Katie's War

by Aubrey Flegg

  ‘Perhaps it’s just because we’re both different from the English. Different languages too.’

  ‘Why? What do you speak at home?’ asked Katie, surprised.

  ‘Welsh, nothing but Welsh, except in school and with the quarry manager. I like speaking English though.’

  ‘Our teachers are off to school themselves next week to learn Irish. In a few years we’ll all be speaking Irish too.’

  ‘I never spoke a word of English before I was six,’ said Dafydd. ‘That’s why Dad wanted me to come. Brush it up, that and …’ He looked up the hill then as something caught his attention and called, ‘Hey, Dad, look at the slate tips. Doesn’t that make you feel at home?’ pointing to the tips of waste slate now just visible from the road.

  ‘Ask him in Welsh,’ Katie challenged.

  ‘More than my life’s worth.’

  They clopped on steadily for a while. Katie was listening to the talk of the men in the back. The news from Dublin sounded serious.

  ‘So you had an exciting time in Dublin?’ Katie asked.

  ‘We had no idea there was a war on.’

  ‘I’m sure there isn’t really, it’s just we all get so excited about politics. Seamus, that’s my big brother, and Mother, they are the Republicans in the family. Father is for the Treaty – says we’ll never get a better deal out of the English. Nobody wants to fight over it though.’

  ‘Well, they were fighting in Dublin. Never heard such bangs – it was like when we’re blasting in the quarry.’

  ‘Oh I’m sure it’s nothing. If it is, half the families in Ireland will be split down the middle.’ She laughed uneasily, thinking of Mother.

  ‘Hey, Dad,’ Dafydd called out. ‘Tell them about the station master.’

  Mr Parry laughed, shook his head, and said, ‘Go on, you tell them.’

  Dafydd turned to Katie, who had been watching, with interest, the sun shining pink through his ears. ‘We heard the shooting first when the train from Kingstown crossed the bridge over the river … what was the river, Dad?’

  ‘The Liffey,’ said Mr Parry.

  ‘That’s it. The railway bridge is high up in the air. We thought the driver stopped because he wanted to see what was happening. Well, I tell you, at the first bang Dad sat up like a hare. You could see his ears twitching.’ Dafydd grinned. ‘“Field gun,” Dad says, then there were snapping sounds. “Rifles, several rifles … listen … and … there! a machine-gun,” ratta-tat-tat. I was standing at the window, all excited, when a puff of smoke appeared up the river and we heard this big bang. Dad got all heroic then, pulled me back, and sat on me.’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate,’ laughed Mr Parry, ‘you can keep the drama for when you write your journal for Megan – and remember, it has to be in English!’ Then he turned to Father again. ‘Megan’s his twin sister,’ he explained. ‘It did seem though, Eamonn,’ he went on, ‘that I had jumped out of the fat into the fire. I never thought I’d hear a field-gun fired in anger again.’

  ‘Well, you pinned me back in my seat,’ continued Dafydd, undaunted. ‘There was a pudgy little man in the carriage too, pressed into the corner, eyes popping, holding his briefcase in front of him for protection. When the train started again we went in a big loop. Past a lot of houses – poor looking – then through a tunnel. I thought that would be the end of it, the shooting I mean, but no, we were shunted backwards into Kingsbridge station which seemed to be right in the thick of it.

  ‘The bangs seemed really close and I wanted to go and have a look, but Dad said that he hadn’t survived the war to be shot on his holidays in Dublin. Everyone else was having a peek though, like it was a firework display, not a war. Then along came the station master, very pompous and important he was, like a general conducting a war. He said he was going out to “inspect what was going on”. Dad said not to be a fool, but off he marched, straightening his hat. Silence. Then we heard a couple of shots followed by pounding feet, and into the station came the station master, bent double with his hat held over his backside. Talk about indignant! Someone had shot at him!’ Katie had to laugh and noticed that Mr Parry joined in.

  Katie was not sure what made her turn at that moment. The absence of Father’s ready laugh perhaps, or was it that persistent tap-tapping she had been hearing for some time. When she did she gasped. To her horror Father was staring past her, eyes unfocused, a little foam flecking the corner of his mouth, his steel hook going tap-tap, tap-tap on wood of the trap. Memories of Father’s madness swept over Katie. She glanced at Mr Parry. He was looking at Father too. Dafydd’s voice was prattling on. Barney drifted towards the middle of the road while she was turned. She heard the growl of the approaching lorry too late to do anything about it.

  ‘Look out!’ Dafydd yelled as the lorry came around the corner with a snarl and a great gush of black smoke.

  Barney side-stepped alarmingly as the lorry nearly grazed the trap. Katie braced her feet, leaning all her weight on the reins to turn his head from the ditch. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a line of green uniforms and intent faces, the light flashing from the goggles they wore against the dust. Rifles were standing upright between soldiers’ knees.

  ‘Crossley Tender,’ she shouted to Dafydd as the dust swirled about them. ‘See how the soldiers sit back-to-back. Can shoot in any direction.’ Barney was still dancing and short-stepping.

  ‘Well done, girl,’ Mr Parry said.

  Katie’s mind went racing back, remembering another day and another road, when the uniforms were not green but were the hateful black and khaki of the Black and Tans – the scum of the British Army and the scrapings of their prisons, Father had called them. It was the last summer of their walks together. There had been room on the road for the English Tender to pass them but the driver had deliberately forced them both into the ditch. The jeering faces of the men looking down were still fixed in her mind, their dust-goggles the glazed eyes of monsters. As they passed they had levelled their rifles at them.

  ‘Get down, Katie,’ Father had shouted, pushing her into the ditch and lying on top of her. No shot came; perhaps they were short of ammunition. But she was covered in nettle stings. Later that day, they had climbed together to a place called the Graves of the Leinstermen and sat looking out over the lake. In the scent of summer gorse, while the sun dipped towards the hills of Clare, beyond the Shannon, Father had told her how his regiment had got in the Welsh miners to explode a mine under the Germans and how something had gone wrong – and he had lost his hand. It was then that he had dropped his head and whispered, ‘I ran, Katie, God how I ran.’

  Which way had he run? Could shame cause madness? Was Father mad? He had never used her name before, not in one of his fits, and to this day she could not tell whether or not he knew that he had told her of these terrible things. She had locked her thoughts up deep inside her and told no-one.

  * * *

  Katie was relieved when home came in sight. Their house always appeared smaller than it really was, set below the level of the road, the farm buildings backed up into the hill, but the walls gleamed white with a dash of blue from the washing-blue her mother ceremoniously added to the barrel of whitewash when it was ready each Easter.

  ‘There we are, that’s home,’ Katie announced.

  ‘Beautiful,’ Dafydd said. ‘Hey, Dad, look – it’s like snow. Not like our Welsh houses,’ adding by way of explanation, ‘ours are all dark stone.’

  ‘That’s our quarry, straight ahead, past the farm. You can just see the tips and the sheds.’ Katie held Barney back firmly as they dipped steeply down through the gate into the farmyard. Marty appeared from an outhouse, saw Katie at the reins, and fled in mock terror.

  ‘That’s Marty,’ Katie explained resignedly. ‘He’s the farmer of the family. Don’t pay any attention to him, he’s always fooling around.’ Then she added loudly, so the still-apprehensive head poking round the corner of the shed could hear, ‘He’s terribly afraid of horses.’ Marty came out, grinning sheepishl
y. As if on cue, Mother appeared from the kitchen and Seamus from the harness room, where he usually went to think; he seldom mended any harness. He was tall, with dark eyebrows that formed a bar across his forehead. He had a slow smile that Katie knew would melt the heart of any girl, if only he would care to use it. He took Barney’s head. Katie had loved Seamus with a passion verging on idolatry while Father was away at the war. Later, during the Black and Tan war against the English, while she had looked after Father, Seamus had fretted because he was too young to fight. He’d tell Katie how he’d love to fight for Ireland, but all they’d let him do was run messages.

  ‘Welcome to Tipperary, Dafydd.’ Mother was smiling up at the boy. ‘Come down now, you must be starved.’

  The men climbed down, Katie next, while Marty stood holding the tiny door of the trap as if he were handing gentry out of a coach-and-four. Dafydd followed. He did not see the little iron step at the back of the trap and jumped on to the cobbles with a crash of hobnailed boots. Immediately there was a yip from Marty, who leapt back, holding one foot.

  ‘Dafydd! Did you jump on the lad?’ cried Mr Parry in dismay. ‘Be careful!’

  ‘Nonsense, he was miles away from him. Marty!’ yelled Father, ‘come here and show some manners. Can you never stop fooling?’ Marty, held by the scruff of the neck, but still grinning, was introduced. All at once everyone was talking, and Katie looked at her father laughing and smiling. At least he wasn’t going to have a fit now. Marty’s clowning had seen to that. It had also cleared her bad temper. She wanted to give Marty a hug, but he didn’t look very clean.

  * * *

  ‘Katie,’ said her mother that evening. ‘Will you take Marty and Dafydd and show Dafydd where he’s to sleep? The boy must be dropping. We have to look after him, you know.’

  Humph, thought Katie. She had helped her mother make up the settle bed on the landing while the men walked up to the quarry and Marty showed Dafydd the farm.

  ‘I’d have put Seamus on the landing, but he’s too long for the bed,’ Mother explained to Dafydd, ‘but he and Marty are close beside you in the bedroom, and Katie’s room is across the landing, so you won’t be lonely.’ The settle bed folded away into a chest when not in use, but now it was opened out, the head beside the door leading into the boys’ bedroom where the landing was widest. The stairs came up outside Katie’s door at the opposite end of the landing. A soap box made a bedside table for a candle, as well as serving for a cupboard for clothes.

  Marty was expanding on the probability of Dafydd having to share his bed with a ghost ‘the night pusher who …’

  ‘Will you shut up, Marty,’ Katie said. ‘The only ghost you’ll see about here is Marty creeping around like a blind elephant twice in the night.’

  ‘It’s not twice,’ he declared indignantly. ‘I can’t stand using a pot,’ he explained, ‘the yard’s better.’

  ‘You’re just not civilised!’ said Katie.

  ‘Well, it was you brought the subject up,’ he said with some justification. ‘I’d like to know …’ he began, but Katie was away down the stairs; she seldom won an argument with Marty and this one was getting out of hand.

  It seemed a shame to go to bed when it was so bright. She decided to walk up towards the quarry and meet Father and Mr Parry on their way down.

  CHAPTER 4

  Up the Republic

  Oh Megan, Dafydd wrote to his sister. I’m in love (again! you say). She’s like the rising sun, hair of spun gold. Driving her chariot through this war-torn land. But I, who would be her slave, am in the dog-house. It all started at dinner. Don’t ask me how I put my foot in it, but I did, boots and all, and now she’s slipped away. They were talking about the fighting in Dublin …

  * * *

  Mother had sniffed the meat anxiously when Katie brought it in from the meat-safe in the dairy, the coolest place on the farm. It had held despite the warm weather. Now the house was filled with the delicious smell of roast lamb, cooked with a sprig of rosemary. This was to be the special welcoming dinner for the two guests, postponed from yesterday when the train was late. Father and Mr Parry had been turned out of the kitchen and were sitting uncomfortably in the parlour with glasses of bottled stout.

  ‘Take care, Katie!’ warned her mother, as Katie drew a tray of roast potatoes from the top oven of the range. They spat and pinged in the hot dripping. She loved roast potatoes almost as much as she liked the tiny little new ones which Mother had just shaken out of the pot in a cloud of steam. A knob of yellow butter was turning on them as it melted.

  ‘Where is Seamus?’ worried her mother. ‘I wish he was here.’ What was Mother worried about, wondered Katie, Seamus was seldom anywhere when he was wanted; he came and went.

  ‘Look, Katie, would you ever ask Father to sharpen the knife – and don’t let Marty near it.’

  Seamus had still not appeared when they all sat down and Mother said the few words of Grace. Marty and Dafydd were sitting side-by-side, opposite Katie. She noticed that Dafydd didn’t bless himself. Of course, he’d be a Protestant, she remembered, and looked at him with new interest. Then she saw that Marty had noticed too. She could just see some joke or comment working itself out in his mind. Quickly she lashed out at him under the table. To her mortification it was Dafydd who gave a jump.

  ‘Marty,’ said Mother severely, ‘will you behave yourself there!’

  Marty opened his mouth to protest, saw his mother’s look, and closed it. Katie kept her eyes down but she could feel both boys’ eyes boring into her. A tell-tale blush began to spread from her neck. When she looked up, Dafydd was suppressing a grin, and he and Marty were both ready to explode. She could not trust herself to look again – another moment and they would all three be giggling like children. She mustn’t giggle! Not with him. She turned to look up the table, held her breath and forced herself to listen to the adult conversation. Father was stabbing at a piece of meat on his plate.

  ‘Of course you’re right, Griff, we should accept the Treaty with the English! It’s a step in the right direction, and a step taken without further use of guns. We have Home Rule, let’s build on that.’

  ‘What do the Republicans want then?’ asked Mr Parry.

  ‘Seamus is the Republican in the family, we should ask him.’ Father looked down the table to where Seamus’s place stood empty. It was Mother who answered.

  ‘They feel we should throw off the yoke of England completely. Not let the country be divided up into North and South. They think that we stopped just when the war was about to be won. They feel that Mr Collins has betrayed them.’

  ‘That’s nonsense, dear. I don’t like Mr Collins myself, he’s a man of war and I’m sick of men of war, but if I were still a soldier, it is Collins I would follow. Collins knows that he can be beaten. He knows the weaknesses of the English, but he knows our own weaknesses too. That’s what separates him from the dreamers. He will do anything, including shooting people in their beds, to make sure he wins.’ Father shuddered. ‘If he’s not fighting now it’s because he knows he can’t win.’

  ‘But we can win, surely, Eamonn,’ said Mother. ‘It seemed, only this time last year, that we had the English on the run or holed up in their barracks.’ Katie cocked her head. She had never heard Mother speak out like this.

  ‘Arms, my dear, the Irish lack guns and ammunition. One rifle to fifty men, they tell me, that’s the first thing. And I say thank God because it means less slaughter, less lives at risk. If we could only get guns out of Ireland …’

  Katie found she’d mashed her new potatoes without thinking and was cross at having spoiled them. Bother him and his guns, she thought. She wanted to hear what Seamus had to say; it wasn’t fair to talk like this without him. He’s involved in something and I’m being left out of it again, she thought to herself.

  ‘Secondly,’ Father went on, ‘there is the voice of the people – democracy. We’ve had elections, you see, Griff. People have voted, and the message is clear. They want the agre
ement with England, they want the end of the war.’

  A shadow darkened the open door.

  ‘They are traitors!’ The strangled words caught them all by surprise. Chairs scraped on the stone floor as they turned towards the door. Seamus stood there, taut as a bent bow, thin against the light. No-one moved. It was Mother who recovered first.

  ‘Come in, love,’ she said, ‘we went ahead without you.’

  ‘They are traitors to their oath,’ he said without moving. ‘They are destroying the most beautiful thing we ever had.’

  Katie glanced at her father, but he had managed a smile.

  ‘Come in,’ he said, ‘tell us, who is destroying what?’

  Seamus came forward and took his place stiffly at the end of the table next to Katie. He put his hands on the table and then hurriedly hid them on his lap. She noticed that they were blistered and raw. His plate was passed down and she put it in front of him, but he didn’t even look at it.

  ‘The Republic, of course,’ he said, glaring up the table.

  ‘But how can they betray something that never existed, Seamus? When did we have a Republic?’ protested Father quietly.

  ‘We have it, we have it now – of course it exists!’ said Seamus indignantly. ‘What about the declaration of 1916? Didn’t we declare a Republic then? What about our Dáil, and our army, and our courts? The Republic is ours – we took it from the English.’

  ‘That’s the point, son, we haven’t taken it from the English. The war isn’t over. The trench taken today may be taken back tomorrow. I’ve seen it. Without a treaty we could lose all we’ve gained.’

  ‘We’ll gain nothing from the English unless we fight for it. The treaty is a betrayal.’ Katie sensed that Seamus was very close to tears.

  ‘But the people don’t want to go on fighting, Seamie,’ Father continued. ‘We’ve had elections. The message from the people is clear; they want the treaty.’