A Winter of Spies: Ireland's War of Independence: when the truth can get you killed

By Gerard Whelan

A sequel to The Guns of Easter which won the Eilís Dillon Memorial Award and a Bisto Merit Award.
This books tells the exciting story of Sarah (Jimmy's young sister) and their family who are involved in the spying activities of Michael Collins during the War of Independence. Sarah, a young eleven-year-old, cannot figure out why her family is so neutral towards the war and why everybody is so secretive. A strong rebel herself, she wants to do her bit for Ireland. Then she finds out the terrible truth - and she too carries secrets which could cost her her life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The O'Brien Press
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781847174079

Gerard Whelan

Gerard Whelan was born in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, and has lived and worked in several European countries. After some time living in Dublin, he has returned to live in his native Wexford. He is the author of many books for children and a multiple award-winner. His first novel, The Guns of Easter, won the Eilís Dillon Memorial Award for first-time writers. Dream Invader later won the Bisto Book of the Year Award. He has also been shortlisted for the Reading Association of Ireland awards. Gerard is also the author of A Winter of Spies and Out of Nowhere.

Book preview

PART 1: THE IMPOSSIBLE CHILD

1

THE RAID

ONE OF THE WHEELS ON THE TOY BABY CARRIAGE WAS BENT

. It squeaked as Sarah Conway pushed it down the path. Eileen, the doll, lay swaddled in blankets inside. Her painted eyes looked blankly at the morning sky. Sarah hummed a lullaby under her breath. It was almost half-past eight.

When Sarah turned the corner onto the canal she saw a Crossley tender pulled up at the side of the street. Two Tommies and a Black and Tan were standing by Phelans’ gate. She was right beside them. The sounds of a rough search came from the open doorway of the house. Wood broke against a floor or a wall. Glass smashed. Sarah stopped and leaned over the doll.

‘Now, you go to sleep, Eileen,’ she said. ‘You need your rest.’

The men at the gate looked at her. They were bored.

‘The little one not go asleep for you, love?’ one of the Tommies asked. Under his steel helmet his face was young and open. He had big blue eyes.

‘Eileen is a bold girl,’ Sarah told him.

‘Give over, mate,’ the Tan said to the soldier. ‘You’re wasting your time talking to these people.’

‘She’s only a kid, Riggs,’ the other Tommy said to the Tan. ‘What do you think she’s going to do? Pull a gun out of the pram?’

The two soldiers laughed. The sounds of things breaking came from the house. A net curtain twitched in the window next door. A white face peeped out, then the curtain was jerked shut again.

The Tan didn’t like being laughed at. He gave Sarah a nasty look.

‘What’s in that baby carriage, girlie?’ he snarled at her.

‘A baby,’ Sarah said. The two Tommies laughed again.

‘Give it a rest, Riggs,’ the young one said. ‘She’s a kid.’

‘I’m eleven now,’ Sarah corrected him.

The Black and Tan, Riggs, said a dirty word.

‘You’d best get along, miss,’ the other Tommy said kindly. ‘We’re on business here.’

‘So am I,’ Sarah said.

‘You weren’t,’ said the Tan, ‘coming here to this house, were you?’

Sarah looked at Phelans’ house. They had no children, but they owned a big old lazy dog called Ranger who was always begging for food.

‘I don’t even know who lives here,’ Sarah said. There were grenades hanging from the soldiers’ webbing. The Tan had two revolvers in open holsters on his belt, like a cowboy you’d see in the picture house.

‘Shut up, Riggs,’ said the older soldier. ‘No wonder they don’t like us, with pigs like you on the job.’ He smiled at Sarah. ‘There’s bad people living here, missy,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t want to know them. You get off home now. Your Eileen might sleep better there.’

‘All right,’ Sarah said, and went on. Before she reached the crossing two more police tenders went by. They were full of Black and Tans, bristling with rifles. Sarah turned down the back lane, still humming.

She found Simon Hughes round the bend in the lane. He wore a long black overcoat, and had his hand in one of the pockets. His face was pale and worried, his hair was uncombed. He looked shocked when he saw her.

‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Our gal Sal.’ He had a nice voice, though his accent was English. Sarah suspected that her sister Josie was sweet on him. He’d grown a lovely little moustache lately.

‘Simple Simon!’ she said. ‘In trouble again. But you’re in luck – they’re lazy today. They’re only starting to surround the place. Give me your gun.’

Simon gave her a funny look. ‘You must be joking, doll,’ he said.

‘There’s Tans and Tommies in the street,’ Sarah said calmly. ‘Martin sent me. Give me your gun.’

Simon Hughes thought hard. Then, reluctantly, he pulled his pistol out and handed it to her. It was a long-barrelled automatic, one of the ones they called ‘Peter the Painters’.

Sarah put the pistol in the bottom of the baby carriage and covered it with Eileen’s blanket. Simon handed her two spare magazines for the gun, and she put them in her apron pocket.

‘I’m going back the way I came,’ she said. ‘You go the other way.’

The young man stared at her.

‘Yes, boss,’ he said sarcastically. Then he thought better of it. ‘Thanks, Sal,’ he said. ‘Does your family know where you are?’

Sarah sniffed. ‘What do you think?’ she asked.

Simon looked as though he didn’t know what to think. Then he shrugged, turned and walked down the lane, trying to look casual. Sarah was sure that was easier for him without the gun. With a bit of luck he’d miss the soldiers altogether anyway.

‘Good luck,’ she said. She started back up the lane. Just as she came to the street again a group of Tans came into the laneway. Behind them walked an Auxiliary officer in his Glengarry cap and a pale man in a long overcoat with a pistol in his hand. They all looked at her suspiciously. Riggs, the Tan who’d been at the gate, was with them. He sneered at Sarah.

‘We talked to her already,’ he said to the others. ‘She’s just another stupid bogtrotter.’

The cheek! Sarah thought. She’d never trotted on a bog in her whole life! She’d never even seen a bog, come to that, unless you counted some of the peat beds in the mountains. But she stayed calm. The Tans went their way and she went hers. She was still humming. When she looked back the men had disappeared around the bend in the lane, all except the man with the overcoat and pistol. He was staring at Sarah. He looked very thoughtful.

Sarah didn’t want any of these men thinking about her at all. She tried not to hurry, though she was half-expecting the man – he had to be some kind of detective – to call her back. Suddenly she didn’t feel so adult any more. They wouldn’t shoot a little girl, she told herself. Still, little girls did get shot. Just before she reached the street she looked back again, but the man was gone. Sarah felt her confidence return as she went on. For a while she listened for the shouts or shots that would say Simon had been stopped. She heard nothing, and was glad. She liked Simon.

It was still early on this Sunday morning. Eight o’clock Mass was on in Haddington Road church, and the streets of Dublin were almost deserted. Sarah got away from the canal, and after a while turned down another lane. Two more young men were waiting for her there, Mick’s friend Martin Ford and the Wexford one, Byrne. Sarah didn’t really like Byrne. He was always polite, but there was something very cold about him.

The two looked tensely at Sarah until she smiled.

‘How’s a girl?’ Martin Ford said then.

‘A girl is grand, thank you,’ Sarah said. ‘And so is a Simon, I think.’

She took the pistol from the pram and handed it to Martin. Byrne’s blank eyes searched the empty lane. He had the eyes of a killer, Ma had said one time in anger, then hushed herself, seeing Sarah there. Sarah, in spite of herself, had felt thrilled by the word. She’d have expected a killer’s eyes to be wilder. Byrne’s eyes were as cold as stones. You could never tell what he was thinking.

‘You’re a life-saver, Sarah,’ Martin Ford said. ‘Simon has a cool head. With no gun and an English accent he’ll just walk out of there, even if he’s stopped.’

Sarah gave a mock-curtsey. ‘Thank you kindly,’ she said.

Byrne looked at her and shook his head. ‘You’re a crazy child,’ he said.

‘And aren’t you glad of it?’ Sarah said tartly.

He gave her a thin smile, the only sort she’d ever seen on his face. ‘Get along home with you now,’ he said. ‘It might get hot around here yet.’

Sarah gave him a big smile, to show him how it was done. He had no right to be so cold and serious. She knew he was only twenty, but he acted like an old man all the time. Then she turned and made towards home. The wheel on the pram squeaked all the way. Sarah felt very pleased with herself. She felt she had just taken her first steps into the adult world. It was true: she had. But it wasn’t the world she expected. New worlds never are.

2

AT HOME

THE YEAR 1920 WAS A BAD TIME FOR IRELAND. The fight for independence had turned violent again the year before, and the violence had worsened and spread. The reborn Volunteer movement ambushed army and police patrols and assassinated government agents. It was a guerrilla war, the Volunteers striking when least expected and then fading back into their everyday lives among the people.

The British government, victorious in the Great War but exhausted by it, didn’t know how to deal with this kind of fighting. They struck back blindly and ever more viciously at the Volunteers, while denying to the world that they were striking back at all. They’d lost control of Ireland, though they wouldn’t admit it; and as the year passed, they seemed at times to be losing control even of their own forces. Reports of raids, murders and reprisals made people both sad and angry. To Sarah Conway, though, the times seemed more exciting than frightening. She was happy, now, to have played a small part in the struggle.

Sarah lived with her family in Northumberland Road. It took her only a few minutes to get there. At home everyone had been up for ages except Sarah’s brother Jimmy. Jimmy stayed up late on Saturday nights, reading. He spent a lot of time reading, not just newspapers or magazines but actual books. Ma always said it was a pity that he hadn’t had more schooling, but Jimmy preferred to work. You learned more out in the world, he said.

Jimmy had been working as a messenger boy for one of the big stores now for over two years. Da was trying to get him a place as a clerical apprentice in Kingsbridge railway station where he and their uncle Mick worked as porters. That was a good steady job, but there was a long waiting list for places. Meanwhile Jimmy was happy enough being a messenger boy. The weather was bad sometimes, and he had to wear a uniform with a peaked cap. But there were, as he said himself, worse uniforms, and he got to ride all over the city on the firm’s bicycle delivering goods. That in itself displeased Ma.

‘The streets are not safe,’ she’d say.

At weekends Jimmy’s reading always kept him up late. Ma and Da worried that he might show a light, inviting a raid. At the same time they liked the fact that he was studious.

‘None of my family were readers,’ Da used to say. ‘They’d no truck with books.’

That wasn’t completely true. Da himself had taken to reading a fair bit after he came out of the army, trying – he always said – to understand what the Great War had been about. For him, as for many Irishmen, it had been about getting some wages and feeding his family; but he’d been curious about why everyone else was fighting.

In the end Da gave up trying to understand the war. So far as he could see, he said, it had all to do with secret treaties and family feuds between the kings and queens of Europe – that and what Da called robbery rights.

‘What are robbery rights?’ Jimmy asked him