1949 (32 page)

Barry was too small to leave the hospital. They wanted to keep him for at least six weeks. His mother was so thin she had very little milk, so he would be fed on a specially prepared formula. While Ursula waited, Seán suggested she come back to work—partly to give her something to keep her busy, and partly because she was genuinely needed.

Seán Lester had been put in charge of the “Ax” committee, which meant he was responsible for reorganizing and reducing the League. There already had been a number of defections, and half the secretariat's staff of six hundred must be cut by the end of the year.

Berlin no longer believed the League had a role to play on the world stage. The number of German communications reaching the deputy secretary-general's office was greatly diminished, so Ursula began helping with correspondence from Ireland as well. “At 2RN I learned to do half-a-dozen jobs at once,” she assured Lester.

Although remaining resolutely neutral, Eamon de Valera was quietly trying to distance Ireland from Germany. In a letter to Seán Lester he explained that he was recalling the Irish representative in Berlin because the man had gone a bit too far in his admiration for Hitler.

Barry was released from hospital at the end of May. Lester asked Ursula if she wanted to give up her job and stay home with her baby.

“I certainly do not! I can bring Barry with me. There are plenty of empty offices now, so I can fix one up as a nursery and do my work there.”

Lester tried to protest, but Ursula had answers for all his arguments. “It was easier just to give in,” he told his wife later. “I feel rather like Neville Chamberlain when it comes to that girl.”

 

Although she was now well paid by Irish standards, Ursula had not lost the old habit of thrift. With a sense of relief she finally paid off the last of the money she owed Ella and began putting savings in an envelope under the mattress. She looked with longing at the smart outfits she saw other women wearing in Geneva, but bought almost nothing for herself.

She did buy things for Barry, though. Beautifully made baby gowns in rainbow pastels. Crocheted matinée jackets and matching caps. Tiny sailor suits with embroidered anchors on the collar. Miniscule leather boots, soft as butter. Socks of fine Egyptian cotton that would not chafe an infant's tender skin. And stacks and stacks of bird's-eye nappies.

At night in her room she gloated over them as if they were ball gowns.

In June, central London was rocked by more IRA bombs. No casualties were reported.

Three days later Kathleen Clarke was named as lord mayor of Dublin. The widow of a Fenian bomber was the first woman to hold such an office in Ireland.

In England conscription began.

King George and Queen Elizabeth arrived in the United States for the first visit to that country by a reigning British monarch. Ships in New York harbor welcomed them with whistles. Flying Fortresses overhead dipped their wings in salute.

“It may look like a big tea party, but they're over there for good reason: to bring the Americans on side in case of war,” Lester told Ursula.

“My Uncle Henry says America has no interest in getting involved in another European war.”

“This may not be limited to Europe. Keep your eye on Asia. The whole world's infected with greed. Greed for land, greed for power, greed for what they perceive as glory.”

“You think it's going to be very bad, don't you?”

Instead of answering directly, he said, “I'm going to take Elsie and the girls back to Ireland for a summer holiday—and leave them there. You and Barry can go with them. I'll arrange to have his name added to your passport and get the necessary exit visas.”

“Barry's not strong enough to travel yet.”
And unwed mothers with infants have a hard time finding employment in Ireland. And I have no family to take us in
.

Lester read her unspoken thoughts. “You'd be welcome to stay with Elsie and the girls. They'd love to have you.”

And Ireland is stifling and provincial and this is where everything's happening
. “I can't, Seán. It would be taking advantage when your family's been far too good to me already.”

“Nonsense. I mean it.”

“I know you do, and I'm grateful. But thank you, no.”

 

Ursula bade the Lesters farewell at the airport, then went back to work. The staff at the secretariat was still shrinking and she was busier than ever. She enjoyed the feeling of being essential.

Her tiny son was always within her sight, always within her reach. Their day began very early and often finished very late, but Barry was thriving. Sometimes she read him communiqués instead of nursery rhymes.

Those from the high commissioner in Danzig were the most troubling. The Germans were stressing the need for more food-growing space to feed their increasing population. Hitler's scientists claimed they could make German soil more productive by employing a powerful cocktail of chemical fertilizers, but this eventually would render the soil sterile, unable to produce anything. Hitler had decided the future of the German people depended upon acquiring the rich acres of Poland.

Danzig was nervous.

 

When Seán Lester returned to Geneva on the twenty-eighth of August, Ursula met him at the airport. One look at her face told him all he needed to know.

“You should have gone back to Ireland with us, Ursula,” he said.

“What's going to happen next?”

“I don't know for certain, but I can make an educated guess. You'd best come with me this afternoon and help me restock the household supplies. If I remember correctly, I'm low on Irish cigarettes and there's not much wine left in the cellar.”

By the end of the month European mobilization for war was almost complete. Polish reservists and retired veterans were requested to join all men of call-up age and report to barracks. France was also summoning its reservists to arms, and the railways had been requisitioned. Belgium announced that it was closing its frontier and manning antiaircraft defenses. Switzerland moved to fully-alert status.

At the Palais people tried to reassure one another. “The Germans will back down because they don't want a repeat of 1918.”

No one really believed it.

 

Ursula held Barry in her arms and pressed her lips to the downy top of his head. He smelt of milk and soap, a fragrance as sweet as a clover meadow. “It's you and me, little man,” she murmured. “Whatever happens, I'll take care of you.”

1 September 1939
NAZIS INVADE POLAND

The German battleship
Schleswig-Holstein
had opened fire on the Free City of Danzig before dawn. Within hours German troops occupied the city. They seized Polish shipyards for building German warships and Polish civilians to serve as forced labor.

The war everyone had feared, and no one had prevented, was under way.

 

“The Nazis have to be beaten,” Seán Lester stated emphatically. “Otherwise civilization doesn't stand a chance. During the Great War we Irish nationalists didn't exactly want Britain to be defeated, but we certainly weren't her unqualified supporters. We weren't pro-German, but Ireland was in captivity and Britain was the captor.

“This time it's different. Our national interest will lie with those who ally against Hitler, and please God that will include Britain. She's promised to defend Poland. Now's the time to redeem that pledge.”

He was emotionally shattered; he found it difficult even to write. Ursula understood. The League existed in a vacuum, swept with rumors and despair. Helpless before the whirlwind.

The September 4 edition of the
Irish Times
announced, “Yesterday morning His Majesty's ambassador in Berlin presented the German government with an ultimatum, giving it a space of two hours in which to reply to Great Britain's demand regarding the evacuation of Poland. When the fateful hour struck, no reply was forthcoming. At eleven o'clock yesterday morning a state of war was declared between Germany and the British Empire.”

Speaking in Dáil Éireann, Eamon de Valera said, “Back in February last I stated in a very definite way that it was the aim of government policy, in case of a European war, to keep this country out of it.

“We, of all nations, know what force used by a stronger nation against a weaker one means. We have known what invasion and partition mean; we are not forgetful of our own history and, as long as our own country, or any part of it, is subject to the application of force by a stronger nation, it is only natural that our people, whatever sympathies they may have in the conflict, should look at their own country first, and consider what its interests should be and what its interests are.”
¹

In reaffirming Irish neutrality, the taoiseach was walking a very delicate tightrope. Éire was a small new nation, practically unarmed, pathetically vulnerable. It was by no means certain what the outcome of the war would be. Hitler might win; at the moment the possibility was very strong. Journalists coming out of Europe were already expressing that opinion. De Valera did not want a triumphant Germany regarding Ireland as an enemy and treating her accordingly. Nor could he afford to alienate Britain; not with six counties of his country still tightly held in her grasp. But he could not openly side with Britain either. That would mean surrendering the hard-won independence for which generations of Irish men had fought and died.

The word was quietly passed to the Irish newspapers. Nothing should be printed that might give offense to either Britain or Germany.

 

Every office in the secretariat was equipped with a radio. Broadcasting from Britain, Anthony Eden, who had returned to government as dominions secretary, said that after the war a new civilization must be built with peace, justice, and freedom as its foundations.

“He didn't mention the League, I notice,” Seán remarked. “But that's what will be needed: the League or something like it.”

The German Wehrmacht swept across Poland while the Luftwaffe pounded the railways and drove the Polish air force from the skies.

On the seventeenth of September the Russians invaded the reeling country.

By the end of the month Poland was shattered. Hitler and Stalin divided the land between them.

Russia was expelled from the League of Nations but did not bother to enter a protest.

The World's Fair was held in New York City that October. To mark “League of Nations Day” on the twenty-first, speeches were broadcast from League members around the world. Henry Mooney was among those who heard Seán Lester on the radio. “The catastrophe of this war marks a collective failure for mankind,” Lester told his unseen audience, “a failure in which all of us have some share and on account of which we must all feel a deep humility.”
²

That evening Henry said to Ella, “I wish Ursula would go back to Ireland while she still can.”

“I'm sure she will, dear.”

“I'm not. She rarely says anything personal in her letters anymore; all she writes about is the international situation. I suspect she'll stay where she is to view the excitement firsthand.”

“Oh, Henry, it's going to be a lot more than just ‘the excitement!'

He replied somberly, “Yes, I'm afraid it is.”

 

President Roosevelt issued a declaration of American neutrality similar to that issued by Woodrow Wilson at the start of the Great War.

How could the Americans, safe in the embrace of two broad oceans, begin to understand what was happening to the Old World from which the New had been born?

 

The big Cadbury factory at Birmingham, England, covered itself with camouflage netting to fool German bombers, gave up the manufacture of chocolate, and concentrated on making gas masks. Thirty-eight million gas masks were issued to the British people.

 

Éire would not be dispensing gas masks. “The simple truth,” as Ursula wrote to Henry, “is that the nation lacks the ability to manufacture them. We still have so little in the way of industry. If Ireland gets sucked into this war, we do not have sufficient armaments to defend ourselves against invasion. For a long time I was furious with de Valera, but I am forced to acknowledge his foresight in insisting upon Irish neutrality. It is our only protection.”

I keep having to rethink
, she told herself as she sealed the envelope.
Once I believed the League of Nations was a fortress. But it has no more solidity than clouds that resemble mountains
.

Geneva was going about its business normally—except people were walking more briskly than usual, and French, the predominate language, was spoken even more quickly than usual. Shops sold out of basic staples almost as soon as they arrived.

The Irish newspapers that arrived in Seán Lester's office carried stern government warnings that stressed the unfairness of hoarding food, petrol, and other necessaries. The government also announced a new agricultural scheme to assure there would be enough grain and vegetables for the nation. Twelve and a half percent of all holdings over ten acres would have to be made available for tillage.

In November the Russians invaded Finland. Too little and too late, Britain agreed to send arms to defend the tiny nation.

The ax committee was taking up most of Lester's time. He was clearly exhausted. Early in December he fell ill and attended the Assembly with a raging fever. “As soon as I feel a bit better, I'm going back to Ireland for Christmas,” he told Ursula. “Will you come?”

“It's too soon for us,” she said.

Shortly before Christmas, Geraldine Dillon wrote from Ireland, “The newspapers are calling this ‘the Terrible Winter.' We have dreadful ice and a black wind howling like a damned soul. The priests say it is God's punishment on us, but I do not know what we did wrong.”

On Christmas Eve Ursula took Barry for a sleigh ride. Tourists were in short supply; the beautifully decorated sleighs drawn up in front of the luxury hotels along the Rive Droit were doing little business. One had a dapple-gray horse in the shafts. He turned his head toward Ursula as she approached and gave her a long look from between his blinkers.

She held Barry up to stroke the animal's soft nose. The baby reached out fearlessly, his eyes sparkling.

“Horse,” Ursula told him.

He wriggled in her arms and made a quizzical sound.

“Horse,” she repeated.

“
Oorse
,” Barry said clearly.

Ursula laughed with delight. “Oh, my little man!”

The driver tucked a heavy rug around his passengers to keep them warm and they set off with a jingle of sleigh bells. The air was crystalline with cold, the runners hissed over hard-packed snow. The steady rhythm of hoofbeats was music to Ursula's ears. “I used to have a horse,” she told the child on her lap. “A gray horse very much like this one.”

“
Oorse
,” said Barry again.

 

When Seán Lester returned to Geneva from his holiday in Ireland he did not look rested. “On the way out it took me four days just to get to London,” he told Ursula. “Civilian travel between England and Ireland will be suspended any day now. Members of the diplomatic corps will be given travel permits, of course, and so will accredited journalists. But that's all. Transport has to be kept available for the troops.”

“British troops,” said Ursula. “Remember that Éire's neutral.”

“I expect many Irishmen will be joining British regiments.”

She bristled with indignation. “How can they?”

Lester replied, “How can they not, under the circumstances?”

The Finnish army was making an astonishingly brave stand against the Russians in sub-zero weather. Ursula read the latest communiqué from Reuters aloud to Barry. Dressed in a bright red snowsuit, her son was sitting on the floor beside her desk, playing with a nest of Chinese boxes the Lesters had given him. He did not understand many of the words his mother spoke, but he looked up and gave her a toothless grin.

“Are you listening to the wireless?” Seán Lester asked from the doorway.

“Not yet, I was just—”

“Turn it on. There's something I want you to hear.”

“What frequency?”

“Here, I'll get it for you.”

Lester rotated the dial until, over the crackle of static, a nasal voice filled the room. “Germany calling! Germany calling!”

“Who on earth is that, Seán?”

“Fellow's name is William Joyce, but he's known as Lord Haw-Haw. When you hear the way he talks you can understand why. He's broadcasting Nazi propaganda from somewhere in Germany.”

“He doesn't sound German.”

“He's not, I'm sorry to say. He grew up in Galway.”

She stared at Lester. “I don't believe it.”

“It's true. His father was a naturalized U.S. citizen and Joyce was born in America, but he's spent most of his life in either Ireland or England. I just received a dossier on him from London. According to the information they have, he served as an informer for the Black and Tans and hates Irish Republicans. In England he got involved with Oswald Mosley's British Fascist organization and somehow obtained a British passport. Last August he went to Germany and offered his services to Josef Goebbels's Nazi propaganda ministry. Now he's Hitler's Irishman.”

The sneering, supercilious tones of Lord Haw-Haw burrowed like worms into Ursula's brain. She was no longer neutral. “Damn the man and all he stands for!” she exploded.

 

According to the
Irish Times
, the outbreak of war witnessed an increased surveillance of the IRA and a growing number of confrontations between them and gardai. In January 1940 a garda detective was fatally shot while trying to arrest Thomas MacCurtain, son of the Cork lord mayor murdered during the War of Independence. The government responded by introducing amendments to the Emergency Powers Bill and the Offences Against the State Bill specifically designed to facilitate the arrest and internment of members of the Irish Republican Army.

A British army camp in County Down was raided on the eleventh of February. The camp had so often been raided by the IRA to replenish their weapon supplies that it was known among Republicans as “the stores.”

In Dublin's Mountjoy Jail a number of IRA prisoners went on hunger strike to protest the conditions under which they were kept. In the past the Irish government, recalling the agonizing martyrdom of Terence MacSwiney in a British prison, had given in to hunger strikers. This time de Valera let two men die. The strike was called off.
³