Chapter 2 #2
Moving as little as possible, I surveyed my surroundings.
I could see that there were new prisoners now mixed in among us.
I’d been forewarned this happened every night, as people out past curfew or captured during raids were brought in.
There were also bound to be a few drunks, though they sobered up quickly once they realized they were in the Castle.
However, I didn’t think one of these fresh recruits had startled me.
Then I heard the rumble of the guards’ voices.
“It must be a mistake,” one of them whispered to the others.
The commander’s lips smacked as if he’d been puffing on a cigarette. “All I know, is that they want to see her in the intelligence room, if not first thing, then near after.”
“Good God!”
“But surely they won’t …?”
“I don’t know what they intend. ’Tisn’t my purview.”
My body went ice-cold, for I knew to who and what they referred.
I’d heard enough of the rebels talking, read enough prisoner accounts in the Irish Bulletin—the official newspaper of Dáil éireann, the republican shadow government—to know what that meant.
It had been hovering at the back of my mind since the moment the door to our rented town house came crashing in, the specter of it haunting my thoughts.
For prisoners were not taken to the intelligence room merely for a pleasant chat.
I closed my eyes, my body awash in fear. Better now than later, I told myself. Feel it now, bathe in it until you’re numb. Then remember your training.
It was bitterly ironic that during the war when I’d worked in the field, slipping in and out of the occupied territories to rendezvous with our intelligence-gathering networks inside Belgium and France, that I’d been prepared for this.
If I was ever captured by the Germans, I’d been trained how to endure third degree methods at the hands of their secret police.
Yet, I’d made it to the armistice with barely a scratch inflicted on me, only to find myself two years later detained and facing interrogation from my own countrymen.
Bitterly, bitterly ironic.
What little sleep I got the remainder of the night came in fits and starts.
I was sure my fellow prisoners must have been aware of it for I woke looking particularly haggard.
Surveying the new crop of detainees brought in overnight, I was relieved not to see Sidney or his valet, Nimble, or the Irish maid and cook we’d hired.
Though that didn’t stop the nagging worry that they’d been taken elsewhere.
There was one man with a shiner who appeared vaguely familiar, and the way he deliberately avoided meeting my eye as I avoided meeting his, suggested I was right to suspect he might be part of Collins’s crew.
Most of the prisoners joined together to take part in a makeshift service for All Souls’ Day since they were unable to attend mass.
I sat huddled in my blanket as they honored the church penitent and prayed for the holy souls in purgatory.
While as an Anglican I didn’t believe in purgatory, I still prayed for those who had passed that year and those they’d left behind.
Listening to them as I finished, the significance of Britain’s gaffe in executing Kevin Barry the day before, on All Saints’ Day, was borne even more firmly home.
He would have been considered a martyr for the republicans’ cause regardless , but the government’s choice of date drew a clear line to sainthood.
At some point during the wee hours, the guards had changed shift.
This was something I didn’t necessarily welcome.
The four Auxies guarding us the day before had been kind and respectful enough.
Their whispered conversation in the night had upset me, but it had upset them as well, including their commander, whose tone of voice had been taut with concern, as if trying to convince himself as well as the others that they couldn’t interfere.
But these new men had not forged any sort of connection with me.
As such, when two Auxies entered and ordered me and three other prisoners to come with them, none of the guards put up any resistance.
However, not all was bleak, for I recognized one of these new Auxies.
He had crowded into the Crossly tender with Sidney, Captain Maxwell, and I as we drove to the garage on Hanover Street where Sidney and I had first discovered the phosgene cylinders.
He had offered me a piece of chewing gum.
It was evident he recognized me as well, for while he didn’t speak, his gaze was watchful.
He positioned himself at my back as we were paraded out the door and down the alley where I’d entered the day before and then across Lower Castle Yard.
Here was where the headquarters of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), and the British Army’s Dublin Command were ranged.
It also boasted the Chapel Royal and the Record Tower—one of the oldest parts of the castle—which had been known by several names down the years, including the Wardrobe Tower and Gunner’s Tower, due to the machine gun currently positioned on the roof.
It was now largely called the Record Tower because it held the state archives.
I expected the Auxie with the chewing gum to say something as we were marched into the wide courtyard, but he remained silent.
The autumn morning air was chill, and having been forced to leave behind my blanket, I shivered in my woolen walking ensemble.
Military vehicles, including turreted armored motorcars and the tank which was touted out from time to time for intimidation tactics, lined the square.
We passed the two tenders filled with Auxies that seemed to be perpetually at the ready in case of trouble.
It had been these tenders—or ones very like them—which had joined us on the raid of Hanover Street some nights past. As such, some of the faces of the men seated along the boards inside were familiar, and I wasn’t entirely surprised when their voices raised in speculation as they caught sight of me.
“Hey! It’s Verity Kent!” I heard one of the officers actually shout.
I raised my hand to him and the others, bolstered by his grinning visage. “Hullo, boys!” I risked replying, forcing a brave smile, though many of them were older than my four-and-twenty years.
A number of them hollered back their own greetings, rising to their feet to get a better look at me.
“Where are you takin’ her, Campbell?” the officer asked my escort, repeating Campbell’s name when he didn’t answer as we marched farther away.