Puckoon (2 page)

'I heeerd a crash,' said Murphy. 'I
examined meself, and I knew it wasn't me.'

' It was me,' said Milligan.' I
felled off me bi-cycle. Tank heaven the ground broke me fall.'

' Oh
yes,
it's very handy like dat,' said Murphy, settling his arms along the wall.

' Oh
dear,
dear!' said Milligan, getting to his feet.
' I've
scratched all the paint off the toe of me boot.'
' Is
dat right den, you paint yer boots ?'
' True
, it's the
most economical way. Sometimes I
paints

'em
brown,
when I had enough o' dat I paints 'em black again.

Dat way people tink you„got more than
one pair,
see ?
Once when I played the cricket I
painted 'em white, you should try dat.'

'Oh no,' said Murphy solemnly. 'Oh
no, I don't like inteferring wid nature. Der natural colour of boots is black
as God ordained, any udder colour and a man is askin' fer trouble.'

'Oh, and what I may ask is wrong wid
brown boots?'

' How
do I
know ? I never had a pair.'

' Take
my
tip, Murphy, you got to move wid der times man. The rich people in Dublin are
all wearin' the brown boots; when scientists spend a lifetime inventin' a thing
like the brown boots, we should take advantage of the fact.'

'No, thank you,' said Murphy's
eyebrows, 'I'll stick along wid the inventor of the black boots. After all they
don't show the dirt.'

'Dat's my argument, black don't show
the dirt,
brown
ones don't show the mud and a good
pair of green boots won't show the grass.'

'By Gor', you got something dere,'
said the Murphy.' But wait, when you was wearing dem white boots, what didn't
dey
show ?'

'They didn't show me feet,' said
Milligan, throwing himself on to the bike and crashing down on the other side.

' Caw
!' said
the crow.

'Balls!' said Milligan. 'I'll be on
me way.' He remounted and pedalled off.

'No, stay and have a little more
chat,' called Murphy across the widening gap.
' Parts
round here are lonely and sparse populated.'

'Well it's not for the want of you
tryin','
came
the fading reply.

The day brewed hotter now, it was
coming noon. The hedgerows hummed with small things that buzzed and bumbled in
the near heat. From the cool woods came
a babel
of
chirruping birds.

The greena-cious daisy-spattled
fields spread out before Milligan, the bayonets of grass shining bravely in the
sun, above him the sky was an exaltation of larks. Slowfully Milligan pedalled
on his way. Great billy boilers of perspiration were running down his knees
knose and kneck, the torrents ran down his shins into his boots where they
escaped through the lace holes as steam.

'Now,' thought the Milligan, 'why are
me legs goin' round and
round ?
eh ?
I don't tink it's me doin' it, in fact, if I had me way dey wouldn't be doin'
it at all. But dere
dey are
goin' round and round;
what den was der drivin' force behind dose legs? Me wife! That's what's drivin'
'em round and round, dat's the truth, dese legs are terrified of me wife,
terrified of bein' kicked in the soles of the feet again.' It was a disgrace
how a fine mind like his should be taken along by a pair of terrified legs. If only
his mind had a pair of legs of its own they'd be back at the cottage being
bronzed in the Celtic sun.

The Milligan had suffered from his
legs terribly.
During the war in
Italy
.
While his mind was
full of great heroisms under shell fire, his legs were carrying the idea, at
speed, in the opposite direction. The Battery Major had not understood.

'Gunner Milligan?
You have been acting like a coward.'

'No sir, not true. I'm a hero wid
coward's
legs,
I'm a hero from the waist up.'

' Silence
!
Why did you leave your
post ?'

' It
had
woodworm in it, sir, the roof of the trench was falling in.'

' Silence
!
You acted like a coward!'

' I
wasn't
acting sir!'

' I
could
have you shot!'

'Shot?
Why
didn't they shoot me in peacetime? I was still the same coward.'

' Men
like
you are a waste of time in war. Understand?'

' Oh
? Well
den! Men like you are a waste of time in peace.'

' Silence
when you speak to an officer,' shouted the Sgt. Major at Milligan's neck.

All his arguments were of no avail in
the face of military authority.

He was court martialled, surrounded
by clanking top brass who were not cowards and therefore biased.

' I
may be a
coward, I'm not denying dat sir,' Milligan told the prosecution. 'But you can't
really blame me for being a coward. If I am, then you might as well hold me
responsible for the shape of me nose, the colour of me hair and the size of me
feet.'

'Gunner Milligan,' Captain Martin
stroked a cavalry moustache on an infantry face. 'Gunner Milligan,' he said.
'Your personal evaluations of cowardice do not concern the court. To refresh
your memory I will read the precise military definition of the word.'

He took a book of King's Regulations,
opened a marked page and read 'Cowardice'. Here he paused and gave Milligan a
look.

He continued: ' Defection in the face
of the enemy.
Running away.'

' I
was not
running away sir, I was retreating.' 'The whole of your Regiment were
advancing, and you decided to
retreat ?'

' Isn't
dat
what you calls personal initiative ?' 'Your action might have caused your
comrades to panic and retreat.'

' Oh
, I see!
One man retreating is called running away, but a whole Regiment running away is
called a
retreat ?
I demand to be tried by cowards!'

A light, commissioned-ranks-only
laugh passed around the court.

But this was no laughing matter.
These lunatics could have him shot.

' Have
you
anything further to add ?' asked Captain Martin.

'Yes,' said Milligan.'
Plenty.
For one ting I had no desire to partake in dis war.
I was dragged in. I warned the Medical Officer, I told him I was a coward, and
he marked me A.i. for Active Service. I gave everyone fair warning! I told me
Battery Major before it started, I even wrote to Field Marshal Montgomery. Yes,
I warned everybody, and now you're all acting
surprised ?'

Even as Milligan spoke his mind,
three non-cowardly judges made a mental note of Guilty.

'Is that all?' queried Martin with
all the assurance of a conviction.

Milligan nodded. What was the
use ?
After all, if Albert Einstein stood for a thousand
years in front of fifty monkeys explaining the theory of relativity, at the
end, they'd still be just monkeys.

Anyhow it was all over now, but he
still had these cowardly legs which, he observed, were still going round and round.
'Oh dear, dis weather, I niver knowed it so hot.' It felt as though he could
have grabbed a handful of air and squeezed the sweat out of it. 'I wonder,' he
mused, 'how long can I go on losin' me body fluids at dis rate before I'm
struck down with the
dehydration ?
Ha ha! The answer
to me problems,' he said, gleefully drawing level with the front door of the
'Holy Drunkard' pub.

' Hello
!
Hi-lee, Ho-la, Hup-la!' he shouted through the letter box.

Upstairs, a window flew up like a gun
port, and a pig-of-a-face stuck itself out.

'What do you want, Milligan?' said
the pig-of-a-face. Milligan doffed his cap.

'Ah, Missis O'Toole, you're looking
more lovely
dan ever. Is there any chance of a cool libation
for a tirsty
traveller ?'

' Piss
off!'
said the lovely Mrs O'Toole.

'Oh what a witty tongue you have
today,' said Milligan, gallant in defeat. Well, he thought, you can fool some
of the people all the time and all the people some of the time, which is just
long enough to be President of the United States, and on that useless
profundity, Milligan himself pedalled on, himself, himself.

' Caw
!' said
a crow.

'Balls!'said
Milligan.

Father Patrick Rudden paused as he
trod the gravel path of the church drive. He ran his 'kerchief round the inside
of his holy clerical collar. Then he walked slowly to the grave of the late
Miss Griselda Strains and pontifically lowered his ecclesiastical rump on to
the worn slab, muttering a silent apology to the departed lady, but reflecting
,
it wouldn't be the first time she'd had a man on top of
her, least of all one who apologized as he did. He was a tall handsome man
touching fifty, but didn't appear to be speeding. His stiff white hair was
yellowed with frequent applications of anointment oil. The width of neck and
shoulder suggested a rugby player, the broken nose confirmed it.
Which shows how wrong you can be as he never played the game in his
life.
The clock in the church tower said 4.32, as it had done for three
hundred years. It was right once a day and that was better than no clock at
all. How old the church was no-one knew. It was, like Mary Brannigan's black
baby, a mystery. Written records went back to 1530. The only real clue was the
discovery of a dead skeleton under the ante-chapel. Archaeologists from
Dublin
had got wind of it
and
come
racing up in a lorry filled with little
digging men, instruments and sandwiches.

'It's the bones of an Ionian monk,'
said one grey professor. For weeks they took photos of the dear monk. They
measured his skull, his shins, his dear elbows; they took scrapings from his
pelvis, they took a plaster cast of the dear fellow's teeth, they dusted him
with resin and preserving powders and finally the professors had all agreed
,
the Monk was one thousand five hundred years old. 'Which
accounts for him being dead,' said the priest, and that was that.

Money! That was the trouble. Money!
The parish was spiritually solvent but financially bankrupt. Money! The Lord
will provide, but to date he was behind with his payments. Money!

Father Rudden had tried everything to
raise
funds,
he even went to the bank. 'Don't be a
fool, Father!' said the manager, 'Put that gun down.' Money! There was the
occasion he'd promised to make fire to fall from heaven. The church had been
packed. At the psychological moment the priest had mounted the pulpit and
called loudly ' I command fire to fall from heaven!' A painful silence
followed. The priest seemed uneasy. He repeated his invocation much louder, '1
command fire to fall from heaven!' The sibilant voice of the verger came
wafting hysterically from the loft.

'Just a minute, Father, the
cat's
pissed on the matches!'

It had been a black day for the
church. Money! That was the trouble. His own shoes were so worn he knew every
pebble in the church drive by touch. He poked a little gold nut of cheap
tobacco into his pipe. As he drew smoke he looked at the honeyed stone of St
Theresa, the church he had pastored for thirty years. A pair of nesting doves
flew from the ivy on the tower. It was pretty quiet around here.

There had been a little excitement
during the insurgence; the Sinn Fein had held all their meetings in the bell
tower and in consequence
were
all stone deaf. The
priest didn't like bloodshed, after all we only have a limited amount, but what
was he to
do ?

Freedom! The word had been burning
through the land for nearly four hundred years. The Irish had won battles for
everyone but themselves; now the fever of liberty was at the high peak of
delirium, common men were incensed by injustice; now the talk was over and the
guns were speaking. Father Rudden had thrown in his lot with 'the lads' and had
harboured gunmen on the run. They had won but alas, even then, Ulster had come
out against the union. For months since the armistice, dozens of little
semi-important men with theodolites and creased
trousers,
were running in all directions in a frenzy of mensuration, threats and
rock-throwing, all trying to agree the new border.

The sound of a male bicycle frame
drew the priest's attention.

There coming up the drive was the
worst Catholic since Genghis Khan.