Redemption - Leon Uris [97]
Conor’s forge inside Weed Ship &Iron became a source of a great deal of information for the Brotherhood, most of it distressing. It appeared as though Weed and the Orange crowd were able to smuggle in a hundred guns for every one the Brotherhood managed. Moreover, regular British officers were training the Ulster Volunteers, while the government turned a blind eye.
Although it was a comfortable period, Long Dan Sweeney had an itch that would not go away. A standoff bitterness had set in between him and Conor, who now seemed to be in a permanent state of melancholy.
Dan knew that Conor no longer saw the Shelley MacLeod girl and wondered if and why a man’s love could bite so deeply. To Dan, nothing reached the innards except the movement. A blip of pain, certainly. But not a republican of Larkin’s stature, groomed by grandfather and great-grandfather. Yes, there were fools who went down, but Conor Larkin was no fool. Why the hell couldn’t he shake it!
Dan encouraged more visits north by Seamus O’Neill, who was Conor’s only confidant. Each time Seamus returned from Belfast it was with the same general report.
“Your pal, Larkin, seems to have contracted an abiding case of the red ass,” Dan growled at Seamus in a hideaway south of Dublin in the Wicklow foothills. “I don’t look forward to seeing him up in Belfast anymore.”
“I’ll tell him you need to be treated with the respect due one’s commander—you know, Dan, like you were a British Colonel in the Sudan.”
“Something’s gone wrong with him. He used to make me break up laughing.”
“Ask him, then.”
“Hell, I know why. He busted up with that girl. They came back from England separately. He’s been in a dire mood ever since, isn’t that right, Seamus? That’s what it is, isn’t it?”
“I don’t rat on my pal.”
“There are no secrets from me,” Dan demanded.
Seamus shrugged and poured tea. “Jaysus, Dan, you’d be real easy to find. All you have to do is pick up your trail of dirty teacups. Just because you’re a revolutionary doesn’t mean you can’t wash your teacups. You’ve dirty teacups in every hideaway house you’ve been in.”.
Dan calmed down before his unbowed soldier. “You see, lad, I went and made a basic mistake with Larkin. I let sentiment cloud my judgment. I have developed an unmistakable affection for the man, and that is a mistake. Once I developed a great affection for a man, Richie Leary. Turned out to be an informer. I had to shoot him myself, both kneecaps. Not that anything like that will ever happen with Conor…it’s just that you can’t develop an affection.”
“Sometimes you can’t help it, can you, Dan?”
“Forget the fucking personality involvement. I need Conor Larkin, and you are going to need him when I’m gone. I see him as our future chief of staff. We can’t have this vinegar between us.”
“He broke up with this woman when they were in Blackpool,” Seamus said.
“He almost didn’t come back to Ireland, isn’t that right, Seamus? I know how a man behaves after he’s made plans to make a run for it.”
“He came back, didn’t he?”
“Half of him came back. I need all of him.”
“It isn’t always that easy. So, you figure it out. Conor’s got a broken heart.”
“I’d figured it out thirty years ago, Seamus. The movement is always a swim upstream against treacherous currents, without ever reaching your destination. Too swift to drag someone along with you…it will pull you both under. I’ve seen a hundred smart lads think they could handle both the Brotherhood and a life outside it. I warned him of that, Seamus. Christ, she’s not even a Catholic girl. She hasn’t a drop of the movement in her blood. She’s from the Shankill and her old man and brother are drum-thumping Orangemen. Damnit, Seamus, I gave him a choice to leave the Brotherhood in peace. It was him who chose to stay.”
Long Dan was reminiscing sharply. It was a hundred Conors and Shelleys. Maybe a hundred and one. “Conor playing something