We place the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose Blessing we invoke on our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must by its valour and discipline, and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.
We place the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose Blessing we invoke on our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must by its valour and discipline, and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.
"That's John," he said to himself, "or MacDonagh! And they began the thing by killing an unarmed man! Their fine phrases won't cover that mean deed!..."
He went back to his Club, and on the way, found that the rebels were in possession of Stephen's Green. The gates were closed, and at each gate were armed guards. He looked through the railings, and saw some boys lying on the turf, with their rifles beside them. They did not move nor look up, but lay very still and quiet, with a strange, preoccupied expression on their faces. A little further on, other lads were digging up the earth.
"What are you doing?" he said to one of them, and the lad straightened himself and wiped the sweat from his brow.
"I don't know, sir!" he said, smiling nervously. "I'm supposed to be diggin' a trench, but I think I'm diggin' my grave!..."
A trench! When he looked at the poor scraping of earth and sod, he felt a fierce anger against Marsh and his friends swelling in his heart "They haven't the gumption to know that this is the worst place they could have chosen to entrench themselves, even if they knew how to make trenches!" On all sides of the Green were high houses, from which it would be easy to pick off every man that lay in the trenches....
There were carts and motor-cars drawn across the street to make a barricade, and most of the gates of the Green had garden-seats and planks lying against them. There were even branches, torn from the trees and shrubs, thrust through the railings....
He went into his Club to lunch. "They're in the College of Surgeons, sir!" a servant said. "They say Madame's in the Green!..."
"Madame?" he said vaguely.
"Yes. Madame Markiewicz. They killed a policeman...."
"Do you mean the man at the Castle?"
"No, sir. I didn't hear of him. They killed this one on the other side of the Green. There's cold lamb and cold chicken, sir!"
"I'll have lamb!..."
He hurried over his meal. He had little appetite for eating, and when he had finished, he went to the smoking-room and wrote to Mary. "Don't be alarmed if you see anything about an Irish Rebellion in the newspapers," he wrote. "It will probably be over by to-morrow. I'm quite all right. You're not to worry!..." And when he had finished it he went out and posted it. "Good Lord!"he said aloud, as the letter fell into the box, "I forgot that they've got hold of the General. I don't suppose there'll be a collection!"
He returned to the Club, but he could not keep still. There was no one, except the servants and himself, in the house, and the emptiness of it made him feel restless. Looking out of the window, he saw little girls, like those he had seen on Sunday night, running about the Green, busy on errands....
"The Kids' Rebellion!" he said to himself....
He left the club, and walked round the Green again, and as he passed the College of Surgeons, two men appeared on the roof, and proceeded to unfold the Republican tri-colour. They were clumsy, and they fumbled with it, entangling the cords ... but at last they got it free, and then they hauled it to the top of the flagstaff. The people on the pavement below watched it as it fluttered in the light breeze, but none of them spoke or cheered. The rebels in the Green made no sound either. The Republican flag was hauled to its place in silence.
"They don't seem very grateful for their deliverance," Henry thought, glancing at the bystanders as he moved up the street. There was a crowd of people on the edge of the pavement, and he thrust himself into it, and glanced over the shoulder of a woman at the ground. There was a mess of thick, congealing blood splashed on the road and the kerb.
"That's where the peeler was killed!" the woman said to him....
He edged out of the crowd as quickly as he could, feeling sick with horror, and again he felt a bitter anger against John Marsh.
"He was going to Mass every morning, damn him, to make sure of his own soul, but he didn't give the policeman time to make any preparation. All his high motives and his idealism tumble down to that ... that mess on the pavement!..."
"But what's the Government doing?" he wondered.
There were no police, no soldiers, no authority anywhere. It seemed unbelievable that a number of armed youths and men could seize a capital city without opposition of any kind. He wondered whether there was any truth in the rumours that had been floating about the city all day. Could it possibly be that the Germans had effected a landing in Ireland and were marching on the city? Could it be true that the British Fleet had been destroyed by the German Fleet? Had the Government thrown up the sponge?...
He met O'Dowd, an official whom he had seen several times at the Club. "Where's the Government?" he asked....
"Well, to tell you the truth, Quinn, I don't know. I believe there's an election going on at Trinity College. It's a damned comic affair, this!"
"Comic!"
"Well, I mean to say, it's a bit rum, isn't it?"
He went back to the Club in the evening. There were no lights in the streets, and as the dusk settled down, the crowds of holiday-makers began to move homewards. There were no trams running and few cars to be seen, and the tired crowd that had been standing or walking about all day, dragged itself home listlessly and heavily. There was a sense of foreboding over the people, and some of them glanced apprehensively about them. The thing had been funny in the daylight, but it was getting dark now ... and who knew what might be lurking in the shadows? It was strange that there were no police to be seen anywhere, and stranger still that the soldiers had not appeared....
There was a Sinn Feiner on guard at the gate nearHenry's Club, and sitting at the open window, Henry could see him very distinctly: a little, red-haired, angry man, who chewed his moustache and gaped about him with bloodshot eyes. There were other Sinn Feiners with him, but he was the most distinctive. He could not stay still: he moved about continually, going into the Park and coming out again, challenging passers-by, sloping his rifle and ordering it, and then sloping it again. "The thing's getting on his nerves," Henry thought, as he watched him; and while he watched, an elderly man came past the Shelbourne Hotel in the uniform of a naval officer. The Sinn Feiners saw him, and the red-haired man ordered his subordinates to arrest him. They ran across the street and attempted to seize him, but he resisted, and raised his walking stick to defend himself. A rebel caught hold of the stick, and the two men stood there, against a gateway, struggling to wrest the stick from each other. The up-and-down movement of their arms was like the quick, jerky movement of figures in a film, and for a moment or two, Henry wanted to laugh ... but the desire died when he saw the red-haired man raising his rifle and aiming at the old man's heart....
"Oh, my God, he's going to shoot him!" he shouted out, jumping up from his seat and leaning out of the window. "Don't shoot him ... don't shoot him!" he cried. It seemed to him that he was yelling at the top of his voice, but that could not have been so, for no one turned to look ... and yet he could hear the red-haired man distinctly.
"I have ye covered," he was saying, "an' I'll shoot ye if ye don't give in!..."
The old man held on to the stick for a moment or two, and then, straightening himself, he surrendered; and the rebels led him into the Park. Through the trees, Henry could see him being conducted before a rebel officer who saluted him and began to interrogate him. Then the procession moved off into the centre of the Park, and the little angry, red-haired man returned to the gate.
"In the morning," Henry exclaimed to himself, "in the morning, that little swine will sing another song!"
A horse-drawn cab came down the street, and as it approached, the guard at the gate turned out, and challenged the driver. "Halt!" they shouted.
"Ah, g'long with you!" the driver replied, whipping up his horse.
"Halt!" they called again, and a third time "Halt!" but the driver did not heed them, and then they fired at him.... There was a clatter of hooves on the street, and the horse fell to the ground, striking sparks from the stones as it struggled to rise again. The driver did not pause: he jumped from his box with amazing celerity and disappeared so swiftly that the rebels could not catch him. And while the horse lay struggling on the street, a motor-car came by, and again the rebels sent out their challenge, and again the challenge was ignored. "Halt! Halt! Halt!..." The chauffeur drove on, and the rebels fired on the occupants of the car. There was a swift application of brakes, and the car slithered up against the pavement ... and as it slithered, a man stood up beside the driver, holding his hand to his side, and yelled, "Oh, I'm dead! I'm dead!..."
The chauffeur hurried away....
The rebels gathered round the shrieking man. "Why didn't you stop when we challenged you!" they demanded.
"Aw! Aw! Aw!" he answered....
"Like a stuck pig!" thought Henry. "Squealing like a stuck pig!"
His head was rolling, but he was able to walk. "He's not much hurt," Henry murmured to himself, "but he's damned frightened."
"Aw, what did ye do it for? Aw! Aw! Aw!..."
"Take him to the hospital!..."
They led him a little way towards the hospital of St. Vincent de Paul, and then, for some reason, changed their minds, and took him into the Park. It was difficult now to see what was happening. There was a derelict tram near the club, and beyond that, still pawing at the ground, was the wounded horse....
"Why don't they shoot the poor beast!" Henry exclaimed.
But it would not enter their minds to put the animal out of pain. They were Catholics, and Catholic peoples, the world over, are cruel to beasts. Too intent on pitying their own souls, to have pity on animals....
He closed the shutters and turned on the light. "I wonder where John is?" he thought as he did so. "Thisis why he couldn't come to Glendalough with me. What the hell does he think he's going to gain by it?" He glanced about the room. "It's damned odd," he said aloud, "but I don't feel frightened. I should have thought I'd feel scared.... Of course, as there was going to be a rebellion, I'm rather glad I'm here to see it!"
He went to his bedroom and got a pack of patience cards.
"There'll be no theatre to-night!" he said. "I think I'll play 'Miss Milligan.' ..."
The silence of the house made him feel restless.
"I'll go to bed," he exclaimed. "I may as well get all the sleep I can."
He went to his room, and stumbled towards the windows.
"I'll close the shutters while I'm undressing;" he went on. "I don't want to be 'potted' needlessly!"
He tried to see into the Park, but the great masses of trees that undulated like a rough sea, prevented him fromseeing anything. There were figures at the gate ... on guard!
"I wonder if that little red-haired man's still there," he thought. "Poor devils! Some of them must feel damned queer to-night!..."
He closed the shutters, and switched the light on, and then, when he had undressed he darkened the room again. "I must have some air," he said, opening the shutters.
He climbed into bed. Now and then a rifle-shot was fired, and sometimes there was a succession of shots....
"In the morning," he said, as he turned on his side and closed his eyes, "they'll be cleared out of that!..."
He awoke suddenly, and sat up in bed. "Good Lord!" he exclaimed, "I've been asleep!" It was still dark, but less dark than it was when he came to bed. He could just see the time by holding his watch close to his eyes. "Four," he murmured. It was strange that he should have slept at all, for there had been spasmodic firing all night. He got out of bed, and went across his room to the window, and looked out, and as he looked, the wounded horse struggled to rise, pawing the ground feebly, and then fell over on its side. "It isn't dead!..." When he had looked at it last, it had been lying very still, and he had thought it was dead.
He looked across the road to the Park gates, but could not see any one standing there. "Perhaps they've gone!" There was a shapeless thing lying on the ground, outside the gates, but he could not make out what it was. In the dim light, it looked like a great piece of paper ... the debris of a windy day.
There was no movement anywhere ... the horse was still now ... but now and then a single shot rang out, and then came a volley. "You'd think they were just trying to make a noise! I wonder what's been happening all night," he said, as he went back to bed.
He fell asleep again, and when he awoke, wakened by a heavier sound of shooting, it was almost six o'clock, and it was light. "That must be the soldiers," he thought,listening to the heavier rifle fire. He sat up in bed, and glanced about the room. "Iwasan ass not to keep the shutters closed," he said aloud. "A stray bullet might have come in here ... I wonder whether the shutters would stop a bullet. After all, Bibles do!..."
He could just see the Republican flag floating from the flagstaff on the roof of the College of Surgeons. "They're still there, then!" And while he sat looking at it, he heard the sound of some one, wearing heavy boots, coming down the streets, making loud clattering echoes in the silence. "That's funny!" he said. "People are going about already. Perhaps it's over ... practically over!..."
He got out of bed, and as he did so, he heard the sharp rattle of rifles, and when the echo of it had ceased, he could not hear the noise of heavy treading any more. He stood still in the centre of the room, listening, and presently he heard a groan. He ran to the window and looked out. In the roadway, beneath him, an old man was lying on his back, groaning very faintly.
"They've killed him!" Henry murmured, glancing across the road at the hotel, from which the sound of firing had come. "They didn't challenge him ... they just shot him!"
Four times, the old man groaned, and then he died. He was lying in the attitude of a young child asleep. One leg was outstretched and the other was lightly raised. His right arm was lying straight out from his body, and the hand was turned up and hollowed. Very easy and natural was his attitude, lying there in the morning light. He looked like a labourer. "Going to his work," I suppose. "Thinking little of the rebellion. Just stumping along to his job ... and then!..."
There was a bundle lying by his side, a red handkerchief that seemed to be holding food ... and flowing towards it, trickling, so slowly did it move, from his body was a little red dribble....
Henry looked at him with a feeling of curiosity and pity.He had never seen a man killed before. He had never seen any dead person, not even Mrs. Clutters, until his father died. He had purposely avoided seeing Mrs. Clutters' body ... something in the thought of death repelled him and made him reluctant to look at a corpse, and so, when he had been asked if he would like to see Mrs. Clutters, he had made some evasive reply. It had been different when his father died. He had looked on him, not as a dead man, but as his father, still, even in death, his father, able to love and be loved. When he thought of death, he thought, not of Mr. Quinn, but of Mrs. Clutters, and always it seemed to him that the dead were frightful.... But this old man, a few moments ago intent on getting to his work in time, and now, cognisant, perhaps of all the mysteries of this world, had nothing frightful about him. There was beauty in the way he was lying in the roadway ... in that careless, graceful attitude ... as if he were gratefully resting after much labour....
He looked across the roadway, and now it was plain that the shapeless thing that had looked in the dim light like paper blown to a corner by the wind, was a dead man. He, too, was lying on his back, with his legs stretched straight out and slightly parted ... and while Henry looked at him, it seemed to him that the man was familiar to him. The brown dust-coat he was wearing!... And then he remembered. It was the red-haired, angry-looking, nervous man, who had chewed his moustache and gaped about him with bloodshot eyes....
He dressed, and went downstairs. The servants were up, and moving about the house, and one of them came to him.
"Will you have your breakfast now, sir!" she asked, and when he had answered that he would, she said, "There's no milk, sir. The milkman didn't come this morning!"
"It doesn't matter," he replied. "I'll have it without!"
He went to the front of the house, while his breakfastwas being prepared, and looked out of the window. In the bushes on the other side of the road, he could see a youth, crawling on his stomach, and dragging a rifle after him. He raised himself on to his knees, and glanced up at the hotel, where there were some soldiers who had been brought in during the night, and when he had raised himself, the soldiers in the upper windows saw him, and fired on him. He got up and ran across the path towards the shelter of the trees, and as he ran, the bullets spattered about him. Then he staggered ... and Henry could not see him again.
An ambulance came and the bodies of the rebel and the labourer were put into it and taken away. The horse had been hauled to the pavement, and it lay in a great congealed mess of blood that had poured from a gash in its throat....
Later in the morning, the people began to move about, and after a while the streets were full of sightseers. It was possible now to learn something of what happened on the previous day and during the night. There had been fierce fighting in places. Soldiers were hurrying from the Curragh, from the North of Ireland, from England. The thing was serious ... the rebels had seized various strategic points, and were determined to fight hardly. During the night, realising that Stephen's Green was a dangerous place to be in, they had left it for the shelter of the College of Surgeons. Some of them were still there, sniping from safe points.
Henry went out and wandered about the streets. If there were soldiers in Dublin, there were very few, and the rebels still had possession of the city. He listened to the comments of the people who passed him, and as he listened, he realised that there was resentment everywhere against theSinn Feiners. Behind one of the gates of the Park, a Sinn Feiner was lying face downwards in the hole he had made to be a trench, and the crowd climbed up the railings to gape at him. A youth thrust his way through the people and peered at the dead man, and then he turned to the crowd and said to them, "Let's get the poor chap out and bury him!" A girl looked at him resentfully, and hurried to a towsled woman standing on the kerb, and told her what the youth had said, and instantly the woman rushed at him and hit him about the head and back. "No, ye'll not get him out," she yelled at him. "Let him lie there an' rot like the poor soldiers!"
"They forgot, the Sinn Feiners, that these women's husbands and sons are at the Front!" Henry thought.
What madness was it that possessed them to rise? A little group of men and boys had set itself against a Power in the interests of people who did not desire their services. They could not hope to win the fight ... they had not the gratitude or the good wishes of the people for whom they were fighting. What were they going to do next? They had taken the Post Office and the College of Surgeons and other places because there was no one to prevent them from taking them ... but what were they going to do next? They could not, even the wildest of them, believe that this immunity from attack would last forever. Was there one among them with an idea of the future of Ireland, of the complexities of government?...
He wanted to get hold of a leader of them and ask him just what he proposed to do with Ireland?...
The rumours this day were wilder than they were on Monday. A man assured Henry that the Pope had arrived in Ireland on an aeroplane and that Dr. Walsh, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin had committed suicide the minute he heard of the outbreak of the Rebellion. Thenthe rumour changed, and it was said that the Pope had thrown himself from the roof of the Vatican. Lord Wimborne, the Viceroy, had been taken a prisoner, and was now interned in Liberty Hall.... The Orangemen, sick of England, were marching to the support of the Sinn Feiners, under the leadership of Mr. Joseph Devlin! Ireland was entirely surrounded by German submarines in order to prevent British transports from landing troops....
There was looting in Sackville Street. Henry had made his way towards the General Post Office, for he had heard that John Marsh was there, and while he stood about, hoping that he might see him, the looting began. Half-starved people swarmed up from the slums, like locusts, and seized all they could find. They destroyed things in sheer wantonness....
"Well, if a city is content to keep such slums as Dublin has, it must put up with the consequences!" Henry thought. And while he watched, he saw John Marsh going to a shop which was being looted. He hauled a hulking lad out of the broken window and flung him back into the crowd.
"Damn you," he shouted, "are you trying to disgrace your country?" He pointed his rifle at the crowd. "I'll shoot the first one of you that touches a thing!"
But it was impossible for them to control the looters, and while John guarded one shop, the crowd passed on to another.
"John!" said Henry, going up to him and touching his arm.
He started and turned round. His face was drawn and haggard and very pale.
"Henry!" he said, smiling. "I wondered who it was. I wish you'd gone away when I asked you to go. It wasn't because I wanted to get rid of you, Henry. I wanted youto be out of this ... so that you could go and get married in peace!"
"You can't win, John. You know you can't win!..."
"I know we can't win a military success! ..." He drew his hand across his eyes. "My God, I'm tired, Henry!" he said. "I'm worn out. I haven't slept since Saturday night...."
"John!"
"Yes, Henry, what is it?"
"Come away with me. You know you can't win ... you can't possibly win. Well go over to England together...."
"I'm fighting England, Henry, not visiting it!"
"You can hide there for a while ... until you can get away to France or America!"
"Go away and leave them now, Henry?"
"Yes. The longer you hold out, the worse it'll be for everybody. The people are against you ... I've heard things to-day that I never expected to hear in Dublin...."
"I know they're against us. We thought there would be more on our side, but that's all the more reason why we should fight. The people are getting too English in their ways, Henry ... they think too much of money. All those women in the Combe ... do you know why they're against us? ... because they can't get their separation allowances! We won't win a military success ... we all know that ... McDonagh and Pearse and Connolly and Mineely and all of us ... we know that ... but well win a spiritual success!"
"A spiritual success?"
"Yes. Well remind the people that Ireland is not yet a nation and that there are Irishmen who are still willing to die for their country. They've become very English, but they're not altogether English, Henry. They've still some of the old Irish spirit in them, and we may quicken that!"
"Nothing will ever convince you, I suppose, that the English aren't a robber race?..."
"Nothing. I daresay the mass of the people are decent enough, but I don't know and I don't care. All that matters to me is that my countrymen shall not become like them!..."
"You're ruining the work of thirty years, John. Blowing it up in a childish rage!..."
"You always thought I was a fool, Henry, but I don't think as you think. We won the Home Rule Act by fair and constitutional means ... and they've done us out of it. The Ulster men had only to yell at them, and they gave in. Do you think they'll keep their word after the War?"
"Yes."
"Well, I don't. They'll use that damned Amending Act to cheat us as they've cheated us before. No, Henry, this is a poor hope, but it is a hope. You see, when we're beaten and those of us who are left alive, surrender, the English will be sure to do the right thing ... from our point of view! That's one of the things we count on. They'll put us down with great firmness. They'll make an example of us. They'll shoot us, Henry ... and when they do that, we'll win. We're not popular now ... oh, I don't need you to tell me that ... but we'll be popular then. The English will make us popular!"
"Isn't it a little mean, John, to hit them when they aren't looking?"
"Mean! They've hit us often enough, haven't they? They got us on the ground when we were sick and kicked us. Why shouldn't we take advantage of them?"
"The Germans!..."
"Why shouldn't we go to the Germans, or to any one who is willing to help us? Wolfe Tone went to the French!..."
"You won't come away with me?"
"No. I came here to die, Henry, not to be safe!"
They stood for a few moments in silence, looking at each other, and then John put out his hand to Henry who took it in his.
"I must get back now," John said. "Good-bye, Henry. I don't suppose I shall ever see you again. If we lose, you and your friends can come and try your way. I've always wanted to die for Ireland ever since I was able to understand anything about my country, and I shall get my wish soon. Good-bye, Henry!"
"Good-bye, John!"
"I hope you and your wife will be very happy!" He made a wry smile, as he went on. "I'm afraid you won't be able to get to England just as soon as you wished. If you'd gone when I asked you to go!..."
"I must get back now," he said again.
"Yes, John!"
"I'm glad I saw you. I wondered last night where you were...."
"And I wondered where you were."
"I was here. I've been here since Monday morning!"
He moved a few steps away, and then turned back.
"I've always liked you, Henry," he said, taking Henry's hand in his, "even when you made me angry. I wish you were on our side...."
"I see no sense in this sort of thing, John!"
"I know you don't. And perhaps there isn't any sense in it, but that may not matter. It's something, isn't it, to find men still willing to die for their ideals, even when they know they haven't a chance of success? The Post Office is full of young boys, who want nothing better than to die for Ireland. Well, that's something, isn't it, in these times when most of our people aren't willing to do anything but make money? Good-bye again!"
He went back to the Post Office, very erect and very proud and very resolute.
"By God," said Henry to himself, "I wish I had the heart to feel what he feels!"
He was sitting in the smoking-room of the Club, trying to write. He had written to Mary earlier in the evening, assuring her of his welfare, and Driffield, a Treasury official, who had come into the Club for a few moments, had offered to try and get it put into the special mail "pouch" which was sent from the Castle every day to London. "You mustn't say anything about the Rebellion," he said. "Just say you're all right. I can't promise that it'll go off, but I'll do my best!" The restless, excited feeling which had possessed him since the beginning of the rebellion still held him, and he was unable to continue at anything for long. All day he had wandered about the city, learning more of its backways than he had ever known before. He had penetrated more deeply into the slums than he had done when he had explored them with Gilbert Farlow, and it seemed to him that there was nothing to be done with them or with the people in them. They were decaying together, and the sooner they decayed, the better would it be for Ireland. All his counsels that day were counsels of despair. What was the good of working and building when this was the material out of which a nation must be made? What was the good of trying to make sure foundations when impatient, undisciplined people like John Marsh came and threw one's work to the ground? Was it not better that every Irishman of alert and vigorous mind should leave Ireland to rot, and choose another country where men had stability of mind and purpose?...
"But one must go on trying. If the house be pulled down, we must build it up again. One must go on trying...."
He would get his friends together, and they would plan to save what they could from the wreckage. "And then we'll begin again! Whatever happens, we must begin again!"
He was tired of playing Patience, tired of reading, andtired of sitting still. Perhaps, he thought, he could write. It would be odd afterwards to think that he had written a story during a rebellion. There was a great German ... who was it? ... Heine or Goethe?... Oh, why couldn't he remember names!... who had gone on writing steadily, though there was battle all about him.... He settled himself to write, though he had no plan in his mind, and as he wrote, he felt that the story, whatever it might grow to be, must be comic. "I feel like a clown making jokes in the circus while his wife is dying," he said to himself....
But his restlessness persisted, and after a while he put his manuscript aside, and took up a book which he had found in the bookcase: William James'sPragmatism: and began to read it. He remembered a discussion of Pragmatism by the Improved Tories, when Gilbert had described a pragmatist as an unfrocked Jesuit....
And while he was burrowing into the first chapter, thinking more of James's graceful style than of his matter, there was a great rattle, an incessant hammer-and-rasp noise in the street.
"Good God!" he exclaimed, jumping up and dropping the book, "what's that?"
Then it ceased, and there was a horrible quietness for a few moments, followed by the crack-crack of rifles, and then again the ra-ra-ra-rat-rat-rat-rattle-rattle....
"Machine guns!" he exclaimed. He knew instinctively that they were machine guns. "It ... it startles you, that noise!"
It went on, rattling, with little pauses now and then as if the gun were taking breath, for an hour or more: a paralysing sound, as if some giant were drawing a great stick swiftly along iron railings.
"I think I'd better put the light out," he said, going across the room to where the switch was, and as he went there was a cracking sound in the window, and a bullet flew across the room and lodged in the wall....
He switched the light off, and stood for a while in the dark. Then he opened the door and went out and stood on the landing. The servants were sitting huddled together on the staircase, nervous looking, indeed, but not frightened. It seemed to him to be remarkable that these girls should have kept their nerve as finely as they had. He smiled at them, as he closed the door behind him.
"They're making a lot of noise, aren't they?" he said.
"Isn't it awful, sir?" one of them answered.
He did not speak of the bullet which had come into the room. "It must have been a stray," he thought, "and there's no sense in upsetting them!"
"The soldiers are firing across the Green," he said aloud, "at the College of Surgeons. I think we're safe enough here, but I'd keep away from the windows!..."
"Yes, sir, we are!"
He went to his room, and sat at the window. At this height it was unlikely that any stray bullet would come near him. But he could not see any one. He could hear the wild-fowl crying in the Park ... distinctly, in the pause of the firing, he could hear a duck's quack-quack....
He went to bed, and tried to sleep, but could not. The firing from the machine-guns was intermittent now, but it still went on, and there was a continuous crackling of rifle-fire. Several times he got up and looked out ... he had a curious and persistent desire to see whatever was going on ... to be in it ... extraordinarily he was anxious not to miss anything.He was neither afraid nor aware of the fact that he was not afraid.He had simply the sensation that exciting things were happening, that he wanted to see as much of them as possible, that he was excited, that his blood was flowing rapidly through his veins, that there was something hitting the inside of his head, thumping it. Then when he was tired of straining to see into the darkness, hewent back to bed again, and closed his eyes and tried to sleep. And sometimes he succeeded in sleeping for a while ... but always the noise of the machine-guns woke him....
He went to the window when the dawn broke, and looked across the Green to the College of Surgeons.
"It's still flying," he muttered as he watched the tri-colour flowing in the wind.
And now the Rebellion began to bore him. He could not work, and the walks he could take were circumscribed. He walked down to Trinity College and stood there, watching the soldiers on the roof of the College as they fired up Dame Street to where some Sinn Feiners were in occupation of a newspaper office, or along Westmoreland Street towards the Post Office. Wherever he went, there was the sound of bullets being fired ... but after a while, the sound ceased to affect him. There were snipers on many roofs ... and people had been killed by stray bullets ... but, although the sudden crack of a rifle overhead made him jump, the boredom grew and increased. He wanted to get on with his work....
The soldiers were pouring into Dublin now ... more and more of them.
"It'll be over soon," he said to himself.
It seemed to him then that the thing he would remember always was the dead horse which still lay on the pavement, becoming more and more offensive. Wherever he went, he met people who said to him, "Have you seen the dead horse?" Impossible to forget the corrupting beast, impossible to refrain from saying too, "Have you seen the dead horse?" Magnify that immensely, increase enormously the noise, and one had the War! Noise and stench and dead men and boredom!...
He wandered about the streets, seeing the same people,listening to the same statements, making the same remarks, wondering vaguely about food. He had seen high officials carrying loaves under their arms, and little jugs of milk....
"I wish to God it was over," he exclaimed. "I'm sick of this ... idleness!"
He spoke to a soldier in Merrion Square. "Do you like Dublin?" he said.
"Oh, fine!" he answered. "We've been treated champion. I 'aven't seen much of it yet, of course," he went on. "I've been 'ere ever since I landed!" He pointed to the pavement. "But I know this bit damn well. You know," he went on, "we thought we was in France when we arrived 'ere. Couldn't make it out when we saw all the signs in English. I says to a chap, as we was walking along, ''I,' I says, 'is this Boolone?' 'Naow,' 'e says, 'it's Ireland.'"
"And what did you say?" said Henry.
"I said 'Blimey!'" He moved to the kerb as the soldier further along the street called "Pass these men along" and when he had called the warning to the next soldier, he returned to Henry. "I say," he said, "wot are these Sinn Feiners? I mean to say 'oo are they? Are they Irish, too?"
Henry tried to explain who the Sinn Feiners were.
"But wot they want to do? Wot's the point of all this ... this 'umbuggin' about? We don't want to fight Irish people ... we want to fight Germans!..." He looked about for a moment, and then added, as if to clinch his statement, "I mean to say, Iknowan Irish chap ... 'e's a friend of mine ... but I don't know no bloody Germans, an' wot's more I wouldn't know them neither ... dirty lot, I calls 'em!"
"You know," he went on, "this is about the 'ottest bit of work a chap could 'ave to do. These snipers, you know, they get on your nerves. I mean to say, 'ere you are, standin' 'ere, you might say, in the dark an' suddenly abullet damn near 'its you ... or mebbe it does 'it you ... 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'...."
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' ass 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 toKingstown an' 'eard we was in Ireland ... well, I mean to say, itsurprisedme, 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 pass 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 ... niggers ... but I told 'im not to be a bloody fool. 'They don't 'ave niggers in Ireland,' I says, 'They're the same as us,' I says. 'I mean to say ... they'rewhite!...'"
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 God!" he exclaimed, "the place is on fire!"
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 thenorth, 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.
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.
On Sunday morning, he met Lander, who had a military pass, 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 Pearse 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.
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 God!"
"The Holy Mother of God had damned little to do with it," Henry said to Lander. "It was machine guns...."
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, hadhad 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 shirked?" "It isn't the time one lives that matters," he went on, "it's what one does in the time!"
As the mail-boat steamed out of the harbour, he climbed to the top deck and stood there gazing back at the shore. Exquisitely beautiful, Ireland looked in the evening glow. Up the river, in an opal mist, he could see Dublin, still sore from her latest wounds, and here close at hand, he saw the waves of mountains reaching far inland, each mountain shining in the light with a great mingling of colours. Beautiful, but more than beautiful! Other lands had beauty, too, more beauty, perhaps, than Ireland, but if he were leaving them as he was now leaving Ireland, he should not feel the grief that he now felt. This was his land ... his own country ... and the elements which had been mingled to make it, had been mingled also to make him, andhe and it were one. It was strange that he should carry so heavy a heart to Boveyhayne, when he should have gone there gladly ... but it was not of Mary or his marriage that he was then thinking. It was of the farewell he was making to this old city which had known much grief and many troubles. When he returned to Ireland he would go straight to Ballymartin, by Belfast, from England. He would not see Dublin again. Firmly fixed in his mind, was that belief. He would serve ... and he would die. Foolish, he told himself, to think like that, but, even while he was rebuking himself, the thought thrust itself into his mind again....
The boat was almost out of sight of land. He had stood at the end of the deck, gazing back at Ireland until only the clouded head of a mountain could be seen, and then that too had been hidden. He turned and looked forward, and as he did so, he saw in the distance, low in the sea, the hulls of three ships of war. The mail-boat slowed down, as they approached, to let them pass. Naked and lithe, they looked, as they thrust their bodies through the sea, sending the water up from their bows in shining arches. He could see the men standing about the decks, looking steadily ahead ... and then the war-ships passed on to their work, and the mail-boat gathered up speed and plunged on towards Wales. Over there, he thought, somewhere in that haze, is England, and beyond England, France and Flanders and the fields of blood and pain....