Harry Turtledove (Editor) - Alternate Generals II

There had been some good talk. Questions of military planning and logistics had been worked over in good Irish fashion. No amount of words, however, had been able to talk away the inadequacies in manpower and armament of the insurgent forces. Unsaid till now but hanging over the meeting was the palpable fear that this rising would likely be another bloody Irish failure.

Pearse addressed the matter.

"The Volunteers as a body will not be with us. At most we'll get those who are already IRB men, perhaps a few more. We need to rouse a citizenry of irregulars and turn them into a force of nature."

He paused and looked about him. Some of his compatriots stared back, puzzled and uncomprehending. Joe Plunkett opened his mouth in a roundfaced grin and spoke.

"You and MacDonagh are our academics, Padraig. I sense something in your line."

"Indeed," Pearse said. "I think we can get Yeats."

"The poet?" Clarke asked. "Are not the days gone when poets fought beside kings, devising ranns whose powers could shatter battlements and break spears? Would that such days maintained! Ireland is acrawl with poets-more of them than serpents before St. Paddy's time."

"And none better than Yeats," MacDonagh said. "He is not a great orator, but his words and reputation are power in their own right. He was one of our Brotherhood and a revolutionary in the days of the Centenary riots-he exhorted the crowd-and could be one again."

"A bit old, wouldn't you say?" Clarke said with a mischievous grin.

"Fifty-one to your fifty-seven," Pearse laughed. "As well you know."

"But are his fires as hot as Tom's?" McDermott asked. "Banked, rather, I'd heard. What makes you think we can get him?"

"I spoke to him in the street yesterday. He's restless and anxious, asking himself the kind of questions a man does in his middle years, without a cause-as yet-as ours to answer them. You know of his love for the actress Maud Gonne. It's shaped many of his poems these last twenty years."

"She married Sean MacBride," Plunkett said.

"MacBride's back in town," Pearse went on. "And Yeats knows it. Maud has left MacBride these several years, and Yeats still burns to win her. He fears that he must act rather than versify or play consort to her nationalistic schemes. He told me so. We can marry the appeal of his love for his country and his lady."

Clarke smiled. "You're a poet, too, Padraig. Very noble of you to bring aboard Ireland's best. He's bound to upstage you in that department." His eyes turned deep. "But by all means let us have with us a man whose words and presence will raise the nation. And chronicle our fight. But can we get him?"

"I've asked him to join us." Pearse looked at the shop's walnut-and-brass sea captain's clock. "He'll be here in ten minutes-2:30."

"Risky, Padraig," Clarke said. "How much does he know?"

"Nothing concrete. But he's far from a fool. I think he has drawn the true conclusions."

"Can he keep his mouth shut if he doesn't buy in?" Plunkett asked.

"Yes," Pearse said. "But it's our job to sell him. Let me tell you how we'll do it."

William Butler Yeats stood at the mirror in his rooms at the Hotel Nassau on this fine spring afternoon and considered his appearance.

Augustus John had sketched him in 1908, giving him a wild «gypsy» cast, or so Yeats had thought, but rendering him alive and vigorous. Charles Shannon had painted him quite charmingly, resembling Keats. Best of all had been the charcoal drawing of John Singer Sargent, sharp-featured yet with a sensitive mouth, looking passive but verging on a decisiveness Yeats seldom could rouse. His hair was parted to a high and uncombed forelock that fell over one eye, lending a Byronic note overall. His body then had been lean.

And now, eight years later? The hair was still there, but it framed a face of more fleshiness and care. The eyes were more puffy than dark and deep set. What had George Moore said of him on his return from his American lecture tour? "… with a paunch, a huge stick and an immense fur overcoat."

"You left out the intestinal troubles, George," Yeats muttered, and turned toward the door.

Bright sunlight dappled the Dublin streets through shade trees and overhead wires. Open trams trundled boater-topped men and their ladies to the parks. Single men on cycles whipped in and around them and the occasional plodding horsecart. Yeats stood at the curb looking for a chance to step off.

William Butler Yeats did indeed have a good apprehension of what awaited him in a closed-for-business tobacco shop on a Sunday afternoon. Particularly when it was the shop of Tom Clarke and his invitation had come from Patrick Pearse. Pearse had ostensibly talked of literary matters, referring pointedly to Yeats' own poem, "September 1913," bemoaning the trading of Irish romanticism and nationalism for moneygrubbing. Pearse had let Yeats know that not all Irishmen had made that bargain.

Yeats had no illusions of the men he'd meet or of himself, not this day. He had written a more recent poem, "To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing." In a dark moment he felt he'd written it of himself.

But the prospect of redemption was at hand.

With resolve and vigor Yeats stepped off the curb. Today he had no need of a fur coat against the March breeze nor a huge stick to support him.

"Gentlemen," Yeats said mildly.

"Mr. Yeats," murmured some of the assembly. "Willie," said MacDonagh and Pearse.

Yeats settled into the vacant chair, the only one in the room with arms, and clearly for him.

"I more than suspect that the IRB is planning a rising," he said, and held up a forestalling hand. "What do you want of me?"

"We have the shock troops to mount a rising," MacDonagh said. "We need the country behind us to make it stick. Otherwise the British will wear us down."

"Ah," Yeats said. "You want me to write your pamphlets, your addresses and exhortations. Odes to the rising. Maud was always after me for that in the 90s, and I wouldn't. I was more idealistic about the uses of my art then. But I suspect you want more."

"We want your pen, Willie, and your voice and your name," Pearse said, and smiled. "All three have increased in value since then."

"You have several jobs, it seems. Tell me in what specific capacity you want me, and convince me that this rising has a chance for success."

"We don't have a cabinet yet, Willie," MacDonagh said. "We shall once we declare a republic, and we can make you a cabinet minister. Minister of Information, perhaps. But for the moment we are a military organization. This is the Military Council of the IRB, and Pearse is Commandant-General. I propose a staff rank of general for you, reflecting the eminence that poets of ancient Eireann had to their kings."

"A general," Yeats repeated softly. "I've taken on roles, worn masks, but never one such as that."

He sat back in reflection. The others sensed his inward casting and held silence.

What am I? Yeats considered. What have I truly done in this life? What is my legacy? I am a minor poet of narrative lyric work and plays. Verses and essays of a parochial Irish nature, written in the style and tradition of Rossetti, Pater, Herrick and others of an earlier day. I have no wife, nor am I likely to have one. Maud won't have me in that role. I leave no children. And in the modern, real world emerging, I have no credentials. Perhaps if I live through-and shape-this rising I can find a more forward-looking and expansive arena for my poetry. For we will be dealing with life and death in our time, and not Cuchulain's.

And- an inward chuckle bubbled up -perhaps this would win me Maud.

If this is self delusion, well… perhaps I'm allowed an indulgence now and again.