Katie's War

by Aubrey Flegg

  ‘The sergeant who had had the idea of mining the machine-gun position was a chap called O’Brien.’ Katie looked up; she’d wondered if it was Father. ‘Well, Dad and he got on fine, both had been in slate-quarrying, see. They planned the tunnel together. It had to intersect with the end of the German tunnel, also it had to be done quickly as there was a big attack planned. Usually the Welsh were left to themselves to do the tunnelling, but Sergeant O’Brien could get his men to do anything. He had refused a commission just so he could stay with his men and they loved him for it. So there was a steady stream of Irish volunteers to help.

  ‘It wasn’t easy tunnelling. Then they had to repair places where the tunnel had collapsed. Eventually the day came when Dad knew they were under the German machine-gun position. They could hear it firing above them. The explosives were packed into the end of the tunnel, and only just in time too because the order came that they were to go over the top, machine-guns or no machine-guns, for a big attack that very night. Usually the explosion would be set off using an electrical wire, but O’Brien was old-fashioned and he said he didn’t trust this wire, not when the lives of his men were at risk, so he asked for a back-up fuse, the sort you light with a match but which burns faster than you can walk. Dad agreed, and begged some from the engineers – “sappers” they called them.

  ‘The attack was to take place just before dawn. Dad was all right, he would not have to go over the top. His job would be done when the mine blew. Not so O’Brien. He was just a sergeant, but the officers were young and inexperienced, so he would lead the men over the top himself. Dad watched him getting them ready, talking to the them like they were all old friends, children almost, checking that they had everything, collecting letters to their loved ones. It was real quiet. They stopped for a moment and listened to a nightingale singing in the stump of a wood a little way off. Dad talks of that quiet like it was some gift from God. I think myself God had gone away and left them. Everything was ready. The big guns of the artillery would start by shooting shells into the German trenches, then Dad would blow the mine and, while the German machine-guns were silenced, O’Brien would lead the attack over no-man’s land and take the German trenches. That was the plan at any rate.

  ‘Then disaster struck. Dad says he can hear the scream of that shell to this day. It was one of ours, meant for the German trenches, but it fell short. A huge column of mud and dirt shot up exactly where the tunnel lay. Immediately the German machine-gunners woke up and started to fire. Dad pressed the plunger to explode the mine but nothing happened. He lit the fuse and they watched the flame rush off into the tunnel. Himself and your dad counted how long it would take, but nothing happened. The shell must have burst into the tunnel and cut both the wire and the fuse. “I don’t believe it!” Dad shouted over the din. “A shell has cut the tunnel a second time! There is nothing we can do.”

  ‘O’Brien went mad then. It was just minutes before he would have to take his men over the lip of the trench and the machine-guns were going wild. Above their heads there was a singing hail of bullets. O’Brien knew that not one man in ten would survive the first ten seconds of the attack.

  ‘“I’m going to set it off myself!” he yelled.

  ‘“You can’t,” shouted Dad. “The tunnel’s been cut by that shell!”

  ‘“Yes I can. There’s still that shell-hole where we discovered the tunnel first. Remember, you left an opening for air.”

  ‘“But you’ll be blown up with the mine. It’s just under the machine-guns, you’ll never get there!”

  ‘Your Dad never replied. Dead against orders it was, but he was over the top in a flash. Bullets swept over the parapet like angry bees. Dad didn’t even dare to put his head up, then suddenly O’Brien was back, falling down into the trench. They rushed to help him. No wonder he had run back. No one could face fire like that alone.’

  Katie looked out over the bleak water – poor Father, poor, poor Father.

  Dafydd had gone husky and cleared his throat. ‘But he hadn’t given up, Katie. “Matches,” he was yelling. “I forgot my matches.” Dad couldn’t believe it; he meant to go up there again? But he pulled out a box and gave it to him. Your father thrust his rifle at Dad. “I won’t need that,” he shouted. Then he signalled to two of his men to help him; they seemed to know at once what he wanted. Like lifting a man on to a horse they literally threw him up and over. Dad leapt up on to the firing platform to see. It was foolish; everyone else had their heads down because at that moment the Germans sent up a flare – lit up the whole place it did. Our mad Irishman was in the middle of no-man’s land streaking across the open ground like a hare, not even dropping into shell-holes for cover. Perhaps the flare blinded the German machine-gunners because it seemed impossible that anyone could survive that firing. Then the running figure disappeared seemingly under the barrels of the machine-guns. At least he was sheltered there. Someone was pulling at Dad’s trousers to get him to come down. The men were ready to go over. At that moment Dad saw a movement in the shell-hole. A hand appeared, waving. Could it be a signal? Then the hand was gone. A sheet of flame shot skywards from the German machine-gun position and my Dad was pulled off the ledge as the Irish went over the top.

  ‘It was the Welsh miners that dug your father out. They did not take kindly to going into no-man’s land, not after weeks of mining, but they did it for Sergeant O’Brien. He was half-buried in the blast from the mine. Dad remembers him on the stretcher on the way to hospital. “I tried to signal,” he said, “but they shot my bloody hand off.”’ Dafydd stopped. ‘O’Brien got a medal for it too – the Military Medal. Did he ever tell you?’

  Katie sat in a daze. Could this really be the same story that Father had told her all those years ago up at the Graves of the Leinstermen? Where was the running away? Running into the fighting he was instead. And where was the terror? But it was the same story. It most gloriously was! She stood up unsteadily. A few huge drops of rain splashed on the rock between the two of them. The cloud which had bent over them like a black bat swept past and a shaft of vivid sunlight lit the rock from the south. Out on the lake the water foamed white where the rain lashed its surface. Katie could hear the hiss of the shower on the water as it passed them by. Stunned, she picked up her shoes.

  ‘We’d better be getting back,’ she said, hardly trusting her voice. She helped Dafydd to his feet as if in a dream. They climbed back up the harbour wall. Barney glanced up and whinnied. Katie turned to look back over the lake. Crowned in white, the black cloud stood low over the water, propped up, it seemed, by the stump of a rainbow so bright, so vivid, it made her gasp.

  CHAPTER 9

  Hidden Arms

  Dafydd remained silent as they climbed up into the trap and started on the road home. He avoided her eyes. Katie looked at him with appreciation and was grateful. When they reached the cross-roads she turned right up the steep hill into the village of Portroe. She hitched Barney to a ring in the wall and they went into the shop. It smelled of brown paper, stale bread and porter. She liked the smell. She bought two pounds of sugar, some cards of grey darning wool and, with her own money, a quarter pound of bullseyes.

  Mrs Gleeson thumped the bag of sugar on the counter till it settled, bound it with twine, and wrote the messages into the book for Father to pay later. No, she told them, the Nenagh Guardian had not come in nor the Independent either.

  But, and she lowered her voice, had Katie heard that they had felled a tree right across the road not two miles down the road? The way she said ‘they’ made Katie wonder if Mrs Gleeson wasn’t rather pleased. It felt strange that she no longer knew what someone in her own village was thinking. She backed towards the door, avoiding sacks of hen feed and the blue crystals used to spray potatoes. She didn’t want to talk about the tree; there might be questions.

  * * *

  ‘I could learn to type and keep his books,’ she said without warning as Barney plodded up the hill. Dafydd looked so surprised Katie thought he had swa
llowed his bullseye.

  ‘Where? On the farm?’ he asked.

  ‘No, you mutt. When the quarry opens.’

  Dafydd took his bullseye out and examined it to see if the stripes went right through.

  Katie went on defensively. ‘I can’t do sums, but I’m sure I could if I had to.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to lead a revolution,’ said Dafydd, popping the sweet back in.

  ‘Bad Frog! Don’t tease me. I must settle down, go to the nuns.’

  This time Dafydd really did look startled. ‘Nuns! Become … become a nun?’

  ‘No! Secondary school, the Sisters of Mercy in Nenagh next year. Perhaps they have typing classes.’

  ‘I can’t imagine you as a nun.’

  Katie ignored that. ‘Father’s right, what Ireland needs is economic development.’

  ‘Long words!’

  ‘They’re Father’s, but he’s right. We’ll get the quarry going and then there will be lots of jobs and money for people to spend.’

  ‘What about stopping the war?’

  ‘I don’t seem to be very good at that, do I? If everyone had jobs they wouldn’t bother. You’ll see, the men will come up tomorrow and your Dad will tell us how to get started. We could be up and running by the end of the summer. The fighting will be over by then and we can throw our guns into the lake and have done with them for ever.’

  * * *

  Peter was waiting anxiously when they drove into the yard.

  ‘I thought you’d never come. I should never have let you go. Your Dad will skin me.’ He ran his finger along the line of dried foam on Barney’s flank. ‘Will you look at the lather you have on him.’

  ‘He was a bit fresh,’ said Katie, climbing down. ‘We went down to Garrykennedy. Would you have had us walk?’

  ‘It would have done you no harm at all,’ Peter said as he unhooked the trap. ‘Hold Barney there now,’ he said, and rolled the trap in under the shed. ‘Now, let’s get him out of sight.’ Katie led the horse into the stable while Peter followed, grumbling.

  ‘I bought you some bullseyes. There’s nearly a quarter there. Dafydd and I had one each on the way up.’

  ‘You’re a good girl,’ said Peter, pocketing the paper bag. ‘Just give me a hand with rubbing Barney down now. There’s no need for him to look like he was at the races.’ Peter hissed soothingly through his teeth as they worked away with handfuls of hay until he shone.’

  ‘I’m going to learn to type, Peter,’ said Katie conversationally. ‘Won’t that be grand.’

  ‘Like a secretary? And what would you want to do that for?’ Peter, who groomed Barney just as he milked the cows, with his head against the animal’s flank, straightened up and pushed his cap back on his head.

  ‘To help Father with the quarry when it opens.’

  ‘That’ll be the day.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Katie indignantly.

  ‘He’s looking for money from people. What they want is to be paid.’

  ‘But that’s how a co-operative works. Everyone chips in a little and then you share out the profits.’

  ‘It’s not for me to say.’ Barney shifted uneasily. ‘Whoah there, Barney or I’ll make meat of you. Anyway, they have other things on their minds, old grudges.’

  ‘You mean Father going to the war?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘That’s stupid! Father’ll win them over. You’ll see.’

  Peter chuckled. ‘And you learning to type, that’ll be the day.’

  Katie threw her screw of hay at him and skipped out.

  * * *

  There was work to be done in the house after dinner. Marty took Dafydd and a couple of hurleys down to the flat field where his friends were playing. Katie wanted to tell her mother about her plans, but Mother was distracted – worried about Seamus perhaps, so Katie decided not to mention the felled tree or her little brush with the army. Father and Mr Parry did not come back till late having walked over to see some of the old slate quarries down by the Shannon. Katie went to bed early feeling more at peace with herself than she had in years.

  * * *

  Frantic tapping at her door woke her. It was quite dark.

  ‘Yes?’ she said, fumbling for matches. There followed an unintelligible mumble. ‘Come in!’ she called in irritation. The door opened a crack and Dafydd’s head appeared. He was carrying a candle at a dangerous angle. ‘For God’s sake, Frog, watch that candle. What’s the matter?’

  ‘Seamus is back,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘He’s hurt.’ In a second Katie was out of bed and across the room, snatching the candle from Dafydd.

  ‘Look!’ he said as he retreated in front of her, pointing to a dark spot on the floor, ‘that’s blood.’ Without knocking, Katie opened the door of the boys’ bedroom. There was sudden movement from the direction of Seamus’s bed where he appeared to be tucking in the blankets.

  ‘What’s the matter, Seamus? Are you hurt?’ she said, relieved that he wasn’t prostrate on the bed. He turned and sat down on it. He looked pale, but he was smiling, and there was a bright spark of excitement in his eyes.

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ she warned. ‘If you’re not dying don’t raise the house.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said, but he swayed a little.

  ‘No you’re not, you’re bleeding. Let me look at you.’

  ‘It’s just a scratch … I think.’

  ‘Hold this, Frog,’ said Katie, thrusting the candle at Dafydd. ‘Where?’ she demanded. ‘Where does it hurt?’

  ‘Across my back and shoulder.’

  ‘Turn round.’ Katie could see a ragged tear in the shirt. ‘You’ll have to take your shirt off.’

  ‘Ouch, it’s stuck.’

  ‘I’ll get some hot water.’ She took the candle from Dafydd and went downstairs. She was anxious, and that made her cross. If only she could call Father – he knew about wounds – but that was out of the question. Things were bad enough between him and Seamus. She filled a basin with hot water from the kettle at the back of the range, and got iodine, cottonwool, lint, a bandage and some sticking plaster from the cupboard under the stairs.

  ‘This will hurt,’ she said grimly as she dabbed at the wound with iodine. She had got it as clean as she could without starting it bleeding again. She had been relieved to find that the cut was not too deep. The iodine made a dark stain, and had a sharp smell. Seamus drew his breath in sharply.

  ‘Ouch!’

  ‘I told you.’ Only the deeper cut on his shoulder was still bleeding. She bandaged this tightly.

  ‘Does it look like a bullet wound?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s very ragged.’

  ‘Probably a ricochet,’ he said with satisfaction.

  ‘What happened?’ Katie asked as she eased his night-shirt over his head.

  ‘We were fired on. Katie, it was so exciting! After all these years of waiting and wanting to be in action, then I was, and I managed!’

  ‘What did you manage?’

  ‘You remember the mutiny I was telling you would happen in Nenagh? Well, on Friday the lads from the Kenyon Street barracks came out on our side and took over the whole town and occupied the post office –’

  ‘Yes, and shot poor Mrs O’Malley in the process.’

  ‘How do you know about that? We don’t know who shot Mrs O’Malley. She was standing in her porch, which was silly.’

  ‘There was a soldier shot too.’

  ‘Who’s been telling you all this? That was a Free State officer, when they took over the Hibernian Hotel.’

  ‘But why, Seamus? What was it all for?’

  ‘Listen to me,’ he dropped his voice, ‘during the fuss, the lads got away with whole a load of guns and ammunition from the barracks, that’s why! They had them covered up in a cart and were escaping out of town when the horse went lame. They knew the government troops would be after them and were desperate to find somewhere to hide the stuff. So they took the first farm they came to and hid cart
and all in a barn. They told the farmer he’d be shot if he breathed a word about it, and took to the fields. That was Friday.’

  Marty stirred, asked what was going on, but went back to sleep again before any of them could answer. Katie sat down on the edge of the bed. Seamus’s eyes glinted in the light of the candle Dafydd was holding. She knew he wanted to talk, and she wanted to know. Outside the circle of candlelight the whole house was quiet.

  ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘Well, yesterday, when the lads had pulled out of the town, one of the girls in Nenagh who knew where the stuff was hidden happened to see the farmer in question hovering about the police barracks. She put two and two together and went up to him and asked about his health and remarked on the sad shortness of life. He went away in a hurry then, but it was decided that the stuff would have to be moved at once, and our column was called on to do it!

  ‘Katie, it was beautiful to see how it was all organised. A group of the lads were sent off to cut through a tree ready to drop behind us if we were followed. The rest of us requisitioned a horse and hied us off down the road to the farm. There was a light upstairs, and someone in the farm moved the curtains, but no-one came out. It was just getting dark – perfect timing – and we were harnessed up when all at once there was a clatter like forty tin cans on the road and there was this girl from the town on an ancient bicycle she’d grabbed that had no front tyre.

  ‘“They’re coming!” she said, “You’ve got twenty minutes at the most.” The old fellow must have split on us after all. That set us hopping like fleas, I can tell you, but the horse was fresh. Twenty minutes seemed a fair margin.’

  ‘Did you shoot the farmer?’

  ‘Never gave it a thought. We had to get going, but I bet he’ll have some sleepless nights for a while.

  ‘We were cracking on, taking turns on the shaft, or running behind, when disaster struck. I felt the gust of wind myself, just before we heard the crash. You see, the lads had the tree cut through, and left it held up by a whisker. They said later they could actually hear us on the road and were ready to give a cheer, when one of those blessed night gusts that blows on to the lake, took the tree. One eejit even tried to hold it back and nearly got squashed. As I said, we heard the crash, and when we arrived there it was across the road. And the government troops expected behind us!’ Seamus paused. ‘Would you ever get me some water?’