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Bjørn Godøy
DOUBLE GAME
Love and betrayal in the shadows of World
War I
A bout the relationship between Roger Casement and the Norwegian Eivind Adler Christensen
Contents
Prologue, A Ship With an Open Belly
Chapter 1, A Midsummer’s Eve in Moss
Chapter 2, A Chance Meeting in New York
Chapter 3, ‘My Norwegian girl’
Chapter 4, Dangerous Days in Christiania
Chapter 5, Onward to Berlin
Chapter 6, The Irish ‘Führer’
Chapter 7, High Stakes in Norway
Chapter 8, Fear in London
Chapter 9, A Daring Plan
Chapter 10, Findlay’s 71 Words
Chapter 11, Christensen’s Revenge
Chapter 12, Nearer to the Revolution
Chapter 13, A New Mission
Chapter 14, ‘Our Hero’
Chapter 15, The Easter Rising
Chapter 16, Two Types of Death
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Sample translation
pp 9-10
Prologue
A SHIP WITH AN OPEN BELLY
All appeared to be normal outside Queenstown naval base on Wednesday morning, 10
May 1916. The ocean off Ireland’s southern coast rolled on into the horizon. As usual,
there were destroyers on the outlook for German submarines, but otherwise little was
felt of the cataclysmic clash that had set Europe ablaze. Verdun and Gallipoli seemed far
away. A tugboat towing a small vessel out to a lonely buoy was the only thing out of the
ordinary. On board were a Royal Navy diver, his assistant and all the gear needed to
make a descent.
Once at the buoy, the diver measured the distance down to the sea floor, and
found it to lay close to 20 fathoms beneath him. Together with his assistant, he
controlled the equipment. They checked the air supply and the telephone
communications system. They made sure that ropes and cables were properly coiled,
that valves and couplings were tightly fastened. Next, the assistant helped the diver on
with his suit and copper corselet; possibly, he had to apply a little soap on the diver’s
wrists to allow them access through the tight rubber cuffs. Eventually, the assistant
screwed on the helmet and buckled on the boots. Only after the diver had staggered onto
the ladder leading into the water did he receive the weights. With a total of 80 pounds
strapped on him, the diver vanished instantly when he let go.
He soon arrived on the bottom. In front of his tiny figure towered a cargo shop of
a thousand tons, tilted over on her port side. The drowned colossus measured 220 feet
from aft to bow. It did not take the diver long to discover the cause of the accident: A
huge hole yawned on the side of the hull facing up. A massive explosion had torn up the
steel plates and catapulted the cargo into the water. The scene spoke of war: Thousands
of rifles, rounds and bayonets lay strewn over the submerged landscape.
A red, white and blue flag was painted on the ship’s side, revealing the vessel to
be Norwegian. Large letters on the stern stated the name as Aud of Bergen.
This made no sense. Norway was a marginal nation with a unanimous front
against the war. Revolutionary radicals and reactionary conservatives disagreed on
most issues, except for this one – Norway must maintain a strict neutrality and stay out
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of the symphony of death orchestrated by the great powers. Yet here lay an arms ship
with Norwegian colours and its belly ripped open, sunk in British waters.
What was going on?
pp 17-22
Chapter 2
A CHANCE MEETING IN NEW YORK
The summer of 1914 descended on New York City by way of an intense heat wave.
During the week leading up to Saturday, 18 July, the mega city was haunted by
unpredictable thunderstorms. Massive rain showers would suddenly cascade over the
boroughs. Several pedestrians were struck by bolts of lightning that seemed to come out
of nowhere. Temperatures of up to 88 degrees Fahrenheit coupled with intense
humidity forced the city dwellers to seek out water where they could. The poor sought
refuge in parks and by rivers, while the rich fled out to the coast. The municipal
authorities asked for donations, so that the needy could be given free ice. They had
ample reason for concern. Every summer rising heat spurred an increase in infant
mortality. The 1914 heat wave also afflicted adults. Friday and Saturday 21 people were
admitted to hospital care due to heat stroke. Six of them died.
The oppressive climate was not dissimilar to the international situation. Three
weeks earlier the heir to the Habsburg throne had been assassinated in Sarajevo. For
some time, there was no reaction from the leaders in Vienna, but it was clear that the
incident could produce fatal consequences. Austria-Hungary would never act without
the consent of its powerful ally, Germany. On the other side stood Serbia who could turn
to Russia for help, something that would drag the Tsar’s entente partners – France and
Great Britain – into the conflict. Europe might well find itself in a highly combustible
situation where all the great powers confronted each other. Yet at the same time, the
world seemed oddly glittering and peaceful, akin to a beautiful landscape caressed by
the amber rays of a sunset. Warships from the Royal Navy had recently visited the
Kaiserliche Marine in Kiel with all the pomp and circumstance befitting such an occasion.
The officers ate and drank together and admired each other’s warships.
The sun went down over the old and reliable world, and a sinister darkness came
to shroud international relations. Aggressive nationalism turned petty disagreements
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into hostile disputes. Diplomatic and political signals were interpreted and over-
interpreted; vague statements were quickly perceived differently from what they had
been intended as. Every word, every gesture was placed under a magnifying glass for
analysis. Many hoped for this apprehensive and nearsighted mode of interaction to
secure continued peace, seeing the international community as a finely tuned machinery
where every minute movement must be balanced by a counter-movement. It turned out
that the poorly calibrated diplomatic cogwheels ground against each other so hard they
eventually jammed the machinery. The result was a war that cost 18 million lives. “One
is tempted to believe that the world wished to suffer,” summed up Winston Churchill a
few years after the tragedy.
Finally, on Saturday evening, the temperature on the East Coast crept down
thanks to a northerly breeze, and New York became a lovely city once again. People
swarmed outside to enjoy the night. Men and women thronged together on Broadway
on their way to theatres and restaurants.
Somewhere in these crowds Eivind Adler Christensen walked around. He was
now 24 years old and looked like a stereotype of the Norwegian male with his blonde
hair, blue eyes and robust physical frame. He was still handsome and he still had an alert
expression on his face. His body was muscular after several years of hard work as a
stoker on steamships going on North and South America. Normally he made an
impression on women, but it is less certain if he did so this evening as well as he was
down on his luck. For some time he had been out of work and hence had no money. He
probably wore the same clothes day after day.
The story of his life so far was something of a Norwegian cliché. Similar to
thousands of men before and after him Christensen made the transition from childhood
to manhood by going to sea. His parents clung to the hope that a few years with
backbreaking work in a rough masculine hierarchy would mould him into a respectable
person. He could hardly have been confronted with the adult world in a more brutal
way. As a stoker, he found himself at the bottom of the heap on board the ships he sailed
on, both socially and economically. Shuffling coal from the cramped, dark confines of
bunkers into insatiable fireboxes was an arduous task that could make anyone snap.
Stokers had the toughest job of all sailors, but were paid the least. On top of all, they had
to endure the sarcastic comments from seamen and others who never had their faces
blackened by coal dust.
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Being a sailor, Christensen was vulnerable to changing times. A healthy economy
meant work and regular income, whereas the opposite signified unemployment, no
money and occasionally hunger. Responsible seafarers sent what they earned back to
their families at home, keeping only small reserves for themselves so as to have
something to live off in hard times. Others wasted their wages as soon as they got them.
Christensen belonged to the latter category. This summer he found himself once more
out of employment. He was so short on cash that he periodically lived on the street in
New York. As soon as he was able to scrape up enough money, he would pay for a room
in a lodging house on 38th Street. All the time he kept his eyes open for opportunities
that might pull him out of his misery. This evening he struck lucky. In the midst of the
congestion on Broadway, he recognized a man he had met a few years earlier – a man
with a reputation for helping young, needy fellows.
Christensen laid his eyes on a tall and elegant 50-year-old man. Even among the
fashionable people of Manhattan Roger Casement stood out as extraordinarily
handsome. He was widely known for his looks. A tinge of silver streaked his wavy black
hair and beard, making him seem even more distinguished. He belonged to a social
stratum where appearance mattered a great deal. Casement had been knighted by King
George and was newly retired from a career as a general consul with the British Foreign
Office. His earnest face had pleasant features; his body was slender and trim. He spoke
with a baritone voice that at times exerted an almost hypnotic effect on other people.
When Casement opened his mouth, others shut down and listened. Even hardened men
softened when they stared into his deep, uncanny eyes. Born Irish he seemed to be the
very embodiment of a Celtic character. His combination of external beauty and internal
mystique proved irresistible to several women who fell head over heels in love with him.
Oddly enough, he never showed any interest in them.
Only a few hours earlier, Casement had stepped off a train at Central Station,
having completed a strenuous journey from Belfast via Glasgow and Montreal to New
York. He had traveled under the guise of being Mr. Casement and not Sir Casement,
believing that this had put possible pursuers off track. The precautionary measure was
deemed necessary due to Casement’s increasingly radical political outlook. Having spent
most of his adult life in the service of the British Empire, he had rediscovered his ethnic
roots during a prolonged stay in Ireland in 1905–06. He had studied Gaelic history and
lore and even tried to learn the language. The linguistic project failed, but the cultural
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awakening turned Casement into an ardent Irish nationalist, which by default meant
that he became an enemy of England.
Irish nationalism came in various shapes, yet all varieties – except the Ulster
protestant kind – contained a burning desire for secession from England. In 1914, the
vast majority of the Irish population supported a moderate form of nationalism, hoping
to achieve independence through peaceful, democratic means. Under the leadership of
the Irish Parliamentary Party, which occupied more than 70 seats in Westminster, they
dreamt of Ireland being granted so-called home rule, which among other things would
involve the re-opening of the parliament in Dublin, roughly 110 years after it had been
closed down. Most Irish, however, wanted the country to remain a member of the
Commonwealth. This dream of an amicable break from England seemed very realistic
before the war. The Liberal Party had supported home rule since the 1880s, and in 1907
it won a landslide victory, gaining majority control of the House of Commons. Having the
government and controlling the Lower House, the liberals pushed on for Irish
independence. Yet, all proposals stranded in the tory-dominated House of Lords, where
sympathy lay with the protestant population in Ulster. In the North, opposition to a
predominately Catholic parliament in Dublin was absolutely relentless. Religious fears
and hatred had been embedded into people for generations, and slogans such as “Home
Rule is Rome Rule” echoed through the streets of Belfast and other cities. Loyalist
leaders vowed to fight any inkling of Irish independence in the most violent way.
Following the passing of the Home Rule Bill in the Lower House in 1912, they organized
a militia that soon numbered 100 000 men. The North was ready for civil war.
One year later, during the fall of 1913, southern nationalists retorted by
establishing their own paramilitary group, The Irish Volunteers. The vast majority of
these volunteers continued to support a moderate fight for independence by
constitutional means. However, a tiny minority of separatists wanted Ireland to sever all
ties to Great Britain and The Crown. These secessionists were known as Fenians, a Celtic
term meaning rebels, which came to be used about militant Irish nationalists during the
19th century.
Violent uprisings against the English had been part of Irish history for centuries,
especially following Henry VIIIs efforts to turn Ireland into a protestant buffer state for
England. The fight continued after the last Catholic pretender to the British throne was
defeated in 1690. One century afterwards, in 1798, a massive uprising was instigated
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under the leadership of Wolf Tone. It was brutally crushed, but marked the beginning of
nationalist resistance in Ireland and went on to inspire a handful of rebellions during the
19th century. All failed. The British Empire proved to be too mighty an opponent. Still,
the defeats served the Fenian cause in the long run. They provided Irish separatists with
a Pantheon of martyrs to motivate continued fighting. They also brought home the
lesson that the Irish would never be able to rise successfully against the British strictly
by their own means. A future rebellion must take place when the authorities in London
were occupied on other fronts. The ideal opportunity would arise if Britain at some
point were to be involved in a war against another great power.
Roger Casement arrived in New York as a militant Irish separatist. His
uncompromising attitude was dictated by what he considered to be the tragic history of
his native land. Casement fumed over the English landowners who for centuries had
colonized Ireland and robbed the riches of her people. Like other Fenians, he interpreted
history with a great deal of fanaticism, but it was fanaticism rooted in reality. Early in
the 19th century just about all Irish farmland was in the hands of only 13 000 men –
mainly English – of whom 800 owned half the land; this in a country with six million
people. Most of the landowners did not even live in Ireland, but managed their
properties from England. As abusive as this colonial past had been, Casement was even
more incensed about the callous attitude English authorities had taken to the survival of
his people.
For centuries, invasions, rebellions and outright massacres had cost hundreds of
thousands of Irish lives, yet the most shocking display of English indifference occurred
only fifteen years before Casement was born. The Great Famine that unfolded around
1850 resulted in one million deaths. Even as the tragedy was in full play, British
authorities sanctioned the export of vast quantities of grain from Ireland, leaving no
rescue for the destitute population. To be sure, the government in London did allocate
eight million pounds in emergency aid, but the sum was overshadowed by the 20 million
pounds paid simultaneously to West Indian plantation owners in compensation for the
freeing of slaves. The famine opened the floodgates to massive emigration. Within a few
years, one million people had left for America, and the reaction among several in the
English establishment made Casement and others suspect that hopes of ethnic cleansing
lay behind the negligent response to the disaster. Enthusiastic headlines in The London
Times exclaimed, “They are leaving! They are leaving!” The exodus continued for another
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70 years. During those years the birth rate in Ireland also dropped, resulting in a bizarre
demographic development. While the rest of Europe experienced explosive population
growth in the decades leading up to the First World War, the Irish populace was cut in
half.
The political situation in Ireland immediately before the war was equally surreal.
Both southern Catholics and northern Protestants prepared for civil war. The majority of
the Catholics simply intended to uphold the liberal government’s decision of home rule,
yet they were labeled as rebels for having armed themselves. Conversely, the Protestant
loyalists who had declared all-out war against the government’s policy were praised for
their loyalty by conservative politicians. In Casement’s mind, one could only respond to
such a hypocritical opponent in one of two ways, through cowardly surrender or by
waging a relentless war. However, to wage war one needed guns, and that was why he
had come to America. He planned to ask wealthy Irish-Americans for contributions to
the fight for freedom.
pp 181 - 191
Chapter 14
‘OUR HERO’
Robert Monteith’s orders upon arrival in Germany were to seek out Roger Casement and
follow his instructions. But Casement was nowhere to be seen in Berlin, so Monteith had
to move on to Munich where his new boss was recuperating after yet another bout of
illness. One might be inclined to think that the battle-hardened Monteith would have
frowned upon the unstable and frequently feeble Casement, but the sergeant major’s
perception of him was quite different. Monteith viewed Casement as a living legend; a
man who had saved millions of lives in Congo and Peru, and who thereafter had
dedicated his life to the fight for Irish freedom. Monteith’s hagiographic depiction of
Casement helps us understand how the former consul gained the reputation he did,
albeit being so hopeless in many ways. Monteith, the heterosexual roughneck, was for
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example taken aback by Casement’s good looks. Even in the sick bed, he had an aura of
chivalry about him. His skin was deeply tanned after all the years spent in tropical areas;
his black hair and beard had a silver tinge; his gaze was deep and expressive and made a
deep impression on Monteith, who declared, “I have never seen more beautiful eyes than
Casement’s.”
When Casement finally got out of bed, he turned out to be in far better physical
shape than what Monteith’s first impression of him had indicated. Casement had the
proud posture of a tin soldier and remarkably strong legs. Together with Monteith, he
went for walks of well over nine miles. In the evenings, the two men marched on at high
speed while telling each other about their respective lives. Both had done service in
Africa, a continent Casement now sorely missed. He longed to get away from his
complicated existence in Europe, and to return to the simple life together with the pure
and natural people of the “dark continent.” When the conversation touched on Ireland,
he turned gloomy. His lovely eyes darkened at the thought of all the injustices the Irish
people had suffered under England. Monteith also discovered that Casement was a
deeply religious man. He belonged formally to the protestant faith but felt much closer
to Catholicism. Every day he read in a Catholic prayer book. He smoked heavily.
On one occasion, and on his own whim, Casement began talking about marriage.
Monteith had no reason to suspect him of being anything else than a staunch
heterosexual who had renounced family life in order to see the world. “With him the
wanderlust was strong,” wrote Monteith, not quite knowing how precisely he had nailed
down Casement’s character.
Christensen did not come along to Munich. He first met Casement again when
Monteith brought him back to Berlin. Unfortunately, none of them described what it was
like to meet again, but there is nothing to indicate that they were less than happy to see
each other. Christensen remained the faithful friend and assistant, and accompanied
Casement on various assignments. Together they ventured for example into a
humongous military camp south of Berlin, to meet the 54 prisoners of war who had
agreed to join Casement’s Irish Brigade. The tiny unit of Irishmen made for an odd sight
among the horde of 250 000 German recruits. Christensen probably functioned as
Casement’s official photographer both on this and other occasions. Half a year earlier he
had been taught the art of photography by a German expert, and in the garrison
Casement posed on pictures that Christensen later brought back to America. The photos
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probably showed Casement together with the soldiers of the brigade, as lieutenant
Boehm had suggested; the intention was to sell the pictures in the United States to
generate revenue for the revolution, along with boosting Germany’s public image among
Irish-Americans.
While Casement tried to salvage the brigade, in New York John Devoy was
becoming increasingly frustrated that he still had not been able to send more men to
assist Casement in his work. The countdown to the rising had begun, and Devoy deemed
it urgent to get personnel with military experience positioned for the fight. To get to
Ireland, the men must travel via Germany. During their stay there, Devoy wanted them
to assist Monteith and Casement in building up the Irish Brigade. But the after effects of
the Lusitania disaster lingered on in the States, where President Wilson still refused to
issue passports to Germany. “We are absolutely tied up hand and foot by the passport
system,” Devoy wrote to Casement, but met with little understanding. The envoy in
Berlin kept pestering him for reinforcements. Why, for example, wrote Casement, had he
not received the West Point-educated colonel he long had asked for? An exasperated
Devoy attempted to explain that things were not so simple, but his words fell on deaf
ears.
The leader of the Clan had reason to be upset. In his office, he possessed a list
with the names of 56 men who were willing to go to Germany and then Ireland. The men
came predominately from Irish-American bastions such as Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston
and New York. Thirty-five were even ready to depart immediately, but as long as the U.S.
State Department refused to issue passports to Germany, they were stuck in the States.
For once Devoy gave in to a feeling of gloom. In a somber tone, he wrote to Casement
that unless they met in Ireland at some point in the future, they would never see each
other again: “I will either be shot or hanged.” For Ireland to become a future meeting
ground for exiled Irishmen, the revolution had to happen. And for the revolution to
happen, Devoy had to dispatch his 56 volunteers across the Atlantic. There was only one
way out of the stalemate: He needed Eivind Adler Christensen to return to New York for
a new mission.
The Norwegian thus bid Casement farewell after having spent only two weeks
together with him in Germany. On November 8, he left Berlin for Norway, having time
only for a hasty meeting with his family in Moss. He continued straight on to the Bergen,
where he embarked on the tenth with the SS Bergensfjord. Christensen traveled under
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his real name, but gave himself the professional title of building entrepreneur, a
substantial improvement from the stoker he had been before he ran into Casement. On
the twentieth, he set foot in New York. The following day John Devoy received him in his
office on William Street.
Christensen handed the Clan leader a bundle of writings from Casement. Devoy
was not thrilled. He already had a substantial backlog of letters from Berlin to answer,
and warned Casement that he did not have the time to comment on all his concerns: “I
can’t undertake to deal with all the matters contained in all your letters.” Even so, Devoy
scribbled out 22 pages to accommodate Casement’s inquiries. Devoy discoursed on
familiar subjects. He promised the broke Casement more money; he ensured the jittery
Casement that the Clan remained supportive of him; he soothed the disheartened
Casement with guarantees that his efforts were noticed by many. At a public event,
Devoy claimed, he had mentioned Casement’s ideas of how the Irish Brigade could be
put to use, and reaped “the strongest cheers” he’d heard for a long time. Now he
intended to distribute the new photographs of the Brigade to American newspapers, in
order to increase knowledge about the Irish fight. Between the lines Devoy, delivered a
clear message: All was being done to support Casement’s mission. However, success
rested on Casement being able to keep his mental faculties together.
As he rounded off, an impatient Christensen was sitting next to him, waiting to be
given the letter he would carry back to Europe. “I have kept Olsen waiting for this till he
has got very sleepy, so I must close,” Devoy explained before making a final attempt to
boost Casement’s morale: “Don’t worry. Things will come out all right in the end.”
The more strained Devoy’s relationship with Casement became, the more
valuable did Christensen seem to be. The Norwegian was the only person whom both
Casement and Devoy fully trusted. He was also the only person who could move freely
between them. Three days after he had visited Devoy, Christensen wrote his own letter
to Casement. Among other things, he described how Devoy had reacted to Casement’s
last letter. The Norwegian did not fully understand the paramount importance of
secrecy, and his letter would have been easily decipherable, had it ended up in the hands
of British intelligence. “Sir Roger,” he wrote naïvely, “you have broken the old man’s
heart.” The melodramatic statement should probably be interpreted as Devoy reaching
the end of his tether with Casement. The old man was more a fiery rather than a
melancholic character. “Write him a nice letter,” suggested Christensen.
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Devoy was annoyed with Casement, but kept his focus on getting the 56 rebels to
Germany. Only Christensen could do this for him. The Clan’s Norwegian fixer had
already presented Devoy with a scheme of how he could escort the men to Europe. By
way of bribery, he would secure assistance from a small number of officers on
Norwegian and Danish ocean liners. The officers would accommodate the illegitimate
travelers and help them duck inspection by the British boarding party. The Easter Rising
was only four months away and the Clan prioritized Christensen’s plan accordingly. For
a full month, Devoy set aside all other tasks, doing everything he could to get the first
group of rebels across the Atlantic. That meant strenuous days for the old man. The
habitual bronchitis hampered his movement. Towards the end of the period, Devoy even
came down with the flu. But he kept on working.
Together with his aides, Devoy must have gone to great length to shroud the
work in secrecy. His concern for Christensen’s nonchalant attitude to cover names and
other precautionary measures must have been equally great. The Norwegian was given
the code name of Olsen and was undoubtedly introduced to Fenian modes of
communication, being told to memorize patterns of greetings along with crucial code
words. Six months earlier the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Dublin had decided that
all their representatives going to Germany must carry papers impressed with a secret
sign – a circled cross – together with the code word Ashling. The code word was well
suited to signify a utopian revolutionary movement, as it was a Celtic term meaning
visionary poetry. Devoy noticed that the IRB code books were studded with similar
words gleaned from ancient Gaelic culture, and he assumed that the mystically inclined
Patrick Pearse must be the man behind them. Devoy embellished the Gaelic American
masthead with mandatory Celtic ornamentation. Still, being the practical-minded man
he was, he would probably have preferred a less conspicuous vocabulary in secret
affairs.
If a Fenian agent could not produce something with Ashling or something
equivalent imprinted on it, he or she could resort to physical signaling. At one point, the
henchmen of the revolution were told to greet unknown people by pinching their own
cheeks between their thumb and index finger. Trustworthy persons would then respond
by rubbing his or her cheek twice with an open hand and in a downward motion.
Irish separatists had to be constantly on the outlook for British intelligence
agents. Were envelopes they received in the mail closed with glue instead of spittle?
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Were they shadowed by suspicious characters on the street? Confidential information
that ended up in the wrong hands could result in death for those who were exposed.
Unknown Irishmen who approached Devoy or McGarrity were quickly suspected of
running King George’s errand. One of them came face to face with the volatile side of
Joseph McGarrity. The man claimed to carry a message to him from Germany. McGarrity
feigned innocence and invited the newcomer to his home. Once there Dr. Jekyll turned
into Mr. Hyde: McGarrity roared at the guest, accusing him of being an English spy. He
searched him and confiscated all papers. Only after a priest who had actually met the
man in Germany appeared, did things calm down, and McGarrity apologized. But by then
the man had been reduced to a nervous wreck, and was in dire need of several stiff
drinks of whiskey before he could begin to laugh at the ordeal.
Such was life for those involved in the fight for Irish freedom. Enemies and
dangers lurched left and right. One simply could not be careful enough, especially when
attempting to smuggle dozens of Fenians through the British blockade. John Devoy knew
the risks better than most, having spent a lifetime in a world consisting of spies,
provocateurs and Fenian factionalists, not to forget the endless line of opportunists who
tried to profit on his revolutionary dream. Early on, he probably feared that Eivind Adler
Christensen too was in the pocket of the British, or that he practiced so-called buttering
– Devoy’s term for those who exploited the Clan for their own enrichment. However,
Christensen’s services to Casement convinced Devoy that the Norwegian sailor was rock
solid. The Clan leader became all the more embittered when he, in December 1915,
accidentally found out that Christensen had deceived him.
McGarrity conveyed the sad news to Casement in a letter written eight days
before Christmas Eve. His choice of words revealed the high standing Christensen had
enjoyed within the Clan. McGarrity described him as nothing short of “our hero.” The
Clan had taken good care of Christensen, he insisted, but even so the Norwegian had
ignored his mission to escort the Irish-American rebels to Germany. Somehow, the fixer
had attempted to exploit those he was supposed to assist. McGarrity laid it out in round
terms, but left no doubt that the break with Christensen was final. “Our hero has done
certain things that have made circumstances very unpleasant, and which have led Uncle
John to lose confidence in him.”
Three days later «Uncle John» elaborated upon what had happened. The seven
page long letter contained Devoy’s final words to Casement. He would never again write
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to his envoy in Germany. Hence, there is a sense of tragedy imbued in the letter, not least
because it makes clear how shocked Devoy was by Christensen’s betrayal. He used all
seven pages to explain the grave difficulties this had caused to the Clan. Christensen’s
fraud had been discovered only recently, in connection with his alleged attempts to
dispatch the first three Fenians across the Atlantic. He had tried to get them on board
three ocean liners, but had failed each time. The first and second attempts resulted in
the men being returned to shore right away. Eventually Christensen tried to lure them
off on third class tickets, giving them Norwegian names. This time they did not even
make it to the gangway. The whole operation was hopelessly amateurish in Devoy’s
opinion. Three Irish-Americans with Norwegian names would have been spotted
immediately in the British blockade.
Greed had laid the foundation for failure, according to Devoy. Christensen was
given 300 dollars to bribe a boatswain, but it turned out the Norwegian pocketed the
money himself. The next time he discussed the scheme with Devoy, Christensen forgot
himself and stated that his contact was working as a steward. Everything suggested that
he had not tried to strike a deal with anyone employed on board the ocean liners. The
only person he evidently had recruited was a Danish dockworker, a man who would be
of no use to the undercover Fenians during the voyage.
Christensen had not done anything for the Clan, other than laying his hands on a
total of 375 dollars from the revolutionary funds. He had invented the most fantastic
expenditures to trick Devoy into compensating him. Once he cooked up a story about
being robbed on a train. The allegations were so silly that Devoy appears to have been
more dejected than infuriated with him. The street-smart daredevil who had deceived
ambassador Findlay suddenly seemed like a greenhorn. Remarkably, Devoy did not
confront Christensen with his betrayal to the cause. Instead he paid the parasitic
Norwegian another 100 dollars to get him to return a uniform, probably one belonging
to the Irish Brigade in Germany. Still, Devoy was determined to release Christensen from
service once and for all. The cynical treachery of the Norwegian hurt Devoy deeply. For
one month, he had sacrificed his work, health and sleep in order to see the Irish-
American Fenians go off to Europe. He had personally guaranteed each one of the 56
men that they were safe in the hands of Christensen. Now all he had to show for his
efforts was a damaged reputation and money lost. “The news will no doubt spread,” he
declared dryly.
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The explanation for Christensen’s unpredictable behavior had presented itself to
Devoy quite by coincidence. Several months earlier, he had set him up with an employer
in the Irish-American community, a man with whom he exchanged words from time to
time. The employer revealed that Christensen had asked him for a loan of 100 dollars,
money he alleged were needed to pay for his wife’s hospital bill. Accidentally, the
employer happened to know the doctor who ran the hospital in question, and thus found
out that Christensen’s wife had been admitted to maternity care. The information did
not add up to Devoy. He knew about Sadie – Christensen’s Indian wife in Philadelphia –
but she could not possibly be in labor; her husband had after all returned from Europe
no more than five months earlier. Only after the employer had asked Christensen for an
explanation, did the Norwegian reveal what was going on. He confessed that the woman
in the hospital was not Sadie, but a German girl he had met in Berlin. Since before the
summer Devoy had sustained Sadie and little Albert with money. During the fall,
Christensen had continued to beg for money for his tiny family. Now Devoy understood
what McGarrity had known all along: The Norwegian maintained a double household.
However, even that insight did not fully explain Christensen’s desperate need for
money. Surely, it cost to keep Margarethe in maternity care, and afterwards she and the
baby had to be accommodated in a rental apartment. Yet those expenses alone could not
possibly have been so great as to force Christensen into embezzling the Clan’s funds. He
had after all accumulated huge sums during the past 13 months, first on his assistance to
Casement in Germany and later on his services to Devoy. A rough estimate shows that
Christensen raked in at least 5549 U.S. dollars between October 1914 and December
1915, including salary and bonus payments, coverage of expenses along with the
amounts he stole from Casement on two occasions. For a stoker it was literally speaking
an unbelievable amount. His father the machinist belonged to the middle class in Moss.
Still, he would have needed to work for close to 17 years to earn as much money.
In fact, Christensen’s profits must have been even higher. Devoy and McGarrity
set him up with a regular job in New York, and they most likely gave him various
amounts of money more frequently than the source material reveals. The Norwegian
must have squandered his money on something far more costly than a childbirth. How
did he blow it all?
There is little doubt that Christensen actually wasted the enormous sum away.
During his sojourns in Norway, he relished in playing the big spender, buying drinks for
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everyone. Conversely, Devoy and McGarrity’s descriptions of him in New York in late
1915 conjure up an image of him reminiscent of the homeless man Casement had met on
Broadway during the summer of 1914. Early one morning, for example, McGarrity found
Christensen waiting for him outside his Philadelphia home. Haggard by a night with no
sleep, the Norwegian begged McGarrity to reimburse him for money he claimed had
been stolen from him. On other occasions he kept asking about where the Clan kept its
funds.
The explanation for Christensen’s desperate need for money can be found in a
handful of letters and diary notes written during the first half of 1916, where Devoy,
McGarrity and a few other Clan members discuss a character they refer to as the nurse.
The mention is anything but positive. One of them speaks of the nurse in the same vein
that he mentions other “extremely dangerous” men. For six weeks Devoy’s men placed
this shady person under surveillance. In their reports the agents described a very
nervous type who constantly watched over his shoulder. The man ventured from his
home in Jersey City to Manhattan, where he disappeared into saloons belonging to
criminal gangs. Back in the streets he behaved as a full-blooded criminal, scanning the
surroundings for potential danger. On one occasion he came to a halt outside a jewelry
store in order to use the window as a mirror, checking whether there was someone
following him.
The nurse was Eivind Adler Christensen. Why the Clan gave him this nickname is
not quite clear. Perhaps it was meant ironically, as a hint to Christensen’s “nursing” of
Casement and Monteith on their voyages to Europe? Or perhaps it simply was a
paraphrase of the more obvious the norse? Either way, the intention behind
anonymising Christensen would have been the same that had motivated Devoy’s habit of
calling him “Olsen” a few months earlier. The Clan had to assume that any
correspondence could be picked up by British agents, who would naturally be keen to
discover internal problems in Devoy’s organisation. Yet the secrecy of the letters and
diary entries could not prevent an interested reader from learning crucial details that fit
perfectly with Christensen’s identity. The nurse lived in Jersey, as did Christensen. He
also had an anchor tattoed on one of his arms, revealing a previous career as a sailor,
just as in the case of Christensen. He was constantly on the outlook for money, and he
spoke a different language in addition to English. The Clan agents even described his
looks in the same way that ambassador Findlay had done, through the adjective
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“dissipated”. The word characterizes something about to dissolve. Applied to human
beings it can be used about wasteful and morally corrupt people – in other words Eivind
Adler Christensen.
He needed money, and he needed it fast. Once he tried to frighten Devoy and
McGarrity, claiming that British intelligence had paid him 200 dollars to collaborate,
implying that they had to match the amount to keep him reigned in. None of them were
fooled. Later on he presented more realistic proposals, offering for instance McGarrity
the chance of buying photographs and postcards for a total of 60 dollars. The material
probably consisted of propaganda paraphernilia that Christensen had collected in
Germany. The same day that Christensen made this offer, he tricked McGarrity’s nephew
into lending him ten dollars, apparently promising to pay tenfold in return. McGarrity
was remarkably patient with the Norwegian, considering his continued provocations.
Late in December he even allowed Christensen to sleep over at his house. For his own
part he stayed awake most of the night, not knowing what the unpredictable guest might
be up to.
“Money, money,” McGarrity growled in his diary. He had Christensen’s obsessive
quest for wealth in mind. Greed morphed the Norwegian into a monster, and the catholic
fenian employed biblical terms to describe the full scope of Christensen’s corruption:
“He appears to be a regular beast.” Consequently, McGarrity begged for higher powers to
salvage other boys in the Clan from falling into the pit of lies and deceit where
Christensen now wormed around. The loss of the clever Norwegian was obviously felt
hard by the Clan. He could have become a valuable asset to the revolution, if only he had
stayed on the narrow path, a thought that McGarrity expressed with palpable
bereavement: “What a pity that he is not straight.”
Devoy thought likewise. Had Christensen remained loyal, much would have been
different in 1916. The Clan could have sent at least 50 men to Casement’s brigade,
something that surely would have boosted morale among the rank and file, with the
result that even more Irish prisoners of war would have enlisted, making the Brigade a
force to be reckoned with. The hypothetical deduction was typical of Devoy. He
conducted the fight for Irish freedom by means of arms and men, but also by an
unbending faith in circumstance. Many of Devoy’s projects, such as sending Casement
and Monteith to Germany, depended not so much on detailed preparation as on pure
luck. That is probably how it had to be in a battle against the world’s mightiest empire.
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Therefore Christensen’s betrayal pained Devoy more than it provoked him; it became a
story of lost opportunitites. Even when meeting the Norwegian face to face after the lies
had been exposed, Devoy restrained himself. According to his own statement, this last
meeting proceded in civilised forms. But Devoy needed no words to communicate his
contempt for Christensen; his forbidding apparence expressed all there was to say. “He
knows what I think of him,” Devoy wrote to Casement, and was right. Christensen
admitted to McGarrity that he lived in fear of Devoy’s fury.
Still, none of the two Clan leaders suggested hurting the Norwegian in any way,
something which might seem a bit odd, given the brutality that frequently marked Irish
fenianism. The two men might have considered Casement’s affection for Christensen,
although neither of them harbored suspicion of anything sexual in their relationship. But
they knew that Casement would be very upset should the Clan decide to execute
Christensen. They might also have had Sadie, Margrethe and their children in mind.
McGarrity knew both women, and even befriended Margrethe. Going through Devoy’s
and McGarrity’s writings, one is left with the impression that both felt a certain affinity
for Christensen notwithstanding the trouble he had caused. Both had come to know him
over the past several months, and both had found Christensen to be a terrific fellow –
until he jumped ship. Such feelings did not vanish overnight.
In the end, Devoy actually tried to help Christensen move on in life. During their
final meeting, the Norwegian hinted that he might consider settling down in California,
provided the Clan helped him with the means to establish himself. Devoy agreed to do
so.
Although Devoy and McGarrity took a soft stance on Christensen, his existence
remained precarious. A rumour in Dublin alleged that the Norwegian was in the pay of
British intelligence, something that was believed at the highest level of the IRB. Sean
MacDermott even warned Casement not to trust his beloved assistant, a warning that
not surprisingly fell on deaf ears. But when central players in Dublin perceived
Christensen as a threat to their revolution, his name might well have been put on a death
list somewhere.
Still, the most imminent risk to his life emanated from the United States. The
shady bars Christensen patronized were in fact gambling dens. Outwardly they gave the
apparence of being random watering holes, but behind the doors big sums of money
were put at stake. “Everything suggests that he has long experience with this kind of
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life,” Devoy reported to McGarrity. Christensen’s claim to Findlay that he was involved in
Norwegian-American criminality appears to actually having had some merit. For
instance he kept a fake passport stashed away in saloon owned by a fellow Norwegian,
and he was well versed in the use of aliases long before the Clan turned him into Olsen.
Devoy’s agents also found out that another Norwegian was on the lookout for
Christensen. What this man was upset about, they did not explain, but it seems fair to
assume that it had something to do with gambling debts.
The disappointment of being let down by Christensen remained with Devoy the
rest of his life. Later he described the Norwegian as “one of the worst crooks I have ever
met” – harsh words from a man who had more than 50 years of experience in ratting out
imposters.
The Clan called off the surveillance of Christensen in February 1916. At about the
same time Devoy was approached by a courier from Ireland. As usual the old man
brought his visitor to a restaurant, this time Haan’s Café not far away from Brooklyn
Bridge. Once they were seated, the man presented Devoy with a coded letter from the
IRB, along with the key allowing him to decipher it. They began decoding the words, but
already by the second sentence they had to stop. The sentence stated that no one except
representatives of the Clan and the German embassy in Washington were allowed to
read the rest of the letter. So the courier had to turn around while Devoy labored
through the remaining text alone. It contained a message he had been waiting on for
more than 40 years: The revolutionary leadership in Dublin had finally set the date for
the Rising. Fighting was to break out on Easter Sunday, 23 April 1916.
Published by Spartacus Forlag, Norway, 2016
Right: www.hagenagency.no [email protected]