Collected Stories (119 page)

“I heard it one time played over a young fellow in the Sherwood Foresters,” Bill said. “'Twas in Aldershot, and I never forgot it.”

“Ah,” said Jerry, “for a dead march there's nothing like the pipes. You should hear the Kilties play ‘The Flowers of the Forest.' There's a sort of a—”

“There is,” said the sergeant-major. “A sort of a wail.”

And in the dark room, by the light of the flickering candles, they began to talk of all the soldiers' funerals they had attended, in Africa, in India and at home, and the mothers began to shout from the doorsteps, “Kittyaaa! Juliaaa!” and the children's voices died away, and there was no longer any sound but some latecomer's boots echoing off the pavements, and all the time Broke hummed away to himself, swinging his crutch like a drum major. His voice grew noisier and more raucous.

“Mind yourself or you'll do some damage with that crutch,” said the sergeant-major.

“The bloody man is drunk,” Bill said savagely.

“He isn't drunk, Bill,” Jerry said quietly. “Watch his face!”

They stared at him. Suddenly, in the middle of a bar, he stopped dead, laid down the crutch and began to stare over the back of his chair. His face had a curious strained look. With his tongue and teeth he produced a drubbing sound—dddddrr! The old soldiers looked at one another. They heard another sound that seemed to come from very far back in Broke's throat, travel up the roof of his mouth and then expand into a wail and sudden thump—wheeeee-bump! And at the same moment Broke raised his two arms over his head and crouched down in the chair, gasping and staring wildly about him.

“Aha, Jackie,” he said in a high-pitched, unnatural voice, “that's the postman's knock, Jackie. That's for us, boy. And that old sod of a sergeant knew 'twas coming and that's where he left us to the last.”

His right hand reached down and picked up the crutch. He raised himself and raised the crutch till it was resting on the back of the chair, and they noticed how his thumb and forefinger worked as though it were a rifle. Sully's sister and Mrs. Dunn stood in the doorway and gazed at him in astonishment. Jerry raised his hand for silence.

“I'm on my last couple of rounds, Jackie,” Broke hissed. “Are you all right, little boy? You're not hurt, are you Jackie? Don't be a bit frightened, little boy. This is nothing to some of the things I seen. I'll get you out of this, never fear. They can't kill me, Jackie. I'm like the Wandering Jew, boy. I have a charmed life.”

He continued to make those strange noises—wheeeee-bump, wheeeee-bump, and each time he would crouch, following the sound with his mad eyes, his arm raised above his head.

“That's close enough now, Jackie,” he said, panting. “They have us taped this time all right. Another five minutes now! I don't mind, Jackie. Curse of God on the care I care! There's no one in the world will bother much about me only yourself. Jackie, if ever you get back to the coal quay, tell them the way I looked after you. Tell them the way old Joe Shinnick minded you when you had no one else on your side.”

“Oh, oh, oh!” Mrs. Dunn said, but Jerry glared at her, and she clasped her hands.

“I looked after you, Jackie, didn't I? Didn't I, boy? As if you were my own. And so you were, Jackie. The first day I saw you and that tinker Lowry at you I nearly went mad. I put that cur's teeth down his throat for him anyway….” Broke rocked his head. His voice suddenly dropped. “What's that, Jackie? The guns are stopped! The guns are stopped, boy! Pass us a couple of clips there, quick! Quick, do you hear? We're in for it now. There's something moving over there, beyond the wire. Do you see it? … Christ,” he snarled between his teeth, “I'll give you something to take home with you.” He raised the crutch, lightning-swift, and then his voice dropped to a moan. “Oh, God, Jackie, they're coming! Millions of them! Millions of them! And there's the moon, the way it is now over Shandon, and the old women going to early Mass.” Again his voice changed; now it was the voice of the old soldier, curt and commanding. “Keep your head now, boy. Don't fire till I tell you. Where are you? I can't see in here. Shake hands, kid. God knows, if I could get you out of it, I would. Shake hands, can't you. What ails you? Jackie!”

His voice suddenly rang out in a cry. Sully's sister went on her knees by the door and began to give out the Rosary. Mrs. Dunn was talking to herself. “Oh, Jackie!” she was saying over and over, “Jackie, Jackie, Jackie!” Broke was leaning over the edge of the chair as though holding up a deadweight, pressing it close to his side and staring down at it incredulously. Somehow they all said afterwards they could see it quite plainly; the shell-battered dugout with the dawn breaking and the moon paling in the sky, and Broke with the dead boy's head against his side.

“So long, Jackie,” he said in a whisper. “So long, kid. I won't be long after you.”

Then he seemed to take something from the dead boy's body and throw it over his own shoulder. Bill nodded to the sergeant and the sergeant nodded back. They both knew it was an ammunition belt. Then Broke seemed to lay down the weight in his arms and swung himself up against the back of the chair, raising the crutch as if it were a rifle, but he no longer seemed to bother about cover. As his hands worked an imaginary bolt his whole face was distorted; the mouth drawn sideways in a grin, and he cursed and snarled over it like a madman. Something about it made the other men uncomfortable.

“That's enough, Jerry,” the sergeant-major said uneasily. “Wake him up, now, for the love of God!”

“No,” said Jerry, though his face was very pale. “It might bring some ease to his poor mind.”

“I'm afraid nothing will ever do that now,” said the sergeant-major. “Quick, Jerry,” he shouted, jumping from his chair, “mind him!”

It was over before Jerry could do anything. Suddenly Broke sprang up on his good leg; his crutch fell to the floor, and he spun clean into the middle of the room before he crashed on his face and hands. Jerry drew a deep breath. There was nothing else to be heard but the gabble of Sully's sister, “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” Broke lay there quite motionless for close on a minute. He might have been dead. Then he raised his head from between his hands, and with a tremendous effort tried to lift himself slowly on hands and knees. He crashed down again, sideways. A look of astonishment came into the mad, blue eyes that was always painful to watch. His hand crept slowly down his body and clutched at his leg—the leg that wasn't there.

Then he seemed to come to himself; he swung himself nimbly up from the floor and back into his chair. “Give the man his due,” he said in a perfectly normal voice. “An old soldier; his gun-carriage and his couple of volleys.” But as he spoke he covered his face with his hands, and a long sigh broke through his whole body and seemed to shake him to the very heart. It was as though he had fallen asleep, but his breath came in great noisy waves that shook him as they passed over him.

“Jackie,” said Mrs. Dunn in a whisper. “My boy, my little boy!”

And from far away, over Barrackton Hill, crystal-clear and pure in the clear summer night, they heard the bugler sounding the last post.

The Cornet Player Who Betrayed Ireland

A
T THIS HOUR
of my life I don't profess to remember what we inhabitants of Blarney Lane were patriotic about: all I remember is that we were very patriotic, that our main principles were something called “Conciliation and Consent,” and that our great national leader, William O'Brien, once referred to us as “The Old Guard.” Myself and other kids of the Old Guard used to parade the street with tin cans and toy trumpets, singing “We'll hang Johnnie Redmond on a sour apple tree.” (John Redmond, I need hardly say, was the leader of the other side.)

Unfortunately, our neighborhood was bounded to the south by a long ugly street leading uphill to the cathedral, and the lanes off it were infested with the most wretched specimens of humanity who took the Redmondite side for whatever could be got from it in the way of drink. My personal view at the time was that the Redmondite faction was maintained by a conspiracy of publicans and brewers. It always saddened me, coming through this street on my way from school, and seeing the poor misguided children, barefoot and in rags, parading with tin cans and toy trumpets and singing “We'll hang William O'Brien on a sour apple tree.” It left me with very little hope for Ireland.

Of course, my father was a strong supporter of “Conciliation and Consent.” The parish priest who had come to solicit his vote for Redmond had told him he would go straight to Hell, but my father had replied quite respectfully that if Mr. O'Brien was an agent of the devil, as Father Murphy said, he would go gladly.

I admired my father as a rock of principle. As well as being a house-painter (a regrettable trade which left him for six months “under the ivy,” as we called it), he was a musician. He had been a bandsman in the British Army, played the cornet extremely well, and had been a member of the Irishtown Brass and Reed Band from its foundation. At home we had two big pictures of the band after each of its most famous contests, in Belfast and Dublin. It was after the Dublin contest when Irishtown emerged as the premier brass band that there occurred an unrecorded episode in operatic history. In those days the best band in the city was always invited to perform in the Soldiers' Chorus scene in Gounod's
Faust
. Of course, they were encored to the echo, and then, ignoring conductor and everything else, they burst into a selection from Moore's Irish Melodies. I am glad my father didn't live to see the day of pipers' bands. Even fife and drum bands he looked on as primitive.

As he had great hopes of turning me into a musician too he frequently brought me with him to practices and promenades. Irishtown was a very poor quarter of the city, a channel of mean houses between breweries and builders' yards with the terraced hillsides high above it on either side, and nothing but the white Restoration spire of Shandon breaking the skyline. You came to a little footbridge over the narrow stream; on one side of it was a red-brick chapel, and when we arrived there were usually some of the bandsmen sitting on the bridge, spitting back over their shoulders into the stream. The bandroom was over an undertaker's shop at the other side of the street. It was a long, dark, barnlike erection overlooking the bridge and decorated with group photos of the band. At this hour of a Sunday morning it was always full of groans, squeaks and bumps.

Then at last came the moment I loved so much. Out in the sunlight, with the bridge filled with staring pedestrians, the band formed up. Dickie Ryan, the bandmaster's son, and myself took our places at either side of the big drummer, Joe Shinkwin. Joe peered over his big drum to right and left to see if all were in place and ready; he raised his right arm and gave the drum three solemn flakes: then, after the third thump the whole narrow channel of the street filled with a roaring torrent of drums and brass, the mere physical impact of which hit me in the belly. Screaming girls in shawls tore along the pavements calling out to the bandsmen, but nothing shook the soldierly solemnity of the men with their eyes almost crossed on the music before them. I've heard Toscanini conduct Beethoven, but compared with Irishtown playing “Marching Through Georgia” on a Sunday morning it was only like Mozart in a girls' school. The mean little houses, quivering with the shock, gave it back to us: the terraced hillsides that shut out the sky gave it back to us; the interested faces of passers-by in their Sunday clothes from the pavements were like mirrors reflecting the glory of the music. When the band stopped and again you could hear the gapped sound of feet, and people running and chattering, it was like a parachute jump into commonplace.

Sometimes we boarded the paddle-steamer and set up our music stands in some little field by the sea, which all day echoed of Moore's Melodies, Rossini, and Gilbert and Sullivan: sometimes we took a train into the country to play at some sports meeting. Whatever it was, I loved it, though I never got a dinner: I was fed on lemonade, biscuits and sweets, and, as my father spent most of the intervals in the pub, I was sometimes half mad with boredom.

One summer day we were playing at a fête in the grounds of Blarney Castle, and, as usual, the band departed to the pub and Dickie Ryan and myself were left behind, ostensibly to take care of the instruments. A certain hanger-on of the band, one John P., who to my knowledge was never called anything else, was lying on the grass, chewing a straw and shading his eyes from the light with the back of his hand. Dickie and I took a side drum each and began to march about with them. All at once Dickie began to sing to his own accompaniment, “We'll hang William O'Brien on a sour apple tree.” I was so astonished that I stopped drumming and listened to him. For a moment or two I thought he must be mocking the poor uneducated children of the lanes round Shandan Street. Then I suddenly realized that he meant it. Without hesitation I began to rattle my side drum even louder and shouted “We'll hang Johnnie Redmond on a sour apple tree.” John P. at once started up and gave me an angry glare. “Stop that now, little boy!” he said threateningly. It was quite plain that he meant me, not Dickie Ryan.

I was completely flabbergasted. It was bad enough hearing the bandmaster's son singing a traitorous song, but then to be told to shut up by a fellow who wasn't even a bandsman; merely a hanger-on who looked after the music stands and carried the big drum in return for free drinks! I realized that I was among enemies. I quietly put aside the drum and went to find my father. I knew that he could have no idea what was going on behind his back in the band.

I found him at the back of the pub, sitting on a barrel and holding forth to a couple of young bandsmen.

“Now, ‘Brian Boru's March,'” he was saying with one finger raised, “that's a beautiful march. I heard the Irish Guards do that on Salisbury Plain, and they had the English fellows' eyes popping out. ‘Paddy,' one of them says to me (they all call you Paddy), ‘wot's the name of the shouting march?' But somehow we don't get the same fire into it at all. Now, listen, and I'll show you how that should go!”