The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising (25 page)

68

L
ike a thief in the bleak, dank, and damp December night, Eoin approached 31 Aungier Street via the back alley. The house was dark, and he wondered if his father was home. He let himself in through the back door and dared not turn on the light. He made his way to the second floor and could see the silhouette of his father sitting in a chair by the front window. The gas street lamp, which his Uncle Todd had lit, lent just enough light to the room. “Da,” he said quietly, but there was no response. “Da,” he said again, and the only response was an exhale of a breath. “Da!” he said a third time, more urgently, touching his father’s arm. Joseph opened his eyes, and, at the sight of his oldest son, he gave a quiet smile.

“Eoin, lad,” he said. “I’m glad you came. I wanted to see you.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to see you before I died,” he said quietly, and a chill ran through his son.

“You’ll be fine,” he said as he brushed his father’s hair off his forehead. Joseph groaned in pain. “What’s the matter?”

“My back is sore,” said Joseph. “They kept kicking me there. They’re looking for Frank and you.” He paused to catch his breath. “They’re especially looking for you, because of Mr. Collins.” Joseph winced as he tried to readjust himself in his chair. “I want you to do something for me.”

“Anything.”

“I want you to promise me you’ll take care of your brothers and sister. I’m not long for this world. You must take my place.”

“Da,” said Eoin, “what in God’s name are you talking about?”

“I’m done for, son,” Joseph said as he closed his eyes. “I’m done for.” He opened his eyes one more time. “Will you tell Mick something for me?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Tell Mick Collins that I said thanks.”

His father suddenly went quiet. Eoin shook his arm, but there was no response. “Daddy,” he whispered desperately, but the old man didn’t move. Eoin decided, despite the risk, that he had to do something. He went to Collins’s abandoned office on the third floor to use the telephone. He asked the operator for the Mater Hospital. When they answered, he asked for Róisín O’Mahony.

“Eoin,” Róisín said, sounding surprised. “What is it?”

“I need an ambulance at home. Da is very sick. I think the British overdid it with him today. Send an ambulance quick.”

“Eoin, get the hell out of that house. If the British know you’re there, they’ll fry you.”

“I’ll go as soon as the ambulance arrives. Here’s the number you can reach me at,” said Eoin, as he gave her the phone number for the Dump, where the lads in the Squad would often “dump” their hot revolvers after a shooting.

Eoin sat quietly with his father for forty-five minutes until the ambulance arrived. Joseph was unconscious, breathing shallowly. He let the ambulance crew in the front door and directed them to his father on the second floor. As they passed him to get to his father, Eoin let himself out the back door and silently began to make his way to the Dump in Abbey Street.

Eoin navigated the back alleys and unmapped pathways and came out on St. Stephen’s Green. He pulled his cap over his eyes and yanked the collar of his trench coat up as far as it would go. He prayed that no one, friend or foe, would recognize him.

The British had touts everywhere, ordinary Dubliners who lusted after their thirty pieces of English silver. During the famine, they took the soup. In revolutionary Dublin, they took the cash. Collins and Liam Tobin were catching on to them, but until they could be identified and eliminated, they were the eyes and ears of the British in Dublin. Eoin kept walking right into Grafton Street, and, on his left, he passed the Cairo Café, which was becoming a British hangout.

As he walked along, he suddenly realized that Christmas was upon Dublin. Although the war was escalating, you wouldn’t know it by looking in the windows of Brown Thomas and Weir’s, all decorated merrily for the Yuletide.
Yeah
, thought Eoin to himself,
this is really going to be a fookin’ Happy Christmas
.

Vinny Byrne and Paddy Daly were in the Dump when he arrived. Eoin got himself a hot mug of Bovril and waited for the phone to ring. The Dump was on the corner of Abbey and Sackville Streets. It was an office like any other office in Dublin, but it contained Collins’s assassins, the men who were making this an even fight. It was here that they rested and awaited orders on who next to shoot. As he thought of his father, he was sorry he had turned down Collins’s offer to join the Squad.

The phone rang, and Paddy, one of the leaders of the Squad, answered it. “Eoin,” he said, “it’s for you. The Mater.”

“Róisín,” he said into the phone. “How is he?” There was quiet on the other end. “Róisín?”

“Eoin dear,” she finally said. “I have some bad news for you.” There was quiet again.

“He’s dead,” said Eoin flatly. “Isn’t he?”

“Yes, Eoin. I’m so sorry. Your dear daddy is dead.”

“Eoin,” said Vinny, when Eoin failed to respond. “Are you alright?”

“Me Daddy is dead, Vinny. Me Daddy is dead.” Tears flooded from Eoin’s eyes, and he dropped heavily to the floor, the phone still in his hand.

“It’s alright, lad,” said Vinny, embracing his friend. “
Misneach
,” he said in Irish, the word for “courage.”

“Eoin, Eoin,” he could hear Róisín’s voice say distantly.

“Yes, Róisín,” he said, replacing the receiver to his ear, suddenly dry-eyed. “I’ll be up there in a few minutes.”

“For God’s sake,” said Róisín, “stay away. If they find out your father’s dead, they’ll be watching for you.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” said Eoin, his soul as cold and empty as the winter night outside.

When he arrived at the Mater, he asked for Róisín. When she came down, she hugged Eoin as hard as she could. “Take me to my Daddy,” was all he said. She took him to the mortuary where his father was lying naked, covered only by a sheet. It was the same slab that Thomas Ashe had occupied. It seemed that history was repeating itself, only this time it was his family on that cold slab. Eoin pulled back the sheet that covered his father’s head and just looked. Róisín stood by him, holding his left arm with both of her hands. “So it all comes down to this,” he said, not really talking to Róisín, but to his father. “This time, Da, we will not be denied. And I swear on my immortal soul that I’ll find out who did this to you, and they will be paid back in kind.”

With that, the door opened, and Michael Collins walked into the mortuary. He had a big box under his arm, and he immediately went to Eoin. “I’m so sorry, Eoin,” he said. “But I promise you, we’ll get the scum that did this.”

“Don’t bother,” said Eoin coldly. Collins shook his head, confused. “
I’m
going to get the gobshite, and I’m going to get him good.” He finally looked at Collins. “How did you know?”

“Róisín sent a message over to Vaughan’s for me.”

There was silence among the three living and the one dead. “Let’s dress the body,” said Collins. He opened his big box and took out a Volunteer’s uniform. He had woken Mr. Fallon of Fallon’s of Mary Street so that he could procure the uniform.

“But my father wasn’t in the Volunteers,” protested Eoin.

“Yes, he was,” said Collins forcefully. “Your Da did more work for the movement than a lot of the IRA brigades around the country. He was a Volunteer through-and-through.” For a moment Eoin was touched, but the moment didn’t last long.

“I want to examine the body,” Collins said. “Look away,” he commanded Eoin.

“No,” said Eoin firmly. “I want to see what they did to my Daddy.”

“Róisín,” said Collins, “will you help me?” They removed the sheet.

“We come into this world naked,” said Eoin absently. “And I guess we leave it the same way.”

Collins and Róisín looked at each other and grimaced. There were no marks on the front of the body until they came to the legs, and they saw ugly sores on both calves and ankles. “Ulcers,” said Róisín. “Very, very bad nutrition,” she added, in diagnosis.

“He starved himself for years so his family could eat,” said Eoin. “He sometimes survived on one egg a day and cups of watered-down tay.”

“One miserable oige,” said Collins, shaking his head. He turned Joseph over, and his back revealed his demise. It was all black-and-blue, from his shoulder blades to his buttocks. The British had slaughtered his kidneys.

“I hope they note this in the autopsy,” said Róisín innocently.

“There won’t be any autopsy,” snapped Collins. “The British don’t want any more inquests.”

“Why?”

“Because the juries keep returning ‘death by murder’ against the Crown.”

In deadly silence, they dressed Joseph Kavanagh in his Volunteer’s uniform. Eoin noted that he looked sharp, still keeping his sartorial splendor, even in death. As a final act, Eoin made sure the curl of Joseph’s handlebar mustache was perfect. As they prepared to leave, Collins said, “I’ll send a coffin over in the morning. No wake. The mass will be tomorrow and then the burial. The quicker, the better.”

“I’ll be there,” said Róisín.

“So will I,” said Eoin.

“No, you won’t,” said Collins, and the boy looked shocked. “I’m sorry, Eoin, but Saints Michael and John’s will be crawling with G-men hoors. It’s not safe. I can’t go, either.”

“But I will,” interjected Róisín.

Eoin dropped his head. “I understand, Mick.” The British were still robbing the Kavanaghs of their dignity. Suddenly, Eoin turned to Róisín. “Did he receive the last rites?”

“No,” said Róisín, somewhat baffled. “He didn’t. I didn’t think it was safe to draw any more attention to him then I had to. I don’t know who I can trust anymore.”

“Smart move,” agreed Collins.

“Then there’s one more thing we have to do before we get out of this terrible place,” said Eoin. “He deserves—demands—a Perfect Act of Contrition.” With that, Eoin bent down to his father’s ear and said, “
Oh my God! I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell. But most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen
.”

“Amen,” echoed Róisín and Collins, and, for one last moment in time, the four Fenians were united as one.

1920

69

E
oin decided he had to see Collins. He began the trek from Crow Street, over the Ha’penny Bridge, and up Liffey Street, unconsciously retracing his steps to the GPO that rainy Tuesday night of Easter Week. He walked blindly, as if on auto-pilot. He was thinking about what he had to say to Mick. He found himself in Moore Street and then continued on his way to Parnell Square. He knew the boss would be in Joint Number One, Vaughan’s Hotel, at the top of the Square.

Eoin banged his open hand on the reception desk, and Christy Harte, the porter, nodded and shot his eyes upward to indicate that Collins was in.

Eoin knocked on the door. “Come in,” Collins called from inside.

He was alone in the room doing paper work. Eoin didn’t mince words. “I want to join the Squad,” he said without hesitation.

“I want you at Crow Street,” returned Collins.

“I think I can do both jobs.”

If nothing else, Collins liked his ambition. “What made you change your mind?”

“My Da.”

“Simple as that?”

“Yes.”

Collins looked down at the papers in front of him. “I don’t like revenge as a motive. The man who holds revenge in his heart is not fit to be a Volunteer.”

“I can handle it,” came the defiant answer.

“Revenge gets you in trouble.”

“Tell the truth,” snapped Eoin, “and shame the devil.” Collins stared at Eoin, remaining mute. “Sometimes revenge is necessary. When will Percival Lea Wilson get his?” Eoin said, referring to the tormentor of Tom Clarke and Seán MacDiarmada that damp Saturday night on the Rotunda Hospital grounds, just across the way. Little did Eoin know that Collins was already planning the demise of Captain Wilson, who thought himself safe and sound in Gorey, County Wexford.

“You have a way of making your point, Eoin,” conceded Collins.

“You think I want to live this vindictive life?” said Eoin. “I was not brought up that way. You know my parents.”

“You do realize that joining the Squad is equivalent to a ‘calling’?”

“A ‘calling’!” snapped Eoin. “What are you looking for? A priest of sanctified murder?”

“Fair enough,” said Collins, allowing a smile, and not wanting to rile the boy any further. “The Squad has taken to calling themselves ‘The Twelve Apostles.’ Imagine that.”

Eoin could. “I guess that makes you Jesus Christ.” Collins laughed out loud before Eoin cut him short. “Beware of Judas.” The smile evaporated from Collins’s face.

Collins stood up and towered over Eoin. “You jeerin’ me, boy?”

Eoin became deadly serious. “I need this job. This country, this city has destroyed my fooking family. My parents are dead. My brother Frank is on the run in the Dublin Mountains. Mary and Dickie are in orphanages. I have to make a better tomorrow for this country, or my family is done for.” Eoin paused. “For now, you and the movement are my family.”

Collins sat down again, his hands calmly on the papers in front of him, deflated. He finally opened the top drawer of the desk and pulled out a Webley. “Here,” he said, placing the gun on the desk near Eoin. “This is Blood’s. The one they took off him at the movie house. Get Vinny to show you how to use it. Go out to the country and make yourself an expert. You will continue to work in Crow Street, and I will use you only when I have to. You will supplement the Squad.”

“The Thirteenth Apostle.”

“The baker’s dozen,” said a suddenly weary Collins. Eoin picked up his gun, slid it into his coat pocket without saying another word, and left. Collins rose, stretched, and went to the window, which had a straight-on view of Parnell Square North and the grounds of the Rotunda. One thought kept pricking at Collins’s conscience—who was his Judas?