The Canal Bridge: A Novel of Ireland, Love, and the First World War

by Tom Phelan

  Con Hatchel

  Even though all traces of modesty had been squelched out of us by a long line of barking and snapping and spittling and gnashing sergeants, we were all self-conscious that first morning in our tropicals. The bottoms of the short trousers and the tops of the high stockings framed the knees and gave them a prominence they wouldn’t have had if everyone was naked.

  “It’s like going around with your balls hanging out of a hole in your crotch.”

  “If a man wore short trousers in Ballyhuppahawn he’d be burned at the stake.”

  “That’s a great pair of knobs you have.”

  “With knees like that, you’d have no trouble with a woman.”

  “That’s what I call them, leg forcers.”

  And then one fellow showed how the loose flesh on a straight knee could be squeezed into the shape of a crease. “What’s that, lads?” he asked, and the knowing ones laughed too loudly and poked each other with their elbows. Then the ones who didn’t know what the crease meant were made to feel like little boys. “You’ll be finding out soon enough in one of them harems in India,” they were told.

  In a matter of minutes, hundreds of soldiers were bent at their waists creasing their knee flesh.

  “Begob, Murt, you could hire that out for half a crown a go.”

  “Does it go up and down or crossways?”

  “Will you stop showing off how thick you are!”

  “Did you ever see any animal with one that goes crossways?”

  “I did. It’s called the cross-arse.”

  The talk veered into the topic of willing Indian women, who were once more put on public display, disrobed, and made to behave in imaginative ways. As the conversation expanded to include many naked women doing many things to one naked man, many of the men drifted off into a trance, their mouths open and the fronts of their new shorts distorted.

  “Now hear this. Now hear this. Roll call will be at six hundred in your designated area. That is all.”

  Of course there was more than roll call. The images of willing Indian women faded quickly as energy was diverted into other muscles by the energetic calisthenics and drilling. There was parading in confined quarters, running in tight circles. Even though it was early morning, the iron deck was already warm to our hands. In the hot sun, sweat trickled, shirts were soaked, eyes were blinded by the flowing salty water.

  Instructions were issued before dismissal. “You don’t know it now, but you are all getting burned. A burned soldier is no good. The kilted Scots found that out in South Africa after being pinned down all day in the sun; they couldn’t walk for a month with the burns on the backs of their knees. You will change out of your tropicals every morning after mess.”

  We had sailed into the Mediterranean through the Straits of Gibraltar during the night. Morocco was off to the right. Europe was up there, and Africa down there. I knew exactly where I was, but I had to keep telling myself that we were in the Mediterranean Sea, the Mediterranean where Italy and Spain and France and Greece and Turkey were. Turkey, for God’s sake!

  Bulgaria was Hungary, took a piece of Turkey, dipped it in Greece and fried it in Japan.

  Jeez! Only a few years ago I was in Mister Bennett’s class gaping at the two big circles on the wall map and daydreaming; the western and eastern hemispheres, the seas of blue, and red the colour of the British Empire. And here I was sailing across the round surface of the earth from the western hemisphere into the eastern hemisphere. And the sun and the heat! “If we only had a few days of this sun at hay time,” we said to each other.

  “We missed your man’s gateposts—Samson’s.”

  “The Pillars of Hercules, you culchee.”

  “Timbuktu’s in Africa.”

  “The Africans are very quare; they walk around naked and carry big spears.”

  “If I had to walk around naked, I’d be up on a woman every second minute.”

  “Them knees would come in handy then.”

  On the second day after roll call we were instructed about Moslems and Hindus. “They look like each other. The Hindus don’t eat beef, and the Moslems don’t eat pork. In Hindu parts, cows are sacred animals. Don’t touch the cows. In some places, monkeys are sacred animals. Don’t shoot at the monkeys even if they throw their shite at you.”

  We passed Algeria and Tunisia and swung a bit to the right to go below Sicily and above Malta. With everyone on the decks at the same time looking at the sun setting it seemed there were thousands of us.

  “You’d swear it was going to start the sea boiling any minute.”

  “What does monkey shite smell like?”

  “Do they have a good aim?”

  “Just imagine getting a pawful of monkey shite in the face.”

  “I’d blow the balls off the monkey that got me in the face with his shite.”

  “The Hindus would slice your balls off for shooting the balls off their sacred monkey.”

  “Jesus! That would hurt.”

  “’Twouldn’t hurt a bit—they’d have sliced your head off first.”

  “Oh! Don’t say that.”

  It took all of the third day to pass Libya but we couldn’t see it.

  “The Sahara’s in most of Libya.”

  “There’s camels in Libya, and they have camel races.”

  “What? With jockeys and everything?”

  “They have kangaroo races in Australia.”

  “Kangaroo races, my arse.”

  “My mother’s brother was a kangaroo jockey till he fell off going over a jump and broke his back.”

  “Don’t be daft. People can’t ride kangaroos.”

  “Jesus, but you’re thick. Of course people can ride kangaroos. The country children ride kangaroos to school, put their school bags in the kangaroos’ pouches.”

  We were told about the poor people who lived on the streets in the cities of India. “Don’t give them anything. Shout at the beggars before they get near you. Shout like you’d shout at a dog that’s going to bite you. If you give to one you’ll be mobbed and they’ll take the clothes off your back, take the boots off your feet, take your socks. They dress in rags and piss and shite in the street. Don’t stare at them. If you see a dead body in the street, just keep going. They have lads to take dead people away.”

  Before we passed Tripoli, the sky began to get cloudy. The sergeant was drilling us when the front of the ship suddenly fell into a hole in the sea. Everyone stopped and looked at each other, everyone wide-eyed, everyone weak-kneed. After a very long time the front came back up, and creaking sounds we had not heard before ran the length of the ship. The nose went down again.

  “Holy Mother of God, we’re fucked, and I can’t swim.”

  Some men staggered and went down on their hands and knees. A sudden wind whipped through the railing and whistled in the wires.

  “Now hear this. Now hear this. Vomit over the side of the ship. Do not vomit into the wind. Below deck, vomit into the vomit bags supplied by the vomit master. Do not vomit into the sinks. Do not vomit when using the flying shite-holes. Do not slip in the vomit. That is all.”

  Suddenly, at regular intervals along the deck, individual sailors took shape out of the background of grey metal pipes and ladders, looked as if they had been there all the time with brass-tipped fire hoses in their hands, only we hadn’t seen them till now.

  The nose of the ship fell into the sea hole again, and no sooner was the first spout of vomit spewed than a forceful stream of water came bouncing across the deck like a greyhound with the smell of a rabbit in its nose.

  The sailors with the hoses gave no quarter to the slow movers. The liquid brooms gathered up the vomit and carried it over the side in clouds of mist. There was a stampede for the deck’s railing, and the sounds the men made were full of gaghs and ahs.

  In half an hour all the bunks below deck were filled with men moaning, some mentioning their mothers, others offering their souls in exchange for deliverance. Some sat motionless on the
ir bunks’ edges, eyes unfocused, faces the same greenish hue as a five-day corpse, all sitting as if afraid any movement would make them die. I lay with my mouth open for hours, my eyes fixed on the head of a painted rivet. I had not known it was possible to be so sick and still be alive. No one moved when mess was announced at midday and again at evening. Just before lights-out the box squawked.

  “Now hear this. Now hear this. There will be roll call at twenty-two-hundred. Do not think you cannot walk. After roll call every man will go to the mess and drink four pints of water. That is all.”

  When we got between Crete and the edge of Egypt during the night, the wind went away, and on our fourth morning in the Mediterranean men rose from their beds announcing they could eat a horse. Some said they could eat a bullock, horns and all. One lad said he would eat a monkey, even if it meant having a dozen Hindus in sheets after him with spears. And the British Empire heard the cries of her hungry soldiers. Vats of creamy and sugary porridge, miles of sausages, eggs by the gross, tons of bread, tubs of butter, gallons of sweet and milky tea were served at breakfast, and when we left the mess every plate and mug was empty, the knives and forks licked clean.

  “I told you before not to lick the fucking forks and knives. Are you fucking savages or what?”

  Foul digestive airs belched and farted unabated for two hours at roll call and drill.

  At the end of the afternoon drilling and marching, we were told we were not going to India for our holidays. As the lieutenant reminded us of our duties to the Imperial Army and our responsibilities to His Majesty the King, I thought that no matter what was expected of us I was already on holidays, and that I’d be on holidays all the time I was in India. It was being on this ship, it was this journey through the Mediterranean, it was all the strangeness, the difference and the newness that I was seeing with every new minute that were the very makings of a holiday. Even the sight and sound of a thousand men vomiting in unison were parts of the holiday.

  India was going to be a great adventure, where I would see the places I’d read about and the millions of things I still knew nothing about. And I didn’t just want to see these places—I wanted to soak them up and bring them home with me to enjoy for the rest of my life; I wanted to think to myself in years to come, “When I was in India.” Oh, God. I was like a young boy going on his first visit to Dublin after hearing about Dublin all his life; it was like I was on the train with my head sticking out the window and the smell of the coal smoke wrapping me up in its clouds of strangeness and difference and newness.

  And then a rumour went around that we would be so close to the shores of Egypt we’d see the pyramids.

  “Egypt is where Moses was found in the bulrushes.”

  “Where was Moses when the lights went out?”

  “In Egypt.”

  “No. In the dark.”

  “We’ll see the pyramids.”

  “What’s a pyramid?”

  I had to keep reminding myself that in the army rumours sprung up like mushrooms on a hot night in August. One fellow could be told there’s pyramids in Egypt; the next minute the rumour was that we’d see the pyramids.

  While we sailed closer to the Suez Canal a rumour came to our card game that Moslems caught stealing in India had their right hands cut off, that the robber would have to use the same hand to wash his arse and put food in his mouth.

  “Imagine that! Having your hand cut off.”

  “How do they do it?”

  “A hatchet and a block of wood, the same as cutting sticks for the fire.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. The Handcutter is a tradesman in India. He’s at it all day. ‘Next,’ he shouts, and down goes the hand, up goes the hatchet and off comes the hand.”

  “No!”

  “Yes.”

  “Jesus! Are they savages or what?”

  Another rumour doing the rounds was that Germany and France were going to have a war with each other.

  “When them lads aren’t fighting each other, they’re talking about fighting each other.”

  “Last time, the Germans grabbed a bit of France where there’s coal and iron. Maybe the French are going to take it back. Who’s deal is it?”

  “As long as there’s no war in India, I don’t give a shite.”

  “Will you put your money in, Ryan, you hure. Why do you always have to be reminded?”

  “When a man dies in India the body is burned on a pile of sticks and his wife has to jump into the fire and get dead too, because there’s no one left to take care of her.”

  “The shite that flies around the army is enough to cover the Curragh six inches deep once a week.”

  “Ryan and his money are hard to part, that’s why he’s always trying not to pay up, you hure, Ryan.”

  “It costs money to play cards, Ryan. Will you put your money in without having to be told every time, or else don’t play, you hure.”

  “Every Ryan I ever knew was as tight as a goat’s arse in January.”

  Matthias Wrenn

  It wasn’t until we were packed into close quarters on the ship that it became apparent how little many of the men knew. Most were country lads who were very much in tune with the seasonal workings of the countryside. Their experiences were as limited as Con’s and mine, but most had never read a book or a newspaper, had never heard of Mercator’s projection nor seen a globe. Some had never heard about north, south, east and west. Many seemed to have stopped learning once they knew a few hundred words, along with “feck” and “fuck.”

  That’s why many of the lads needed convincing Egypt was no longer on the right side of the ship on the morning of our fifth day in the Mediterranean.

  “What difference does it make what side Egypt’s on?”

  “How do you know where Egypt is if you can’t even see it?”

  “Who gives a shite where Egypt is?”

  If the relaxed atmosphere on the ship for the past week could be described as a sagging string between two posts, then the changing mood on the morning of our fifth day could be compared to the string of a fiddle being stretched beyond tuning. In the mess at breakfast, loud voices proclaimed ignorance about the directions of the rising and the setting sun. Louder, more impatient and more anxious voices tried to explain.

  “But why are you so fucking cross about it?”

  “Because we’re not going to India anymore. We’re on our way back to the war that’s starting between France and Germany.”

  “But we’re in the fucking English army, you thick. We’re neither French nor German.”

  All the men in the mess looked at the two shouters, all eyes as unblinking as those of a mouse in the instant of knowing it has sprung the trap that is going to kill it.

  “There’s an agreement. England has to fight for France.”

  “Oh, good fuck!” Only one man said the words but everyone breathed them.

  In that huge mess hall not one stirring spoon whacked the side of a single mug; no fork or knife was moved. Through their open mouths the men breathed in what they had heard, their eyes as lifeless as puddles on a country lane on an overcast day. If they had been told we were sinking, they would have sat there in those same moments of stupefaction before jumping up and charging for the side of the ship.

  And when the realization sank through their staring eyes and gaping mouths that their lives had changed radically, the mess hall exploded. Questions were thrown into the air, questions that the askers knew the answers to before they asked them.

  “But what about India?”

  “Will there be bayonets?”

  And then hopes and wishes were shouted.

  “It’ll be over before we get there.”

  “I hope it’s quick—a bullet in the head.”

  One lad said, “We’re all going to get killed.” And others voiced variations of the same theme. “A bayonet in the guts is the worst.”

  “I hope I get shot. Get shot in the head and not in the guts.”

 
And a louder voice said, “Will you shut the fuck up and stop talking like that. No one’s going to die.”

  Silence began to take over, and when it was complete, the men stared at the tabletops. When the signal was given, we traipsed out of the mess in our embarrassing tropicals to our designated areas. Before we were put through our paces the officers told us what we had already figured out. The only new thing was that we’d be going back to England first to be outfitted for war in France. And in the meantime, for the next four days, there would be long hours of bayonet practice. Open palms were lifted to stomachs as if the soft bellies had cried out for protection.

  Even though the sun was shining hotly on the backs of our legs and necks, we could feel the return of the chilly winds and rains of England. A dark cloud of disappointment descended on the ship and it did not stir for two days as we all tried to get used to two new terrible ideas: we were not going to India and we were going to war. It was like we’d had a double-barrelled, rotten trick played on us.

  Con was so angry, so distraught, that he went into some dark space in his head. When spoken to, he responded in grunts that could have meant anything. “Fucking France!” were two of his muttered words that I understood in the time it took us to get back to Portsmouth. “No fucking India.” He was a caged wild animal suffering from complete loss of control over his life. “Fucking German fuckers.” During free time, he leaned over the railing, even during thunderstorms, staring at the water sliding past, staring at the front of the ship ploughing its way back to England. One time, when I went to stand beside him, he was crying. I leaned on the railing and didn’t say anything because there was nothing to say. Maybe half an hour later, Con said through clenched teeth, “I’m so fucking fucking mad, so fucking fucking cross. I’m going stupid with crossness. It’s not the War; it’s the not getting to India.” I stayed there until he went away.

  Then I cried in bitterness and anger by myself because I knew that all the little bits of extraordinary luck that had coalesced to put us on the journey to India had finally flown apart. We knew that India was gone forever. We knew it in our bones. We had been walking on a tightrope that had suddenly snapped. We had got no further than the beginning of the great adventure and all the mysterious places were gone forever. The magic of the possibilities had turned out to be an illusion after all.