‘What would you do?’ asked Donovan.
‘I’d go with him wherever he was going, of course. Share my last bob with him and stick by him through thick and thin. No one can ever say of me that I let down a pal.’
‘We had enough of this,’ said Jeremiah Donovan, cocking his revolver. ‘Is there any message you want to send?’
‘No, there isn’t.’
‘Do you want to say your prayers?’
Hawkins came out with a cold-blooded remark that even shocked me and turned on Noble again.
‘Listen to me, Noble,’ he said. ‘You and me are chums. You can’t come over to my side, so I’ll come over to your side. That show you I mean what I say? Give me a rifle and I’ll go along with you and the other lads.’
Nobody answered him. We knew that was no way out.
‘Hear what I’m saying?’ he said. ‘I’m through with it. I’m a deserter or anything else you like. I don’t believe in your stuff, but it’s no worse than mine. That satisfy you?’
Noble raised his head, but Donovan began to speak and he lowered it again without replying.
‘For the last time, have you any messages to send?’ said Donovan in a cold, excited sort of voice.
‘Shut up, Donovan! You don’t understand me, but these lads do. They’re not the sort to make a pal and kill a pal. They’re not the tools of any capitalist.’
I alone of the crowd saw Donovan raise his Webley to the back of Hawkins’s neck, and as he did so I shut my eyes and tried to pray. Hawkins had begun to say something else when Donovan fired, and as I opened my eyes at the bang, I saw Hawkins stagger at the knees and lie out flat at Noble’s feet, slowly and as quiet as a kid falling asleep, with the lantern-light on his lean legs and bright farmer’s boots. We all stood very still, watching him settle out in the last agony.
Then Belcher took out a handkerchief and began to tie it about his own eyes (in our excitement we’d forgotten to do the same for Hawkins), and, seeing it wasn’t big enough, turned and asked for the loan of mine. I gave it to him and he knotted the two together and pointed with his foot at Hawkins.
‘He’s not quite dead,’ he said. ‘Better give him another.’
Sure enough, Hawkins’s left knee was beginning to rise. I bent down and put my gun to his head; then, recollecting myself, I got up again. Belcher understood what was in my mind.
‘Give him his first,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind. Poor bastard, we don’t know what’s happening to him now.’
I knelt and fired. By this time I didn’t seem to know what I was doing. Belcher, who was fumbling a bit awkwardly with the handkerchiefs, came out with a laugh as he heard the shot. It was the first time I had heard him laugh and it sent a shudder down my back; it sounded so unnatural.
‘Poor bugger!’ he said quietly. ‘And last night he was so curious about it all. It’s very queer, chums, I always think. Now he knows as much about it as they’ll ever let him know, and last night he was all in the dark.’
Donovan helped him to tie the handkerchiefs about his eyes. ‘Thanks, chum,’ he said. Donovan asked if there were any messages he wanted sent.
‘No, chum,’ he said. ‘Not for me. If any of you would like to write to Hawkins’s mother, you’ll find a letter from her in his pocket. He and his mother were great chums. But my missus left me eight years ago. Went away with another fellow and took the kid with her. I like the feeling of a home, as you may have noticed, but I couldn’t start another again after that.’
It was an extraordinary thing, but in those few minutes Belcher said more than in all the weeks before. It was just as if the sound of the shot had started a flood of talk in him and he could go on the whole night like that, quite happily, talking about himself. We stood around like fools now that he couldn’t see us any longer. Donovan looked at Noble, and Noble shook his head. Then Donovan raised his Webley, and at that moment Belcher gave his queer laugh again. He may have thought we were talking about him, or perhaps he noticed the same thing I’d noticed and couldn’t understand it.
‘Excuse me, chums,’ he said. ‘I feel I’m talking the hell of a lot, and so silly, about my being so handy about a house and things like that. But this thing came on me suddenly. You’ll forgive me, I’m sure.’
‘You don’t want to say a prayer?’ asked Donovan.
‘No, chum,’ he said. ‘I don’t think it would help. I’m ready, and you boys want to get it over.’
‘You understand that we’re only doing our duty?’ said Donovan.
Belcher’s head was raised like a blind man’s, so that you could only see his chin and the top of his nose in the lantern-light.
‘I never could make out what duty was myself,’ he said. ‘I think you’re all good lads, if that’s what you mean. I’m not complaining.’
Noble, just as if he couldn’t bear any more of it, raised his fist at Donovan, and in a flash Donovan raised his gun and fired. The big man went over like a sack of meal, and this time there was no need of a second shot.
I don’t remember much about the burying, but that it was worse than all the rest because we had to carry them to the grave. It was all mad lonely with nothing but a patch of lantern-light between ourselves and the dark, and birds hooting and screeching all round, disturbed by the guns. Noble went through Hawkins’s belongings to find the letter from his mother, and then joined his hands together. He did the same with Belcher. Then, when we’d filled in the grave, we separated from Jeremiah Donovan and Feeney and took our tools back to the shed. All the way we didn’t speak a word. The kitchen was dark and cold as we’d left it, and the old woman was sitting over the hearth, saying her beads. We walked past her into the room, and Noble struck a match to light the lamp. She rose quietly and came to the doorway with all her cantankerousness gone.
‘What did ye do with them?’ she asked in a whisper, and Noble started so that the match went out in his hand.
‘What’s that?’ he asked without turning round.
‘I heard ye,’ she said.
‘What did you hear?’ asked Noble.
‘I heard ye. Do ye think I didn’t hear ye, putting the spade back in the houseen?’
Noble struck another match and this time the lamp lit for him.
‘Was that what ye did to them?’ she asked.
Then, by God, in the very doorway, she fell on her knees and began praying, and after looking at her for a minute or two Noble did the same by the fireplace. I pushed my way out past her and left them at it. I stood at the door, watching the stars and listening to the shrieking of the birds dying out over the bogs. It is so strange what you feel at times like that that you can’t describe it. Noble says he saw everything ten times the size, as though there were nothing in the whole world but that little patch of bog with the two Englishmen stiffening into it, but with me it was as if the patch of bog where the Englishmen were was a million miles away, and even Noble and the old woman, mumbling behind me, and the birds and the bloody stars were all far away, and I was somehow very small and very lost and lonely like a child astray in the snow. And anything that happened to me afterwards, I never felt the same about again.
Machine-Gun Corps in Action
1
When Sean Nelson and I were looking for a quiet spot in the hills for the brigade printing press we thought of Kilvara, one of the quietest of all the mountain hamlets we knew. And as we drove down the narrow road into it, we heard the most ferocious devil’s fusilade of machine-gun fire we had heard since the troubles began.
Nelson slipped the safety-catch of his rifle and I held the car at a crawl. Not that we could see anything or anybody. The firing was as heavy as ever, but no bullet seemed to come near us, and for miles around the vast, bleak, ever-changing screen of hillside with its few specks of cottages was as empty as before.
We seemed to be in the very heart of the invisible battle when suddenly the firing ceased and a little ragged figure – looking, oh, so unspectacular against that background of eternal fort
itude – detached itself from behind a hillock, dusted its knees, shouldered a strange-looking machine-gun, and came towards us. It hailed us and signalled us to stop. I pulled up the car, and Nelson lowered his rifle significantly. The little ragged figure looked harmless enough, God knows, and we both had the shyness of unprofessional soldiers.
What we saw was a wild, very under-sized cityman, dressed in an outworn check suit, a pair of musical-comedy tramp’s brogues, and a cap which did no more than half conceal his shock of dirty yellow hair. As he came towards us he produced the butt-end of a cigarette, hung it from one corner of his mouth, struck a match upon his boot-sole without pausing in his stride, and carelessly flicked the light across his lips. Then, as he accosted us, he let out a long grey stream of smoke through his nostrils.
‘Comrades,’ he said companionably. ‘Direct me to Jo Kenefick’s column, eh? Doing much fighting your end of the line? I’m all the way from Waterford, pure Cork otherwise.’
‘Yeh?’ we asked in astonishment, though not at the second clause of his statement, of the truth of which his accent left no room for doubt. He knew as much.
‘Sure,’ he replied, ‘sure, sir. You have a look at my boots. All the way without as much as a lift. Couldn’t risk that with the baby. Been doing a bit of practice now to keep my hand in.’
‘It sounded quite professional to me,’ said Nelson mildly.
‘Ah!’ The little man shook his head. ‘Amateur, amateur, but I must keep the old hand in. A beauty though, isn’t she? All I’ve left in the world now.’
He lovingly smoothed off some imaginary rust from his gun, which I took to be of foreign make. I bent out of the car to examine it, but he stepped back.
‘No, no. Don’t come near her. She’s a touchy dame. Guess how much I paid for her? Two pounds. The greatest bargain ever. Two pounds! I heard the Tommy offering it to my wife. By way of a joke, you know. So I said, “You lend me two pounds, old girl, and I’ll buy her.” Nearly died when she heard I wanted to buy a machine-gun. “Buy a machine-gun – a machine-gun – what use would a machine-gun be to her? Wouldn’t a mangle be more in her line?” So I said, “Cheerio, old girl, don’t get so huffy, a mangle may be a useful article, but it isn’t much fun, and anyway, this round is on me.” And I rose the money off an old Jew in the Marsh. So help me, God, amen. Wasn’t I right?’
‘And where are you off to now?’ asked Nelson.
‘You gentlemen will tell me that, I hope. Jo Kenefick’s column, that’s where I’m going. Know Tom Casey? No? Well, I served under Tom. He’ll tell you all about me, soldier.’
We directed him to Jo’s column, which we had left in a village a few miles down the valley.
‘You gentlemen wouldn’t have an old bob about you, I suppose?’ he asked dreamily, and seeing the answer in our eyes hurried on with, ‘No, no, of course you wouldn’t. Where would you get it? Hard times with us all these days.… Or a cigarette? I’m down to my last butt as you may see.’
Out of sheer pity we gave him three of the seven we had between us, and, in acknowledgment of the kindness, he showed us how he could wag both ears in imitation of a dog. It struck me that it was not the first time he had fallen on evil days. Then with a cheerful good-bye he left us, and we sat in the car watching his game, sprightly, dilapidated figure disappear over the mountains on its way to the column. After that we drove into Kilvara.
At the schoolmaster’s house we stopped to examine the old school which had been indicated as a likely headquarters for our press. There Nelson set himself to win round the schoolmaster’s daughter, a fine, tall, red-haired girl, who looked at us with open hostility. He succeeded so well that she invited us in to tea; but with the tea we had to win over the schoolmaster himself and his second daughter, a much more difficult job. Neither Nelson nor I could fathom what lay beneath their hostility; the family seemed to have no interest in politics outside the court and society column of the daily press; and it was not until the old teacher asked with a snarl whether we had heard firing as we came up that we began to see bottom.
‘Ah,’ said Nelson laughing, ‘you’re finished with the tramp.’
‘Are we, I wonder?’ asked the teacher grimly.
‘That man,’ said Nelson, ‘was the funniest thing I’ve seen for months.’
‘Funny?’ exclaimed the younger daughter flaring up. ‘I’m glad you think it fun!’
‘Well, what did he do to you, anyhow?’ asked Nelson irritably. Nelson was touchy about what he called the bourgeoisie.
‘Do you know,’ she asked angrily, ‘when my dad said he had no room for him here with two girls in the house, your “funny” friend took his trench mortar, and put it on a sort of camera stand in front of the hall door, and threatened to blow us all into eternity?’
‘The little rat!’ said Nelson. ‘And he actually wanted to stay here?’
‘Wanted to stay?’ said the daughters together. ‘Wanted to stay! Did he stay for a fortnight and the gun mounted all night on the chair beside his bed?’
‘Holy Lord God!’ said Nelson profanely, ‘and we without as much as a good pea-shooter on the armoured car!’
After this the story expanded to an almost incredible extent, for not alone did it concern Kilvara, but other places where the tramp’s activities had already become the stuff of legend.
‘He’ll behave himself when Jo Kenefick gets him,’ said Nelson grimly.
‘I tell you what, girls,’ he went on, ‘come back with us in the car and tell Jo Kenefick the story as you told it now.’
At this the girls blushed and giggled, but at last they agreed, and proceeded to ready themselves for the journey, the old schoolmaster meanwhile becoming more and more polite and even going to the trouble of explaining to us the half-dozen different reasons why we could not win the war.
I have no intention of describing the journey to Coolenagh and back under an autumn moon – though I can picture it very clearly: mountains and pools and misty, desolate ribbons of mountain road – for that is the story of how we almost retrieved the reputation of the Irish Republican Army in the little hamlet of Kilvara; but what I should like to describe is Jo Kenefick’s face when we (that is to say Sean and I, for we judged it unwise to lay Jo open to temptation) told the tale of the tramp’s misdeeds.
‘Mercy of God!’ said Jo, ‘Ye nabbed him and let him go again?’
‘But didn’t he arrive yet?’ asked Nelson.
‘Arrive?’ asked Jo. ‘Arrive where, tell me?’
‘Here, of course.’
‘Here?’ asked Jo with a sour scowl. ‘And I looking for him this fortnight to massacree him!’
‘Damn!’ said Nelson, seeing light.
‘It was great negligence in ye to let him go,’ said Jo severely. ‘And I wouldn’t mind at all but ye let the gun go too. Do you know I have seventy-five thousand rounds of that stuff in the dump, and he have the only gun in Ireland that will shoot it?’
‘He said he bought it for two pounds,’ said I.
‘He did,’ replied Jo. ‘He did. And my Q.M. came an hour after and bid fifty. It was an Italian gun not inventoried at all, and it was never looked for in the evacuation. Where did ye find him?’
We told him the exact spot in which we had last seen the gunner.
‘Be damn!’ said Jo, ‘I’ll send out a patrol on motor-bikes to catch him. That armoured car isn’t much use to me without a gun.’
But when we returned from our joy-ride at two o’clock the following morning – leaving, I hope, two happy maidens in the hills behind – the patrols were back without gunner or gun.
2
Three days later the gunner turned up – between two stalwart country boys with cocked Webleys. He was very downcast, and having explained to Jo Kenefick how he had been sent out of his way by two men answering to our description, he added, a moment after we had made our appearance, that he had been caught in a storm on the hills.
The same night it was decided to make amends for our previous in
action by attacking the nearest town, and that no later than the following morning. The men were hurriedly called together and the plans explained to them. The town was garrisoned by about forty soldiers and the armoured car, driven by me and manned by the tramp, was to prepare the way for the attack.
At dawn I stood in my overalls by the door of the armoured car and lectured the tramp. He was extremely nervous, and tapped the body at every point, looking for what he called leaks. I explained, as clearly as I could to a man who paid no attention to me, that his principal danger would be from inside, and showed him that my revolver was fully loaded to cope with emergencies.
We pulled out of the village and passed little groups of armed men converging on the town. I had to drive slowly, principally because it was impossible to get much speed out of the car, which was far too heavy for its chassis, and needed skilful negotiation, but partly because the lumbering old truck refused to work on reverse and, to avoid occasional detours of a few miles, I had to be careful to get my turns right.
Jo Kenefick, Sean Nelson and some others were waiting for us outside the town and gave us a few necessary directions; then we closed all apertures except that for the machine-gun and the shielded slit through which I watched the road immediately in front of me, and gave the old bus her head downhill. She slowed down of her own accord as we entered a level street the surface of which was far worse than any I had ever seen. As we drew near the spot where I thought the barrack should be I heard the tramp mumble something; I looked back and saw him fiercely sighting his gun; then the most deafening jumble of noise I have ever heard in my life began.
‘Slow! Slow!’ the tramp shouted, and I held her in as we lumbered down the main street, letting her rip again as we took a side-street that brought us back to the centre of the town. I knew that the enemy was in occupation of some half-dozen houses. Beyond this I knew nothing of what went on about me. The tramp shouted directions which I followed without question. ‘Slow!’ he cried when we were passing some occupied post, and two or three times he exclaimed that he had ‘got’ somebody. This was none of my business. I had enough to do at the wheel.
My Oedipus Complex Page 9