by Joe Joyce
‘I mean can he be trusted in the present circumstances?’
‘A hundred percent,’ Duggan said, with emphasis, holding back a touch of anger. Could he be trusted to implement the government policy of neutrality, unlike yourself, he was tempted to ask.
‘You know he’s a Protestant?’ Timmy said.
‘No,’ Duggan said automatically. ‘Like Wolfe Tone,’ he added.
‘His father was in the British army.’
‘Wolfe Tone’s?’ Duggan shot back.
Timmy looked at him and ignored the comment. ‘The Boer War. Wounded there and invalided out.’
Duggan rolled down his window and tossed his cigarette butt out. Timmy did the same on his side and closed his window.
‘As I see it,’ he said, ‘we have two main problems in maintaining all we’ve won in the last twenty years. More and better arms for you fellows, and fifth columnists.’
‘Like the IRA.’
Timmy ignored that. ‘The British won’t give us the arms. And they won’t let the Americans give them to us either. Which tells you everything you need to know about their intentions. They don’t want us to be able to defend ourselves against them. Right?’
Duggan made a noncommittal noise.
‘The other problem is fifth columnists. Not the IRA, English fifth columnists. There’s a fair few in the army these days. Too many of them. Some in important positions. People whose loyalty we can’t rely on when push comes to shove. Who’d fight the Germans all right, but won’t fight the British. That’s why we have to get as many of the right people into the right positions as quickly as possible.’
A number of things clicked into place in Duggan’s mind. That’s why people like himself and Sullivan, lads with the right background, had been moved into G2. And maybe that was what McClure’s speech yesterday was all about; not a warning to us but a declaration of loyalty by him. He must know that he was an object of suspicion to the likes of Timmy, untrustworthy because of his family’s previous allegiance. Or what the likes of Timmy thought was his family’s allegiance. Just because his father fought in the Boer War didn’t mean he was a unionist.
He thought of saying some of this to Timmy but held his breath and concentrated on the driving as they went down into Ballinasloe, past the huge grey mental asylum with its prison-like walls.
‘I got an answer to your ad in the paper,’ Timmy said.
‘Oh,’ Duggan said in surprise, noting the ‘your ad’ as if it had been all his doing. He had half expected that the ad would be the end of it. That its appearance would have left the instigators, probably including Nuala, rolling around with laughter at the idea of Timmy offering thanks to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour. No doubt, the story would circulate in political circles and surface in obscure references in the Dáil or county council or on election platforms to Timmy’s devotion. To the bewilderment of the public, if they noticed at all, and the delight of an ever-growing circle of the knowing. But the apparent involvement of the IRA had suggested otherwise, that something else was going on.
Timmy pulled an envelope from his inside pocket and took out a sheet of paper and read from it. ‘Message received. Put £500 in envelope addressed to your daughter in letter box of 12 Wicklow Street between 6 and 7 pm Sunday. Await release instructions.’
‘Jesus,’ Duggan said. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ Timmy said. ‘It’s getting serious now.’
‘You’ve got to tell the guards now. They can watch that place. Grab whoever’s doing this.’
‘Yeah,’ Timmy said without conviction, lifting his hat to scratch the side of his head. ‘I’ll sleep on it overnight. Decide tomorrow.’
‘At least they’re asking for a lot less now.’
‘That’s still more than a year’s salary. And no guarantee that’ll end it.’
‘No,’ Duggan agreed. ‘Call in the guards. You’ve got to do it now.’
Timmy said nothing and Duggan thought, I’ll do it myself, get Gifford to report it and let the guards deal with it. Never mind Timmy’s political sensitivities. He drove on in silence and slowed and turned off the main road as he neared his home.
‘We’ll go back early tomorrow,’ Timmy said. ‘I’ll pick you up after the twelve o’clock Mass. We won’t wait for the dinner or we’ll be here all day.’
‘Okay,’ Duggan turned into the laneway leading to his home. He’s thinking of paying, he thought. Wants to be back in Dublin by the deadline.
He stopped the car on the gravel in front of the house and the sheepdog came running out, followed a moment or two later by his mother. She was wearing a wraparound apron and wiping her hands on a cloth as she squinted in the sudden sunlight at the strange car.
‘Kate,’ Timmy was out of the car, back in public form. ‘Look at what I brought you.’
Duggan retrieved his cap from the back seat and put it on as he stepped out of the car.
‘Look at you,’ his mother said with a smile. Then she burst into tears and let them run down her face unhindered.
‘Now, Kate,’ Timmy said, coming around to the driver’s seat. ‘What are you upsetting yourself for? You should be very proud of him. A fine specimen of Irish manhood.’ He raised his eyes to heaven as he went by Duggan and added, ‘One o’clock tomorrow.’
The sheepdog jumped up at Duggan as Timmy drove away, leaving a smell of exhaust fumes on the warm air. His mother smiled at him through her tears and said, ‘Come on in’, and steered him into the kitchen with her two hands on his back. It seemed dark inside, out of the sunshine. There was a large plate of buttered slices of bread on the table and a bowl of mashed-up boiled eggs beside it.
‘They’re all at the bog,’ she said. ‘Footing the turf. I was just making the sandwiches for them.’
‘I’ll take them over,’ he said.
‘Do that,’ she said. ‘They’ll be delighted.’
‘I better get out of this uniform.’
‘Do,’ she said.
He went upstairs to his bedroom, feeling the staircase very narrow and the house small compared to what he had become used to now. He opened the window to let in some air and the sounds and smells of the farmyard below also flowed in, the chickens clucking and picking around the open door of the hayshed. The dog had gone back to sleep, lying stretched out in the sunshine. In the fields beyond, a number of shorthorn cattle grazed slowly and a small flock of sheep were scattered about. He picked out the growing lambs and counted them automatically. Beyond, in what had been last year’s meadow, there were drills of potato plants, cabbages, carrots and a line of staked peas, all different shades and textures of green. He changed quickly into an old pair of trousers and shirt and hung his uniform in the wardrobe and went back down.
‘I’ve just made a pot of tea,’ his mother said. ‘And you’ll have an egg sandwich?’
He poured himself a cup of tea from the pot on the range and sat down at the end of the table. She was cutting the sandwiches in half and putting them into a square biscuit tin with faded Christmas decorations around the side. ‘There’s ham as well,’ she said, pointing at a layer of sandwiches already in the tin.
‘I prefer the egg,’ he said, reaching for one.
‘I know,’ she smiled and passed him another half she had just cut.
‘Any news?’ He poured milk into his tea.
‘Oh, I should’ve told Timmy. Pakie Kelly died this morning.’
‘He’ll hear about it soon enough.’
‘He’s in time for the wake anyway. Everybody’ll be there.’
‘Trust Timmy,’ he said.
She nodded and worked in silence for a moment.
‘Is it going to come here? The war?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘No one knows.’
‘We had a scare here the other night. Did you hear about it?’
He shook his head. There were scares everywhere every night. It was a full-time job just logging them all.
‘There w
ere some planes heard overhead and word went round that the Germans had landed in Galway. They were supposed to be coming this way. The LDF put up a barricade at the bridge down the road.’ She packed the last of the sandwiches into the tin and pressed the lid down on it. Christmas Greetings, it said. ‘Do you want another one? There’s enough egg left.’
He nodded.
She buttered another two slices of bread and smeared the mashed egg onto them. ‘Your father insisted on going out with them,’ she said as she worked. ‘With his shotgun. I told him not to be daft. He’d be better off in bed saying his prayers. At his age. But he went anyway. Said he knew much more about fighting in ditches than all the LDF put together.’
‘He was probably right about that,’ Duggan said, as he took the extra sandwiches from her. Shotguns against Stukas, he thought.
‘I didn’t sleep a wink that night.’ She went to the sink and washed her hands and dried them with a towel. ‘I don’t think anybody in the parish slept at all that night.’
‘There’ve been a lot of scares,’ he said. ‘But nothing’s happened.’
She went out to the pantry and came back with a large jug of milk which she poured carefully into a clean whiskey bottle and replaced its cork. He finished his sandwich and tea and watched her take a rush basket from behind the door and put the bottle and the biscuit tin into it.
‘I won’t be on the barricades if anything happens,’ he said. ‘That’s the advantage of being in headquarters. We’ll be well away from any front.’
She stopped and stared up into his face for a moment as he stood up, knowing he was only trying to reassure her, not reassured. Then she handed him the basket. ‘You still know the way anyway?’
‘I do,’ he smiled.
He got his old bicycle from the hayshed, dusted down the saddle, and set off down the driveway with the basket hanging from the handlebar. The dog came loping around the house and ran down the driveway beside him. As he turned onto the road he stopped and told the dog to go home in a stern voice. It looked at him and then turned and walked back towards the house. He picked up speed quickly, feeling the warmth of the breeze in his hair and of the sun on his face and arms and hearing the cacophony of birdsong, and the countryside opened out around him, as familiar as his own hand. He knew who owned every field, noted every change in the crops, the houses that had been painted, the new outhouses, the fences that had been mended with new barbed wire, the trees that had fallen or been cut down. They were all areas he and his friends had roamed as children, a playground of infinite variety, changing with the seasons from crusted frost to soft green. The war seemed a million miles further away than it seemed in Dublin. He couldn’t imagine it coming here, tanks brushing aside the puny barricades thrown up by the LDF; they’d hardly even notice the opposition as they pushed through, leaving them dead in the ditches.
The last couple of miles were down an unpaved road, two paths of beaten down sand and gravel separated by a line of rough grass down the middle. He kept a wary eye out for potholes and then swung onto the track through the bog. It was dry for a change, its ruts firm but crumbling under his wheels as he pushed forward. Overhead, the sky opened up even more and left him with the feeling that he was on top of the earth, nothing between him and the huge vast unbroken arc of blue. In the distance he could see his father and his friends working on their turf bank. They straightened up from the small heaps of turf as he approached, wondering who he was.
He left his bicycle against a clamp of turf beside their bicycles and walked across the springy heather towards them. He said hello to the other men and handed his father the basket. ‘I brought the lunch,’ he said.
‘All the way from Dublin,’ his father said.
‘Timmy gave me a lift down.’
‘You’re just in time. I was about to get the fire going.’
They walked back to the track and his father selected a couple of sods of turf from the top of the clamp, broke them up with his hands and set them on some kindling in a circle of stones enclosing grey ash. ‘It’s nearly ready to go home already,’ Duggan said, looking at the turf.
‘Another week of this weather and it’ll be done,’ his father said. He bent down and put a match to the kindling and passed his hand close to it after a moment to see if it was lighting. The sunlight was so bright it made the flame invisible. He took a bottle of water from a bag and poured it into a heavy blackened kettle which he set on top of the fire. They sat on the ground back from the fire and lit cigarettes.
‘I hear you were out on the barricades with your shotgun,’ Duggan said.
His father gave a short laugh. ‘Lot of good it would’ve been if they had come. But it was better to be up and out instead of lying in bed listening.’
‘It’s happening all over the country every night. Scares. People hearing planes, strange noises. Seeing parachutes, unexplained shadows in the air and at sea.’
‘The whole country’ll be in the asylum with nerves if it goes on much longer,’ his father laughed, unperturbed at the idea.
‘Do you think we can hold them back if they come?’
‘The Germans?’
Duggan nodded.
‘No,’ his father said. ‘Not if they want to take over the country. If it’s just a tactical diversion, maybe. We might be able to contain them then. But they can do whatever they want without much hindrance.’
They fell silent. Duggan watched a flame begin to lick the shaded side of the kettle. The breeze was warm and steady and carried the sound of the other men’s conversation across the heather towards them but they couldn’t hear the words.
‘How’s the new posting?’
‘Very different. Interesting. I like it. I think.’
His father laughed. ‘You’re beginning to sound like every IO I ever met. This is the situation. Maybe. But on the other hand, I don’t know.’
‘Nothing ever seems to be certain.’
‘Nothing ever is. But you’re learning the lingo anyway.’
‘It’s interesting.’
‘And important. Good or bad intelligence is often the difference between success and disaster.’
‘Did you ever do it?’ Duggan spotted an opening to ask about the part of his life his father never talked about.
‘Me? Intelligence? No. Not as such. Everything was less organised, less structured then.’ He flicked his cigarette end into the fire.
Duggan waited for him to go on but he didn’t. After a while, he asked, ‘Was Timmy ever in west Cork in those days? With the flying columns there?’
‘No,’ his father looked at him in surprise. ‘What would he have been doing there? We were busy enough around here.’
‘I don’t know,’ Duggan admitted. ‘Just I saw a newspaper cutting about Kilmichael in his place recently.’
‘If Timmy was at Kilmichael you’d know all about it,’ his father laughed without humour. ‘The whole world would know all about it. Tom Barry wouldn’t have got a look in.’
‘I suppose not,’ Duggan laughed too. ‘He wouldn’t have played down his role.’
‘Why didn’t you ask him why he had it?’ His father said with a mischievous look.
‘Nuala had it really. Not him.’
‘Why didn’t you ask her?’
‘I couldn’t,’ Duggan took a deep breath. ‘She’s missing.’
‘Missing?’ his father stared at him. ‘What do you mean? Missing?’
Duggan gave him a short account of what had happened since Timmy had told him about Nuala’s disappearance. ‘You haven’t mentioned this to your mother, have you?’ his father asked when he had finished.
‘No. Of course not.’
‘Don’t. She’s worried enough about you. If herself and Mona get going about Nuala as well they’ll work themselves up into a right tizzy.’ His father lit another cigarette and contemplated its burning tip for a moment. ‘You should keep away from Timmy’s machinations,’ he said.
‘I know,’ Duggan admitted, f
ishing out his own cigarettes. ‘But it’s too late now.’
The lid of the kettle began to hop up and down as the water came to a boil.
‘Can he afford the ransom?’ Duggan asked. ‘Five hundred pounds.’
‘Oh, yeah. Easily.’
‘He says it’s a year’s pay for a TD. More.’
‘A TD’s pay is the least of his incomes. That farm he has over there’ – his father pointed vaguely towards the west – ‘would give him more than that. Two hundred acres.’
‘Incomes?’ Duggan noted. ‘Does he have other things too?’
‘He has some properties in the town. And they say he has more in Dublin. I don’t know the details.’
The lid of the kettle was hopping up and down faster. His father stared at it but didn’t appear to notice it for a moment, lost in thought. Then he stood up and got a small paper bag of tea from his bag. He lifted the lid off the kettle with two sticks and dropped it on the heather while he poured in the tea leaves. He put the lid back and it began to bounce up and down again as he called to the men still at work.
‘I hope you all like strong tea,’ he said to the others as they drifted over towards them. ‘There’s nearly half a week’s ration in there.’
Timmy was more than an hour late collecting him the next day, arriving outside the house with an unnecessary blast of the car’s horn as he swung it around on the gravel to face back the way he had come. He left the engine running as he climbed out and Duggan and his parents emerged from the house.
‘Well, Con,’ Timmy said to Duggan’s father. ‘Did he tell you all about the V8?’
‘He mentioned it all right.’ Duggan’s father walked around the car, looking at its sleek lines, now dusty from the journey down. ‘He was impressed.’
‘He was all right,’ Timmy gave Duggan a wink. ‘Letting her rip on the way down when he thought I wasn’t looking.’
‘Don’t be driving too fast,’ his mother said to Duggan.
‘Well, I’m ready to meet my maker now if I have to,’ Timmy laughed. ‘Four Masses today, God bless us. Enough indulgences to get most of the parish straight out of purgatory. The ones that vote for me anyway.’
