At Swim, Two Boys Part 63

"Is he all right?" a girl asked. "He's shocking pale."

"Leave him stew," said a man.

"Ankle," uttered Jim. "He got it twisted."

"That's right," said the girl, "heave it up now, you'll be fine."

"What's up with him?" said a boy's voice piping.

"He's after getting his sergeant near killed."

"Oh," said the boy's voice piping.

Jim wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He swallowed, his throat bitter and raw. The flush receded. He took off his bush-hat. He was sweating and cold and hot.

The boy said, "You want a custard pie?"

Jim's eyes focused. "How old are you supposed to be?" he asked.

"Jeez," said the boy and walked away.

Twice now Mr. Mack had returned to Ballygihen, but no sign of anyone, nor Doyler nor Mr. MacMurrough, only that chappie of a gardener who wished it be known he was caretaker now and who did Mr. Mack think he was, agitating this here bell of the big house. No luck at the Forty Foot: n.o.body swimming and no sight of Jim, the only news on any man's tongue was Dublin, Dublin, Dublin. Wearily, traipsily, Mr. Mack set his face in the rain toward Kingstown.

The streets were awake now. Already George's Street crawled with traffic. At the junction with Marine Road he saw the why of that: a kind of a picket had formed, manned by respectable gentlemen of the Georgius Rex with bra.s.sards on their sleeves, and a couple Baden-Poweller boys in uniforms and hats. They were stopping drivers and asking questions. Nothing what you would call official, they a.s.sured Mr. Mack, but still something had to be done to put a halt to these Sinn Feiner rascals; and Mr. Mack, saluting with a tip of his boater, agreed, saying it was a shocking state of affairs altogether, and only for he was stepping into town himself he would stop to lend a hand.

"What business would that be on?" asked one of the gentlemen, and Mr. Mack, taking a breath to reply, had the breath taken from him by the sound that now approached from the harbor below. Soldiers, hundreds of them, sure what was he saying, half a battalion at the very least, and the scrunch of their boots on the road, all in step, at a marching gait, in column of two files, coming up from the mailboat pier. And louder still they came, rank upon rank, there seemed no end to them, battalion, half a brigade, and he shook his head in wonder. Holy G.o.d, his lips muttered and he blessed himself with a slow-moving hand. Has it come to this already?

He heard their voices now, the more likely lads calling out Parleyvoo or Bonjour mamselle to the feminine gender that gathered to look, the way they had it mistook for some place foreign where they'd landed: their accents of the English Midlands queer as Russian in this fas.h.i.+onable town. He saw their faces, haggard and sicklooking some of them, after the crossing they had of it, young fellows of Gordie's age, no more, all weighed down with equipment, with rifle and pack and the accoutrements of war, their officers looking warily about them, distrusting. Though the populace was doing its best now, with cups of tea and plates of bread, distributing them, and a school had opened its gates for a billet.

Up the rebels! some fool of a youngster was heard to cry, but the crowd descended so quick, Mr. Mack could see no face, only the boots kicking before the lad was trundled away. Holy Mother of G.o.d, he thought to himself. And this is only the beginning of it. This is only the very beginning.

The traffic had been stopped this while, and Mr. Mack had grown aware, on the back of his head, of the intimidation of unfriendly stares. He turned to catch a young Baden-Poweller watching from under his Boy Scout hat. Now he heard this pipsqueak say, "Granddadda," pulling on a gentleman's sleeve, "he's one of them, I'm sure of it, Granddadda."

"What's this now?" said Mr. Mack.

"Glasthule, Granddadda, remember? He was in the papers about it. The recruitment posters."

"Now now," said Mr. Mack sternly, "don't you be talking things you know nothing about. Now look here," he added to the men who closed about him, "will you have the goodness to take your hands off of me?"

"Fetch a constable," said a gentlemen.

"Put him in charge," said another.

Mr. Mack shrugged his arms but the grip of the men, for all their respectability, was surprising tight. One had produced a musket even. Some of the folks watching made mutter about the King's Highway and the liberty to walk thereon, but most said nothing at all, only the louts in the crowd who set up that curious Irish jeer of a cheer while they waited on the peelers' coming. But Mr. Mack did not think of the crowd while he stood there in the gentlemen's grip; not of the crowd, nor of the papers nor his customers nor shop. When the constables came, all six of them, wiping their bakes of their grinny breakfasts, he gave them no thought, wh.o.r.eson oafs though they were who, given their day, would drive the entire nation into the arms of the Fenians. No thought to the constables nor any to the Georgius Rex: the people had the right of that, gentlemen my backside, gorgeous wrecks was all they were. He did not think of canon nor curate, of doors, tuppenny nor sixpenny. Not of Ireland nor Dublin, which both must surely be brought to ruin. His years with the Colors were nothing to him, his regiment might never have been. While the constables marched him away, he stared back up the road where the soldiers had gone, the first of thousands to come, thinking only, helplessly, Jim, my son James, my son, my Jim.

The rebel officer-though they were not to be called rebels: this was a rising, not a rebellion and the officer stickled for the distinction-pointed out the areas of interest. "We have posts in Leeson Street and Harcourt Street. We had the railway station too, but with so few turned out, that was more a liability than much else. We hold the Green itself, or we did hold it till this morning. Headquarters is currently removing to the College of Surgeons." He indicated a grey facade across the far western end of the park, just visible through a tracery of elms, where the Republican flag breezed above.

"Commandant MacDonagh holds Jacob's mills up the way. Commandant de la Vera holds Boland's mills down the way. No shortage of tucker for us. You probably know the general headquarters is up at the General Post Office. That is where the Republic was declared and Commandant-General Pea.r.s.e read the proclamation."

Post office! MacMurrough repeated to himself. At last, the Republic of Letters!

"The British," the young man continued, "insofar as they bear on our forces in the Green, hold the Shelbourne Hotel with, we believe, two machine-gun crews, any number of sharp-shooters and they have a barricade manned in Merrion Row. Portobello barracks is kept pretty brisk and Beggars Bush too. The Castle, there's fighting still. If you listen you can hear it. That other you can hear is Trinity where the West Brits is playing Old Harry with our communications."

The Green was laid out as a rectangle with broad avenues running the length of each side, these then terraced with banks, hotels, gentlemen's clubs, meeting-houses, more hotels, one or two churches to relieve the eye, the like. They had cycled slap bang into the military at the Baggott Street end, so MacMurrough had doubled round to the Leeson Street entry, where Doyler had hailed this rebel officer. He had been on a scouting mission and was now returning, with his two companions, to rejoin the main rebel force. The Shelbourne rose just across the park from them, a matter of three hundred yards, and they were strolling, this officer in full rebel rig plus somberro, in blatant view of its serried windows.

"I don't mind now," said Doyler, in a carefully neutral tone, "but is it supposed to be safe walking here?"

"From the British? Safe enough. For the moment they have game in plenty with our men retreating to the Surgeons. You'll see it now in a minute. It sounds to me there's one of their machine guns down. That'll be only temporary, of course. Madame got one of them earlier."

"Did she too?"

"Stepped out calm as a clock, and as cold."

MacMurrough said, "What about casualties?"

"Ask yourself this," the officer replied: "three-foot trenches and the crack of dawn machine-guns spewing from above."

MacMurrough exchanged glances with Doyler, each asking of the other the solution to this conundrum. "Have you heard tell at all," said Doyler, "of a young chap, name of Jim Mack?"

"Not I," said the officer. "Volunteer, is he?"

"Don't know rightly what he'd be."

"You can make all the inquiries you want, Doyle, after you report to Section. You missed parade on Sunday. You skipped your guard detail too. Now you're telling me another man has your rifle. By rights, you'd be thrown in the guardhouse."

"Is it Connolly in charge here?"

"Commandant-General Connolly is at the GPO. Commandant-General Connolly has been promoted commander-in-chief of all Republican forces in Dublin."

Doyler whistled between his teeth. "So that's what they gave him. Command of the Volunteers."

"You know I don't like you, Doyle, so you can b.u.t.ton your lip. There are no Volunteers any more, nor Citizen soldiers. There is only the Irish Republican Army now."

"Who's in charge here, so?-sir," he added.

"Commandant Mallin."

How many commandants did they need? MacMurrough wondered. He wondered too what might be his station in life, this satisfied Republican soldier. Clerk, copyist, pen-repairer, some blind alley his talents would never be recognized. One saw it best at country fairs: the organizational zeal of stewards who the remainder of the year busheled along as grocer's a.s.sistants, sacristans, the like. Or am I being a scintilla unfair? Who am I, MacMurrough, to impugn another man's motives?

The wind of their bike-ride had flagged. A shame, but they walked again deadly-lively with the crowd. That b.l.o.o.d.y machine gun-like a very loud typewriter. Some old b.u.g.g.e.r in the Shelbourne firing off a complaint to the manager. He listened to the distinctive report of the rebels' Mausers. He had shot Mausers himself, and he knew them for good guns, even these vintage single loaders. Shot straight, shot far, shot hard-just didn't shoot very often.

Of course Jim's all right. I should know, the world should blast it, were anything the slightest wrong.

"No," the officer expanded, "this side of the Green we have little to fear of the British. It's them hussies behind are the menace here."

Yes, they were trailing something of a melee in their wake. Fishwives, slatterns, the usual Dublin viragos, hurled abuse at their backs for filthy rebels, dirty Sinn Feiners, fly-boys, fire-siders, pop gunners, together with some general remarks touching the male anatomy. Their leader and sense-carrier, a stout specimen with a wonderful, though perhaps accidental, decolletage, carried the handle of a pick which she slapped in her hand in a manner that quite overthreatened the meager elephant-guns of the insurgents. She took notice of MacMurrough's admiring look and unleashed a stream of invective that cast his ancestry, vaunted these centuries, in a wholly new and uncertain light.

"Separation women," the officer said, "paid off by the British." He turned of a sudden and boomed, "If you are Irish women at all, you will return to your kitchens and mind your spinning."

An utterance nicely gauged to disperse the viraginous mob. Even his companions raised eyebrows. "Spinning," said Doyler in MacMurrough's ear, "where does he think they're out of?"

"Tell him about Baggot Street, the soldiers."

"There's military round the corner in Baggot Street, sir," Doyler said. "Maybe three or four hundred. We cycled straight into them."

"What are they at?"

"Drinking tea mostly. People in the houses is bringing it out to them."

"Devil the tea they'd bring us."

There had been a traffic accident at the end of the street which closer inspection proved a barricade. They pa.s.sed through and of a sudden, there they were, behind the rebel line. Some few rebels were ranged upon a shady hump inside the Green, sprawled in regulation firing-pose; others sat on the slope behind, break fasting it seemed. Whistles blew; and every so often a party jumped the park railings and dashed the street to the College of Surgeons, a grim cold columned edifice whose pavement and roof were periodically swept by machine-gunfire from the Shelbourne. Rifle-shots skipped off the far cobbles, tw.a.n.ged off the bollards. How very differently, MacMurrough noted, a bullet sounded at the unfavorable end of the barrel. Saving ricochets, they were safe enough on this side of the street. But who were these others-"Who are those people there supposed to be?" he asked.

"Them?" said the officer. "That's the gallery."

Citizens, for the most part men, in doorways, on the steps of a church, in the maws of alleys and lanes, in far more obvious danger than any of the rebels, spectating. Here was that quintessence of Dublin, the epitome of the quidnunc, that quarter-moon, man-in-the-moon face, with the chin jutting to meet the nose and the mouth slanting some neat apercu to its neighbor, cheekiest face in Europe, and the nosiest. MacMurrough heard, or fancied he heard, the commentary kept up: the accuracy of fire debated, the different weaponry compared, alternative venues cried up or down, the better vantages disputed.

The disappointment, which had swelled all during their walk by the Green, now lumped in MacMurrough's throat. There was nothing going to be splendid here. The stupid wonder of these people, their excitable unconcern when-ooh!-a rebel was nearly downed crossing the street, it really was too much. It was unconscionable. And now, it wanted but this, here came the fishwives again, and wouldn't you know, with cabbages this time to hurl with their abuse. He hurried out of range and there was some small stir when a rebel lad aimed his rifle at their ringleader. Shoot her by all means, MacMurrough enjoined, flicking b.l.o.o.d.y filth from his trousers, but don't let's spare the men with their mealy-mouthed mean-eyed gawping and never a one with the courage of his derision.

He felt a nudge from Doyler. He followed his nod. And there he was, Jim Mack.

He was acting as a kind of rebel policeman, standing in the street, waving the groups to cross to the Surgeons-no wait a minute, halt, yes quickly now, safely now, don't trip. It was quite possible his job was important. It was even possible he was doing it well. What was undeniable was, a foot or so closer to the park and he should perform the same duty in absolute safety-but no, he must venture this further foot where the military could just bother the brim of his hat.

In a flash MacMurrough knew the morning he had spent. Nothing beyond him, nothing the equal of him, his earnest noddings, his half-baked suggestions, retreating from the trenches three or four times till he was satisfied he got it right. There he stood in his baggy drapes and his outsize hat. Behold, he goes to war, my boy.

It was a moment too glorious meanly to keep and he turned to Doyler as Doyler turned, their faces br.i.m.m.i.n.g, to share the delight. They nodded to each other, an agreement at last: not as prize-fighters will agree, or barristers, after their bout: an acknowledgment of what they shared, of two who had been led a merry old dance.

"I better report," said Doyler.

"Yes, I suppose I had best make myself known."

"You sure you're staying?"

"Wild horses," said MacMurrough.

"I'll tell them you's a Volunteer captain. It's no lie anyway. I'll tell them you was caught on the hop in Dublin and you can't get down into Wexford. That's no lie neither."

Yes, his poor Wexford boys. MacMurrough wondered how they fared. It was a rotten shame, but he was not a man to lead other men. He could not give courage as great men do, as a comical kid could even. But he did not lack conduct, his aunt had reminded him that. He recalled now the small boy who had played along the sea-wall. By night he had dreamt of magnificence and on the wings of its tales he flew. Well, it was more miserable here than magnificent, he supposed. But he believed he might reach across the years to that boy and lift him up on his high shoulders. See, I come to war because I love that boy. See how beautiful he is, see how fine. Here is his friend: he too is fine and beautiful. They go to war because they love, each his country. And I too love my country. Do you feel the wind that is rising, the magnificent wind? These things will come, my dear. Let you dream of this.

He returned the little boy to his rocks by the sea where too the drizzle fell. He thought now of Aunt Eva as they wandered, he and Doyler, down the road to Jim. She'd have taken the Shelbourne, yes she would, with just her Webley a-wobble in her hand, and there'd be none of this nonsense of entrenching a park. Her verve, her dash, her bottom, her form-of all the misfortunes, Ireland's too, to be incarcerated this week in the Castle.

Doyler was frowning. He was gazing beyond Jim at the terrace of buildings that fronted the end of the street. Gentlemen's clubs, officers' clubs, where the Union flag flew above. MacMurrough wasn't sure, but he believed he too had seen something. Doyler said, "Them windows just opened."

"Yes, I thought so too."

"That second machine-gun, I wonder now what happened it?"

"Yes, I wonder," said MacMurrough.

"Did you ever hear of a raking fire?"

An enfilade, MacMurrough was going to reply, but he was stung by something in the hand. He heard Doyler shouting. He was shouting Jim's name. MacMurrough brought his hand to look at it. He found he was kneeling in the road. He looked at the blood dripping from his palm. While he looked, blood clouded his eyes.

Jim turned smiling at the shout. Doyler was running for him, that funny run he had. He saw his clothes on him, all wrists and ankles. He was just saying something, something like, Here you are at last, and Doyler flung into him. The breath thumped out of Jim. He fell flump on the road with Doyler on top. Doyler said something that sounded like Oh-oh.

Jim lifted his shoulders. The head hung limp. "Doyler?" he said, turning him over. He saw MacEmm sitting in the road with his handkerchief out. There was blood on his face. "Doyler?" he said again.

Feet were rus.h.i.+ng across the street. There was some screaming. Pebbles kicked up off the setts. The second machine-gun had opened fire. But where? He shook Doyler's shoulders. No no no, he had saved the sergeant. "MacEmm!" he cried.

Up along the street the trace of bullets came. Jim flattened on top of Doyler and the blast veered short. He sprang up and reached his arms under Doyler's shoulders. He hefted him up. "MacEmm!" he cried. He was dragging Doyler toward the Surgeons. A burst of fire riddled the street and Doyler's body jerked. His s.h.i.+rt was, his s.h.i.+rt was ripped, and his belly was, his belly was ripped too. Jim turned the other way, himself between Doyler and harm, dragging him against the fire, but the bullets zipped from the other gun now, and again the body jerked, just jerked. No no no, I saved the sergeant. "I saved the sergeant!" he screamed. Even as Doyler slipped from his arms, another fire ripped through him. Jim stood bestride his body, his rifle aimed. A body blundered by. The rifle was s.n.a.t.c.hed from his hands. "MacEmm," he said, "I can't see where they are."

MacMurrough aimed the rifle. His head teetered with ponderables: windage, distance, sighting, all useless. He could not hold his hand still. He lowered the gun. The fingers were gripped in his hand and he forced them to loose. The pain shot through and blood blinked in his eye again. Then all of one movement, he swung the gun up where it aimed and fired.

The near rattering ceased.

Jim was cradling Doyler's head. He seemed in a shock. He was telling of some incident with a sergeant, most persistently telling it. "Yes," MacMurrough said, "that's good." He took off his coat and he laid it over the maul of Doyler's wounds. He slewed the rifle over his shoulder and pushed his Webley into Jim's hand. "Guard me," he said, knowing his words could have no meaning.

"You're hit," said Jim.

MacMurrough said, "My hand, nothing."

"No, your head, hit in the head."

He bent down and lifted Doyler in his arms. It seemed the very edge of madness, for they were talking in the middle of a street that whizzed with bullets and ricochets. Fire was returned from the Surgeons roof. Symbolic, like his own with the machine-gun that already had started again.

"Come now," he said to Jim. He carried the body to the far pavement, Jim treading beside. The bollards tw.a.n.ged about them, the cobbles rebounded. In the sanctuary of a lane by the Surgeons, he laid Doyler down.

Already a man was at his side, whispering into his ear. Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatae Mariae semper Virgini . . . Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatae Mariae semper Virgini . . .

MacMurrough looked at Jim's face. The eyes were blinking with a strange period. His chin trembled. The whispered prayer stuttered on his lips. He lifted his face. "I saved the sergeant," he said to MacMurrough.

. . . nimis cogitatione, verbo et opere . . . Of all things fatuous, MacMurrough noted the man's p.r.o.nunciation. A European Latin, as though it were a language. Of all things fatuous, MacMurrough noted the man's p.r.o.nunciation. A European Latin, as though it were a language.

"Volunteer Mack." A hand touched on Jim's shoulder. "Volunteer Mack, there."

It was an officer. MacMurrough saw Jim snap to attention. His blinking had ceased.

"Is this a civilian death, do you know?"