general.
'How do you spell your first name, Subaltern? I'm afraid that bit of Gaelic confused my midwestern ear,' Uncle Ike said, all smiles for her after a sharp glance at Cosgrove, who seemed to be dismissing him.
'Slah-nah,' she said slowly, the accent on the first syllable, 'is spelled S-l-a-i-n-e.'
'Slaine,' Uncle Ike repeated, doing his best. He smiled, obviously enjoying her beauty, and then snapped out of it. He slapped me on the shoulder and assured me it wouldn't be long before I was back. I didn't even know where the hell I was going.
The three of us settled down into chairs grouped around a small table, where a carafe of water sweated, surrounded by cut-crystal glasses. I poured and gulped down the cool liquid, watching O'Brien and Cosgrove exchanging glances. I wondered which one was going to break the bad news. I decided to get to know this Irish lass a bit before letting them sentence me to whatever scheme they didn't want to waste an Englishman on.
'What exactly is a subaltern, Miss O'Brien? It is Miss O'Brien, isn't it?'
'It's Subaltern O'Brien,' she said, stiffening. 'Subaltern is an Auxiliary Territorial Service rank, equivalent to lieutenant. That's a step up from second lieutenant, by the way.'
'Thanks for the reminder, sir.'
'Ma'am,' she said.
'What?'
''Thanks for the reminder, ma'am,'' she said. 'That is the proper way to address an officer in the ATS. A superior officer.'
I wished Uncle Ike would return. She'd seemed nice when he was around. Now she was acting like an officer, a real officer, even though she was ATS, which was an auxiliary organization the British had put together to allow women to make their contribution to the war effort. Kay had come from the ATS, and I knew they worked as antiaircraft gunners, military police, and everything else short of carrying a rifle at the front.
Subaltern O'Brien's tropical-weight khaki uniform was neat and pressed, a remarkable feat in the heat and dust of the Holy Land. Her ATS insignia, those three letters enclosed by a laurel with a crown at the top, was shiny and bright, the brass gleaming above her breast pocket. Her buttons were polished, their golden color jumping out at me.
She caught my eye wandering over her and turned to Cosgrove, with a brief expression of disdain. I wanted to say I was only admiring her buttons but had the good sense to take another drink of water instead. I smoothed out the wrinkles in my uniform as I tried to remember the last time I'd polished my own buttons. I'd paid some kid in Algiers to do it a while ago, but he'd gotten more Brasso on the jacket than on the buttons.
'Would you like to start the briefing, Major Cosgrove?' She was all business.
'Certainly. Now, Boyle, how much do you know about the Irish Republican Army?'
'I've heard of it,' I said, suspicious as any good Irish boy would be of an Englishman asking such a question. I stared at O'Brien again, overlooking her buttons this time but still wondering why she wore a British uniform.
'Yes, I'm sure,' Cosgrove said. 'You know the IRA came out of the Irish Volunteers and other groups involved in the rebellion and the subsequent Anglo-Irish War-'
'You mean the Irish War of Independence,' I said.
'As you wish. All water under the dam now, Boyle. The treaty between Great Britain and Ireland was signed in 1921-'
'Leaving Northern Ireland in the hands of the British.'
'Precisely. The Irish Republican Army split, those who supported the treaty forming the new Irish National Army and those who opposed it fighting on, against the Irish government, Great Britain, and often each other.'
'What's the point of the history lesson?' I asked, steamed at having to listen to Cosgrove's version of recent Irish struggles.
'To be certain you understand the importance of what we are about to tell you. I assume you've been raised on tales of valiant IRA lads fighting against English tyranny. With your American distance from the actual events, I daresay you have a rather romantic notion of this conflict, one that has little basis in reality.'
I didn't like how this was going. I got up and walked away from Cosgrove, cramming my hands in my pockets to keep from making a fist.
I stared out a window in the direction of the Golden Gate, the gate through which the Jews believed the Messiah would enter Jerusalem. A few hundred years ago, the Turks had sealed it up, and it was still sealed up tight this morning with the English running the place. That was how empires worked, no matter if it was the Turks or the Brits. Grind the dreams of the people into nothing. Brick up the wall. Sneer at the stuff of legends.
'Are you still with us, Lieutenant Boyle?' O'Brien asked.
'I am,' I said with an effort.
'Now, as I was saying,' Cosgrove huffed, 'the IRA has continued its operations, even though it was declared illegal by the Dublin government in 1936. It has been able to do so in large part due to contributions from America. Were you aware of that?'
I shrugged.
'You lived and worked in Boston, Massachusetts,' O'Brien said, her green eyes scanning the contents of a folder. 'You, your father, and his brother all serve on the Boston police force. With a lot of other Irish- Americans.'
'And no Englishmen,' I said, answering what sounded like an accusation with another.
'Exactly, my dear boy,' Cosgrove said. 'Why, you have probably tossed some coins into a can at whatever pub you frequent in Boston. Irish relief, or something like that.'
'Taverns,' I said. 'We call them taverns, or bars.'
'I don't care what you call them, Boyle, all I want to do is be sure you understand the larger picture. You're no stranger to the IRA and Clan na Gael, surely!'
Clan na Gael. The Family of the Gaels, the fund-raising organization in the States for the cause of a free Ireland. It had been around since the last century, and when the Dublin government approved the treaty, some members agreed. Others didn't, and they kept up the flow of money and guns to the IRA. Dad and Uncle Dan were on the anti-treaty side. Nothing less than a free and united Ireland was how the cause was defined around our kitchen table.
'I don't know what you're talking about,' I said, thinking about the Irish Hospitals' Sweepstake tickets my dad used to bring home from Clan na Gael meetings. He'd tell me it would be worth $150,000 if one of them won, and we'd treat them as if they were gold. I always believed each one he brought home was a winner; it meant a week of dreams.
'You must not have been much of a police officer,' O'Brien said. 'I suspect Clan na Gael was all over the Irish neighborhoods in Boston. I'd also guess that within the Boston Police Department, there would be an IRA group. A secret group, to the extent the IRA can keep a secret.'
'You sound as if you're a cop yourself,' I said. 'What exactly do you do in the ATS?'
'Subaltern O'Brien is MI-5's country desk officer for Ireland,' Cosgrove said. 'Quite an achievement for a woman. Wartime contingencies and all that to be sure, but still remarkable.'
'So you admit you're MI-5?' I asked Cosgrove.
'Of course. We have no secrets from our American cousins.'
'Anymore, that is. You lied the last time we met.'
'That was then, my boy. Now we have a bigger job to do.'
'OK, spill.'
'Pardon me?'
'Tell me everything. Pretend I never heard of the IRA and lay it all out.'
Cosgrove nodded to O'Brien, who gave him a cold response. I wondered if she was miffed at his qualified endorsement of her accomplishment. And I wondered even more what an O'Brien, man or woman, was doing working for MI-5 on Irish counterintelligence. It wasn't an Anglo-Irish name or one to be found among Ulster Protestants, those residents of the northern counties who had fought to maintain union with Great Britain. She looked and sounded Irish, which to me meant the Republic of Ireland, the entire island, united. That it meant Catholic was understood. I have plenty of Protestant friends back in Boston and in the army, so don't misunderstand. There's not anything wrong with being a Protestant. It's the pro-British, Catholic-hating Ulstermen I don't like, and they just happen to be Protestants.
