‘Clan-na-Gael,’ repeated Cribb ingenuously.
‘It is pledged to deliver Ireland from the English oppressors,’ said Rossanna, squeezing Cribb’s arm at the thought. ‘In 1877 it gained control of Rossa’s Skirmishing Fund, which now amounts to not less than a hundred thousand dollars.’
‘Good Lord,’ said Cribb. ‘That’s a lot of subscriptions.’
‘A lot of Irish-Americans have suffered at the hands of the English, Mr Sargent. What you would refer to as the Irish Famine, people like my father remember as The Great Starvation. Every concession since then, every clause in the Land Act, is written in the blood of Irish patriots. England has given us nothing we have not fought for tooth and nail-nothing that is, except rack-renting, evictions, Coercion and the Crimes Act.’
‘You were telling me about the Clan-na-Gael,’ Cribb reminded her firmly.
She regarded him intently. ‘You’re right. I keep forgetting that you have no affiliations. The Clan? It is a massive organisation, Mr Sargent, with camps in every city of importance in America. It has rituals and proceedings which every member is bound to keep secret, under penalty of death. But if you wish to be one of its agents, you will have to join.’
‘I’m not in any position to refuse.’
‘Then we shall arrange it soon. There are ways in which you can be of important service to us. Four years ago O’Donovan Rossa broke with the Clan. It was not doing enough active work for his taste and there was even talk of a pact with Parnell and the parliamentarians-the New Departure, as it became-mere peddling with reforms. Rossa gathered together what was left of the old Fenian Brotherhood and organised raids on public buildings in Britain, mostly with gunpowder. The explosions at the Glasgow gasworks and the Local Government Board were the work of the Rossa agents. It was all handled with the usual Fenian ineptitude. Ten of them were captured and brought to trial in Edinburgh at the end of 1882. Five got penal servitude for life, the rest seven years. Another four of Rossa’s men were arrested after one of them was found with the infernal machines upon him as he stepped from the Cork steamer on to the quay at Liverpool. They each got a life sentence last July. It was the finish of Rossa’s campaign.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Cribb. ‘Fourteen convictions is not the sort of record that encourages recruitment.’
‘Rossa is a spent force,’ Rossanna went on. ‘There is too much of the Blarney about him. He served his purpose in raising the Skirmishing Fund, but he should have left the active campaigning to men like my father. Fortunately, the Clan is better organised. Our dynamite policy was authorised in November 1881, at our National Convention in Chicago, but it wasn’t until the end of 1882 that the first agent of the Clan travelled to England to inaugurate the campaign. The organisation was in the hands of the Revolutionary Directory and the agents were selected and trained in America. The selection had to be most carefully done, because we had information that forty of the Royal Irish Constabulary had been sent to the States on full pay with the object of insinuating their way into the Clan.’
‘Diabolical!’ said Cribb.
‘It didn’t happen, Mr Sargent. Soon enough, parties of trained men were crossing the Atlantic with the means to cause havoc in London. The first was led by Dr Tom Gallagher, with his brother Bernard and six others in support. Tom, being the swell he is, set up residence in the Charing Cross Hotel in the Strand, while the others frequented small hotels and retired lodgings in the south of London. Before long, as the world knows, they had established a nitro-glycerine manufactory in Birmingham and were conveying the stuff to London in india-rubber fishing boots contained in boxes. It was pure chance, a singular catastrophe, that caused a Birmingham detective to have his suspicions aroused and visit Whitehead, the chemist of the party. Tom and two others as well as Whitehead were convicted and gaoled for life, thanks to the testimony of the wretched Mr Norman.’
‘They say there’s no Irish conspiracy without its informer,’ said Cribb, piously shaking his head.
‘The Clan knows how to deal with traitors,’ said Rossanna. ‘Shall we take this path along the riverside? There are some water-irises further on.’
‘By all means,’ said Cribb, wondering at the nature of a woman whose thoughts shifted so easily from dynamite to flowers. It was a narrow path leading past the boat-house where the launch was kept, and a larger building beyond. From this came the sound of hammering. Four men in labouring clothes were outside, lifting a large sheet of metal from a stack.
‘What’s going on?’ Cribb asked.
‘They’re working with Patrick. It’s a job for my father that required additional help, so Patrick and Tom recruited some loyal Irishmen at a public house in Rotherhithe. We pay them better rates than they would get working on the docks and boatyards, and Patrick brings them down-river on the launch each morning. They don’t come into the house at all. Now who was I speaking of? Ah, yes. Poor Tom Gallagher. He was carrying?1,400 of the Fund when he was arrested. The Clan doesn’t believe in under-providing for its agents.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
‘The only other Clansmen to have been arrested are John Daly and Francis Egan, who are still awaiting trial at Warwick. John’s plan was to toss a bomb on to the table of the House of Commons from the Strangers’ Gallery while the House was in session. It sounds desperate, but he twice gained admission to the Gallery and would have had a well-made brass bomb with him the third time. He was carrying three when he was stopped at Chester railway station in April. But there’re still two other groups besides our own at liberty.’
‘When did your father arrive in England?’
Her expression softened. ‘Last year-in May. He was to establish himself here well in advance of Devlin and Malone’s arrival. The house was placed at the disposal of the Clan by a patriot who owns another place in Surrey. He was good enough to leave one of his staff behind as well, a man who can be depended upon in every sense. It was his summons which brought me here from America after Father’s accident.’
‘That was in June?’
‘What an excellent memory you have-yes. He was testing a small bomb here in the grounds when it detonated prematurely, with terrible results. He was the Clan’s principal machinist. Despite his injuries, he is carrying on the work.’
‘With your help.’
‘That is so.’
They stopped to watch a hay-boat pass along the Reach, its brown lateen sail catching enough wind to give it the advantage over a toiling lighter laden with bricks. Cribb decided the time was ripe to extend the conversation. ‘Two of the groups in custody, you say. This is dangerous work. Would any of the convicted men inform on us?’
‘They don’t know where we are. It is the policy of the Clan that the groups work independently. We all have our instructions from America, and we are here to carry them out without reference to anyone else. In the last year that I have been working for the Clan, I have not met any of the men who have been taken. Everything I have told you about them you could have read for yourself in the newspapers.’
This was true. ‘So that when a bombing takes place it is just as surprising to you as it is to the public at large?’
‘Exactly-unless we have arranged it ourselves.’