Chapter 22 #2
Sidney barely managed to squeeze his Pierce-Arrow inside the gates, parking in the Lower Castle Yard beside armored vehicles mounted with machine guns.
While he maneuvered through the crowds, I spotted many people I knew, including a tearful but defiant Mrs. Woodcock—who lived just around the corner from us—speaking to the distraught and pregnant Mrs. Newberry.
Had their husbands been among the victims?
Major Woodcock was just a regular army officer, though Captain Newberry had been involved in courts-martial proceedings.
This was my first indication that the execution of Collins’s plans had not gone as flawlessly as it had initially seemed.
Sidney and I were swiftly ushered into the offices of the RIC, which were packed with angry and frightened individuals demanding answers, and then deeper into O’s office. There we found the head of British Intelligence within Ireland thoroughly rattled and lashing out.
“How did you escape this?” he growled when he caught sight of me.
At first, I resented the fact that he’d decided to lay into me with the door open in front of dozens of people, but later I was glad of the witnesses.
Though taken aback, I replied as calmly as I could manage. “We were in Rathmines at a house party hosted by the Harringtons. We’ve come directly from there.” Anyone would be able to verify this. There had been over twenty guests plus staff.
He shouldered several people aside, snarling into my face. “Did you know about this? Because if you did, I’ll see you and your husband’s heads displayed on pikes on Tower Bridge.”
“No!” I cried in affront, even as Sidney crowded close to me, glaring at O to back off. “Of course not. Do you honestly think we would have remained silent if we’d had the slightest inkling of what was about to occur?”
Knowing that something bad was going to happen and having not the least idea what, were two different things.
If I’d contacted O to tell him I had a bad feeling that the rebels were planning something, he would have laughed me out of his office and ridiculed me to anyone who might listen. It would have saved no one.
“I don’t know. You have before.”
I narrowed my eyes, refusing to remain silent if he wasn’t. “Wrong! We tried to warn you, but you and your men refused to listen. And that’s why we had to step in and save you from that regimental foul-up.” The implication being this was another.
Sidney grasped my arm, perhaps warning me to stop before I said something I couldn’t retract. Meanwhile, O’s face had flushed a shade of red bordering on purple. But before he could speak, a tall man in military uniform stepped forward.
“The Kents’ house was one of the homes targeted, sir.”
I gasped, pressing a hand to my chest as Sidney and I both turned to the man in alarm. “Our staff?” Sidney asked.
The man’s gaze flicked briefly to O before he answered. “Are unharmed, except for the fright of having a pistol aimed at them. Once they discovered you weren’t home, the assailants departed. So it appears your absence saved your life.”
My legs quivered beneath me, making me glad of Sidney’s firm grip on my elbow. “We need to check on them,” I told him.
The men crowding the rooms had begun murmuring to each other, but overhearing this statement, they broke off to protest.
“Oh, you can’t do that!”
“It’s not safe.”
“Everyone is being recalled temporarily to the safety of the Castle while a number of hotels nearby are commandeered.”
“Then perhaps we’ll return,” I replied, defiance entering my voice. “But we have to see for ourselves that they’re unhurt.”
“Besides, it seems unlikely the gunmen would return now,” Sidney chimed in to say. “Not when the entire might of the British Empire is looking for them.”
“All roads exiting the city are being blocked off and trains and steamers stopped,” another man cautioned. “With their escape routes cut off, they may panic.”
Except I didn’t think the gunmen were from outside the city, or that they’d be trying to flee it.
They were far more likely to have been pulled from the ranks of Collins’s Squad and the local brigades of the IRA.
Which meant they would be hiding in plain sight among the masses in Dublin, lying low and trying not to draw attention to themselves.
Every weapon that had been used that morning was probably already squirreled away, far from the man that had pulled its trigger.
But rather than continue to argue, we fell silent, allowing the crowd to push forward, pressing O and others with their requests for information about the victims and questions about the logistics of who was going to lodge where and how any of this had been allowed to happen.
We drifted to the back of the throng and out the door.
“We’ll have to risk it,” Sidney murmured as we hurried toward his Pierce-Arrow.
Of course, maneuvering the Pierce-Arrow back out of the log-jammed Palace Street gate was no easy feat.
It was some time before we were able to reach College Green outside Trinity College.
There, the traffic eased, but then we had to contend with several barricades restricting access to the streets in front of the buildings where the shootings had occurred.
Lamentably, these were dotted all around our Upper Fitzwilliam Street home, making the area a veritable minefield.
But as luck would have it, most of the soldiers manning those barricades recognized us and allowed us to swiftly pass through.
It seemed accounts that we had been targeted and survived had rapidly spread, which made them more likely to try to discourage us from going farther for our own protection than to actively impede us.
All told, by the time we reached the rear door of our home, it was midafternoon. What exactly our staff had been doing during the intervening time, I didn’t know, but they, along with Max, all hurried from various parts of the house to greet us in the corridor outside the dining room.
First things first. “Are you injured?” I asked our maid, valet, and cook in turn, scanning them from head to toe for any visible signs of harm.
Ginny shook her head, her arms crossed before her, while Nimble denied verbally.