by Roddy Doyle
We were put into cells and taken out. More roll-calls. The G-men strolled and took their pick. Hoey, the biggest bastard of the lot, pointed his finger. And MacDiarmada went. Never seen again. There were still snipers out there, refusing to surrender. Every distant shot brought khaki down on top of us. But something was happening to me; I was beginning to shake. I could feel my blood racing, starting to pull. I was being dragged away from the parade ground. By something I couldn’t see or hear. Something inside me.
—Name?
—O’Linn.
The G-man, a new one, stared at me. He knew me, but I didn’t care. There was something more urgent; I could feel it - water. Under me. Running under the barracks. And it was dragging me. Every bone I owned was bending towards it, quivering, promising to snap if I didn’t move.
—Smart, said the G-man.
And my blood was steaming now too, roaring, refusing to wait. I yelled; it was agony.
The G-man mistook my cry.
—Caught, he said.
—My hole, I said.
And I didn’t have to search for the manhole. I knew exactly where I ran. Across the parade ground, I was there without moving and I had my fingers in under the cover. A loose part of me remembered that there were other men and I forced myself to stop - my bones; I’d never known such pain - and I shouted.
—Come on, lads!
The cover came up for me like paper and I held it up, a shield against the bullets that were coming for me, and I walked backwards into the hole. I sent the cover spinning at the G-man.
And fell.
Into darkness and nothing. I fell and the pain left me and, just before I hit the water, in the second it took to fall, I caught the sweet smell of my father’s coat and I could feel his neck against my face as he held me to him, and I could hear Victor’s excited and terrified breath from the other side of my father.
Into the Camac River. I came up out of the water. The bridge it broke down and they all tumbled in. My legs could feel the bottom and my hands found a wall. We’ll go home be the water. I pushed myself, fell away from under the opening and the light that came through it. I fell into the water and let it take me away from the bullets that were churning the river. I could see nothing. Says Brian O’Linn. I went under - I had air enough to take me anywhere - and up. I used my legs and the current. I saw nothing and I could smell nothing except the water, sewer that it was. Right under Inchicore. And Golden-bridge. I knew exactly what was over me, where I was being brought. I saw light and the river rushed out into the day, but I knew that I was safe; weeds and overhanging branches hid me from harm. Past the Metropolitan Laundry. Suds and the washed-out shit of the filthy rich tore at my eyes but a hand I knew I could feel lifted my head, then lowered it into clean water and I was under again, in darkness. Light again, behind Kilmainham Gaol, tucked under the wall, and away. Back under the city. Bow Bridge and the Royal Hospital, under St John’s Road and I was in a sewer again and I felt fingers under my chin - safe safe safe - holding my mouth over the goo. Kingsbridge Station, right under the buffers, I could feel the locomotives, under all the rail-lines and ballast stones, and I was dropped into the Liffey. Opposite the munitions factory: I felt its burning sludge in my eyes as I swam back up to the surface.
I was on my own again. I could feel it through me; it was up to me and me only. Safe as long as I worked at it. I hugged the quay wall, in under any shadow or ledge that could hide me. Under Bloody Bridge, I created no foam, never kicked my legs. I let the retreating tide carry me. Victoria Quay, Usher’s Island. No faces looking down. Whitworth Bridge. No wheels or footsteps. Martial law all over the country; the half-seven curfew was approaching. Merchant’s Quay, Wood Quay, under a barred-up hole in the wall of the quay, and the River Poddle dropped its load of shit down on top of me. I crossed the river under Grattan Bridge, and heard the last shouts of a paperboy.
—Castle official hit be a manhole cover!
Getting dark now, he was going home, off the streets. Selling all the way.
—Official hit be manhole!
Now that it was dark enough, I climbed out of the river at the Metal Bridge. I ran across to Liffey Street and went looking for Piano Annie. The river had dyed me. I took off the jacket and dropped it as I went. There was no uniform now. I was just a big wet boy in a pair of brown britches, caught out in the street after the curfew.
On Wednesday morning, the 3rd of May, in Kilmainham Gaol, Pearse, Clarke and MacDonagh were taken out to the Stonebreakers’ Yard and shot. At dawn. And across the city, in Summerhill, Henry Smart couldn’t get out of his britches.
—They’re welded to you.
Annie grabbed my waistband.
—Come here to me. One. Two. Terr-eee!
Together, we pushed and pulled my britches down to my thighs. Then Annie grabbed my arse before it had had a chance to draw breath.
—Jesus, what’s that?
It was a sheet of twopenny stamps, still stuck to my cheeks a week after Miss O’Shea had thrown me down onto them.
—Stamps, I said.
—What are they doing there?
—It was the only way I could smuggle them out. You can write to your husband now, Annie, I said.
—The dead can’t read, said Annie.—And he couldn’t read, anyway, when he wasn’t dead.
—Oh, I said.
—Oh is right.
They brought the bodies across the river to Arbour Hill and threw them into the pit and covered them up in quicklime. Huns, huns, huns. There were cheers in the House of Commons when the news was announced.
Annie threw my britches out the window, down onto Langrish Place.
—Don’t do that, I pleaded, too late.—Ah, Annie.
—They stink.
—Could you not have washed them?
—Fuck off. Come here.
The britches would have been gone by now, wrecked and all as they were, already covering someone else’s arse, so I took my shirt off on the way over to the mattress.
Annie placed her fingers on the knuckles of my spine. She blew into my belly button, as if clearing it.
—You stink too, she said.—But I like it. And your bruises.
Her fingers tapped my spine.
—Now, she said.—What’ll I play for you?
—Do you know The Boys of Wexford?
—Every fuckin’ one of them, she said.
And we fucked each other into the curfew, and slept and fucked again. We hung on to each other and whimpered and laughed and tickled and bit and cried.
—Four more exee-cutions! Four more exee-cutions!
Ned Daly, Plunkett - he’d married Grace Gifford the night before, in the prison chapel - Michael O’Hanrahan and Willie Pearse. Into the pit with the other three, another blanket of quicklime.
—Why do you want it? said Annie.
She was looking up at the wooden leg. I’d put it on the mantelpiece. It was burnt black but still a leg. I’d spent the night, before arriving on Annie’s step, roaming the rubble of Upper Sackville Street, searching for it. Looking in the pitch dark, over still smouldering walls and plaster. Dodging the scared eyes of Tommies and rozzers. I lay on hot brick and let it dry the river off me.
—Old times’ sake, I said.—It’s been good to me.
—Did the real one grow back?
—I hope so, I said.
—One more exee-cution! One more exee-cution!
John MacBride. It is hoped, said General Maxwell, that these examples will be sufficient to act as a deterrent against intrigues, and to bring home to them that the murder of His Majesty’s liege subjects, or other acts calculated to imperil the safety of the Realm will not be tolerated.
Paddy’s head broke apart in front of me. It kept happening, there was no let-up; his brains and dry shards of his skull flew back at me, into my nostrils and mouth and eyes. There was an eyeball in my mouth, growing, sliding, I couldn’t get rid of it. Dying, drowning, the shout that would save me couldn’t get to my
mouth. My mouth was open, stretched, trying to reach the noise. But I was drowning.
Annie hauled me up. She fought me, slapped back my flaying arms and feet; she pulled me, held me tight with her arms and legs, tighter.
—There there.
I knew her. It was Annie. Paddy was gone. I searched her room, looked for him in the dark. He was gone. I was sure he’d gone. He was dead, buried by now. I could move my mouth.
—There there, she said.—That’s right.
She cried too. I could feel her tears on my face; they were warmer than mine.
—Poor little Henry. Poor poor poor poor, poor little Henry.
And she felt the other little Henry pressing against her.
—Feeling better?
—Yes, thank you, Annie.
In the merry month of May. Her fingers were on my back again - from my home I started - lifting and dropping - left the girls of Tuam - brushing and pinching the rhythm - nearly broken-hearted - as she whispered right up to my ear. Saluted father dear, kissed me darlin’ mother. I was wide awake now; I’d never slept. Drank a pint of beer my grief and tears to smother. I was on top of Annie now, ready for the chorus, dying for it, bringing her to it, and through to the rest and black sleep that would follow. On the rocky road to Dubellin, one two three four five.
—Four more exee-cutions!
Heuston, Mallin, Con Colbert, Éamonn Ceannt. Annie was out foraging. I pushed away the sacks she used for curtains and looked down from her window at the top of the house. The trams were running again; I could hear them climbing past the bottom of the street, on Summerhill. The kids were in the school yard at the other end. My old school. I wondered was Miss O’Shea out there, looking after them, or was she in jail? Or hidden, or dead? I put my tongue to the window and licked her little rivers. But all I tasted was grey air and dirt on the glass that became black as my breath steamed the window. It was just the same old place out there. The same old buying and robbing, stray dogs and children, bare feet and sores, matchstick legs and rickets. Flaking brick and rotten wood, running filth, and dying coughs from open windows. But there was a young chap down there at the corner. I leaned out to hear him. He was selling something.
—Last of the rebel pictures! Last of the exee-cuted rebels!
And there was a small queue, made of the same people who’d thrown stones and shit at me a week before. And now they were buying prints of Pearse and Clarke and Plunkett that they could never afford. And Annie brought me home the stories. Gunshots at dawn. The slaughter on North King Street. Sheehy-Skeffington’s murder. The last words and letters of the dead men. My darling wife, pulse of my heart, this is the end of all things earthly. Locks of beloved hair, buttons from jackets and shirts. I kiss this paper that goes to you . . . I and my fellow signatories believe we have struck the first successful blow for Freedom. A wedding at night in a prison chapel lit by a single candle. My darling little boy, remember me kindly . . . Ireland has shown she is a Nation . . . Slán leat. Do not fret.
And I ventured out in a pair of dead man’s trousers, with a dead man’s wife on my arm.
—He wasn’t very big, was he, Annie?
The wind was whipping away at my ankles.
—He was big enough, said Annie.
Every woman we met, every black shawl, had me itching to run; they’d all seen me hanging from the post office window, kissing Annie, on Easter Monday. Annie felt it in me, the way I held back. She squeezed my arm.
—You’ve nothing to worry about, she said.
—Are they on our side now?
—I’m not on your side, darling, and you’re perfectly safe with me. They’d like to tan your arse but they’ll never hand you over to that shower of murderers. And I’ll tell you another thing.
—What?
—They’re wondering what sort of a love letter you’d write to me if you were going to be executed.
—A great one, I said.—Anyway, they could find out if they informed on me.
—God almighty, said Annie.—You’re all the same. You can fire your bang-bangs and march till your arses meet the ground, but you’ll never understand romance.
We crossed Gloucester Diamond.
—They’ll never turn you in, she said.—And what’s more, they’ll make their husbands join the rebels if they ever come back from the war.
—Even though they don’t believe in it?
—That’s right, said Annie.
We crossed Tyrone Street and on. It was early morning but there was no room for the sun in Faithful Place. The bullies were already on the steps of the kip houses; the city was full of soldiers, far from home, angry and victorious. I’d spent hours and nights down here, with Victor, waiting for our father to come back. I’d felt all the boots and eyes; we’d crouched in every shadow. It was the only place I knew that could frighten me.
Annie stopped us outside Dolly Oblong’s.
—That’s where I’ll be going when the war’s over. If I’m not too old by then.
—Why, Annie?
—There’ll be no place else for me. There’ll be no more allowances once it’s over and won. Or lost. Whatever way it ends up. The Germans won’t pay us and you republicans won’t be handing out money to the widows of His Majesty’s forces, sure yis won’t?
—We did already. Remember?
—You did, Henry. But they’ll never let you do it again.
—I’ll be with you, Annie.
—I don’t want you to start lying on me, Henry, she said.
—I’m not—
—Shut up.
We were moving again, out of Faithful Place, past the corn- and sawmills. Their mixed dusts whirred all around us.
—I don’t know much, Henry, said Annie.—But I do know this: the times never get better for the likes of us.
She pulled my arm.
—Still and all, she said.—There’s a short while as well when they get no worse.
We strolled on down to Amiens Street, around piles of rubble, to Beresford Place. I looked at the Hall from behind one of the pillars of the broken Loop Line. There were soldiers and rozzers on the other side. I didn’t know what they were doing over there. It was just a shell now; there was no one in there and no one coming back.
I heard feet. Lots of them. Marching.
Annie nudged me before I could start looking for ghosts.
—Here’s all your butties now, she said.
And here they were. Marching over Butt Bridge. Several hundred Volunteers and Citizen Army men, familiar faces, not ghosts either although still masked by powder and dirt, and fiercely thin. They were marching between lines of armed troops and other soldiers on bikes, led by a nervous officer on top of a white horse. They turned right, under the bridge, and I was right beside them. I winked at Charlie Murtagh. He saw me and grinned and stopped himself. He leaned and nudged the man beside him, Seán Knowles. Still alive, still alive. And Collins was in there too, in among the Volunteers, half a head over them, out for a stroll.
The crowd that had been following them sensed that their time was nearly up; the men were about to be loaded onto a boat, so the shawlies and scuts ran to catch up and surround them. The parade came out from under the bridge, past the Custom House, towards the North Wall and the waiting cattle boat. There were supporters there too, and people newly converted by the executions, and fighting broke out in the crowd. I let go of Annie and went after them. I picked up a good stone as I ran. The soldiers ducked to avoid stones meant for rebels. I ran ahead of Collins, turned and skimmed the stone on the air. It whacked him neatly and dropped off his shoulder. He grabbed his ear and glared at - and saw me and stopped. Men marched right into his back.
—Will you feed the cat till I get home? he yelled.
He was pushed towards the gangway.
I nodded, and he went on. I dropped back, in case there were government eyes in the crowd. More stones hit him but he didn’t acknowledge them. I watched him walk up into the boat. Annie was gone when I got bac
k to the railway bridge.
On Friday morning, the 12th of May, James Connolly, a dying man in brand-new pyjamas, was brought from the hospital in Dublin Castle to the Stonebreakers’ Yard in Kilmainham Gaol. He was tied to a chair and shot. MacDiarmada had been shot minutes before him, the last two bodies thrown into the pit.
Annie tied her legs around me. She grabbed my hair, to pull me away from the window and the newsboy’s roars. She dragged me back to her side of the bed, dragged, and let go when she realised that I wasn’t resisting. Her legs stayed around me.
—Did you know him? she said.
—No, I said.—Not really. He was dying anyway.
—Poor Henry, she said.
She rubbed the backs of my legs.
—There’ll be no stopping you now, said Annie.—The country’ll be needing new heroes now that the English are after shooting all the old ones. They’ll need new men to shoot and love.
She tightened her leg-hold on me.
—You’ll write that letter to me, won’t you?
—I’ll do it now if you want, I said.
—No, you won’t, she said.—You’ll be too busy.
She lifted herself and climbed onto my chest.
—Now, she said.—Lie back and think of Ireland.
Part 3
Seven
Three years on a stolen bike. Through wind, rain and bullets. Henry Smart struck strange, hard blows for Ireland and disappeared.
I did nothing at first, after the last of the executions. I stayed with Annie. I even got work. Annie went out foraging and came back with bread under her shawl and a job for me. Down on the docks.
—Just go up to the stevedore and tell him Piano Annie sent you.
—What’s his name?
—Don’t know. But he has lovely eyes.
I looked for a man with lovely eyes on Custom House Quay and found a fat dwarf standing on a chair and shouting out names over the heads of the dockers who waited at the quay wall.
—Piano Annie sent me.
—Fair enough, said the dwarf.—What’s your name?
—Fergus Nash.