Katie's War

by Aubrey Flegg

  ‘People!’ said Seamus scornfully. ‘Where would we be now if we always did what the people wanted? Were the people behind the Fenians? Behind Pearse and Connolly in 1916? Were the people behind us until they saw us beating the Black and Tans? If the people had their way the whole nation would have taken the king’s shilling – like you – and gone off with Redmond to fight in England’s war, and Ireland would have been left to rot!’

  A horrified silence filled the room, the insult hanging in the air. Katie was stunned, but at the same time a devil inside her wanted to cheer. Here was her old Seamus, her magnetic, exciting Seamus. She ought to stop him, she knew it, but she had been good for long enough, her whole body was egging him on. She didn’t mind if he hurt Father, it was about time Father stopped being frail – and anyway she resented being landed with that plucked chicken of a companion opposite for the summer. She glanced across the table and found herself gazing into the startled eyes of the Welsh boy and she nearly put her tongue out.

  Seamus pushed his plate away. ‘I heard you; I was outside. But you’re wrong – Collins is wrong. We’ll find the arms, we’ll take the arms from the army and we’ll drive the English from Ireland once and for all – from all of Ireland. I’m sick of all this namby-pamby talk. Give me a gun. I’m ready to die for my country. You are all … all … cowards! ‘He stood up and his chair fell with a crash as he stumbled towards the door. He turned then, as if to throw one last word at Father, but he faltered. ‘Oh God!’ he muttered and fled.

  * * *

  Katie listened to his running feet. Then she looked at Father. Sweat beaded his forehead and she could actually see the muscle-chords in his neck as they tightened, pulling at his lower jaw. To her horror she realised she was seeing all the symptoms of one of his madness attacks. But this was in front of the whole family, in front of strangers! His madness was back and God knows what was going to pour out. If she could just reach his hand she’d squeeze the life out of it. When he did begin to speak his voice was high and unnatural.

  ‘My boy wants a gun. Do you remember the machine-guns that night, Griff, the night we blew the mine? They had a menace I’d never heard before. They were … what is the word, Griff? So … so …’ The pauses got longer. ‘So …’

  Katie held her breath. Quiet, everybody, quiet, she willed, please, not a word and it may pass. She heard the blood hissing in her ears. A word, a cough even, and it would all come spilling out. Did anyone else know he had run away? ‘God how I ran!’ he had said. Please, Mary Mother of God, let no one speak, she prayed. I’ve kept his secret, don’t let him give himself away now.

  ‘The guns were so …’

  Then it came, one word, sing-song, rising and falling, completely Welsh.

  ‘Angry?’ said Dafydd.

  Katie stared at the boy across the table, wishing him dead and waiting for Father’s crazed reaction. She wanted to cover her head. But the atmosphere in the room was changing. There were small movements – a knife was scraped on a plate, a cup rattled, someone coughed. She raised her head. The chords on her father’s neck were disappearing; he was smiling to himself, massaging his neck. Had the attack passed?

  ‘Thank you, Dafydd. That is the word, angry. You never forget the anger of war, do you, Griff?’ He turned to Mr Parry. ‘I still find myself back there at times, you know.’

  ‘We all do,’ said Mr Parry. ‘Touch of shell-shock. Not surprising is it?’

  Katie sat rigid. What had happened? Everyone was talking normally. It wasn’t fair. She stared at Father but he was reaching for another potato. He looked pleased with himself. Now her anxiety was turning to anger. All those years of torture, of listening, keeping his secrets, and now, because there were visitors, he could suddenly pull himself together, just like that, and help himself to another potato!

  He straightened up. ‘Now, what am I to do about my son? Griff, you and I must make a future for him. He could do more for Ireland by learning to split slates than by finding a gun.’ No one seemed to notice when Katie left the room and climbed the stairs. She closed the door of her bedroom and lay face down on her bed. For a long time she was too angry to cry. She lay dry-eyed while resentment throbbed inside her like a lump of hot lead. Tears, when they came, hurt too much to bring relief.

  CHAPTER 5

  Frog!

  ‘Go away,’ said Katie, lifting her face from her sodden pillow. She knew it was Father who had tapped on the door and she hated him. She pulled the pillow up about her ears so she wouldn’t hear if he knocked again. She hated him with all her heart. All those wasted years when she could have been having fun with friends of her own. Hadn’t she nursed him back from the dead? Hadn’t she listened while he sicked up all the filth of his beastly war? And she had thought he was mad, or ashamed! Oh no! touch of shell-shock, Mr Parry had called it. What was shell-shock anyway? And what right had Father to criticise Seamus? Seamus wasn’t running away as he had.

  Father’s steps receded down the stairs and a fresh bout of tears and resentment shook her. She thought of all those times when she had listened, biting her tongue, hardly daring to breathe, when an attack came on him. She had loved him then and they had fought his battles together, she herding him back from the edge of madness like a small sheepdog. But he’d forgotten her now. All that was over. All it took to cure him now was one word from a pallid Welsh boy. ‘Thank you, Dafydd,’ he’d said, nice as pie. Who cared about Katie now? He might as well have slammed the door in her face.

  She came up for air, her face burning with resentment. What right had that boy to come and upset it all? It was his fault. She thought with disgust of his boots and the sun shining through his prominent ears, and his sing-song voice. ‘Angry’ was all he had said. Katie repeated it to herself, with heavy sarcasm. Perhaps if she had looked like a frog in boots and had croaked ‘Angry’ in a soft Welsh voice, she could have cured Father of his fits without having had to listen to his beastly tales. She’d be the one he loved now. Katie knew she was being unjust – but it was about time she was unjust to someone. She was pleased with the idea of Dafydd as a frog; one can hate a frog without committing a mortal sin. She imagined a whole line of frogs all croaking: Angry … angry … angry, at different pitches but all with Welsh accents. Suddenly they started to sing in harmony.

  * * *

  She woke when her father tapped on the door for a second time. Her tears had dried, leaving her face feeling stiff. He came in.

  ‘Did you drop off?’ He sat down on the edge of her bed and smoothed the hair out of her eyes. She pulled back. ‘You’ve been crying.’

  ‘I’m all right now.’

  ‘Did I give you a fright at dinner? Quite like old times – and I thought I was over all that. Perhaps Mr Parry is right, perhaps I was shell-shocked.’

  ‘What is shell-shock?’ asked Katie dully.

  ‘I suppose you could call it being scared out of your wits. It affects your mind – you can’t face up to the memories perhaps? To things you have seen, or done.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’ll be all right though. I’ve got Mr Parry here now. He’ll help. He’s been through it all too, you see. I’ve not had anyone here to share it with, not the bad bits that is.’

  A huge silent scream rose in Katie: What about me?

  But he was talking again. ‘Funny about Dafydd, over here to brush up on his English, and he’s the one to find a word for me.’

  Katie closed her eyes and clamped her mouth shut.

  ‘Is there something wrong, Katie?’ he asked. ‘Have I said something?’ She shook her head and stared bitterly in front of her. All she had wanted since that winter day on the platform at Nenagh was to be his, to find his love and to fan it, from glow, to spark, to fire, but now that he found he could be cured with a word from a total stranger, he was stamping on her, coldly and deliberately. ‘I’ll be all right,’ he went on. ‘I don’t need you so much now. You should get out more and be with your friends, be free.’

  Kati
e couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She closed her eyes and tried to listen to sounds outside the room, but there were none. Then she became aware of his voice again.

  ‘… perhaps you could talk to him.’

  ‘Who?’ she asked.

  ‘Seamus.’

  She stared past his shoulder out of the window. Seamus … something stirred her interest. Life was straightforward for Seamus; he had a cause. So, Father wanted her to talk to him, did he? She was tempted to say something bitter, but interest was pricking her again. Instead she said, ‘Why not Mother – or Marty?’

  ‘Marty’s too young, and Mother … Mother thinks that if she were to go for him he’d be shamed and wouldn’t come home.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘She thinks he’s up at Uncle Mal’s.’

  ‘They’re Republicans, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes, they’re not fat farmers like us. The mountainy people were strong in the fight against the English. They see the treaty as a defeat.’

  ‘Mother does too. She’s a mountainy person; that used to be her home up there,’ said Katie. ‘I like Uncle Mal. He laughs a lot.’

  ‘So do I, and I’m sure he’d keep Seamus out of trouble if he could, but there are people about who would regard Seamus as just so much cannon-fodder.’

  Katie thought, but Seamus wants to be cannon-fodder, then, spitefully, and he wouldn’t run away. ‘Is there going to be fighting, then?’ she said aloud.

  ‘It’s looking like civil war, love. Irish fighting Irish; why oh why can’t we give up guns and use our brains instead!’

  Katie swung her legs to the floor. She was suddenly sick of using her brains. If Irish were going to fight Irish you had to be on one side or the other. If Father didn’t need her now, perhaps Seamus did. She remembered how, years ago, before Father came home, she had been Seamus’s self-appointed slave. He had burned with ideals even then and found a small sister a useful acolyte. She in turn had worshipped him, a faithful follower fuelling his imagination.

  Father reached over to stroke her hair, but she pulled away, knelt on the window ledge and looked down into the yard. It seemed empty. Hens were fluffed out in dust bowls in the shade of the cart shed. She could see Dafydd sitting on the shaft of the big farm cart writing, a letter in English perhaps. As she watched he scratched the top of his head with his pencil, grinned and wrote laboriously on. Katie drew back into the room. She didn’t want him to see her. Father was standing watching her. She made for the wash-stand and he stepped back out of her way.

  ‘I’ll go,’ she said. ‘I’ll go now,’ splashing water over her face. ‘But Seamus won’t come home.’

  ‘I know he may not, but you’ll try, won’t you? Tell him he’s welcome back; his home is here, whatever his cause. Who’s to say who’s right and who’s wrong in politics? But let him leave the guns behind. Guns have no rightful place in the future of Ireland.’

  Katie dried her face, burying it in the towel. If only he wasn’t so reasonable! It was irritating. To her surprise she had a quick, uninvited vision of a brown, smiling face looking up from Barney’s head, a rifle slung casually over one shoulder. It was a ray of former happiness. She pushed it out of her mind. If Ireland needed Seamus, perhaps it needed her as well … but Father was talking again; why couldn’t he be quiet?

  ‘You can take Dafydd with you for company. He’s outside in the yard, writing a letter.’

  ‘No!’ she shouted, stamping and throwing her towel on the floor. ‘Why should I? Why him! If I go at all I’ll go on my own!’

  ‘Whisht, dear, whisht. The lad’s just outside. I thought you liked him? He’ll be company.’

  ‘I hate him! I hate his boots.’

  ‘His boots!’ laughed Father. ‘The poor lad’s been sick. He’s convalescing. We’ve got to look after him.’

  ‘Is that why he looks like a sick chicken? What’s the matter with him?’

  ‘Now, Katie! He’s had scarlet fever and very nearly died, I hear.’

  ‘The walk would be too much for him then,’ she said.

  ‘He’s convalescent, Katie, not sick. He needs three things – food, sun and exercise – and that’s the least we can give when Mr Parry has come all this way just to help me. Anyway, you must have someone with you. These are troubled times, Katie. I don’t want you on the roads alone.’

  Why had she mentioned those damned boots? What was the point? Well, perhaps she could turn Dafydd into a rebel too. She slipped her shoes on and ran down the stairs.

  * * *

  ‘Come, Frog, we’re going for a walk.’

  Dafydd looked up in surprise, then realised she was speaking to him. He closed the exercise book he had been writing in and clattered off to put it back into the house. She listened while he thumped up the stairs. There were sounds of a mild collision, Father coming down probably, then the clatter of descending boots. She turned up towards the gate. Convalescent or not, let him run.

  She turned left, back the way they had driven in, to where the road from the house met the steeper winding road up to the mountain. Katie kept up a brisk pace but the scrunch of Dafydd’s boots drew steadily closer. She pulled off her shoes and slid them upside-down into the hedge. She would be faster barefoot. The warm dust of the road felt good after her shoes, which were getting too tight for her anyway. The road was too steep to run, and fresh stone chippings had been scattered in places, so she jumped from smooth patch to smooth patch. Dafydd’s boots reproached her from behind; they must weigh a ton. She stopped and waited until he came into view round the bend below.

  ‘Saint’s above, Frog,’ she called, ‘will you take those boots off and walk like a Christian!’ Dafydd stopped, looked at his boots, and looked up the hill at her. ‘Shove them in the wall, we’ll pick them up when we come back.’ Undoing the laces seemed to take ages, as he crouched in the road with his knees by his ears. ‘Frog,’ Katie repeated to herself with satisfaction. Off came the socks. She watched while he took his first steps – it was like someone stepping on to thin ice. ‘Mother of God,’ she muttered, ‘he can’t even walk barefoot. Well,’ she determined, turning back to the hill, ‘he’ll have to learn.’

  * * *

  Mick-the-Shilling was sitting in the sun beside the road at the top of the hill. There was no avoiding him, but he was harmless and Katie wanted a rest. Most of her anger had dissolved by now and she wanted to think about what she would say to Seamus, so she sat down on the opposite side of the road. Mick could not talk, but rolled his head and grunted.

  ‘Aaaah waaa,’ he said.

  ‘Hello, Mick,’ she said. ‘Fine day.’

  ‘Aaah aaah,’ he replied, nodding vigorously. His head swung about aimlessly, then stopped; he was looking downhill. Katie didn’t want to see Dafydd’s progress below so she lay back and watched the little puffy clouds through the branches of an old pine tree above. After a bit the clouds seemed to stand still, and the tree and the whole world were turning under her and she gripped the grass with her hands so she wouldn’t fall off the earth. Then she realised that Mick-the-Shilling was whimpering. She tried to ignore him, but the whimpering continued, puppy-like, and she had to look. He was waiting to catch her eye, his mouth grinning and drooling, but his eyes looked troubled. With his hands he began imitating a puppy’s wobbly walk. He whimpered and blew on his paws and licked them as if they hurt, then glanced down the road. Katie would have laughed but she knew what he was saying and felt guilty. Nevertheless, she was damned if she was going to let a half-wit tell her what to do. She got up and turned to go on. To her embarrassment, Mick growled. Not a puppy growl, but a menacing-dog growl. She was frightened and a little bit shamed. She turned and looked down the hill. Poor Dafydd was making very heavy weather of it. He looked just like Mick-the-Shilling’s puppy. Katie laughed, but she felt sorry for the boy.

  ‘Walk on the smooth bits,’ she called, ‘where the cart wheels have gone, or on the grass.’

  Dafydd looked up gratefully and waved. If
he could have blown on his feet, he would. Eventually he flopped down on the grass beside Katie with a sigh. ‘We … live in the village, see. Not allowed in the quarries without proper boots … crush your toes.’

  ‘Dafydd, this is Mick-the Shilling. He doesn’t speak.’ Katie turned to Mick. ‘Dafydd is from Wales. His Dad’s in the slate quarries there. They’ve come over to help us get our pit going.’

  Mick nodded and grinned. He began to mime picking up an imaginary block of slate and setting it carefully between his feet.

  ‘Watch him,’ Katie said. Mick took up an invisible hammer and chisel, as if he had had them lying ready beside him. Working around the block, Mick split off an imaginary slate and offered it to Dafydd, who half got up to take it before remembering it wasn’t there.

  ‘Fooled you there, Frog,’ said Katie, not unkindly, ‘but we should get on to Uncle Mal’s.’ She got up and turned to go.

  ‘Nnnyaa nnn!’ Mick was flapping his hands urgently.

  ‘What’s the matter, Mick?’

  He abandoned his noises. He was furtive now – hiding something? What was that in his hands? A gun! Sure as day.

  ‘Man – men with guns? Right, Mick? Up at Uncle Mal’s?’ Mick was nodding vigorously now. ‘Will we go the front way?’ Mick shook his head. ‘The back way then?’ Mick nodded but put a finger to his lips.

  ‘Come on then, Frog, it’s over the fields for us. It seems the whole Republican army is protecting our brave Seamus – it’ll be kinder on your feet too. Thank you, Mick.’ Katie climbed the wall where slabs of slate had been inserted to make steps and dropped down into the field. While Dafydd climbed she looked back. Mick-the-Shilling was staring after Dafydd and making frog-hops in the road. Katie smiled.

  ‘Come on, Frog,’ she called, and set off across the field.

  CHAPTER 6

  Civil War