Redemption - Leon Uris [136]
A drink, that’s the ticket. I started to get into the flow of what I was hearing. You see, that’s what you have to like about Conor. He was speaking in terms of what could be done in reality.
“Now then,” Conor continued, “they’ve put the rising down, but a lot of Irish people are pissed about it who didn’t give a damn before the rising, and a lot of Irish soldiers in British uniform will start to thinking about a free Ireland. Then, we spring the trap.”
“What trap? They’ve put us down,” I said.
“The Sinn Fein trap,” Conor said. “We get elections. The Irish Party gets its burial from the Irish people and Sinn Fein represents us…and…”
“And,” I whispered, “Arthur Griffith forms a provisional government.”
Conor smiled and winked at me.
I think I repeated the name of our Savior twenty times, and his fine mother another twenty. He had smelled the rhythm of history itself. He knew that Irish people could be outraged in this manner. But his plan was filled with blood…our blood. I feared the asking, but I managed. “What will the British do even if we have declared independence and have a provisional government? You know we can never beat them on the battlefield.”
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Conor said.
“So you have.”
“Aye. How does a small native force deal with a large foreign army throughout history? First, we win the people over so that every house in the land is a hideaway and every pair of eyes is spying for us. In the countryside we ambush their convoys and disappear into the landscape. We splatter out rail bridges and power stations. We assassinate their constabulary in the villages and towns. This will force them into their barracks and we will own the countryside. Lock their soldiers in so they are no longer free to dance with our lassies at the Saturday ceilidhi. Keep them looking over their shoulders.”
“Can that happen?”
“Once the ship of freedom sets sail, it cannot be deterred. Too many new leaders will emerge from the ranks, too many people willing to follow them. And in the cities we will destroy their infrastructure by hit-and-run raids on their vital installations and force them to tie up thousands of troops to guard them.”
“Conor, the British are not going to stand by and let this happen.”
“Yes,” he agreed excitedly, “they will be faced with two distinct choices. They will come to the conference table…”
“Or?”
“Or start to burn Ireland to the ground, and the more they burn, the angrier the Irish people will become.”
“But who will come to save us, Conor?”
“No one, Seamus, it’s Sinn Fein, Ourselves Alone.”
“You and I have always feared the resolve of the Irish people.”
“Aye,” he said, “and it’s going to be sorely tested. But when in all of man’s history has freedom been handed to a people as a present? The Irish will deserve their freedom if they are willing to bleed and sacrifice for it. We have to crave our freedom more than the other fellow wants to keep us in his fist.”
Stop! Stop, Conor, stop! My head is dinnlin’. Was this the ultimate fantasy, the grandiose theory of a man who had spent too much time pondering alone, or had he captured the crest of a movement on Gaelic wings that had been swelling to this crescendo since before the turn of the century?
He made remarkable sense. Something had to give in Ireland. The republican Sinn Fein had already rushed in to fill the political vacuum being left by the failing Irish Party. The Brotherhood did have an operational capacity.
Conor spoke common sense. He spoke of attainable goals. I realized that he had already picked out the target for the first big strike, and I knew what it was.
“Now, just what is it that we’re going to take out in this big old raid we’re going to make?”
“We aren’t going to raid anything. You are not invited. That is a definite absolute.”
“Don’t make me sneak in through the back door,” I said.
“You