Redemption. - Redemption. Part 88
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Redemption. Part 88

Irishmen, who yesterday seemed content with the status quo, awakened these days to view their national personality that ranged from compliance to cowardice. The most legal of all the Easter Rising trials now clearly seemed the instrument of British revenge. But open public trials have their risks, and even in the end when he was sentenced to be executed by hanging, Casement was granted the "fair play" of the last word: Let me pass from myself and my own fate to a far more pressing, as it is a far more urgent theme-not the fate of the individual Irishman who may have tried and failed, but the claims and the fate of the country that has not failed. Ireland has outlived the failure of all her hopes-and yet she still hopes. Ireland has seen her sons-aye, and her daughters, too-suffer from generation to generation always for the same cause, meeting always the same fate, and always at the hands of the same power; and always a fresh generation has come forward to withstand the same oppression. For if English authority be so omnipotent a power, as Mr. Gladstone phrased it, that reaches to the very ends of the earth-Irish hope exceeds the dimensions of that power, excels its authority and, with each generation, the claims of the last. The cause that begets this indomitable persistence, the faculty of preserving through centuries of misery the remembrance of lost liberty, this, surely, is the noblest cause men ever strove for, ever lived for, ever died for. If this be the cause I stand here today, indicted for the convicted and sustaining, then I stand in goodly company with a right to noble succession.

The British Cabinet floundered. If they could only convince Casement to say his real purpose in returning to Ireland was to stop the Rising, then they'd have an out to reducing the death sentence to a prison term without losing face. He wouldn't hear of it. Casement's compassion for humanity was what emerged from that courtroom, above the charges, above the sentence itself. The smears of his homosexuality were lost in the man's eloquence.

Casement smashed his glasses in his cell, cut his wrist, and tried to rub in a poison powder he had hidden in his jacket. He was found, rushed to the hospital, and saved for another day.

Sir Roger Casement was hanged at Pentonville Prison on August 3, 1916.

In Ireland there was a nationwide introspection and facing up to centuries of denial. In truth, as a people, they had not shown the stuff of free men. The moment had come in their history to redeem themselves as a people.

An answer had to be forthcoming quickly to the death of the Easter Rising martyrs.

88.

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Squire Liam Larkin stepped outside the Prince of Wales Hotel facing the lush, semitropic, splendiferous greenery of Albert Park over the way.

Jaysus, he thought, the fecking heat here could fecking melt fecking rocks. To a man acclimatized by the all-pervading dampness of Ireland and even greater wetness of the South Island, Brisbane held the furnaces of hell. It was easy to envision exiled convicts busting rock in this place.

He made to the taxi rank and showed the driver a slip of paper.

"Eh, let's see here now, 32 Kangaroo Lane...32 Kangaroo Lane." He scratched his jaw. "Aha, the new estate of houses near the Royal Australian Army Rehabilitation Center."

Liam chose to sit in the front, not particularly comfortable in the back seat of an automobile.

"Where you from, cobber?" the driver asked.

"New Zealand. South Islander."

"How' as the war treated you?"

"Son in Gallipoli. He got out with some wounds."

"My lad is in the trenches in France," the driver said.

"I'll pray for him."

Over Victoria Bridge, the taxi made toward the sea and the budding Gold Coast.

All Anzac conversation these days got around to wondering how they ever got caught up in such a war. When it had first begun, the enthusiasm was for King, Empire, and all that was bombastic. Gallipoli had tarnished all visions of glory. The long haul was agonizing.

A large sign designated the hospital. It was a hot and sunny day. One could smell the ocean close by. A huge lawn was filled with patients mostly in pajamas or robes, many in wheelchairs, being tended by nurses and orderlies, others on crutches with missing limbs.

"These are the worst cases," the taxi driver said, "the ones they couldn't recycle back to combat in France."

Liam asked the driver to slow down, as though he were expecting to find Rory among them. All those lads like that...hard go...terrible.

They turned off into a cozy street of palm trees and wooden two-story homes where many of the staff were housed.

"Here we are, cobber, 32 Kangaroo Lane. Would you like me to wait for you?"

Liam pondered. "I don't know," he said.

"Well, there's a taxi rank at the main entrance to the hospital. The number is 2-2-2-2."

"I think I can remember that."

"Good luck to you, Kiwi."

The taxi drove off. Liam felt parched and sweaty and a little shaky. He knocked on the door. No reply. He spotted an outside garden spigot, drank, and splashed his face. A porch swing in the shade lured him and he eased into it and set it into motion, soon picking up the sound of the swish-boom of the surf and letting his face go blank. He sat stone-still, like a shepherd, until the heels of a woman's shoe tapped out a rhythm in quick step down the lane.

Liam, immobile, latched on to Georgia Norman as she came into view. She was pretty enough but her movement and pride of gender in her walk said woman.

Georgia came on the porch, made for the front door, dove into her bottomless purse as women are apt to do, then sensed another being there and looked over to Liam.

She was startled, but wordless.

"I'm here in peace," Liam said softly.

"Rory!" she cried, "Rory!"

Georgia came close to fainting, grabbing the porch post and starting to slip when Liam steadied her and led her to a wicker chair.

"Is he all right?"

"He was wounded at Gallipoli. I don't have too much information. Some loss of use in his right hand and a clouded vision that comes and goes."

She thanked God several times as a bit of color returned to her cheeks.

"He's in Ireland and under his enlistment name, so contact isn't too easy. He's a captain, you know, won the Victoria Cross."

Georgia bit her lip, then used Liam's shoulder for a short, sweet sob. "I'll get you a cool drink," she said quickly. "Hard or soft?"

"A beer would be the end of the earth."

She returned. "No need to ask how you ran me down?" she asked.

"I'm a sheepman. I've a lot of experience in finding stray lambs, although you did give me quite a runaround."

"Actually this rehabilitation center was on the planning boards before the war started," she said. "Even back in New Zealand I felt I'd be coming here once my husband left. I'm the Head Matron of one of the departments. I deal with the shell-shocked lads."

"Oh God," Liam whispered. "Where do you find the strength?"

"Don't make me cry again, Liam. It's hard enough in there."

"Rory always wrote to his mother and brother and sisters until he left Gallipoli. After that, only a few letters, written by nurse's aides. I always knew he'd find his way to Ireland so I wrote to my brother, Father Dary-he's a priest."

"I know."

"I wrote it months ago. I wanted it waiting when Rory got there. I couldn't live any longer with what I'd done to him. He got the letter," Liam said shakily, "and he wrote me back."

"What did he say?"

"He forgave me. And don't you know he asked me to forgive him as well."

"I'm so glad."

"Thank God he misses New Zealand. He's coming back one of these days. We're going to make it now...."

"You've suffered, haven't you, man?" she asked.

"Aye. Rory asked one favor, to find you. He met your husband on Gallipoli and holds him in great esteem. He also knows that the two of you were divorced long before the war and only stayed together for the sake of his career."

"Calvin has a good wife and a chance for recovery, although he still occasionally plunges into despair."

"Father Dary wrote me how great Rory thought he was. Georgia, Rory pleaded with you from Gallipoli. He said he knew why you sent him off empty, so as not to saddle him with something he'd be sorry for after the war. He loves you more than ever, lass, like it would take half of forever to get over you...."

"Rory was equally unfair," Georgia said. "We both knew he'd get mixed up in Ireland. He had every right to ask me to wait till the end of the war. He had no right to ask me to wait forever, without contact, only to wake up one morning and get a letter from Father Dary saying he'd been shot by a firing squad or hanged. So, I made the break clean for both of us, he not burdened by me and me the same."

"But you are burdened by him," Liam said. "You bore his child. I want to see my granddaughter."

Georgia walked away.

"I want to see my granddaughter," he repeated. He handed her his great handkerchief to dry and blow, dry and blow. "You loved him that much."

"Ah Squire, don't you know that after Rory Larkin gets his hands on you, you're not much good for anyone else. It started as a lark, but by the time he went off to war I knew there'd never be the likes of him again, and I had to have something of his, forever."

"You love him that much," Liam repeated.

"Wars and deaths and boys enlisting under false names and divorced husbands who may or may not be divorced, you can be certain that the record offices are in a shambles, so many dead, so many unidentified. So, coming to Brisbane as a pregnant war widow was no trick at all. I'm entirely accepted here, and as for our child, it was the most beautiful decision of my life."

Liam caught sight of a pram being rolled up Kangaroo Lane by a nanny, with a wee head sprouting over the top. Liam stumbled off the porch. He picked up the wane with a tenderness sometimes needed in his profession, like holding a stray lamb.

"Her grandda," Georgia said to the nanny.

"What did you name her, now?" Liam asked.

"Rory," Georgia said.

"Rory? But that's a boy's name."

"Not anymore, Squire. The boys will have to share it."

"Well, come to think of it, Rory O'Moore was a great Celtic King. The Chieftain of the Chiefs. Rory. That's grand...Rory." He edged his cheek to his granddaughter's cheek as he held off the tears. The wee lass approved of him, and he breathed air from a sweet-scented place beyond all altars, all sky, beyond all mortal pleasure.

89.

Sir Llewelyn checked the gear in at the rear of the utility lorry used for hauling and odd jobs at Brodhead Abbey. Fishing poles, boots, creel, fishing box, extra flies, lantern, stove, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

"Everything appears to be here," he said to his caretaker, Mr. Mufflin.

"My missus packed the refreshments in this case."

"Jolly good."

"In the event of an emergency, may I say where the General has gone?"

Sir Llewelyn thought about it. Part of the game was taking the small risk that an emergency doesn't come up. "Actually I'm driving south near Carrick-on-Shannon," he said giving the opposite direction of where he was going. "I've a retired pal with a very secluded cabin-and Mufflin, I'm in desperate need of absolute quiet."

"I quite understand, sir."

"Brigadier Cushman has things well in hand at Dublin Castle. If someone calls, Mr. Mufflin, I will be here at Brodhead Abbey Sunday late afternoon and will be at Dublin Castle for Monday parade. Now crank me up."

The van engine clug-clugged alive and in a moment he drove through the gates of Brodhead Abbey on down to the main road, where he turned north for the short trip up Inishowen Peninsula.

An hour later Brodhead turned onto a dirt road before Carrowkeel, satisfied he had not been spotted or followed wearing fishing clothing in an old utility lorry. He came to a half before the pillars of the big iron north gate of the Earldom of Foyle.

As he emerged from the vehicle, Sir Llewelyn stiffened himself for the possibility of rejection, walking gingerly to the gate. Cheers! The lock was open and the chain down.

He shut the gate behind him and drove with the daylight to make it in before it grew dark, his mind now opened to a delirium of flesh-borne illusions. He pressed the throttle down, glimpsing occasionally about and behind him to see if anyone else were around. Clear, all clear. Clear sailing. There? The hillock and stand of birches. Yes! Yes! There was her automobile.

Brodhead parked next to her vehicle, just as the sun dipped behind the hill shading the surroundings. He walked briskly up the path still scanning for the unwelcome watcher.

"Hello!"

By George! There she was, waving and coming to him at a run. Powerful sighs of relief as they embraced hard. The magnificent smell of the peat smoke wisped to them as they made up the pathway, arms about the other's waists.

Inside the main lodge room he set down his kit and they embraced and kissed. "I was beginning to get into a snit," she said, "I was afraid you'd decided not to come."

As she left to make herself comfortable, his eyes played over the rafters, he quickly opened and shut closet doors, poked back curtains, and otherwise looked for any sign of another person. There had been no shoe tracks on the path outside, and thus far, the place seemed alone to the two of them.

She came out as sheer and open as could be considered decent and seemed totally comfortable in a dressing gown that fell to and fro, just so.

Brodhead had peeked at some of her famous nudes at Rathweed Hall, although they were now out of public eye.

Brodhead wrestled with the top of a champagne bottle, and its blast spilled on him. Caroline assured him there was plenty more and suggested he, too, make himself comfortable. He returned in a silk brocade bathrobe of Asian design. Between mentally undressing her and continuing his suspicions, his unease became apparent.

"How did you manage to get all the supplies in?" he asked.