Chapter Thirty Eight
Of Bathrooms And Dressing Gowns
Inside the wrecked dining room of the hotel, in an all enveloping choking, cloying darkness, coughing and retching from the effects of both dust and smoke, Tom staggered unsteadily to his feet. His blond hair was caked with dirt, his face streaked with blood from a jagged cut to his forehead, his grey suit, the better one of the only two that he owned, now filthy, ripped, and torn. Fitfully at first, then ever increasing in their insistent volubility, there came unbidden to his ears, a discordant medley of sounds from outside; barked orders and harsh shouts, the pounding of heavy booted feet, the constant blaring of motor horns, and above all, and for the present at least, seemingly unheeded, heart rending screams and pitiful cries for help, drifted in to him through the shattered windows of the hotel dining room.
"Sybil!" croaked Tom. There was no response. He coughed harshly, wiped his lips several times with the back of his hand. "Sybil!" yelled Tom with increasing desperation. Casting frantically about him in the darkness, he sensed a sudden movement on the debris strewn floor beneath what must have been the top of their table. Grasping hold of its rounded edge, he pulled away the table top. Reaching down, he found his hands full of the folds of some heavy material. To begin with, Tom couldn't work out what it was. Then reality dawned; the heavy curtains from the window. Feverishly, he tore aside what remained of them, half fearful of what he might find beneath. A moment later, and he knew.
"T.. Tom? Is that you?" coughed Sybil. She struggled to her knees, retched again. Like Tom, Sybil was bruised, battered, and filthy.
"Oh, my darling" cried Tom. Amid the rubble, he knelt down, gathering her tightly to him in his arms, holding her close, smothering her dirt streaked face with kisses. Cupping his well-loved face with her hands, Sybil returned his kisses with an equal passion. Then she saw his forehead and gasped.
"Oh God, Tom, you're bleeding!" cried Sybil. She fumbled in her pockets, desperately trying to find her handkerchief.
"Don't worry love. It's nothing" said Tom dismissively. "What about Edith?"
"Sybil? Is that you?" called a faint voice from close at hand in the shrouded darkness.
"Edith! Oh, thank Heaven! Yes, I'm here!" cried Sybil. Reaching forward with both hands, she grasped hold of her sister, helped Edith to sit up, and then rest her back against the nearby wall. Like Sybil, her hair matted with dirt, Edith was covered from head to toe in dust from the aftermath of the explosion and with detritus from off their table.
"Where … where's Tom?" asked Edith, with heartfelt concern, while wiping away the dust from around her red-rimmed eyes.
"I'm here, Edith" Tom knelt beside her. "Are you all right?"
"Tom! Yes, I think so. Oh, you're hurt!" Then Edith did something which, before today, she would have never done. She reached up and gently caressed Tom's face. Her concern for him was heartfelt, genuinely touching. Tom smiled, covered her hand with his own.
"It's nothing, Edith. Really it isn't. Don't worry, please. Not on my account".
"Well if you say so, Tom. But what … what on earth happened?" Slowly, with her eyes becoming accustomed to the all pervading gloom, Edith began to look about her, seemingly unable to comprehend the scene before her. Amidst the debris on the floor, lying close by among a litter of smashed china and glass, she made out the pitiful sight of a child's torn teddy bear.
"God knows. I suppose it must have been some kind of explosion" said Tom. He coughed harshly, spat out a mouthful of dirt, and then wiped his lips again with the back of his hand.
Later, they would learn that it had been the presence of the tram in the street immediately outside the front of the hotel which had served to shield all three of them from the worst effects of the explosion; so much so, that unlike its counterparts, the window next to where they had all been sitting had merely crazed, not shattered. Nevertheless, the terrific force of the blast had torn down the deep pelmet and the thick heavy curtains which once framed it, enveloping the three of them in the entangling folds, thus saving them from any serious injury.
Others had not been so fortunate.
From elsewhere in the darkened, wrecked room, and but dimly glimpsed, there came cries and screams for help. Gently, Tom helped first Sybil, and then Edith, to their feet. As Tom helped Edith up, she felt her shoes suddenly slip in something wet and sticky. Instinctively, she looked down and through the murk glimpsed what she would rather not have seen. Glancing down and seeing it for what it was, Tom grabbed at a nearby tablecloth, and in one deft move, pulled it off the table in a cascade of falling china and cutlery; flung it down on the floor, covering the sickening sight, hiding it as best he could from Edith's horrified gaze.
"Don't look, Edith" said Tom curtly. Then, feeling her weaken suddenly against him, said less peremptorily. "Here, Edith, lean on me". Edith did as she was bidden, sank wearily against the reassuring presence of Tom's warm body, and thankfully felt the comforting presence of his strong arm tighten around her slender form. Instinctively, heedless for her own safety, but ultimately to no purpose whatsoever, her hands fumbling pathetically with the thick buttons of her once grey coat, Sybil made to kneel down, to try and help. Realising what it was she intended doing, none too gently, Tom grabbed hold of Sybil's arm.
"Don't love" he said. "There's no need. He's past caring".
Sybil nodded mutely; let herself be led gently away.
With his strong arms clasped tightly around them both, slipping, stumbling, but with infinite care, Tom helped guide all three of them across the debris strewn floor of the dining room, towards the doorway which led out into the entrance hall of the hotel.
In the lobby they were met by a veritable sea of people; men, women, and children, bloodied, dazed, shocked, and traumatised, who like themselves had, nevertheless, mostly managed to escape serious injury. Some were frantically calling out, looking for relatives, others were wandering aimlessly about, while yet others sat on the floor, or huddled in corners, simply too stunned to speak. Among them mingled shaken and equally stunned members of the Shelbourne's staff, along with increasing numbers of men in khaki and blue - British soldiers and uniformed members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police - and doctors and nurses both from the nearby Royal College of Surgeons on the west side of St. Stephen's Green and from St. Vincent's Hospital situated close by.
It was as they made their faltering way across the wrecked entrance lobby of the hotel that now for the first time, and had he but known it, like Mary but a short while earlier, that Tom now also overheard people saying that the explosion had been caused, not by a broken gas pipe, but by a bomb.
Of course, Tom utterly abhorred violence of any kind. Yet over the past few months, whenever another awful incident in Ireland had been gleefully reported in lurid detail in the British press, Sybil had taken him to task, not once but several times, for the comment he had made to her in the garage at Downton that sometimes terrible sacrifices had to be made for a future worth having.
Following their arrival here in Ireland, Sybil had done the same again, when the Irish newspapers had reported the same kind of incidents. Tom had wearily pointed out several times since, as Sybil herself knew well enough if she stopped to reflect upon the matter, that at the time he had been speaking of something else entirely; in fact of something far more personal to them both, than Ireland's struggle for independence.
Well, if indeed it now proved to be the case, that this whole ghastly affair was the result of a bomb, it proved, thought Tom, that nothing ever excused or justified wilful murder; that was why he had been so appalled at the Bolsheviks' cold-blooded execution of the late Tsar, his wife, and their five defenceless children. That had been wilful, bloody murder, and so too was this. How anybody could do this, to innocent people, he had no idea. Whoever had committed this appalling act was contemptible; was truly beyond the pale. Odd, but he had never much liked that phrase - referring as it did originally to that part of Ireland, which had been under the direct control of the English government during the Middle Ages and described as "the Pale". Anything beyond it was, therefore said to be "beyond the Pale". Now, the phrase seemed somehow singularly appropriate - to describe the reprehensible nature of the individual or individuals responsible for the planting of the bomb, as well as the aftermath of what had happened here today in Dublin.
At that, Tom glanced about him, like Edith earlier, unable to begin to comprehend what it was that he was seeing. Scattered debris, much of it shattered glass, littered the once gleaming, now sadly blood stained, marble floor of the hotel lobby. British soldiers and constables of the Dublin Metropolitan Police were slowly bringing order out of chaos, and were finally beginning to clear the entrance hall of the last of those who had been fortunate enough to escape the explosion uninjured. Of the remainder of those from the hotel's dining room who had survived the blast, albeit injured to varying degrees, some had already been removed to hospital. Others were still being tended to here in the hotel, some lying on the floor of the lobby, the more fortunate having been placed on stretchers, before all of them were, eventually, taken away by ambulance.
Thereafter, declining several offers of assistance from members of the hotel's staff, telling them that, in the circumstances, they had more important things to attend to, leaving the flood of frightened, huddled, and shocked humanity well behind them, with boundless care and tenderness, Tom saw both Sybil and Edith up to the suite which she and Mary had taken on the second floor of the hotel.
Once they were all ensconced in the palatial surroundings of Mary and Edith's suite, putting her medical training as a nurse to good effect, Sybil spent some time in completely satisfying herself that all three of them had sustained nothing more than a few minor abrasions, cuts, and bruises, which given what might have been, was nothing short of miraculous. Thereafter, Sybil and Edith began the slow process of making themselves presentable, but not before Sybil had satisfied herself, while Edith was occupied in the bathroom, with much further gentle feeling and probing searching of Tom's body, that apart from the cut to his forehead, he was, indeed, unharmed.
For her complete examination of him, Sybil made Tom sit down on one of the chairs over by the sitting room window where the light was better. He took it all in good part, wryly amused by her continuing ministrations. Indeed, her solicitousness for his physical well being reminded Tom instantly of Sybil's equal concern for him on the train in the aftermath of the failed bombing of the railway bridge just north of Booterstown. And, were it possible, he loved her all the more for it. But this time, given the circumstances in which they both found themselves, and the presence of Edith in the adjoining bathroom, he forwent making light of the situation, and refrained from suggesting to Sybil that she might want him to undress.
Then despite Tom's repeated protestations, Sybil gently bathed, washed, and bandaged the cut on his forehead, although Tom told her not to fuss, insisting that it was little more than a deep scratch, which in any case had now all but stopped bleeding. Eventually, when Sybil pronounced herself thoroughly contented that Tom had sustained no major injuries, and that the other flecks of blood on his face, and the splashes on his clothes, belonged to someone else entirely, she finally allowed him to stand up.
For her part, Edith telephoned down to the front desk to ascertain if by any chance the hotel had in its possession, or could find from somewhere, at least just on temporary loan, a fresh suit for Tom, while his own clothes were taken away and cleaned.
In due course, there appeared at the door of their suite, a smart young bell-boy, carrying over his arm a couple of gentlemen's suits, one brown, and one dark blue. The bell-boy respectfully conveyed the manager's compliments and said that at different times the two suits had, and for whatever reasons, been left behind by previous male guests; adding that the manager sincerely hoped that one of the two suits would be suitable for Mr. Branson's immediate requirements. Regrettably, given the present circumstances, it was the best that the hotel could do to accommodate Lady Edith Crawley's request and the manager craved their understanding.
Having tipped the bell-boy, and having been handed the two suits by Sybil, Tom disappeared off into the vacant bathroom; first to take a much needed bath, and then to see if either of the suits would suffice. While en route to the bathroom, grinning broadly Tom stopped and whispered discretely to Sybil that if neither of them fitted, then he might just have to sit around in his underwear while his own clothes were cleaned; would she mind if he did? At that Sybil flushed scarlet, then with a sly grin retorted smartly to Tom, and in equally hushed tones, that she didn't mind at all, if indeed that should turn out to be the case. However, to avoid shocking Edith, Sybil would see to it that Tom was lent one of Mary's exquisite floral silk dressing gowns. At that, Tom gulped, said he would settle for an ill-fitting suit instead.
A comparatively short while later, Tom re-emerged from Edith's bathroom, clean, fresh faced, looking considerably better, and, whispered Edith to Sybil, extremely dapper, in a somewhat creased dark blue suit, which, if not a perfect fit, was, said Tom, infinitely preferable to the proffered alternative of wearing one of Lady Mary's silk dressing gowns. At that Edith smiled broadly, raised her eyebrows expressively, looked quizzically at Sybil, who just grinned, said nothing by way of explanation, and merely shrugged her shoulders. Let Edith she thought, draw her own conclusions!
Now that he was at least presentable, at the urgent entreaties of both Sybil and Edith, Tom promised he would go downstairs in search of Mary and bring her back to the hotel. Being of an inquisitive mind and the excellent journalist that he was, Tom also wanted to try and find out exactly what it was that had happened. He remembered that there had been shooting over in the park. Then shortly after that had come the explosion. But who had been involved, who or what had been the intended target; surely not those taking afternoon tea in the elegant dining room of the Shelbourne Hotel?
Of course, over the last few months, there had been increasing attacks made on British government property, raids for arms and ammunition made on isolated police barracks out in the countryside. There had been several robberies, undoubtedly to gain funds for the nascent Irish Republican Army and a handful of prominent members of the British administration had been murdered, among them Resident Magistrate John Milling, shot dead in his own home at night in Westport, County Mayo for having had the audacity to send members of the Irish Volunteer Force to prison for unlawful assembly and drilling. And there had also been several fatal shootings of members of the Royal Irish Constabulary.
However, Tom knew that the targeting innocent civilians, if that indeed was what had now happened, made no sense at all, would for certain, achieve nothing at all, would breed intense distrust and resentment of the republican cause when it could do with it the least, and that, an act as appalling as this would undoubtedly incense the British authorities and lead to harsh reprisals.
As the entrance hall hove into view below him, from the first landing of the main staircase, Tom could see that it had now all but emptied of the milling throng who had occupied it almost to overflowing less than an hour ago. However, for Tom, the semblance of normality was to be short lived. Just as he reached the bottom of the stairs, Tom was taken totally unawares, by a constable with the Dublin Metropolitan Police, who suddenly lunged forward and grabbed hold of his arm.
"'Ere, sarge, 'ere's another of 'em!"
"Get your hands off me" yelled Tom angrily. "I'm no terrorist; I'm a journalist … with the Indy!"
"Yeah, course you are. Loike I'm the bleedin' Tsar of Russia!" sneered the constable.
Another police constable appeared in front of him, barring his way, pushed Tom none too gently in the chest.
"And just where the 'ell d'you t'ink you be goin' Paddy?"
Surrounded on all sides by a group of increasingly hostile police constables, a moment later, Tom found himself grabbed roughly from behind, his arms pinioned painfully up and behind his back. Trying to struggle free, he was punched hard several times in the stomach for his pains. In his present weakened state, the force of the blows winded him completely, causing him to double up in pain, to sink down to his knees.
"Don't like it, do you, not when you're gettin' it, yer fecking bowsie" yelled another constable. His face, contorted by rage, was so close to his own, that Tom could smell the plain on his breath, see the trail of spittle coursing unchecked down the man's chin.
"Just loike all you fecking Fenian bastards" screamed another.
"And when we gets you down the nick, don't be givin' us no guff you bleedin' Shinner!"
"You be tellin' us all you knows about the bloody bastards who did this and sure!"
"And don't be taking us for dawbegs. Cos by the time we've finished with you, yer oul wan won't be recognising you. That's if you evers had un!"
"I'll feckin do you now for sure! Yous won't be fatherin' any kids for sure, you feckin' Fenian bastard!" screamed another and with his booted right foot, the constable aimed a savage kick at Tom's groin.
Instinctively, recalling a trick he had learned as a boy from his time spent living rough on the streets of Dublin, Tom rolled himself into a ball, clasping his hands tightly across his genitals, hoping to ward off the worst of the inevitable pain inducing impact.