by Jana Petken
“All right,” her tiny voice squeaked. They could have it all, every penny. She wasn’t going to suffer any more pain or torture by the hands of thieves, bombs, or men. She’d give them the clothes on her back just as long as they didn’t wound her …
Chapter Forty-Three
Just as he left the bakery, Danny saw the two men disappearing around a corner with Jenny. He dropped the cakes and ran across the street, screaming her name, babbling obscenities, and calling for the police. When he reached the corner, he was disorientated. The alleyway looked empty. He shouted Jenny’s name again and strode on. His rage consumed him. Like a bull, he charged, screaming and with intent to kill the men holding his sister hostage.
“Get your fuckin’ hands off my sister, ya scum!” he shouted, even before he saw the men.
The slate grey-coloured sky peeked between the rooftops of buildings, blackened with soot. It was so quiet that one could hear the softest footstep. He shouted Jenny’s name again, moving more cautiously now and stopping to look in doorways as he went.
The man with the knife stood defensively in front of his cohort, who was still rifling through Jenny’s coat. He had not yet managed to undo all the buttons and had not found her purse.
Danny saw a man’s shadowy figure in front of a building’s entrance. Rushing forwards, he was aware of the knife, but the sight of the weapon only spurred him on with an even greater urgency. Pouncing on the thief with the aggressiveness of a rabid dog, Danny lost his footing and was propelled forwards and into the doorway by the momentum. He ended up lying on top of the man, missing the knife’s point by inches.
“Danny! Danny!”
At the sound of Jenny’s frightened voice, his only thought was to get to her. That meant disarming the man lying beneath him and then attacking the other one, who was holding his sister.
The knife fell out of the man’s hand in the ensuing struggle, but nonetheless Danny threw it out of reach, secured his position by straddling the man’s body, and trapped his arms with his knees. He had always been a good boxer. He’d had plenty of practice in Frongoch, in a friendly fashion, but on this occasion, his fists were tight and cracking hard against the man’s face with the goal to render him unconscious. “So you think you can hurt my sister!” he screamed. His only thoughts were Jenny’s terror, her burns being scraped or bleeding, and all the pain she had suffered being repeated. He looked down at the man’s bloodied insentient face and punched him again for good measure.
Then he felt a hard dull thump on the back of his head. Briefly he glanced at Jenny, slumped against a wall, appearing dazed. A painful kick hit the centre of his back. Still straddling the man on the ground, he found it almost impossible to rise under the flurry of heavy-booted kicks raining down on him. In the distance, he heard the shrill sound of a whistle. The kicks stopped, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw his assailant running away.
Unceremoniously dragged off the injured man beneath him, Danny ended up sprawled on the ground, looking up at two policemen with batons in their hands.
One rushed to Jenny, who was crying but now sitting in a more upright position.
“Jenny, are you all right?” Danny shouted.
“Yes. No! I don’t know,” she sobbed.
“Did they steal anything?”
“No – nothing!”
“That’s enough of the chitchat, you,” one of the policemen said.
The man lying next to Danny moaned loudly. He appeared to be unaware of the police presence and that one of them was putting handcuffs on his wrists.
The other policeman was still comforting Jenny. Danny rose unsteadily to his feet, groaning at the new damage inflicted to his already bruised ribs. He could hardly walk; he felt he was going to pass out.
“Right, you, let’s be getting to the bottom of this, shall we?” one of the policemen said.
Swaying on his feet, Danny felt his arms being pinned behind his back and handcuffs being clicked shut on his wrists. An image of the Dublin tannery flashed through his mind, and he panicked.
“What the hell are you doing to me? I’m innocent,” he protested loudly. “I was defending my sister!”
“We’ll sort out who started this when we get to the station, scrapper,” the policeman said, pushing him towards the end of the alleyway.
The thief was grumbling about bloody Bobbies being a bunch of bastards. Danny thought that an idiotic thing for any man to say while being arrested.
“He’s a thief. He tried to rob an innocent woman,” Danny insisted, and he was so angry that he spat at the man. After being given a clout across the ear, he calmed down. His only concern was Jenny’s well-being. He could hear her crying behind him, and not one of the policemen escorted her or had the decency to let go of him so that he could help her.
“For the love of Christ, his angels, and saints, will you not allow me to comfort my sister? She’s recovering from terrible injuries caused by a Zeppelin! Have a bit of compassion, will you?” Forcibly halting the policemen walking closely behind him, he added, “Be it upon your own good conscience if she relapses. There will be hell to pay!”
The policemen looked at each other.
The one walking with Danny and holding his arm, said, “I’ll escort your sister. She can sit up front with me in the van, and when we get to the station, I’ll give her a nice hot cup of tea and will personally send for a doctor. But if you try to make a run for it, between here and where the van’s parked, you’ll be the one rotting in hell.”
“Thank you, Constable. You’ll get no trouble from me. I couldn’t run if I tried,” Danny said.
The policeman took Jenny’s arm, and when they reached the transport, he helped her onto the passenger seat at the front and closed the door.
Behind the bars at the back of the van, the thief shouted obscenities at Danny. “You attacked me! Admit it!” Turning to the policemen, he continued. “He came from bleedin’ nowhere, ’e did. Look at the state of me. I wasn’t doin’ nothin’ but mindin’ my own business!”
After Jenny was settled comfortably in the police station, Danny was ushered into a sparse room, finding himself once again facing British justice.
“Sit down,” a police sergeant ordered him. “Your full name and address, please?”
“Daniel Carmody. I reside at number fifteen on Langton Road, Greenwich, South East London.”
After scribbling the information down, the sergeant said, “Right, empty out your pockets.”
Danny took the paper bills to the sum of thirty pounds out of his breast pocket and laid them on the table. “I can explain.” Jesus, he thought, I couldn’t have sounded guiltier if I’d robbed a bank.
“Where did you get this lot, then?”
“The money is a gift from my sister. She has just recently sold an item for a substantial amount. She’ll tell you the same thing, and in fact she has the bill of sale in her purse, along with the rest of her money, to prove I’m telling the truth.”
“We’ll get back to this later, if we have to. Have you ever been arrested before?”
Shite. Shite on a brick, not that question. Should he lie? Was it worth getting caught out, denying that he’d even been in front of the law? For a second, he practiced an answer in his head.
“Mr Carmody, I haven’t got all day! Have you ever been arrested for a crime before?”
Danny jumped at the harsh tone of voice. “I have, sir, but there were very peculiar circumstances attached to the charge. Sure, I didn’t really commit a crime, as you call it. It was more of a misunderstanding, really.”
“Enlighten me.”
Danny recited a long story about the Dublin uprising and how later he had helped a friend to hide guns, not realising that he was, in fact, breaking the law by doing said friend a favour. However, he did fail to mention his first arrest, along with the great men who had since been executed. He would never apologise to anyone for following the leaders.
“And what was the outcome of that arre
st?”
Danny again guarded his words. The sergeants didn’t appear enamoured by the story or the mention of Irish rebels.
“Well, you see, I ended up having to stay a while in Frongoch prison camp. Of course, I was one of the first to be released, due to never being thought of as an upstart …”
“Wait here.”
Two hours later, Danny banged on the door. Worried about Jenny and for the reason he’d been left to sweat for such a long time, he could only presume that the police were looking into his records, either by telephone or by some other devious means. He sat down and covered his face with his hands. At his release hearing, he recalled the officer saying that should he, Danny, be arrested or brought to the authority’s attention for even the most minor infraction of the law, he’d immediately go back to one prison or another.
Another hour passed. Thumping the door with hands and feet, he wondered if they had forgotten his very existence.
Eventually, the police sergeant returned, accompanied by an army man of the same rank. Danny slumped in his chair, waiting for the words that would condemn him back to Wales, to that hell of a camp. His upcoming wedding came to mind, and his dreams of married life, a home, and an eventual future in Ireland turned to slush, leaving images of a barbwire fence and rat-infested wooden huts.
“Would you like a lawyer?” the police sergeant asked.
Danny was mystified. “Whatever for? I’m here to make a statement about an attack on my sister. Why do I need a lawyer, and what have you done with Jenny?”
“The young lady has been taken home to her mother, none the worse for wear. You needn’t worry about her. As for you, there will be no necessity for a statement about the attempted robbery. The man we caught is known to the police, and his companion will be apprehended shortly.”
Danny was losing patience. “Then why in God’s name am I still here? Jesus, it will be dark by the time I walk home.”
“You assaulted the man,” the army sergeant said.
Danny looked properly at him for the first time. Leaning nonchalantly against the wall, the soldier lit a cigarette, waved the lit match in the air, and then threw it untidily on the floor.
“I defended my sister,” Danny insisted for the umpteenth time.
“So you maintain.”
The police sergeant said, “Mr Carmody, why you did what you did is not the issue. The fact of the matter is that you punched the man’s face until it looked like it had been through a shredder. He has a cracked jaw, a pair of lips twice their normal size, and a broken nose, not to mention the loss of most of his teeth. You hit him with brute force. It did not look like a defensive act to me – or to the doctor.”
“What’s he doing here?” Danny asked, pointing to the army man.
The soldier stubbed out his cigarette and casually approached Danny. “I’m here to give you an opportunity not to go back to prison.”
“And why would you think I might be going to prison?”
“You have a record, and the terms of your release from Frongoch are very clear. You stay out of trouble or you get rearrested and locked up.”
It was true then, Danny thought – Christ, he was finished. He’d be back in that jail in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. “What’s the opportunity?”
Danny watched the army sergeant reach into his pocket and pull out three pieces of paper. Then he spread them out on the desktop. “The opportunity is for you to serve your country. These are enlistment papers. You can volunteer for the army or go to prison, and after you are eventually released from prison, you will face conscription. You like fighting, don’t you, Danny?”
Danny’s mouth was like a drought. His frightened eyes scanned the documents for a moment, but then he lifted his head and smiled at the two men in turn.
“Ah, but you see, you can’t compel me to join the army at all. I’m Irish, and as you know, we Irish are exempt from the conscription laws.” Satisfied, he sat back in the chair. With Jenny’s testimony, the police would not be able to charge him with anything more than sticking up for his big sister, whose life had been in put in peril. As his dad used to do when he played poker, he was calling their bluff.
“Where do you live?” the army sergeant asked.
“Greenwich.”
“Where do you work?”
“Woolwich.”
“Who pays you for said work?”
“My employer. Why are you asking me those questions? You already know all that,” Danny said.
The soldier lit another cigarette and swayed from toes to heels. “So let me get this right: you work in England, you are registered in the borough of Greenwich, an English employer pays you, and let’s not forget that your mother and grandmother are English.”
“So?”
“So that makes you eligible for a job sweeping the street with a brush handle up your arse, if that’s what His Majesty’s government asks of you. To all intent and purposes, you are a British resident and subject to its laws.”
“I’m eighteen. That makes me too young for enlistment.”
“It did, but the conscription act is being changed. The age threshold has been lowered.”
“Are you so desperate that you want the likes of me?” Danny asked, playing his very last card.
The army sergeant banged his fist on the table. Danny cowered in his chair. Angry lines furrowed the soldier’s forehead, as though he had lost all semblance of patience.
“Yes, you idiot, we are desperate, even if it means having to take Fenians like you! The country is not winning this war, and every day thousands of men are dying. This is all about who has the most men now. It’s not about strategy, tactical prowess, or land. It’s about who still has men standing at the end of a day’s battle, ready to fight the next day and the bloody next, until there is no more enemy left. And don’t think the Germans won’t turn their eyes on Ireland when they’ve conquered us!”
In a rare display of vulnerability, Danny put his elbows on the desk and wrapped his hands around his downturned head.
“Christ Almighty. Me, in the British Army,” he mumbled. He pondered for a moment. Sign now or after he’d been shown His Majesty’s hospitality? It probably made not a jot of difference to the army or the police. They’d get him in the end – him and every other poor bugger in this country.
Chapter Forty-Four
Jenny refused to go to bed until Danny was safely home. After she had been deposited at Minnie’s front door, she and her wig were immediately examined by her mother and Minnie, who seemed fascinated and delighted at the sight of her new thick, flowing hair. Then she informed her mother and Minnie of the relevant facts in the attempted robbery, but didn’t tell them the entire story. She’d never hear the end of it if they knew she had been alone when the attack happened. Mam wouldn’t allow her to leave the house without an escort, and Danny would never be forgiven for leaving her side for five minutes. No, as far as they were concerned, the attack had happened when she and Danny were together in that street.
She was not traumatised, at least not as much as Granny and Mam thought she should be. She’d been very frightened and was suffering from a bad headache, but she was calm. The thieves had not hurt her, nor had they taken her money, and that was a victory.
She held her mother’s hand and continued to assure her that Danny was coming home.
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. I don’t think we’ll be seeing him for a long, long time,” Minnie said.
Her granny, sitting in her armchair all night, admonishing Danny for allowing Jenny to go to the city, had not been helpful or comforting, Jenny thought, especially since Danny had not been there to defend himself. Minnie’s prediction that he would go back to prison had done nothing to calm her daughter either. Mam wouldn’t or couldn’t stop crying.
“Life is so cruel to us,” Susan muttered.
“Why do you always have to be so gloomy, Mam? We don’t know anything yet,” Jenny said.
Minnie piped up, “Oh, wo
uld you listen to her? Little Miss Optimistic all of a sudden. You’ve changed your tune.”
Refusing to enter into another argument, Jenny stared through a chink in the curtains, watching for Danny. An image of Kevin flitted through her mind. It was never easy to dismiss him from her daydreams, but it was proving impossible tonight. She used to wait for him like this, willing his tall figure to turn up unexpectedly. She had not admitted those feelings back then, of course, for she had not been fully aware of them. How fortunate she had been, knowing him, being with him, and how blind she was to have thrown him away because of self-loathing.
Just after ten that night, Danny hobbled in painfully, with a face as white as chalk and eyes wide with shock. It took him an hour to tell the women what had transpired in the police station. Surprisingly, Minnie didn’t interrupt or scold him or call him a revolutionary, as she quite often did.
Susan made two pots of tea, the second using the dregs from the first, and every so often she repeated herself. “I’ll fight the army tooth and nail to keep you. They have Patrick. They’re not having you too.”
Jenny was swimming in tears and guilt. Because of her, Danny was going to war and might die, just like hundreds of thousands of other young men. She watched him drink his tea, sitting in an uncomfortable position and in obvious pain. Even after an hour, his hands were still trembling, and he had a terrible anger etched on his face.
“I’m so sorry, Danny. I did this to you,” she said after a long silence.
“The British did it,” Danny said gratingly. “The great empire bearing their teeth and displaying their authority, even when what they’re doing is illegal. I hope you all understand now why I’m fighting for independence.”
“You’re talking nonsense,” Minnie said sharply. “It’s a man’s duty to fight for his country, not a punishment. I’m ashamed of you for even talking like that.”
“This is not my country!”
Jenny felt her face burning with anxiety. Any minute now, a heated quarrel would begin or Danny would stomp out of the room in silence. “Thank God you can still marry Anna before you’re sent off to the army training camp,” she said.
