A Girl’s Own War

By K. J. Kelly

In wartime Ireland, an Englishman and a German each need the other to betray his country. And if the nationalist firebrands get their way, they may have to fight to the death. But hang on!―Just a few months ago, Flight Lieutenant Oliver Carmichael and Baron Julius von Stulpnagel were living together in Berlin, trying to sell forged paintings. So what are they doing in rundown Ballingore, and how will ex-convent-girl Mary Collins and her devoted red-headed sidekick Niamh Slattery play into their hands? In this hilarious Irish farce, K. J. Kelly brilliantly recreates the slapstick flavour of an Ealing Studios comedy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Envelope Books
• Release date: Feb 29, 2024
• ISBN: 9781915023247

Book preview

Dramatis Personae

Mary Collins

A recently matriculated young convent gal

Niamh Slattery

Mary’s competent assistant

Commandant Tim Joe Finucane

Mary’s beau

Frances Barber

Mary’s bane

Lieutenant Oliver Carmichael R.N.

A crash-landed English gentleman

The Baron Julius von Stulpnagel

A shipwrecked German gentleman

Lady White

Châtelaine of Ballingore House

Lord White

Master of Ballingore House

Chivers

Butler to Lord White

Sergeant Slane

Sergeant of the Gardai

Young Con Cronin

Slane’s probationer

Major John Betjeman

British Military Attaché

Deborah DuBarry

Hotel owner and Mary’s landlady

J.J. Powers

Bootlegger

Mrs Wiseman

Ballingore’s leading milliner

Father Crowley

Parish Priest and impresario

Doctor O’Loan

Concerned citizen and doctor

Adolf Mahr

Dublin’s No. 1 Nazi

Das Wolfskorps

Mahr’s archaeological assistants

McAlistair and Moreau

A pair of crash-landed Canadians

Kapitän Venier

Commander of U237

A small Protestant boy

A spaniel

‘Sepulchre’

A person from a secret Irish government ministry

1 Something Will Turn Up

It wasn’t in the brightest of spirits that Mary Collins made her way to Lord White’s demesne for another night of totting up the bar bills of the crash-landed Allied fliers who roosted there.

Had she mentioned they were brave boys? Thirsty, more like, and in no rush to get back to the fray. True enough, his Lordship made them sign the visitors book, promising not to escape. And true to their word, they didn’t, at least not until their drinks’ tally went through the roof and London stopped their wages. Then it was off to Belfast by taxi, with a ‘Cheerio, Whitey, old man. We’ll send a cheque, what?’

The old noble took it out on his staff. He’d thunder on at them for being a bunch of Fenian cowards, hanging on his coat tails, when they should be off biffing the Hun. But that was the law in this neutral Irish Free State. Or Éire. Or whatever it was called this week. No scrapping—with either side. The same law declared that any Allied forces straying onto the hallowed turf had to be interned. It didn’t say how or where. So, in steps old Whitey, volunteering bed, board and booze, no doubt reckoning he was helping the mother country. What an odd set up, that this weedling port of Ballingore, this sliver of old Ireland stuck out in the Atlantic, far from Dublin and an age from America, should be slap bang in the middle of the war without really being in it. And how long might that centre hold? Not long, she hoped. Not long at all.

There was the usual talk of Germans invading. Her prayers ought to be firmly to the contrary, for the Germans were reckoned to be godless. But if they did, just saying, it would put the wind up those air-spiffers lounging around Whitey’s library, with their ‘Oh, and fetch me a large one, would you?’ and ‘By Jove you’re a fine set of a gal. Stick it on the jolly old bill. Chin chin!’

Chin chin, her behind. She didn’t so much mind the ribbing, the occasional goosing or even the bruises on her … oh she couldn’t keep saying, ‘behind’. At nineteen and having matriculated with more than a soupçon of French, she ought to say derrière. She might even forgo the italics, such was her natural aptitude for oh, je ne sais quoi. But what really rankled was her being plain Mary Collins. Not plain in looks. Obviously. Even at this time of night she bore a much-remarked-upon resemblance to … no, mustn’t say—apart from the beauty in question being dark, striking and famous. The astonishing thing was, she was without a middle name. Herself, not the actress. It played merry hell with one’s poise. At her being introduced, those blasted flyboys would scoff, ‘Mary Collins. The proper name for any colleen.’ Well, no colleen was she but a sophisticate worth a great deal more than the sum of those pedestrian pair of monikers.

Oh, what was the point of pouring her heart out into the briny? What cared the waves about her declarations of specialness? Next, she’d be telling old Neptune about her supposed paramour, Tim Joe Finucane. No? Well, here’s the abbreviated version. Tim Joe was an awfully important man in Ballingore. He was its chief protector against invasion, by any foe, at any time. She hadn’t known Tim Joe previously because he’d been a local lad and local and lad didn’t cut it at her convent school upon the bluff. TJ was literally hundreds of feet and a dozen social classes below her. But fair play to the fellow, he’d been made commandant of the local defence platoon, a fact she was painfully aware of when he bumped into her on the ‘off chance’ up in Dublin, May last. Naturally, he recognised her. The senior girls of the convent were notedly photogenic and graced the sports and social pages of the local rag. Well, they could hardly feature the toothless locals. Anyway, she’d been on her way to a shoo-in of an interview for a position at the civil service, a secretary to some nameless and no doubt balding minister of blarney, or some such. The point being the job came with its own ante-office and a desk with a telephone that was bound to ring itself silly with chums desperate to have one round for tennis over the weekend. And then hadn’t yon Tim Joe ordered her to report back to Ballingore on official and secret business—a ‘sacred mission’? ‘At the double. Aboutttt turn!’

It turned out the sum total of her orders was that she should spy on the internees at the Big House, where she had said fill-in bookkeeping-cum-bar-tendering job. But there were no plots to report, except his own, for it was as clear as the bloom upon his cheeks that he’d lied in order to put her under his command. And had that lie turned to shame for his desiring of her? Cripes, at this rate she’d remain untouched for the duration. Yet any word against him now and the entire town would say she’d led him on.

Had she? Was she such a sinner? Tim Joe hadn’t exactly bowled her over, but his attentions had turned her head—enough for folk to remark upon the sway of her hips, the swing of her hair. ‘Sashaying’ was the word upon their poisonous lips. She did not so! It was simply that her employment required her to perambulate the threadbare port, to navigate its broken cobbles and puddles. But with poise, naturellement. Besides, how would those same folk feel if she went about piously, head down, only to trip and tumble to her death in the black water below? What Ballingore needed was less of the gossip and more of the sand and cement. Bah! She kicked a loose pebble as hard her Clarke’s sandals would allow. The mortification: nineteen and still in her T-Bars—

grrrrRRRRRVROOOooom

Something flying. Too low! ‘What-in-the-holy name-of—’

Mary Collins! I hope you weren’t about to take Our Saviour’s name in vain?

Flat on her face after her dive to safety, she spat out that same wee pebble. The indignity. And now the indelible mem­ory of her old teachers admonishing her for nearly swearing. Well, she’d like to hear their oaths if they’d been near flattened by a flying boat—yes, a flamin' flying boat—bearing down on their heads. Those sisters didn’t have to be out on the quayside in the dark, picking their way like disgusted cats. Wait a mo’. Was that a splash? Had the infernal contraption crash landed into the bay? Or just the engine changing pitch, straining climbing maybe? Ah, it must be making its escape.

She sighed; she should be so lucky to get out of Ballingore as quickly.

Oh well, nothing for it but to pick oneself up, to regain one’s composure, a thing usually accomplished by looking out over the water—to America, of course. She was seeking that green light. But no soothing notion came this night. No beacon blinked and proclaimed ‘Destiny’. Perhaps if she re-read her Gatsby? Then she should jolly-well demand its return. After all, confiscation wasn’t forever. Nuns had less dominion over her these days, but her mood sank when she considered re-darkening the doors of the Holy Sisters of Mercy. There had been no blotting of her schooldays copybook. No, it was simply that thus far, she was proving a failure. Other old girls made a point of taking tea with the nuns, coming down from Dublin in stockings and shiny cars driven by fiancés pipping their horns and making the nuns whimper under their wimples. By golly, she’d have liked to have done similar but here she was, marooned, a whole half year since her finals, with only the skirt she’d matriculated in and a certificate. Her career? She didn’t even keep proper office hours. She kicked another pebble, this time into the water.

‘Ow!’

‘Whatever was that?’ She spoke aloud. The situation demanded it.

‘I said ow. Will you desist from stoning a chap?’

Cripes. A man! Down below.

‘I say, you girl. Help. Airman in distress, what. Down here, in the ruddy harbour.’

‘Airman,’ did he say? Then … then that flying boat did come down! Or what was your man doing swashing about in his emergency coracle?

‘I say, girl.’

Girl? ‘Get away with you. I’m … I’m twenty-one.’

‘And I’m quite holed.’

The rogue! But even in this dim light it was plain to see his raft had as much water inside of it as himself. And if the situation wasn’t precarious enough, he bore a heavy-looking casket upon his shoulder. Right, this clown was going to be told.

‘Heave your plunder over the side and swim for it. That’s a grand Mae West you’re sporting.’

‘Can’t. Mustn’t. The delivery of this chest constitutes a most sacred mission.’

Jeepers: ‘sacred mission’? The very words used by Tim Joe.

‘Get away or I’ll call out the defence platoon.’

‘Defence against what?’

‘Chancers like you. Sacred mission my … my—’

‘Then I shall insert the words, assuredly so, for mine is about to go in the drink.’

‘I was going to say derrière—’ She caught herself, but too late.

‘I don’t need an Irish air just now.’

‘What? Oh, very funny.’

‘Yesss. Perhaps if you might secure this chest, The fate of thousands rests within.’

What did he say? Could such a joker have been entrusted with something so important? Mind you, the way he clutched his precious box it looked like he’d drown with it. And she wasn’t having that on her conscience.

‘Six feet to your right: iron steps. Left behind by your navy from years ago. And we’ve not taken them for scrap.’

‘Very considerate. You stand at the summit while I clamber.’

She looked down upon his upturned face. Yes, the murk, the murk, but he had a bright face with a good square-cut jaw. What a grand feeling, looking down upon a pleasing-looking man, a thing to be done more often, say, in lieu of talking to the sea.

‘Miss? I say, Miss. You seem distracted. My chest: would you mind awfully?’

‘Hmph. Just this once.’ Gosh, ’twas heavy. ‘What’s inside of it?’

Having reached terra firma he snatched it back as a jealous mother would her babe.

‘Oh no! I must never divulge. It’d get me shot and you, worse. Now, if you’d be so kind as to direct me to Lord White’s. I could do with a bath and a stiff drink.’

The gall of the man. ‘By what rights?’

‘As an Englishman. I see you look censorious. Sorry about that earlier squeak. Not an easy place to ditch in. Narrow as a sauce bottle. And the bally hills.’

She put her hands upon her hips. ‘You mean the neutral hills? In a neutral territory? Not a speck of you should be on it.’ But her ire was to no avail. He bellowed laughter at her.

‘My dear hissing goose, you have no anti-aircraft defence. Why not drop a line to the Air Ministry in London? They could do with a hoot. Now, may we … ?’

She wasn’t finished. ‘We have Commandant Tim Joe Finucane of the Éire, I mean Free State, defence forces. He has an awfully large field gun.’

‘I didn’t land in a field.’

‘Hoh! I’m still going to report you.’

‘Now, now, Miss. I meant it when I said there’d be shooting.’

Heavens. He had it pointed straight at her, the metal shaft reflecting the only bit of moonlight. How unfair. How horrid.

‘Sure, I’m just a girl late for work and you come near landing on top of me and—and pointing that at me.’

‘Oh, Miss. Please don’t take on. See?’

Something clicked and a light came on below his face.

‘Just a silly torch. Wouldn’t let me have an actual gun, not with my record. My old mush, hey? Mwah, mhwaww.’

‘Turn off your childish nonsense. There’s a war on. And we’re not in it.’

‘Then strictly neutral you shall remain, safe within your sturdy bloomers. Oh, don’t look so fierce, Miss. Just a joke. Six feet below, I could hardly fail to notice—eek! Desist from your pushing!’

Tall and broad he might be, but he was going back where he came from. She shoved hard and … he budged not an inch. But what’s this? His chest heaving. And what were her hands up to? Wandering across his breadth and depth was what. And her mind? Roaming. Wondrously so.

She ought to say something, at least to herself: that she should quit her explorations. But blast the man, for now he was laughing at her. She’d cry out, ‘I’m not a child. I am worthy of a full-grown man.’ But thanks be to God she had a sudden vision of her old Mother Superior demanding decorum and submission.

‘Ahem.’

‘Yes, Miss, ahem. Very well, I concede …’

He’d made a sweeping bow. And why was he sounding whispery?

‘ … That you’ve rather more spunk than the average gal. Am I to know the name of she who wants to throw her catch back into the sea? May I at least see your face?’

His blasted torch again, this time playing upon her. Why then would she not step away from its beam?

‘I am Mary Collins.’

‘How dashed wonderful to meet you Miss Mary Collins. I am the Honourable Flight Lieutenant Oliver J. Carmichael. At your service, Mademoiselle!’ He held out his hand.

She took it like a child taking chocolate. He must think her a naïve.

‘Turn off your flamin’ torch.’

‘But I hold it for you, Miss Collins. Why, I couldn’t look at anything other than you, not if the whole town was ablaze. Not even if it was Atlanta,’ adding, in a very good cod-American accent, ‘No, I don’t think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly—.’

‘Sir, you are no gentleman.’

He howled laughing. ‘My Scarlett O’Hara.’

Church bells interrupted, tinny at first, then bigger and more sonorous.

‘Clown! Even the Church of Ireland is in high alarum. The Free State soldiers will be upon us. And the guards. Sergeant Slane will soon beat the secrets of that box out of you.’

‘Then you must show me the way to Lord White’s. At once. Think of the lives you’ll save, Miss Collins. Lead on, brave maiden, lead on. You are, I assume?—ouch!’

2 A Dark and Lonely Road

‘I say, not still angry with me are you, Miss Collins?’

She was. More so if he didn’t quit yapping. For an Englishman, he was awfully loquacious. And fruity. Brave maiden indeed. And now he’d started whistling.

‘Do you want to get caught? My Tim Joe will flog the hides of the both of us.’

‘Just filling in the embarrassing silences. Say, are we anywhere near this White joint?’

‘Joint?’

‘It’s the argot du jour, don’t you know? From the films. Or movies. I shall have it down pat by the time I deposit this box of tricks upon President Roosevelt’s desk. We seem to be taking the scenic route.’

Bighead. And what did he expect if they were to avoid detection? They had to follow the coast road. Mind you it was a route so curlicue you’d easily meet yourself coming. No, she wasn’t going to relate that local chestnut; he was laughing enough at her as it was. And whistling!

‘All right. I’ve stopped. Are we nearly there?’

No. And would he care that this fiddling path he’d forced upon her was making her ever later? She glared at him, and he returned a goofy grin. Then, to confound her more, he slapped his forehead.

‘Germans!’

‘Where?’

‘Just remembered that their bally submariners sometimes wash up here. Does Lord White put ’em up?’

‘Ah no. Lord White doesn’t hold with having Germans about the place. Their shipwrecked are interned in the old holiday huts on Brown’s Island.’

‘Thing is, I might be expecting someone, an officer in the Kriegsmarine, a chap of noble birth. Surely Lord White will provide a berth for his sort?’

‘Will he pay his way?’

‘As good as any English chap.’

Mary sighed and they trudged on.

Thank God they’d finally reached the main gates at the foot of the carriage drive to Lord White’s joint, the demesne of Ballingore House.

The Right Honourable Flight Lieutenant Oliver J Carmichael gazed up at the carved symbols of British despot­ism—the lion and the unicorn—putting up their mitts to each other.

‘The arms of the old repressor, eh, Mary? Yet you live here.’

‘Ah no. My main residence is at the Bay Hotel.’ She gave a little pat to her hair just above her nape. ‘It’s quite the best in town. I merely help out here most evenings with the cellar accounts. Friday is especially busy. The airmen guests are apt to make many a toast.’

‘To the King?’

‘To each other.’

‘And you’re running the tab? What a formidable factotum you must be. Don’t say another word, old girl, though I see you are anxious to expand upon the subject. Save your breath for the precipitous and winding drive that lies ahead. How come old Whitey resides up a mountain?’

‘So that the very first lord might espy Napoleon’s invasion.’

‘But the chap never materialised.’

‘After he didn’t, the locals grew restless.’

‘You strike me as pretty restless, Mary. Actually, why don’t you tell me about yourself? It’ll pass the time. No? Oh, come now. What’s the expression? Better out than in?’

What a possibly rude reference (for ’twas a saying her school chums used in passing reference to the passing of—oh never mind). But surely, he must be meaning that she should unburden her heart. She struck while the iron was hot, with a beginning rehearsed many times. The heart-rending one. You see, she was quite the orphan. Still was of course, but her tale also encompassed history, Irish history in all its Sturm und Drang, if she might borrow a phrase. What did he know of the subject? Not German, Irish. Not a thing, eh? And just like the internees at Lord White’s place, it tickled him he knew nothing. She’d soon wipe his smirk.

Properly she was a Cork city girl. Way back in June 1922, when she’d no notion of that fine city or herself—or the insurrection—she’d been in her pram having a sun-bathe outside her Dadda’s store—the Provendary on Saint Patrick’s Quay. What memory could she have had at such a tender age, apart from the sight of dappled sunshine, the smell of lavender polish, oranges and fine cheese, the agreeable hubbub of cultured conversation? Her Mama and Dadda were purveyors of the finest comestibles any decent paying soul might hope to ingest. Why, just to step inside the shop was to get a nose-full of the Belle Époque.

It wasn’t the smell that tantalised the British forces surrounding the city during this war of independence but that this emporium was called Collins’s. And it so happened that a Michael Collins was the rebel general. Honestly, how likely was it that a dashing revolutionary would have a side-line in imported delicacies? The distinction was lost on the British Black and Tans. They shelled the place with alacrity.

‘Alacrity, Mary? That’s the worst sort.’

Indeed. For Mama and Dadda perished that day. And so would have she herself, but for a giant wheel of Parmesan, blown clear from the premises, that came to lie full across her pram fortuitously, to bear the brunt of falling masonry. It fell to a soi-disant aunt called Aunt Lizzie—

‘Soi-disant? How awfully isolating.’

—to raise the young survivor, at least until she fell down a well. Aunt Lizzie, not herself. Then it was off to board at the local convent school, an education paid for by some unknown benefactor.

He sighed and shook his head. It was clear he did not know what to make of it. Then again, nor did anyone.

‘I say, Mary, all that stuff in the store, I bet it came from all points of the compass, what? Lands your pater likely traversed in sandals whilst bearing cleft stick. Warmer climes and so forth. Soon as I shone that torch I thought, this gal is cut from a more exotic cloth.’

‘Don’t say that! You mustn’t. Ignorant folk already point and gossip.’

‘The bally clods. I say, Miss Collins, I’ve taken rather a shine to you. But fear not, for it is in a protective way. Look here—’

She held up her hand to bid him hush for he was no longer boyish but explicating in a most serious way. Yes, that befitted a man some years senior to herself but ’twas a shame, for she wanted to hear more about the shine thing. Yet, if she steered him that direction things might take a decidedly racy turn. And besides, she was late, lamentably so. They must push on.

3 Hidden Treasure

Lord White was at his evening bath when Chivers, the butler, buttled in.

‘If ye please, Milord. There’s after being another a’ them crash-landed fellas I’ve to present to ye.’

‘Good heavens, Chivers. While I’m bathing?’

‘He’s a cheeky tyke, is this one. I’ll show him in, will I? I will.’

‘Certainly not.’

The door flew open and the imposing but putative guest strode in.

‘Room for a small one, Lord White, what? Quite a lather you’re working up in that four inches. Right’o Chivers, do the honours. Oh, and make a passable attempt at the King’s tongue or His Lordship will think I’ve pitched me kite nose-first into an Irish bog.’

Chivers glared at the visitor but announced in a lower timbre, ‘If you please, Milord, this is Flying Lieutenant The Right Honourable Oliver J. Carmichael, Royal Naval Fleet Arm, lately of—where’d ye say?’

‘Piccadilly, parish of.’

‘Extraordinary,’ Lord White spluttered.

‘It’s a hoot on a Saturday night. But here I am, waifed and strayed, seeking a warm bed and an even warmer welcome from like-minded Britisher fellows marooned on this foggy boggy isle, huddling together in fear of Fenian rapscallions who’d waylay an agent of the Crown on his very secret mission to America.’

‘Then blast it, Sir, why even allude to the matter?’

‘Because the secret is all tucked up in this box, which you must never ever open, or you’ll be in way hotter water than the water you’re in now.’

‘Extraordinary.’

‘So you keep saying. Chivers my man, make busy with steak, spuds and something old, ripe and French, and I’m not talking cheese.’

‘Dash it, that’s not the cut of a Right Honourable fellow.’

‘Now then, Chivers.’ The flight lieutenant produced a five-pound note. The butler crabbed forward. ‘Atta boy. Now this little secret box is to be stowed in the quarters of Miss