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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 hagency@online.no