In consequence of what he learnt at the conference with his generals on the morning of the 20th Sir Arthur Paget telegraphed to the War Office: "Officer Commanding 5th Lancers states that all officers except two, and one doubtful, are resigning their commissions to-day. I much fear same conditions in the 16th Lancers. Fear men will refuse to move[71]"; and later in the day he reported that the "Brigadier and 57 officers, 3rd Cavalry Brigade, prefer to accept dismissal if ordered north."[72] Next day he had to add that the Colonel and all the officers of the 4th Hussars had taken up the same attitude.[73]

This was very disconcerting news for the War Office, where it had been taken for granted that very few, if any, officers, except perhaps a few natives of Ulster, would elect to wreck their careers, if suddenly confronted with so terrible a choice, rather than take part in operations against the Ulster Loyalists. Instructions were immediately wired to Paget in Dublin to "suspend any senior officers who have tendered their resignations"; to refuse to accept the resignation of junior officers; and to send General Gough, the Brigadier in command of the 3rd Cavalry Brigade, and the commanding officers of the two Lancer regiments and the 4th Hussars, to report themselves promptly at the War Office after relieving them of their commands.

Had the War Office made up its mind what to do with General Gough and the other cavalry officers when they arrived in London? The inference to be drawn from the correspondence published by the Government makes it appear probable that the first intention was to punish these officers severely pour encourager les autres. An officer to replace Gough had actually been appointed and sent to Ireland, though Mr. Asquith denied in the House of Commons that the offending generals had been dismissed. But, if that was the intention, it was abandoned. The reason is not plain; but the probability is that it had been discovered that sympathy with Gough was widespread in the Army, and that his dismissal would bring about very numerous resignations. It was said that a large part of the Staff of the War Office itself would have laid down their commissions, and that Aldershot would have been denuded of officers.[74] Colonel Seely himself described it as a "situation of grave peril to the Army."[75]

Anyhow, no disciplinary action of any kind was taken. It was decided to treat the matter as one of "misunderstanding," and when Gough and his brother officers appeared at the War Office on Monday the 23rd they were told that it was all a mistake to suppose that the Government had ever intended warlike operations against Ulster (the orders to the fleet had been cancelled by wireless on the 21st), and that they might return at once to their commands, with the assurance that they would not be required to serve against Ulster Loyalists. General Gough, who before leaving Ireland had asked Sir A. Paget for a clear definition in writing of the duties that officers would be expected to perform if they went to Ulster,[76] thought that in view of the "misunderstanding" it would be wise to have Colonel Seely's assurance also in black and white. Seely had to hurry off to a Cabinet Meeting, and in his absence the Adjutant-General reduced to writing the verbal statement of the Secretary of State. A very confused story about the subsequent fortunes of this piece of paper made it the central mystery round which raged angry debates. This much, however, is not doubtful. Seely went from the Cabinet to Buckingham Palace; when he returned to Downing Street the paper was there, but the Cabinet had broken up. He looked at the paper, saw that it did not accurately reproduce the assurance he had verbally given to Gough, and with the help of Lord Morley he thereupon added two paragraphs (which Mr. Balfour designated "the peccant paragraphs") to make it conform to his promise. The addition so made was the only part of the document that gave the assurance that the officers would not be called upon "to crush political opposition to the policy or principles of the Home Rule Bill." With this paper in his pocket General Gough returned to his command at the Curragh.

There the matter might have ended had not some of the facts become known to Unionist members of the House of Commons, and to the Press. On Sunday, the 22nd, Mr. Asquith sent a communication to The Times (published on the 23rd) in which he minimised the whole matter, putting forward the original pretext of movements of troops solely to protect Government property—an account at variance with a statement two days later by Churchill in regard to the reason for naval movements—and on the 23rd Seely also made a statement in the House of Commons on the same lines as the Prime Minister's, which ended by saying that all the movements of troops were completed "and all orders issued have been punctually and implicitly obeyed." This was an hour or two after his interview with the generals who had been summoned from Ireland to be dismissed for refusal to obey orders.

But Mr. Bonar Law had his own information, which was much fuller than the Government imagined. A long and heated debate followed Colonel Seely's statement, and was continued on the two following days, gradually dragging to light the facts with a much greater profusion of detail than is necessary for this narrative. On the 24th Mr. L.S. Amery made a speech which infuriated the Radicals and Labour members, but the speaker, as was his intention, made them quite as angry with the Government as with himself. The cause of offence was that the Government was thought to have allowed itself to be coerced by the soldiers, while the latter had been allowed to make their obedience to orders contingent on a bargain struck with the Government. This aspect of the case was forcibly argued by Mr. J. Ward, the Labour member for Stoke, in a speech greatly admired by enthusiasts for "democratic" principles. Although Mr. Ward's invective was mainly directed against the Unionist Opposition, the latter listened to it with secret pleasure, perceiving that it was in reality more damaging to the Government than to themselves, since Ministers were forced into an attitude of defence against their own usually docile supporters. It may here be mentioned that at a much later date, when Mr. John Ward, in the light of experience gained by his own distinguished service as an officer in the Great War, had come to the conviction that "the possibility of forcing Ulster within the ambit of a Dublin Parliament has now become unthinkable," he acknowledged that in 1914 the only way by which Mr. Asquith's Home Rule Act could have been enforced was through and by the power of the Army.[77]

So much shaken were the Government by these attacks that on the next day, the 25th of March, Colonel Seely, at the end of a long narrative of the transaction, announced his resignation from the Government. He had, he said, unintentionally misled his colleagues by adding without their knowledge to the paper given to General Gough; the Cabinet as a whole was quite innocent of the great offence given to democratic sentiment. This announcement having had the desired effect of relieving the Ministry as a whole from responsibility for the "peccant paragraphs," and averting Radical wrath from their heads, the Prime Minister later in the debate said he was not going to accept Seely's resignation. Yet Mr. Churchill exhibited a fine frenzy of indignation against Mr. Austen Chamberlain for describing it as a "put-up job."

Only a fairly fertile imagination could suggest a transaction to which the phrase would be more justly applicable. The idea that Seely, in adding the paragraphs, was tampering in any way with the considered policy of the Cabinet was absurd, although it served the purpose of averting a crisis in the House of Commons. He had been in constant and close communication with Churchill, who had himself been present at the War Office Conference with Gough, and who had seen the Prime Minister earlier in company with Sir John French. The whole business had been discussed at the Cabinet Meeting, and when Seely returned from his audience of the King he found the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, and Lord Morley still in the Cabinet room. Mr. Asquith said on the 25th in the House of Commons that no Minister except Seely had seen the added paragraphs, and almost at the same moment in the House of Lords Lord Morley was saying that he had helped Seely to draft them. Moreover, Lord Morley actually took a copy of them, which he read in the House of Lords, and he included the substance of them in his exposition of the Government policy in the Upper House.

Furthermore, General Gough was on his way to Ireland that night, and if it had been true that the Prime Minister, or any other Minister, disapproved of what Seely had done, there was no reason why Gough should not have found a telegram waiting for him at the Curragh in the morning cancelling Seely's paragraphs and withdrawing the assurance they contained. No step of that kind was taken, and the Government, while repudiating in the House of Commons the action for which Seely was allowed to take the sole responsibility, permitted Gough to retain in his despatch-box the document signed by the Army Council.

For it was not only the Secretary of State for War who was involved. The memorandum had been written by the Adjutant-General, and it bore the initials of Sir John French and Sir Spencer Ewart as well as Colonel Seely's. These members of the Army Council knew that the verbal assurance given by the Secretary of State to Gough had not been completely embodied in the written memorandum without the paragraph which had been repudiated after the debate in the Commons on the 24th, and they were not prepared to go back on their written word, or to be satisfied by the "put-up job" resignation of their civilian Chief. They both sent in their resignations; and, as they refused even under pressure to withdraw them, the Secretary of State had no choice but to do the same on the 30th of March, this time beyond recall. Mr. Asquith announced on the same day that he had himself become Secretary of State for War, and would have to go to Scotland for re-election.

The facts as here related were only extracted by the most persistent and laborious cross-examination of the Government, who employed all the familiar arts of official evasion in order to conceal the truth from the country. Day after day Ministers were bombarded by batteries of questions in the House of Commons, in addition to the lengthy debates that occupied the House for several consecutive days. This pressure compelled the Prime Minister to produce a White Paper, entitled "Correspondence relating to Recent Events in the Irish Command."[78] It was published on the 25th of March, the third day of the continuous debates, and, although Mr. Asquith said it contained "all the material documents," it was immediately apparent to members who had closely studied the admissions that had been dragged from the Ministers chiefly concerned, that it was very far from doing so. Much the most important documents had, in fact, been withheld. Suspicion as to the good faith of the Government was increased when it was found that the Lord Chancellor, Lord Haldane, had interpolated into the official Report of his speech in the House of Lords a significant word which transformed his definite pledge that Ulster would not be coerced, into a mere statement that no "immediate" coercion was contemplated.

In the face of such evasion and prevarication it was out of the question to let the matter drop. On the 22nd of April the Government was forced to publish a second White Paper,[79] which contained a large number of highly important documents omitted from the first. But it was evident that much was still being kept back, and, in particular, that what had passed between Sir Arthur Paget and his officers at a conference mentioned in the published correspondence was being carefully concealed. Mr. Bonar Law demanded a judicial inquiry, where evidence could be taken on oath. Mr. Asquith refused, saying that an insinuation against the honour of Ministers could only be properly investigated by the House of Commons itself, and that a day would be given for a vote of censure if the leader of the Opposition meant that he could not trust the word of Ministers of the Crown. Mr. Bonar Law sharply retorted that he "had already accused the Prime Minister of making a statement which was false."[80] But even this did not suffice to drive the Government to face the ordeal of having their own account of the affair at the Curragh sifted by the sworn evidence of others who knew the facts. They preferred to take cover under the dutiful cheers of their parliamentary majority when they repeated their explanations, which had already been proved to be untrue.

But the Ulster Unionist Council had, meantime, been making inquiries on their own account. There was nothing in the least improper, although the supporters of the Government tried to make out that there was, in the officers at the Curragh revealing what the Commander-in-Chief had said to them, so long as they did not communicate anything to the Press. They were not, and could not be, pledged to secrecy. It thus happened that it was possible for the Old Town Hall in Belfast to put together a more complete account of the whole affair than it suited the Government to reveal to Parliament. On the 17th of April the Standing Committee issued to the Press a statement giving the main additional facts which a sworn inquiry would have elicited. It bore the signatures of Lord Londonderry and Sir Edward Carson, and there can have been few foolhardy enough to suggest that these were men who would be likely to take such a step without first satisfying themselves as to the trustworthiness of the evidence, a point on which the judgment of one of them at all events was admittedly unrivalled.

From this statement it appeared that Sir Arthur Paget, so far from indicating that mere "precautionary measures" for the protection of Government stores were in contemplation, told his generals that preparations had been made for the employment of some 25,000 troops in Ulster, in conjunction with naval operations. The gravity of the plan was revealed by the General's use of the words "battles" and "the enemy," and his statement that he would himself be "in the firing line" at the first "battle." He said that, when some casualties had been suffered by the troops, he intended to approach "the enemy" with a flag of truce and demand their surrender, and if this should be refused he would order an assault on their position. The cavalry, whose pro-Ulster sentiments must have been well known to the Commander-in-Chief, were told that they would only be required to prevent the infantry "bumping into the enemy," or in other words to act as a cavalry screen; that they would not be called upon to fire on "the enemy"; and that as soon as the infantry became engaged, they would be withdrawn and sent to Cork, where "a disturbance would be arranged" to provide a pretext for the movement. A Military Governor of Belfast was to be appointed, and the general purpose of the operations was to blockade Ulster by land and sea, and to provoke the Ulster men to shed the first blood.

The publication of this statement with the authority of the two Ulster leaders created a tremendous sensation. But it probably strengthened the resolution of the Government to refuse at all costs a judicial inquiry, which they knew would only supply sworn corroboration of the Ulster Unionist Council's story. In this they were assisted in an unexpected way. Just when the pressure was at its highest, relief came by the diversion of attention and interest caused by another startling event in Ulster, which will be described in the following chapters.

This Curragh Incident, which caused intense and prolonged excitement in March 1914, and nearly upset the Asquith Government, had more than momentary importance in connection with the Ulster Movement. It proved to demonstration the intense sympathy with the loyalist cause that pervaded the Army. That sympathy was not, as Radical politicians like Mr. John Ward believed, an aristocratic sentiment only to be found in the mess-rooms of smart cavalry regiments. It existed in all branches of the Service, and among the rank and file as well as the commissioned ranks. Sir Arthur Paget's telegram reporting to the War Office the feeling in the 5th and 16th Lancers, said, "Fear men will refuse to move."[81] The men had not the same facility as the officers in making their sentiments known at headquarters, but their sympathies were the same.

The Government had no excuse for being ignorant of this feeling in the Army. It had been a matter of notoriety for a long time. Its existence and its danger had been reported by Lord Wolseley to the Duke of Cambridge, back in the old days of Gladstonian Home Rule, in a letter that had been since published. In July 1913 The Times gave the warning in a leading article that "the crisis, the approach of which Ministers affect to treat with unconcern, is already causing uneasiness and apprehension in the public Services, and especially in the Army.... It is notorious that some officers have already begun to speak of sending in their papers." Lord Roberts had uttered a significant warning in the House of Lords not long before the incident at the Curragh. Colonel Seely himself had been made aware of it in the previous December when he signed a War Office Memorandum on the subject[82]; and, indeed, no officer could fail to be aware of it who had ever been quartered in Ireland.

Nor was it surprising that this sympathy should manifest itself. No one is quicker to appreciate the difference between loyalty and disloyalty than the soldier. There were few regiments in the Army that had not learnt by experience that the King's uniform was constantly insulted in Nationalist Ireland, and as invariably welcomed and honoured in Ulster. In the vote of censure debate on the 19th of March Mr. Cave quoted an Irish newspaper, which had described the British Army as "the most immoral and degraded force in Europe," and warned Irishmen that, by joining it, all they would get was "a red coat, a dishonoured name, a besmirched character." On the other hand, the very troops who were sent North from the Curragh against the advice of Sir Arthur Paget, to provoke "the Ulsterites to shed the first blood," had, as the Commander-in-Chief reported, "everywhere a good reception."[83]

The welcoming cheers at Holywood and Carrickfergus and Armagh were probably a pleasant novelty to men fresh from the Curragh or Fermoy. Even in Belfast itself the contrast was brought home to troops quartered in Victoria Barracks, all of whom were well aware that on the death of a comrade his coffin would have to be borne by a roundabout route to the cemetery, to avoid the Nationalist quarter of the city where a military funeral would be exposed to insult.

Such experiences, as they harden into traditions, sink deep into the consciousness of an Army and breed sentiments that are not easily eradicated. Soldiers ought, of course, to have no politics; but when it appeared that they might be called upon to open fire on those whom they had always counted "on our side," in order to subject them forcibly to men who hated the sight of a British flag and were always ready to spit upon it, human nature asserted itself. And the incident taught the Government something as to the difficulty they would have in enforcing the Home Rule Bill in Ulster.

FOOTNOTES:

[64] See White Paper (Cd. 7329), No. II.

[65] See White Paper (Cd. 7329), No. VI.

[66] See White Paper (Cd. 7329), No. VII.

[67] White Paper (Cd. 7329), Part II, No. II.

[68] White Paper (Cd. 7329), Part III.

[69] See Parliamentary Debates, vol. lx, p. 73.

[70] Ibid., p. 426.

[71] Cd. 7329, No. XVII.

[72] Ibid., Nos. XVIII, XX.

[73] Ibid., Nos. XXII, XXIII.

[74] See Parliamentary Debates, vol. lx, p. 246.

[75] Ibid., p. 400.

[76] White Paper (Cd. 7329), No. XX.

[77] The Nineteenth Century and After, January 1921, art. "The Army and Ireland," by Lieut.-Colonel John Ward, C.B., C.M.G., M.P.

[78] Cd. 7318.

[79] Cd. 7329.

[80] Parliamentary Debate, vol. lxi, p. 765.

[81] White Paper (Cd. 7329), No. XVII. See ante, p. 180.

[82] White Paper (Cd. 7329), No. I.

[83] Ibid., No. XXVII.



CHAPTER XVII

ARMING THE U.V.F.

If the "evil-disposed persons" who so excited the fancy of Colonel Seely were supposed to be Ulster Loyalists, the whole story was an absurdity that did no credit to the Government's Intelligence in Ireland; and if there ever was any "information," such as the War Office alleged, it must have come from a source totally ignorant of Ulster psychology. Raids on Government stores were never part of the Ulster programme. The excitement of the Curragh Incident passed off without causing any sort of disturbance, and, as we have seen, the troops who were sent North received everywhere in Ulster a loyal welcome. This was a fine tribute to the discipline and restraint of the people, and was a further proof of their confidence in their leaders.

Those leaders, it happened, were at that very moment taking measures to place arms in the hands of the U.V.F. without robbing Government depots or any one else. That method was left to their opponents in Ireland at a later date, who adopted it on an extensive scale accompanied by systematic terrorism. The Ulster plan was quite different. All the arms they obtained were paid for, and their only crime was that they successfully hoodwinked Mr. Asquith's colleagues and agents.

Every movement has its Fabius, and also its Hotspur. Both are needed—the men of prudence and caution, anxious to avoid extreme courses, slow to commit themselves too far or to burn their boats with the river behind them; and the impetuous spirits, who chafe at half-measures, cannot endure temporising, and are impatient for the order to advance against any odds. Major F.H. Crawford had more of the temperament of a Hotspur than of a Fabius, but he nevertheless possessed qualities of patience, reticence, discretion, and coolness which enabled him to render invaluable service to the Ulster cause in an enterprise that would certainly have miscarried in the hands of a man endowed only with impetuosity and reckless courage. If the story of his adventures in procuring arms for the U.V.F. be ever told in minute detail, it will present all the features of an exciting novel by Mr. John Buchan.

Fred Crawford, the man who followed a family tradition when he signed the Covenant with his own blood,[84] began life as a premium apprentice in Harland and Wolf's great ship-building yard, after which he served for a year as an engineer in the White Star Line, before settling down to his father's manufacturing business in Belfast. Like so many ardent Loyalists in Ulster, he came of Liberal stock. He was for years honorary Secretary of the Reform Club in Belfast. The more staid members of this highly respectable establishment were not a little startled and perplexed when it was brought to their attention in 1907 that advertisements in the name of one "Hugh Matthews," giving the Belfast Reform Club as his address, had appeared in a number of foreign newspapers—French, Belgian, Italian, German, and Austrian—inquiring for "10,000 rifles and one million rounds of small-arm ammunition." The membership of the Club included no Hugh Matthews; but inquiry showed that the name covered the identity of the Hon. Secretary; and Crawford, who sought no concealment in the matter, justified the advertisements by pointing out that the Liberal Government which had lately come into power had begun its rule in Ireland by repealing the Act prohibiting the importation of arms, and that there was therefore nothing illegal in what he was doing. But he resigned his secretaryship, which he felt might hamper future transactions of the same kind. The advertisement was no doubt half bravado and half practical joke; he wanted to see whether it would attract notice, and if anything would come of it. But it had also an element of serious purpose.

Crawford regarded the advent to power of the Liberal Party as ominous, as indeed all Ulster did, for the Liberal Party was a Home Rule Party; and he had from his youth been convinced that the day would come when Ulster would have to carry out Lord Randolph Churchill's injunction. That being so, he was not the man to tarry till solemn assemblies of merchants, lawyers, and divines should propound a policy; if there was to be fighting, Crawford was going to be ready for it, and thought that preparation for such a contingency could not begin too soon. And the advertisements were not barren of practical result. There was an astonishing number of replies; Crawford purchased a few rifles, and obtained samples of others; and, what was more important, he gained knowledge of the Continental trade in second-hand firearms, which had its centre in the free port of Hamburg, and of the men engaged in that trade. This knowledge he turned to account in 1912 and the two following years.

He had been for nearly twenty years an officer of Artillery Militia, and when the U.V.F. was organised in 1912 he became its Director of Ordnance on the headquarters staff. He was also a member of the Standing Committee of the Ulster Unionist Council, where he persistently advocated preparation for armed resistance long before most of his colleagues thought such a policy necessary. But early in 1912 he obtained leave to get samples of procurable firearms, and his promptitude in acting on it, and in presenting before certain members of the Committee a collection of gleaming rifles with bayonets fixed, took away the breath of the more cautious of his colleagues.

From this time forward Crawford was frequently engaged in this business. He got into communication with the dealers in arms whose acquaintance he had made six years before. He went himself to Hamburg, and, after learning something of the chicanery prevalent in the trade, which it took all his resourcefulness to overcome, he fell in with an honest Jew by whose help he succeeded in sending a thousand rifles safely to Belfast. Other consignments followed from time to time in larger or smaller quantities, in the transport of which all the devices of old-time smuggling were put to the test. Crawford bought a schooner, which for a year or more proved very useful, and, while employing her in bringing arms to Ulster, he made acquaintance with a skipper of one of the Antrim Iron Ore Company's coasting steamers, whose name was Agnew, a fine seaman of the best type produced by the British Mercantile Marine, who afterwards proved an invaluable ally, to whose loyalty and ability Crawford and Ulster owed a deep debt of gratitude, as they also did to Mr. Robert Browne, Managing Director of the Antrim Iron Ore Company, for placing at their disposal both vessels and seamen from time to time.

Now and then the goods fell a victim to Custom House vigilance; for although there was at this time nothing illegal in importing firearms, it was not considered prudent to carry on the trade openly, which would certainly have led to prohibition being introduced and enforced; and, consequently, infringements of shipping regulations had to be risked, which gave the authorities the right to interfere if they discovered rifles where zinc plates or musical instruments ought to have been.

On one occasion a case of arms was shipped on a small steamer from Glasgow to Portrush, but was not entered in the manifest, so that the skipper (being a worthy man) knew nothing—officially—of this box which lay on deck instead of descending into the hold. But two Customs officials, who noticed it with unsatisfied curiosity, decided, just as the boat cast off, to make the trip to Portrush. Happily it was a dirty night, and they, being bad sailors, were constrained to take refuge from the elements in the Captain's cabin. But when Portrush was reached search and research proved unavailing to find the mysterious box; the skipper could find no mention of it in the manifest and thought the Customs House gentlemen must have been dreaming; they, on the other hand, threatened to seize the ship if the box did not materialise, and were told to do so at their peril. But exactly off Ballycastle, which had been passed while the officials were poorly, there was a float in the sea attached to a line, which in due course led to the recovery of a case of valuable property that was none the worse for a few hours' rest on the bottom of the Moyle.

Qualities of a different sort were called into play in negotiating the purchase of machine-guns from Messrs. Vickers & Co., at Woolwich. Here a strong American accent, combined with the providential circumstance that Mexico happened to be in the grip of revolutionary civil war, overcame all difficulties, and Mr. John Washington Graham, U.S.A. (otherwise Fred H. Crawford of Belfast) played his part so effectively that he did not fail to finish the deal by extracting a handsome commission for himself, which found its way subsequently to the coffers of the Ulster Unionist Council. But he compensated the Company by making a suggestion for improving the mechanism of the Maxim-gun which the great ordnance manufacturers permanently adopted without having to pay for any patent rights.

Major Crawford was, however, by no means the only person who was at this time bringing arms and ammunition into Ulster, which, as already explained, although not illegal, could not be safely done openly on a large scale. Ammunition in small quantities dribbled into Belfast pretty constantly, many amateur importers deriving pleasurable excitement from feeling themselves conspirators, and affording amusement to others by the tales told of the ingenious expedients resorted to by the smugglers.

There was a dock porter at Belfast, an intense admirer of Sir Edward Carson, who was the retailer of one of the best of these stories. He was always on the look-out for the leader arriving by the Liverpool steamer, and would allow no one else, if he could help it, to handle the great man's hand-baggage; and when Carson was not a passenger, any of his satellites who happened to be travelling came in for vicarious attention. Thus, it happened on one occasion that the writer, arriving alone from Liverpool, was hailed from the shore before the boat was made fast. "Is Sir Edward on board?" A shake of the head brought a look of pathetic disappointment to the face of the hero-worshipper; but he was on board before the gangway was down and busy collecting the belongings of the leader's unworthy substitute. When laden with these and half-way down the gangway he stopped, and, entirely careless of the fact that he was obstructing a number of passengers impatient to land, he turned and whispered—a whisper that might be heard thirty yards off—with a knowing wink of the eye:

"We're getting in plenty of stuff now."

"Yes, yes," was the reply. "Never mind about that now; put those things on a car."

But he continued, without budging from the gangway, "Och aye, we're getting in plenty; but my God, didn't Mrs. Blank o' Dungannon bate all? Did ye hear about her?"

"No, I never heard of Mrs. Blank of Dungannon. But do hurry along, my good man; you're keeping back all the passengers."

"What! ye never heard o' Mrs. Blank o' Dungannon? Wait now till I tell ye. Mrs. Blank came off this boat not a fortnight ago, an' as she came down this gangway I declare to God you'd ha' swore she was within a week of her time—and divil a ha'porth the matter with her, only cartridges. An' the fun was that the Custom House boys knowed rightly what it was, but they dursn't lay a hand on her nor search her, for fear they were wrong."

This admiring tribute to the heroic matron of Dungannon—whose real name was not concealed by the porter—was heard by a number of people, and probably most of them thought themselves compensated by the story for the delay it caused them in leaving the steamer.

By the summer of 1913 several thousands of rifles had been brought into Ulster; but in May of that year the mishap occurred to which Lord Roberts referred in his letter to Colonel Hickman on the 4th of June, when he wrote: "I am sorry to read about the capture of rifles."[85] Crawford had been obliged to find some place in London for storing the arms which he was procuring from his friends in Hamburg, and with the help of Sir William Bull, M.P. for Hammersmith, the yard of an old-fashioned inn in that district was found where it was believed they would be safe until means of transporting them to the North of Ireland could be devised. The inn was taken by a firm calling itself John Ferguson & Co., the active member of which was Sir William Bull's brother-in-law, Captain Budden; and the business appeared to consist of dealing in second-hand scientific instruments and machinery, curiosities, antique armour and weapons, old furniture, and so forth, which were brought in very heavy cases and deposited in the yard. For a time it proved useful, and the Maxims from Woolwich passed safely through the Hammersmith store. But the London police got wind of the Hammersmith Armoury, and seized a consignment of between six and seven thousand excellent Italian rifles. A rusty and little-known Act of Parliament had to be dug up to provide legal authority for the seizure. Many sportsmen and others then learnt for the first time that, under the Gun-barrel Proof Act, 1868, every gun-barrel in England must bear the Gun-makers' Company's proof-mark showing that its strength has been tested and approved. As the penalty for being in possession of guns not so marked was a fine of L2 per barrel, to have put in a claim for the Italian rifles seized at Hammersmith would have involved a payment of more than L12,000, and would have given the Government information as to the channel through which they had been imported. No move was made, therefore, so far as the firearms were concerned, but the bayonets attached to them, for the seizure of which there was no legal justification, were claimed by Crawford's agent in Hamburg, and eventually reached Ulster safely by another route. About the same time a consignment of half a million rounds of small-arm ammunition, which was discovered by the authorities through faulty packing in cement-bags, was also confiscated in another part of the country.

These losses convinced Crawford that a complete change of method must be adopted if faith was to be kept with the Ulster Volunteers, who were implicitly trusting their leaders to provide them with weapons to enable them to make good the Covenant. More than a year before this time he had told the special Committee dealing with arms, to which he was immediately responsible, that, in his judgment, the only way of dealing effectively with the problem was not by getting small quantities smuggled from time to time by various devices and through disguised ordinary trade channels, but by bringing off a grand coup, as if running a blockade in time of war. He had crossed the Channel on purpose to submit this view to Sir Edward Carson and Captain Craig early in 1912, but at that time nothing was done to give effect to it.

But the seizure of so large a number as six thousand rifles at a time when the political situation looked like moving towards a crisis in the near future, made necessary a bolder attempt to procure the necessary arms. When General Sir George Richardson took command of the U.V.F. in July 1913 he placed Captain (afterwards Lieut.-Colonel) Wilfrid Bliss Spender on his staff, and soon afterwards appointed him A.Q.M.G. of the Forces. Captain Spender's duties comprised the supply of equipment, arms, and ammunition, the organisation of transport, and the supervision of communications. He was now requested to confer with Major Fred Crawford with a view to preparing a scheme for procuring arms and ammunition, to be submitted to a special sub-committee appointed to deal with this matter, of which Captain James Craig was chairman. Spender gave his attention mainly to the difficulties that would attend the landing and distribution of arms if they reached Ulster in safety; Crawford said he could undertake to purchase and bring them from a foreign port. Crawford's proposed modus operandi may be given in his own words:

"I would immediately go to Hamburg and see B.S. [the Hebrew dealer in firearms with whom he had been in communication for some six or seven years, and whom he had found perfectly honest, and not at all grasping], and consult him as to what he had to offer. I would purchase 25,000 to 30,000 rifles, modern weapons if possible, and not the Italian Vetteli rifles we had been getting, all to take the same ammunition and fitted with bayonets. I would purchase a suitable steamer of 600 tons in some foreign port and load her up with the arms, and either bring her in direct or transfer the cargo to a local steamer in some estuary or bay on the Scottish coast. I felt confident, though I knew the difficulties in front of me, that I could carry it through all right."[86]

The sub-committee accepted Crawford's proposal, and, when it had been confirmed by Headquarters Council, he was commissioned to go to Hamburg to see how the land lay. On arriving there he found that B.S. had still in store ten thousand Vetteli rifles and a million rounds of ammunition for them, which he had been holding for Crawford for two years. After a day or two the dealer laid three alternative proposals before his Ulster customer: (a) Twenty thousand Vetteli rifles, with bayonets (ammunition would have to be specially manufactured).(6) Thirty thousand Russian rifles with bayonets (lacking scabbards) and ammunition, (c) Fifteen thousand new Austrian, and five thousand German army rifles with bayonets, both to take standard Mannlicher cartridges.

The last mentioned of these alternatives was much the most costly, being double the price of the first and nearly treble that of the second; but it had great advantages over the other two. Ammunition for the Italian weapons was only manufactured in Italy, and, if further supplies should be required, could only be got from that country. The Russian rifles were perfectly new and unused, but were of an obsolete pattern; they were single-loaders, and fresh supplies of cartridges would be nearly as difficult to procure for them as for the Italian. The Austrian and German patterns were both first-rate; the rifles were up-to-date clip-loaders, and, what was the most important consideration, ammunition for them would be easily procurable in the United Kingdom or from America or Canada.

But the difference in cost was so great that Crawford returned to Belfast to explain matters to his Committee, calling in London on his way to inform Carson and Craig. He strongly urged the acceptance of the third alternative offer, laying stress, among other considerations, on the moral effect on men who knew they had in their hands the most modern weapon with all latest improvements. Carson was content to be guided on a technical matter of this sort by the judgment of a man whom he knew to be an expert, and as James Craig, who was in control of the fund ear-marked for the purchase of arms, also agreed, Crawford had not much difficulty in persuading the Committee when he reached Belfast, although at first they were rather staggered by the difference in cost between the various proposals.

It was not until the beginning of February 1914 that Crawford returned to Hamburg to accept this offer, and to make arrangements with B.S. for carrying out the rest of his scheme for transporting his precious but dangerous cargo to Ulster. On his way through London he called again on Carson.

"I pointed out to Sir Edward, my dear old Chief," says Crawford in a written account of the interview, "that some of my Committee had no idea of the seriousness of the undertaking, and, when they did realise what they were in for, might want to back out of it. I said, 'Once I cross this time to Hamburg there is no turning back with me, no matter what the circumstances are so far as my personal safety is concerned; and no contrary orders from the Committee to cancel what they have agreed to with me will I obey. I shall carry out the coup if I lose my life in the attempt. Now, Sir Edward, you know what I am about to undertake, and the risks those who back me up must run. Are you willing to back me to the finish in this undertaking? If you are not, I don't go. But, if you are, I would go even if I knew I should not return; it is for Ulster and her freedom I am working, and this alone.' I so well remember that scene. We were alone; Sir Edward was sitting opposite to me. When I had finished, his face was stern and grim, and there was a glint in his eye. He rose to his full height, looking me in the eye; he advanced to where I was sitting and stared down at me, and shook his clenched fist in my face, and said in a steady, determined voice, which thrilled me and which I shall never forget: 'Crawford, I'll see you through this business, if I should have to go to prison for it.' I rose from my chair; I held out my hand and said, 'Sir Edward, that is all I want. I leave to-night; good-bye.'"

Next day Crawford was in Hamburg. He immediately concluded his agreement with B.S., and began making arrangements for carrying out the plan he had outlined to the Committee in Belfast. As will be seen in the next chapter, he was actually in the middle of this adventure at the very time when Seely and Churchill were worrying lest "evil-disposed persons" should raid and rob the scantily stocked Government Stores at Omagh and Enniskillen.

FOOTNOTES:

[84] Ante, p. 123.

[85] Ante, p. 161.

[86] From a manuscript narrative by Colonel F.H. Crawford.



CHAPTER XVIII

A VOYAGE OF ADVENTURE

Although Mr. Lloyd George's message to mankind on New Year's Day, 1914, was that "Anglo-German relations were far more friendly than for years past,"[87] and that there was therefore no need to strengthen the British Navy, it may be doubted, with the knowledge we now possess, whether the German Government would have been greatly incensed at the idea of a cargo of firearms finding its way from Hamburg to Ireland in the spring of that year without the knowledge of the British Government. But if that were the case Fred Crawford had no reason to suspect it. German surveillance was always both efficient and obtrusive, and he had to make his preparations under a vigilance by the authorities which showed no signs of laxity. Those preparations involved the assembling and the packing of 20,000 modern rifles, 15,000 of which had to be brought from a factory in Austria; 10,000 Italian rifles previously purchased, which B.S. had in store; bayonets for all the firearms; and upwards of 3,000,000 rounds of small-arm ammunition. The packing of the arms was a matter to which Crawford gave particular attention. He kept in mind the circumstances under which he expected them to be landed in Ulster. Avoidance of confusion and rapidity of handling were of the first importance. Rifles, bayonets, and ammunition must be not separated in bulk, requiring to be laboriously reassembled at their destination. He therefore insisted that parcels should be made up containing five rifles in each, with bayonets to match, and 100 rounds of ammunition per rifle, each parcel weighing about 75 lbs. He attached so much importance to this system of packing that he adhered to it even after discovering that it would cost about L2,000, and would take more than a month to complete.

While the work of packing was going on, Crawford, who found he was exciting the curiosity of the Hamburg police, kept out of sight as much as possible, and he paid more than one visit to the Committee in Belfast, leaving the supervision to the skipper and packer, whom he had found he could trust. In the meantime, by advertisements in the Scandinavian countries, he was looking out for a suitable steamer to carry the cargo. For a crew his thoughts turned to his old friend, Andrew Agnew, skipper in the employment of the Antrim Iron Ore Company. Happily he was not only able to secure the services of Agnew himself, but Agnew brought with him his mate and his chief and second engineers. This was a great gain; for they were not only splendid men at their job, but were men willing to risk their liberty or their lives for the Ulster cause. Deck-hands and firemen would be procurable at whatever port a steamer was to be bought.

Several vessels were offered in response to Crawford's advertisements, and on the 16th of March, when the packing of the arms was well advanced, Crawford, Agnew, and his chief engineer went to Norway to inspect these steamers. Eventually they selected the s.s. Fanny, which had just returned to Bergen with a cargo of coal from Newcastle. She was only an eight-knot vessel, but her skipper, a Norwegian, gave a favourable report of her sea-going qualities and coal consumption, and Agnew and his engineer were satisfied by their inspection of her. The deal was quickly completed, and the Captain and his Norwegian crew willingly consented to remain in charge of the Fanny; and, in order to enable her to sail under the Norwegian flag, as a precaution against possible confiscation in British waters, it was arranged that the Captain should be the nominal purchaser, giving Crawford a mortgage for her full value.

Then, leaving Agnew to get sufficient stores on board the Fanny for a three-months' cruise, Crawford returned to Hamburg on the 20th, and thence to Belfast to report progress. Agnew's orders were to bring the Fanny in three weeks' time to a rendezvous marked on the chart between the Danish islands of Langeland and Fuenen, where he was to pick up the cargo of arms, which Crawford would bring in lighters from Hamburg through the Kiel Canal.

While Crawford was in Belfast arrangements were made to enable him to keep in communication with Spender, so that in case of necessity he could be warned not to approach the Irish coast, but to cruise in the Baltic till a more favourable opportunity. He was to let Spender know later where he could be reached with final instructions as to landing the arms; the rendezvous so agreed upon subsequently was Lough Laxford, a wild and inaccessible spot on the west coast of Sutherlandshire. Crawford was warned by B.S. that he was far from confident of a successful end to their labours at Hamburg. He had never before shipped anything like so large a number of firearms; and the long process of packing, and Crawford's own mysterious coming and going, would be certain to excite suspicion, which would reach the secret agents of the British Government, and lead either to a protest addressed to the German authorities, followed by a prohibition on shipping the arms, or to confiscation by the British authorities when the cargo entered British territorial waters.

These fears must have been present to the mind of B.S. when he met Crawford at the station in Hamburg on the 27th on his return from Belfast, for the precautions taken to avoid being followed gave their movements the character of an adventure by one of Stanley Weyman's heroes of romance. Whether any suspicion had in fact been aroused remains unknown. Anyhow, the barges were ready laden, with a tug waiting till the tide should serve about midnight for making a start down the Elbe, and through the canal to Kiel. The modest sum of L10 procured an order authorising the tug and barges to proceed through the canal without stopping, and requiring other shipping to let them pass. A black flag was the signal of this privileged position, which suggested the "Jolly Roger" to Crawford's thoughts, and gave a sense of insolent audacity when great liners of ten or fifteen thousand tons were seen making way for a tug-boat towing a couple of lighters.

For the success of the enterprise up to this point Crawford was greatly indebted to the Jew, B.S. From first to last this gentleman "played the game" with sterling honesty and straightforward dealing that won his customers' warm admiration. Several times he accepted Crawford's word as sufficient security when cash was not immediately forthcoming, and in no instance did he bear out the character traditionally attributed to his race.

On arrival at Kiel, Crawford, after a short absence from the tug, was informed that three men had been inquiring from the lightermen and the tug's skipper about the nature and destination of the cargo. All such evidences of curiosity on the subject were rather alarming, but it turned out that the visitors were probably Mexicans—of what political party there it would be impossible to guess—whose interest had been aroused by the rumour, which Crawford had encouraged, that guns were being shipped to that distracted Republic. Still more alarming was the arrival on board the tug of a German official in resplendent uniform, who insisted that he must inspect the cargo. Crawford knew no German, but the shipping agent who accompanied him produced papers showing that all formalities had been complied with, and all requisite authorisation obtained. Neither official papers, however, nor arguments made any impression on the officer until it occurred to Crawford to produce a 100-marks note, which proved much more persuasive, and sent the official on his way rejoicing, with expressions of civility on both sides.

The relief of the Ulsterman when the last of the Kiel forts was left behind, and he knew that his cargo was clear of Germany, may be imagined. A night was spent crossing Kiel Bay, and in the morning of the 29th they were close to Langeland, and approaching the rendezvous with the Fanny. She was there waiting, and Agnew, in obedience to orders, had already painted out her name on bows and stern. The next thing was to transfer the arms from the lighters to the Fanny. Crawford was apprehensive lest the Danish authorities should take an interest in the proceedings if the work was carried out in the narrow channel between the islands, and he proposed, as it was quite calm, to defer operations till they were further from the shore. But the Norwegian Captain declared that he had often transhipped cargo at this spot, and that there was no danger whatever. Nevertheless, Crawford's fears were realised. Before the work was half finished a Danish Port Officer came on board, asked what the cargo comprised, and demanded to see the ship's papers. According to the manifest the Fanny was bound for Iceland with a general cargo, part of which was to be shipped at Bergen. The Danish officer then spent half an hour examining the bales, and, although he did not open any of them, Crawford felt no doubt he knew perfectly the nature of their contents. Finally he insisted on carrying off the papers, both of the Fanny and the tug-boat, saying that all the information must be forwarded to Copenhagen to be dealt with by the Government authorities, but that the papers would be returned early next morning.

One can well believe Crawford when he says that he suffered "mental agony" that night. After all that he had planned, and all that he had accomplished by many months of personal energy and resource, he saw complete and ignominious failure staring him in the face. He realised the heavy financial loss to the Ulster Loyalists, for his cargo represented about L70,000 of their money; and he realised the bitter disappointment of their hopes, which was far worse than any loss of money. He pictured to himself what must happen in the morning—"to have to follow a torpedo-boat into the naval base and lie there till the whole Ulster scheme was unravelled and known to the world as a ghastly failure, and the Province and Sir Edward and all the leaders the laughing stock of the world"—and the thought of it all plunged him almost into despair.

Almost, but not quite. He was not the man to give way to despair. If it came to the worst he would "put all the foreign crew and their belongings into the boats and send them off; Agnew and I would arm ourselves with a bundle of rifles, and cut it open and have 500 rounds to fight any attempt to board us, and if we slipped this by any chance, he and I would bring her to England together, he on deck and I in the engine-room. He knew all about navigation and I knew all about engines, having been a marine engineer in my youth."

But a less desperate job called for immediate attention. The men engaged in transferring the cargo from the barges to the steamer wanted to knock off work for the night; but the offer of double pay persuaded them to stick to it, and they worked with such good will that by midnight every bale was safely below hatches in the Fanny. Crawford then instructed the shipping agent to be off in the tug at break of day, giving him letters to post which would apprise the Committee in Belfast of what had happened, and give them the means of communicating with himself according to previously concerted plans.

Before morning a change occurred in the weather, which Crawford regarded as providential. He was gladdened by the sight of a sea churned white by half a gale, while a mist lay on the water, reducing visibility to about 300 yards. It would be impossible for the Port Officer's motor-boat to face such a sea, or, if it did, to find the Fanny, unless guided by her fog-whistle. As soon as eight o'clock had passed—the hour by which the return of the ship's papers had been promised—Crawford weighed anchor, and crept out of the narrow channel under cover of the fog, only narrowly escaping going aground on the way among the banks and shallows that made it impossible to sail before daylight, but eventually the open sea was safely reached. But the Fanny was now without papers, and in law was a pirate ship. It was therefore desirable for her to change her costume. As many hands as possible were turned to the task of giving a new colour to the funnel and making some other effective alterations in her appearance, including a new name on her bows and stern. Thus renovated, and after a delay of some days, caused by trifling mishaps, she left the Cattegat behind and steered a course for British waters.

The original plan had been to set a course for Iceland, and, when north of the Shetlands, to turn to the southward to Lough Laxford, the agreed rendezvous with Spender. But the incident at Langeland, which had made the Danish authorities suspect illegal traffic with Iceland, made a change of plan imperative. Before leaving Danish waters Crawford tried to communicate this change to Belfast. But, meantime, information had reached Belfast of certain measures being taken by the Government, and Spender, hoping to catch Crawford before he left Kiel, went to Dublin to telegraph from there. In Dublin he was dismayed to read in the newspapers that a mysterious vessel called the Fanny, said to be carrying arms for Ulster, had been captured by the Danish authorities in the Baltic. For several days no further news reached Belfast, where it was assumed that the whole enterprise had failed; and then a code message informed the Committee that Crawford was in London.

Spender at once went over to see him, in order to warn him not to bring the arms to Ireland for the present. He was to take them back to Hamburg, or throw them overboard, or sink the Fanny and take to her boats, according to circumstances. But in London, instead of Crawford, Spender found the Hamburg skipper and packer, who told him of Crawford's escape from Langeland with the loss of the ship's papers. Spender, knowing nothing of Crawford's change of plan, and anxious to convey to him the latest instructions, went off on a wild-goose chase to the Highlands of Scotland, where he spent the best part of an unhappy week watching the waves tumbling in Lough Laxford, and looking as anxiously as Tristan for the expected ship.

Meantime the Fanny had crossed the North Sea, and Crawford sent Agnew ashore at Yarmouth on the 7th of April with orders to hurry to Belfast, where he was to procure another steamer and bring it to a rendezvous at Lundy Island, in the Bristol Channel. Crawford himself, having rechristened the Fanny for the second time (this time the Doreen), proceeded down the English Channel, where he had a rather adventurous cruise in a gale of wind. He kept close to the French coast, to avoid any unwelcome attentions in British waters, but on the way had an attack of malaria, which the Captain thought so grave that, no doubt with the most humane motives, he declared his intention of putting Crawford ashore at Dunkirk to save his life, a design which no persuasion short of Crawford's handling of his revolver in true pirate fashion would make the Norwegian abandon.

In the heavy seas of the Channel the Doreen could not make more than four knots, and she was consequently twenty-four hours late for the rendezvous with Agnew at Lundy, where she arrived on the 11th of April. The Bristol Channel seemed to swarm with pilot boats eager to be of service, whose inquisitive and expert eyes were anything but welcome to the custodian of Ulster's rifles; and to his highly strung imagination every movement of every trawler appeared to betoken suspicion. And, indeed, they were not without excuse for curiosity; for, a foreign steamer whose course seemed indeterminate, now making for Cardiff and now for St. Ives, observed at one time north-east of Lundy and a few hours later south of the island—a tramp, in fact, that was obviously "loitering" with no ascertainable destination, was enough to keep telescopes to the eyes of Devon pilots and fisher-folk, and to set their tongues wagging. But there was no help for it. Crawford could not leave the rendezvous till Agnew arrived, and was forced to wander round Lundy and up and down the Bristol Channel for two days and nights, until, at 5 a.m. on Monday morning, the 13th of April, a signal from a passing steamer, the Balmerino, gave the welcome tidings that Agnew was on board and was proceeding to sea.

When the two steamers were sufficiently far from Lundy lighthouse and other prying eyes to make friendly intercourse safe, Agnew came on board the Doreen, bringing with him another North Irish seaman whom he introduced to Crawford. This man handed to Crawford a paper he had brought from Belfast. It was typewritten; it bore no address and no signature; it was no doubt a duplicate of what Spender had taken to the Highlands, for its purport, as given by Crawford from memory, was to the following effect: "Owing to great changes since you left, and altered circumstances, the Committee think it would be unwise to bring the cargo here at present, and instruct you to proceed to the Baltic and cruise there for three months, keeping in touch with the Committee, or else to store the goods at Hamburg till required."

The "great changes" referred to were the operations that led to the Curragh incident, the story of which Crawford now learnt from Agnew. The presence of the fleet at Lamlash, and of destroyers off Carrickfergus, was enough to make the Committee deem it an inopportune moment for Crawford to bring his goods to Belfast Lough. But the latter was hardly in a condition to appreciate the gravity of the situation, and the indignation which the missive aroused in him is intelligible. After all he had come through, the ups and downs, dangers and escapes—far more varied than have been here recorded—the disappointment at being ordered back was cruel; and in his eyes such instructions were despicably pusillanimous. The caution that had prompted his instructors to leave the order unsigned moved him to contempt, and in his wrath he was confident that "the Chief at any rate had nothing to do with it." He told the messenger that he did not know who had sent the paper, and did not want to know, and instructed him to take it back and inform the senders that, as it bore no signature, no date, no address, and no official stamp, he declined to recognise it and refused to obey it; and, further, that unless he received within six days properly authenticated instructions for delivering his cargo, he would run his ship ashore at high water in the County Down, and let the Ulstermen salve as much as they could when the tide ebbed.

But Crawford determined to make another effort first to accomplish his task by less desperate methods. He therefore decided to accompany the messenger back to Belfast. The Doreen, late Fanny, was too foreign-looking to pass unchallenged up Belfast Lough, but he believed that if the cargo could be transhipped to a vessel known to all watchers on the North Irish coast, a policy of audacity would have a good chance of success. The s.s. Balmerino, which had brought Agnew and the messenger to Lundy, was such a vessel; her owner, Mr. Sam Kelly, was an intimate friend of Crawford's; and if he could see Kelly the matter, he hoped, might be quickly arranged. The reliance which Crawford placed in Mr. Sam Kelly was fully justified, for the assistance rendered by this gentleman was essential to the success of the enterprise. He it was who freely supplied two steamers, with crews and stevedores, thereby enabling the last part of this adventurous voyage to be carried through; and the willingness with which Mr. Kelly risked financial loss, and much besides, placed Ulster under an obligation to him for which he sought no recompense.

Crawford accordingly went off in the Balmerino, landed in South Wales on Tuesday, the 14th of April, and hastened by the quickest route to Belfast. Agnew took charge of the Doreen, with instructions to be at the Tuskar Light, on the Wexford coast, on the following Friday night, the 17th, and to return there every night until Crawford rejoined him. A friend of Crawford's, Mr. Richard Cowser, with whom he had a conversation on the telephone from Dublin, met him at the railway station in Belfast and told him that he had a motor waiting to take him to Craigavon, where the Council was expecting him, and that he would see Mr. Sam Kelly, the owner of the Balmerino, there also. This news made Crawford very angry. He accused his friend of breach of confidence in letting anyone know that he was coming to Belfast; he declared he would have nothing to do with the Council after the unsigned orders he had received at Lundy; and he besought his friend to take his car to Craigavon and bring back Kelly, repeating his determination to bring in his cargo, even if he had to run his ship ashore to do so. Mr. Cowser replied that this would be very disappointing to Sir Edward Carson, who was waiting for Crawford at Craigavon, having come from London on purpose for this Council Meeting. "What!" exclaimed Crawford, "is Sir Edward there? Why did you not say so at once? Where is your car? Let us waste no time till I see the Chief and report to him."

That evening of the 14th of April, at Craigavon, was a memorable one for all who were present at the meeting. Carson invited Crawford to relate all he had done, and to explain how he proposed to proceed. The latter did not mince matters in saying what he thought of the Lundy instructions, which he again declared angrily he intended to disobey. When he had finished his narrative and his protestations against what he considered a cowardly policy—a policy that would deprive Ulster of succour as sorely needed as Derry needed the Mountjoy to break the boom—Carson put a few questions to him in regard to the feasibility of his plans. Crawford explained the advantage it would be to transfer the cargo from the Fanny to a local steamer, which he felt confident he could bring into Larne, and after the transhipment he would send the Fanny straight back to the Baltic, where she could settle her account with the Danish authorities and recover her papers.

Some members of the Council were sceptical about the possibility of transhipping the cargo at sea, but Crawford, who had fully discussed it with Agnew, believed that if favoured by calm weather it could be done. When Carson, after hearing all that was to be said on both sides in the long debate between Fabius and Hotspur, finally supported the latter, the question was decided. There was no split—there never was in these deliberations in Ulster; those whose judgment was overruled always supported loyally the policy decided upon.

Immediate measures were then taken to give effect to the decision. Kelly knew of a suitable craft, the s.s. Clydevalley, for sale at that moment in Glasgow, which would be in Belfast next morning with a cargo of coal. This was providential. A collier familiar to every longshoreman in Belfast Lough, carrying on her usual trade this week, could hardly be suspected of carrying rifles when she returned next week ostensibly in the same line of business. It was settled that Crawford should cross to Glasgow at once and buy her; the steamer, when bought, was to go from Belfast to Llandudno, where she would pick up Crawford on the sands, and proceed to keep the rendezvous with Agnew at the Tuskar Light on Friday; and, after taking over the Fanny's cargo, would then steam boldly up Belfast Lough and through the Musgrave Channel to the Belfast docks, where he undertook to arrive on the Friday week, the 24th of April, the various proposals which named Larne, Bangor, and Donaghadee as ports of discharge having all been rejected after full discussion. This last decision was not approved by Crawford, for he and Spender had long before this time agreed that Larne harbour was the proper place to land the arms, both because the large number of country roads leading to it would facilitate rapid distribution, and because it would be more difficult for the authorities to interfere with the disembarkation there than at any of the other ports.

Before parting from the Council Crawford made it quite clear that during the remainder of the adventure he would recognise no orders of any kind unless they bore the autograph signature of Sir Edward Carson. On this understanding he set out for Glasgow, bought the Clydevalley, and went by train to Llandudno to await her arrival. These affairs had left very little margin of time to spare. The Clydevalley could not be at Llandudno before the morning of the 17th, and Agnew would be looking for her at the Tuskar the same evening. As it actually turned out she only arrived at the Welsh watering-place late that night, and, after picking up Crawford, who had spent an anxious day on the beach, arrived off the Wexford coast at daybreak on Saturday, the 18th. Not a sign of the Fanny was to be seen all that day, or the following night; and when the skipper of the Clydevalley, who had been on the Balmerino and was privy to the arrangements with Agnew, gave Crawford reason to think there might have been a misunderstanding as to the rendezvous, Yarmouth having been also mentioned in that connection, Crawford was in a condition almost of desperation.

It was, indeed, a situation to test the nerves, to say nothing of the temper, of even the most resolute. It was Sunday, and Crawford had undertaken to be at Copeland Island, at the mouth of Belfast Lough, on Friday evening for final landing instructions. The precious cargo, which had passed safely through so many hazards, had vanished and was he knew not where. He had heard nothing of the Fanny (or Doreen) since he landed at Tenby five days previously. Had she been captured by a destroyer from Pembroke, or overhauled, pirate as she was without papers, by Customs officials from Rosslare? Or had Agnew mistaken his instructions, and risked all the dangers of the English Channel in a fruitless voyage to Yarmouth, where, even if still undetected, the Fanny would be too far away to reach Copeland by Friday, unless Agnew could be communicated with at once?

There was only one way in which such communication could be managed, and that way Crawford now took with characteristic promptitude and energy. The Clydevalley crossed the Irish Sea to Fishguard, where he took train on Sunday night to London and Yarmouth, having first made arrangements with the skipper for keeping in touch. But there was no trace of the Fanny at Yarmouth, and no word from Agnew at the Post Office. There appeared to be no solution of the problem, and every precious hour that slipped away made ultimate failure more menacing. But at two o'clock the outlook entirely changed. A second visit to the Post Office was rewarded by a telegram in code from Agnew saying all was well, and that he would be at Holyhead to pick up Crawford on Tuesday evening. There was just time to catch a London train that arrived in time for the Irish mail from Euston. On Tuesday morning Crawford was pacing the breakwater at Holyhead, and a few hours later he was discussing matters with Agnew in the little cabin of the Clydevalley.

The latter had amply made up for the loss of time caused by some misunderstanding as to the rendezvous at the Tuskar, for he was able to show Crawford, to his intense delight, that the cargo had all been safely and successfully transferred to the hold of the Clydevalley in a bay on the Welsh coast, mainly at night. Some sixteen transport labourers from Belfast, willing Ulster hands, had shifted the stuff in less than half the time taken by Germans at Langeland over the same job. There was, therefore, nothing more to be done except to steam leisurely to Copeland, for which there was ample time before Friday evening. The Fanny had departed to an appointed rendezvous on the Baltic coast of Denmark.

It was now the turn of the Clydevalley to yield up her obscure identity, and to assume an historic name appropriate to the adventure she was bringing to a triumphant climax—a name of good omen in Ulster ears. Strips of canvas, 6 feet long, were cut and painted with white letters on a black ground, and affixed to bows and stern, so that the men waiting at Copeland might hail the arrival of the Mountjoy II.

Off Copeland Island a small vessel was waiting, which Agnew recognised as a tender belonging to Messrs. Workman & Clark. The men on board, as soon as they could make out the name of the approaching vessel, understood at once, and raised a ringing cheer. Two of them were seen gesticulating and hailing the Mountjoy. Crawford, suspecting fresh orders to retreat, paid no attention, and told Agnew to hold on his course; and even when presently he was able to recognise Mr. Cowser and Mr. Dawson Bates on board the tender, and to hear them shouting that they had important instructions for him, he still refused to let them come on board. "If the orders are not signed by Sir Edward Carson," he shouted back, "you can take them back to where they came from." But the orders they brought had been signed by the leader, a special messenger having been sent to London to obtain his signature, and the change of plan they indicated was, in fact, just what Crawford desired. The bulk of the arms were to be landed at Larne, the port he had always favoured, and lesser quantities were to be taken to Bangor and Donaghadee.

It was 10.30 that night, the 24th of April 1914, when the Mountjoy II steamed alongside the landing-stage at Larne, where she had been eagerly awaited for a couple of hours. The voyage of adventure was over. Fred Crawford, with the able and zealous help of Andrew Agnew, had accomplished the difficult and dangerous task he had undertaken, and a service had been rendered to Ulster not unworthy to rank beside the breaking of the boom across the Foyle by the first and more renowned Mountjoy.

FOOTNOTES:

[87] Annual Register, 1914, p. 1.



CHAPTER XIX

ON THE BRINK OF CIVIL WAR

The arrangements that had been made for the landing and disposal of the arms when they arrived in port were the work of an extremely efficient and complete organisation. In the previous summer Captain Spender, it will be remembered, had been appointed to a position on Sir George Richardson's staff which included in its duties that of the organisation of transport. A railway board, a supply board, and a transport board had been formed, on which leading business men willingly served; every U.V.F. unit had its horse transport, and in addition a special motor corps, organised in squadrons, and a special corps of motor-lorries were formed.

More than half the owners of motor-cars in Ulster placed their cars at the disposal of the motor corps, to be used as and when required. The corps was organised in sections of four cars each, and in squadrons of seventeen cars each, with motor cyclist despatch-riders; a signalling corps of despatch-riders and signallers completed the organisation. The lively interest aroused by the practice and displays of the last-mentioned corps did much to promote the high standard of proficiency attained by its "flag-waggers," many of whom were women and girls. In particular the signalling-station at Bangor gained a reputation which attracted many English sympathisers with Ulster to pay it a visit when they came to Belfast for the great Unionist demonstrations.

The despatch-riders on motor-cycles made the Ulster Council independent of the Post Office, which for very good reasons they used as little as possible. Post-houses were opened at all the most important centres in Ulster, between which messages were transmitted by despatch-rider or signal according to the nature of the intervening country. Along the coast of Down and Antrim the organisation of signals was complete and effective. The usefulness of the despatch-riders' corps was fully tested and proved during the Curragh Incident, when news of all that was taking place at the Curragh was received by this means two or three times a day at the Old Town Hall in Belfast, where there was much information of what was going on that was unknown at the Irish Office in London.

All this organisation was at the disposal of the leaders for handling the arms brought in the hold of the Mountjoy II. The perfection of the arrangements for the immediate distribution of the rifles and ammunition among the loyalist population, and the almost miraculous precision with which they were carried out on that memorable Friday night, extorted the admiration even of the most inveterate political enemies of Ulster. The smoothness with which the machinery of organisation worked was only possible on account of the hearty willingness of all the workers, combined with the discipline to which they gladly submitted themselves.

The whole U.V.F. was warned for a trial mobilisation on the evening of the 24th of April, and the owners of all motor-cars and lorries were requested to co-operate. Very few either of the Volunteers or the motor owners knew that anything more than manoeuvres by night for practice purposes was to take place. All motors from certain specified districts were ordered to be at Larne by 8 o'clock in the evening; from other districts the vehicles were to assemble at Bangor and Donaghadee respectively, at a later hour. All the roads leading to these ports were patrolled by volunteers, and at every cross-roads over the greater part of nine counties men of the local battalions were stationed to give directions to motor-drivers who might not be familiar with the roads. At certain points these men were provided with reserve supplies of petrol, and with repairing tools that might be needed in case of breakdown. It is a remarkable testimony to the zeal of these men for the cause that, although none of them knew he was taking part in an exciting adventure, not one, so far as is known, left his post throughout a cold and wet night, having received orders not to go home till daybreak. And these were men, it must be remembered, who before putting on the felt hats, puttees, and bandoliers which constituted their uniform, had already done a full day's work, and were not to receive a sixpence for their night's job.

At the three ports of discharge large forces of volunteers were concentrated. Sir George Richardson, G.O.C. in C., remained in Belfast through the night, being kept fully and constantly informed of the progress of events by signal and motor-cyclist despatch-riders. Captain James Craig was in charge of the operations at Bangor; at Larne General Sir William Adair was in command, with Captain Spender as Staff officer.

The attention of the Customs authorities in Belfast was diverted by a clever stratagem. A tramp steamer was brought up the Musgrave Channel after dark, her conduct being as furtive and suspicious as it was possible to make it appear. At the same time a large wagon was brought to the docks as if awaiting a load. The skipper of the tramp took an unconscionable time, by skilful blundering, in bringing his craft to her moorings. The suspicions of the authorities were successfully aroused; but every possible hindrance was put in their way when they began to investigate. The hour was too late: could they not wait till daylight? No? Well, then, what was their authority? When that was settled, it appeared that the skipper had mislaid his keys and could not produce the ship's papers—and so on. By these devices the belief of the officers that they had caught the offender they were after was increasingly confirmed every minute, while several hours passed before they were allowed to realise that they had discovered a mare's-nest. For when at last they "would stand no more nonsense," and had the hatches opened and the papers produced, the latter were quite in order, and the cargo—which they wasted a little additional time in turning over—contained nothing but coal.

Meantime the real business was proceeding twenty miles away. All communications by wire from the three ports were blocked by "earthing" the wires, so as to cause short circuit. The police and coast-guards were "peacefully picketed," as trade unionists would call it, in their various barracks—they were shut in and strongly guarded. No conflict took place anywhere between the authorities and the volunteers, and the only casualty of any kind was the unfortunate death of one coast-guardsman from heart disease at Donaghadee.

At Larne, where much the largest portion of the Mountjoy's cargo was landed, a triple cordon of Volunteers surrounded the town and harbour, and no one without a pass was allowed through. The motors arrived with a punctuality that was wonderful, considering that many of them had come from long distances. As the drivers arrived near the town and found themselves in an apparently endless procession of similar vehicles, their astonishment and excitement became intense. Only when close to the harbour did they learn what they were there for, and received instructions how to proceed. They had more than two hours to wait in drizzling rain before the Mountjoy appeared round the point of Islandmagee, although her approach had been made known to Spender by signal at dusk. There were about five hundred motor vehicles assembled at Larne alone, and such an invasion of flaring head-lights gave the inhabitants of the little town unwonted excitement. Practically all the able-bodied men of the place were either on duty as Volunteers or were willing workers in the landing of the arms. The women stood at their doors and gave encouraging greeting to the drivers; many of them ran improvised canteens, which supplied the workers with welcome refreshments during the night.

There was a not unnatural tendency at first on the part of some of the motor-drivers to look upon the event more in the light of a meet of hounds than of the gravest possible business, and to hang about discussing the adventure with the other "sportsmen." But the use of vigorous language brought them back to recognition of the seriousness of the work before them, and the discharge of the cargo proceeded hour after hour with the utmost rapidity and with the regularity of a well-oiled machine. The cars drew up beside the Mountjoy in an endless queue; each received its quota of bales according to its carrying capacity, and was despatched on its homeward journey without a moment's delay.

The wisdom of Crawford's system of packing was fully vindicated. There was no confusion, no waiting to bring ammunition from one part of the ship's hold to match with rifles brought from another, and bayonets from a third. The packages, as they were carried from the steamer or the cranes, were counted by checking clerks, and their destination noted as each car received its load. But even the large number of vehicles available would have been insufficient for the purpose on hand if each had been limited to a single load; dumps had therefore been formed at a number of selected places in the surrounding districts, where the arms were temporarily deposited so as to allow the cars to return and perform the same duty several times during the night.

While the Mountjoy was discharging the Larne consignment on to the quay, she was at the same time transhipping a smaller quantity into a motor-boat, moored against her side, which when laden hurried off to Donaghadee; and she left Larne at 5 in the morning to discharge the last portion of her cargo at Bangor, which was successfully accomplished in broad daylight after her arrival there about 7.30.

Crawford refused to leave the ship at either Larne or Bangor, feeling himself bound in honour to remain with the crew until they were safe from arrest by the naval authorities. It was well known in Belfast that a look-out was being kept for the Fanny, which had figured in the Press as "the mystery ship" ever since the affair at Langeland, and had several times been reported to have been viewed at all sorts of odd places on the map, from the Orkneys to Tory Island. Just as Agnew was casting off from Bangor, when the last bale of arms had gone ashore, a message from U.V.F. headquarters informed him that a thirty-knot cruiser was out looking for the Fanny. To mislead the coast-guards on shore a course was immediately set for the Clyde—the very quarter from which a cruiser coming from Lamlash was to be expected—and when some way out to sea Crawford cut the cords holding the canvas sheets that bore the name of the Mountjoy, so that within five minutes the filibustering pirate had again become the staid old collier Clydevalley, which for months past had carried her regular weekly cargo of coal from Scotland to Belfast. As before at Langeland, so now at Copeland, fog providentially covered retreat, and through it the Clydevalley made her way undetected down the Irish Sea. At daybreak next morning Crawford landed at Rosslare; and Agnew then proceeded along the French and Danish coasts to the Baltic to the rendezvous with the Fanny, in order to bring back the Ulstermen members of her crew, after which "the mystery ship" was finally disposed of at Hamburg.

Sir Edward Carson and Lord Londonderry were both in London on the 24th of April. At an early hour next morning a telegram was delivered to each of them, containing the single word "Lion." It was a code message signifying that the landing of the arms had been carried out without a hitch. Before long special editions of the newspapers proclaimed the news to all the world, and as fresh details appeared in every successive issue during the day the public excitement grew in intensity. Wherever two or three Unionists were gathered together exultation was the prevailing mood, and eagerness to send congratulations to friends in Ulster.

Soon after breakfast a visitor to Sir Edward Carson found a motor brougham standing at his door, and on being admitted was told that "Lord Roberts is with Sir Edward." The great little Field-Marshal, on learning the news, had lost not a moment in coming to offer his congratulations to the Ulster leader. "Magnificent!" he exclaimed, on entering the room and holding out his hand, "magnificent! nothing could have been better done; it was a piece of organisation that any army in Europe might be proud of."

But it was not to be expected that the Government and its supporters would relish the news. The Radical Press, of course, rang all the changes of angry vituperation, especially those papers which had been prominent in ridiculing "Ulster bluff" and "King Carson's wooden guns"; and they now speculated as to whether Carson could be "convicted of complicity" in what Mr. Asquith in the House of Commons described as "this grave and unprecedented outrage." Carson soon set that question at rest by quietly rising in his place in the House and saying that he took full responsibility for everything that had been done. The Prime Minister, amid the frenzied cheers of his followers, assured the House that "His Majesty's Government will take, without delay, appropriate steps to vindicate the authority of the law." For a short time there was some curiosity as to what the appropriate steps would be. None, however, of any sort were taken; the Government contented itself with sending a few destroyers to patrol for a short time the coasts of Antrim and Down, where they were saluted by the Ulster Signalling Stations, and their officers hospitably entertained on shore by loyalist residents.

On the 28th of April a further debate on the Curragh Incident took place in the House of Commons, which was a curious example of the rapid changes of mood that characterise that Assembly. Most of the speeches both from the front and back benches were, if possible, even more bitter, angry, and defiant than usual. But at the close of one of the bitterest of them all Mr. Churchill read a typewritten passage that was recognised as a tiny olive-branch held out to Ulster. Carson responded next day in a conciliatory tone, and the Prime Minister was thought to suggest a renewal of negotiations in private. For some time nothing came of this hint; but on the 12th of May Mr. Asquith announced that the third reading of the Home Rule Bill (for the third successive year, as required by the Parliament Act before being presented for the signature of the King) would be taken before Whitsuntide, but that the Government intended to make another attempt to appease Ulster by introducing "an amending proposal, in the hope that a settlement by agreement may be arrived at"; and that the two Bills—the Home Rule Bill and the Bill to amend it—might become law practically at the same time. But he gave no hint as to what the "amending proposal" was to be, and the reception of the announcement by the Opposition did not seem to presage agreement.

Mr. Bonar Law insisted that the House of Commons ought to be told what the Amending Bill would propose, before it was asked finally to pass the Home Rule Bill. But the real fact was, as every member of the House of Commons fully realised, that Mr. Asquith was not a free agent in this matter. The Nationalists were not at all pleased at the attempts already made, trivial as they were, to satisfy Ulster, and Mr. Redmond protested against the promise of an Amending Bill of any kind. Mr. Asquith could make no proposal sufficient to allay the hostility of Ulster that would not alienate the Nationalists, whose support was essential to the continuance of his Government in office.

On the same day as this debate in Parliament the result of a by-election at Grimsby was announced in which the Unionist candidate retained the seat; a week later the Unionists won a seat in Derbyshire; and two days afterwards crowned these successes with a resounding victory at Ipswich. The last-mentioned contest was considered so important that Mr. Lloyd George and Sir Edward Carson went down to speak the evening before the poll for their respective sides. Mr. Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made his appeal to the cupidity of the constituency, which was informed that it would gain L15,000 a year from his new Budget, in addition to large sums, of which he gave the figure, for old age pensions and under the Government's Health Insurance Act.[88] Sir Edward Carson laid stress on Ulster's determination to resist Home Rule by force. The Unionist candidate won the seat next day in this essentially working-class constituency by a substantial majority, although his Liberal opponent, Mr. Masterman, was a Cabinet Minister trying for the second time to return to Parliament. Out of seven elections since the beginning of the session the Government had lost four.