The Best of Frank O'Connor

by Frank O'Connor

  Not that we gathered anything as lucid or complete from the slob of a mountainy man who talked to us at such length. All he could tell us was that his cousin’s house had been machine-gunned, and that, in the opinion of the parish, was carrying the matter too far. Nor did we want to know more. Jo Kenefick was on his feet calling for men when Sean Nelson stopped him.

  ‘Leave it to us, Jo, leave it to us! Remember we’ve an account to square with him.’

  ‘I’m remembering that,’ said Jo slowly. ‘And I’m remembering too he got away from ye twice.’

  ‘All the more reason he won’t get away a third time.’

  ‘If I leave him to ye,’ said Jo, ‘will ye swear to me to bring him back here, dead or alive, with his machine-gun?’

  ‘Dead or alive,’ nodded Sean.

  ‘And more dead than alive?’ said Jo with his heavy humour.

  ‘Oh, more dead than alive!’ said Sean.

  And so it was that we three, Sean, myself, and the mountainy man set out from the village that evening.

  Three-quarters of an hour of jolting and steady climbing and we came to a little valley set between three hills; a stream flowing down the length of it and a few houses set distantly upon the lower slopes. The mountainy man pointed out a comfortable farmhouse backed by a wall of elm-trees as our destination. He refused to come with us, nor indeed did we ask for his company.

  The door of the little farmhouse was open, and we walked straight into the kitchen. A young woman was sitting by an open hearth in the twilight, and she rose to greet us.

  “Morrow, ma’am,’ said Nelson.

  ‘Good morrow and welcome,’ she said.

  ‘A man we’re looking for, ma’am, a man with a machine-gun, I’m told he’s staying here?’

  ‘He is, faith,’ she said. ‘But he’s out at this minute. Won’t you sit down and wait for him?’

  We sat down. She lifted the kettle on to a hook above the fire and blew on the red turves until they gathered to a flame. It was easy to see that Nelson, the emotional firebrand of the brigade, was impressed. She was a young woman; not an out-and-out beauty, certainly, but good-tempered and kind. Her hair was cut straight across her brow and short at the poll. She was tall, limber and rough, with a lazy, swinging, impudent stride.

  ‘We’ve been looking for the same man this long time,’ said Nelson. ‘We’ve had a good many complaints of him, ma’am, and now he’s caused more crossness here, we heard.’

  ‘If that’s all you came about,’ she said pertly, ‘you might have found something better to do.’

  ‘That’s for us to say,’ said Nelson sharply.

  ‘Clever boy!’ she replied with an impudent pretence of surprise, and I saw by the way she set her tongue against her lower lip that Nelson had approached her in the wrong way.

  ‘That man,’ I said, ‘accidentally shot one of our fellows, and we’re afraid something else will happen.’

  At this she laughed, a quiet, bubbling, girlish laugh that surprised and delighted me.

  ‘It will,’ she said gaily,’ something will happen unless you take that gun from him.’

  Her attitude had changed completely. Laughing still she told us how the tramp had arrived at her house one night, wet to the skin, and carrying his gun wrapped up in oilcloth. He had heard how her husband’s people had been annoying her, had heard something about herself as well and come fired with a sort of quixotic enthusiasm to protect her. On the very night of his arrival he had begun his career as knight-errant by gunning the house of one of the responsible parties, and only her persuasion had discouraged him from doing them further mischief. Three times a day he paraded the boundaries of her farm to make sure that all was well, and at night he would rise and see that the cattle were safely in their stalls and that fences and gates were standing. It was all very idyllic, all very amusing; and as there is little sentiment or chivalry in an Irish countryside there was no doubt that the young widow liked it, and appreciated with a sort of motherly regard the tramp’s unnecessary attentions. But Nelson soon made it clear that all this would have to cease. Nelson liked being a little bit officious and did it very well. Her face fell as she listened to him.

  ‘Of course,’ he added loftily, ‘you won’t have any more annoyance. We’ll settle that for you, and a great deal better than anyone else could. I’ll come back tomorrow and see you straight.’

  A few moments later the tramp himself came in; it was amazing how his face changed when he saw us sitting there. Nelson was as solemn as a judge, but for the life of me I could not resist laughing. This encouraged the tramp, who began to laugh, too, as though it were all a very good joke and would go no further. Nelson looked at me severely.

  ‘I see nothing to laugh about,’ he said; and to the tramp: ‘Be ready to travel back with us inside the next five minutes.’

  ‘Let him have his tea,’ said the woman of the house roughly.

  ‘I protest,’ said the tramp.

  ‘It’s no use protesting,’ said Nelson, ‘if you don’t choose to come you know what the consequences will be.’

  ‘What will they be?’ asked the tramp, beginning to grow pale.

  ‘I was ordered to bring you back dead or alive, and dead or alive I’ll bring you!’

  ‘There!’ said the young woman, putting a teapot on the table. ‘Have your tea first, and start shooting after. Will I light the lamp?’

  ‘There’s no need,’ said Nelson, ‘I can shoot quite well in the dark.’

  ‘Aren’t you very clever?’ she replied.

  They glared at one another, and then Nelson pushed over his chair. We took our tea in silence, but after about five minutes the tramp, who had obviously been summoning up his courage, put down his knife with a bang.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said solemnly. ‘I protest. I refuse to return with you. I’m a free citizen of this country and nobody has any rights over me. I warn you I’ll resist.’

  ‘Resist away,’ growled Nelson into his teacup.

  There was silence again. We went on with our tea. Then the latch of the door was lifted and a tall, worn woman dressed in a long black shawl appeared. She stood at the door for a moment, and a very softly-breathed ‘So there you are, my man,’ warned us whom we were dealing with.

  ‘Maggie! Maggie!’ said the tramp. ‘Is it you?’

  ‘The same,’ she whispered, still in the same hushed, contented voice.

  ‘How did you get here?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m searching for you these three days,’ she replied soothingly. ‘I’ve a car at the door. Are you ready to come back with me?’

  ‘I – I – I’m sorry, Maggie, but I can’t.’

  ‘Och aye, me poor man, and why can’t you?’ The hush in her voice, even to my ears, was awe-inspiring, but he plunged recklessly into it.

  ‘I’m to go back with these gentlemen, Maggie. By order—’

  ‘Order? Order?’ she shrieked, standing to her full height and tossing the shawl back from one shoulder. ‘Let me see the order that can take my husband away from me without my will and consent! Let me see the one that’s going to do it!’

  She threw herself into the middle of the kitchen, the shawl half-flung across one arm, like a toreador going into action. Nelson, without so much as a glance at her, shook his head at the table.

  ‘I’m not taking him against your wishes, ma’am – far be it from me! I’d be the last to try and separate ye. Only I must ask you to take him home with you out of this immediately.’

  ‘Oh! I’ll take him home!’ she said with a nod of satisfaction. ‘Lave that to me.’ And with a terrifying shout she turned on the tramp. ‘On with your hat, James!’

  The poor man stumbled to his feet, looking distractedly at Nelson and me.

  ‘Anything with you?’ she rapped out.

  ‘Only me gun.’

  ‘Fetch it along.’

  Now Nelson was on his feet protesting.

  ‘No, he can’t take that with him.’

  �
��Who’s to stop him?’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Fetch it along, James!’

  ‘And I say he won’t fetch it along.’ Now it was Nelson who was excited and the woman who was calm.

  ‘There’s nobody can interfere with a wife’s rights over her husband – and her husband’s property.’

  ‘I’ll shoot your husband and then I’ll show you what I can do with his property,’ said Nelson, producing his Webley and laying it beside him on the table.

  ‘What did you give for it?’ she asked the tramp.

  ‘Two pounds,’ he muttered.

  ‘Give it to you for ten!’ she said coolly to Nelson.

  ‘I’ll see you damned first,’ said Nelson.

  ‘Fetch it along, James,’ she said, with an impudent smile.

  ‘There’s a car outside waiting to take him somewhere he’ll never come back from,’ said Nelson. ‘I’m warning you not to rouse me.’

  ‘Five so,’ she said.

  ‘Go along to hell out of this,’ he shouted, ‘you and your husband!’

  ‘I’m waiting for me own,’ she said.

  ‘You’ll get your two pounds,’ he said, breathing through his nose.

  ‘Five,’ she said, without turning a hair.

  ‘Two!’ he bellowed.

  ‘Five!’

  ‘Get along with you now!’ he said.

  ‘I rely on your word as an officer and a gentleman,’ she shouted suddenly. ‘And if you fail me, I’ll folly you to the gates of hell. Go on, James,’ she said, and without another word the strange pair went out the door.

  The young widow rose slowly and watched them through a lifted curtain go down the pathway to the road where a car was waiting for them.

  ‘Well?’ she said, turning to me with a sad little smile.

  ‘Well?’ said I.

  ‘Well?’ said Nelson. ‘Somebody’s got to stay here and clear up this mess.’

  ‘Somebody had better go and break the news to Jo Kenefick,’ said I.

  ‘I can’t drive a car,’ remarked Nelson significantly.

  ‘It wouldn’t be the only thing you can’t do,’ said the young widow viciously.

  Nelson pretended not to hear her.

  ‘You can explain to him how things stand here, and tell him I can’t be back until tomorrow.’

  ‘Not before then?’ she put in sarcastically.

  ‘I suppose you’ll tell me you haven’t room for me?’ he asked angrily.

  ‘Oh, there’s always a spare cowshed if the mountains aren’t wide enough,’ she retorted.

  So I took the hint, and musing upon the contrariness of men and the inhuman persuadableness of motors, I took my machine-gun and drove off through the hills as dark was coming on.

  LAUGHTER

  WHILE HE was waiting for Eric Nolan to appear he told mother and daughters the story of the last ambush. It was Alec Gorman’s story, really, and it needed Alec’s secretive excited way of telling it and his hearty peal of laughter as he brought it to a close.

  It concerned an impossible young fellow in the neighbourhood who was always begging for admission to the active service unit, always playing about with guns and explosives, and always letting on he was somebody of importance. The soldiers knew of his mania, and did not take the trouble to put him under arrest, much to his own fury and disgust. To anyone who would listen he told the wildest stories about his adventures, and pretended to any and every sort of office; he was quartermaster, company commandant, staff-captain, intelligence officer, and the deuce only knew what besides. And – the crowning touch in the comedy – he had a hare-lip.

  Now, one night Alec had a private ambush – quite unauthorized, of course, like everything he did. He launched a bomb at a lorry of soldiers in the street, and then ran away up a dark lane, his cap pulled well down over his eyes, and his hand on the butt of his revolver. By the light of a gas-lamp he saw Hare-lip running breathlessly towards him, in trench coat, riding-breeches and gaiters. When he saw Alec he stopped, and in a tone as authoritative as he could adopt demanded to know what was wrong. At this Alec’s delight in devilment made off with his prudence. ‘There was an ambush at the cross, mister,’ he whined. ‘Two fine boys kilt outright – they’re picking up the bits of them still, may God punish the blackguards that done it!’ Hare-lip stood for a moment as if stupefied. Then he clapped his hands to his eyes in fury and despair (it was a treat to see Alec take off this gesture). His hat fell off and rolled into a puddle. ‘Oh, nJesus!’ he moaned. ‘Oh, nJesus, nand nthey never ntold nme!’

  They laughed, mother and daughters. Stephen marvelled at the courage of the old woman who sat there so coolly while he cleaned his three revolvers. Every other day her house was raided, but crippled as she was with rheumatism, and with two sons in prison it brought no diminution of her high spirits. He liked to see her with a revolver in her hand, turning it over and over, and blinking endlessly at it, a good-humoured wondering smile on her toothless gums. Her younger daughter, plump and debonair, showed the traces more; she had begun to fidget, and her mother covered her with good-humoured abuse.

  ‘I’m sixty-eight years of age, child! I’m forty-six years older than you, and a broomstick wouldn’t straighten me back, but I’d make ten of you. Ten of you? I would and twenty! I’d go out in the morning with me little gun in me hand and stand up to a brigade of them. What did I say to their jackeen of a lieutenant the other night? Tell Stephen what I said to him. “Get out o’ me way, you rat!” says I, “get out o’ me way before I give you me boot where your mother forgot to give you the stick!” I did so, Stephen.’

  As for Norah, the elder girl, she was like a mask. That cold and pointed beauty of hers rarely showed feeling.

  At last they heard Eric Nolan’s knock. He came in, tall, bony, and cynical, a little too carefully dressed for the poor student he was, a little too nonchalant for a revolutionary. He smoked a pipe, carried a silver-mounted walking-stick and wore yellow gloves. There was a calculated but attractive insolence about his way of entering a house and greeting the occupants. He laid his walking-stick on the table, and covered the handle with his hat. Then he made way for Norah who went upstairs to dress, leant against the stair rail and made eyes at Mary whom he disliked and who heartily disliked him. Stephen, adoring even his mannerisms, smiled and tossed the three revolvers on the table.

  ‘There!’ he said, ‘these are ready anyway. Now what about the bomb, Mrs M’Carthy?’

  The old lady fumbled for a moment in her clothes and produced a Mills bomb red with rust. She could not resist the temptation to hold the grisly thing to the light and blink admiringly at it for a moment before she handed it to Stephen.

  ‘Oh, God!’ she exclaimed, seeing his hand tremble slightly. ‘Look who I’m giving it to. Lord, look, will ye! He’s shaking like an aspen leaf.’ And she gaily hit him over the knuckles. ‘You’re no soldier, Stephen. Steady your hand, you cowardly thing!’

  At that moment they heard a fierce hammering at the door. Stephen was so startled that he almost dropped the bomb, but the old lady was on her feet in a flash. She snatched the bomb back from him and took up one of the revolvers.

  ‘I’ll bring these,’ she said tensely. ‘Mary, you take the other two. Hurry, you little fool!’

  Bent with pain she was already half-way up the stairs. The two young men stood, one at either side of Mary, not daring to speak. She was leaning on the table, looking blankly down on the two oily revolvers which lay beneath her open fingers. She had gone deathly pale. The knocking began again, loud enough to waken the neighbourhood.

  Rat-tat-tat!

  ‘Mary, Mary, what are you doing?’ the old woman’s voice hissed down the stairs.

  Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat.

  With a slight almost imperceptible shiver, she lifted one of the revolvers and slid it down the bosom of her dress; she did it slowly and deliberately. After a moment the other followed. Eric Nolan went on tiptoe to the outer door, and looked back at Stephen who was
standing in the kitchen doorway. ‘Ready?’ he whispered, and Stephen nodded, too unnerved to speak. He straightened his spectacles with an unsteady hand.

  The door opened, there was a rush of heavy feet, and a tall figure dressed in green uniform that was sodden and black with rain stood at the kitchen door. Stephen drew in his breath sharply, and stood back. The uniformed figure lurched helplessly towards him, and without warning Mary staggered and burst into a shriek of excited laughter. Stephen ran to her, and was just in time to put his arm about her and prevent her from falling. He heard Norah taking the stairs three at a time. Her face showed no surprise, but it struck him for the first time that it was a tired, rather dispirited face. With her help he carried Mary to her room.

  When he came back to the kitchen the man in uniform was sitting on a chair beside the door; a great flushed face and fuddled, anxious eyes fixed abstractedly upon the opposite wall. Abstractedly too his great hand rose and smoothed down a long dribbling moustache. Eric Nolan stood silently beside him in utter mystification. Then with a supreme effort of will the man came to himself, and glared at Stephen.

  ‘I – I forgot me bracelet,’ he said weakly.

  ‘Who in hell are you?’ asked Stephen.

  ‘Who am I? Who am I? There’s a queshion t’ask! Young man, I’m the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy.… But I forgot me bracelet.’

  Nolan chuckled grimly.

  ‘You’re probably only one when you’re sober,’ he said. ‘At the moment you’re very drunk.’

  ‘Drunk? Of course, I’m drunk. But I’m not very drunk. You sh’d see me when I’m took bad!’ He clucked his tongue in horror. ‘I’m a fright – a fright! Six stitches it took t’mend wan man I hit.’

  ‘What brought you here then?’

  ‘Wha’ brought—? I’m a friend of the family, amn’t I? Wha’ brought you here, may I ask?’