Redemption - Leon Uris [75]
“You really need the time in Lough Clara,” she said. “If the trial goes long we’ll just pull the children out of school and bring a tutor with us.”
“That might be a little difficult for Emma,” Des said. “She’s just getting her teeth into school.”
“It’s never been a problem in the past,” Atty answered. “Theo and Rachael are the smartest kids in Dublin.”
Des looked at the bundle of briefs confronting him.
Atty looked grim.
“What’s up?” he asked directly.
“I saw Seamus O’Neill today,” she said.
“How’s his play coming?”
“It wasn’t about the play.”
“So is it you, not me, reneging on Lough Clara?”
“Damn you, Des, let me work up to it in my own way.” His undivided attention had been attained.
“Des, would it be dreadful if you took the kids with a nanny and tutor? Maybe I can join you for a long weekend.”
“I don’t like it and the children won’t like it.”
“Obviously, I don’t like it, either. There is something here in Dublin that has to have a decision.”
“Aye?”
“Seamus O’Neill has become the personal liaison of Arthur Griffith on some supersensitive Sinn Fein matters.”
“Isn’t Arthur speaking to his friends anymore?”
“On certain particular matters, he feels that a liaison would be a better procedure.”
Des smelled it immediately. “The Irish Republican Brotherhood, perchance?”
“Yes, the IRB.”
“So it’s true that Long Dan Sweeney is back in Ireland?”
“Yes. Obviously Arthur and Sinn Fein cannot be openly involved with an illegal organization, but he must have day-to-day contact with them.”
Des understood full well.
“Sinn Fein and the Brotherhood must coordinate basic policy very quietly. Seamus O’Neill is on the Brotherhood’s Supreme Council. He will be the go-between between Arthur and Dan Sweeney.”
Des knew where Atty was taking this and he was leery. As the Brotherhood went into business, the inner circle had to be tight…reliable…ultra-careful or they would be squashed by the British before they got their feet wet.
“The Brotherhood feels it learned a lot from the Boer tactics and that a new kind of urban warfare can be devised so that a few dozen well-placed men can force the Brits to tie up hundreds, if not thousands of troops.”
“Shyte, Atty, that’s republican barroom bravado.”
“Dan Sweeney says that a city has too many vulnerable sites unless they’re heavily guarded…docks, government buildings, electric stations, bridges…and mostly, his squads have a hundred and one homes to ditch their weapons and hide in.”
“How much of the population will support this?”
“Enough.”
“Well, if anyone can bring it off, Sweeney is the man.”
“I believe so, too,” Atty said. “With the momentum the revival is building up in the courts, through Sinn Fein, by well-trained lads coming out of the Boer War, the Brotherhood can advance its own timetable.”
“Now, you’re off. Where are the IRB going to find weapons? Where will men be trained?”
“Lord Louis,” she said, referring to an eccentric aristocrat of republican leanings, “has opened part of his barony for training. As you know, it’s so deeply hidden in the bens of Connemara that the wind has trouble finding its way in and out.”
“Well, I’ll be damned, I thought Louis de Lacy was no more than a salon dilettante.”
“Des, there are two thousand misplaced Boer War rifles ditched in a coal mine near Bradford. Sweeney is formulating a plan to get them to Ireland.”
“Mother of God. Are you joshing me, Atty?”
“Two thousand rifles from the Boer War, picked clean.”
“Care to tell me what Messrs. Sweeney, O’Neill, and Griffith have in mind for my child bride?”
“Both Arthur and Long Dan want me to join the Brotherhood as a member of the Supreme Council.”
“Well, now, this calls for a drink.”
Des’s mind hummed. Ultimately there would have to be warfare against the British. Long Dan Sweeney was certainly the man to put the Brotherhood back on its feet. Arthur Griffith had