The Young Rebels (7 page)

T
he Great War goes on and on and gets worse and worse. Germany has placed a submarine
blockade
around the British Isles. Zeppelin airships have dropped bombs on English towns.

Death falling silently out of the skies to kill innocent civilians.

In ancient Ireland battles were fought hand to hand. If you killed someone – or he killed you – you looked in each other’s eyes first.

The Irish Volunteers have seven commanding
officers
in Dublin: Thomas MacDonagh, Joseph Plunkett (he edits
The Irish Review
and his father’s the director of the Museum of Science and Art), Éamonn Ceannt,
Bulmer Hobson, Edward Daly (Tom Clarke’s
brother-in
-law), Éamon de Valera, and our own Mr Pearse.

Willie teases his brother by calling him ‘
Commandant
’ and saluting him at inappropriate times. I don’t think Mr Pearse would take it from anyone else, but when Willie does it he laughs.

With so many new Volunteers, the officers are kept busy trying to train them. Mr Pearse has organised a mock battle for the newest recruits to the Dublin Brigade. It will be held in the Dublin mountains on Easter Sunday.

‘Why Easter Sunday, sir?’ I want to know.

‘Joe Plunkett suggested it. He likes the symbolism of the Resurrection.’

A small party of the St Enda’s Fianna will accompany the Easter Sunday drill. I’m one of those chosen. Roger is not.

He is lying face down on his bed, making snuffling noises. He wouldn’t want me to know he’s crying, but I can’t leave him like that. ‘Everything all right?’ I ask as cheerfully as I can.

He rolls over and looks up at me. His face is red and blotchy and his eyes are swimming. ‘Nothing’s all right. You’re good at everything and I’m not good at anything. My parents talk about James and Donald all the time and they never talk about me.’

‘You’re good at lots of things,’ I say loyally.

‘Name three.’

‘Well, Latin. You’re good at Latin, much better than I am.’

‘How wonderful for me.’ He rolls over again and buries his face in his pillow.

Mr Pearse and Willie are in the Ardmháistir’s office. When they see me standing in the open doorway the Ardmháistir snaps, ‘What is it, John Joe?’

He’s never short with the boys. He must have a lot on his mind.

‘I was wondering, sir. About Roger?’

‘What about Roger?’

‘He’s heartbroken at not being chosen for the Easter Sunday manoeuvres. Could you possibly add his name to the list? It would mean a lot to him, sir.’

In a kindlier voice, Mr Pearse says, ‘The ground we’ll be covering is very rough and we’ll need our most
athletic
boys. Con Colbert tells me that Roger is not up to it. I’m sorry.’

‘But he can do it, sir, I know he can! And if he has difficulties I’ll help him.’

‘This won’t be a game, John Joe.’ He drops his voice slightly. ‘It’s a rehearsal.’

‘A rehearsal?’ I don’t understand. ‘For a play, sir?’

‘Not for a play.’

Once again the penny drops. It takes me a long time but eventually I get there. ‘The Volunteers are not
just
to protect us, are they, sir? We’ll be rehearsing for an uprising!’

Padraic Pearse does not answer but there is no need. I can see it in his face.

I can feel it in the leap of my heart.

An uprising, a rebellion against the British like the Rising of 1798! In my own lifetime. For a moment I can hardly breathe.

Then the thought comes to me: it won’t be nearly as much fun if Roger’s not there.

‘Please sir, if you want me, take Roger as well. He can do it, I promise.’

Mr Pearse turns to his brother. ‘What do you think, Willie?’

‘I think I’d be very unhappy if you went without me.’

‘Roger? Roger! Get up. You’ll be going with us on Sunday.’

He raises his head and gives me a sour look. ‘Who says?’

‘The Ardmháistir says.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘You’d better believe me because it’s true.’

‘What happened, John Joe?’ Narrowing his eyes, he peers at me suspiciously. ‘Did you ask him to take me?’

If I lie I can spare his feelings. If I tell the truth he may hate me.

Big breath.

‘I did ask him, Roger. Because I’d be very unhappy to go without you.’

Nora Connolly’s girls have rolled bandages for the mock battle. Everything must be just as it would in a real fight. I want to be a stretcher bearer, but that task will go to four of the older boys. The rest of us will serve as messengers. The stretcher bearers have stretchers and a First Aid box, and the Volunteers have weapons. Everyone has some sort of military
equipment
except the messengers. We only have our legs. It isn’t fair – but Willie assures me it’s the most important assignment of all. ‘Good communication between
officers
is vital, John Joe. Without it an army is helpless.’

Following Mass on Easter morning, Madame and a friend of hers bring their motor cars to St Enda’s to transport the Fianna to the mountains. The Volunteers are forming up elsewhere and will make the journey on foot. It isn’t that far, we’ve done it lots of times.

Personally I think we should be allowed to march with them.

No one has said anything about bringing rations this time. But Roger – one can always count on Roger – sneaks down to the kitchen before we leave and loads
his pockets with ‘provisions’. Then we set off. There is great singing in both cars and a lot of horseplay. High spirits are the order of the day!

Carpeted with bracken and heather, the Dublin mountains are lovely in the spring. We turn off the main road into a narrow, rutted track, jolt along for a while, then make another turn into an even narrower track which is partially overgrown with briars. Thorns scrape along the sides of the cars. At last we come to a stop on a steep hillside studded with rock outcroppings.

‘Are you sure this is the right place?’ one of the older boys asks Madame. ‘How are the troops going to find us up here?’

‘They have a marked map,’ she assures him.

The two automobiles go back the way they came. The briars close behind them. We’re alone up here.

Roger begins emptying out his pockets. The stretcher bearers produce a flask of tea and a bag of biscuits. We sample everything, planning to save the rest for later. Then we scout the area as we’ve been taught in our drills. This is awfully rough ground. A lot of my time is spent helping Roger haul himself up some steep slope or other. I’m beginning to regret that I insisted he come along.

After what seems like hours, there is a noise like a
herd of cows crashing through the undergrowth.

The Volunteers have arrived!

‘About time too,’ says Roger, mopping the
perspiration
off his face.

The officers divide the men into two ‘armies’ to stage a mock attack and withdrawal. One group will hold a large rock outcropping while the others attempt to
capture
it. It’s quite straightforward. We’ve done the same exercise in our own manoeuvres.

From the beginning, however, there is confusion. The new Volunteers are certainly eager, but it’s like trying to herd cats. Orders are misunderstood or, worse yet, ignored. Some fellows don’t seem to know their right from their left. Others wander off into the bracken and get lost. One man falls down and breaks his ankle, which gives the stretcher bearers something to do. They carry him down the mountain to a meadow where the women are waiting with their parked cars, and
Madame’s
friend drives him back to Dublin and a doctor.

In the finish-up, there is no danger of Roger being unable to cope. The only Fianna who see service are the stretcher bearers. The rest of us spend our time trying to keep out of the way of the Volunteers as they blunder back and forth across the mountainside. Their officers make valiant attempts to establish order, but I don’t envy them.

After a while Roger and I climb up onto a big rock and simply sit there watching. Unfortunately, by this stage he has eaten all there is to eat and there’s none left for me.

At the end of the afternoon everyone is in a temper. The Volunteers have a long march back. The
manoeuvre
appears to have gone unnoticed by the authorities, so the older Fianna boys are allowed to go with them. The rest of us have another automobile ride. Mr Pearse is protecting us – wrapping us in cotton wool – more than I would like.

At least we’re not as crowded in the cars as we were on the journey out.

Tonight in the dormitory everyone is talking about the exercise in the mountains. The boys who did not go are eager to hear all the details. I don’t want to discuss it. But Roger is willing. He does puff up the story a bit and make it sound much more thrilling than it was, but maybe that’s the way he remembers it.

I mostly remember being bored. Is that what a real war is like, I wonder?

I’m anxious about the coming summer. There has been no word from my father. Will he want me at home? Or can I stay here? St Enda’s is not really equipped to keep students through the summer, and it would be unfair to ask.

But oh please dear sweet Mary and St Joseph, don’t send me home.

Something terrible has happened! On the seventh of May a big ocean liner called the
Lusitania
was
torpedoed
by the Germans off the southern coast of
Ireland
. We’ve just heard the news. Hundreds of bodies are washing onto the beaches. There are pictures in the newspapers. At first I look at them as eagerly as the other boys, but now I can’t bear to see them any more. It’s too much to take in.

The newspapers predict that America, which has been neutral until now, will enter the Great War because of the
Lusitania
.

Looking at the big map of the world, I can see how tiny Ireland is in comparison with Europe on one side and America on the other. If the Germans invade
England
we will be the next step.

We should not have to suffer for the quarrels of the big nations. We need to be independent of the United Kingdom.

Summer is rushing toward us and everyone seems to assume that I will go home like the other students. The Ardmháistir looks very preoccupied these days. I feel guilty about bringing my small problem to him, but it’s very big to me.

He is sitting behind his desk as usual, with a stack of
books and a huge pile of papers in front of him.

‘Please, sir, have you heard anything from my father about the summer holidays?’

‘What do you mean, John Joe?’

All my life I have been taught that children owe their parents total obedience and total loyalty.
Sometimes
that means keeping quiet about awful things. I must be very wicked to think of rebelling against my father, but I cannot face the thought of spending months in that house. I’m not a coward, it’s just …

Screwing up my courage, I tell Mr Pearse. ‘I don’t want to go home, sir. You don’t know what it’s like.’

He gives me one of those long, quiet, measuring looks of his. Then he stands up and comes around to my side of the desk. He sits down in a chair which puts his face on a level with my own. In a calm voice he says, ‘Perhaps you had best tell me what it’s like, John Joe.’

It takes a long time. I start with little things, but then the bigger things come rushing to the surface. Twilight is gathering in the Ardmháistir’s office and still I’m
talking
and still he’s listening. The last and worst comes at the end.

Now I remember! Like some horrible nightmare that has pursued me into the daytime, I remember. And it’s all happening again. Me cowering against the wall – I
must have been no more than three or four years old – and my little mother standing in front of me, shielding me with her body. I have committed some offence like wetting my bed and my father is determined to punish me severely. ‘Over my dead body, Bertie!’ Mam shouts at him. It is the most defiant act I’ve ever seen. She is a heroine, my mother.

He doubles his fist and clubs her to the floor.

T
he Ardmháistir showed me the letter he wrote to my father. It said in part, ‘Your son is an
exceptional
young man. He is intelligent, honest, and has a fine character. You must be proud of him.

‘We at St Enda’s are proud of him too. That is why we should like to offer him a place here at the school during the summer. Our staff is much reduced during the holiday months and John Joe would be a welcome addition. My mother tells me he has been a great help to her in the past, and I am eager to make things as easy as possible for her now.

‘If you will give your permission for your son to stay here we shall be most grateful. We are not in a position
to offer him a regular salary, but shall pay him in kind. He will receive additional tutoring to enhance his
education
and prepare him to take a foremost place in a free society.

‘As you must appreciate, since you entrusted the boy to us, we disagree with an educational system which prepares young people to be manageable slaves. The students of St Enda’s are taught those noble and goodly things that will make them strong and proud and valiant. I believe John Joe will be an outstanding example of the success of our methods, and a great credit to you.’

I looked up from the letter in amazement. ‘I don’t see how my father can argue with that,’ I told Mr Pearse. ‘Yet everything you said is true.’

‘Of course it is, John Joe. Except, perhaps, that part about your father being proud of you. But he
should
be, which is the point.’

How I would love to be a fly on the wall when my father read the letter. I shall never know what he said or how he felt – but by return of post he gave his permission.

If only I knew how to use words as well as Mr Pearse does. At least I have the whole summer to learn!

The St Enda’s Fianna company will continue to drill here through the summer, so I shall be seeing my
classmates on a regular basis. In addition, the Fianna girls will come out here to practice being auxiliaries.

Knowing Madame, I wonder she doesn’t give them all guns and teach them how to shoot. Perhaps she will.

This summer I’ll be able to tend my vegetable plot right through the season, instead of leaving it up to Michael MacRory. Each of us boys is responsible for his own little bit of soil and we get to choose what we want to grow. Last year I raised a crop of runner beans, the only
vegetable
I really like aside from potatoes. But I planted too many and we had to eat them almost every day.

I’m not as fond of runner beans any more.

This year I’m growing Brussels sprouts. I’m not sure why, unless it’s because I don’t like them very much. Maybe if I get to know them better I will. They do look like a great cluster of flowers when they’re growing, so at least they are pretty.

From the moment I knew I would be staying at St Enda’s, I felt as if a big black cloud had lifted off me. There is still a tiny little piece of it left, though. Next year is 1916 and it will have a summer, too. Sooner or later I shall have to face my father.

I don’t want to think about that.

Maybe something will happen in the meantime and I won’t have to go home next year either. Maybe I will stay right here at St Enda’s and finish my education and
become a teacher and teach here and my life will go on and on in this wonderful place.

The summer is flying by. Willie and his sister
Margaret
are helping me with my studies, and I am helping Mrs Pearse with her work. We spend every Monday together in the wash-house, which has a big copper for boiling the laundry in, wooden tubs for rinsing, and a mangle. The whole place smells of Sunlight Soap and Red Robin Starch. The Pearse brothers always have their collars and cuffs starched.

If it is not raining, the washing is hung to dry on the clotheslines that run from the wash-house to the wall by the grape arbour. I know I’m getting taller because I can peg the wet sheets onto the highest lines. Last year I could not. When I take them down again the sheets smell wonderfully fresh, like the wind off the sea. If no one is looking I bury my nose in them and take a deep breath.

Mr Pearse is not here very much these days. He is busy organising plans for the uprising. It’s a privilege to know what is, after all, a very big secret. He can trust me not to tell anyone. Sometimes at night I lie in bed and hug myself in excitement. I wish I were just a few years older, though. I wish the uprising could wait until I’m old enough to be a Volunteer.

The Fianna will have a part to play, however. In our
drills this summer we are practising tunnelling and transporting supplies and cleaning weapons. The older boys even practice shooting with live ammunition, but I’m not allowed to yet. I know I would be a crack shot if they only gave me the chance. I have very keen eyes.

One week Roger does not show up for Fianna drill. Con Colbert explains to the rest of us, ‘Roger has received bad news, I’m afraid. His brother Donald has been killed in France. His body is on its way home for burial.’

Poor Roger! I remember how I felt when Mam died, it’s the most awful, alone sort of feeling. There is
nothing
I can do that would make things any easier for my friend. We have a Mass said for Donald, and I ask Willie to help me make a sympathy card to send to Roger.

‘What would you like to paint on the front of it, John Joe?’

That’s a hard question. What is the symbol for
sympathy
? At last I decide on an Easter lily because of the Resurrection. Roger’s a Protestant but they believe in the Resurrection just the same as we do.

I still don’t know what to write inside the card.

‘What do you think?’ I ask Willie.

‘What do you feel?’

‘Well, I’m terribly sorry about Donald.’

‘There’s your answer, John Joe. You should always say what’s in your heart. If it’s honest it need not be
fancy. That’s what Pat does; he always says what’s in his heart.’

On the first of August there will be another funeral in Dublin. Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, who was one of the greatest of the Fenians, died in New York in June. His body has been sent home for burial in Glasnevin Cemetery. Wearing dress uniform, the Fianna will march in the funeral procession. Mr Pearse will give the graveside oration.

The St Enda’s Fianna are summoned to the school for a special drill beforehand. Even Roger attends. He is wearing a black armband, as I did for my mother. There is something strange about those mourning bands. They are only a little strip of cloth, yet when you have one on you are conscious of it all the time. It’s like a weight dragging at your arm.

Roger looks pale and hollow-eyed and does not ask if there will be refreshments afterward. Otherwise he seems normal enough – until one of the older boys says something about the war.

‘The war!’ cries Roger. ‘The war took my brother and blew him to bits and sent him home in a box with the lid nailed down. Don’t talk to me about the war!’

Then he bursts into tears.

I’m his best friend but I don’t know what to do.

Unfortunately Mr Pearse is not with us on the playing
field, he is in his office writing the oration. But Mrs Pearse has come to watch us, and she comes hurrying over to gather Roger into her arms. Her face looks as stricken as his. ‘You poor boy, you poor boy,’ she
murmurs
as she strokes his hair. ‘And your poor mother too. She is in my prayers. It is such a terrible thing to lose a child.’

Roger pulls away with blazing eyes. ‘She didn’t lose him, they took him away from her and killed him!’ Turning to me, he cries, ‘Donald died for King George!’

I have never seen such bitterness on any face.

The Irish soldiers being slaughtered on the Western Front in the name of the king are honoured by people here as heroes. That is right and proper, because there is no doubt they were brave men. But Roger is not thinking about his brother’s heroism, only about the waste of his life. I understand how he feels. Donald was young and strong and now he is dead and cold, sacrificed for a cause that was not his.

O’Donovan Rossa spent his life in the struggle for Ireland’s freedom.

On the day before the funeral, his embalmed body lies in state in City Hall. The Pearses take me into the city with them to pay respects. Uniformed members of the Volunteers serve as a guard of honour around the coffin, which is standing on trestles. The lid is open.
That means we shall get to see him. The only other dead person I’ve ever seen was Mam.

It won’t be as bad this time.

Following Margaret Pearse, I join the queue of people filing past the coffin. Many are carrying rosaries. Quite a few are weeping. Did they know him when he was alive? I wish I had. If it were not for Mr Pearse I would know nothing about O’Donovan Rossa’s gallant struggle, and that of the other Fenians, to break Ireland’s chains.

At last I look down at the pale face on the satin pillow. His gaunt features are very noble. Willie Pearse could sculpt that face. Perhaps one day he will. I expect there will be magnificent statues by William Pearse in museums all over Ireland in years to come. I shall go to see them and tell the admiring crowd, ‘I knew him, you know. Willie Pearse was a friend of mine.’

Ned Halloran is one of the members of the guard of honour standing at the four corners of the coffin. When no one is looking he gives me the tiniest wink. At least I think he does. He looks so stern and grown-up it’s hard to tell. He has crossed an invisible line and become a man. When will I cross that line? I wonder. Will I know it when it comes?

August first is Lughnasa, the ancient Celtic festival of the sun. But we won’t see much of the sun today. By
the time the funeral procession forms up outside City Hall, a bank of heavy cloud is building in the north. In turn, the Irish Volunteers, the Citizen Army, the Fianna, Cumann na mBan, the Irish Girl Guides, the National Foresters, and the Hibernian hurling teams all take their place in the long procession.

With the exception of their officers, most of the
Volunteers
still do not have uniforms. James Connolly has got funding from somewhere so the Citizen Army is sporting a new dark green uniform. I think the Fianna are better drilled than either organisation, though I must admit they are improving. But we’re the only ones who manage to march in step.

Priests and labour union officers and members of the literary community join the procession too. There is no representative from the government, however. The British government that rules Ireland.

I don’t think O’Donovan Rossa would want them anyway.

Accompanied by a sombre rattle of drums, he sets out on his final journey.

A large crowd has turned out to line the streets on the way to Glasnevin Cemetery. The men remove their hats as the coffin passes by, and the women throw paper flowers since there are few real ones to be had at this time of year.

When we reach Glasnevin the Dublin Metropolitan Police are waiting for us. They are all very tall men, wearing dark blue uniforms and metal helmets with spikes on top. They are supposed to look intimidating, and they do. As the procession starts through the gates the police do not try to stop it, but I see several of them with notebooks out, taking down names.

A crowd of civilians has also been waiting for us
outside
the cemetery. As the Fianna approach the gates a woman exclaims, ‘Look at those dear little lads in their costumes!’

My face flames. We are
not
‘dear little lads’. We are warriors of Ireland! I throw my head back and march forward like the soldier I am.

Joe Plunkett is in charge of the arrangements at Glasnevin today. He has everything well organised. Inside the cemetery gates two of the youngest Fianna are handing out beautifully printed programmes and pasteboard passes to the graveside, where a crowd is already waiting. Older members of the Fianna are
setting
up camp chairs for women and old people.

O’Donovan Rossa will not be alone in his final sleep. On every side lie the graves of other Fenians. Some have rosary beads draped over the headstones. The oldest stones are settling back into the earth, the way I snuggle back into my quilt on a cold night.

This is a very solemn place. Very peaceful. But the skies are overcast and there is a sort of tingling in the air. Maybe a storm is coming.

Wearing the uniform of a Commandant of the
Volunteers
, Padraic Pearse steps forward. He is taller than most of the men around him. He takes a folded piece of paper from the pocket of his tunic, then removes his peaked cap and tucks it under his arm before
beginning
the graveside oration.

He speaks slowly, in a deep, strong voice. From his first words, the large crowd is spellbound. No one coughs or even rustles a programme. They listen to every word as if they had never heard such words before. And perhaps they have not. The Ardmháistir is speaking of splendour and pride and strength as
Irish
qualities.

‘Our foes are strong, and wise, and wary,’ he says, ‘but they cannot undo the miracles of God, Who ripens in the hearts of young men the seeds sown by the young men of a former generation.’

Young men. Like me.

The final words of Padraic Pearse’s speech carve themselves on my heart.

‘I hold it a Christian thing, as O’Donovan Rossa held it, to hate evil, to hate untruth, to hate oppression, and hating them, to strive to overthrow them.

‘Life springs from death, and from the graves of patriot men spring live nations. The defenders of this realm have worked well in secret and in the open. They think they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us, and intimidated the other half.’

Mr Pearse pauses; takes a deep breath. Raising his chin, he looks out across the sea of headstones. I would swear there is a faint smile on his lips.

‘They think that they have provided against
everything
; but the fools, the fools, the fools! They have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace!’