Death and the Jubilee

19

‘Will you go and see your old home, Francis?’ Lady Lucy’s voice came back to him as he stirred from an uneasy sleep at half-past eleven in the morning. Even in Ireland, he reflected bitterly, they wouldn’t serve breakfast at this hour. Lucy and Powerscourt had been drinking tea at home when he told her of this expedition to his native country. He had smiled at her. He had always meant to bring Lucy to Ireland on one of those Journeys to the Unknown as he referred to them. Once he had gone as far as to book the tickets. But he never had. Perhaps he was superstitious about taking a second wife on the same journey that led to the drowning of the first.

‘I don’t know if I will or not, Lucy. Maybe I’ll be too busy. Do you think I should?’

Lady Lucy cast a protective glance towards the small figure of Olivia who had fallen asleep on the sofa, her left arm wrapped round her face as if to protect her from evil.

‘Yes, I think you should, Francis. It might do you good to look at it all again. And the gardens should be very beautiful at this time of year.’

‘I just wonder about the ghosts, Lucy. I should think they’re very strong too, in the springtime with the soft light lying across those mountains.’

Yet here he was, in the early afternoon, the Wicklow countryside drowned in sunshine, outside the driveway to Powerscourt House, Enniskerry, where he and his sisters had lived until he was a young man. An old gardener called Michael O’Connell recognized him on his way up through the rhododendrons. Powerscourt wondered if he was the first ghost.

‘Lord Francis, how very nice to see you again. I’d have recognized you anywhere. The family are away just now if you want to have a look around. Nothing much has changed, you’ll be glad to hear.’

Powerscourt remembered the old man teaching him how to string conkers, how to make bows and arrows, how to ride a horse. He had fought at Crecy on these well-kept lawns. He had hidden inside the Wooden Horse and sacked Troy, better known as the stables, under the old man’s watchful eye. A small shed behind the house had done service as the Black Hole of Calcutta. He had lain low on the hills around the house, one of Wellington’s riflemen at Waterloo, while the French artillery pounded their positions, waiting for the final, doomed, onslaught by Marshal Ney and the Imperial Guard.

Then he was at the side of Powerscourt House. It stood on the top of a hill, looking out over the mountains. In front of it was the most remarkable ornamental garden in Ireland, a copy of some ornate Italian extravaganza outside Rome. A long long flight of steps led down to a spectacular fountain in a little lake at the bottom. Bronze putti holding bronze urns marked the passage at the sides of the steps. Powerscourt remembered two of his father’s friends racing their horses up the steps for a bet, the winner making off with fifty pounds. He remembered trying to slide down them in the winter when they had frozen solid and he had nearly broken his neck half-way down.

He looked up at the house. That window there, third from the left on the second floor, had been his bedroom. He had looked out across the steps and the waterfall to the blue hills beyond. He remembered his mother coming to see him one day, so excited because she was going hunting on a cold clear winter’s day. He had asked her why she liked it so much. She ruffled his hair with a laugh, he must have been about ten at the time.

‘Quite simply, my darling, it is the most exciting thing in the world. When you’re riding fast across the countryside, the horse firm and strong beneath you, jumping over hedges and all that sort of thing, it’s exhilarating, it’s wonderful. It makes me feel so alive.’

Powerscourt had smiled, he remembered. He never liked hunting. The nearest he had ever come to the same feelings was one hot and dusty day in India when he and Fitzgerald had ridden with the cavalry against a rebel army. He recalled thinking that you were bound to feel very intensely alive because any second you could be equally intensely dead.

He looked down to the windows of the great drawing room on the ground floor. He had tried to hide in there once before a ball. His father loved dancing, especially with his mother, and once a year the Powerscourt Ball attracted the cream of local and Dublin society. He saw him now, looking very dashing in his white tie and tails, entertaining a group of ladies before the fire, the laughter rising right through the house and the band playing over and over again the waltzes his parents loved so much.

Then he turned on his heel. The memories were coming too fast. The ghosts were winning the battle. He felt the tears coming and he wasn’t sure he could stop them. He saw his mother in the soft evening light brushing his sisters’ hair. She always used to do it before they went to sleep, the hypnotic rhythm of the brush, mother and daughters mesmerized by the sheen on the hair. He could see his father in his study, staring sadly at the account books, telling his only son that it hadn’t been a good year, but that things would look up after Christmas. Powerscourt thought now that he had been putting a brave face on it for the little boy. Things never looked up at all, not after Christmas, not after Easter, not after the summer holidays.

Powerscourt was fleeing the ancestral home as fast as he could now. The influenza had come back, the terrible influenza that had carried off both his parents, the unbearable funerals, the torrents of tears by the gravesides, the desolation that seemed to be with them all for ever. He had thought of going to look at the headstone in the church by the side of the front drive. He couldn’t do it. He set off back to Greystones, his face wet with tears, as the wind rose among the trees and his sodden handkerchief began to drip on to the grass beneath.

He thought suddenly of Lady Lucy. Had she known how terrible it might be for him? Did she realize how powerful the memories would be? Probably she did, he thought. He thought of her, holding Thomas solemnly by the hand, Olivia clutched to her shoulder, all waving him goodbye to him at the front door in Markham Square before he left for Ireland. ‘Come back safely, my love,’ she had whispered as she kissed him goodbye. I must be strong for Lucy, he said to himself as the sobbing began to subside. I must be strong for Thomas and Olivia. As he thought of his wife and children, his tears dried and by the time he returned to Greystones he was composed.

There was a storm that night. The afternoon sun had disappeared by tea-time. A strong wind began to blow in from off the sea. By nightfall the waves were crashing against the walls of the little harbour, cascades of spray shooting up from the rocks beneath the Imperial Hotel. Powerscourt went for a walk along the sea front. The words of a hymn floated out from a tiny church behind the beach.

Abide with me;

Fast falls the eventide:

The darkness deepens;

Lord with me abide!

He thought suddenly of the sailors on their mission from Germany. Were they somewhere out to sea praying to their German gods that the storm would abate, making everything fast, taking in sail as quickly as they could? ‘God help sailors,’ an old gentleman with two mufflers said to Powerscourt as they passed each other by the little railway station, ‘on a night like this.’

He went and sat on the rocks as far out as he dared. The spray rose in front of him. The noise of the wind was matched by the dark waters hurling themselves in vain against the rocks. It’s like a siege, Powerscourt thought. The sea is laying siege to this little patch of Ireland. The waves are the artillery, pounding relentlessly, night and day, against the enemy ramparts. The defenders try to close their ears to the onslaught. The defenders are going to win. The rocks are refusing to give way.

Nobody could come into the little harbour on a night like this, he felt sure. However big the mother ship, no little boat with its deadly cargo could make the journey from those great seas into Greystones.

But he didn’t sleep. All through the night he kept watch from his windows on the empty grey sea, flecks of white on top of the waves. On the beaches the sea pounded in, crashing up the shore, leaving a trail of dirty foam in its wake. Nothing moved in the streets of Greystones. Even if you had wanted to give or receive a signal, it would have been lost in the fury of the night. Powerscourt was thinking of where he could take Lady Lucy when this case was over. Verona perhaps, city of doomed lovers, Vicenza with all those buildings by Palladio. He felt sure Lucy would like Verona. He could buy her a copy of Romeo and Juliet to read on the train. Or would she have read it already? She might have forgotten it.

As dawn broke the rain had come. It was now sweeping in from the mountains, lashing the little town, rattling off the roof of Powerscourt’s hotel like gunshot. Powerscourt dreamed of battles at sea as he fell asleep, the terrible carnage of Trafalgar where the smoke of the carronades hung in thick curtains across the sea, and a sniper high up in the rigging of a French ship took careful aim at the one-armed Admiral in his gold braid on the deck of the Victory. Snipers. Something told Powerscourt that snipers were terribly important and he should remember them when he woke up.

By then he was in another country. The rain had stopped. The wind had died down. The little town, its grey buildings, its grey beach with the hills behind, were bathed in sunshine. The hotel gardeners were busy under Powerscourt’s windows, clearing away fallen branches, tending to the roses that threatened to fill one whole wall with red. Along the sea front the more adventurous citizens were promenading round the bay, commenting excitedly to each other about the change in the weather. ‘Isn’t it grand, just grand,’ floated regularly up to his room.

Powerscourt reached for the binoculars. Johnny Fitzgerald’s timetable for the German invasion was nearly finished. Surely they must come today, or tonight. He had no doubt that they would have to land under cover of darkness, sending their deadly packages into the tiny harbour while Greystones and County Wicklow slept. He scanned the horizon. A couple of cargo ships could be seen far out to sea, trudging steadily towards Howth or Dublin. The seagulls were flying regular sorties across the rocks in front of the hotel. A pair of small yachts seemed to have set out from Bray or Killiney further up the coast for a day’s sailing. They looked too small to have made the journey across the North Sea.

At two o’clock he went for a walk. He patrolled the streets of Greystones, his binoculars round his neck, pausing from time to time to fix his glasses on the birds. He made polite conversation with some of the local people. Yes, the weather was much better today. Hadn’t it been terrible the last few days. Did they get many big yachts coming into Greystones, putting in for supplies or to visit the local attractions? No, sir, they did not. Birdwatchers, he decided, were almost as innocent as fishermen in the eye of the beholder. But all the time he knew that his counterpart must also be watching the seas beyond the town, hiding behind some curtains in an upstairs room, lurking in the heather on the coastal path to Bray, rebellious binoculars scanning the horizon.

It was five o’clock when he saw it. Far out to sea, moving gracefully south towards Wicklow, was a large yacht. It was so much bigger than the ones he had seen earlier in the day. Tiny dots of sailors could be seen through the glasses moving about their business. He couldn’t see a name. Maybe it had been removed. The visitor did not even move in towards the shore as it passed. It sailed serenely on as if it had a rendezvous in some other harbour far far away. But Powerscourt was sure. He was certain. This yacht would turn round when it was dark. It would come back to anchor some way from the harbour. A small boat would be lowered from the side. Packages and people would follow. The rendezvous between the German paymasters and quartermasters and their Irish clients was about to begin.

He ate a hearty supper. He ordered with some amusement a main course described as Powerscourt lamb. His father, he remembered, incarcerated with his account books in the corner of the great house, would often remark that at least the lamb sold well. He checked the horse he had rented from the hotel stables, thick sacking wrapped round its hooves to ease the noise it might make on the roads or tracks of Wicklow. As the sun set behind the mountains in a mass of pinks and reds that promised a fine tomorrow, he settled in his observation post on the top floor.

He made a regular orbit with the binoculars. Harbour. Nothing there. North towards Dublin, nothing moved. South towards Wicklow and the mountains inland. Nothing there. The streets of Greystones itself, hosts already perhaps to Irish insurrectionaries who could have come south from the capital to collect their booty. Nothing moved. The moon was full now, weak at first but growing stronger as night settled over Ireland. There were a few clouds that caused a deeper darkness. Moonlight was a mixed blessing. It could show you where your unknown adversaries were going. It could show them they were being followed, a lone agent perhaps of the intelligence networks directed with such deadly precision from Dublin Castle on their trail. A couple of dogs were on manoeuvres, sniffing hopefully around the rocks and the cottages. Far out to sea nothing stirred. There was a slight wind, enough to fill a sail. The waters, sometimes grey, sometimes black, seemed to mock Powerscourt at his lookout post on the top floor of the Imperial Hotel.

It was a dog that gave the first clue. Far off in the distance, probably on the road from Bray, came sounds of barking. Ten minutes later a horse and cart trotted carelessly into the village and stopped outside a shop just fifty yards from the harbour. There was a quantity of hay and what looked like tarpaulin sheets in the back. Nobody stirred. No inhabitants of Greystones peered sleepily from their windows at this strange apparition of the night. Turn your faces to the wall, While the gentlemen go by. There were two men with the cart. Both were wearing dark clothes. Powerscourt checked his watch. It was a quarter to two. He wondered if even on secret and dangerous missions the Germans had a timetable. The boat will come at two o’clock in the morning. Loading will be complete by two fifteen. The mother ship will depart at two thirty. Thank you, gentlemen.

He swung his binoculars out to sea again. He could see nothing at all. The clouds had obscured the moon. Perhaps the timetable even extends to periods of cloud cover. Wait. Check the focus again. What was that, out there on the right? There was a smudge, a blob on the sea. The blob appeared to be moving. Moving towards Greystones. At five to two the weather turned against the invaders. The clouds passed on. In the moonlight Powerscourt saw the yacht, moving gracefully towards him, a couple of miles out to sea. Shortly after two it veered sharply in towards the coast and stopped about eight hundred yards from the harbour.

Powerscourt checked the reception committee by the shop. Nothing stirred. Perhaps the timetable said two thirty or even three. He could see the yacht more clearly now. A boat was being lowered from the deck. Three men in dark jerseys settled into it. Then followed a series of heavy-looking packages. Powerscourt couldn’t see what they were. He thought suddenly of British sailors on cutting-out expeditions in naval wars of the past, dangerous nocturnal missions to capture a fort or blow up some enemy vessels while the soldiers or the sailors slept. But this was no friendly mission. Her Majesty’s enemies from overseas had come to give aid and assistance to some more of Her Majesty’s enemies at home. The boat set off. Powerscourt thought they must have muffled oars. He could catch no noise at all as two men rowed steadily towards the quays.

At twenty past two the cart trotted slowly forward towards the harbour. There was just room to turn it round to face back towards the shore. The two men got out and waited by the steps that led down to the water. One of them was smoking a pipe as if he spent every evening like this, waiting for guns to come out of the sea.

As the boat drew up there was a brief greeting. Then the dark jerseys unloaded the packages from their little boat. One thick oilskin packet went into the inside pocket of the man with the pipe. Powerscourt thought that was probably money. Then came the heavy ones. Powerscourt saw to his astonishment that two wooden coffins with brass handles were being placed in the back of the cart. Two more followed. Hay and the tarpaulins were quickly strewn on top of them. Coffins. What on earth were they doing with coffins? Surely the Germans weren’t exporting dead bodies to Ireland for some final Celtic cremation up in the black hills of Wicklow? The Irish might want to put their enemies into wooden boxes but they were perfectly capable of making their own. Then it struck him. As the rowing boat set off back to the yacht, the Germans pausing only to give a solemn salute when they left the steps, Powerscourt thought he had the answer. He swore violently to himself as the cart trotted gently along the bay and passed the Imperial Hotel, unaware of the tall figure hiding behind his curtains to watch their passing.