The Guns of Easter

by Gerard Whelan

  ‘This is Hume Street Hospital,’ the woman said. She was, he saw now, dressed in a nurse’s uniform.

  ‘What happened to me?’ he asked her.

  ‘Someone … fell on you,’ she answered.

  Jimmy looked at her sharply – she was leaving something out. ‘Charlie,’ he said. ‘My uncle Charlie.’

  He remembered now what had happened, and tried to make sense of it. ‘Was he shot?’ he asked the nurse. The calmness in his voice surprised him. He might have been asking her about the weather. The woman hesitated.

  ‘He was,’ said Jimmy with certainty.

  She nodded.

  Jimmy looked down at his body. He was sitting, dressed in his own clothes, on a bed-like trolley. He could see no sign of a wound.

  ‘I’m not shot, though, am I?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ the nurse said. She sounded happier talking about this. ‘I’m told that the man … that your uncle … was hitting you and shouting. He was holding you up off the ground. Then he was shot, and he dropped you. You landed on your head. Then he fell on top of you.’

  ‘He was drunk,’ Jimmy said. ‘He spent my Ma’s money on drink then he wanted my money too.’

  ‘Oh!’ said the nurse. ‘I see.’

  She seemed embarrassed, and Jimmy wondered whether it was his own matter-of-fact tone that made her feel awkward. The tone reflected his feelings. He could find no grief in himself at the news of Charlie’s death.

  ‘I’m not hurt, then?’ he asked.

  ‘You have a high temperature. Your face is swollen too – where your uncle hit you, I suppose.’

  His face did feel puffy, and his whole body ached. Worse again, his head felt hot and confused. He hoped that was an effect of the beating, but it did feel like he was getting sick, and he couldn’t afford that.

  How long had he been unconscious? He had no way of knowing. The blinds in the room were drawn. From nearby came the sound of gunfire. Jimmy was suddenly afraid.

  ‘What time is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Three o’clock,’ the nurse said. ‘We thought it best to let you wake up naturally. It’s always the safest way.’

  Jimmy wasn’t listening. Three o’clock? He had been unconscious for six hours! Anything could have happened!

  ‘So if I’m not hurt,’ he said, ‘I can go.’

  ‘Well, there’s your temperature,’ she said. ‘And you did get a very nasty bang on your head when you hit the road. You might have concussion, or shock. You do seem to be all right now, only … your coat is ruined.’

  From a chair she picked up the overcoat he’d found in Old Abbey Street. The coins still left in the pocket jingled. The coat was covered with dried mud and blood, Charlie’s blood.

  ‘Maybe you should stay here for a while,’ the nurse said. ‘Till we find out if that temperature goes down. When you get a knock on the head, the effects can take a while to show.’

  ‘No,’ said Jimmy firmly. ‘I must go. My Ma will be worried sick about me.’

  It wasn’t a lie – she would certainly be worried about him. The nurse looked undecided, but they were busy here, looking after lots of wounded people. Finally she nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m sure she will be worried. What about your coat?’

  Jimmy shrugged. ‘I’ll never wear it again,’ he said, looking at the stains.

  The nurse blushed, feeling that she’d been insensitive. ‘No,’ she said. ‘But there’s money in the pocket.’

  ‘Yes. My money and my mouth organ. Could you take them out for me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She pulled out the coins and handed them to him. Jimmy stuffed them in the pocket of his own old jacket. Only some of the money had fallen on the ground when Charlie tried to take it; most of it seemed to be still here. The nurse handed him the harmonica, and he put that in his other pocket. As Jimmy put it away, he felt something in the bottom of his pocket already. It was the chocolate that the young Volunteer had given him that morning. He’d forgotten all about it.

  ‘Have there been many civilians shot?’ he asked the nurse.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Too many.’

  Any at all, Jimmy thought, was too many. Soldiers went out to fight – it was their job. But ordinary people just went about their business, and the bullets hit them anyway. It wasn’t fair.

  Although he tried to hide it from the nurse as he left, Jimmy still felt dizzy and confused. He hoped that it was just the result of Charlie’s clouts, but he’d been sick often enough to know what sickness felt like, and at the back of his mind now a single word had formed itself: fever. He tried to put the thought out of his mind. If he was coming down with Sarah’s fever then he was in very big trouble indeed.

  Hume Street hospital was just off the eastern side of the Green. Jimmy had been listening to the gunfire since waking. He’d heard, too, the occasional distant sound of the artillery. By now the shooting seemed almost a natural part of the city’s sounds. But when he got out into the open air he noticed that the sounds were different now after all.

  At first, hearing the artillery, he’d thought it was the gunboat still shelling Liberty Hall. That did seem odd: six hours of shelling would have reduced the building to rubble, even if no-one had noticed that it was empty. Now he realised that there was more than one big gun firing. He could only think that they’d started bombarding the Post Office. He shivered at the thought.

  He stood outside the hospital undecided, trying to make some sense from the sounds he was hearing. As he stood, he ate the chocolate he’d been given so many hours before. It had softened in his pocket, and lost its shape, but it tasted wonderful.

  No mere taste could cheer Jimmy up now though. Inside he was devastated. He’d been unconscious for six solid hours. It was the middle of the afternoon, and he hadn’t even got close to Ella’s. And he hadn’t found out about Mick either.

  Of course he knew now that there was no money in Ella’s, but there was food. That was even better. The whole kitchen full, Charlie had said, and all meant for the Conways. He was still more than half way to her house. It would be foolish to go back when he was so close. The fighting was getting worse: he might not get another chance.

  A man was walking up Hume Street towards him. Jimmy ran over to him. ‘Mister!’ he said. ‘Mister! I have to go to Northumberland Road. Do you know if there’s fighting there?’

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ the man said. ‘Northumberland Road is like a slaughterhouse. I saw it from Mount Street. The British came marching up it, and the other fellows laid into them. There’s no way you’ll get there.’

  Those six lost hours had ruined everything, Jimmy realised. The fighting had started in exactly the place that he wanted to go: he’d missed his chance. He shivered, and a hot flush spread over his body. He felt sick.

  ‘Go home, lad,’ advised the man. ‘Get in off the streets.’

  ‘If I can get home,’ Jimmy said bitterly.

  ‘You’ll have to get in somewhere before nightfall anyway,’ the man said. ‘The British have declared a curfew: everyone is to be off the streets before dark. Otherwise they’ll be shot at.’

  At the back of his mind Jimmy had been wondering whether he might somehow hang around till the fighting in Northumberland Road died down. Now even that seemed impossible.

  ‘I must be away,’ the man said. ‘Off home with you now, sonny, if you’ve any sense.’

  Jimmy nodded dumbly. He felt too bad to speak. Maybe there really was nothing else he could do now except get home safely. He had managed to get a little money, but it would be useless with no shops open.

  He thought of the journey back across the river. That too would be dangerous. Then he thought of all that food at Ella’s. He was so close now. Why not risk going on? He had little to lose and everything to gain.

  17

  TRAPPED

  TO GET TO ELLA’S, JIMMY would have to cross the Grand Canal. He set off immediately, before he had time to be frightened
. His head hurt and his body felt heavy and strange, but he kept thinking of that kitchen full of food.

  He walked quickly down Mount Street. At its far end lay the Grand Canal, and on the other side of the bridge was – finally – Northumberland Road.

  There was heavy firing going on down towards the canal and it grew louder as he approached. There was no boom of artillery, but what sounded like hundreds of rifles keeping up a continuous fire. It was an endless, rolling wave, like a distant storm.

  A large crowd of civilians had gathered at the top of Mount Street; they blocked his view of the bridge beyond. It was strange, but in a way it was cheering – things couldn’t be so bad if all these people were standing around, could they? The shooting seemed to be coming from directly ahead, beyond the crowd.

  One of the things that surprised Jimmy most during the day was the constant presence of onlookers. The people of Dublin were reacting to the rebellion in odd ways. In places they were calm, and went about their business as best they could. But wherever there was fighting going on people gathered around to watch. They treated it like entertainment, as if they couldn’t really believe that it was serious. Certainly they didn’t seem to believe that they themselves might be in danger.

  The onlookers gave the whole rebellion a strange air of fantasy. If this was a serious fight, it seemed, these people wouldn’t be standing around so casually watching it. Again and again Jimmy found himself thinking of the crowd as spectators at a sports match. You nearly expected them to start clapping after some especially clever shot or move made by one side or the other. It was all like some strange and sinister dream.

  This crowd was the biggest he’d seen watching any of the fighting. At its rear, even more strangely, a tramp with a big bushy beard was playing a fiddle, hoping to collect some coppers. But the people ignored him, too busy watching the scene that Jimmy still couldn’t see. As Jimmy drew near there was a lull in the gunfire. A stir came from the crowd, but Jimmy couldn’t make out what was happening. Then the crowd parted in several places and people appeared carrying large bundles. It took several people to carry each bundle.

  Jimmy stopped, mystified. Then he noticed that the bundles were a khaki colour, that they were in fact dead or wounded soldiers. The people carried the soldiers down a laneway, towards a first-aid station.

  He was beside the fiddle player now. The tramp stopped playing his fiddle and gestured at the hurrying people.

  ‘A terrible fight,’ he said. ‘A terrible fight to be sure.’

  A whistle blew somewhere ahead, and the shooting started again. It sounded for all the world like a referee’s whistle. Was he going mad? But there was nothing imaginary about the renewed storm of fire that answered the whistle.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he asked the tramp.

  The man shrugged and spat on the ground. ‘Somebody is shooting somebody else,’ he said, ‘and the public is enjoying the free entertainment – so they’re neglecting me.’ He smiled at Jimmy. ‘I don’t suppose, young fellow,’ he said, ‘that you’d have a spare copper? You don’t look as if you do, but there’s no harm in asking.’

  Jimmy was looking beyond him, at the back of the crowd. He reached absentmindedly into his pocket and pulled out a coin. He handed it to the tramp, who looked at it in surprise.

  ‘Sixpence!’ he said. ‘Glory be! The poor give to the poor – it’s the way of the world.’

  But Jimmy wasn’t really paying any attention to him. He hadn’t even noticed that he was giving the man so much money. Instead he ran past the tramp, worming his way through the motionless crowd towards the bridge. His head hurt now, and his throat felt sore. He was definitely sick. He stepped on several feet as he passed through the crowd, but nobody paid any attention to him. They were all transfixed by the scene in front of them.

  Nothing he’d come across since Monday had prepared Jimmy for what he saw when he finally reached the front of the crowd. It was a sight so terrible that it held him as mesmerised as any of the other watchers. He had only imagined that he’d seen terrible things since Monday: compared to this, everything else had been only a small horror. What was happening on Mount Street Bridge was the worst thing in the world.

  18

  MOUNT STREET BRIDGE

  WHEN HE SAW THE SOLDIERS ON THE BRIDGE Jimmy thought that they must be troops from the barracks at Beggar’s Bush. The barracks was just down the road. It seemed natural that they’d march this way if they were going into the city.

  In fact the soldiers were not from the barracks. They’d come over from Britain the night before. From the harbour at Kingstown three columns of troops had marched the six miles into Dublin. Two of the columns had taken other routes, and they’d already entered the city with no resistance. The third column came as far as Mount Street Bridge and didn’t look as though they were going to get any farther.

  The Irish Volunteers had taken over two houses in Northumberland Road itself, and a third, Clanwilliam House, on the city side of the canal overlooking Mount Street Bridge. They’d ambushed the third column as it came, and the fighting had been going on all morning.

  Later Jimmy learned that there were only about a dozen Volunteers involved; but looking at the shooting, you’d think there were hundreds of Volunteers there. They had no heavy arms, only rifles and pistols. They didn’t have a single bomb or grenade between them. But they were in a perfect ambush position, and the British army had brought its men over in such a hurry that they had no bombs or grenades either. They were regretting that now. And they were dying because of it.

  All the soldiers could do was to attack the Volunteer positions, and all the Volunteers had to do was to keep firing. They hardly even needed to aim. The result was like something from a slaughterhouse. The soldiers charged the bridge, the Volunteers shot them down as they charged.

  Jimmy heard the facts of the matter later, when the rebellion was over; he even met one of the men who’d been in Clanwilliam House. Now, at four o’clock on that day, he had no thought of facts or statistics. He’d been thinking a lot about dying during the day; now he was watching death having a party. It seemed as though hundreds of young men were being slaughtered in front of his eyes. It was madness.

  To his left Jimmy heard the thunder of the Volunteers’ guns from Clanwilliam House, but his eyes stayed fixed in front of him on Mount Street Bridge. The bridge, and Northumberland Road beyond, seemed to be a solid mass of soldiers. Some of them were upright, running; others were crawling, and many were just lying still, unable to move.

  The whistle that Jimmy had heard was the signal for a charge. Soldiers on the footpaths of Northumberland Road, still unsure of just how many houses the Volunteers held, were pouring fire into every house where anything moved. Past them charged a great khaki wave of men heading for the bridge. They were trying to cross it, to reach the Volunteers’ position on the other side of the canal.

  But they were failing completely. It was as if someone had drawn an invisible line about halfway across the bridge, a line that meant death for anyone who tried to cross it.

  The troops charged up the road. When they reached the bridge they threw themselves on the ground and began to crawl. The roadway and footpaths of the bridge itself were completely covered with crawling men. They wormed along in column, forming what looked to Jimmy’s feverish eyes like four giant, khaki-coloured snakes. Between these snakes, and all around them, lay the dead and wounded. The snakes, as they tried to advance, added their share to these piles.

  No-one got beyond that midway point. Again and again Jimmy saw crawling soldiers drop and lie still, or jump up screaming, only to flop brokenly back down. It was, indeed, a slaughter. And this was all happening only a few yards in front of the watching crowd. Here were the civilians, watching, while a few yards away were these hundreds of men crawling, crying, screaming and dying.

  ‘The poor boys,’ said a stout woman in a white apron beside Jimmy. ‘The poor young fellas.’

  Jimmy’s whole body
trembled as he stood. He wanted to run away, to scream himself; but his feet wouldn’t move and his voice stuck in his throat. He was as frozen as any of the dead young men on the bridge. He couldn’t even make his eyes close, though he dearly wanted to close them.

  Ahead of him the bridge bristled with khaki figures. They jerked and tossed like the leaves of a tree being blown in a strong wind. But they weren’t leaves, they were men: they were fathers and brothers and sons and uncles. They were good men or bad men, mean or decent men, heroes or cowards.

  The wind that tossed them didn’t care what they were. It was the same wind that had hit Charlie Fox, that had sent Billy Moran tumbling to the grass in the Green. It was the wind of death, and it was snuffing these men’s lives out like so many candles.

  Finally they stopped coming. The shooting in Northumberland Road went on, but the Volunteers in Clanwilliam House stopped firing. To Jimmy’s astonishment, people from the crowd around him began to run out on to the bridge. There was a priest, and a man in a white coat who must be a doctor. There was a small group of other men and women too. The civilians on the bridge bent to the wounded soldiers. They helped those who could still walk to get to their feet. The other wounded had to be carried.

  ‘Clear the way,’ people shouted. ‘Clear the way there!’

  Three men carrying a soldier with a headwound staggered past Jimmy. The crowd made way for them. More wounded, alone or else supported or carried by onlookers, streamed by. It was another procession such as Jimmy had seen as he arrived. He watched them disappearing into the laneway behind Clanwilliam House.

  From Northumberland Road the whistle blew again. The last civilians were sprinting hastily from the bridge. Up along Northumberland Road, another wave of soldiers was rushed towards the canal.

  Oh no, Jimmy thought. Please, no. Not again.

  With tears in his eyes, unable to make himself move, he was forced to watch the same awful scene repeat itself. The first soldiers fell without even reaching the bridge. Those who did reach it threw themselves down and began to crawl forward, forming once more into the huge, ugly snakes. The Volunteers picked them off like flies. Not one soldier got more than halfway across. The piles of bodies grew higher. It was like watching the previous attack all over again.