Changing Winds Part 110

one of our chaps was killed in front of that 'ouse last night ... they been swillin' the blood away, see!..." Henry looked across the road to where a man was vigorously brooming the wet pavement. The soldier proceeded: "Well, you don't know where it's comin' from. 'E's up on one of these 'ere roofs, 'idin', an' you're down 'ere ... exposed. 'E kneels be'ind the parapet, an' 'as a shot at you, an' then 'e 'ops along the roof to another place, an' 'as another shot at you.... You don't 'alf begin to feel a bit jiggery when that's 'appening'...."

10

There was no malice in that soldier. He was puzzled, as puzzled as he would have been if his brother had suddenly seized a rifle and lain in wait for him. He looked upon the Irish as his comrades, not his enemies.

"I mean to say, we're all the same, I mean to say!..." He had been in camp at Watford. "We was in a picture-palace, me an' my pal ... a whole lot of us was there ... and then a message was put on the screen: 'All the Dashes report at once!' I never thought nothink of it you know. Of course, I went all right. But I thought it was just one of these bloomin' spoof entrainments. They done that to us before ... two or three times ... just to see 'ow quick they could do it ... an' I was gettin' 'a bit fed-up with it. I'd said 'Good-bye' to a girl three times ... an' it was gettin' a bit monotonous. 'At it again,' I says to my pal, as we hooked back to the camp, but when we was in the train, an' it didn't stop an' go back again, I says to 'im, ''Illoa,' I says, 'we're off!' An' I 'adn't said 'Good-bye' to 'er this time. I thought to myself, 'I won't make a bloomin' a.s.s of myself this time!' An' there we was ... off at last! 'This is a nice-old-'ow-d'ye-do!' I says. I didn't want the girl to think I was 'oppin' it like that ... sayin' nothink or anythink.... When we got to Kingstown an' 'eard we was in Ireland ...

well, I mean to say, it _surprised_ me, I tell you.... Wot I can't make out is, wot's it all about? I mean to say, wot do these chaps want?"

"They want to be free!..."

"But ain't they free? I mean to say, ain't they as free as me?"

"They don't think so."

"Well, wot can I do that they can't do?"

Henry did not know. "You ast me anythink," the soldier went on, "they're a lot freer'n wot we are. I mean to say, we got conscription in our country, but they ain't got it 'ere...."

There was another interruption, to enable a motor-cyclist to pa.s.s along.

When he returned to Henry, he said, "You know, when we got 'ere, an' all the people come out their 'ouses an' treated us like their long-lost brother, we couldn't make it out at all, an' when we 'eard about the Sinn Feiners, we didn't know wot to think. I mean to say, we didn't know 'oo they was. One of our chaps thought they was black ... you know ...

n.i.g.g.e.rs ... but I told 'im not to be a b.l.o.o.d.y fool. 'They don't 'ave n.i.g.g.e.rs in Ireland,' I says, 'They're the same as us,' I says. 'I mean to say ... they're _white_!...'"

12

He wrote to Mary again, hoping that he would be able to get it into the Castle "pouch," and then he went to seek for Driffield who had promised to try and send his previous letter to England by the same means, and Driffield, very dubious, took the letter and said he would do what he could. She would be full of alarm ... he did not know whether she had received his messages, and, of course, he had received none from her. It was Thursday now, and still the rebellion was not suppressed. The city was full of dead and wounded men and women, and there was difficulty about burial. He thought of people in the first grief for their dead, unwilling that the hour of interment should come ... and then, when it came, and there could not be interment, suddenly finding their grief turned to consternation, and what had been the object of mourning love, become abhorrent, so that there was an unquenchable desire, a craving that it might be taken away....

It was dangerous to be out of doors after seven o'clock, and so, since no one came to the Club, and it was impossible to read or write, he spent most of the evening in brooding.... If the rebellion were not speedily suppressed, it might be impossible for him to get to Boveyhayne in time for his marriage ... but the rebellion could not last very long now, and at worst his marriage would only be postponed a little while.

His mind moved from thought to thought, from Mary to Gilbert and Ninian, then to John Marsh and his father and to the boy in Stephen's Green who had been told to dig a trench, but thought that he was digging his grave ... and then, inconsequently, he saw in his imagination the ridiculous figure of a looter whom he had seen in Sackville Street, swaggering up and down, clothed in evening dress, and carrying a lady's sunshade. He had a panama hat on his head, and was wearing very thick-soled brown boots ... and loosely tied about his waist were a pair of corsets....

He laughed at the remembrance, and as he laughed, he looked towards the window, and saw a great red glare in the sky. From the centre of the city, flames were reaching up, vast and red and terrible....

"Good G.o.d!" he exclaimed, "the place is on fire!"

13

The fire continued during the whole of the next day. It was impossible to get near the burning buildings, and so, though people knew of the fire, they did not know of its extent. The south side of the city, separated from the north, where the fire was, by the river, knew nothing of what was happening across the Liffey. It seemed now, this horror following on the horror of the fighting, that Dublin must be destroyed, that nothing could save it from the flames.... Then, by what efforts no one can ever realise, the fire was controlled, and the reddened sky became dark, and frightened citizens went to their beds to such sleep as they could obtain.

14

The next day, the Rebellion collapsed. Henry had walked out of Dublin, for it was easier now to move about, and coming back in the afternoon, suddenly felt that the Rebellion was over. A man came cycling past at a great pace, and as he went by, he shouted to Henry, "They've surrendered!" and then was gone. There was a cooler feel in the air. It seemed to him that a great tension had been relaxed ... that, after a day of intolerable heat, there had come an evening of cool winds. As he approached the city, he could see groups of people standing about in the road, and he went to one of them, and asked if the news were true.

"Some of them's surrendered," he was told, "but there's a lot of snipers still about!"

They could hear desultory firing as they spoke.

"Ah, they'll give in quick enough now," a man said. "Sure, they can't hold out any longer!"

He hurried back to the city, and when he reached the Club, he saw that the tri-colour was no longer flying over the College of Surgeons.

THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER

1

On Sunday morning, he met Lander, who had a military pa.s.s, and together they went to Sackville Street.... There were some who had said that this was the proudest street in the world. It had little pride now. Where there had been shops and hotels, there were now heaps of rubble and calcined bricks. The street was covered with grey ash that was still hot, and one had to walk warily lest one's feet should be burnt. The Post Office still stood, but the roof was gone and the inside of it was empty: a hulk, a disembowelled carcase....

"MacDonagh and Pea.r.s.e and Connolly have been taken," said Lander. "They say Connolly's badly wounded...."

"Have you heard anything of ... of John Marsh?"

"Yes. He's dead. They say he was killed soon after the fighting began ... in the street!..."

Henry did not speak. He glanced about him at the ruin and wreck of a city which, though it had many times filled him with anger, yet filled him also with love; and for a while he could not see clearly....

Somewhere in this street, John Marsh had been killed. He had died, as he had desired, for Ireland, and a man can do no more than give his life for his country ... but what was the good of his dying? It was not enough that a man should die ... he must also die well and to purpose.

Oh, indeed, John had believed that such a death as this would be a good death, to much purpose, but it is not the dead who can judge of that ...

it is the living to whom now and forever is the task of judging what the dead have done.

"It's a pity," said Lander, "that the slums weren't destroyed, too!..."

"Perhaps," Henry answered, "we can build a finer city after this!"

"Perhaps," said Lander dubiously, for Lander knew the ways of men and had small faith in them.

2

They walked along the quays until they reached the Four Courts, and while they were standing there, a sickly woman, with a fretful, whining voice, plucked at Henry's arm.

"Is it over, mister?" she said, and when he nodded his head, she turned away, exclaiming fervently, "Oh, thanks be to the Holy Mother of G.o.d!"

"The Holy Mother of G.o.d had d.a.m.ned little to do with it," Henry said to Lander. "It was machine guns...."

3

Lander had obtained a permit for him, so that he could go to England, and in a little while, he would leave the Club and go to Westland Row to catch the train to Kingstown. There was a strange quietness in his heart. He had lived through a terror and had not been afraid. He had seen men immolating themselves gladly because they had believed that by so doing they would make their country a finer one to live in.

"It was the wrong way," he said to himself, "but in the end, nothing matters but that a man shall offer his life for his belief!"

Gilbert Farlow and Ninian Graham had not sought, as he had sought, to escape from destiny or to elude death. It was fore-ordained that old men would make wars and that young men would pay the price of them ... and it is of no use to try to save oneself. John Marsh, too, had had to pay for the incompetence and folly of old men who had wrangled and made bitterness ... And now, in his turn, he must pay the price, too. One must die ... in that there is no choice ... but one may die finely or one may die meanly ... and in that there is choice. Gilbert and Ninian and John, each in his way, had died finely. It might have been that he would have died meanly in Dublin, casually killed, for no purpose, for no cause.... Well, he had not been killed meanly. There was still time for him to live on the level of his friends. If youth has had committed to it the task of redeeming the world from the follies of the Old, Youth must not shrink from the labour, even though it may feel that the Old should redeem themselves....

He would go to Boveyhayne and marry Mary, and then he would take her to his home ... he must do that ... and when he had given his house to her, he would enlist as a soldier. "Life isn't worth while, if one is afraid to lose it ... a year or two more, what do they matter if a job be s.h.i.+rked?" "It isn't the time one lives that matters," he went on, "it's what one does in the time!"