Redemption - Leon Uris [292]
He was also a lifelong crony of Roger Hubble. Brodhead used his military command at Camp Bushy in Ireland to covertly support gunrunning to the Ulster militia; he even sent his officers to train them. In fact, the Earl’s youngest son, Christopher Hubble, had been used in a gunrunning venture from Germany, no less!
Shortly before the war, Protestant Ulster was so cocky it openly flaunted its military prowess and illegal activities. It came to a point where the English government felt compelled to order the troops up from Camp Bushy to occupy Ulster and declare martial law.
The Bushy commander, Llewelyn Brodhead, organized a document in which all the officers of his command refused to move on Ulster and offered their resignations.
He forced the British government, Churchill included, to back down. With a European war on the horizon, the Army warned that more than a third of its entire officer corps stood to resign in sympathy with Brodhead.
It was a blackmail that Churchill, for one, never forgot.
Brodhead was subsequently promoted and, along with Churchill, joined together as architects of the disaster at Gallipoli. It is to be noted he did not like the expedition from the onset but once given the Anzac Corps to command, carried on like the good soldier he was.
General Sir Llewelyn Brodhead’s judgment in battle proved deplorable. Although the ax fell on many high-ranking officers, Brodhead merely suffered humiliation. He managed to save himself from dismissal by giving some highly questionable testimony at the initial inquiries.
Nevertheless, he was denied a field command in France, which could only be considered a disgrace, a sort of left-handed slap on the wrist.
Brodhead’s sudden assignment to Ireland on the heels of the Rising was looked upon as a chance to redeem himself in the eyes of the War Office and the General Staff. With carte blanche to keep the Irish under control at any cost, the General was suddenly in his divine element.
After being shut out of all information, it was a relief for me finally to be summoned to Dublin Castle. Perhaps I could get a fix on what they intended to do with over two thousand Irishmen rounded up and stashed away. Some had been fighters in the Rising. Others were citizens simply swept up without arrest warrants and held without charges or legal counsel.
“So you are the son of Desmond and Atty Fitzpatrick?”
I owned up to my tainted parentage. I’ve seen those dull blue eyes spelling hatred before from many a bench, from many peacocks wearing Sam Browne belts, from more than one lady at a garden tea. Llewelyn Brodhead’s hatred burned through the centuries, burned through my jacket and flushed my skin. I must not be lured into an argument I could not possibly win. The best I could hope for was to fence around a little bit, hoping he was playing like a cat with a cornered, wounded mouse, to enable me to glean some kind of information.
“Well, you’ve bagged the lot of us,” I said. “Am I to get an inkling of our status?”
Oh, that wicked little slash-mouthed smile! He folded his hands and kept looking, penetrating me until I had to look away rather than get into a staring contest.
“I am administering martial law. All prisoners are barred from access to the British legal system.”
“What are your intentions, sir?”
Oh God, he smiled again. “We have already held secret court-martials. We have sentenced ninety-six perpetrators of this so-called Rising to death. The rest are being held as prisoners of war.”
I nearly passed out, pleasuring Brodhead with my perspiration and dizziness.
“Where? On what charges?” I managed to ask.
“We have endless laws on the books dating back for a century to take care of the Irish and sedition and treason.”
“But they must have a chance to defend themselves.”
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me, Fitzpatrick, they have been tried and sentenced to death.”
“Ninety-six people tried and given death sentences in a week? It is a sham, General Brodhead, this prisoner-of-war status. Does that not,