Collected Stories (108 page)

“I hope not, Tom,” said Fogarty, who knew that the cobbler, a knowledgeable man in his own way, thought there was something funny about the old schoolmaster's serving Mass. “And I hope we're all as good when our own time comes.”

He went home, too thoughtful to chat with the fishermen. The cobbler's words had given him a sudden glimpse of old Considine's sufferings, and he was filled with the compassion that almost revolted him at times for sick bodies and suffering minds. He was an emotional man, and he knew it was partly the cause of his own savage gloom, but he could not restrain it.

Next morning, when he went to the sacristy, there was the old teacher, with his fawning smile, the smile of a guilty small boy who has done it again and this time knows he will not escape without punishment.

“You weren't too good last night, John,” the curate said, using Considine's Christian name for the first time.

“No, Father Jeremiah,” Considine replied, pronouncing the priest's name slowly and pedantically. “I was a bit poorly in the early evening. But those pills of Dr. Mulloy's are a wonder.”

“And isn't it a hard thing to say you never sent for me?” Fogarty went on.

Considine blushed furiously, and this time he looked really guilty and scared.

“But I wasn't that bad, father,” he protested with senile intensity, his hands beginning to shake and his eyes to sparkle. “I wasn't as frightened yesterday as I was the first time. It's the first time it frightens you. You feel sure you'll never last it out. But after that you get to expect it.”

“Will you promise me never to do a thing like that again?” the curate asked earnestly. “Will you give me your word that you'll send for me, any hour of the day or night?”

“Very well, father,” Considine replied sullenly. “'Tis very good of you. I'll give you my word I'll send for you.”

And they both recognized the further, unspoken part of the compact between them. Considine would send for Fogarty, but nothing Fogarty saw or heard was to permit him again to try to deprive the old teacher of his office. Not that he any longer wished to do so. Now that he recognized the passion of will in the old man, Fogarty's profound humanity only made him anxious to second it and enable Considine to do what clearly he wished to do—die in harness. Fogarty had also begun to recognize that it was not mere obstinacy that got the old man out of his bed each morning and brought him shivering and sighing and shuffling up the village street. There was obstinacy there, and plenty of it, but there was something else, which the curate valued more; something he felt the lack of in himself. It wasn't easy to put a name on it. Faith was one name, but it was no more than a name and was used to cover too many excesses of devotion that the young priest found distasteful. This was something else, something that made him ashamed of his own human weakness and encouraged him to fight the depression, which seemed at times as if it would overwhelm him. It was more like the miracle of the Mass itself, metaphor become reality. Now when he thought of his own joke about serving the teacher's Mass, it didn't seem quite so much like a joke.

O
NE MORNING
in April, Fogarty noticed as he entered the sacristy that the old man was looking very ill. As he helped Fogarty, his hands shook piteously. Even his harsh voice had a quaver in it, and his lips were pale. Fogarty looked at him and wondered if he shouldn't say something, but decided against it. He went in, preceded by Considine, and noticed that though the teacher tried to hold himself erect, his walk was little more than a shuffle. He went up to the altar, but found it almost impossible to concentrate on what he was doing. He heard the laboring steps behind him, and as the old man started to raise the heavy book onto the altar, Fogarty paused for a moment and looked under his brows. Considine's face was now white as a sheet, and as he raised the book he sighed. Fogarty wanted to cry out, “For God's sake, man, lie down!” He wanted to hold Considine's head on his knee and whisper into his ear. Yet he realized that to the strange old man behind him this would be no kindness. The only kindness he could do him was to crush down his own weak warmheartedness and continue the sacrifice. Never had he seemed farther away from the reality of the Mass. He heard the laboring steps, the panting breath, behind him, and it seemed as if they had lasted some timeless time before he heard another heavy sigh as Considine managed to kneel.

At last, Fogarty found himself waiting for a response that did not come. He looked round quickly. The old man had fallen silently forward onto the altar steps. His arm was twisted beneath him and his head was turned sideways. His jaw had fallen, and his eyes were sightless.

“John!” Fogarty called, in a voice that rang through the church. “Can you hear me? John!”

There was no reply, and the curate placed him on his back, with one of the altar cushions beneath his head. Fogarty felt under the surplice for his buttons and unloosed them. He felt for the heart. It had stopped; there was no trace of breathing. Through the big window at the west end he saw the churchyard trees and the sea beyond them, bright in the morning light. The whole church seemed terribly still, so that the mere ticking of the clock filled it with its triumphant mocking of the machine of flesh and blood that had fallen silent.

Fogarty went quickly to the sacristy and returned with the sacred oils to anoint the teacher. He knew he had only to cross the road for help, to have the old man's body removed and get an acolyte to finish the Mass, but he wanted no help. He felt strangely lightheaded. Instead, when he had done, he returned to the altar and resumed the Mass where he had left off, murmuring the responses to himself. As he did so, he realized that he was acutely aware of every detail, of every sound, he had no feeling that he was lacking in concentration. When he turned to face the body of the church and said “Dominus vobiscum,” he saw as if for the first time the prostrate form with its fallen jaw and weary eyes, under the light that came in from the sea through the trees in their first leaf, and murmured “Et cum spiritu tuo” for the man whose spirit had flown. Then, when he had said the prayers after Mass beside the body, he took his biretta, donned it, and walked by the body, carrying his chalice, and feeling as he walked that some figure was walking before him, slowly, saying good-bye. In his excited mind echoed the rubric: “Then, having adored and thanked God for everything, he goes away.”

The Martyr

T
HERE'S
your martyr! Commandant Myles Hartnett, killed by Free State Troops in Asragh Barrack, November 18, 1922. “For the glory of God and the honor of Ireland.” Every year they lay a wreath there.

It was really my fault that he was killed. I was in charge of the barrack. A young fellow called Morrissey captured him, and, as he was carrying a gun at the time, that meant one thing only. I didn't like Morrissey; he was one of those conceited young fellows who go through life with a grievance against everybody, and he had a particular grievance against me because I tried to keep some sort of discipline in the infernal place.

I was alone in the office, wondering what all the row was about, when Morrissey, Daly, and a few others pushed him in. I could see they'd knocked him about pretty badly already. He was a tall, powerful man with fair hair, blue, short-sighted eyes (they had smashed his glasses), and that air of a born athlete that I, for one, always like in a man. Even then, he looked as though he could still have made smithereens of them but for the guns.

“And who have we here?” I asked.

“This is the fellow that organized the Duncartan ambush,” said Morrissey triumphantly. Now the Duncartan ambush was a bad slip-up on my part. Believing the information I had got, I had just walked my men right into it. In the scrap I had lost the only friend I had in the barrack, MacDunphy.

“Oh, is that so?” I asked. “You're the chap we're indebted to for our welcome there? How nice!”

“I am not,” he said contemptuously.

“You are,” shouted Morrissey, clenching his fists. “You were the man who used the Lewis gun that killed MacDunphy. You needn't try to get out of it.”

“I'm not trying to get out of it,” said Hartnett in the same scornful tone. “I'm only telling you you don't know what you're talking about.”

“Shut up, you—liar!” shouted Morrissey, and drove his fist into Hartnett's mouth.

Hartnett took out his handkerchief, wiped off the blood, and looked at me. Then he smiled. I knew what the smile meant and he knew I knew.

“Have you quite finished with the prisoner, Captain Morrissey?” I asked.

“But don't you know this was the fellow that killed Harry MacDunphy?” he shouted.

“No,” I said, “and as things are shaping I'm hardly likely to find out.”

He muttered an obscenity, turned on his heel, and went out, banging the door.

“Were you in the Duncartan ambush?” I asked.

“Ah, not at all,” said Hartnett. “I was over in Derreen the day it happened. Not that it makes any difference.”

“Not the least,” I said. “All right, Jimmie,” I said to Daly, a young lieutenant. “Take him downstairs. And tell the sentry that Captain Morrissey isn't to go into his cell without my permission.”

I
T WAS
the same at the court-martial. He was quiet, self-possessed, and almost contemptuous of the men who were supposed to be trying him. He denied nothing and stood on his right as an officer and prisoner of war. He had the education which they lacked (I discovered he was a spoiled priest), and succeeded in making them look like the fools they were. Not that that made the least difference either. The verdict and sentence were a foregone conclusion; so was the sanction unless he had friends in Headquarters.

Then one night about a week later I was working alone in the office when a sentry came in. He was a little Dubliner, one of my own men and one I could trust.

“Mick,” he whispered conspiratorially (he always called me “Mick” when we were alone), “that Hartnett fellow would like to talk to you.”

“What does he want to talk to me for at this hour?” I asked irritably.

“He said he wanted to speak to yourself,” said the sentry. “Morrissey and Daly are out, boozing. I think you ought to have a word with him.”

I knew that Hartnett had managed to get round my sentry and that I wouldn't get any peace till I saw him.

“Oh, all right,” I said. “Don't bring him up here. I'll come down and see him later.”

“Good man!” said the sentry. “I'll leave on the light in his cell.”

I finished up and then went down to the cells with my own keys. It wasn't very pleasant at that hour. The cell was small; the high barred window had no glass in it; the only furniture was a mattress and a couple of blankets. Hartnett was standing up in his shirtsleeves and socks. He had got a spare pair of spectacles. He tried to smile, but it didn't come off.

“I'm sorry for disturbing you at this hour,” he said in a low voice so as not to be heard in the neighboring cells.

“Well?” I asked. “What is it?”

“Tell me, by the way,” he said, cocking his head, “aren't you a friend of Phil Condon's?”

“Very much by the way,” I replied. “Was it to talk about Phil Condon that you brought me here?”

“There are times you'd be glad to talk about anything,” he said with a touch of bitterness. Then, after a moment, “I thought any friend of Phil's would be a decent man. That's more than you could say for most of your officers.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“I suppose I'm going to be shot?” he asked, throwing back his head and looking at me through the big glasses.

“I'm afraid so,” I said without much emotion.

“When, do you know?”

“I don't know. If the sentence is confirmed by tomorrow, probably the following morning. Unless you have friends in Headquarters.”

“That gang!” he said scornfully. “I haven't, only all the enemies I have.” He put his hands in his trouser pockets and took a couple of short steps up the cell beside the mattress. Then he looked at me over the glasses and dropped his voice still farther. “You could stop that, couldn't you?”

I was a bit taken aback by this direct appeal. It wasn't what I had expected.

“I dare say I could,” I said lightly, “but I'm not going to.”

“Not on any account?” he asked, still looking at me over the glasses, his eyebrows slightly raised.

“Not on any account.”

He waited. Then he took two steps towards me and stood, looking at me.

“Not even if I made it worth your while?”

Again I was taken aback. I felt the first time I saw him that we understood one another, and now I was irritated at his low opinion of me. I tried to smile.

“Are you trying to bribe me?” I asked.

“Were you ever in my position?” he asked, cocking his head again.

“No.”

“Would you blame me if I was?”

“I'm not short of money, thanks,” I said. “If you want anything else you can ask the sentry.”

“Ah, you know what I mean all right,” he said, nodding. “You know well enough 'tisn't money I'm talking of.”

“What the hell is it then?” I asked angrily.

“Something that fellow, Morrissey, said upstairs, about the Duncartan ambush,” he said, nodding in the direction of the door. “This MacDunphy—was he a great friend of yours?”

“He was,” I said. “Can you bring him back to life?”

“Do you know who the chap was that shot him?”

“I have a fairly good idea.”

“The man who had the Lewis gun that day?” he said scornfully, raising his voice so that I was certain he could be heard. “You have not.”

“All right,” I said. “I haven't.”

“You'd like to know who he was, wouldn't you?”