Redemption - Leon Uris [337]
His eyes chilled on her.
“I adore you for accepting the role of scapegoat with grace and dignity. You have never pointed the finger at anyone else. You have heard lies and cover-ups of the generals and admirals and kept your silence. You alone, Winston, have been humiliated. Most of it was due to the incompetent generalship of men you had no power to control. You had the War Council and the nation behind you in the beginning. They all deserted when things went wrong. I know you’ve suffered for me and my loss. I like your stuff, Winston.”
“I am most humbled by your words, Caroline.”
“I am aware that Asquith is quietly bringing you in as a consultant to him on the Irish situation.”
“You know correctly, as usual.”
“May I speak to you from here on out as an Irishwoman.”
Winston Churchill was stunned.
“The executions in Dublin are fast becoming one of the great political blunders in the history of the British nation. It has fingered England for acts of terror and injustice. This blunder has ennobled the Irish cause and through it you have done what the Irish were incapable of doing by themselves. You have united them.”
Well, that was the damned truth if it was ever spoken.
“Anglos always loved it in Ireland, but now, man, you’re going to get voted out.”
Churchill drew on the comfort of a cigar, but her eyes went right through the smoke.
“Casement, though legally tried and executed, was the worst miscarriage of justice in our times. By hanging a great humanitarian, you not only spat on the Irish people, but you have told future generations they have no legitimate aspirations. You have said, as never before, ‘We British think you Irish are pigs.’”
He started to speak out, but she banged her fist on the desk, un-Caroline-like.
“You have a problem,” she continued. “In two years the Irish people will vote in a party to recognize the provisional government of the Easter Rising and pull out of the British Parliament. You have two thousand Irish prisoners of war in Fronach in Wales. You have eighty people under death penalty who say they are Irish citizens and not British. Well, what will you give them, Winston? The right to become British again?”
“When we do have women’s suffrage and you win your seat in Westminster, Caroline, I suggest you will be the most troublesome backbencher in our history.”
“You’re frightened half to death to have the Irish at the peace table because when they win a measure of freedom, it will go off like a chain reaction throughout the Empire.”
Churchill’s affectionate regard for this woman was equal to his respect for her as a skilled adversary.
“I have heard very little from you that I would disagree with. Of course, I’d only agree in private. I’d deny it in public,” he said.
“Asquith wants the Irish on the back burner until he gets his peace treaty. Then you can deal with the colony. You know that once you get them at the conference table, you’ll negotiate them out of their socks and underwear.”
“Well, thank God I won’t have you to face across the table, Madam Countess.”
“In Ulster we’ll end up being British. The rest of Ireland will become something like the Belgian Congo Free State.”
“Not all that bad, Caroline. You have very well established your foundation for something. Now, what is it?”
“Knowing that some measure of Irish freedom is inevitable, why the hell did you and Asquith send Llewelyn Brodhead over with a scorched earth policy?”
“The Easter Rising was a bolt from the blue. We knew we had to clamp a lid on until we were ready. We feel now that Brodhead was the wrong man to send, but once sent, it would be too much of a loss of face to recall him. Speaking of the devil, he hasn’t reported to the Castle for several days. He’s overdue from a fishing retreat.”
Caroline had won stage one.
“Brodhead or no, there will be no more executions at this time.”
“Brodhead blundered