Hugh Forbes and John Molouney came back to their seats in the inglenook. Sean Glynn and Mickeen Oge Flynn came in from outside; Paddy Bawn Enright sat on a corner of the table, one shoulder hunched up in that way he had; Big Paudh Moran slumped in a chair, his ox eyes fixed on me and on my rod; most of the others stayed in the loft to sleep, or moved across the yard to a cozy nest in what was left of the winter’s hay.
Slowly I filled a pipe and waited.
Hugh Forbes rubbed his neck. “A nice bit of a girl,” he suggested ruminatively.
“She has red hair, and she’s Highland,” said Mickeen Oge Flynn, “and she wants to meet the great Hugh Forbes—save the mark! What about it?”
“A sensible girl.”
In moments of relaxation Hugh had been used to express his intention of seeking Scotland and a red-haired wife when peace came—if peace ever came. Only a quaint fancy, we knew, a bit of make-believe to keep him and us in touch with ordinary things. But, this day, strangely enough, a woman out of Scotland with red hair had almost stepped in amongst us.
“Well, well!” he murmured and, clicking finger and thumb, turned to me. “We’ll leave MacDonald be for the present—and his sister too. You heard what he said?”
“I did. Some day someone will punch your silly black head.”
“He confirmed John Molouney’s news. Not good news, Owen, my son. The Seaforths are leaving Castletown.”
“Some of the girls will be sorry,” said I, match to pipe, “and I’ll have the fishing all to myself.”
Big Paudh Moran opened his mouth and shut it before Hugh’s gesture.
“They are being relieved by five lorry-loads of Black-and-Tans.”
“What odds? We did not come up here to fight the Tans?” But already a depressing doubt was in my mind.
The British Military Police were nicknamed the “Black-and-Tans” because of their uniform—black-blue tunic and khaki trews—and they possessed all the virulent fighting qualities of a black-and-tan terrier gone sour.
“We will not fight until the board is set for us,” said Hugh mildly, “and this bunch of Tans has a lively way of doing that. They burned Ballaghford in mid-January of a snowy morning.”
“The one town in Ireland improved by a bit of burning.”
“And shot up Kilduff on Good Friday.”
“And were themselves shot up a mile outside it, and lost five men.”
“And only last month they got Paddy Pat Walsh and four of his men resting at Scartleys.”
I had no reply to that. Paddy Pat Walsh was the heart o’ corn and his four men true steel, and they had been trapped and shot, no arms in their hands.
“Well?”
“Nothing!” said I, and puffed deeply at my pipe.
What hope of rest had we now, and we so tired? After three months of the hardest guerilla campaigning—ambush, sally, get-away, and night-jumps of forty miles—our leader, Hugh Forbes, had pulled what was left of us, twenty fighting men, right out of the war area into the quietness of these hills. Wise in war, he knew when men had had enough. We had been getting careless, reckless, selling lives too easily, and Hugh had said: “All a matter of nerves, children. There are so few of us against so many we dare not die too easily.” And then his deep voice had grown wistful. “It is so easy to die, and be done with it all.”
And here we were now, hoping for a quiet month amongst the hill farmers; fishing a little, sleeping deeply, gathering a fresh store of munitions, experimenting with land-mines cunningly contrived out of railway buffers, girding ourselves for a fresh sally to the endless and careful fighting that might last not only our lives but the lives of children still at breast. . . . That is how we in the south viewed that war. It would go on and on and on against a foe terrible in his steadfastness until we were dead—or until we were free. . . .
Hugh Forbes was talking at me with suspicious mildness.
“We were talking it over before you came in, and—well! one of us will have to go down and look the Tans over.”
“And establish lines of communication,” amplified Mickeen Oge Flynn, who never beat about any bush. “Tie all our knots for us and, like enough, get a bullet in his belly before he’s done.”
I looked sideways at Sean Glynn. He was our intelligence officer and the man for the work. He shook his head.
“Sorry, Doc! I’m off to Dublin tomorrow. Headquarters work—and no safer—but I’d gladly exchange with you.” He frowned. “I have to set a woman—of my own blood too—at a man to get at another man and a traitor—whoever he may be.” There was something deadly in his quietness.
Hugh smiled at me, that devilish half-wistful smile of his that got round a man.
“We thought you might volunteer for Castletown—maybe?”
A mouthful of smoke stung my throat, but I swore as I strangled, and gestured furiously round the room.
“I haven’t asked them, son. They’re mostly from this side of the country, and marked men at that. Let a spy put an eye on one of them in Castletown and—” Again he flicked his finger and thumb. “Look at it this way, now! You are a stranger in this territory and, though you possess all the qualities, except the good ones, of a spavined mule, you sport a mild front—like most of you Yankees: a sort of hang-dog, youthful, half-clerical austerity, for all that you are a seasoned old sawbones. If we borrowed a black coat and a Roman collar from Father Ryan, devil a Tan would look crooked at you.”
I pointed a thumb at Mickeen Oge Flynn. He had the lean somber face of an ascetic, and, before the cold fire of his patriotism had driven him out to war, had spent three years reading Divinity at Maynooth College.
“I don’t mind,” he said quietly. “I’ll go.” He was more intensely republican than Hugh Forbes himself, and was afraid of nothing in this world or the next.
“You’ve a face would hang a dog in Castletown,” Hugh told him. “You’ll go, Owen?”
“I will not,” said I firmly.
“You’ll have your reasons?” He was milder than ever.
“I have. I’m going fishing.”
They all laughed at me except Big Paudh Moran and Hugh Forbes.
“A fair half-reason. Let’s have the other half.”
“I’m afraid.”
And again they laughed at me.
“No reason at all, small son. Fear is part of our life.”
“But I’m a coward at heart, and would let you down in a tight corner.”
“We’ll risk that. What else?”
“I’ll tell you, pig-head. Who instituted the rest places for the spent columns?”
“We did.”
“You did. And this is one of them. Look, now! Start trouble here and Castletown has flaming roofs. Ambush the Tans on the hill road, and, in reprisal, this house and every farmhouse along the rim of the valley goes up in smoke. There’s reason for you. And we’ll say nothing about the shape we’re in.”
“All that is on my mind, Owen, and heavy on it; but,” and his voice hardened, “we will do our work where we can and how, and, when the time comes, no place—or man—can shirk the sacrifice. You’ll go?”
“An order?”
“No, this is a volunteer’s job, and you may well be afraid. You’ll have no arms on you, and your life will be on your sleeve for any Tan to pluck.”
I pushed back my chair and lifted to my feet. “All right! I’ll go on one condition.”
“One condition?” He threw back his head. His voice was stern.
“One condition.” I was as stern as he was. “If you guarantee to flay Paudh Moran alive the moment he breaks the only greenheart tip I have left.”
Something softly lustrous lit behind the dark eyes. “That puts you one up on me, Yankee. Right! The guarantee is given.”
“Skinned I will be, too, be Jasus!” lamented Big Paudh.
I glared into the big lad’s face resentfully, but his ox eyes were mildly beseeching, and his round cheeks twitched.
“There! You’d find where
it was hidden in any case.” I thrust the rod into his hands, and his great palms caressed the canvas cover.
“Jasus, Owen! I’ll be mendin’ it.”
“A coupla flies now—and a bit of a minnow,” suggested Paddy Bawn, the Quiet Man.
It was too late to take back the rod, and, in the end, they had my cast box, and fly book too.
Chapter II
I
I LEANED elbow on the high, zinc-covered counter of John Molouney’s bar, and drank my tankard of brown stout slowly and with satisfaction. Everything was fine now, and I hadn’t a taut nerve in my whole body. For my work was done to the last tight hitch, and I was going back to the column at Leaccabuie within an hour. I had such a feeling of well-being that I should have known it portended an unpleasant few minutes.
Fifteen days in the jaws of Castletown, and no breath of suspicion had ever blown on me. But, indeed, the very least breath would have blown me sky high. Danger, there had been, but danger just round the corner; and one man, though he did not know it, helped to hold that corner for me: Captain MacDonald of the Seaforths, the fisherman of the Ullachowen. He still remained in Castletown with half a company of his Highlanders, and the soldiers, ever on good terms with the citizens, would not stand for any rough work by the new Military Police.
So we leaned over the counter—John Molouney, two other trusty men of the town and myself—and went over the final knots of our secret lines. No movement, no rumor, but would be known to our column within three hours; and at the given word trees would be felled, culverts blown up, telephone lines cut, the quarry isolated for the final bay. All was set, and I was free until that final issue was joined.
I remember that as we leaned there together I was feeling sorry for these three men of Castletown who took their lives in their hands day after day in order that the Flying Columns might operate effectively.
And then danger jumped us.
“Put them up—up with them!” The harsh alien voice snapped.
Our hands went up like one man. We were trained to get our hands up quickly or into action quickly.
“About turn—jeldy, now!”
We came about, but we were careful not to do it drill fashion.
A big man in the uniform of the Military Police—khaki slacks, blue tunic, Glengarry bonnet—filled the doorway. He poised a long-barreled revolver level with his shoulder, and, like the head of a snake, the high-sighted muzzle moved swayingly from side to side.
“Committee-meeting heads together—eh? Staff murder meeting—what?”
“Not at all, sir!” protested John Molouney warmly. “Only a story I was telling.”
“You Sinn Feiners are good at that. Come outside! You too, Molouney! Come on, you . . . ! Keep your hands up!”
He backed out, a little uncertain on his feet, and we followed. My uncontrollable heart was beating high up in my breast. If this was an organized raid and not the usual bit of rough horseplay, I was as good as dead. Outside he lined us up, our backs to the window and our buttocks against the projecting wooden bar that protected the plate-glass. A quick glance up and down the street showed me a citizen here and there dodging into doorways and two other Black-and-Tans lounging and laughing on the side pavement not twenty paces away. It might be just horseplay, after all.
Across the street, on the steps of the only hotel in Castletown, stood a tall man in the undress uniform of a Highland regiment, and, at his side, a slender young woman in gray.
I considered the man who held us. A tall blue-chinned fellow, with hollow dead-white cheeks, and eyes blazing a black devil. He was half-drunk, and his nerves more than half-shot—a man on the brink of a blow-up. I understood that man. I knew the insides of him, for I was as like him as peas in a pod: tall and black and strung, and I knew that I had nerves.
That man, set to subdue a people not easily subduable, had been subject to months of constant strain. There was nothing of the traditional ebullience about this people, no wild flare and quick quenching. It was a people quietly inimical, wearing submissiveness as a mask, bearing abuse calmly, biding its own time, choosing the ground on which it would fight, and then fighting carefully, wilily, toughly—not dying easily like the brown races. The strain of waiting, the strain of watching, the deadly explosiveness below the deadly calm, had brought this man to the breaking-point. At this moment he felt in his bones that we were four Sinn Feiners hands-up before him, and he knew that nothing he could do would force an admission or an explosion from us. That was our code. He would risk his life to make one of us explode into action.
“We are watching you, Molouney,” he warned, “and we’ll get you—good and hard.”
He faced me closely. “You’ve been going round with him. Who are you?”
John Molouney at my side answered for me. “Me cousin, sir, a clerical student out of Maynooth.”
“Shut up, you ——” The back of his hand smashed on my friend’s mouth, and John merely blinked and lifted his hands a little higher.
“A —— Shinner, you?” He persisted in using one repellent adjective.
I remained silent.
“No dumb insolence, —— you!” The word could be used as a verb too. “You are a Shinner?”
“Not guilty.”
“You —— liar!”
He thrust the muzzle of his weapon against my shut mouth, so that the flesh ground against my teeth and blood tasted salt on my tongue.
In his half-drunken state I might have wrenched the gun from him. I had the will to do so, the angry urge atremble on the verge of action. And, having done so, I might, on the odd chance, fight myself clear of the town; but these three good men lined up with me would be dead within the minute. So I held my hands firmly above my head and kept my fingers from crooking.
Over the Black-and-Tan’s shoulder I saw the Highland officer step down to street-level from the hotel porch.
“A —— Shinner, that’s what you are.” Probably he sensed what was in my mind, and kept on baiting me. “A clerical student drinking beer in a —— pub! More like a —— Yank to me! One of Forbes’s spies—what? You shoot in the back, don’t you?”
“No.”
“Bah! You —— Irish liar!”
The last shred of his control snapped suddenly, and he struck me a drawing blow on the side of the head with the long barrel of his gun. The felt of the black clerical hat broke the force, but a sharp pang stabbed my temple, and a blackness leaped across my sight and was gone.
To prevent my knees buckling I brought hands down to the wooden bar at my back.
“Hands up, you ——!”
“Easy, all!”
II
The voice was quiet and authoritative.
The Black-and-Tan whirled on his heel, weapon lifted, and found himself face to face with the Highland officer, Captain MacDonald, the fisherman of the Ullachowen.
“What’s this, Garner?”
“Shinners—I.R.A. killers, Captain.”
“You know?”
“Whispering, heads together—in there—”
“That all?”
“Molouney is under suspicion—and this fellow—”
The officer was close to him now. “You’re drunk, man. You can’t treat men this way.”
“The—”
“Not while I command.”
His voice was still quiet, but I could sense the hot Scots devil behind it.
“I will deal with this, Garner.”
“They’ll plug you in the back.”
“They have had many opportunities. Go back to barracks! Do you hear? I’m in command here. Go!”
Possibly, this man Garner was a decent enough citizen in ordinary life—law-abiding, and weak too. He could not stand up to the held strength in the soldier’s tone and bearing. He hesitated, then his shoulders slumped, and as he turned away, his gun fumbling into thigh-holster, his face was abased and the madness out of his eyes.
His two companion Black-and-Tans treated him with laugh
ing contempt. For a little while they stood and watched us, intently, dangerously, storing us away in their memories; then swung in line and marched quickly up-street towards their barracks.
Captain MacDonald looked us over consideringly, a quizzical half-smile on his lean Scots face and his hand smoothing down his chin.
“Well? You fellows may be Sinn Feiners—very probably are.” His smile broadened. “Whispering, you know, is bad manners and worse policy, but scarcely a crime.” He nodded quickly. “Get under cover—and stay there.”
“Thank you, Captain,” said John Molouney, and wiped his bloody mouth.
My three friends disappeared through the saloon door, but I hesitated to take my hands off the steadying bar behind me. I felt a thin trickle down my temple.
“Ah! he got you,” said the soldier. One hand was firm on my shoulder, the other careful at my black hat. “Yes! the foresight nicked you. Damn brute! Small, but—blood enough, anyway. Come along, young reverend! I want a closer look at this.”
I cursed myself inwardly. The quicker I got away now, the better.
“Nothing at all, Captain MacDonald,” I protested, and held my shoulder against his pull.
But his firm hand took me across the street to where the young woman in gray still stood on the hotel steps.
“Puncture above the temple, Margaid,” he told her. “We’ll have a look-see.”
She was as prompt and as impersonal as her brother.
“I’ll get my outfit. Take him up to the bathroom.”
In the bathroom he threw a towel over my shoulders, bent my head over the wash-basin, and sloshed water over the side of my face from a big sponge.
“You should avoid bad company—and public houses, reverend sir,” he said ironically.
His sister came in quickly, a first-aid outfit already half-unrolled in her hands.
“That’s not the way. Leave it to me, Archie.”
She thrust a wooden-seated chair against the backs of my knees, and her fingers were light at my brow.
The Quiet Man and Other Stories Page 2