The First Casualty by Ben Elton

at Easter last year and hanging the lot of them for having the temerity to believe that Ireland should be run by the Irish?’
    ‘I think it was highly illogical. The British created another half dozen martyrs to inspire your cause.’
    ‘Well, I must say that’s very comforting. Especially coming from a fellah who was happily in the employ of the murderers at the time.’
    Kingsley had no answer to this and so he remained silent.
    ‘Well, now we should get down to cases, I think,’ the man said. ‘Can’t be out of our cells all night, you know. Wouldn’t do to push our luck. You are looking for protection, I believe, Inspector? The idea being, I presume, that we let it be known that any fellah as hurts you will shortly thereafter have to reckon with the Mad Micks? Is that right?’
    ‘I would appreciate such an arrangement very much.’
    ‘Us scary crazy Irish that steal babies from English mothers in order to feast on their flesh?’
    Once more Kingsley did not answer.
    ‘And what,’ the man continued, ‘I hope you’ll forgive me for being so crass as to enquire, would be in it for us?’
    ‘I…I can tell you something of what I know.’
    ‘And just what would a flat-footed London peeler know, Mr Kingsley?’
    ‘I was at one point with Special Branch. I still have contacts.’
    ‘Do you know the identities of any undercover officers?’
    ‘Yes, I do.’
    ‘Will you reveal them?’
    ‘For you to murder? No.’
    ‘At least you’re honest, Mr Kingsley. Fortunate for you, for I know a little about you and most certainly would not have believed you if you had said yes.’
    ‘Before 1909, before we had a proper secret service, it was the police who were your principal opponents in London.’
    ‘Yes, Mr Kingsley, I know that. I didn’t come here to listen to a lecture. What do you have for me?’
    ‘I can tell you something of what we know…’ Kingsley was improvising desperately. ‘We know that the IRB has infiltrated the Gaelic League. I am sure that Eoin McNeill would be surprised and horrified to learn how many of his precious Irish Language Conversation groups were in fact tutorials for bomb-makers and gunrunners. And also the Gaelic Athletic Association? How many of your men have been secretly recruited and trained whilst you all pretend to play football? Half the fellows who took part in the rising must have come to you that way. We know because we have men amongst you.
    ‘You do, do you?’
    ‘Yes. That was how we learned of Casement and his mission to Germany.’
    ‘Inspector, it was in the bloody papers.’
    ‘We knew where he was landing. We knew where to grab him.’
    ‘Sir Roger Casement was a bloody idiot who couldn’t keep his mouth shut if his lips were bolted together. His capture was no loss to us and small credit to you. Now then, let me ask you this. If you have British spies and coppers playing Gaelic football with the lads of the GAA in Donegal, will you give me their names?’
    ‘No.’
    The Fenian smiled.
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Because I will not condemn them to die.’
    ‘Or, more to the point, because these spies do not exist.’
    ‘You may hope so.’
    ‘Inspector Kingsley, I expected better of you.’
    ‘I am sorry to be a disappointment.’
    ‘Neither the police nor your precious new Secret Intelligence Service have ever infiltrated the IRB in any significant manner.’
    ‘If we have, then surely you would be the last to know.’
    ‘If you had, then surely the British authorities in Dublin would have had some foreknowledge of the Easter Rising, Mr Kingsley. But they didn’t, did they? It took them totally by surprise.’
    ‘How can you be sure? We crushed it, didn’t we?’
    ‘Yes, you crushed it as you were always going to crush it, but not because of any brilliant intelligence work on the part of your spies, my friend, but because you are the fucking British Empire and you have a big army and we are a bunch of farmers and bank clerks equipped with the kind