War Children

by Gerard Whelan

  Nellie gasped. ‘Lord between us and all harm!’ she said. ‘The cheek of it! I’d redden the poker for her, if she was mine. And her poor father lying there dead! If our Mary did anything like that she’d get the back of my hand!’

  ‘The worst of it was,’ Mrs Murphy said, ‘that she was right. Ould Moran himself come up, with two of his men. They brought in big boxes of undertakers’ stuff, and they were working on him there for an hour and more. They sent us all out to the kitchen till they were done, and when we come back there was Jack, the very way you see him now. And do you know, ould Moran said he wouldn’t take a shilling off me for the work. “It’s the very least we can do for the man,” says he.’

  ‘Still, she had no business going for him at all,’ Nellie said. ‘And childer have no business being right – it’s not natural. I’d have taken a stick to her if I were you.’

  ‘It’s too late for that with Eily,’ Mrs Murphy said. ‘She’d probably throw something at me if I raised my hand to her. Her father had her ruined – had them all ruined, for that matter. Jack was dead set against hitting childer. “It’s only bullying them,” he used to say. I even got Father Owens to talk to him about it one time, because I was afraid it might be a sin not to hit them. Father Owens told Jack it was a parent’s duty to chastise their childer. It was in the Bible, he said. But me bould Jack would have none of it. “’Tis a queer class of a God would condemn me all the same, Father,” says he, “for not beating them as is smaller and weaker nor me.” And he started quoting the Bible right back at Father Owens, like a Protestant or a Freethinker.’

  ‘Quoting the Bible?’ said Nellie, crossing herself quickly.

  ‘Oh aye – chapter and verse. Of course, that was the end of that – you knows the way priests hates that kind of carry on.’

  Again she looked over at the corpse in the open coffin. But there was fondness in the look.

  ‘Twenty-five year we were married,’ she said, ‘and he never stopped surprising me in all that time. ’Tisn’t everyone can say that.’

  ‘Indeed ’tis not,’ Nellie said, sounding vaguely shocked. ‘Our Tom stopped surprising me years before we were ever married,’ she said proudly.

  They were both still sitting, silently contemplating the general unsurprisingness of men, when the great banging started at the door. Sugrue jumped only slightly more than the two women.

  ‘Open up!’ called a loud male voice. ‘Open up in there!’

  ‘Sacred Heart!’ said Mrs Murphy. ‘They’d never raid us on a night like tonight! God forgive them!’

  Nellie hurried to the window and looked out. ‘Oh Lord,’ she said, ‘but it’s them, right enough.’

  Katherine and Eily appeared in their nightclothes on the stairs.

  ‘They wouldn’t!’ Katherine said. ‘They couldn’t!’

  The pounding on the door continued.

  ‘Open the door, Ma,’ Eily said. ‘Before they knocks it down.’

  Mrs Murphy went to the front door and unbarred it. When she opened the door she saw soldiers crowding round in the street outside. Captain Cobbett stood in the front. He looked mortified.

  ‘Mrs Murphy, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Please accept my apologies …’

  Mrs Murphy was a quiet woman, but this was too much.

  ‘May God forgive you, Captain Cobbett!’ she said. ‘Have youse no respect for anything at all? My man is dead in the room inside, laid out for the grave. You knows there’s nothing here.’

  The captain looked totally shamefaced.

  ‘I know, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I pointed that out to my superiors. But somebody told them your boys would come in by the back lanes tonight to see their father for a last time.’

  ‘Well, they didn’t,’ Mrs Murphy said. Her voice was black with anger. ‘My lads is out on the mountains. They don’t even know that their daddy is dead. Captain Cobbett, have you no pity? Have you no respect even for the dead?’

  The young captain squirmed.

  ‘This is not my doing, Mrs Murphy,’ he said. ‘Believe me, this is the last place on earth I want to be. But I’m a soldier, and I have my orders. I have no choice in the matter. We’ll be as quick as we can.’

  For a moment Mrs Murphy stood holding the door, as though to bar their way. But she knew it was useless. She flung the door wide and walked back in ahead of them. Behind her an NCO called: ‘Move sharp now, lads. These people have enough on their plates. And for God’s sake don’t break anything!’

  In the room, Nellie Browne still stood by the window. Eily and Katherine had taken the chairs by the fire. Eily sat with her head high and glared at the soldiers but, much to Mrs Murphy’s surprise, she said nothing at all. Mrs Murphy had half-expected her to start cursing them the moment they walked in. Eily had been strangely quiet all day, in fact, ever since coming back from Morans’. In the kitchen, while they waited for Moran and his men to finish with Mr Murphy, she’d stood silent for ages looking up the back yard while Mrs Murphy and Katherine talked. Beyond the back wall lay the lanes, and beyond them the open country and the mountains. Mrs Murphy had wondered whether Eily, like herself, was thinking of Myles and Eddie, half-orphaned without even knowing it. Maybe her father’s sudden death would have some kind of calming influence on her wildness. Mrs Murphy prayed that it would.

  Sugrue had climbed into Eily’s lap, and Eily was rubbing the old tom’s head absentmindedly. The cat, unused to such attention, purred ravenously. Katherine sat staring deliberately into the fire, refusing even to look at the intruders. The soldiers – there must have been a dozen of them, and they all looked terribly young – filled the room. None seemed too anxious to go near the coffin, though all of them glanced at it fearfully and a couple, obviously Catholic, quickly crossed themselves. Someone lifted the latch on the back door, and more soldiers came in from the yard.

  Captain Cobbett stood, embarrassed, in the middle of the room while his NCO directed the boys in khaki to the various rooms. Rough army boots rumbled on the narrow stairs. Cobbett’s eyes moved around the room, avoiding Mrs Murphy’s. But she wasn’t going to let him ignore her. She stood foursquare in front of him, her arms akimbo, and said nothing until common politeness – of which the young officer had a great deal – forced him to look at her. Captain Cobbett was a tall man, and Mrs Murphy was a small woman, but there was no doubt who was intimidated by whom. Cobbett’s face was russet with shame and embarrassment. As their eyes met, he seemed to flinch.

  ‘Captain Cobbett,’ Mrs Murphy said. ‘This is too much. There’s that man dead there in front of you, and never by word or deed did he do a single thing to you or to your army or your country. My sons are rebels. Even my daughters are half-rebels. But there was never a hand’s turn done against you in this house. Your men have raided us a dozen times if they’ve done it once, and kept us standing here while you went through the place looking for sedition. But never a bullet or a gun have you found here. No secret letters, and no rebel orders, and no rebel supplies. Not so much as a pair of rebel boots have you found under my roof. And here you are again, and my poor husband stark dead in his coffin in front of you, and your men upstairs going through our few belongings. God forgive you, Captain Cobbett! You’ll have no luck from this out. What are my daughters to think of your great British law and your great British justice? Is it any wonder that half of the young people are rebels? Youse are turning them against yourselves, so you are, with this kind of carry on.’

  Cobbett met her fury as best he could.

  ‘Mrs Murphy, ma’am,’ he said, ‘you’re telling me nothing that I didn’t tell my superior officer myself earlier tonight. This is foolishness – I know it. Your husband was a good man, and no rebel. But you have to admit –’

  ‘What?’ she demanded. ‘What do I have to admit? That my sons brought this on us? Is that what you were going to say? It isn’t my sons clodhopping around my house leaving muck on my clean floors, Captain Cobbett. It isn’t my sons rooting through our few poor things up above in the
press, or terrifying my girls in the middle of the night.’

  Sorry though he was, Captain Cobbett couldn’t help reflecting that her girls didn’t look very terrified. The young one in particular, Eily, glared at him with a look that would have killed him if it could.

  ‘I’m here tonight, ma’am,’ he said, ‘because I was ordered to be here. And I frankly admit to you that I didn’t agree with those orders. Neither you nor your husband has done anything to deserve this treatment. But these are troubled times – that’s what I was going to say. You must admit that.’

  Mrs Murphy barked a short, bitter laugh. ‘Troubled times?’ she said. ‘My husband is dead. My sons hunted. I’ve soldiers all over my house. I don’t need you to tell me about trouble, Captain.’

  ‘No,’ Cobbett said. ‘I don’t suppose you do.’

  He looked over at his sergeant, who was standing, ramrod-stiff, at the bottom of the steep little stairs.

  ‘Call them off, Sergeant Platt,’ he said. ‘We were told to come, and we came. Now we can go.’

  The sergeant obeyed with obvious gratitude, summoning the soldiers with a barked command. Nellie Browne stirred from her place by the window.

  ‘I’ll go now too, ma’am,’ she said to Mrs Murphy. ‘If the officer will allow.’

  Cobbett, still red-faced, nodded curtly.

  ‘Do you need an escort, madam?’ he asked.

  Nellie looked horrified at the thought.

  ‘Oh no, sir,’ she said. ‘Sure, I’m only next door. But your men, sir,’ she said, ‘they won’t shoot me or anything, will they? Or arrest me? Only, it’s after the curfew hour.’

  Cobbett sighed.

  ‘Nobody is going to shoot anybody,’ he said. ‘We’re just going to leave these people in what little peace they have.’

  Nellie thanked him.

  ‘I’ll be in to you first thing in the morning,’ she said to Mrs Murphy.

  Again the soldiers’ boots thundered as they hurried towards the front door. Nellie Browne let them go first. As she did there was a little moan, and Mrs Murphy collapsed. She would have fallen to the floor if Captain Cobbett hadn’t caught her in his arms. Katherine and Eily were on their feet immediately.

  ‘Mammy!’ Katherine called.

  ‘She’s fainted,’ Cobbett said. He stood awkwardly, holding the little woman in his arms like a straw doll.

  ‘You made her faint, you mean!’ Eily said. ‘Hadn’t she enough trouble on her plate without you bringing this down on top of her?’

  ‘Shut up, Eily,’ Kathleen said sharply, ‘and get a wet tea towel at the sink. Wipe her face with it, and bring her around.’

  Eily went, but Mrs Murphy was already starting to come round under her own steam. She stood, weakly, holding on to Cobbett’s arm. By now Cobbett was furious as well as embarrassed. It wasn’t anger at anyone here, though; it was anger at having been forced to trouble these people at such a time. If he ignored Eily’s accusation, it was only because he believed she was perfectly right.

  ‘You say you live next door, ma’am?’ he asked Nellie Browne.

  Nellie said she did.

  ‘Will you take this lady out of this?’ Cobbett asked. ‘Take her where she’ll have something else to look at apart from her dead husband, even for a little while. Sit her by your fire and give her a cup of tea, until she’s recovered from our rudeness.’

  ‘To be sure, sir, I will, and welcome,’ Nellie said. ‘If she’ll go.’

  Mrs Murphy by now was standing on her own two feet.

  ‘I should stay here,’ she said. ‘I should stay with my man. It was only a little weakness.’

  ‘Please, ma’am,’ Cobbett said. ‘I know our coming was the final straw, but you’ve been under terrible pressure.’

  ‘And who applied the pressure, if not yourselves?’ sneered Eily, who’d come back with the tea towel.

  Everyone ignored her. The soldiers, apart from Cobbett and the sergeant, were all outside. Eily went back to her chair and took Sugrue back on her lap. She laid the wet cloth on the hearth by the fire, where it started to steam.

  Mrs Murphy’s face looked drawn.

  ‘Go ahead, Ma,’ Katherine said. ‘Even for the length of time it will take to drink a cup of tea. Myself and Eily will be grand. At least we’re finished with the army for the night.’

  ‘I can assure you of that much, anyway,’ Cobbett said.

  Mrs Murphy considered. You could see that, though she felt she shouldn’t leave her husband on this last night, the idea of a few minutes by Nellie Browne’s fire attracted her. Eily was stroking Sugrue again, fuming silently. The sergeant, tense, looked at Eily as she stroked the cat almost violently. In an effort to be pleasant he called gently to the animal, and stretched out his own hand to pet it. Eily snatched Sugrue up into her arms. The tom, taken aback, gave an angry, startled cry. Eily turned her deadly glare on the sergeant.

  ‘Don’t you touch that beast,’ she said. ‘He’ll scrawb the hand off you. This cat is a Sinn Féiner.’

  ‘All right!’ Mrs Murphy said suddenly. It was as though Eily’s outburst had decided her. She went and got her shawl and wrapped it round her.

  ‘You two go to bed,’ she said to the girls. ‘I’ll take a cup of tea with Mrs Browne, and I’ll be back within the hour. Leave the door on the latch.’

  She went out without another word. Nellie Browne hurried after her. Captain Cobbett went over and looked into the coffin. He took off his cap and stood briefly contemplating Jack Murphy’s healthy, peaceful face. He turned to the two girls by the fire.

  ‘I know you’re angry with me,’ he said. ‘And I understand it. I’d be angry too, if I were in your place. But I hope you believe me that I don’t like this one bit. My Colonel said your brothers would be here tonight. He said his information was from a reliable source.’

  ‘I’ll bet you I know who that source was, too,’ Eily said. ‘Ould Batty Crimmins, the undertaker, annoyed that he wasn’t getting our business. That ould gombeen man would rob the coins off a dead man’s eyes, so he would. How much did your Colonel pay him for his reliable information?’

  Cobbett stared at her, startled. So much for the Colonel’s confidence in his informant’s discretion. Cobbett almost smiled. He quite looked forward to informing the Colonel that the very children of the town knew the identity of his most valued spy.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said to Eily, who smiled.

  Katherine, who’d hardly looked at any of the soldiers since they came in, stood up and turned to Cobbett.

  ‘Would you just go, please?’ she said. ‘Just go, and leave us here with our dead.’

  Cobbett nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I do believe that would be best.’

  Neither girl said anything to that. Cobbett left without saying another word. The sergeant followed gratefully. In the street, back in their own world, they called orders to their men. The soldiers had crept up on the house quietly; they marched away in step, the sound of their boots fading into the night.

  * * *

  For a little while Eily and Katherine sat looking at each other warily. Sugrue had disappeared out the front door with the soldiers.

  ‘Well,’ Eily said finally. ‘I was afraid there for a minute. But it came out even better than I hoped.’

  ‘No thanks to you,’ Katherine said tartly. ‘You’ll have to learn to mind your temper, Eily Murphy. Or at least your mouth. You could have ruined us all if you’d annoyed them soldiers.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t,’ Eily said. ‘And they’re gone. And even Nellie and Ma are gone.’

  Katherine went to the window and pulled a corner of the curtain aside.

  ‘I hope they’re gone anyway,’ she said. ‘You’d never know but they might have left a man in the yard.’

  ‘They wouldn’t dare,’ Eily said dismissively. ‘Poor Captain Cobbett was mortified.’

  ‘He was,’ Katherine said. ‘I pitied him. The poor man was ashamed of his life!’

&
nbsp; ‘So he should be,’ Eily said. ‘Intruding on our grief.’

  She took the oil lamp from the mantelpiece and went into the back kitchen. The parlour darkened but for the glow of the candles and the fire. Katherine stood by the window and looked down at her dead father’s face.

  ‘I’m sorry to use you this way, Daddy,’ she said very softly to the dead man. ‘But these are desperate times. I done it for Eddie and Myles. I know you’ll forgive me, wherever you are.’ She reached down and touched the cold hands crossed on his breast.

  Eily came back into the room.

  ‘There’s no-one in the yard,’ she said.

  ‘Did you leave the lamp in the window?’

  ‘I did, with the wick low.’

  ‘Well,’ Katherine said, ‘there’s nothing to do now only wait.’

  But they didn’t have to wait. They heard the latch on the back door almost immediately, and, for the second time that night, the sound of men’s boots in the back kitchen. The three men who came into the room brought the smell of the cold night and the fields with them. They were done up in caps and greatcoats and hung about with belts and bandoliers. Each of them carried an empty sack, and all three had empty canvas knapsacks on their backs and rifles on slings over their shoulders.

  Eily ran and threw her arms around the first of the men.

  ‘Myles!’ she said. ‘Thank God!’

  Her big brother clasped her to him, but then pushed her gently aside and went over to the coffin. He took off his cap and stared down at his father in silence. Katherine, studying Myles’s grim face, thought he looked like a stranger. He was like a man in his forties, who hadn’t laughed in at least twenty years. But she knew he was only twenty-two. She glanced at the other two men. One was Simon Moran, the undertaker’s son. The other was a stranger. They seemed every bit as grim.