Late August had come to Britain, and with it a crisis was beginning to spread—quietly at first, almost politely.
It was not the sort of crisis that announced itself in Parliament or appeared neatly summarized in the morning papers. It was not the kind discussed around polished tables in Downing Street, where ministers in pressed coats spoke of fleets, fronts and victory as though war could be reduced to maps and willpower. This crisis moved lower down, through narrow streets and crowded markets, through dockyards and fishing villages, and into kitchens where the smell of boiled potatoes and thinning broth had begun to replace meals that only weeks earlier had seemed ordinary.
Among the wealthier circles of Britain, much of life continued with an air of strained normality. Breakfast tables were still laid with eggs, toast and tea poured into fine china. Cigarettes burned between fingers while men discussed politics and progress. Cricket matches continued upon trimmed lawns, servants crossed great houses carrying trays and parcels, and the machinery of comfortable life did its best to pretend that Europe was not tearing itself apart.
For those who lived high enough above the ordinary market, the first signs of strain were easy to miss.
They did not stand before fishmongers counting pennies. They did not watch fresh prices appear in chalk upon wooden boards. They did not feel a week's wages shrinking in their hands while the cost of food rose around them.
Servants did that. But in the markets of London, the change was already difficult to ignore.
They remained crowded, noisy and alive, yet something tighter had entered the atmosphere. People lingered longer before buying. Housewives counted coins twice. Men who once ordered without thinking now paused before speaking. Stallholders shouted as loudly as ever, though there was a sharper urgency behind the calls.
The fishmongers showed it most clearly.
Fish had long been one of the dependable foods of working Britain: cheap, filling and plentiful enough that a family without much money could still place something substantial beside its potatoes and bread. Herring, cod and haddock were not luxuries. They were part of the foundation upon which thousands of ordinary meals rested.
Now that foundation was becoming less certain.
"Last of the catch!"
"Get it now! Won't be this cheap tomorrow!"
Customers crowded forward and stared first not at the fish, but at the prices beside them. Where a pound might once have cost two or three pence, five or six was becoming increasingly common, and in some markets still more. Chalk figures were rubbed away and replaced so often that the boards themselves had become grey with old numbers.
People noticed.
A woman would stop, purse already open, and stare for half a second longer than she once had. A labourer might count the coins in his palm, look toward the fish, then count again as though arithmetic might somehow change the answer.
Most still bought, for they had little choice.
At home, however, the difference became clearer. Fish was cut smaller. Potatoes were stretched farther. Broth received another cup of water. A father came home from work and watched his wife divide a meal that once would have left something in the pot, only to find the bottom scraped clean before everyone at the table had quite stopped being hungry.
Children noticed such things first.
"Is that all?"
"It is enough," a mother might answer.
And for the moment, perhaps it was.
Britain was nowhere near starvation. Ships still reached port, markets still opened, and London remained fed. Yet the old sense of abundance had begun to weaken. Nothing catastrophic had happened in any single kitchen, but across thousands of them the same small adjustments were being made, and together they amounted to something larger.
Things were tightening, and beyond the capital, along the edges of the British Isles, the strain could be felt far more sharply.
Nowhere was that truer than along the western coast of Ireland, where whole communities depended upon the sea in a way London never could. Fishing there was not merely a trade among many, but the quiet machinery around which village life turned. Boats went out before dawn, catches returned with the tide, fish were sold, wages were paid and money passed from hand to hand through households, shops, taverns and markets.
Then the Atlantic became dangerous.
German submarines prowled beneath its surface, while battlecruisers and other raiders appeared in waters where fishermen had never expected to encounter warships. Merchant vessels vanished, and fishing boats began disappearing with them. Some were stopped, their crews spared and their vessels sunk; others simply failed to return, leaving behind empty berths, frightened families and rumours that grew larger with every telling.
The Germans did not need to sink every boat. They only needed to sink enough.
Fear accomplished the rest. Fishermen who had once pushed confidently into deeper waters began hugging the coast, casting their nets where the sea was safer rather than where the catch was richest. Some refused to sail at all. A man did not need to see a periscope with his own eyes when three others swore they had seen one beyond the headland, nor did he need to watch a German battlecruiser open fire when wreckage washed ashore days later.
Yet fear did not pay rent, and caution did not feed children.
As August darkened and savings dwindled, anxiety settled across the western fishing villages with the persistence of the sea wind itself. Men who had spent their lives trusting the Atlantic now found themselves watching it with suspicion, wondering whether the next voyage would bring home fish, nothing at all, or perhaps no crew to bring anything home.
Naturally, much of that worry found its way into the taverns.
There, beneath low ceilings stained by smoke, fishermen sat over pints that lasted longer than they once had, discussing missing boats, rising prices, German raiders and a Royal Navy that seemed everywhere except where they most wanted it to be. The laughter had not vanished entirely, but there was less of it now. Conversations tended to circle back toward money, work and the sea, no matter where they began.
And where worried men gathered, opportunity had a habit of gathering with them.
It was late one evening when a stranger entered a small tavern somewhere along Ireland's western coast. The building stood not far from the shore, its windows glowing yellow against the gathering darkness while the Atlantic breathed somewhere beyond the village. Every time the wind rose, salt slipped beneath the door and mingled with the smells of wet wool, tobacco, ale and old wood.
The tavern was crowded without being lively. Men sat close together beneath a haze of smoke, speaking more quietly than drink usually encouraged. Half-finished mugs stood upon tables, and even conversations unrelated to the war seemed unable to escape the mood it had cast over everything.
Then the door opened against the wind.
A cold gust swept through the room, bending the candle flames and stirring coats before the door slammed shut again. Heads turned almost automatically toward the newcomer.
He was difficult not to notice.
Tall and broad through the shoulders, he possessed the heavy, practical strength of a man shaped by labour rather than exercise for its own sake. His shirt was open at the chest, exposing hard muscle beneath, while a red sash circled his waist and another was tied around his head, holding back dark hair that had grown long enough to fall toward his shoulders. His beard was neatly kept, his features ruggedly handsome, and the coat hanging from his frame possessed just enough flair to suggest that he knew exactly what impression he created.
He looked neither like a fisherman nor like any ordinary traveller. There was something almost anachronistic about him, something vaguely piratical, as though the Atlantic itself had delivered one of its older legends ashore and sent him walking through the door.
The men regarded him with the ordinary suspicion reserved for outsiders.
The women noticed him for rather different reasons.
Three young women near the counter in particular watched him almost immediately: one red-haired, one dark-haired and one fair, all unmarried and dressed in newer fashions that had begun creeping westward from the Continent. Their clothes were lighter and more flattering than what older generations considered entirely proper, and their interest in the stranger became obvious almost as quickly as his interest in them.
His gaze paused upon their table just long enough for the faintest knowing smile to appear.
That was sufficient.
Within moments they had drawn closer together, pretending not to stare while doing exactly that, whispering behind their glasses and stealing glances whenever they thought his attention had wandered. A few embarrassed smiles appeared. Hair was adjusted. Postures improved. For a brief while the three seemed certain that the handsome stranger would cross the room toward them.
He did not.
Whatever casual interest they had awakened disappeared as quickly as it had come. His expression sharpened, his attention shifted elsewhere, and the women were left watching him with a mixture of disappointment and injured curiosity.
He had not come to the tavern looking for women.
At least, not that night.
His real interest sat near the far side of the room.
Four middle-aged fishermen occupied a round wooden table, their half-finished pints sitting neglected before them. Their hands were broad and scarred from rope and salt, their faces weathered by years beneath open skies. Two wore thick beards already turning grey; another had kept an old wool cap upon his head despite the warmth indoors. All four possessed the particular weariness of men accustomed to hard work who had lately found too little of it.
The stranger crossed the room toward them without hesitation.
By the time he reached their table, the lazy charm he had shown the women was gone. In its place was something quieter and more deliberate.
He pulled an empty chair across the floor, sat down without asking, and placed a heavy leather pouch upon the table.
It landed with a dull thud.
Something inside shifted with the unmistakable sound of coin.
The fishermen looked first at the pouch, then at him.
Suspicion remained, but curiosity had already begun to work upon it.
The stranger leaned back as though he had known them for years.
"Ah, lads," he said, his Scottish accent immediately marking him as an outsider. "Why the long faces?"
The fishermen exchanged glances, and for several seconds nobody answered.
At last the oldest among them, a broad man with a thick grey beard, lifted his pint and studied the newcomer over its rim.
"We're talking about the Germans," he said. "What else would it be these days?"
A low murmur of agreement passed around the table before another fisherman leaned forward, planting his elbows on the wood and clasping his weathered hands together.
"Just heard about O'Malley from the next town over," he said. "The Germans caught his boat out at sea. Stopped her, took what they wanted and sent her straight to the bottom."
The others listened in grim silence.
"O'Malley got out, mind you. Him and his girl both. Lucky in that respect." The man shook his head slowly. "Says the Germans even took them aboard one of their U-boats afterward and put them safely back ashore."
He gave a quiet, disbelieving snort.
"If you can imagine such a thing."
A few of the fishermen shifted in their chairs, uncertain what to make of that particular detail.
"But the boat's gone," he continued. "The nets, the gear, everything he'd spent half his life putting together. All of it sitting at the bottom of the Atlantic now."
The table fell quiet.
Another man stared into his pint and rubbed one thumb slowly along the rim of the glass.
"Then he's finished," he muttered. "A fisherman without a boat isn't much of a fisherman."
He paused, then added more quietly, "Poor bastard's got nothing left now but his girl."
"But they did let them live," a third fisherman said after a moment, his tone quieter and almost reluctant. "That's what I've heard, anyway. Germans usually give the crews a chance to get clear before they sink the boats. Honourable, in a way."
"Aye," another snapped. "Honourable enough to leave a man alive with nothing. What good is that? You can't feed a family on mercy."
A grunt of agreement went around the table.
"Damn Germans," one of them muttered. "Damn Huns."
The bitterness settled more heavily over the men, but the stranger said nothing. He simply listened, occasionally nodding as though he were interested less in the Germans themselves than in what the fishermen believed about them.
"I've heard worse," one man said at last, lowering his voice as he leaned closer to the others. "Stories coming out of Belgium. Women dragged off, babies torn from their mothers and thrown against walls like rubbish. One fellow swore he'd heard the Germans were even eating them in places."
"Oh, that's bloody nonsense," another cut in immediately. "Cannibals, now? Use your head. If they were monsters like that, why would they bother putting fishermen into boats before sinking their vessels?"
The first man frowned, but offered no answer.
That was the trouble with it. None of them truly knew what was happening across the sea. They had newspapers, rumours, frightened sailors and stories that changed a little each time they passed from one village to the next. Perhaps some were true. Perhaps none were. There was no way for men sitting in a smoky Irish tavern to know where fact ended and invention began.
The stranger allowed the uncertainty to linger before speaking again.
"So I take it things aren't exactly prosperous around here these days," he said casually, glancing from one weathered face to the next. "Not much coin finding its way into men's pockets, I suppose."
The change in the conversation was subtle, but immediate.
One fisherman leaned back and rubbed a hand across his face.
"No," he admitted. "Most here lived meagre enough before the war. Always have. But now..." He exhaled slowly. "If we can't fish, there's not much left. You go into the city and hope there's work for you, or you stay here waiting for the sea to become safe again."
"Or you join the army," another said.
The words carried no enthusiasm.
"Pay's decent enough, from what I've seen on the posters. Shilling a day for a private. More if you stay in long enough or manage to rise. And your family gets something while you're away as well. Separation allowance, a few shillings a week."
"Aye," another muttered, staring into his pint. "Posters all over town. Your King and Country Need You. Fine uniforms, straight backs, everyone looking proud as kings. You'd think France was some grand holiday."
One of the men gave a humourless snort.
"They don't put the mud on the posters, or the blood."
"No," said the first fisherman, "but a shilling a day is more than some men here are earning now. Especially if the boats aren't going out."
That silenced them for a moment, because however little they liked admitting it, the thought was tempting.
Another man turned his mug slowly between his palms.
"And if you're killed, your wife gets a pension, doesn't she? Ten shillings a week? Twelve if there's children?"
"Something like that."
"Enough to keep them fed, perhaps."
A low, humourless laugh went around the table.
"Christ. More use to your family dead than unemployed."
Nobody answered.
Beneath all their talk of wages, allowances and patriotic posters lay the same uncomfortable truth: none of them truly wanted to go. The army offered money and certainty, but it offered them somewhere else as well, and every man around the table understood perfectly well where that road might end.
The stranger watched them in silence for a few moments, his expression giving away nothing.
Then, almost absent-mindedly, he tapped one finger against the leather pouch before him.
Coins shifted softly inside.
Every eye flicked toward it.
"Oi, miss," he called toward the bar, raising his voice just enough to carry across the room—and loudly enough that several nearby conversations faltered. "Drinks for these gentlemen. And food as well. Proper food, mind you. Whatever you've got that's worth eating."
That drew attention immediately, not merely from the four fishermen but from much of the tavern around them. The three young women by the counter noticed in particular. A stranger as young, healthy and powerfully built as this one was unusual enough; a man dressed without obvious wealth yet carrying a pouch heavy with coin and casually ordering food and drink for an entire table was rarer still.
Around the fishermen, shoulders began to loosen. Their suspicion did not disappear entirely, but generosity had a way of softening men, especially when money was scarce and the next decent meal could not always be taken for granted.
"Well now," one of them said, scratching slowly at his beard. "You're a generous sort."
Another fisherman leaned back and studied the stranger more openly than before.
"Who are you, anyway?" he asked. "We don't often get strangers coming in here looking to drown their troubles with the rest of us."
The stranger smiled faintly.
"Well, if you're curious, the name's Captain Jack Ashcroft. Jack will do."
He let that settle for a moment before adding, with a touch of unmistakable pride, "Scottish, by the way."
That earned a few approving grunts.
"A Scot, eh?" one fisherman said. "Don't see many of your kind around here."
Another gave a quiet snort. "So what brings a Scottish captain all the way out here? Lose your ship or something?"
Jack's smile remained.
"Aye," he said easily. "Black Pearl. Went down not long ago."
He gave a small shrug, as though discussing nothing more serious than bad weather.
"Think I might've been one of the first merchant captains in this war to lose his ship, truth be told. Bit of an achievement when you look at it that way."
He said it far too lightly for a man speaking about the destruction of his livelihood.
One of the fishermen scowled.
"Damn German Huns. What gives them the right? Sinking ships, ruining men—"
"If they'd stayed out of Belgium," another muttered, "none of this would've happened in the first place."
A low murmur of agreement travelled around the table.
Jack did not challenge them immediately. He simply listened, allowing the complaints to run their course until the men had settled comfortably into their anger.
Then he gave a quiet chuckle.
"Hah. You're a passionate lot, I'll give you that. Not much love for Germany around this table."
A few of them looked toward him.
Jack leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms upon the table. His voice remained easy, almost conversational, though something more deliberate now lay beneath it.
"But tell me something, lads. Why is any of it our problem?"
That caught them off guard.
One fisherman frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"Belgium," Jack said. "This whole bloody war. Why are we fighting for the Belgians in the first place? And alongside the French... and the Russians, of all people?"
He let the question hang for a moment before giving a faint shake of his head. "Haven't we spent half of history fighting one lot or another of them?"
The fishermen shifted in their seats. It was not the sort of question the newspapers tended to ask, and for a moment none of them seemed quite certain how to answer it.
"Well..." one began at last, frowning. "The Germans attacked first, didn't they?"
"Aye," Jack replied easily. "That's what you've been told."
That brought an uncomfortable silence.
Jack watched them carefully, but there was no challenge in his expression. If anything, he looked genuinely curious.
"But suppose that's true," he continued. "Why does it matter to us if those nations want to tear one another apart? What do we gain from it? Why should men here suffer for whatever quarrel France, Russia and Germany have worked themselves into?"
Nobody answered.
Jack nodded toward the fishermen around him. "Why should Irishmen lose their boats, their nets and their livelihoods because somebody in Belgium has gone to war? Why should your sons be sent across the sea to fight for people they've never met?"
He paused before adding more quietly, "And why should Scotsmen?"
That landed differently.
"Why should any of us?"
The silence around the table deepened, not because Jack had proved anything, but because he had asked questions for which none of the men possessed an immediate answer.
Then, almost casually, he changed direction.
"Any of you ever been to Norway?"
The fishermen shook their heads.
"Can't say I have," one muttered.
"Well, I have."
Jack leaned back slightly, his eyes taking on the distant look of a man remembering somewhere far away.
"Cold place. Quiet place. Fishermen much the same as you. Men go out in the morning, bring home their catch, sell it and feed their families. No armies marching through their villages. No sons being shipped across Europe to die in places they've never heard of."
He looked from one face to another.
"They call it neutrality. When the great powers start swinging at one another, Norway steps aside and lets them get on with it. Minds its own business."
Jack gave a small shrug.
"And somehow the country survives. Their fishermen aren't starving because somebody else's politicians have fallen out, and their sons aren't being buried over towns they couldn't find on a map."
He allowed the thought to settle before asking, more softly, "So I'll ask again. Why are we?"
One fisherman rubbed his hands together uneasily.
"For King and country," he muttered, though there was considerably less conviction in the words than there might have been an hour earlier.
A faint smile returned to Jack's face.
"And which country would that be?"
Nobody answered properly.
Jack merely nodded, as though their uncertainty had told him everything he needed.
"I'm not saying Germany is right," he said. "I'm not even saying she's wrong. I'm saying perhaps this was never our war to begin with."
The noise of the tavern seemed strangely distant now. Jack leaned forward again, forearms resting upon the table.
"Think about how it started. Serbia. A place none of you have ever seen. Russia involves itself, Germany backs Austria, France stands with Russia, and before long half the continent is reaching for a rifle."
He spread his hands.
"And somehow it ends with fishermen in Ireland losing their boats and young men from villages like this being told to cross the Channel and die."
His voice softened.
"Tell me honestly, lads. Could any one of you even point Serbia out on a map?"
The fishermen glanced at one another. One frowned as though trying to summon some half-remembered schoolroom map, but no answer came.
"Ever met a Serbian?"
Heads shook around the table.
"What about a Frenchman?"
That produced a little more hesitation. France, at least, was familiar. Everyone knew the name, knew that the French were now Britain's allies, and one fisherman even opened his mouth as though some distant memory had stirred. Yet after a moment his expression clouded. Perhaps the foreigner he remembered had been French, or Belgian, or Swiss. He could no longer say with any certainty.
Jack smiled faintly.
That, more than anything, made his point.
These were men who had lived simple lives in a remote corner of Ireland. Most had travelled no farther than neighbouring villages or the nearest market town, and foreigners were uncommon enough along this stretch of coast that a stranger still drew every eye in the tavern. The nations now filling newspapers and casualty lists existed for them largely as names upon maps, yet men such as these were being asked to suffer the consequences of decisions made hundreds or thousands of miles away by people they had never met.
"That's what I mean," Jack said. "You're being asked to fight for people you've never met against people you've never met. One lot are called your friends, the other are called monsters, and everyone expects you to accept it because somebody important printed it in a newspaper."
He leaned forward slightly.
"They tell you the Germans are Huns. Savages. Men who burn houses, murder children and drag women away. Fine. But how do you know? Have any of you ever met a German? Spoken with one? Seen Germany with your own eyes?"
No one answered.
Jack allowed the silence to work for him.
"Then how do you know who you're fighting?" he continued. "And more importantly, how do you know who you're fighting for? How do you know Belgium is right, Germany is wrong, and that all this suffering is somehow necessary?"
Several faces tightened. Jack could see that he had reached the edge of what they were prepared to entertain, and so he pressed no harder than he needed to.
"Because I'll tell you what I believe," he said. "Germany did not begin this war, and I don't believe Germany bears the blame for everything this war has become."
That landed differently.
Eyebrows rose around the table, and from somewhere behind Jack a nearby conversation seemed to quiet. A few men at neighbouring tables had begun listening as well.
One fisherman frowned. "You're sounding rather fond of the Germans."
"Aye," another added. "How would you know what they're really like?"
Jack smiled with easy confidence.
"Because I've seen them."
That changed the atmosphere immediately.
"You've been to Germany?"
"Aye. Not long ago either. Norway first, then Sweden, Denmark, and finally Germany. I've seen them all."
His expression shifted almost imperceptibly as the memories returned.
"And I'll tell you something plainly. Germany isn't the place you've been taught to imagine."
The fishermen leaned a little closer.
"Their people aren't starving. They're not scraping together pennies wondering whether supper will stretch until tomorrow. Their streets are clean, their towns orderly, their people well fed. And those without homes aren't simply left to rot in the gutter; the Churches of the New Dawn shelter them and make certain they have somewhere to sleep."
Jack glanced deliberately around the tavern, taking in the worn coats, tired faces and hands roughened by years of work.
"You look at their men and you don't see people worn down before their time. You see pride. Straight backs. Broad shoulders. Healthy, youthful faces. Men who look as though their country expects something from them and, in return, actually gives them something worth being proud of."
He gave a faint laugh.
"They've even got these enormous training halls—Pump World, they call them—where ordinary people go to exercise. Half the men inside look like those old Greek statues you see in books. I've met fellows there built like bloody giants, and I'm hardly a small man myself. Still wouldn't fancy angering some of them."
That earned a few sceptical looks.
Then Jack's grin returned.
"And the women..."
That brought immediate interest.
"You've never seen the like."
A couple of fishermen smiled despite themselves.
"Beautiful," Jack said. "Healthy. Well dressed. Walking through their cities laughing as though the streets belong to them. None of them looking half-starved or frightened of their own shadows. Their clothes are lighter, bolder. They don't bury themselves beneath half a wardrobe merely because someone decided a woman ought to be ashamed of being seen. They train as well, many of them, and take the same sort of pride in their bodies that the men do."
A low chuckle went around the table.
Jack leaned closer.
"And I met their royal family."
That quieted them.
"Even had one of their princesses sitting on my lap."
The amusement vanished into disbelief.
"A real princess? On your lap?"
Jack smirked.
"Aye. Though that particular meeting ended with her knocking me unconscious with the most powerful slap I've ever received."
The fishermen stared at him.
Jack's crooked grin broadened.
"And before you laugh, I deserved it."
That finally drew a few laughs from the table.
"We started roughly enough," he continued, "but I'll tell you this: she's the sort of woman who can make a man forget whatever clever thing he'd planned to say."
His gaze drifted slightly as Tanya returned to his thoughts.
"Tiny little thing. Golden hair, blue eyes. Beautiful enough to make you wonder whether God was showing off when He made her. Small waist, strong legs, curves exactly where a man hopes to find them, and such a sweet little face that your first instinct is to think she ought to be protected from the world."
Jack's smile became knowingly rueful.
"That's the dangerous part, because she doesn't need protecting."
The men leaned closer.
"She hits like a bloody hammer, for one thing. But once you actually speak with her, hear her laugh and listen to the way she talks about the world, you realise there is real heart beneath all of it. She cares about her family, certainly, but also about ordinary people in the Empire and even beyond it. And she has the means to do something about that."
Jack paused, choosing his words more carefully.
"Their children attend schools alongside ordinary children. They work among their own people. They don't spend every waking hour hiding behind palace walls pretending they're made of some finer substance than everyone else."
Then his expression changed slightly.
"Though I'll tell you something else. The ones who share the blood of the Iron Prince..." He shook his head. "There's something about them. Something difficult to put into words."
The humour faded from his voice.
"But it isn't only the House of Iron. It isn't even only the people. It's everything."
He gestured toward the world beyond the tavern.
"Their roads are smooth and black instead of disappearing into mud whenever the weather turns. Motorcars everywhere. Beautiful double-decker buses that ordinary Germans can ride without paying. Trains that run when they're meant to run. Modern houses that look as though they'll still be standing when our grandchildren are old."
The fishermen listened with growing disbelief.
"They've parks where fruit and berries grow openly for people to take. You can walk past, reach down and eat. Food in plenty. Work everywhere. Industry on a scale you wouldn't believe."
Jack let his gaze travel around the tavern once more, over smoke-darkened beams, worn furniture and the tired people gathered beneath them.
"Which brings me to a question."
His eyes settled upon the fishermen.
"Do you honestly believe a country like that is desperate to come here and steal this?"
He gestured around them.
The tavern. The patched clothing. The exhausted faces. The poverty none of them needed explained.
"They've nothing to gain from your fishing village," Jack said. "Nothing from your nets. Nothing from your cottages. Germany has already built something richer than anything we're being told we're defending."
One fisherman shifted uneasily.
"That so?"
"Aye."
Jack nodded.
"So ask yourself what Germany wants with men already struggling to feed their families, roads that disappear into mud every winter and livelihoods hanging upon whether the sea is kind enough to let you work tomorrow."
He waited, but no answer came.
"This war isn't about you," he said quietly. "It never was."
Jack leaned forward again, lowering his voice enough that the men instinctively leaned toward him.
"And if Germany has no reason to come here, why are we so eager to go there? Why are we expected to die defending people whose quarrels, motives and countries most of us barely know?"
No one answered, and that was what Jack had been waiting for. Not agreement, but doubt. Once a man began asking the question himself, Jack no longer needed to force it upon him.
"The answer's simple enough," he said.
One finger tapped the tabletop.
"Downing Street."
Their attention returned fully to him.
"Men in London sitting warm and well fed, talking about honour and duty while people like you pay the price. They tell you it's for Belgium. For justice. For civilisation."
Jack gave a small shrug.
"And perhaps some of them even believe it. But what do you receive in return?"
He looked around the table.
"How many wars have men from these islands already been sent to fight? Crimea against the Russians. South Africa against the Boers. God knows how many others across the Empire. And after all of it, tell me honestly—what did any of those wars leave behind for fishermen on the west coast of Ireland?"
Nobody spoke.
"Nothing," Jack said for them. "Because whatever this war is truly about, it isn't being fought for the benefit of men like you."
His tone remained calm, but something firmer entered it now.
"The newspapers tell you what they need you to hear. Politicians give speeches about duty because duty sounds finer than saying they need another hundred thousand young men willing to walk into a recruiting office."
A faint smirk touched his mouth.
"They lie the way husbands sometimes lie to their wives—to keep everything peaceful and everyone satisfied long enough to avoid the argument."
That earned a few knowing smiles.
Jack's expression then grew serious.
"And I say we're worth more than that."
He looked around the table.
"My people, the Scots, deserve better than being dragged into every quarrel London decides belongs to us. And yours deserve better as well."
He paused, letting his gaze rest upon each fisherman in turn.
"You deserve rulers who actually know you. Leaders whose first concern is whether your children eat, whether your boats sail, whether your roads are worth walking and whether the work of your hands leaves something behind for your families."
Jack's voice dropped.
"You deserve a country that feeds you instead of bleeding you."
Nobody spoke.
Jack could feel the change now. They were not his followers—not yet—but they were willing to hear what came next, and for the first time that evening they were looking at him not merely as an entertaining stranger, but as a man who might actually have something worth saying.
So he allowed the pressure to ease.
"Now," he said, almost casually, "suppose I told you there was a way forward. Not merely something to complain about over a pint, but a path we might actually walk together. Something real. Something that could leave us better off than we are now."
One fisherman frowned with interest.
"What sort of path?"
Jack rested both hands upon the table and smiled.
"The sort that begins with a plan."
He glanced around at them.
"So tell me, lads. Would you like to hear it?"
This time no answer was necessary. The fishermen leaned closer almost together, curiosity having finally overtaken suspicion.
Jack's smile broadened.
"Ah—but before that, gentlemen, we eat."
As though summoned by the words, food began arriving from the kitchen. Bowls of thick porridge, potatoes, fresh bread, plates of meat and new tankards of ale crowded the table until scarcely any bare wood remained. It was simple fare, nothing that would have impressed a wealthy man, but to fishermen who had spent weeks counting every penny it looked almost luxurious.
Jack joined them without ceremony, tearing bread, drinking ale and talking easily while empty stomachs filled and guarded expressions softened. Before long laughter returned to the table.
The three young women who had watched him since his arrival eventually gathered enough courage to approach, curiosity overcoming whatever pride his earlier neglect had wounded. They asked whether there might be room for them as well, and Jack welcomed them readily. Chairs were pulled closer, plates shared, introductions made, and the little circle widened.
Others noticed.
A man at the neighbouring table turned his chair so he could hear more clearly. Another wandered over carrying his drink. Someone farther back asked what the Scottish stranger had been saying. Jack watched the four fishermen sharing bread and meat with the young women, their earlier gloom temporarily forgotten, and allowed himself a quiet smile.
He had them.
Not every person in the tavern would follow him, and Jack was not foolish enough to expect that. But they were listening now. They were curious. More importantly, they had begun questioning things which only an hour earlier they had accepted without much thought.
For a beginning, that was enough.
The first seed had been planted.
Jack did not reveal his plan immediately. He ate with them, drank with them and allowed the evening to become pleasant. There would be time later, once stomachs were full and strangers had begun to feel like companions, to speak of organisation, weapons and the extraordinary future Germany had placed before him.
Nor was Jack alone in sowing such seeds.
Along the western coast of Ireland, other men—and a smaller number of women—chosen and supplied by Germany had begun similar work. Some moved through taverns, fishing villages and farming communities where hardship made people more willing to listen. Others relied upon nationalist connections, family ties, money, promises or simply old hatred of British rule. Their methods differed, but the principle remained the same: find dissatisfaction where it already existed and quietly give it direction.
Yet Ireland itself was not moving in only one direction.
Recruiting offices elsewhere continued receiving volunteers, including Irishmen who viewed service in the war not as submission to Britain but as an opportunity for Ireland. Some nationalist leaders argued that loyalty shown during Britain's hour of need could strengthen the demand for self-government once the war ended, and many ordinary men believed that serving now might help purchase greater freedom later.
And so, while Jack and Germany's other agents quietly gathered those willing to imagine one future, other Irishmen pulled on British uniforms believing they were working toward another version of the same thing.
For the moment, both currents flowed quietly beside one another.
Neither yet knew what the other would become.