Redemption - Leon Uris [133]
The bedrock rule of Conor’s elite squads was not of things particularly appreciated in the Irish psyche: discipline, patience, silence, physical readiness, and moderation.
The loyalty of Conor’s men to him made the Supreme Council nervous. There was constant grumbling over Conor’s secrecy and fears that he was forming a personal army.
Louis, Atty, Dan, and I knew that Conor had no aspirations for personal power and so long as Dan Sweeney supported Conor there was little the Council could do, but the old man was slowing down and wearing out. So, the brilliant minds on the Council came up with a highly suspect tactic. With Dan’s approval, they voted for Conor to succeed Dan as chief of staff. This move would compel Conor to have Council approval on his plans.
Like the great Caesar himself, Conor rejected the throne with the terse message, “An underground army is not a democratic institution and that goes double for an Irish underground army. If you can’t live with that, fire me.”
Conor’s answer was very clear indeed.
However, that grand old war that England was going to engage in on the European continent was about to erupt, and this brought on a whole new set of circumstances.
Should the Brotherhood declare Irish independence in the event of war? Should the Brotherhood’s elite units become operational? Would the Irish public look kindly on the Brotherhood’s attacking the Crown while tens of thousands of Irish lads served in the British Army?
The Irish Party under John Redmond caved in in the mother of Parliaments, pledging Irish loyalty in any coming war and taking the Home Rule Bill off the table till such a war ended. It was repugnant to even the most simple-minded Irishman, the last hurrah of a party that had begun with such promise under the late Charles Stewart Parnell.
The Sinn Fein Party—“Ourselves Alone”—swiftly moved into the political vacuum created by the vanishing Irish Party.
As for Ulster, they had made themselves immovable on all matters. In a blood-curdling crescendo, the Protestants took an oath of covenant, swearing to fight to the last drop to keep Ulster British.
Back to the matter of naming Conor Larkin as chief of staff designate. It was apparent even to me, Conor’s most ardent supporter, that the Brotherhood could not go north and south at the same time. I understood Conor’s ethereal moods and his drifting off into his own universe better than anyone. He had established himself as a loner from the time we were lads up in the heather above Ballyutogue.
Before the British ambush at Sixmilecross, Conor had acted largely on his own in setting up the gunrunning scheme on the Red Hand engine.
After the ambush, he defied Brotherhood orders to enter a guilty plea.
From the moment Conor returned to Ireland after his escape, I realize, he had thought his way through the ideological swamps and had come up with his own plan of what was possible. He must have realized that he could not accomplish what he had planned under the burden of being chief of staff. Indeed, were there deeper and more dire reasons why he refused the Brotherhood’s command? Perhaps it was something very simple…that Conor had never given an order to have an informer kneecapped or executed. Part of him was still a poet, a gentle man. Did he lack the needed sense of “killer,” and did he realize it?
I caught up with Conor at the hideaway over Sam Grady’s Monument Works in Cork. I locked us in with a couple of bottles and a view down to the latest tombstones awaiting delivery from Sam’s yard. He knew what I was up to and I knew he knew, so we slid into it gingerly.
“The organization can’t keep going like it is.”
“It can and it will,” Conor said.
“I know your opinion of the Council but can you blame them for fearing a one-man rule?”
“So long as Dan Sweeney knows every move I make and approves it, the Council should be satisfied. The more they know about clandestine plans, the more vulnerable those plans become. We’ve a long and tormented history of