Redemption - Leon Uris [338]
Winston, thrown totally off balance, reddened.
“My sons’ deaths were a direct result of his incompetence and sheer panic—right or wrong, Winston?”
“For God’s sake, Caroline!”
“You owe me two, said Aladdin to the genie, yes or no? You owe me two, and I’m collecting if either one of us is ever to have a decent night’s sleep again.”
“Llewelyn Brodhead lied at the inquiry. The Nek was butchery. He should have evacuated Chunuk Bair seven hours earlier and he would not have evacuated at all if Colonel Malone had not disobeyed orders. Anything else before I am granted my leave?” he asked.
“We’re about halfway there, Winston.”
“What is your point! I demand to know your point!”
“Brodhead mutinied on the eve of war, threatening the Crown with losing half its officer corps. He helped us win world denunciation in the Boer War. How would you rate him as a British general?”
“I shall not now or ever denounce the magnificent role England has played in world civilization. This little people of ours has been the light of mankind for centuries, opening a world to trade, to the instillation of a culture and system of justice and government second to none. We have done for the world many times over what the world has not been able to do for itself. When one is burdened with such an enterprise, mistakes are made. In the producing of men to hold and enshrine our noble works, yes, there are going to be foul mutations. The system is so large and so powerful, incapable men suddenly find themselves in mighty positions because of war. Llewelyn Brodhead is a beastly mistake.”
“And you shouldn’t have sent him to Ireland?”
“No.”
“And you can’t recall him.”
“No.”
“You still owe me one, Winston. Yes or no?”
“Caroline…”
“You owe me one. Yes or no?”
She was tenacious and had him boxed in, cleverly. He dreaded what that debt was going to be.
“I owe you one,” he said, “but I am not certain if I am prepared to pay the debt off now.”
“Are we sworn to secrecy?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“I killed Llewelyn Brodhead.”
No further conversation was possible until a bit of whiskey opened the passages.
“I lured him to his death in the most ancient of ways and I shot him. My confederates removed his body and dispensed with it and his vehicle in such a manner he may never be found.”
“Your confederates?”
“The Irish Republican Brotherhood. Well, Winston, is it the Tower of London or are you going to pay me the one you owe me?”
“This is dreadful!”
“Let me put it this way, Winston. I am at peace with the assurance that God will dispense me better justice than England has the Irish. Llewelyn Brodhead was going to make a Gallipoli out of Ireland.”
This was a battlefield kind of decision he was required to make, a fast and smart one. England would be shaken, half to the ground, over a scandal like this. The well of sympathy for Caroline Hubble could conquer the bloody world! Mere word of the assassination would create the kind of furor that would bring Ireland to the peace table.
But what of the other parts of it? Is it a greater evil to destroy a known evil? Oh my dear Winston…he told himself…how many foul deeds had he buried for the sake of England? He, himself, had ordered assassinations. That, too, was part of the business of running a government. Just another secret in a lifetime that would gather many more.
And the final part of it. He had adored this woman since childhood. She was worth a hundred Llewelyn Brodheads. She had to do this to stop her own dark and depressed descent to death. Maybe, just maybe, he too would lose his own nightmares of Gallipoli.
“I am prepared to settle our account,” he said.
“No one knows that I have contacted you on this. It is our secret to the death.”
He nodded.
“I blundered my assassination attempt, wounding him badly. He still had enough left to come after me with his pistol. A young British officer, secretly in the Brotherhood, saved my life and in doing so was grievously wounded.”
“Please go on.”
“This young man, Lieutenant