The Tick of Death

CHAPTER 11

The rest of that day and the next was a period of intense activity in the house by the river. The impending arrival of the emissaries from the Revolutionary Directory had galvanised everyone. Formal meals were abandoned. Nourishment was snatched at irregular intervals. What consultations there were took place in corridors and on staircases, and were confined to essential business.

Cribb, not least, needed every minute he could get at his work. Three weeks at Woolwich had given him a useful grounding in explosives, enough to pass muster among the dynamiters, but no one at the Arsenal had envisaged him making infernal machines. He had to make them now, or confess he was an impostor. To complicate matters, Rossanna had insisted that the gazebo be destroyed from underneath, by a charge placed in a watertight metal box at the base of one of the brick supports. He had tested the depth of the water there with a stone and line and found it to be over nine feet. The pressure of the water at that depth would assuredly curb the destructive power of the dynamite; how much, he could not begin to assess.

There was no shortage of bomb components. Devlin took him to an out-house beside the kitchen-garden and unlocked the door to a veritable arsenal. As well as the cases of dynamite from Hole Haven, there was at least a hundredweight of Atlas Powder stored there. ‘I shall need some detonators,’ said Cribb, trying not to seem staggered at the force represented in the store. ‘You can’t make bombs without detonators.’

‘We keep them elsewhere,’ said Devlin, giving him a long look. ‘I’m not the authority on explosives here, but I’m told you don’t store detonators with dynamite.’

‘Oh, quite right,’ Cribb airily conceded. ‘Where are they, then?’

‘In the house. We keep them in the room under yours.’

It was said in the matter-of-fact manner that could not possibly be taken for anything but literal truth. This was shortly borne out, when the two men entered the room in question. The first thing to take Cribb’s eyes was the mantelpiece. Anyone unfamiliar with the manufacture of infernal machines might have wondered at the lengths to which some people go to bestir themselves in the morning, for at least a dozen alarm clocks were crowded on the shelf. Cribb crossed the room and picked one up. ‘Benson of Ludgate Hill, eh? Nothing less than the best.’

‘McGee’s orders,’ explained Devlin. ‘He blames his accident on a faulty clock. The detonators are over here, in the tallboy.’ With conspicuous care, he pulled open a drawer. Three rows of test tubes lay on a bed of cotton-wool, each one held fast by a twist of wire. ‘Malone did all this. I don’t know what the stuff inside is.’

‘It must be a fulminate of some kind,’ said Cribb. ‘Probably mercury. What’s in the other drawers?’

Devlin opened one to see. ‘It looks like a rope to me.’

Cribb turned a piece over in his hand. ‘Slow-match. This is what I’d use to make a bomb in the normal way. It burns a yard in eight hours, compared with the yard a minute of a conventional fuse. Unfortunately, you can’t burn a slow-acting fuse in an air-tight box, so I’m restricted to a clock-timed detonation. Do we have guns?’

Devlin opened the other drawer.

‘Cartridge-firing pistols,’ said Cribb, glancing inside. ‘You can see why so many of the bombs deposited about London never go off. There’s too many possibilities of faults in the mechanism. If there isn’t something wrong with the alarm-clock or the connexion with the trigger, there’s still the possibility of the hammer not striking the cap truly, and missing fire. It goes against all my bomb-making principles to make a machine as liable to defects as that and then drop it into nine feet of water and expect it to detonate perfectly. It’s too much to expect.’

‘My heart bleeds for you,’ said Devlin, with a grin that suggested otherwise. ‘Those are the water-tight boxes beside the wardrobe. I think you’d better start work at once. The Clan doesn’t look kindly on failures.’ With that, he left, presumably to check that his own work was in order.

Cribb, in sole occupation of the room, and with the key to the dynamite-store in his pocket, allowed himself a moment’s reflection. He had secured a position of trust in the dynamite party. With the help of a gun from the drawer, he was perfectly capable of surprising Devlin and taking him in charge. Rossanna and McGee would be even less trouble. They could all take the place of Thackeray in the wood-store until police reinforcements arrived.

What held him back was the promise of something better: the exposure and defeat of McGee’s plan. Premature arrests would allow the Clan to assign the mission-whatever it was-to another group. No, there was always an optimum moment to swoop, and it was not yet.

The one thing gnawing at his conscience was the helplessness of Thackeray. If the torturing continued, he would certainly intervene. There was more than a possibility, though, that Devlin and Rossanna were now too occupied preparing for the visitors to expend more time trying to extract information from their stubborn prisoner.

Sensible as all this seemed, it left him with the task of building two infernal machines in little more than twenty-four hours. Why had Rossanna insisted upon two? Was one to be kept in reserve in case the first failed? He doubted it. The object of the demonstration was to make a strong and instantaneous impression on the emissaries from America. To admit that the first bomb had not exploded-and there would be a short delay while the second was rowed out and lowered into position in hope of more success-was unlikely to win anyone’s confidence.

Surely it was likelier that the second bomb was wanted for some other target, perhaps in fulfilment of what Rossanna had termed ‘the ultimate object of all our work’. If so, he had the opportunity of foiling the scheme by building one incapable of detonation. Marvellously straightforward-if only Rossanna had not insisted that her father would inspect both boxes when their contents were ready, and select the one to be used for the demonstration. Cribb’s credibility depended on the success of the explosion by the lake.

The rest of that day and well into the afternoon of the next was one of the most exacting and intensive periods of work he had ever set himself. As well as the dangerous task of assembling the bombs and making the infinitesimal adjustments that would decree success or failure, he had much to do at the lakeside, surveying the gazebo, rowing around its three sides and under the arched supports, calculating and preparing. Failure to destroy the building would be catastrophic, an admission of incompetence. In the merciless canon of the dynamite conspiracy, it warranted death.

At four o’clock he asked Devlin to inform Rossanna that the machines were ready. She came out to the lawn where, in the interests of safety, he had arranged the squat, black boxes.

‘So here they are like two picnic-boxes!’ she said. ‘How much cold turkey did you put inside, Mr Sargent?’

‘About twenty-five pounds in each, if I understand your meaning correct, Rossanna. I’m allowing for some resistance, you see.’

‘It sounds a lot to me, but I’m sure you’re the expert. Lift the lids, please, and show me the insides. Ah, how very neat! And both clocks ticking merrily away and keeping excellent time.’

‘Nothing will be activated until the alarms are set,’ said Cribb. ‘But I don’t advise anyone to touch the parts. It only wants the slightest pressure on a trigger. .’

‘I’m sure,’ said Rossanna. ‘Well, I shall save my congratulations for later. The visitors will be here at six o’clock. Father has decided that the destruction of the folly will take place exactly two hours after that. He wants you to remain out of sight until the smoke has cleared. Then you will appear, like Mephistopheles.’

‘I hope it impresses ’em,’ said Cribb with total sincerity. ‘What are their names?’

‘Mr Carse and Mr Millar. I have not met them myself. Father knows them, though. They are patriots like the rest of us, but they have the reputation of being hard-headed men. Now, gentlemen, if you would be good enough to go to the kitchen I think there is some ale there for you. While you are gone, I shall bring Father out to inspect the machines. He will wish to see them alone. Do not be concerned, Mr Sargent. I shall insist that he touches nothing. If you return in half an hour, I shall tell you which box is to be used tonight and you can activate the mechanism. Then we shall seal it, and you, Patrick, can help Mr Sargent convey it to the lake and deposit it as he directs.’

The first sign of the approach of spectators at the lakeside that evening was a flash of pale yellow through the trees, the shawl Rossanna was wearing, caught by the low-angled rays of the sun. They were using a more even path than the one she had led Cribb along on his first visit to the gazebo, probably because McGee was of the party. There were three bowler-hatted figures walking behind the chair.

Cribb picked up the field-glasses he had borrowed from the house, and looked for Carse and Millar. One of the bowlers was Devlin’s, so he moved quickly on to the next. It was worn by a thick-set, grey-bearded man with florid skin and bulbous features. He was talking as he walked, using his clenched right fist to emphasise points.

Cribb shifted the focus to the second newcomer, who was speaking to no one, seeming content to stay remote from the rest of the party. He stared fixedly ahead through thick, pebble-glass spectacles with wire frames. His height was not much over five feet and he had compensated for this by cultivating a large black moustache, bow-shaped so that the ends reached almost to the line of his jaw. For all the forceful gestures of the big man, this one conveyed more menace.

They stopped at the waterside, some eighty yards from the gazebo on the other side of the lake. It was fully two hours since Cribb and Devlin had lowered the box by ropes from the rowing-boat into the water. They had lodged it as closely as possible to the base of one of the arched supports. It had seemed to come to rest gently. Nothing inside the box should have been disturbed. They had not remained long in the vicinity after lowering the bomb, even so.

Cribb took out a silver watch Devlin had loaned him. Possibly it had belonged to Malone. It registered two minutes to eight. He flicked his tongue tensely across his upper lip and stared across the water at the gazebo. It looked depressingly solid in construction, its reflection giving the illusion that there was as much brickwork below the surface as above. Two crows were perched on the battlements. How humiliating if the explosion just dislodged a few bricks and failed to disturb the birds. .

Feeling not at all like Mephistopheles, he started walking under cover of the trees towards the waiting group, ready to appear on cue. Those two minutes must have ticked away by now. At least, he wryly observed, the thing had not gone off before time.

He was near enough now to hear the murmur of conversation, and most of it seemed to be coming from the larger of the two emissaries, punctuated with the kind of laughter one hears filling the intervals at firework displays, when the set pieces are slow in igniting. The other, standing apart, had his watch in his hand and was concentrating all his attention on the gazebo.

Cribb had gone as close to the others as he could without revealing his presence. He stood behind a tree, took out the watch and lifted the cover. Three minutes past the hour. They were not going to wait much longer and nor was he. If he made a dash to the house now, he should be able to get to the kitchen and release Thackeray, and the two of them might get clear before the alarm was raised.

Even as he was reaching a decision, the leaves above him rustled and a boom of reassuring volume shattered the calm of the evening. Before doing anything else, he put back the hands of the watch to precisely eight o’clock.

The crows were two small specks in the sky when he turned round, but the gazebo was still disintegrating. It was collapsing into the water by layers with extraordinary slowness, like snow slipping off a roof. More than half was gone already and the lake’s surface was fretted with waves radiating from the point of disturbance. The roof, deprived of support, slipped into the void, bringing more masonry with it and hitting the water with an impact that sent droplets showering down over much of the lake. When everything went still again, one section of one wall remained.

He walked towards the group. Rossanna, with arms outspread, seemed ready to embrace him, but took his hands instead and drew him towards the visitors. ‘And here, gentlemen, is the genius behind what we have just witnessed. Mr Sargent, I want to introduce you to Mr Millar.’

The larger of the emissaries offered a broad hand to Cribb. ‘You seem to have a way with the little cakes, Sargent. It was neatly done.’

‘Mr Carse,’ said Rossanna.

The small man remained where he was, holding his watch. ‘Three and a half minutes late,’ he said in an expressionless voice. ‘I do not regard that as genius.’

Cribb’s response was immediate. ‘Late? It was perfectly on time. I checked it on the watch I was given.’ He took it out. ‘Why, it isn’t three minutes past yet.’

‘Then there would appear to be an error in the watch,’ said Carse in the same flat voice. ‘I suppose we cannot blame you for that if you set the bomb mechanism from the same instrument.’

‘He did,’ insisted Rossanna. ‘It was done in my presence.’

‘In future,’ said Carse, ‘We shall ensure that all timepieces are accurately synchronised. I am sure your father concurs. Shall we return to the house, or are we to be treated to some other proof of Mr Sargent’s genius?’

‘Father thought that this would be sufficient,’ said Rossanna. ‘He is personally convinced of Mr Sargent’s professional ability and he has made the most comprehensive inquiries into his background. He was hoping that we could enrol him as a member of the Clan this evening. Are you prepared to accept him, Mr Carse?’

‘Since Malone is dead, madam, and your father incapacitated, we have no choice. Time is short. Bring your prodigy to the meeting and we shall conduct the usual ceremony.’

As Carse strode away along the path in the direction of the house, with Millar not far behind in company with Devlin, Rossanna hung back to speak to Cribb. ‘There is something I must tell you. Pretend you are helping me with the wheel-chair. This man Carse-’

‘The leprechaun?’

‘Do not underestimate him. He has been exceedingly difficult over the matter of Malone.’

‘Nasty little cove.’

‘He was incensed at what we had to tell him. He was ready to cancel everything-a year’s work-until we told him about you. Even then, he was most disbelieving about your ability to stand in for Malone.’

‘I rather formed that impression too,’ said Cribb.

‘We had to paint you in glowing colours. Upon one point, in particular I bent the truth a little.’

‘What was that?’

‘The senior members of the Clan are most particular about one of the rules regarding descent. Everyone presented for membership has to have the Irish blood, you see.’

‘Now that’s a problem,’ said Cribb.

‘It might have been. I told them your mother was born in Skibbereen and that silenced them.’

‘It’s silenced me,’ said Cribb. ‘Where the devil is it?’

‘In County Cork. It’s one of the southernmost towns in Ireland. Carse comes from Dublin, so it’s unlikely that he knows Skibbereen. You don’t mind the deception, do you?’

‘I’ll square it with my conscience somehow. One needs to bend the truth occasionally in my profession.’

She smiled her thanks. ‘That was a darling of a demolition, Mr Sargent. We’ll not waste your second bomb on a folly, I promise you. It’ll be a deadly serious thing next time. If it does its work as well as the first, you’ll be the toast of all Ireland. There should be no worry, for the machines are identical, are they not?’

‘Like two peas from the same pod, Rossanna,’ said Cribb, speaking the truth.

At the house, he was instructed to wait in the hall while certain preliminaries took place in the drawing room. After some fifteen minutes, Rossanna came out with a black mask, like the one her father wore, except that it had no eye-spaces. ‘Do I have to wear that?’ he asked.

‘It’s part of the ritual,’ she explained, as she tied it firmly in place. ‘But you will be perfectly safe. The ballot for your membership has taken place and you got no black balls. You will be among friends. I shall hold your arm to guide you.’ She gave it a reassuring squeeze and led him forward.

He felt his feet leave the tiles and move on to carpet. The door closed behind him. A deep voice that he recognised as Millar’s spoke close in front of his face. ‘What is your name, friend?’

‘Sargent.’ There was no response to this, so he shrewdly added, ‘Michael Sargent.’

‘Very good. Tell us the names of your father and mother.’

He felt a slight pressure from Rossanna. ‘John Sargent and Molly O’Doherty.’ He paused for effect. ‘Of Skibbereen, in County Cork.’

Someone nearby grunted in satisfaction.

‘My friend,’ said Millar over a rustle of paper, suggesting that he was reading from a text, ‘you have sought affiliation with us animated by love, duty and patriotism.’

‘Not to say the Skirmishing Fund,’ murmured a voice in the background, possibly Devlin’s.

‘Stow your jaw, mister!’ said Millar, before continuing, in priestlike tones, ‘We have deemed you worthy of our confidence and our friendship. You are now within these secret walls. Those who surround you have all taken the obligations of our Order, and are endeavouring to fulfil its duties. These duties must be cheerfully complied with, or not at all undertaken. We are Irishmen banded together for the purpose of freeing Ireland and elevating the position of the Irish race. The lamp of the bitter past plainly points our path, and we believe that the first step on the road to freedom is secrecy. Destitute of secrecy, defeat will again cloud our brightest hopes; and, believing this, we shall hesitate at no sacrifice to maintain it.’

Cribb felt a hand fasten on his shoulder.

‘Be prepared, then, to cast aside with us every thought that may impede the growth of this holy feeling among Irishmen; for, once a member of this Order, you must stand by its watchwords of Secrecy, Obedience and Love. With this explanation, I ask you are you willing to proceed?’

‘Answer,’ whispered Rossanna.

‘I am willing,’ said Cribb.

‘Approach the President, then,’ ordered another voice. It belonged to Carse.

Rossanna piloted him in that direction.

‘My friend,’ said Carse, without a trace of affection, ‘by your own voluntary act you are now before us. You have learned the nature of the cause in which we are engaged-a cause honourable to our manhood, and imposed upon us by every consideration of duty and patriotism. We would not have an unwilling member among us, and we give you, even now, the opportunity of withdrawing, if you so desire.’

Cribb thought it politic to shake his head at the suggestion.

Carse went on, ‘Everyone here has taken a solemn and binding oath to be faithful to the trust we repose in him. This oath, I assure you, is one which does not conflict with any duty you owe to God, to your country, your neighbours, or yourself. It must be taken before you can be admitted to light and fellowship in our Order. With this assurance, will you submit yourself to our rules and regulations and take our obligation without mental reservation?’

‘I will,’ said Cribb. With an assurance like that, a man could promise anything.

‘Place your right hand on this flag of free Ireland, then, and say after me. .’

Cribb repeated the oath phrase by phrase, ‘I, Michael Sargent, do solemnly and sincerely swear, in the presence of Almighty God, that I will labour, while life is left me’-(an inauspicious phrase, he thought) ‘-to establish and defend a republican form of government in Ireland. That I will never reveal the secrets of this organisation to any person or persons not entitled to know them. That I will obey and comply with the Constitution and laws of the United Brotherhood, and promptly and faithfully execute all constitutional orders coming to me from the proper authority, to the best of my ability. That I will foster a spirit of unity, nationality and brotherly love among the people of Ireland.

‘I furthermore swear that I do not now belong to any other Irish revolutionary society antagonistic to this organisation, and that I will not become a member of such society while connected with the Brotherhood, and, finally, I swear that I take this obligation without mental reservation, and that any violation hereof is infamous and merits the severest punishment. So help me God.’

Two loud raps followed.

‘Brothers and sister!’ said Millar’s voice. ‘It affords me great pleasure to introduce you to our new brother.’

Another rap.

‘Now take off your blindfold, Sargent, and let us get down to the serious business of the meeting,’ said Carse.