APRIL 25, 1916
10/11 SACKVILLE STREET LOWER
DUBLIN, IRELAND
0800 HOURS
Issy stared down the barrel of a rifle.
The one Honor had raised over a dead man’s body—his head and shoulders buried in her lap—and pointed straight at her. Step by step, with hands raised, slow and steady Issy walked, praying a bullet wouldn’t find her as she crossed Abbey Street.
“Honor . . .”
Her friend lowered the rifle a hair.
The brim of Issy’s hat cast a shadow, but if she could present a familiar face coming forward, she only needed to be feet away and Honor would surely recognize her.
“It’s me, Honor. It’s Issy.” She slowly removed her hat, hair tumbling down over her shoulders. She pushed it back from her face as rain fell around them.
“Issy?” Honor lowered the rifle and broke, sobbing over her uncle’s body. Issy ran the rest of the way, then ducked down on her knees behind the stacks of crates with them.
So much blood. And whiskey. And rain pouring down to add more torment.
“Are you hurt?”
“No . . .” A cry and a barely recognizable voice collided as they tumbled from Honor’s lips. “But . . . ’Tis Uncle Aonghus.” Honor pressed her hand to a wound in his chest, though it looked as if it were no longer bleeding. Who knew how long she’d sat there, beloved uncle in her lap, with gunshot to the chest and she pinned down on a street corner as bullets whizzed by.
“Oh, Honor . . .”
“I was tryin’ to get Uncle to come back in. But wit’ the fires comin’ closer to Abbey an’ knowin’ looters would hit Clerys on the next block, he thought he could defend our corner.”
Forgetting that she’d never seen a dead body until that day, and in the span of about a minute had jumped over one and was agonizingly close to the bloody remains of a second, Issy reached over to ease Honor’s palms from twisting in the front of his shirt. “He’s gone. Do you understand me?”
Honor stared back, crying but numb at the same time, with black soot and tears making tracks down her face. Her skirt and belly were a tragic sight, all streaked crimson and wetted down with the pungent aroma of whiskey and rain.
“We have to get you out of here.”
“No! He only came out to fend off the fires. An’ hold back the looters. We hadn’t used these crates yet . . . How could he know the bullets would come straight through?”
Issy picked up the rifle, slung it over her shoulder. And with hands gentle as could be, she swept trembling fingertips over Honor’s. “Let go? Please . . . Honor.” She drew bloodied palms away. “I will make sure he’s brought inside. But first I need to get you and the baby to safety, alright?”
“I can’ leave the pub—we have fires at Foley’s. Ragin’ in the back at Marlborough Street. If they hit the alcohol stores, we’re through.”
“For right now, I will get you over to the GPO. We can cross safely.”
Honor tensed, hands tangling back at the collar of her uncle’s shirt, signaling Issy to backtrack. Choose words that calmed—anything to get them out of the street.
“Listen to me. Where is your aunt?”
“In the back. She’s beatin’ the fires . . . wit’ tablecloths.”
“You both can shelter at the GPO. Right across the street, remember? I have friends over there. They’ll see you safely inside and look after you until I return. And we will send Volunteers over to fight the fire. You will not lose Jack Foley’s.”
Honor came alive then, hands squeezing Issy’s shoulders as if they both were about to fall off a cliff. “Where are ye goin’? Ye cannot leave!”
“I’ve something to do, but I’m going to fetch Rory for you,” Issy vowed, will as ironclad as ever.
It had better be more than a sniper shot trying to take her down, for Issy felt nothing but grit rise in her middle as she stared into the depths of her friend’s eyes. “Do you hear me? I will send Rory back to you. I promise.”
The reply was a nod—a pitiful tip of the head that signaled exhaustion and shock were fast taking over Honor’s limbs.
She couldn’t run. Not as she was.
Issy looked around, seeing the edges of the barricade, knowing rifles were held up by men behind it. Surely the Volunteers were still watching. It had felt like a lifetime, but only seconds . . . mere moments could have ticked by. The Irish Volunteers around the GPO would have watched for her in order to provide cover fire down to the bridge. Or at the very least, they’d have watched for Issy to take a hit and her body to fall. Nevertheless, they’d have a keen eye when she popped back up.
She stood, calling out to the men in the street, waving them over.
Two of them ran, one in street clothes of shirt, coat, and holein-the-knee trousers, and the other in an ICA uniform like Rory had worn. Their feet swift, help was upon the corner of Abbey Street within seconds.
“Go, miss.” The uniformed one’s eyes bore a stalwart urge for her to hurry. “Ye have a dispatch, an’ that’s more important than the rest o’ us. We’ll see her safe.”
Issy backed up a step as the men took charge. The street clothes chap shed his own coat, put it over Honor’s shoulders. Had he seen her condition, Issy didn’t know, but he helped her stand.
“What are ye doin?” the uniform spat at Issy, patience wearing thin as he supported Honor’s elbow. “We have her. Now go!”
“Right.” Issy nodded, breathless as she searched for the quickest words of explanation. “Of course. This man was the owner of Jack Foley’s. His wife is battling the fires in back of the pub, on Marlborough Street. You’ll have to bring her over too—notify Winnie. And here.” Issy swung the rifle over her shoulder and offered it to the uniformed man, then began the hasty business of tucking her hair back up in her cap. “I can’t take it where I’m going. It’ll only mark me.”
He took the rifle and whisked Honor away, supporting her at the elbows as they ran through the rain, and Issy was alone again.
Alone, with guns and foxes hiding in urban holes all along the street, Issy ran the block down to the Dublin Bread Co. on Eden Quay—the open-air street along the River Liffey. Barricades were set up there too: stretching in front of the O’Connell statue, a mismatched defense of wagons and barrels and toppled furniture, across Sackville to the five-story brick M. Kelly & Son fishing tackle manufacturers on the opposite side.
Though the rebels owned a stronghold on Sackville all the way to the GPO office, it was start-and-stop, heart in her throat as she listened to bullets ping and whiz all the way across O’Connell Bridge. Issy hunched, sprinting until her lungs burned. Until the sound of gunfire became as common as the buzzing of a bee in summer.
Shocking though it was, few citizens were still about.
Broken shop windows were evidence of looting down Westmoreland through to Grafton Street, as if it were a free shopping day and the city was not under siege. Shut-up shop doors didn’t matter; looters had gone through the windows. Knowles & Sons Florists in the heart of busy Grafton had suffered shattered windows, bricks lying about and flowers strewn with trampled petals, as if roses and violets had been laid to carpet the sidewalk.
Ignoring the height of unrest, Issy urged her feet to keep moving. To take one step after the other. To not look memorable or important in any way and pass by unscathed. It wasn’t until she neared the end of Grafton Street and beheld the once-beautiful Victorian-era St. Stephen’s Green park that her heart sank to her shoes.
Earth was mounded around the entrance at Fusilier’s Arch. Trenches had been dug along the iron fencing, and torn-up grass and mud mixed with rain on the sidewalks. The unmistakable hammer of machine gun fire rocketed through the streets—Winnie’s claim that the English had taken over The Shelborne on the park’s south side had to be true. By the sound of it, they were firing bullets down on the rebels like raindrops from the clouds.
As she slowed up on the street corner, Issy’s worst fears were confirmed: The rebels were in an active state of retreat.
Men and fighting women, with guns drawn—some muscling pallets of the wounded and dying, others carrying buckets and arms over the littered street—were, in heartbreaking fashion, fleeing the Green. Issy hovered in the doorway of a shopfront, watching, not even realizing where she was until she saw the last half of the lettering for the Brook Camera Studio on a busted plateglass window, the sorry remains of a shop she’d frequented.
Smoke continued to rise as rebels ran supplies across the street.
What did it matter if Issy was spotted with her camera out now? Arrest would have been a kindness over taking a sniper’s bullet, and either could befall her.
The Kodak lay safe in its case, resting against the small of her back. She reached for it and unsnapped the latch, hands expert and fingertips ready to capture what the world might never see again. She attached the shutter and adjusted the lens—pulling, turning, finding the perfect angle of trench and park and rebels in the street . . .
Click.
A quick wind of the film meant photo four was captured.
“Issy Byrne!”
She’d just turned ’round to check for dry film boxes in the window display when a voice careened over the cadence of gunfire.
A body tackled her, shielding her from the noise and the bullet hits in brick and glass over their heads as they tumbled to the ground. Tiny splinters of glass cut into her knees through her trousers and the skin of her wrists as Issy went down, cradling the camera against damage.
Arms came around her, shoulders covering as more glass and chunks of brick rained down. Her breathing caught up in her throat as she looked up—his profile so familiar.
“I swear to the Almighty.” Levi scanned over the top of her head to the road. “Either ye or that camera are goin’ to be the death o’ someone. An’ I sure hope ’tis not goin’ to be either one o’ us. Are ye hurt?”
Issy checked herself over. She bled at the wrist from a cut that made her arm burn like fire but was otherwise rendered whole. Levi appeared so too, covered in mud and rain dirtying his shoulders down to the puttees of his ICA uniform, but no worse for wear. And alive, when bullets could have taken their heads off.
“I’m not hurt,” she breathed out, dusting glass and brick from her front. She blew on the camera lens, clearing it of dust. “And blessed be, the camera isn’t either.”
“I don’ care about that contraption right now. I’d almost wish it would meet its end iffen it would stop ye from this madness. What are ye doin’ out here—besides tryin’ to tempt St. Peter to escort ye through the holy gates?”
“I have an official dispatch,” she blurted, breathless and relieved to see him at once. “For Major Mallin and the countess . . . From Connolly at the GPO.”
Something twinkled in his eye. “Yer runnin’ dispatch for the rebs?”
“It seems I am. I don’t really do things in a halfway manner. That includes joining ranks in uprisings. But I have urgent news. Sackville’s under siege. The English haven’t broken the line yet, but fires are already tearing through around the GPO.” She paused, drinking in precious breaths before continuing. “Honor’s uncle . . . He’s dead. And I need to find Rory to tell him. Is he here?”
“Aye. He’s here.” Levi nodded, lifting her to standing. “Can ye run?”
“Faster than you.”
“Right then. Down to the Royal College of Surgeons building. I’ll be on yer heels so keep runnin’ no matter what.”
Leading out into the fray, Issy held the Kodak still against her chest as they hurried the block down to the haven of the white, multistory, massive-columned building. She looked back—just once—to boxes of film strewn on the sidewalk. Like too many souls in Dublin, they’d been scattered . . . ruined . . . trampled over by bullets and rain.
Inside was no less chaotic.
Rebels muscled furniture up to block the windows, as more ran in through the front doors—muddied, carrying wounded comrades by an arm slung over their shoulder. It was blood and dirt and agony at first glance. Issy breathed in deep, willing her hands to refrain from shaking and giving away the effect such wanton violence had upon her.
Through the bustle of loading rifles and moving supplies and wounded in through the front doors, she spotted Michael Mallin—the leader Sean had dubbed as owning an impressive mustache that night at the Abbey Theatre. He was bent over a desk, unrolling what looked to be city maps, and pointing out orders to men gathered around. Countess Markievicz was there too. She’d donned an ICA jacket and trousers with military-issue puttees wrapped up both calves and a revolver tucked in her belt. The faint traces of bloodstains were smudged on her hands and face as she gave opinion on the map.
Issy reached for the button on the front of her jacket and was met with burning that radiated down her right arm when she tried to retrieve the dispatch.
A chair that had been lost and lonely, overturned in the hall, became her sanctuary. She righted it and fell upon the seat, with hands shaking and a haze of exhaustion compelling her to lay her head back against the wall as if it were the most inviting pillow.
“She’s here,” someone remarked.
Voices surrounded her. She felt a hand patting her face and cracked her eyelids, wishing they’d leave her alone.
“Issy?”
Rory was there, kneeling over her, tugging her jacket off.
“I have a dispatch . . .” She tried to remove the paper again, feeling a weight holding her arm down. “It’s in the pocket.”
“Oh no you don’t.” Rory ripped her shirtsleeve up to the shoulder. “We’ll worry about all that later. You sit tight. I’ve got to get this bleeding stopped.”
“Bleeding?”
“Levi? The dispatch for the major is in the front pocket,” he yelled, tossing her jacket out of sight. “I need bandages—now! And get a nurse over here! This is my sister.”
“Rory . . . There’s fire at Foley’s pub. Honor’s there . . .” She swallowed hard, her mouth feeling chalky. Why was she so tired? “I told her I’d bring you back. To the GPO. She . . . needs you.”
Someone tried to steal the camera from her hands and Issy fought against it, snapping the Kodak tight against her chest.
“It’s all right, Issy,” he whispered, a strange combination of pride and concern in his voice. “You did well today. We got the dispatch to the major. So let me take it from here? I need to see to this first.”
“See to what? We have to go.”
“Yer not goin’ anywhere, Issy.” Levi reappeared, kneeling at her side. “Ye’ve been shot.”