“We’ll go on,” said MacMurrough.
“God damn yous for Irishmen,” Doyler cursed and spat.
Out on the road again, they discussed what could be made of it. “I’m telling no secrets,” Doyler said, “if I tell you now it was due on Sunday. Something went wrong then, and they called it off. I thought for good. Turns out now they only delayed it a day. But if I didn’t know, how many others in the same boat? Looks to me there was a split in the Volunteers and it’s only the madcaps gone out. Whatever about that, it’s gone off half-cock.”
Well, of course it has, MacMurrough thought to himself. It wouldn’t be an Irish rebellion else. There had always been something whimsical, even Punch-like, about Ireland at war. One thought of Emmett, the handsome romantic, and his long-laid plans confused by a riot. Of the Young Irelanders whose Tyrtaean anthems and Philippic gush could rise no further, push coming to shove, than the Battle of Widow McCormack’s Cabbage Patch. Of the Fenians, when the rebel force, numbering some hundreds, finding itself lost in the fog, surrendered to a dozen astonished constabulary; their captors then precluding any escape by the ingenious expedient of removing the men’s braces. A nation so famously seditious in song, so conspicuously inefficient in deed: it was only the comic that redeemed her. “You don’t really suppose Dublin can be in the hands of rebels?” he asked.
Doyler spat. “If they wasn’t arrested by the peeler on point.” MacMurrough nodded. Presently he added, “Maybe it’s true, there’s German aid.”
“There’s no German aid,” MacMurrough told him. “An arms ship was seized off Kerry. Sir Roger Casement is in prison in London.”
“Casement?”
“You’ve heard of him?”
“Everyone’s heard of Casement. You know that for sure now? They have him in London?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t say anything for a while. He shrugged. “Could be like they say, the country is up.”
“Yes,” MacMurrough agreed. Because really, the alternative was too awful. A few hundred madcaps in arms in Dublin, and the British Empire ranging to strike.
The hedges chirped their hungry news, crows barracked above them. The fat contented cows munched their post-emulgial cud. The fields passed them by. Green they passed, and lushly green they stretched to the hills, whence mildly came the mizzling rain. The turf-smoke rose in rakes from the cottages. The air had a flatulent reek of earth. MacMurrough felt his pace had quickened. He heard Doyler’s breath coming harder by his side. This country was not up. A fool would tell you this country was up.
Ballsbridge at last, the lip of the city; and here the rumors grew circumstantial. The OTC held Trinity for the Crown. The Castle had beat off a rebel attack. St. Stephen’s Green was barricaded and the Tommies drawn up in Merrion Row. And now they heard it. Crack. Crack. And then a score of cracks that scrunched together. “Volleying,” said Doyler. “That’s the military.”
It’s happening, MacMurrough told himself. I walk towards it. And yet, it was not happening. The Royal Spring Show was on. Tweedy hats, prize bulls, hobbled madams waited by the entrance. God damn this country, would it never make up its mind?
They turned towards Baggot Street. Way down from the canal, a lone figure cycled the middle of the road. “Peeler,” said Doyler.
Yes, one of Dublin’s famed giants in blue, a rain-caped spike topped copper. “I understood they were recalled to barracks.”
“Maybe only inside of the canals.”
“How far is the Green now?”
“Beyond over the bridge.”
“We need some momentum,” MacMurrough said. “It grates on the nerves, this walking to war.”
“It’s the dead that walk,” said Doyler.
Ghoulish thing to say. “Why the dead?”
“Something Jim told me. Dream he had of his brother.”
His white-gloved hand waving, the policeman was calling to the people to remain in their homes. He might have been the barker for some fairground attraction. The people crowded the road behind to find out the advertised peril.
“Remind me now,” said MacMurrough, “the police are the enemy?”
“Them lot’s always the enemy. Wait now, you’re not going to shoot him?”
“Of course I’m not going to shoot him.”
MacMurrough flagged the constable down. He scooted to a halt on the pedal, his kindly face raised. “Now sir.”
MacMurrough said, “My name is MacMurrough, of Ballygihen House and of High Kinsella, County Wexford. Do you understand?”
The constable nodded and brought his hand to salute. MacMurrough continued, “Now, this fellow here, he fucked me last night. Isn’t he the handsome rake? Yes, he fucked me something divine, then after he fetched up my arse, he turned me over and brought me off in his mouth. Glorious, constable, words cannot describe, you’d want to try it yourself. Or perhaps you have? In the meantime, you’ll be so good as to lend me your bike for I find we’re running late for the revolution.”
The constable followed but imperfectly the thrust of this communication, for in the act of his saluting, MacMurrough had punched him in the stomach. Punched so hard the constable doubled, and MacMurrough, still holding forth, boxed his face, a left upper-cut to the jaw and a right just under his nose. It was troublesome with the helmet and cape, so dispensing with the ring, he booted the man in the groin and kneed him upwards on the chin. He held him by the cape while he reeled. “You want a go?”
“No,” said Doyler, shaking his head.
He let go the policeman, who crumpled to the road.
“Why’d you do that?”
“Oh I don’t know.” MacMurrough picked up the bike. He was short of breath. The violence still trembled in his legs. “The boot was by way of apology, I suppose.”
“Apology accepted.”
People were gathering. An elderly woman had fainted. “I say,” came a man’s voice.
Doyler knelt down to the policeman and was undoing his collar. “You’ll be all right, lay still.” The constable reached a hand to grab his ankle, and Doyler told him, in a very grown-up and reasoned voice, “Be sensible, man. I won’t mind shooting you at all and you must think of your wife and home.” His ankle was let go.
“They’re robbing that poor man,” a lady said. “Common thuggery, I call it,” pronounced a gentleman.
MacMurrough said, “Well, we’re in it now.”
Doyler stood up. “Was that true about last night?” he wanted to know.
“Glorious, every minute. We’ll do it again, I hope. Soon.”
A smile slanted across his face, half-doyler. “You know, MacMurrough, I never disliked that side of it with you. It was always the ’tache I could never get beyond of.”
MacMurrough laughed. “Cross-bar, or sit up behind?”
“Sit up behind’ll do.”
MacMurrough plunged on the pedal. He splashed through puddles. The bike wobbled till he found his momentum. Wind at last. Yahoo, he heard Doyler call behind. The gunfire grew louder and the volleys imperative, ever more imperious. He heard the garrulous natter of machine-guns. Here we go, our mad minute of glory, charging towards it. And it was true, the dead it was that walked. See them mutter and stare from the pavements. His aunt was right. It was far too absurd to die of a Tuesday.
A tingling in his arse told him it was today Tuesday, and he laughed out loud. “We’ll all be dead by tonight,” he called to Doyler.
“Sure I know that,” Doyler called back. “Yahoo!”
The sergeant whispered Jim the word, and Jim leapt from the trench. He careered it over the lawn, dodging and ducking behind tree trunks, weaving in and out, skipping the branches that had fallen, other debris he didn’t know what it was, the lawn-rail. He heard the sergeant calling him back, but he was damned if he was cowering any longer nor crawling behind them pudding posteriors. The bullets came amazing close, ssshooting past. The noise quite shocked at times. But he reckoned he had the gauge of them now. They had no wish
to hit him or hurt him, only to be the same place as he. It was fool’s play really. All he needed was to keep one step ahead. The corner of his eye he saw the swerving skew of their impact, sure miles off aim the most of them. The land rose for the bridge over the pond. He resisted the lure of the parapet’s shelter. The machine-guns tore up the water and the ducks again quackled and fled. Now his stamp on the wet sand path. Lawn-rail again and the slippery, whoops, slithery grass. He was there but for the mound to climb. There were trees up above and he saw flashes between of returning fire. He wanted to cheer. He was gallant and gay. It crossed his mind to stop now, kneel and take careful aim.
A shout. He looked round. The sergeant had followed him. He was down. Jim’s feet carried on, teetering a bit, before he had command of them. He turned back. The sergeant was waving him away, cursing him. Jim shook his head, trying to think why the man had followed him at all. Couldn’t he see it was dangerous? It was only his ankle, his bleddy ankle, twisted it. Jim took his arm but he couldn’t shift his weight. It was all very awkward with his gun in one hand and the clutch of cartridges he kept in the other. The sergeant carried on cursing in his bleddy way, telling Jim he had hold the wrong arm, was he born defective. Jim thought quickly. He took the man’s rifle and ran up the mound, flung both their guns into the keeping of hands there and ran back down the slope. The sergeant had hobbled to his feet. Jim saw them floatingly, a line of dancing raindrops, tracing their lenient curve towards him. The sergeant was a goner. There was only the one way to save him, and he threw himself on top, hurling the man to the ground. He lay covering his corporation with as much as his body and limbs would allow. The bullets veered as he had known they must, though it was astonishing how close they would come and still not hit you. He had felt their wind even. Can you walk at all? Bleddy lunatic.
At last they woke up on the mound. Fellows were coming out, reaching their hands down. “Will you hurry up,” said Jim. It was vexing beyond belief. They hopped the sergeant one way or another round the bank of elm trees and down behind the hump in the ground. Jim lay with his head against the slope, breathing, luxuriating in breath. Suddenly, he was shivering cold.
“Is he all right?” a girl asked. “He’s shocking pale.”
“Leave him stew,” said a man.
“Ankle,” uttered Jim. “He got it twisted.”
“That’s right,” said the girl, “heave it up now, you’ll be fine.”
“What’s up with him?” said a boy’s voice piping.
“He’s after getting his sergeant near killed.”
“Oh,” said the boy’s voice piping.
Jim wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He swallowed, his throat bitter and raw. The flush receded. He took off his bush-hat. He was sweating and cold and hot.
The boy said, “You want a custard pie?”
Jim’s eyes focused. “How old are you supposed to be?” he asked.
“Jeez,” said the boy and walked away.
Twice now Mr. Mack had returned to Ballygihen, but no sign of anyone, nor Doyler nor Mr. MacMurrough, only that chappie of a gardener who wished it be known he was caretaker now and who did Mr. Mack think he was, agitating this here bell of the big house. No luck at the Forty Foot: nobody swimming and no sight of Jim, the only news on any man’s tongue was Dublin, Dublin, Dublin. Wearily, traipsily, Mr. Mack set his face in the rain toward Kingstown.
The streets were awake now. Already George’s Street crawled with traffic. At the junction with Marine Road he saw the why of that: a kind of a picket had formed, manned by respectable gentlemen of the Georgius Rex with brassards on their sleeves, and a couple Baden-Poweller boys in uniforms and hats. They were stopping drivers and asking questions. Nothing what you would call official, they assured Mr. Mack, but still something had to be done to put a halt to these Sinn Feiner rascals; and Mr. Mack, saluting with a tip of his boater, agreed, saying it was a shocking state of affairs altogether, and only for he was stepping into town himself he would stop to lend a hand.
“What business would that be on?” asked one of the gentlemen, and Mr. Mack, taking a breath to reply, had the breath taken from him by the sound that now approached from the harbor below. Soldiers, hundreds of them, sure what was he saying, half a battalion at the very least, and the scrunch of their boots on the road, all in step, at a marching gait, in column of two files, coming up from the mailboat pier. And louder still they came, rank upon rank, there seemed no end to them, battalion, half a brigade, and he shook his head in wonder. Holy God, his lips muttered and he blessed himself with a slow-moving hand. Has it come to this already?
He heard their voices now, the more likely lads calling out Parleyvoo or Bonjour mamselle to the feminine gender that gathered to look, the way they had it mistook for some place foreign where they’d landed: their accents of the English Midlands queer as Russian in this fashionable town. He saw their faces, haggard and sicklooking some of them, after the crossing they had of it, young fellows of Gordie’s age, no more, all weighed down with equipment, with rifle and pack and the accoutrements of war, their officers looking warily about them, distrusting. Though the populace was doing its best now, with cups of tea and plates of bread, distributing them, and a school had opened its gates for a billet.
Up the rebels! some fool of a youngster was heard to cry, but the crowd descended so quick, Mr. Mack could see no face, only the boots kicking before the lad was trundled away. Holy Mother of God, he thought to himself. And this is only the beginning of it. This is only the very beginning.
The traffic had been stopped this while, and Mr. Mack had grown aware, on the back of his head, of the intimidation of unfriendly stares. He turned to catch a young Baden-Poweller watching from under his Boy Scout hat. Now he heard this pipsqueak say, “Granddadda,” pulling on a gentleman’s sleeve, “he’s one of them, I’m sure of it, Granddadda.”
“What’s this now?” said Mr. Mack.
“Glasthule, Granddadda, remember? He was in the papers about it. The recruitment posters.”
“Now now,” said Mr. Mack sternly, “don’t you be talking things you know nothing about. Now look here,” he added to the men who closed about him, “will you have the goodness to take your hands off of me?”
“Fetch a constable,” said a gentlemen.
“Put him in charge,” said another.
Mr. Mack shrugged his arms but the grip of the men, for all their respectability, was surprising tight. One had produced a musket even. Some of the folks watching made mutter about the King’s Highway and the liberty to walk thereon, but most said nothing at all, only the louts in the crowd who set up that curious Irish jeer of a cheer while they waited on the peelers’ coming. But Mr. Mack did not think of the crowd while he stood there in the gentlemen’s grip; not of the crowd, nor of the papers nor his customers nor shop. When the constables came, all six of them, wiping their bakes of their grinny breakfasts, he gave them no thought, whoreson oafs though they were who, given their day, would drive the entire nation into the arms of the Fenians. No thought to the constables nor any to the Georgius Rex: the people had the right of that, gentlemen my backside, gorgeous wrecks was all they were. He did not think of canon nor curate, of doors, tuppenny nor sixpenny. Not of Ireland nor Dublin, which both must surely be brought to ruin. His years with the Colors were nothing to him, his regiment might never have been. While the constables marched him away, he stared back up the road where the soldiers had gone, the first of thousands to come, thinking only, helplessly, Jim, my son James, my son, my Jim.
* * *
The rebel officer—though they were not to be called rebels: this was a rising, not a rebellion and the officer stickled for the distinction—pointed out the areas of interest. “We have posts in Leeson Street and Harcourt Street. We had the railway station too, but with so few turned out, that was more a liability than much else. We hold the Green itself, or we did hold it till this morning. Headquarters is currently removing to the College of Surgeons.” He indi
cated a grey façade across the far western end of the park, just visible through a tracery of elms, where the Republican flag breezed above.
“Commandant MacDonagh holds Jacob’s mills up the way. Commandant de la Vera holds Boland’s mills down the way. No shortage of tucker for us. You probably know the general headquarters is up at the General Post Office. That is where the Republic was declared and Commandant-General Pearse read the proclamation.”
Post office! MacMurrough repeated to himself. At last, the Republic of Letters!
“The British,” the young man continued, “insofar as they bear on our forces in the Green, hold the Shelbourne Hotel with, we believe, two machine-gun crews, any number of sharp-shooters and they have a barricade manned in Merrion Row. Portobello barracks is kept pretty brisk and Beggars Bush too. The Castle, there’s fighting still. If you listen you can hear it. That other you can hear is Trinity where the West Brits is playing Old Harry with our communications.”
The Green was laid out as a rectangle with broad avenues running the length of each side, these then terraced with banks, hotels, gentlemen’s clubs, meeting-houses, more hotels, one or two churches to relieve the eye, the like. They had cycled slap bang into the military at the Baggott Street end, so MacMurrough had doubled round to the Leeson Street entry, where Doyler had hailed this rebel officer. He had been on a scouting mission and was now returning, with his two companions, to rejoin the main rebel force. The Shelbourne rose just across the park from them, a matter of three hundred yards, and they were strolling, this officer in full rebel rig plus somberro, in blatant view of its serried windows.
“I don’t mind now,” said Doyler, in a carefully neutral tone, “but is it supposed to be safe walking here?”
“From the British? Safe enough. For the moment they have game in plenty with our men retreating to the Surgeons. You’ll see it now in a minute. It sounds to me there’s one of their machine guns down. That’ll be only temporary, of course. Madame got one of them earlier.”
At Swim, Two Boys Page 56
