The Canal Bridge: A Novel of Ireland, Love, and the First World War

by Tom Phelan

  “King’s Clothing Tattered at Somme,” as one newspaper imperiously put it, trying to put a brave face on a terrible man-made disaster, trying to cover up the monstrous failure of leadership. And behind the headline of the tattered clothing was the image of the king and the Kaiser—two haughty, arrogant, self-centred, removed men sitting on horseback—tearing at each other’s clothing by sending their own children out to play in their war games, sitting there overseeing a hunt in a Bavarian forest on a Sunday afternoon, each waiting until the other had no children left to die. I read everything about the War to keep myself prepared; I wouldn’t be clattered straight in the face when the bad news came. My tactic didn’t insulate me against the grief, but it buffered me against total breakdown when I saw Lionel’s envelope in Paul Bolger’s hand, Paul already weeping for me, not able to look at my face. When I put my hand on his shoulder, Paul may have thought I was comforting him but I was only trying to stay on my feet.

  Jackdempsey came between me and the sun, raised his tail into the familiar pre-relief arc, and unloaded himself of twenty pounds of processed grass. There should have been steam, there should have been that fresh smell that can sometimes sink into the lowest, tiniest pockets of the lungs, but if there was steam and if there was smell, neither registered with me. Jackdempsey moved away, and the moment the sun touched me, I went off again into my bubbling memory, looked at whatever came to the surface.

  “Officers are the last to get killed,” Kitty said whenever I mentioned Lionel. Our Lionel had been in the Officers’ Training Corps when he’d been in Trinity, and in August 1914 he was a reserve officer. His regiment was already on the move to Europe while most of the world was still looking for Sarajevo in tattered school atlases. He was meeting up with the Old Contemptibles in their retreat from Mons, while Matthias and Con were disembarking at a rainy Boulogne, when they should have been near to stepping off their ship in a sunny Bombay.

  “Oh, Missus Hodgkins. Sarah’s taking care of wounded soldiers. Nothing bad can ever happen to her. It would be too unfair. And as well as that, she has a red cross on her white smock.” Kitty spoke these fairy-tale thoughts when she knew I was worried about our Sarah. Sometimes there was impatience in my responses. “Red crosses are not miraculous medals, Kitty. Sarah may have a red cross on her white smock, but blind machines throwing bombs over the horizon can’t see red crosses on white smocks.”

  Catholics were always passing around stories of lives being saved in France and Belgium by miraculous medals deflecting bullets. Catholics believe in many strange things. Miraculous medals! Who thinks up these things? Medal-makers maybe, when the medal business is slow, when there are no wars and the generals have no need of medals for all types of stupid behaviour. What is it about soldiers and their medals? Medals and marbles! “I have more marbles than you.” “I have more medals than you.” Even when the wounded and shell-shocked young men began turning up in Ballyrannel before the War was even half over, Kitty kept her eyes closed, refused to believe in the possibility that Matthias or Con could be wounded or killed.

  Even when Con’s death-letter came, when her house was full of the worst kind of grief, she still fiercely held on to her belief that Matthias would be restored whole to her. He was, after all, “Le Pimpernel irlandais” with the stretcher, Monsieur Wrenn. And then for Matthias to come home—to skip untouched out of that grinder, to walk unscathed out of Europe when around him eight million young men had been wantonly slaughtered—was Kitty’s triumph. She had endured the War her way, and she had got Matthias back. I had endured the War my way, and I had bent before the terrible fierceness of the death of one child and the insanity of the other.

  In the tall grass I didn’t know if I’d had my eyes closed for a time, didn’t know whether I’d been lying there for two minutes or two hours. I still felt no need to get up and look for the horse. The stalks of grass stood erect all around the edge of my body in the shape of a coffin, narrow at the feet and widening out as they came up to the shoulders. I thought about the jam I was bringing for Kitty’s high tea in the afternoon—the previous autumn, Kitty herself had made the jam, her swollen belly touching the edge of the range as she stirred the boiling pot.

  And why had Matthias survived and our Lionel …? I had been driving that selfish question from my mind ever since Lionel’s letter came. And suddenly he was there, my Lionel, standing there looking down at me. “Oh, Lionel. Oh, my Lionel,” I cried out. But when he came down out of the blue sky onto his hunkers, it was Matthias. He said my name and put his hand on my forehead. He whispered, said he’d be back, and I felt myself slipping away.

  When I came back it was Sarah who had her hand on my forehead. “Mama,” she whispered. She put one hand each side of my body and leaned in over me. “Mama, you’ve had a fall. Are you in pain?”

  “No pain at all, Sarah,” I said, thought I said, because she spoke again as if she hadn’t heard me.

  “Mama, can you hear me?”

  I said, “Of course I can hear you, Sarah. Why are you whispering?”

  “Mama, I want you to do something for me. Shut your eyes for a second.”

  I went along with her, closed and opened my eyes.

  “Mama, shut your eyes once if you have any pain. Close them twice if the answer is no.”

  Twenty years, I thought, twenty years ago I was lying on my back on a Scottish blanket on the mown grass in the garden with Sarah astride my chest. She was examining my face, telling me to move my nose, close one eye, purse my lips, move my eyebrows, wiggle my ears, wrinkle my forehead. She looked into my ears, looked up my nostrils, felt my teeth with her little fingers, asked about the red drop at the back of my mouth. And here she was, playing her little-girl game again. I played along and closed my eyes twice. Sarah smiled and I fell asleep, couldn’t keep my eyes open all of a sudden. And then I heard someone calling me from far away, calling and calling. And when I opened my eyes, Lionel was there above my face, but it was Phillip Sutton, the doctor I couldn’t call “Doctor” because he was too young and we’d known his family before he was born.

  He turned his head and said, “Do it again, Sarah.” He turned back to me and said, “Did you feel that, Missus Hodgkins?”

  “Feel what?” I asked him. “Are you playing too?”

  “You’ve had a fall, Missus Hodgkins. Jackdempsey came home and we’ve been out looking for you. Matt has a board, and we’re going to slide it under you in case you have broken bones.”

  Kneeling on one side of me, Phillip and Sarah held me from moving while Matthias grunted and pushed the board under me. I was glad I was wearing my jodhpurs. I didn’t want Matthias and Phillip, nor Sarah even, seeing what an older woman doesn’t want anyone to see, even her husband.

  They tied me onto the board like I was a shot deer. Matthias and Sarah carried, Sarah at my feet looking at me. Phillip, MD, walked beside the stretcher holding my hand.

  The board was as comfortable as the grass. When Matthias and Sarah got their rhythm down I swayed gently from side to side and I was in the swing in the apple tree in Daddy’s garden, that lolling time, after an hour of high soaring, when the swing takes forever to come to a stop, the bright sun squinting through the tiny gaps in the leafy boughs above. Through the fields of Enderly they carried me, and I thought it was ironic that the War stretcher-bearer and the War VAD were carrying one more casualty home. And then I tried to call Matt to tell him the joke I’d just thought up: Wasn’t it a good job I was all in one piece when he found me, otherwise he would have sung in my ear and slipped Knifey in between my ribs. Then I thought, Dear God, that’s not funny, not funny at all—what are you thinking, woman? When I came to again, I wasn’t swinging under the apple tree anymore. It took several seconds to recognize my own room from my own bed because there was no pillow and I was looking straight up.

  “Mama, you’re home in your bed,” Sarah whispered. “Mama, I want you to do something for me. If you can hear me, blink your eyes.”

  I d
ecided if I pretended not to hear her, she might speak louder.

  “Mama, I’ll speak louder. Now can you hear me? Blink if you can.”

  I blinked.

  I blinked and it dawned on me that when I’d been speaking no one was hearing me; Sarah was asking me to move my eyelids because that was all I could move; Sarah hadn’t been whispering—it was me, my hearing was damaged. Sarah was probably shouting. I wasn’t alarmed at all.

  “Mama, you’ve been hurt. I’m going to ask you a question. Blink once if the answer is yes. Blink twice if the answer is no. The question is, can you feel any pain?”

  I blinked twice.

  “Mama, Phillip Sutton’s here. He’s going to talk to you.”

  I don’t know how long I went away, dreamed about the birth of Lionel, saw him for the first time, wrapped in a towel and he as ugly as any newborn baby, face all scrunched up after being pulled through the tunnel too small for his head. I held up my hands to take him and the doctor said, “Missus Hodgkins, open your eyes for me.” And opening my eyes was laborious because Lionel was within inches of my fingertips, my son was coming into my arms for the first time. “Missus Hodgkins, please try to open your eyes.”

  “My eyes are open,” I said.

  “Mama, it’s me, Sarah. Please open your eyes for Phillip.”

  I saw the ceiling above my face. The palm of a hand moved before my eyes.

  “Missus Hodgkins, this is Phillip. It’s very important that you try to stay with us for a few minutes. Blink once if you can hear me.”

  I blinked and told him I was getting too tired to do much more blinking. “Missus Hodgkins, you have suffered an injury and I need you to stay awake to tell me some things. Answer yes with one blink, no with two blinks. Do you have any feeling in your body?”

  One blink for yes, two for no. I blinked twice.

  “Is there any way we can make you more comfortable?”

  “I would like my pillow under my head to help me see the photograph in the silver frame on the far wall. But don’t bother— you can’t hear me and, anyhow, I know the picture so well I can see it without looking. Lionel’s on David’s knee, Sarah on mine. David in his Sunday tweeds, me in the dark blue velvet dress Mama gave me when I got married, white lace collar. My travelling dress, Mama called it. Lionel’s in his first suit made by Miss Bowe, complete with peaked cap with cloth button on top. Sarah is all white, except for her shoes, and Poor Meg tied the bow on her ribbon. The picture was taken years before the War damaged us all. But look, David; look, Lionel!—Sarah came back from the War and the sadness is fading out of the silver frame.”

  “Missus Hodgkins, please try to keep your eyes open.”

  “Oh, Mama, oh Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama.”

  “Missus Hodgkins, can you feel this?”

  “Missus Hodgkins?”

  “Oh, Mama, Mama. Don’t go, Mama. Don’t go, Mama.”

  Sarah Hodgkins

  On the first anniversary of Mama’s death I was on the second page of a letter to Phillip when I heard loud knocking, as if someone was using the knob of an ashplant on the wicket gate. Kitty must have heard the noise too. As I stepped out through the back door of our house, she opened the front door of the cottage and the light behind her gave shape to Cornelia on her hip.

  It was one of those November nights with a cloud-storm high in the moonlit sky and not a breeze stirring on the ground. It wasn’t cold enough for a topcoat if you didn’t mean to stay out too long. I love those nights with the moon charging into huge cliffs and black cloud-mountains and then, brighter than ever, blindingly emerging at the other side to send bursts of yellow across the calm world below and the storming clouds above. It was eight o’clock and the sound of knocking at the wicket gate at that hour could only be the sound of trouble.

  As I headed along the noisy gravel path toward the gate, Kitty called softly from her open door. “Matthias is in the Machine Shed, Sarah. I’m going to get him.”

  I hesitated. Kitty whispered, “I think you should wait till Matt comes before you open the gate.”

  “All right, Kitty,” I whispered back, and wondered why we were whispering. “You get Matthias and I’ll call to see who’s there.”

  I was surprised when Kitty ran—sprinted—toward the shed, Cornelia clutched to her side under her breast. Her quick footsteps sent a shot of anxiety across my heart. Before I reached the wicket gate I heard her calling Matthias, and the tension in her voice made me hesitate several steps away from the wicket gate. I aimed my voice at the top of the wall. “Who’s there?” I called.

  The moon charged out from behind a cloud and lit up the world with its mysterious light that gives shape to things rather than illuminating them. There were low voices on the other side of the wall, and then one clear voice broke loose. “It’s Johnjoe Lacy, Kitty. I’d like to talk to Matt.”

  “This is Sarah Hodgkins, Mister Lacy. Is something wrong?” I knew Mister Lacy by sight and, from Kitty’s gossip, I had gathered she didn’t like the Lacy man, was even wary of him. “I’ll get Matthias to open the gate for you.”

  “Miss Hodgkins,” Lacy said, and there were the sounds of scuffling feet on the other side of the wall. “Miss Hodgkins, I have a mare in trouble, and I was hoping I could get Matt quick to take out her foal.”

  My hand flew to my chest in fright because the shape of a man suddenly materialized on top of the wall directly above the wicket gate. And then, without hesitating, the shape jumped down and landed so close to me I could immediately smell animal dung and man sweat. I heard myself chirping like a startled robin. But I shrieked when he grabbed me by the wrist. He twisted my arm quickly, and I had no choice but to allow my body to save itself from broken bones by spinning around until my back was against his smelly body. With no hesitation he put his free hand around me, felt my breasts quickly, and then tried to force his hand between my thighs. I bent forward from the waist and cried out, struggled against his iron arms.

  “Matthias! Matthias!” I screamed. But the man behind me pulled me into himself and put a hand over my mouth. He pulled my head back onto his shoulder and with the other hand grasped at my breasts again. My feet were almost off the ground. From the far side of the wall came a shout. “Do ya have her or what?”

  “I have her all right,” the man holding me grunted. He had pushed his hand down inside my clothes and roughly groped his way around my chest. He jerked his pelvis into me from behind.

  “Then open the fecken gate, will ya?”

  “I’m trying to but she’s fighting like a hure.” He dragged me over to the gate. He pulled his hand out of my blouse and pulled up my skirt, pushed his hand inside my drawers. The feel of his hand on my bare belly did something to my body. I kicked backwards at his shins, stomped on his toes with my heels, and when his hand came off my mouth, I screamed again, “Matthias! Matthias!” The hand came out of my clothes.

  Kicking and screaming, I was held as the man slid the flat iron bar out of the hole in the wall. The gate burst inward, and several men came staggering in as if they’d been pushing from the outside. And at the same instant the hands of the man holding me lost their grip and fell away.

  It seemed I’d been panting since I’d been grabbed. I bent over to catch my breath, felt the pounding blood in my head bringing me to the edge of a blackout, and in the instant before my frozen muscles thawed, I saw the flaming girls staggering out of the flaming tent, falling down over each other, saw myself frozen like a wooden statue gaping at them. I stumbled backward and would have fallen if strong hands had not caught me and held me steady. I smelled Matthias and turned around, buried my head in his chest, tried to burrow my way out of the present, so I could escape whatever it was that had just been played out in the moonlight.

  I felt the sound of Matthias’s voice inside his chest. Then there was a hand on my shoulder gently pressuring me to go with it. It was Kitty. Still clutching Cornelia to her hip, she moved me away from Matthias. We only went a few steps.


  I was very aware of Kitty’s hand as it left my elbow and went protectively around my shoulders. The moon was gone and I couldn’t see anyone, but my wits began to fall back into place. I adjusted my blouse, felt for the buttons, but only found one near the top. Then my fingers found that the hem of my skirt was stuck into the top of my drawers at the front. I spat on my sleeve and rubbed it obsessively around my lips and nose where the smelly hand had been.

  The moon lit up the shapes of the world, and I slipped my arm around Kitty’s waist.

  Matthias, Kitty and myself, standing almost shoulder to shoulder, were facing the wicket gate. A cluster of men were standing with their backs to the opening in the wall. Shadows emerged out of shadows and, out of the cluster of intruders, five men took shape.

  Everyone stood silently, as if all were waiting for the next thing to happen.

  “There was no need to hit him so hard, Matthias,” Johnjoe Lacy said, and he knelt on one knee. The shape of a man lying on the ground emerged.

  “What should I have done, Mister Lacy?” Matthias asked. “Stand by while he raped Miss Hodgkins, and then say excuse me, sir, but that’s not a nice thing to do?” I had not heard such hardness in Matthias’s voice before, had not even suspected he was capable of such hardness.

  “He wasn’t the raping kind, Matthias,” Johnjoe Lacy said.

  “No more than you’re the burning kind, Mister Lacy,” Matthias said. “He was raping her with his fingers, had his hands all over her.” The remark about the “burning kind” went straight over my head.