My Son, My Son

by Howard Spring

  On Monday, May 1st, Dermot brought me the letter that had come from Rory. It had been written on the Wednesday night of the rebellion week.

  “MY DEAR FATHER,—This has been a great and terrible day. On Sunday we were all at sixes and sevens. A parade had been ordered, and was countermanded. This caused a good deal of heart-burning, and the men began to get angry and to damn leaders who didn’t seem to know their own minds. I saw nothing of Donnelly all that day—he was confabbing at Liberty Hall—and I have not seen him since. I wonder whether I shall ever see him again.

  Then we were called on to parade at 10 on Monday morning. It was a grand Easter Monday, bright and sunny. We did not know what we were paraded for, but some of us had a good guess. All the officers wore their green uniforms; many of the men were in uniform, too. The streets were full of people strolling about in the cheerful holiday weather. They did not take any more notice of us than usual, because they are so used to seeing us marching here and there. My battalion is the 3rd of the Dublin Brigade, and we were commanded by Commandant Eamon de Valera, a pallid spectacled man who hasn’t much to say.

  Well, there we were at 10 o’clock in the familiar Dublin streets. De Valera marched us off, and when we reached our objective, we didn’t play at taking it as we have done in the past; we entered upon it. It was a place called Boland’s bakery, and as soon as we were there I realised that the decisive moment had come. Boland’s bakery commands the road by which troops would have to pass coming from Kingstown Harbour to Dublin. We were there to stop them. That was clear.

  They gave us plenty of time to dig ourselves in. No one disturbed us all through that day. When night came and nothing had happened, an extraordinary sense of unreality came over me. This couldn’t be true. We knew by then that Pearse had taken the Post Office in Sackville Street—just walked in as we had done here—and that there he had established his headquarters and proclaimed the Republic. We knew, too, that other important points had been occupied; things had gone as they were intended to go, and yet there we were in Boland’s bakery, a handful of men, looking through the windows into the quiet street, and nothing was happening to us. I couldn’t believe that the Republic was here—actually here in Dublin—proclaimed by Pearse, with Pearse himself as President. I kept on telling myself: ‘Now you have a country and a ruler, and you are a soldier sworn to defend them,’ but the silence, the inaction, as though the enemy were treating us with contempt, made me feel cold and queer. I imagine De Valera realised what I was thinking. As the light was fading and I was sitting at a window looking unhappily into the empty street, he passed by and clapped a hand on my shoulder. I looked up, and his eyes glinted at me through the spectacles and down his long nose. ‘It’ll come,’ he said. ‘It’ll come.’ That was all, and he continued his rounds to another room.

  We didn’t all remain at Boland’s bakery. We were ordered to occupy other houses round about. On the Tuesday we seemed a more ridiculously small army than ever, for I was now in a house with only two other men. We took all our ammunition up to the attic. A skylight from there opened on to the roof. There was a useful parapet to serve as a breastwork. Lying flat on the roof, we could rest our rifles on the parapet and get a good shot down into the street. I was in command. The other two men were named Clancy and Deasy. Clancy was a huge fellow, a docker, who swore everything ‘by the Mother of God and Jim Larkin,’ and Deasy was a thin dark slip of a chap who swears he’s been a detective in London, but I think he’s a good liar. Anyway, he kept on throughout the day telling us we were all daft.

  ‘Would you listen now to them bloody guns?’ he suddenly broke out, and by this time there were guns enough. We could hear artillery roaring and the loud explosive shock of bursting shells. ‘It’s off the face of the map this city will be blown,’ said Deasy. ‘I’ll obey me orders with the bloody rest, but whoever organised this shooting-match was daft from his mother’s womb. Can the poor bloody bhoys stand up to the likes of that artillery? Begod, it’s assassination we should be going in for. Every sod in the Viceregal Lodge. Shoot ’em in the back. Let ’em send out relays. Shoot ’em down. Every bloody one. In the back. That’s the war we want.’

  Clancy told him to shut his gob, and I thought they’d be getting to blows. We were all lying on the roof, with our rifles by our sides. I decided to change the arrangement. I ordered Clancy to remain where he was, and to call us if anything happened. Deasy and I climbed down the ladder from the skylight to the attic.

  All through the day we remained there, listening to the tumult of artillery elsewhere in the city. Nothing happened to us. We took turns on the roof throughout the day and night, two hours on and four off. De Valera visited us several times, but save for that, Deasy, Clancy and I were alone in the empty house.

  It was nerve-racking, this inaction. Donnelly, I knew now, was in the Post Office with Pearse, James Connolly, Thomas Clarke, Joseph Plunkett and others. I thought of him all day long, and as the artillery crashed I prayed God he would come to no harm.

  In the course of the day we had evidence that the Post Office garrison was holding out, for a leaflet reached us, signed by Pearse, saying that nowhere had British troops broken through the Republican lines.

  Deasy and Clancy slept well on Tuesday night. I did not sleep at all.

  Now we come to the morning of this day on which I write. The clamour of the British artillery greatly increased, and it sounded as though hell were let loose in the direction of Sackville Street, where Donnelly is. I had made this arrangement for us three men. All the ammunition we had was taken up on the roof. There were three rifles. Deasy and Clancy were not strangers to me. I knew that Clancy was a magnificent shot and that Deasy might waste ammunition. So the orders were that if fighting came our way, Clancy and I should do the shooting. Whichever emptied his rifle first should drop it and pick up the third. Deasy, lying on the roof, would see that a dropped rifle was immediately loaded and placed ready to hand.

  So far as I remember, it was at about half-past three that Clancy shouted from the roof: ‘Mother of God and Jim Larkin! Sojers!’

  My heart thumped. I leapt up the ladder, Deasy following at my heels. I took up a rifle and crouched, peering over the parapet. There at last was the enemy—men in khaki, coming unsuspectingly up the road. It was, somehow, so different, when you saw the men there, from anything you had imagined. It held me and Clancy spellbound, so that we just crouched and watched, the triggers under our fingers. Then suddenly it all became real. From another house along the street there came the sharp crack of a rifle, and one of the soldiers in the road turned round very slowly on his own axis, then quietly folded up in the road. Clancy said: ‘Poor sod!’ and pressed on his trigger. A second soldier fell. Then I fired, and there were three dead lying in the road.

  My dear Father, I cannot tell you of all that has happened this terrible afternoon. The fight went on for hours. Hundreds of British soldiers were killed and wounded. Clancy was killed. During a lull, he lifted himself to peer over the parapet, but by then our position was too well marked. He slid back on to the roof with not so much as a groan. Deasy took his place.

  The weight of numbers told at last. We were all withdrawn from the outlying buildings and are now back at Boland’s. We gave a good account of ourselves. We can hold on to this place for a long time.

  A man has to sneak his way back into the city tonight. He has promised to get this letter to a friend of his, a seaman who is crossing on a Liverpool boat. It is to tell you that all is well with me, and that I am happy. I have done what you wanted me to do.

  Pearse’s proclamation which reached me yesterday says: ‘We have lived to see an Irish Republic proclaimed. May we live to establish it firmly.’ We shall do that, and then all this will not have been in vain.

  Love from RORY.”

  When I had read the letter I could not look Dermot in the face, for I knew, as he knew, that by then Pearse had handed in his sword. It was not easy to make some of the men obey his order to
surrender. The 3rd battalion, which still held Boland’s bakery, was stricken with consternation. Some smashed their rifles rather than hand them in. Among those who did so was Rory O’Riorden.

  30

  Rory had told his father in a letter that if Donnelly were executed he would marry Maggie at once.

  Donnelly was executed. He sang to the last. Some of the prisoners prayed. At least one of them used his last night on earth to be married. Some of them uttered brave words, and some passed in a bitter silence the disillusioned remnant of their days. Donnelly sang, and it is known that in later years one of the ablest and bitterest of the Irish rebels was one of Donnelly’s warders. He had been converted to the cause of a man who could sing like that.

  So Donnelly sang till the moment when a bullet shattered the song in his mouth and crumpled him under a wall in a Dublin gaol: but Rory did not marry Maggie then. Maggie, her hands red with days of bandaging, was with a surrendered battalion. She was discharged by her captors; but Rory was one of the thousands who were sent to English gaols. He went to Frongoch where one of his fellow prisoners was the play-boy with the wild wing of black hair flapping on his forehead. Like prisoners at all times and the world over, the men of Frongoch found their means of communicating with the world without. It was late in 1916 that Dermot received a letter from Rory containing the phrase: “I am bound to Michael Collins by the most solemn and fearful oath.”

  The page fluttered in Dermot’s nervous fingers. “I hoped it would be ended when Donnelly died,” he said. “Michael Collins... I’ve never heard of him.”

  “There was a time when I had never heard of Kevin Donnelly. Do you remember? It was the first time I had ever taken Maeve to the theatre. I brought her home in a cab, asleep. Donnelly was there.”

  “Yes,” said Dermot. “I remember. It’s no good shooting one or shooting a dozen. Another one or another dozen crops up. Michael Collins...” He mused for a time upon the new name that destiny had written upon his page. Then he folded the letter and went away. He looked old and very tired.

  *

  That was on an autumn afternoon. When I had left Dermot I walked in the streets that were beginning to fade into a bloomy dark, bought an evening paper, and took it into Gunter’s teashop. I spread it open and my heart gave a bound as I saw Oliver’s face looking at me from the page. I hardly dared read the letterpress. Killed in action? Wounded? The fearful and familiar possibilities of the time assailed me. Then I saw beneath the picture: “Captain Oliver Essex, V.C.”

  The room had been swimming. Now things took focus again. I came back to life. My tea was being laid before me. I filled my cup, drank, and then read the paragraph. It announced that the King had conferred the Victoria Cross upon Captain Essex, M.C., Croix de Guerre. “The action which earned Captain Essex the highest award for valour took place during the Somme offensive, which still continues. A machine-gun, entrenched in the edge of a wood, was taking heavy toll of our troops. Three efforts had been made to rush the wood and take the gun, and every one of those who made the attempt fell dead or wounded. Captain Essex had been advised to retire to a dressing-station, as he had been twice shot. One bullet had glanced across his forehead, leaving a wound which filled his eye with blood; another pierced his right hand, striking from it the revolver which was his only weapon. He declined to retire, and announced that he would make a single-handed effort to capture the gun. Armed with a Mills bomb held in the left hand, he walked without haste towards the wood. It seemed as though his life was under Divine protection, for he was able to advance within throwing distance before he was again wounded. Literally as he threw the bomb a third bullet struck him—in the face; but the bomb found its objective; the gun was silenced, and Captain Essex’s men rushed forward and took the wood. They thus straightened out a sag in the line and allowed the day’s victories to be consolidated. It was only when he had personally seen his men entrenched on their new line that Captain Essex consented to retire to a dressing-station.

  “Captain Essex is the son of the famous novelist and dramatist, William Essex.”

  I looked at the picture staring at me out of the paper. It was of no Oliver that I had ever known. A remark that Wertheim had made came back to my mind: “Phœbus in black trousers.” And I thought of the rosy jocund Mars who was Oliver as I had last seen him. That was eighteen months ago that March day when Livia Vaynol had rushed by me unseeingly, and the tall boy in his brand-new kit had been so debonair and proud. This was neither of them—not Wertheim’s boy nor the boy I had then seen. The moustache which I had then noticed for the first time was fuller. The hair, which he had always tended to wear long, was cropped and wiry-looking. The eyes were incredibly hard, staring straight out of the face with a fanatic and inhuman regard.

  “God! Doesn’t he look a killer!”

  It was almost as though my own reluctant heart had spoken. Then I saw that two young officers at a table next to mine were considering the same picture that had captured my fascinated regard. The face of one of them teased my memory. At last I placed him: he was one of the two or three who had joined Oliver at the station on the afternoon I had just been calling back to mind. He laughed uneasily. I saw that he was now wearing the uniform of the Air Force. “A killer all right,” he said. “I was with his mob for a time before I transferred. God! He was a tough nut. He was doing the rounds one night and found a sentry asleep on the firing-step. He just stayed there till the chap woke up—a solid hour. Then he took a grip on the feller’s coat at the chest with his right hand, held him up, and buzzed him a straight left in the teeth. ‘Let that teach you. And now report me,’ he said, and walked on.”

  “He might have court-martialled him.”

  “That wasn’t Essex’s way. He preferred hitting.”

  “Well. He’s a damned good soldier. Good luck to him.”

  “Oh, he’s a good soldier all right. But I didn’t like him. Something about him—I don’t know. He enjoyed it. I’ve seen him as bloody as a butcher with his white teeth laughing.”

  “Well, if there are medals going, that’s the sort of chap to have ’em. At any rate he’s not a G.H.Q. wallah. They have a roster there for D.S.O.s. You take your turn. Even if you do nothing but order the stationery. Some Distinguished Service.”

  I looked at the youngster’s chest, innocent of ribbons, paid my bill and went out. It was almost dark. I walked round Berkeley Square with the Air Force man’s phrase vivid in my mind: “Bloody as a butcher with his white teeth laughing.” Oliver! Twenty. Twenty last May. Captain Oliver Essex, V.C., M.C., Croix de Guerre.

  *

  It was a fortnight later that Maeve said, as she was leaving for the theatre: “Oliver will be at the Palladian tonight.”

  “Oliver?”

  “Yes. Didn’t you know he was on leave?”

  I shook my head.

  “Wertheim told me. He’s invited Oliver to a box.”

  Wertheim would. He was a showman. He knew the publicity value of personalities, and for the moment Oliver was a personality.

  “Will you be there?” Maeve asked.

  “Not much good trying to get a seat at this time of night,” I said. “The show’s always booked up for weeks ahead.”

  “I should like you to be. I’ve got a stalls ticket. I took it for a friend and now she’s rung up to say she can’t come after all.” Maeve laid the ticket on the table. She stood by the door, holding the knob with one hand, swinging her gloves in the other. “You do want to see him, don’t you?” she asked.

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  “It’s a long time since you’ve seen him. He’s changed, you know. I met him this afternoon.”

  “Changed?”

  I suppose some dying flame revived in my face. Maeve abandoned her poised-for-flight air and came into the room. “Sorry, Bill,” she said. “I don’t mean in that way. I don’t know at all. We didn’t mention you. I mean he looks different. He looks—well, rather frightening. I suppose it’s his wounds. Ther
e’s a scar that lifts his left eye and another that gives a small twist to the end of his mouth. When he laughs his face looks contorted—a bit sinister.”

  “Where’s he staying?”

  “With Livia Vaynol, I suppose.”

  “Why don’t they marry and have done with it?” I burst out.

  Maeve looked at me patiently. “I’m not in the confidence of either,” she said. “I’m not particularly in anybody’s confidence. Even you don’t exactly open your heart to me, do you? Never mind. There are plenty of parties and rides in cars and dances, aren’t there?”

  She smiled a little bitterly. I got up and put an arm around her. “Maeve—my dear—I’m sorry—”

  She pushed me gently aside. “It’s all right, Bill. I’m not complaining. But I’m so much in the dark about the whole lot of you. I don’t even know what you think about Livia now. Would you marry her still, if you could?”

  “I’ve put that all out of my head, my dear. She’ll never have me while Oliver’s above ground.”

  “I said if you could,” she persisted.

  “If I could—yes,” I said.

  She took up her gloves from the table and slowly drew them through her fingers. Then, saying nothing more, she went.

  *

  What an incredibly different Maeve it was I looked at a few hours later! And what incredible circumstances they were in which I looked at her! How, at this distance of time, get down on paper that atmosphere of the great war-time show? Outside, the city lurked in its shadows, shrinking the vast sprawl of its body as deeply as possible into the night’s obscurity. Within, the lights blazed. “Joy, whose hand is ever at his lip, bidding adieu.” Here, if ever, one understood the meaning of that line. True, there were plenty whose joys seemed likely to endure; but their serenity threw the more sharply into focus the hundreds of faces that one knew were looking their last on lovely things.