Читать книгу Ireland in Travail - Sydney Loch - Страница 3

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In the wonderful August weather of 1920, my wife and I were in our London flat sighing for cooler places. The season had come to an end with less than its usual glory, and for days taxis and growlers, topheavy with luggage, had been carrying fleeing Londoners to country and to sea. The holidays had begun; but England, still limping from the late war, had lost the holiday spirit: indeed the world was restless as if it had come through painful convulsions to kick spasmodically for a while. We were restless too.

Ireland was one of the world’s sores. It was near at hand. Should we go and see for ourselves? The middle of August had come, and we could not make up our minds.

On the hottest of those mornings I wandered into Hyde Park, and where the riders turn their horses about, on the very last chair of the row, leaning forward, rubbing his chin on his stick, I came across 47—Agent of the secret service. He had seen me coming along, and patted the next seat in invitation as if we had met yesterday.

“I thought you were at the other end of the world.”

He answered, “I’m here.”

How I met 47; how it came about that he revealed his secret to me; how it was that we became friends, has nothing to do with this story. Sometimes I saw a lot of him; sometimes he passed out of my life for a year.

Before I had known 47 six months I had learned this, that a secret service agent, if he is to be more than a common spy, what the French term a mouchard, a fellow who gleans his news among servant girls and the like, must have something of a statesman’s vision to carry him on his way. He must have that sense of the future which lifts him beyond the individual and the matter of the moment to think in nations and down centuries. Thus is lessened the pang he feels as he bruises the individual, as the vivisectionist tortures the beast that beasts and men shall be freed of pain.

“Come to dinner to-night,” I said. “We are always talking of you.”

“I’m crossing to Ireland to-night.”

“Ireland? Are you working there?”

He nodded. “I’m going to make a beginning. All the fellows who are resting have been called up. Things are going from bad to worse.”

“Are they worse than the papers make out?”

“They are bad enough. I’ve not seen for myself yet; but the Irish Republican Army has grown into a moderately disciplined and fairly numerous fighting affair, and seems to be getting bolder. Thousands of the young men belong to it. They don’t wear uniform, and those who aren’t known to the military and police, and so aren’t on the run, live as ordinary citizens until they are called on for some stunt. They’re a secret organisation, and we ought to be the people for them.”

“Are you glad to be off?” I said.

“Damn glad,” he answered. “I’ll be able to see for myself. One man tells you the country is in the clutches of a murder gang, and the next that some nobler spasm convulses it. All the same I hear work in Ireland is trickier than Continental stunts. On the Continent you have the majority of the nation indifferent to you, and only the official part to circumvent; but in Ireland they say half the nation is waiting to give a man away.”

“Why didn’t you come and say you were off?”

“I got orders this morning.”

“We have been thinking of having a look at Ireland. My wife’s interested in adoption work, and wants to start it over there. We can’t make up our minds.”

He looked round. “You?”

“Both of us. D’you think we’d find it worth while?”

“Probably. Why not come over? You’re people with nothing to do.”

“If we do, we’re going to be strictly neutral,” I said. “We want to meet the other side.”

He nodded. “It’s not always easy. That’s what a good many want to do. You may do it if you stay neutral.”

“We’re going to do it.”

“Then make up your minds. You’re sure to run across me if you come to Dublin.” He looked at the watch on his wrist and said, “I must go.” But he did not get up.

“You’ve got the pip,” I said.

“I’m glad to be on the road,” he answered, rubbing his chin on his stick again; “but it’s a solemn business.” He became suddenly very stern. “An agent requires a better courage than a soldier’s. Once he enters enemy country he does not hear a word in favour of his cause. The very newspapers he must read denounce the Government whose servant he is. Day after day he wages his lonely war.

“The man I meet at the Hibernian Hotel at twelve o’clock to-morrow is to be my ‘cousin,’ as we call it. It is my privilege to pour into his ears all my troubles, and he will do his best for me. Once a day, once or twice a week as may be arranged, he will appear at this place or that place at such and such an hour to take my information. This information he will pass on to another man, and this third man is the link with Dublin Castle.

“My wife and I will have no other loyal acquaintances, no other person in sympathy with us. While the Irish situation stays as it is we shall have only each other to lean on. Now and again we may pass an acquaintance in the street, and we shall go by without a word, without a nod. How many times must we join in the laugh against us? How many times must we sneer when we love? How many times must we applaud when we scorn?”

He looked in front of him and said in a low voice, “Betray once more, 47, that a traitor may be destroyed. Deny once again, 47, that a liar’s mouth may be stopped. Listen this time, 47, that some one else shall listen no more. Stifle your humanity. Fight your lonely fight.”

He got up, nodded, and departed.

I returned to lunch and told my wife I had come across 47. She was thrilled now at the idea of Ireland, and when lunch was over we had nearly made up our minds. I had to leave her in the evening, it was the case of a theatre, and as I walked out of that same theatre, somebody was at my side. He was the only other secret service man I knew; the introduction had come through 47. Such is life.

He was resplendent. The background of lights and women and motors purring at the kerb was just what he wanted. We strolled back together along Piccadilly, and he was in his best vein. He asked after my wife, and from her he got on to women in general. He began to philosophise presently and said:

“You can’t beat a really good woman.” Then he shook his head. “But most women are the devil.”

“Not all.”

“Most.”

He drew up his lip like a dog.

“I remember once in Vienna there was an actress, an agent of the Austrian Government, who was so dangerous that one after another of our fellows had to pull out half-way because they were losing their heads.” He nodded and went on showing his eye-tooth. “But one day there came along an agent less susceptible than the others and—he broke her neck.”

“One of her unlucky days?”

“Yes, he broke her neck.”

There was a pause.

“The clock was over there. This agent looked at it, and it had long gone midnight. She had been home from the theatre some time. The supper things were on the table: supper was over. She was standing in the middle of the room, and when she heard him coming up behind, she leaned back bored for an embrace. She was unused to a refusal. She had in mind to suck this man dry and afterwards toss him away like an empty wine bottle. She put her head back, smiling. He slipped his arm round her neck and—it’s not difficult if you know the way.”

This man had the most wonderful personality in the world. He grew more and more splendid all the time.

“He who runs may read. In our service a man receives certain payments for his harassing life. The agent lives two lives at one and the same time. He lives the life of the citizen, pays his milk bill, shops with his women friends, breakfasts, lunches, dines, and all the time he is living a second life below the surface. He sees the moves in the war raging about him; he remarks man after man go down. There is no cry. These are the deaths that never get into the papers. If recorded at all they are recorded as accidents or found dead. He sees the messages passed at the street corners, and the friend strolling at his side sees one man giving another a light. He sees this wanted man go by, he sees that sign put up, he asks himself why is this man here, what is that woman doing there? And his friend recognises only the beggar girl whining on the doorstep, and the cabman flourishing his whip.”

We were passing under a street lamp. He had become magnificent. His eyes were shining. He had swollen like a pouter pigeon.

“When the time comes for us to leave the service we cannot. We are offered rest, we are offered peace; at last has come opportunity for our stretched nerves to recover. But we must continue to be au courant with affairs. So nearly every agent dies in harness.

“But, of course, besides receiving payment, an agent pays for this life. He makes payment in several ways. One way is that he finally comes to believe nothing, to trust nobody. He weighs up what his best friend says. And another payment is that the life brings a man in the end to neutral feelings. He is cold sometimes—yes. Wet—yes. Tired—yes. Even a little depressed sometimes. But not elated. Never surprised.

“It’s fifteen years since I was surprised.”

And then at Hyde Park Corner, the place where I had last seen 47, he was gone, and I was left to stroll home alone.

My wife was still up.

“I’ve just met our other friend,” I said, shutting the door.

“What does he say?”

“He’s going over in a day or two. He was at the top of his form.”

Then I gave out what I had been given, and she listened with her eyes jumping out of her head. Her mind, and accordingly my mind, was made up half-way through. At the end she jerked upright in the armchair and cried—

“But let’s go and see for ourselves, and I’ll try and get my ‘Baby Exchange’ going. Let’s.”

“By all means.”

This was very late at night or very early in the morning.

Now it is time to ask if the world possesses one true history book. History can only be approximate, for events are without limit, and man is limited. Each observer of Irish affairs has been watching Ireland through the windows of his temperament and his opportunities, and where a man has seen this thing, his neighbour has seen another.

Humbly, then, we put down what we have to tell, endeavouring to fill these pages with the spirit of the times rather than with a tedious list of events.