In this, and subsequent chapters, certain incidents may be found upsetting. This is not my intention, but the past is what it is. To pretend things were not said, were not as they were, that opinions, however distasteful, were not once sincerely held, or that events did not happen, is not history.

The Irish Chauffeur

Chapter Three

A Call To Arms

Police Court, Kidderminster, Worcestershire, England, July 1931.

"... William Arthur Price, 12 months, take him down".


Not being cognizant of what had occurred over a year earlier at the Police Court in Kidderminster - indeed why should he have been, after all the Herberts did not reside permanently at Witley Court and it was well before young Billy Price, in a manner of speaking, turned up on the doorstep seeking a position - in requiring that Billy be let go, Sir Herbert Smith, for all his undoubted faults, proved a remarkably good judge of character. For, had the old butler at the Court not been so desperate to find staff, had diligent enquiries been put in hand, then they would undoubtedly have revealed that Billy had not been entirely honest regarding his antecedents.

But then, while Billy possessed certain attributes, of which dear Daisy was well aware, honesty was not one of them.


Idrone Terrace, Blackrock, Dublin, Irish Free State, January 1937.

When a short while ago Tom had telephoned the house to say that the railway service was banjaxed on account of the fog, that he would be home somewhat later than envisaged, Sybil had told him not to worry; that she would put his tea in the oven. Fortunately, she did not ask if he had seen Danny but only because when Danny had gone into Dublin on the early afternoon train, he had said something about stopping off at Jimmy's on the way home. Had she known that Jimmy had told his Ma precisely the same tale, the only difference being that he was stopping off at Danny's, then she might have realised something was afoot. However, it was not until she went upstairs to Danny's bedroom, to put away his freshly laundered shirts, finding two of the drawers in the tallboy completely empty, that Sybil realised something was amiss. Then, as she surveyed the room, just as her sisters had done all those years ago, when Sybil had eloped with Tom from Downton, she saw the envelope, addressed to Da and Ma, standing on the mantelpiece. With trembling fingers, she tore it open and took out the single, neatly folded sheet of paper within.

Dearest Da and Ma,

By the time you read this, I will be on my way to Spain ...


Between Artuf and Battir, Jaffa to Jerusalem railway, British Mandated Palestine, January 1937.

In the aftermath of the explosion, from his vantage point high on the bluff, looking down on the cold ribbon of steel of the single line of railway snaking its way through the Judean hills, a British officer of the 1st Battalion of the Loyals surveyed the devastation wrought by the charge of dynamite placed beneath the rails of the bridge, and detonated by the weight of the heavy supply train.

Several hours later, although the wreckage still smouldered, the injured, the dying, and the dead had been removed from the scene: a score of the first, some of them walking wounded, and a final tally of half a dozen killed, including the driver and fireman of the second locomotive which had taken the full brunt of the explosion. At the rear of the shattered train, the engine sent up the line from the junction at Lydda in the direction of Jaffa had coupled on in order to draw the undamaged box vans back down to Artuf. On the other side of the breach, the breakdown train which had come from Jerusalem had brought a detachment of sappers, their journey made in cattle trucks, and who were beginning works preparatory to recovering the toppled second engine of the supply train and the three wrecked box vans. After that, their efforts would be directed to rebuilding the broken bridge. Until that was done, the railway between Jaffa and Jerusalem would remain cut and so out of action; a wholly unsatisfactory state of affairs.

While the captain continued surveying the scene, away to his right, in the distance, he became aware that a pair of riders on camels were fast approaching his lonely eerie. Pulling his pair of field glasses from their leather case in order to better acquaint himself with the identity of his unexpected visitors, well before they came too close, Captain Howard Eccles put the binoculars to his eyes and adjusted the lenses. With the two riders now brought into sharp focus, on the face of it they appeared what he had taken them to be: Bedouin tribesmen, each wearing on his head the black and white keffieh, their legs tightly gripping the shaggy sides of their mounts.

Although the Bedu would have had to pass through the road block which, when word of what had happened reached Jerusalem, had been hastily erected on the one road traversing the immediate area, Eccles knew there was a veritable cat's cradle of paths and trails crisscrossing the hills, meaning that for anyone with a mind or a reason to do so, the road block could easily be circumvented. It never did to take chances, not out here, where, for the most part, the Arabs and the Jews were always at each others' throats, both of whom, for different reasons, wanted the British out of Palestine. So, stowing away his field glasses, Eccles' right hand slipped instinctively to the holster of his revolver which he now unfastened, before proceeding to half cock the hammer of his pistol.

When the riders were still about a hundred yards off, in the shade afforded them by a grove of palm trees, they drew rein and brought their beasts to a stand, where one made his mount kneel, before slipping lithely down from off his precarious perch. Then, leaving his compatriot in charge of both camels, he began walking briskly towards Eccles across the intervening stretch of sand.

"What now?" Eccles thought as the distance between them closed rapidly. As the other drew nearer still, Eccles pulled out his revolver, and called for the Arab to stop where he was. Yet, for all that, there was something ... However, the man nodded; did as he had been ordered, then drew aside that part of the ghutra which covered the lower part of his face.

For the British officer, recognition suddenly dawned.

"Well, well, I might have guessed!"

"Might you now?" The other, evidently amused, smiled; without further ado, moved forward, until the two were standing but a few feet apart.

"This is a right bloody mess and no mistake!" With a wide sweep of his right arm Eccles indicated the scene below where, at this distance, for all the world looking like a swarm of locusts, the khaki clad sappers were busy about the wreckage of the derailed train.

"I agree. In the long run, that sort of thing achieves precisely nothing".

"Well, at least we agree on something. So, we meet again. I heard in Jerusalem, a while back, that you'd married? If so, my felicitations. What name do you go by these days?"

"What's in a name? But since you ask me, captain, I go by my own. The one you know me by. Astley. Harriet Astley".


Delaney's Bar, Dublin, Irish Free State, January 1937.

Down a short flight of timeworn stone steps, leading off from Merchants' Arch, Delaney's Bar lay at the far end of a damp, narrow, cobbled passage. It was, in essence, much like any of the numerous, dimly lit drinking dens to be found scattered throughout the length and breadth of Dublin. However, tonight, presumably because of the fog, here any similarity with the other bars in the city ended. For, when Tom, if not Danny, stepped inside expecting to be met by the convivial sound of voices, the chink of glasses, the savoury smell of the cooked food for which Delaney's was well known, and the air thick with tobacco smoke, they found the bar hushed. The whole place was as quiet as the crypt beneath St. Michan's Church, and just as devoid of life, with not a glass being raised, no savoury aroma of pies, and the only smoke being that from the peat turves burning brightly in the grate.

And it was beside the fire on this chill, cheerless, foggy, January night, with no other drinkers present, that Tom and Danny found a table. While Tom went up to the bar to order their drinks, as well as to ask if he might use the telephone, Danny, having lit a cigarette, sat gazing into the flames, wondering if in having joined the Volunteers he had done the right thing. Yet, at the time, when he, Jimmy, and Liam had talked it through, it had seemed so simple. Nonetheless, like Da, Danny was a lover, not a fighter. Well, that was what he wanted to be, although so far ...


Eyeing Danny's cigarette, shaking his head, Tom set down two brimful glasses, and pulled up a stool.

"I've told ya before, don't ever let your Ma catch ya with one of those. Ya know her views on smoking".

Given what he was about to do, going off to fight in a war, from which he might never return, to be worrying about what Ma might have to say if she caught him smoking, seemed faintly ridiculous. Although, on reflection, knowing what she was like. No, don't even go there. An amusing thought struck Danny. Perhaps he ought to ask Ma to come out to Spain with the Volunteers. Not as a nurse, mind, although her skills in that regard would undoubtedly prove useful. Don't think about that either. But Ma riled and on the warpath would doubtless prove more than a match for Franco and his Fascists!

"Did ya ..." Danny nodded towards the telephone on the wall, then took a sip of Guinness.
"Speak to her? Yes. And no, she didn't ask me, else I'd have been hard pressed not to give the game away".

"That's because Ma thinks I'm over at Jimmy's, while his Ma thinks he's with me at ours". Danny resumed his contemplation of the fire and its peat turves.


"Penny for them?"

"They're not worth so much as a brass farthing". Danny smiled.

"Then why the grin?"

"No matter".

Tom changed tack.

"So, ya've joined the Volunteers?"
"Yes. So have Jimmy and Liam".

Tom nodded. He knew the lads Danny had named; however, try as he might, could not think of any of them as men. Danny had been at school with Jimmy McLoughlin who lived with his parents, younger brother and sister, just around the corner from Idrone Terrace, in Bath Place. His father kept an ironmongers in Blackrock. Tom wondered if they knew anything about this madcap nonsense; doubted that they did. Wondered, if in due course he should go round and see them. As for Liam, he was a much more recent acquaintance of Danny's, and a couple of years older. They had met last September, at the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final held at Croke Park where they had gone, independently of each other to see Mayo play Laois. If Tom remembered aright, Liam had been about to go up to Trinity. An only child, he too still lived with his parents, over in Rathmines, where his father was a GP. Again Tom found himself wondering what Liam's parents made of it all and if they knew; thought it unlikely that they did.

Danny's words broke in on his musings.

" ... though most here support O'Duffy and his mob. As does your own paper".

Tom gave a low whistle, one of evident admiration.

"Ya really know how to turn the knife, for sure. But what ya said is true enough. As for what I've written on the war, I try and tread an even path. However, is it really so surprising, given what MacRory said in his address?" Tom quoted from memory, what the Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal MacRory, had said last September. It is a question of whether Spain will remain as she has been so long, a Christian and Catholic land, or a Bolshevist and anti-God one. "Preach that to the population of a country, where most are God fearing Catholics, throw in stories of church burning, murdering priests, and raping of nuns, just as the Irish Christian Front did last year. Oh, I don't doubt the truth of some of that. Terrible things happen in war, especially a civil war. Is it any wonder that here in Ireland most favour the cause of Franco? It's why O'Duffy and those fools sailed for Spain. I was there when they did, the crowds all singing Faith of Our Fathers', the Brigade's members being blessed by priests, given Sacred Heart badges, along with miraculous medals, and prayer books. I tell ya now, there won't be any of that nonsense for the Volunteers!"

"I know, Da. But then I don't need the blessing of some feckin' priest to go and fight for what I believe in! Put like that it isn't strange that most hereabouts feel as they do. But who's telling the truth, Da? In Ireland no-one knows, for sure".

Danny took another sip of his Guinness; once more set down his glass. Looked inquiringly at his father, seemingly seeking enlightenment.

Tom shook his head in disbelief.

"Is that why ya going? Following in feckin' Ryan's footsteps, to find out the truth of what's happening out there in Spain? Jaysus!" Tom sounded incredulous.

"Da ..."

"Because, if it is, then let me save ya the bother of the voyage! The first casualty in any war is always truth! For fecks' sake, I saw enough of that with my own eyes, here in Ireland back in 1920. I've never told ya. Maybe I should have but ya were much too young. And now is hardly the time, to be hearing some of what was done in the name of Irish freedom. Your Ma knows though ... what happened. Well, some of it, for sure. As for the rest, even now I ..." Tom fell silent.

"For sure. No, Da, that's not why I'm going. Firstly, I'm no Fascist. If I were, I'd have gone with O'Duffy and the Brigade. But then I'm no Communist either. Just like ya, I want a united Ireland. It will come, but I agree with ya, when it does, it must be peacefully. Ya told me that, in one of our long chats out in the garage, remember? And I'm not going for the fun of it, although that's what Rob seems to think".

"Does he now, for sure?"

Danny nodded.

"Well, sort of. When I wrote and told him, and Max too, what I had a mind to do, Rob wrote back saying it would all be a tremendous lark. That's not me, Da".

"What about young Max?"
"I haven't heard from him. Least not yet. Would ya write and tell him?"
Tom nodded.

"For sure".

"In the end, Da, what it comes down to, is this. It's something I have to do, if that makes any kind of sense!" Danny grinned, shamefaced. He gave a rueful shrug.

Again Tom nodded. He had said little to try and talk Danny out of going out to Spain but knew that even if he had, it would have been singularly pointless. Danny was like his Ma. Once his mind was made up, just like Sybil, there was no gainsaying him.

"If ya were me, Da, would ya have felt the same?"

"Probably. But I also happen to believe that those who went with O'Duffy, like those of yous who've now gone and joined the Volunteers, have got mixed up in something none of yous truly understands".

"Maybe. All the same, Da, I have to go".

"I know ya do. And more's the pity. Want another?"

Danny nodded. He doubted very much if they served the black stuff out in Spain, so this would be the last of it he would taste for a very long time. Perhaps for ever.


"So when do yous leave?" Tom asked quietly, half sensing what the answer would be.

For a moment, Danny said nothing. Instead, he looked down at his glass; swirled the very last of his drink. A moment later, he brought the glass to his lips, swallowed what yet remained, then set down the empty glass on top of the stained surface of the table, where something momentarily seemed to attract his attention. Raising his head, he looked directly at his father.

"Tonight," he said softly.

"I thought as much". Tom nodded, aware that, in more ways than one, time was of the essence for it was rumoured that de Valera and the government were now moving swiftly to prevent any more Irishmen sailing for Spain, irrespective of on which side they intended to serve.

"What about your kit?"
"It's already stowed on board the Pieter. A Dutchman. Berthed on North Wall Quay. Look, Da, I know it's a lot to ask, what with leaving ya to tell Ma, but will ya come and see me off?"

"For sure!" Tom's eyes glistened. "How long do we have?"

"The Pieter sails at eight".

Tom glanced over at the clock on the wall behind the bar. If they were to be at North Wall Quay before the Pieter sailed for Spain, there was barely an hour remaining.


Rosenberg, Lower Austria, January 1937.

Friedrich and Edith had noticed it a while ago, but this morning it was the first time that Max had done. In the grand scheme of things, it was all rather trivial but, put simply, letters from abroad seemed to be, no, be honest, were, taking an inordinate amount of time to arrive. Friedrich realised it first; this in regard to a report that Horst had sent him from the excavation at Samaria, which had taken a devil of a long while to reach him - a couple of weeks, as opposed to but a handful of days as previously. Even allowing for the vagaries of the postal system in distant Palestine. Since the British had assumed control, the postal service, while not perfect, had improved considerably from what it had been under the rule of the Ottomans. Now it seemed things were going back to the way they had been before.

Then, shortly after the matter of Horst's report, one morning at breakfast, Edith had remarked in passing that a letter from Mary must have been all round the houses. On hearing this, Friedrich, whose command of English was well nigh perfect, quirked a brow. It was a phrase he had not heard before or, if he had, had gone unremarked. So, he had asked Edith what she meant by it, she explaining that it was the English way of saying something had taken much longer than it should, in this case for a letter sent from Downton to arrive here at Rosenberg.

"Mary wrote this on the 2nd, it's postmarked from Downton on the same day, and today is the 14th. That's twelve days for a letter from England to reach us here in Austria. And Sybil's last letter fared no better. That took ten days to arrive. What on earth's going on?"

"I very much regret having to say so, but I see the hand of the government in this".

"You mean ..."

"However much Schuschnigg may profess to loathe Hitler and the Nazis, our own Chancellor and the Minister of the Interior are, I suspect, behind the scenes, doing their bidding in all manner of things. That members of the Vaterländische Front in the postal service are taking more than a passing interest in letters arriving from abroad would come as no great surprise. If I'm right, it would, I suggest, be politic for both of us to be very careful what we commit to paper. In that regard, I think perhaps I should have a discrete word with Matthew and Tom".

Edith nodded.

What Friedrich had said made eminent sense. Following the assassination of the diminutive Dollfuss in July 1934, he had been succeeded as Chancellor of Austria by Kurt Schuschnigg who, undoubtedly taller than Herr Dollfuss, had continued the policies of his predecessor, while at the same time attempting to keep Austria out of the clutches of Nazi Germany. To this end, Schuschnigg had aligned Austria with the Kingdom of Italy under the Fascist rule of Benito Mussolini, and the Kingdom of Hungary under the conservative regime of Admiral Horthy. However, this came to nought when Il Duce sought the support of Herr Hitler in the renewed war in Abyssinia. What was even worse was that last July Schuschnigg had signed an Agreement with Germany which, among other things, required the release from detention of all those who had been involved in the July Putsch in which Dollfuss had been assassinated, while Glaise-Horstenau was appointed as Minister of the Interior, and Schmidt as Minister of Foreign Affairs, both of whom were known Nazis. Friedrich was very glad that, several years ago, he had taken Matthew's well-meant advice to heart and moved a considerable part of his fortune, as well as other possessions, out of Austria. It appeared that the time was now fast approaching when he, Edith, and the boys, would have to leave the country. As to where they went, it would be either to Switzerland, where Friedrich had property, or else, to La Rosière, the Schönborns' beautiful, moated château, situated on the north bank of the Loire, not far from Nantes, in western France.

"Don't worry. Mary won't think any less of you for not replying any sooner; not when you write and explain that her letter was inexplicably delayed in the post".

Edith gave Friedrich a wry smile.

"What she'll think, darling, is that I'm a shockingly bad correspondent!"


Dining Room, Rosenberg.

Here at the breakfast table, Max, who had been delighted to receive yet another letter from his much loved Irish cousin, even if it had taken some time to reach him, was, on reading it, horrified, so much so that he dropped his butter knife which landed with a clatter on the plate, whereupon, startled, both his parents looked up.

"Max, if you ..."

"Mama, what's happening in Spain?"

The question came like a bolt from the blue. For a moment, Edith looked quizzically at her fourteen year old son. Not for a minute did she think that she had misheard Max's question but, while he was an intelligent boy, never to her knowledge had Max ever expressed any overt interest in the affairs of another country.

"Why do you ask, darling?"

"Because Danny says he's going out to Spain to fight for the Republicans".

"Surely not, darling. There must be some mistake. perhaps you've misunderstood".

"No, Mama. That's what Danny says. So I'm sailing from Dublin on the Pieter bound for Bilbao, to fight for the Republicans against the Fascists. Papa, where's Bilbao?"

"It's a city, on the north coast of Spain. May I?" Max nodded, handed his father Danny's letter, whereupon Friedrich put on his reading glasses and quickly perused its contents.

"What Max said, is true enough. Listen".

Friedrich now read aloud the relevant part of Danny's letter wherein he explained to Max that he had joined the Irish Volunteers, that, along with several pals from Dublin, he, was sailing for Bilbao to join the Republicans and fight the Fascist forces of General Francisco Franco.

Edith was appalled. Max no less so, and frightened as to what might happen to Danny for, while Max was very proud of his father's war record, was secretly proud of Danny too, a very long while ago Papa had impressed upon Max that war was not a game played with lead soldiers set out on the nursery floor. That in reality war meant killing - the effacing of lives, it meant maiming, and it meant destruction.

Friedrich handed Edith Danny's letter; waited while she hurriedly scanned its contents. Having done so, she handed it back to Max.

"Tom and Sybil would never let Danny do something so foolish as to ..."

"That's if he told them anything about it. Somehow, I rather doubt that he did".

"But, Friedrich, he's just a boy".

"He's almost eighteen. Old enough to make up his own mind on ..."

But Edith wasn't listening. Instead, hurriedly she pushed back on her chair which rasped horribly on the floor, and rose swiftly to her feet.

"We must warn Tom and Sybil, put through a telephone call to ..."

"Darling, if Danny has done what he says here in his letter, then from the date, I very much fear it's too late for that".


Idrone Terrace, Blackrock, Dublin, Irish Free State, January 1937.

Sybil replaced the telephone. What now? Her call to the McLoughlins in Bath Place had proved far from satisfactory. Danny wasn't there. Nor, it seemed, was their son, Jimmy.

Behind Sybil a tread creaked. Turning, looking up, she saw Saiorse standing halfway down the staircase.

"You heard?"

Saiorse nodded her head.

"Ma, I knew Danny was going out to Spain".

"What do you mean, you knew?"

For Sybil, suddenly the years rolled back; Tom and she were standing in the Drawing Room at Downton, while Papa berated Mary for not having given them away. Then the latch on the gate at the far end of the front path snicked up. Oh, thank God! Sybil whirled about; flung wide the front door.


Downton Abbey Estate, West Riding, Yorkshire, England, January 1937.

When it had happened for the first time, it had been after Matthew had driven the MG over to Stony Moor to see how the trees in Jerries' Wood had fared following a recent storm.

In the aftermath of the Great War, because so much timber had been felled for military use, the newly established Forestry Commission sought to renew and increase the extent of the country's forests and woodland. During the 1920s, under the active chairmanship of the late Lord Lovat, who had been known personally to Matthew, the Commission proceeded to acquire a considerable amount of land - some 900,000 acres - most of which had been used for agriculture, and on it planted new forests.

Matthew had been an early and enthusiastic supporter of the Commission and, under its guidance, back in 1922, had overseen the planting of a new wood covering some ninety acres on the south eastern fringes of the Downton Abbey estate. The official name of the plantation was Coney Bridge Wood, was how it appeared on the Ordnance Survey but, locals called it Jerries' Wood. Despite the soil being poor, the trees - a mixture of larch, pine, and spruce - had flourished and now, some fifteen years later, the wood was well established. A few more years, and the felling of the trees would provide a valuable source of revenue for the estate. This was one of the thoughts that came to Matthew while he was sitting on a log contemplating the trees and musing if the wood merited an increase in size.

Other matters claimed his attention too; the forthcoming Coronation for one. Unlike dearest Tom, who would gladly be shot of the whole institution, Matthew was not opposed to a constitutional monarchy. Of course, Tom had been delighted when on the day of the Abdication of the former king the Oireachtas, the parliament of the Irish Free State, had removed all direct mention of the monarch from the Irish constitution and then passed the External Relations Act which drastically curtailed the monarch 's powers in the appointment of diplomatic representatives for Ireland and in the making of foreign treaties. As Tom had said, these two pieces of legislation effectively made the Irish Free State a republic, without severing its connections to the Commonwealth.

All the same, Matthew was firmly of the opinion that much of the forthcoming ceremonial and junketing associated with the crowning of the new king and queen, the former duke of York, who was unable to make a speech without stammering, and his dowdy duchess, would be a ridiculous waste of money, involving needless expense, at a time when the country was only just emerging from the rigours of the Depression. The Coronation was to take place in Westminster Abbey on 12th May, it having been decided that, following the abdication of Edward VIII, the date scheduled for his crowning would remain the same; only the individual being crowned would be different.


Rather closer to home was the cost associated with refurbishing the robes that Matthew and Mary as the earl and countess of Grantham would be required to wear at the coronation ceremony. The last time these had been used had been for the Coronation of the late king, George V and his consort Queen Mary, and those wearing them, Robert and Cora. That had been back in the summer of 1911. While the robes had been stored away most carefully, to protect them from the ravages of both moths and sunlight, some minor alterations would be necessary and the robes would also have to be cleaned. In addition, there would be the expense of going up to town, with Matthew and Mary being absent from Downton for several days, just when he himself could least afford the time of being away from the estate.


Then there was this damnable business of Danny.

When Robert had told him, what Danny intended, Matthew had been appalled; firstly by the very idea of his Irish nephew going out to fight in the increasingly brutal civil war in Spain, and secondly by Robert's whimsical reaction to what his cousin proposed doing. For once, Matthew was less than diplomatic; said bluntly that war was not a game, that anyone, including Robert, who thought it was, seriously needed their head examining, and trusted that Danny would come to his senses in double quick time, long before he did anything so downright foolish.

Even after the appalling, senseless, bloody waste of the Great War, which in four long years of unimaginable slaughter had wiped out an entire generation, Matthew was enough of a pragmatist to realise that those who said in the aftermath that it had been the war to end all wars would soon be proved wrong. Sure enough, not that it gave him any pleasure in being proved right, the '20s, and more recently the '30s, had seen a succession of armed conflicts around the globe which, by and large, the League of Nations, despite some minor successes, had proved powerless either to prevent or else to resolve, such as the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1932, the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935, and now the civil war in Spain, to name but the most recent of these. Added to which, it was obvious to Matthew that Germany, which like Japan had now quitted the League, was re-arming, that Hitler would not be satisfied only with marching into the Rhineland, that he would pursue further territorial gains, and that the policy of appeasement being followed by the British government would, in the end, prove singularly futile. That, paradoxically, with both the British and French governments, failing to enforce the Locarno Treaties, in order to keep the peace in Europe, sooner, rather than later, there would come another bloody reckoning in the guise of a new war with Germany.

As Matthew had said a very long while ago, war, or the threat of it, had a way of distinguishing between things that mattered and things that did not. He feared greatly what the future held in store for the Bransons, the Crawleys, and the Schönborns; something which he considered to be of far greater import than the theatrical crowning as king-emperor of a diffident, painfully shy, middle aged man in Westminster Abbey later this same year.


It had been when Matthew stood up that he experienced a searing spasm of excruciating pain, causing him to cry out. It was as if he had received a severe electric shock, one which had travelled from his lower back, thence to his buttocks, down his legs, to his feet, leaving his left leg tingling, and his left foot completely numb. Staggering, breathing heavily, reaching out with both his hands, Matthew steadied himself against the trunk of the nearest tree; continued standing so until, finally, the sensation passed, the tingling ceased, and the numbness disappeared.

Thereafter, for once, he drove home slowly to Downton, all the while half fearing that the pain would return. But, thankfully, it did not. On his return, Matthew said nothing to Mary about what had happened out at Jerries' Wood, and if that evening she thought him unduly quiet at dinner, she had the good sense not to comment. Assumed, presumably, that his mind was elsewhere, as so often it was, dealing with the minutiae of the estate.

Subsequently, Matthew put the spasm down to the fact that none of them were as young as they once had been, so perhaps it was nothing more than that he had slept awkwardly. If not, then another explanation presented itself. Just the other day, with old man Crowther tucked up in bed with the 'flu, he had been helping Crowther's two sons move crates and sacks over at Lower Stoupe Farm. Both in the village and on the estate Matthew was well known for his willingness to muck in; so much so that Mary said he must have been born with dirt under his fingernails, such was his apparent affinity with the land.


Then yesterday, it happened again. Also without warning. The sudden onset of the same excruciating, numbing pain. This time it occurred in, of all places, the parish church, up in the chancel, where Matthew was sitting in the Grantham family pew, awaiting the arrival of Reverend Davis, the successor to old Travis, to discuss certain matters relating to the annual church fête, which this year, on account of the Coronation, would feature an historical pageant. On this occasion, the tingling and numbness in Matthew's left leg and foot took somewhat longer to dissipate. Of course, at the time he regained the ability to walk, it had been made abundantly clear to Matthew that there was always a possibility that the severe injury he had suffered to his lower back during the war might cause him problems in later life but until now nothing of the sort had occurred.

While Matthew still had said nothing to Mary, he sensed that she knew something was wrong. Nor, had he asked Earnshaw, Clarkson's latest replacement to come up to the abbey and give him the once over as to have done so would rather have given the game away. Besides which he had no more than a nodding acquaintance with the new doctor and, more to the point, like his late father-in-law, Matthew held no high regard for members of the medical profession. But, if things were as he feared they were, then a cripple confined to a wheelchair would be in no position to run Downton; not in the way the estate needed to be run for it to have any chance of surviving what was undoubtedly coming.

And, aged but seventeen, Robert was scarcely old enough to take hold of the tiller.


Between Artuf and Battir, Jaffa to Jerusalem railway, British Mandated Palestine, January 1937.

While the camels continued slaking their thirst in the cold still waters of the pool, the second of the two Bedouin stood watching, faintly amused by the exchange now taking place between his compatriot and the British captain.

What was that word?

Predictable!

Yes, that was it.

Life was anything but predictable.

How else explain him standing here, disguised as an Arab, beside a grove of palm trees, in British held Palestine.

But as he, Captain Tibor Csáky of the Regent's Escort in far distant Budapest, would undoubtedly have said, life was often full of surprises.

Author's Note:

Police Court - an old name for a magistrates' court.

The Loyals - the nickname of the Loyal Regiment (North Lancashire) a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence between 1881-1970.

The crypt beneath St. Michan's Church, Dublin is famous for the well preserved, mummified bodies it contains.

The 1936 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship took place at Croke Park on 27th September. Mayo won the match.

Go up to Trinity - Trinity College, Dublin, found in 1592 during the reign of Elizabeth I, and Ireland's oldest surviving university.

Owing to the influence of the Catholic Church, the press and public opinion in Ireland were overwhelmingly on the side of the Fascists; an inconvenient truth which today is, by and large, conveniently forgotten. However, the record of the Irish Brigade in Spain proved ignominious. Drunkenness and indiscipline were rife, the Brigade being disarmed, and expelled from Spain in 1937 on the orders of General Franco. By the time its members returned home, opinion about the war had changed. As for those who joined the International Brigades, including the Irish Volunteers, today they are regarded as heroes, which was not the case at the time.

Cardinal Joseph MacRory (1861-1945) Primate of All Ireland from 1928 until his death.

Eoin O'Duffy (1890-1944) Irish nationalist who raised the Irish Brigade, numbering some seven hundred men, to fight on the side of the Fascists in Spain.

Frank Ryan (1902-1944) Irish republican who, partly in response to the formation of the Irish Brigade, took a group of some two hundred, mainly working class Irishmen to Spain to fight for the Spanish Republic.

In February 1937 the Oireachtas passed a non-intervention act which criminalised enlisting Irishmen in foreign forces.

"A Dutchman" i.e. a Dutch ship.

Kurt Schuschnigg (1897-1977) Chancellor of Austria from 1934 until the Anschluss with Nazi Germany in 1938.

Edmund Glaise-Horstenau (1881-1946) Austrian Nazi politician.

Guido Schmidt (1901-1957) Austrian diplomat and pro-Nazi politician.

The Forestry Act of 1919 had established the Forestry Commission.

Germany had left the League of Nations in 1932.

The Rhineland had been de-militarised at the end of the Great War and the 1925 Locarno Treaties reaffirmed this. Hitler marched German troops back into it in March 1936.