David Dickinson - Death and the Jubilee

Powerscourt looked carefully round the cemetery. He saw no living soul, only the birds rising and swooping over the rich pickings of Belgravia. In his tree the small boy snuggled into his branches, scarcely daring to breathe.

Resurrection was coming early for Dermot Sebastian Freely. In a few minutes Fitzgerald was lying on top of the grave, great piles of earth on one side of him, screwdriver in hand.

‘One,’ said Fitzgerald, placing a large screw between his teeth. Powerscourt was gazing round the four corners of the West London Cemetery.

‘Two,’ said Fitzgerald. Powerscourt turned from his inspection and peered down into the open grave.

‘Three,’ said Fitzgerald rather indistinctly as the third screw was clamped between his teeth. The small boy saw that the two men had their backs to him now. The fisherman’s jersey wasn’t looking round the place any more. He knew what they were doing, opening up the grave. The Christian Brothers at school had told him this was a mortal sin. Very slowly, very quietly, he began to make his way down the tree onto the path outside the walls.

‘Four,’ said Fitzgerald, placing the screws carefully on the ground beside his spade. Powerscourt made his way to the other end of the coffin. They began to pull at the lid as hard as they could.

The small boy had reached the ground. He looked around him quickly. Then he began to run as fast as he could to find his father. His Pa and his new friend from Dublin would be pleased with him.

‘Heave,’ said Fitzgerald, panting hard. ‘Heave for God’s sake.’ Powerscourt put his feet on the bottom section of the coffin and pulled with all his might. Very slowly the lid came off, inch by tantalizing inch. The coffin did not want to reveal its secrets. Then it came off completely, throwing Powerscourt and Fitzgerald back on to the grass. Dermot Sebastian Freely was not inside.

Platoons of pink clouds were drifting across the sky, floating gently towards the west and the setting sun. Powerscourt and Fitzgerald looked at each other. Then they stared, mesmerized, at the contents of the grave. Dermot Sebastian Freely’s coffin contained no mortal remains, but four long packages, wrapped in brown paper. At the bottom were a number of small boxes. Mauser Gesellschaft, Berlin, said the legend.

Here, thought Powerscourt, here is the final, the conclusive proof of the links between the German secret society and the Irish revolutionaries. He had watched these coffins come ashore in the middle of the night in the little harbour of Greystones, borne into land by muffled oars from a great yacht out at sea. He had followed them on their sinister journey into the Wicklow Mountains just a month ago. Now he met them again, sent from Ireland to this enormous cemetery to lie among the English dead, before being collected and sent on their deadly mission.

Fitzgerald opened one of the boxes. The bullets looked sinister in the gloaming, the dying sun glinting off the tips as Fitzgerald held them up to the light. Powerscourt opened one of the packages. The rifle was shorter than the ones he had seen so often in India, but beautifully made.

‘Right, Johnny. The most important thing is to get these rifles away from here. Somebody can watch over Freely’s grave later to see who turns up. Let’s get these damned things out of the cemetery. We can put the coffin back in the grave later.’

Carrying two rifles each, Powerscourt and Johnny Fitzgerald set out for the entrance to the cemetery, some two hundred yards away. The light was fading fast now, the long shadows from the tall tombstones fading into the ground. Suddenly Powerscourt saw a tree moving by the rear wall. He tapped his friend on the arm and put two fingers to his lips. They were no longer alone. Two men were climbing slowly down to the ground.

Powerscourt and Fitzgerald ducked behind a pair of ornate gravestones. It may have saved their lives. The first shot sounded very loud, echoing round the dead. The bullet whipped into one of the tombstones and ricocheted off towards the opposite wall.

‘Christ!’ whispered Fitzgerald to Powerscourt, pulling a pistol from his pocket, ‘these people aren’t very friendly. Must be colleagues of the late Mr Freely.’ With that he crawled off into a long patch of shadow to the left.

Powerscourt saw that the opposition were still advancing. He dropped to the ground and took careful aim with his gun at the man closest to him. He heard a scream. He didn’t wait to see how badly hurt the man was. He gathered up the rifles and sprinted half-way towards the rabbit warren of Belgravia and its mausoleums.

There were another two shots. Johnny Fitzgerald must be firing, Powerscourt thought, covering my position. Another bullet sang into a tombstone a few feet to his left. This was getting too close for comfort. He peered round the side of his tombstone and fired at his opponent, less than fifty yards away. He missed. He gathered the rifles again and set off. Belgravia was only a few feet away when he heard the shot. Then he felt the bullet pass through his left shoulder. Blood was pouring down the fisherman’s jersey. He staggered into the shadows of one of the mausoleums and let the rifles drop to the ground. He peered out through the iron grille at the cemetery in front of him. Bats were squeaking all around, flapping dementedly at the night air. The rooks and the crows were fleeing the cemetery of the dead and the dying as fast as they could.

Powerscourt sat on the ground and tried to staunch the blood. He looked out. His adversary was advancing very slowly towards him, unsure which mausoleum he was in. Powerscourt took careful aim and fired. Damn, Damn. He had missed. The wound must be upsetting his aim. He had given his position away. I’m damned, he thought to himself, if I’m going to end my days in a bloody cemetery. I want to die in my bed. He worked his way backwards, inching slowly, painfully away from his previous position.

Where was Johnny Fitzgerald? Had he been wounded too? Was he dead? But the man knew where he was now. Powerscourt saw him raise his pistol and point it very precisely at where he sat. The man was taking his time. He was going to make certain. Then another shot rang out into the west London twilight. The man toppled forward and crashed on to the ground. At the far end of the cemetery a pair of owls were having a conversation, loud and insistent hoots that echoed the sound of Fitzgerald’s pistol.

‘Just making sure this bugger’s dead, Francis.’ The voice of Johnny Fitzgerald sounded very close. ‘Are you all right?’

Powerscourt winced as he rose to his feet in the mausoleum of Jonathan Sanderson of Richmond. The shoulder was very painful.

‘Delighted to hear from you, Johnny,’ he said. ‘I’ve stopped a bullet with my shoulder. There’s a lot of blood but I think it’s only a flesh wound.’

‘The other one’s dead too, Francis,’ said Fitzgerald, tying a large handkerchief round Powerscourt’s wounded shoulder. ‘That’s one each. One for me, one for you. The bugger here was a pretty good shot.’ Fitzgerald laughed suddenly.

‘I’ve got a great idea, Francis,’ he said happily. ‘Why don’t we bundle the two of them into the coffin of our friend Dermot Sebastian Freely? Then we could give them both a decent burial in Freely’s grave.’

‘So then we picked up the rifles and got out as fast as we could.’ One hour later Powerscourt was back in Markham Square, telling Lady Lucy what had happened. A local doctor had bandaged his shoulder. The guns were safely locked up in the nearest police station. Johnny Fitzgerald had gone to tell the glad tidings to Dominic Knox.

‘You look pale, Francis. You must have lost a lot of blood.’ Lady Lucy was looking at her husband very carefully.