Collected Plays and Teleplays (Irish Literature)

by Flann O'Brien

  MR. C.: (In agitated whisper.) Shhh! Now for God’s sake. I think that bloody Sergeant is on the prowl.

  JEM: Begob! We’re bunched! (He blows out candle on table.)

  MR. C. and PETER: Shhh!

  (Three knocks on the door.)

  SERGEANT: (Outside door.) Guards on duty! Guards on duty. Will you please open up, Mr Coulahan.

  PETER: We’ll keep very quiet.

  MR. C.: (Loudly, in violent agitation.) SHHHHH.

  (There is complete silence. PETER leans over to the remaining candle and caps the flame in his hands to hide the lights. MR. C. is bent nearly double in his intent listening and keeps on Shhh-ing and waving a hand for even further silence. There is no sound at all without. Thirty seconds pass. Suddenly MR. C. leaps at the candle and blows it out, leaving nothing visible save the window that is lit by the street-lamp. Almost simultaneously three loud knocks are given on the door.)

  (The knocks are repeated, more urgently. The three remain completely still. Then MR. C. moves to the counter where he finishes his drink. The knocks are given again. The bottom of the door is kicked slightly and the thick brogue of the SERGEANT is faintly heard shouting something. MR. C. is heard sighing heavily.)

  MR. C.: Well, that’s that, that’s that. (He is groping for his matches, finds them and carefully lights both candles.) Yes, that’s that.

  (The knocks are repeated even louder. He comes from behind the counter. Then moves to the door.)

  MR. C.: Alright, Sergeant, I’m coming. (He opens the door.) Good night to you, Sergeant. That’s a hardy cold one for you.

  SERGEANT: (To invisible Guard.) That’s all right, Guard.

  (SERGEANT enters. COULAHAN closes door, switches on light.)

  SERGEANT: It is, indeed, as you say, Mr Coulahan, a cowld, raw class of a night. ‘Tisn’t a seasonable time of the year at all for this time of year. ‘Tis not indeed!

  MR. C.: (Coming forward with a show of forced gaiety and going back behind the counter.) Well, we can’t complain, we had an easy enough winter up till now. No, we can’t complain. We can’t . . . complain.

  (The SERGEANT has found his notebook and pencil.)

  SERGEANT: It’s in the wife’s name, if I’m not mistaken, Mr Coulahan?

  MR. C.: Yes, Sergeant, the house is in the wife’s name.

  (Pause.)

  PETER: You know my name, I suppose, Sergeant?

  SERGEANT: I do. I do. And if I’m not altogether mistaken, that’s another old friend of mine beyant.

  JEM: Oh, too true, Sergeant. Manny’s the time we’ve met before. And will again, please God.

  SERGEANT: O faith we will. We’ll meet again, and many a time. Many a time.

  JEM: I suppose, Sergeant, you wouldn’t mind if I finished me bottle of stout? We don’t want waste in these hard times, do we?

  SERGEANT: (Turning away from JEM’S direction with great deliberation.) What ye might do when me back is turned, is a thing I would know nothing at all about.

  (All resume their drinks, which are nearly full, the SERGEANT standing very aloof with his back to the counter. He appears to be engrossed in his notebook.)

  PETER: We might as well be hung for sheep as lambs, I suppose.

  MR. C.: (Dismally.) Yes, indeed. We all know you have the terrible time of it, Sergeant, in the performance of your duty.

  PETER: (Moves to bar.) Begob and you’re right, Mr Coulahan.

  MR. C.: It would be as much as my livelihood or your promotion in the force was worth for me to offer you a drink after hours in these premises. Or for you to accept it—even on such a blasted, blizzardy one like this when the flesh might be skinned off your bones and you in the pursuit of your duty. Think of that, gentlemen!

  PETER: It’s tough, right enough, Sergeant. (He turns to SERGEANT.)

  MR. C.: If I was caught offering you a drink after hours, Sergeant, I could be brought up on the gravest charges—bribery, corruption and attempted suborning of the police force.

  (JEM moves to bar.)

  JEM: God save us, Mr Coulahan!

  MR. C.: What would happen to you, Sergeant, I don’t rightly know at all—not being fully acquainted with the rules, regulations and disciplinary measures governing the Civic Guards or Gawrdah Sheekawnah, as now known. (Sighs deeply.) We both have the hard times of it, Sergeant, and that’s the truth. (He turns for bottles behind him.) A strong ball of malt is what I’m badly in need of myself at this moment—what with being perished with the cold all day. (Pours drink.) And now, at night, with a breach of closed hours on me hands. (Sighs heavily and takes drink.)

  JEM: True enough. The cold was somethin’ fierce today. Desperate. You’d want mufflers round yer legs as well as round yer neck.

  PETER: Well, the summer won’t be long now.

  MR. C.: The summer? (Sighs.) D’you remember last August, Sergeant?

  SERGEANT: I do and I don’t, Mr Coulahan. I do and I don’t.

  MR. C.: It was the grand month of summer weather, Sergeant. I was out swimming twice. The water was like soup. And begob the heat of the rocks would nearly burn the feet off you.

  JEM: I never fancied the water at all, Mr Coulahan. Never had any time for it. It’s not a natural thing to be getting into. It’s alright for fish, of course.

  MR. C.: That month of August was so hot it—it put me in mind of the First War—when I was out beyond in Messpott!

  JEM: Holy God, where’s that?

  MR. C.: Messiopotamia! Did ye never hear tell of Messiopotamia? And there was me fighting the Turks and the Arabs—fighting for small nationalities! That’s the quare one, Sergeant. That month of summer we had brought me back to the First World War.

  SERGEANT: Them two Great Wars were desperate and ferocious encounters.

  PETER: I suppose it was very hot out there?

  MR. C.: Hot did you say? I don’t believe there was heat anywhere like it before or after. It was a class of heat that people in this part of the world wouldn’t understand at all. Forty years ago and more and I can still feel that sun beyond in Shatt-el-Arab. That was where we landed.

  (The SERGEANT takes no notice and MR. C. quietly refills his own drink and pulls three stouts, the third of which he places on the counter between himself and the SERGEANT.)

  PETER: Was there much—sunstroke?

  MR. C.: Sunstroke? We thought the heat in the ship was bad enough—and so it was—till we landed! Nearly three thousand of us! (Gasps.) The first thing I feels walking down the gangway is a big rush of hot air up me nose. The heat was beltin’ up outa the ground like smoke out of an engine. The air was so thin and so hot that you wouldn’t feel yourself breathing it. It was—stretched out, d’you know. Thinned out be the heat coming at it outa the ground and outa the sky and all sides. It was dried and no moisture in it at all—like a withered pea. (Pause.) It was like putting your head into an oven and taking a deep breath.

  PETER: I wouldn’t fancy that at all—bad as the weather is in Ireland, it’s better than that.

  MR. C.: You haven’t heard the half, so you haven’t. We weren’t finished gasping for breath, when another desperate thing happened! The lads were hours coming off the boat, and the rest of us was lined up there on the quayside. It was this way—I got tired of standing on me feet—if you know what I mean—and went to change me weight from one foot to the other. Well, do you know what I’m going to tell you? My feet was stuck. (They gasp.) Stuck to the ground.

  JEM: Begob, ye musta had spikes in them.

  MR. C.: Spikes be damned! Weren’t we all standing there in our tropical rubber-soled shoes, and wasn’t all the rubber melting under us.

  JEM: I never heard the like of that. Never.

  MR. C.: A thousand men lined up there on the quay—and not one of them able to budge. My God, it was fierce! Fierce!

  JEM: Did you ever throw a bit of rubber inta the fire by accident? Begob, the hum off it would destroy yer nose altogether.

  MR. C.: Of course, we were soldiers. No question of ‘Please
Sir, I’m stuck to the ground, Sir! Me shoes is meltin’, Sir, what’ll I do, Sir?’ None of that class of thing at all. Oh, no. It was just a question of standing there, waiting for the order to quick march. You shoulda seen us when we got the order. D’you know what it was like? Did you ever see a fly—a fly trying to walk off a fly-paper?

  JEM: I know what you mean—exactly! Buzzin’ and roarin’ and twistin’ and workin’ away with the legs—up to his neck in sticky stuff.

  MR. C.: Just like flies on a fly-paper we were.

  JEM: Isn’t that what I was sayin’?

  MR. C.: It was a march of only two hundred yards to our quarters—but it was the dirtiest—sweatiest—stickiest—and driest march we ever had. Every man in a lather of sweat, his clothes stickin’ to his skin, and his tongue hangin’ outa him lika dog’s.

  (Here both JEM and PETER take long and resounding slugs from their cool drinks. The SERGEANT fusses uncomfortably with his book as if determined to take no interest in MR. C.’S recital.)

  PETER: Begob, Sergeant, and me own tongue’s beginnin’ to hang out like a dog’s as well!

  MR. C.: Well, begging the Sergeant’s pardon and kind indulgences, I’m going to have a ball of malt meself because I feel the want of it after thinking about me days as a soldier out in Messpot, God help me. (MR. C. drinks.)

  SERGEANT: (Ponderously.) I’m finishing up me notes here—and when me notes is finished, we’ll all have to say good night and go home to our beds—and thank God we have beds to go to.

  JEM: You never spoke a truer word, Sergeant. Sometimes I do be. . . .

  SERGEANT: There might be murders and all classes of illegalities goin’ on behind me back, but what I don’t see I don’t know. . . .

  JEM: That’s a fact, Sergeant.

  SERGEANT: The Law is a very—intricate thing. And nobody knows it better than meself.

  MR. C.: Spoken like a sensible man, Sergeant, and we’re all very grateful. We know you’re only doin’ your duty. Just the same as we were when we were servin’ in the King’s uniform out in Messiopotamia before it was burnt off our backs with the heat.

  PETER: I suppose you had many a bad time after the day you landed in the rubber shoes?

  MR. C.: Bad times? BAD TIMES did ye say? Did I not. . . . (Gulps another drink.) Did I not tell you about the desert?

  JEM: You did not. (Pause.)

  MR. C.: We had some desperate times out in the desert. No man that lived through that will ever have the memory of it off his mind—not even if he had his brain washed—and that’s a fact!

  JEM: Begob, and I’d hate to have me brain washed! It’s bad enough havin’ yer. . . .

  MR. C.: There was a detachment of Arab madmen sighted away out in the desert near some oasis or other—There they were, musterin’ together to get ready to come in and attack us. . . .

  PETER: Begor . . .

  MR. C.: Maybe there was a thousand of them in it, and others comin’ in on camels to join them.

  PETER: I’d be nervous of camels.

  MR. C.: So the order comes down that we’re all to march out and go for them before they had a chance to get themselves in battle-order. (Sips drink.) That was the way it was. I’ll never forget it—as long as I live. Never! (Pause.)

  PETER: Were they far out in the desert?

  MR. C.: I’d say—I’d say—about twenty-five or—mebbe thirty miles—as the crow flies.

  JEM: Does there be crows in the desert?

  MR. C.: At six o’clock in the morning—sic ack-emma we called it—we got the order. (In Sergeant-Major’s voice.) Get ready to march in two hours. (Normal voice.) On with the rubber shoes and the packs and the belts and the water-bottles, and the bloody big rifles! It was a load that would kill a man in his health. Then out on parade. (Sergeant-Major voice.) Quick March! Left, right, left, right! (Normal voice.) Away out into the wilds with us—a straggling string of men staggering out into the burning sand. (He drinks.) A twenty-four hours forced march. (Puts down glass.) But we were bet—bet to the ropes! It was the shoes again.

  JEM: Didn’t I tell ye?

  MR. C.: (Drinks again.) Then the rubber began to melt again—and give out little puffs of smoke. Soon the feet began to be roasted like two joints with a fire under them!

  PETER: The Lord save us!

  MR. C.: Don’t be talkin’, man! When I’d got an extra stab of heat in the feet, I’d give a lep inta the air with the pain of it.

  JEM: I declare to me God!

  MR. C.: But when I’d come down on the sand again, I’d get worse roastin’ from the weight of the lep—showers of sparks flyin’ right, left and centre. (Drinks again.) And d’you know what was happenin’ all this time?

  JEM: I suppose the enemy lads was lyin’ in wait behind the trees?

  MR. C.: What trees?

  JEM: Wouldn’t there be all classes of palm trees about the place?

  MR. C.: Well, I’ll tell you what was happenin’. (Drinks again.) I declare to God the sun began to come down on top of us—outa the sky! Every minute that passed, it seemed to be lower—and lower—down—down—on top of our heads. The heat, gentlemen—the heat! (Gulps hurriedly.) I can nearly feel it still. Then after a while I felt a queer thing happenin’.

  JEM: I was goin’ to say that.

  PETER: Would ye shut up, and let. . . .

  MR. C.: After a little while I begun to dry up!

  PETER: Dry up?

  MR. C.: Every bit of me begun to get dried up and withered. The first thing that went outa order was the tongue and the mouth. Me tongue begun to get dry and cracked! And then it begun to get—bigger!

  JEM: Oh, Holy Hour!

  MR. C.: It swelled out till it nearly choked me and got as hard and dry as a big cinder. I couldn’t swally with it! (All three gulp drinks.) The whole inside of me mouth got dry and cracked the same way—and so did me neck and all inside me.

  PETER: The Lord between us and all harm!

  MR. C.: It was like bein’ grilled—except there was no gravy.

  PETER: I suppose the eyes were affected, too.

  MR. C.: Don’t be talkin’ man! The eyes—the eyes begun to get singed and burnt at the edges. And, as well as that, the watery part dried up in a way that was something fierce. (Pause.) Before I knew where I was—the eyebrows were gone!

  PETER: No!

  MR. C.: Withered and scorched away be the heat they were. Hell itself. (Gulps another drink.) It was terrible. There we were, staggerin’ through the bloody—brazen—boilin’—blanketty-blank heat. The skin chippin’ and curlin’ off our faces. Our bodies dryin’ up and witherin’ into wrinkles like—prunes! And the worst of it—a hot, dry thirst comin’ up outa our necks, like the blast from a furnace. Oh, my God, it was desperate—desperate. (He gulps again.) D’you know the first thing the lads done—nearly every one of them? (Pause.) Took off their water-bottles—and threw them away. And do you know why? Do you know why? (Pause.) I’ll tell you why—the water-bottles were made of metal. Some class of anumilliyum—anumulliyum as thin as paper. When that sun got to work on them bottles, I needn’t tell you what happened. First of all, the water got up near to boiling-point. Even if you could hold the bottle in your hand and open it, the water would be no good to you—because it would scald the neck off you. There was only one thing to do with the bottles—get rid of them! Matteradam what else happens.

  PETER: Wasn’t it terrible, throwin’ away bottles full of water in the middle of the desert.

  MR. C.: Well, there you are—there you are.

  JEM: Of course you coulda buried all the bottles deep down in a hole and come back for them when the thirst was at you. The water’d be nice and cool then.

  PETER: And what happened after that?

  MR. C.: What happened after that is not a thing I would like to swear to because—the heat began to have a very bad effect—up here—(tapping forehead)—in the attic.

  PETER: I suppose so.

  MR. C.: There’s a lot of moisture and blood and so on in the
brain, y’know. The brain is like a wet sponge, and very queer things are goin’ to happen. Very queer things.

  PETER: I suppose you’re lucky to be alive at all.

  MR. C.: Very queer things. (Lowering voice.) The first thing was—I lost me sense of direction! I didn’t know whether me head was me heels or whether I was standin’ or sittin’, d’you know? I was fallin’ all over the place.

  PETER: I declare to me——

  MR. C.: So were the other lads—walkin’ and crawlin’ on top of each other—every man as dry as a brick, with his tongue swollen out in his parched mouth half-chokin’ him. And—the—thirst!!! My God, the thirst!!!!

  (SERGEANT comes to counter and takes three drinks, one by one, and drinks them.)

  SERGEANT: Tell me, lads. Tell me—does anyone mind if I sing ‘The Rose of Tralee’?

  (They all sing.)

  THIRST

  (long version)

  The curtain goes up on the bar. It is after hours. Light from a distant street-lamp shines faintly on the window. The bar is lit (very badly.) by two candles which are set on the counter, one of them stuck in a bottle. The publican, MR. C., who is suitably fat and prosperous in appearance, is leaning over the centre of the counter talking to PETER, who is sitting on a stool side-face to the audience. JEM, who is in the nature of a hanger-on, is away in a gloomy corner where he can barely be discerned. Both customers are drinking pints; the publican has a small whiskey. The curtain has gone up in the middle of a conversation between PETER and the publican.

  MR. C.: (Dramatically.) And do you know why? (There is a pause.) Do you know why?

  PETER: Begor, Mr Coulahan, I couldn’t tell you.

  MR. C.: (Loudly.) Because he’s no good, that’s why. He’s no bloody good!

  (He finishes his drink in one gulp, turns to the shelves for the whiskey bottle and noisily fills himself another. As the talk proceeds he is occupied with pulling two further stouts to fill up the customers’ glasses. PETER smokes and bends his head reflectively. JEM is silent save for drinking noises. He shows his face for a moment in the gloom by lighting a cigarette.)