The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising Read Online Free PDF Page B

cleaner than the toilets under Tommy Moore’s arse in Westmoreland Street. And unlike the public toilets on the quays, I don’t have to watch some wrinkled old priest waving his willie at me.
    During the night, Commandant MacDonagh had a few of us lads brave the elements to place empty biscuit tin boxes outside the factory as noise booby-traps so that we would know if the British were sneaking up on us. A cunning stunt on the commandant’s part, I think. He also explained to us the importance of Jacob’s in the fight. He said that we now controlled Dublin because we held the GPO, the Four Courts, Stephen’s Green, and the South Dublin Union. The British army would probably land at Kingstown and march on Dublin. We at Jacob’s were in a position to cut them off, depending on where they crossed the Grand Canal. Commandant de Valera, he said, would probably have first shot at them at Boland’s Mills. We could also block any advance by the British, MacDonagh explained, from Portobello Barracks just to our south and Richmond Barracks to the west. We were right in the middle of it all. Commandant MacDonagh is a good egg, and it’s surprising to me that such a quiet, gentle man like him would sign such a bloodthirsty proclamation. But the British war with their first cousins, the Germans, is beginning to grate on the Irish. Even gentle folk are threatening sedition.
    But revolution is boring! We sat around all day—as the British surely did—waiting for the rain to let up. I thought I would die just sitting around and eating more crackers. Finally Commandant MacDonagh asked for a volunteer to go to the GPO, because the phones are dead. I stuck up my hand and told him I was his man. The commandant was doubtful because of my age, but I insisted I knew Dublin City and this neighborhood in particular better than any man in Jacob’s that evening. Sure, wasn’t I born just blocks away in Camden Row, off Wexford Street?
    The commandant asked me what my plan was, and I told him that I doubted there would be many men out on either side this terrible night. I would head for the River Liffey and see if I could get over one of the bridges and make my way to the GPO. I told him my youth was an advantage—how could the British think that this innocent boy was with the rebels? My face was fresh and eager, and MacDonagh, thoughtfully scratching his curly hair, finally agreed, adding, “Just be careful, son.” I promised him I would.
    Commandant MacDonagh wrote out a note on Jacob’s stationery and sealed this in an envelope. “Take this to Commander-in-Chief Pearse.”
    I exited on Peter Row and went down the side streets. I actually went by my mother’s house, and our paraffin lamp was alight. I was tempted to go in and tell them that I was alright, but I couldn’t take the chance. I had that letter to Commander-in-Chief Pearse, and I had to get it through. I couldn’t take the chance that Mammy and Da might try and stop me. And as luck would have it, when I got to the Ha’penny Bridge, there wasn’t a sinner in sight, not even the toll man. I ran up the steps and started to make my way across when there was a terrible burning in my lower back that dropped me to the footpath of the bridge. It took me a minute to realize I had been shot in the high hole of me arse. I didn’t know where the shot came from, but there was noise from up Sackville Street way. I crawled the rest of the way over the bridge as bullets hit the metal bridge above me. I kept crawling down the steps on the north side and jumped up with a fright to get past the old Woolen Mills and up Liffey Street. There wasn’t a soul to be found on the streets, and I dashed, my arse dripping blood, to Henry Street and banged on the first door I came to in the GPO. No one answered at first, and the looming presence of Lord Nelson atop his pillar staring down at me began to frighten the shite out of me. Finally the door opened a squeak, and I told your man that I had a