manipulation. But we must prevent those activities from growing.”

General Friend interrupted. “Here’s what we must do at once,” he said, pulling on his fingers. “Forbid the ownership of arms by Irishmen. Impose rigorous censorship on the native press, since Irishmen are more affected by what they read than other people. Outlaw political rallies and outlaw the Irish Volunteers. Send the Reserve Infantry Brigades to Ireland at once, and give me the Ulster Division to sweep the coastal counties, arresting disloyal persons. It would have to be the Ulster Division, because we can’t trust Catholics, whether RIC or the other Irish regiments.”

Tyrrell bristled. “I beg your pardon, sir, but it’s Ulstermen who’ve sworn to oppose His Majesty on Home Rule, not men of the south.”

“Good point, Captain.” Friend peered at him. “The loyalty of every Irishman must be suspect now.”

“I am an Irishman, General,” Douglas said.

Kitchener put his hand up to silence Friend and he addressed himself to Douglas. “Indeed so, Captain. And your loyalty is beyond question. That’s why you’re here. Major Price is chief of intelligence for Dublin Castle. Perhaps he can explain a bit more.”

Price stood and went to the map. He ran his forefinger slowly along the jagged western coast of Ireland. “A dozen potential harbors,” he said. “And in place, settlements where insurrectionist sympathies run strong. Frankly it will make little difference to the Germans what happens in Dublin, whether speeches are given or pamphlets circulated. What will matter to the success of a German invasion is the initial support of local people. The insurrectionists must organize them to be prepared with small vessels of every kind to off-load matériel and men from the German flotilla. It is the only way, given the limited facilities of all these harbors. The ships cannot come in close. They must have help in landing.”

Friend put in, “Once landed, the German force could be difficult to deal with, but in that period of transfer from ship to shore, they will be absolutely vulnerable.”

“The vulnerability, sir, occurs well before that.” Price touched the map again, fingering Galway. “It is the prior organization of shore support that will tell us where the German landing is to take place.” Price looked at Tyrrell. “It is a simple question of information, Captain. My sources are well placed in the cities of Ireland, but as you see, the cities are not relevant. It’s my contacts in the remote west which are limited, to say the least. That’s why we need you.”

“Me?” Douglas looked at once to Kitchener. “My lord, I’m to return to my company in France.”

Kitchener nodded. “If you choose to.”

Tyrrell’s statement had been automatic; his return to the Front was something he assumed. Whether to want to return or not simply hadn’t occurred to him. His place was with his men. But now he felt something new. Not returning to the Front meant not dying; Tyrrell was not immune to the pull of that.

Price faced the map once more. “Your home is here.” He placed his finger on the peninsula below Galway Bay. “Your father has long had ties with the Farm Cooperative movement, which has active groups here, here, here, here, and here.” The spots he touched took him right down to Kerry. “In civil life you were a barrister with practice here. Ennis. You are a west-of-Ireland man, Captain. The region would open itself to you like a book.”

Douglas stared at the map, at his home country, trying to untie the knot in his mind. It was impossible to imagine that his army service would bring him home. “I’m a west-of-Ireland man, sure enough, Major, but you’re wrong if you think Connaught will open itself to a British army officer no matter where he’s from. You mentioned my father. Even my father has reservations about my service.”

“I didn’t picture you going from pub to pub in your boots and Sam Browne, Captain.”

“What, then?”

“Something more discreet, I’d say.”

After a long silence in which the knot only tightened in him, Douglas said, “You’re asking me to spy on my own people.”

Kitchener coughed. “Not lightly, Captain. We do not ask it lightly.”

“My lord, I cannot do it. I simply cannot do it. It would be breaking faith with my family. My family, Lord Kitchener, has maintained the most fragile balance of loyalties. Don’t ask me to upset it. Serving against the Germans in defense of England is noble and I’m proud to be a part of it, but don’t ask me to serve against the Irish. Don’t ask me to return to my own country as a secret agent, with an eye on my neighbor or my father’s foreman.”

“Captain Tyrrell . . .” Kitchener looked down at his smooth hands. “I was born in Kerry. The west of Ireland owns my heart still, Captain. I know the balance of loyalties of which you speak. I would never put a man in this position if I had a choice.” He looked up sharply. “But there simply is no choice. The war against Germany has now moved to your home country. You can do more there than a thousand men like you can do at the Front.”

“I’m sorry, my lord, but—”

“Listen to me, Captain! We are talking about the defeat of England here! We are in danger of starving to death! Do you understand me? It is a question of food supply. The Germans have great fertile tracts of farmland in northern France and Poland. They have pressed two million Russian prisoners into slave labor growing corn. Their silos are overflowing. Grain from Rumania pours into Germany, while here in England we have barely more than one week’s stock of wheat. Do you hear? One week’s stock of wheat! If that stock is not replenished every day from the holds of merchant ships, then we starve. Never mind what happens at the Front or in Turkey. Never mind what the Russians do. Without merchant ships, England starves. England dies. And where do those merchant ships come from?” Kitchener swung around and pointed at the map. “Our fertile tracts of farmland are in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. They are in America. All of those ships must come to us across the North Atlantic, passing within sight practically of your home, of your county, of your neighbors, and of your father’s foreman. U-boats operating from Ireland will kill us in a matter of days.” He whipped around. “Do you hear me, Captain? Days!” Kitchener fell back against his chair. Kitchener wants you! His outburst had alarmed everyone in the room, but at last, Ireland had England’s full attention.

Douglas stared at the map. Who would have thought that remote Cragside would be the eye of such a storm? The war in France swirled about it. Nothing mattered, finally, but the war and winning it. Chastened, he said, “I understand, my lord. And of course I am prepared to do my part.”

“Good.” Kitchener looked over at Price, who remained by the map.

Major Price went on as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “This is the book of your opera. You have returned from an ordeal in a brutal German prison camp, Captain. It is quite to be expected that you should be sent home on leave. Your health is broken. You’ve had, as they say, a bad war. It will take you weeks or months to recover. In addition, you have seen with your own eyes evidence of the despicable policy by which English officers invariably send Irish troops out of the trenches into No Man’s Land before sending Englishmen—”

“The men grouse about that, Major, but it isn’t true.”

“Of course it isn’t true. But it’s what the Irish rabble-rousers say in their speeches against recruitment.”

Kitchener interrupted. “The thought of lending credence to such slander is anathema to us, particularly in the present climate. But this situation justifies it.”

Price nodded. “I’m telling you, Captain, what you will say to explain your disillusionment. You’ll say the Germans broke your health, but the English broke your spirit. You’re not prepared to support Germany, but you don’t believe in England either. Rather than return to service when your leave is up, you will resign your commission. Word of your position will spread. You will be increasingly accepted. Seditionists will become known to you. You will make them known to us.”

General Friend said, “At the appropriate time they will all be arrested under the Defense of the Realm Act and brought at once to England.”

Douglas was unable to imagine that such events involved him. His mind seized upon a detail, took refuge in it. He said, “But with conscription enacted, won’t such men already be in the army in any case?”

Kitchener snorted. “Conscription will never apply to Ireland, Captain.”

“But Carson—”

“Carson is a fool.”

“But on this, there’s a point. The army opens men to their basic feelings of loyalty to the King. I’ve seen it happen. Conscription would bind Ireland to the cause of England.”

Nathan said simply, “Most Irishmen won’t serve, Captain.”

“That’s not so, sir, with all respect. It isn’t service they object to. It’s the oath. The oath sticks in their throat. If you abolish the oath, they’d line up for you.”

Nathan took off his glasses and peered at Tyrrell. “Abolish the oath when the issue is loyalty? Do use a little common sense, Captain. One might as well strike the nots from the Ten Commandments.”

Douglas saw his mistake. Conscription wouldn’t apply to Ireland not because Irish citizens would protest, but because they could not be trusted in the ranks.

He was at a loss for what to say. His mind reached for other details, as if details were logs in the rushing current. He grabbed at them to keep from drowning. “Major Price,” he said.

Price crossed from the map to his chair and sat.

Douglas had to work to keep a stammer from his voice, as if he’d had too much to drink. “What you describe implies a period of time.”

“That’s right, Captain. You have several months in which to do this for us.”

“But how can you be sure?”

Price said nothing.

Admiral Hamilton looked at Kitchener, who nodded.

Hamilton said, “The combined invasion and insurrection is set for the Friday before Easter, April twenty-first.”

Douglas shook his head. “How could you possibly know that?”

Hamilton answered smoothly. “We know it from Berlin.” What he didn’t say was that the Admiralty was reading and breaking German radio traffic to Berlin. The date for the Rising had been settled on between Pearse, Devoy, and the German ambassador in Washington. It was the ambassador’s signal to Berlin the British intercepted. No one in the Irish Citizen Army or the Irish Volunteers or anyone outside the secret military council of the IRB knew that date. But the British did.

Price said, “That gives you more than five months. Regrettably, we cannot count on learning the details of the invasion plan from Berlin. Nor can we secure the entire coast of Ireland. That’s why we need you. We want to sweep the region you identify clear of seditionists the week before Easter.”

“Say Wednesday.” Nathan smiled. “What the Catholics call Spy Wednesday.” He could have been describing a bizarre Ashanti custom.

Douglas nodded slowly, aware of what all of this would mean. “In honor of Judas.”

It would have been the perfect last word, but they weren’t finished.

“There are two other points to cover.” Price opened the file in front of him and picked up another photograph. He tapped the table with it. “Bishop O’Dea of Galway . . .” He paused.

Nathan picked it up. “Bishop O’Dea is a nationalist, but he puts the Church first and Ireland second. He regards Ireland as the Pope’s back garden. At His Majesty’s behest, the Vatican has instructed him to oppose a German invasion and to forbid sympathy for it among members of his flock. He will cooperate with you, and his priests as well.”

Douglas said nothing, but the idea seemed naïve to him. West-of-Ireland priests didn’t take their cues from Bishop O’Dea when it came to hating England. In the silence his gaze drifted back to Price, who was still tapping the photograph on the table. Finally Douglas said, “And the second point, Major?”

Price simply slid the photo across the expanse of polished wood. Douglas reached for it. He knew the man in the picture at once. “Yes, that’s him,” he said.

“Who?” Price asked.

“The Irishman with Casement in Trier. He spoke to us after Casement did.” Douglas stared at the bearded face, the ill-kempt hair. He felt a constriction in his chest, wire around his heart, pulling tighter. He was trying to remember something else. Focused as he was on the photograph, he did not see the mystified look that Price, Nathan, and Hamilton exchanged.

Price said, “That’s not what I was going to say about him.”

Douglas slowly raised his eyes. He felt like the victim of an interrogation in which even the questions were secret. Was it that, if he guessed the answer, they’d let him go and none of this would have happened? “It isn’t?”

For once Price and the others seemed as confused as he himself felt. The map behind the board of officers shimmered, seemed to move toward him, the green land, the blue sea. Ireland, poor Ireland, adrift, lost. But then Douglas thought, Not Ireland, me. He had never been more perplexed in his life. Nothing made sense to him now, yet all that had gone before would seem as clear as Irish crystal, clear as the dawn after a night’s wet fog, compared to what Price told him next.

“I was going to say, Captain, that he is a close associate of Patrick Pearse and as such he could be of use to you. I didn’t know about Trier.”

“But Trier is my only . . .” Douglas stopped and looked from man to man. Each knew the answer already; then why not simply say it? “Apart from Trier . . .” He looked down at the photograph again. Something told him to imagine that face without its beard, without the crop of hair. “. . . what has he to do with me?”

He knew before Price said it. Hyde Park. How for that first instant Jane had clung to the man’s arm, an act of absolute dependency.

“His name is Curry,” Price said flatly. “And he’s your sister’s lover.”