Collected Stories (118 page)

“Do so,” he said.

She knew then he was lonely.

When Padraic and Nance had gone, everything seemed lonelier than before, but she didn't mind because her father was with her. He wrapped his coat about her. The lamb snuggled up beside her. And now she let the mountain come alive with all its stories and its magic. Because she knew it was up here the spirits lived and planned their descents on the little cottages; at night you could often see them from the bay, moving across the mountain with their little lanterns. Sometimes the lights would be close together and you would know it was a fairy funeral. A man from the place, making poteen in the mountains at night, had come across just such a funeral, and the spirits had laid the coffin at his feet. He had opened it, and inside was a beautiful girl with long yellow hair. As he looked at her she had opened her eyes and he had brought her home with him. She had told him she was a girl from Tuam, and when inquiries were made it was found that a girl from Tuam had been buried that same day; but she wouldn't go back to her own people and remained always with the man who had saved her and married him.

Afric could see her father moving about in the smoky light, his legs seeming immense. Sometimes she saw his face when he bent to the fire. Then he sat on the upturned tub with his head between his hands. She went to sleep at last.

When she woke again the helmet of shadow had tilted. It was cold. The high hollow drum of the sky had half filled with low drifting vapors. Someone—she did not know who—was speaking to her father. Then he caught her in his arms, and the jolting and slithering of his feet in the long slopes wakened her completely. He stumbled on blindly as though he did not know she was in his arms. Even when she looked at him he did not seem to be aware of her.

There was a little crowd kneeling even at the door of the west room. The kitchen was in darkness only for the firelight, and this and the flickering of candles made the west room unusually bright and gay. The people kneeling there rose and made way for her father. He put her gently down on a stool by the fire and went in, taking off his hat. The low murmur of prayer went on again. Afric tiptoed to the room door. Yes, the west room was very bright. Her grandfather's great bearded head was lying, very pale and wasted, over the bowed heads under the light of two candles. Her father was kneeling awkwardly by the bedside, covering his face with his hands. Her grandmother, old Brigid, suddenly began to keen and sway from side to side.

Afric went out. She looked up and down the lane. She was looking with a sort of fascinated terror for the big man with the bandage over his eyes. There was no sign of him. The lane was quiet only for the whispering of the bushes and a blackbird's first bewildered, drowsy fluting. There were no lights, no voices. Frightened as she was, she ran down the lane to the little cove where her father's boat was drawn up among the slimy rocks and seaweed. Over it was a grassy knoll. She ran there and threw herself on her face and hands lest anyone should spy her and take fright. The light was breaking over the water. But no boat came shining to her out of the brightness. The blackbird, having tried his voice, threw it out in a sudden burst of song, and the lesser birds joined in with twitters and chuckles. In the little cove there was a ducking of water among the dried weeds, a vague pushing to and fro. She rose, her smock wet, and looked down into the cove. There was no farewell, no clatter of silver oars or rowlocks as magic took her childhood away. Nothing, nothing at all. With a strange choking in her throat she went slowly back to the house. She thought that maybe she knew now why her grandfather had been so sad.

Last Post

B
ILL CANTILLON
and the sergeant-major went together to Sully's wake. It was a lovely summer's evening, and a gang of kids were playing at the end of the lane, but the little front room was dark only for the far corner where poor Sully was laid out in his brown habit, with the rosary beads twisted between his fingers. Jerry Foley was there already with Sully's sister and Mrs. Dunn. He opened a couple of bottles of stout, while the other two said a prayer, and then they all lit their pipes and sat around the table.

“Yes,” said Bill, with another glance at the corpse, “'twasn't today nor yesterday, Miss Sullivan. We were friends when I knew him first in the Depot, forty-three years ago.”

“Forty-three years!” exclaimed the sergeant-major. “My, my!”

“Forty-three years,” Bill repeated complacently. “October '98; I remember it well. That was when he joined.”

“He was a bit wild as a boy, sir,” Miss Sullivan said apologetically, “but, God help us, that was all! There was no harm in him.”

“If it comes to that, ma'am,” said the sergeant-major, “we were all wild.”

“Ah, yes,” said Bill, “but wildness like that—there's no harm in it. We were young, and high-spirited; we wanted to see a bit of the world; that was all. Life in a town like this, with people that know you, 'tis too quiet for boys of mettle.”

“'Tis,” the sergeant-major agreed, “'tis a bit slow.”

“'Twas the excitement,” Bill said, with a nod to the company, “that's what we fancied.”

“Oh, and God help us, ye got it,” Sully's sister said quietly, rocking herself to and fro. “Oh, my, and never to know till you heard his knock at the door; it might be two or three in the morning, and to see him standing outside with his kitbags and his rifle, after travelling for days.”

“Oh,” said Jerry, “the kids playing outside there now will never see some of the things we saw!”

“And weren't we right?” exclaimed Bill. “Weren't we wiser in the heel of the hunt? Now, thanks be to God, after all our rambles, we're back among our own. We have our little pensions; they may not be much, but they keep us independent. We can stroll out of a fine summer's morning and sit in the park and talk about old times. And we know what we're talking about. We saw strange countries and strange people. We're not like some of the young fellows you meet now, small or bitter or narrow.”

“Ah,” said Jerry, mournfully, “we weren't a bad class at all. We had great spirit.”

“And have still,” said the sergeant-major.

“We have,” said Jerry, “but we're dying, and there's no one to take our place. Sully is the fourth this year. We're going fast; and one of these days the time will come for one of us; we'll be laid out the way poor Sully is laid out; the neighbors will sit round us and somebody will say: ‘That's the last of them gone now: the last of the old Munster Fusiliers. There isn't one left alive of the old Dirty Coats' that great regiment that carried the name of Ireland to the ends of the earth.'”

“And left their bones there, Jerry,” said the sergeant-major.

“Oh, God help us, they did, they did,” said Mrs. Dunn, and she burst into tears. The men looked uncomfortable.

“I'm very sorry, ma'am,” said the sergeant-major. “Very sorry, indeed. I had no idea.”

“'Twas her son, sir,” Sully's sister said in a quiet, little voice.

“My little boy, sir,” sobbed Mrs. Dunn. “Hardly more than a child. He was wild, too, sir, like you said, but there was no harm in him. Mr. Sullivan knew him. He was well liked in regiment, he said.”

“We'll go out to the kitchen now and let the men have their little drink in peace,” said Miss Sullivan.

“I'm sorry, gentlemen,” Mrs. Dunn said from the door. “Ye'll excuse me, it comes over me whenever I think of old times. But, oh, Mr. Cantillon, wasn't it queer, wasn't it queer, with all the men that knew him and liked him, that he could go like that on me without tale nor tidings?”

“Who did you say that was, Bill?” whispered the sergeant-major.

“Mrs. Dunn,” replied Bill. “You must have seen her before. Every old Munster that dies, she's at his wake.”

“Dunn?” said the sergeant, with a puzzled frown. “Dunn? What happened him? Killed?”

“No, missing.”

“Dunn? I have no recollection of the name.”

“Hourigan was the name,” Bill said softly. “Dunn was his stepfather. That was why the boy ran away from home.”

“And that's why she has it on her mind,” said Jerry. “Every wake of every old Munster, she's at it, hoping she'll get news of him. For years after the war, as long as people were turning up anywhere over the world, she was still expecting he'd turn up. If you ask me, she's still expecting it.”

“Ah, how could she?” said Bill.

“I don't think the poor soul is right in her mind,” said Jerry softly. “A woman like that is never right unless she can have her cry out. I think she still imagines that one night when she's sitting by the fire she'll hear his step coming up the lane and see him walk in the door to her: a man of—how old would he be now? He was only sixteen when he ran away.”

“Oh, God help us! God help us!” said the sergeant-major. “He was young to die!”

And in the darkness they heard a man's step come up the lane, and a moment later a devil's rat-tat at the door. Mrs. Dunn ran to open it.

“Broke!” exclaimed Bill with a grin.

The new arrival stumped in the hall and stood in the doorway with his cap pulled over one eye; a six-footer slumped about a crutch, and under the peak of the cap a long gray haggard face, a bedraggled gray mustache and mad, staring blue eyes. His real name was Shinnick. In France he had lost his leg and whatever bit of sense the Lord had given him to begin with. People said he was queer because he had spent so long at the front without leave. No sooner was he due for it than something occurred; he was detained for looting, leaving his post or beating up an N.C.O. They said he had earned the D.C.M. several times over and lost it again by his own foolishness—a most unfortunate man. Now he had a bed in the workhouse. He got a shilling or two for looking after the corpses. Once a month he came out and drew his pension, and after a day or two stumped back to the workhouse again—without a fluke! A most unfortunate man!

The three old soldiers looked at one another and winked. Broke was notorious for the touch. He could fly like a bird, crutch and all; head and neck strained forward like an old hen; he hadn't a spark of shame, and thought nothing of chasing a man the length of the Western Road on nothing more substantial than the smell of a pint.

“So ye're all there?” he snarled, with a grin of wolfish good humor.

“We're all here, Joe,” Jerry said good-naturedly.

“I suppose 'twas the porter brought ye?” Broke said with a leer.

“Whisht, now, whisht,” said Bill. “Remember the dead!”

“Ah, God, Sully, is this the way I find you?” said Broke in a wail as he drew down his crutch and manoeuvred himself onto his one good knee by the bed. “Ah, Sully, Sully, wasn't it queer to God to take a good man like you instead of some old cripple like myself and was never no use to anybody?” He was sobbing and clawing the bedclothes with his face buried in them. Then he grabbed the dead man's hands and began kissing them passionately. “Do you hear me, Sully boy, wherever you are tonight? Tell them who you left behind you! Tell them I'm tired of the world! I'm like the Wandering Jew, and I'm sick of pulling and hauling. Do you hear me, I say? I made corpses and I buried corpses, and I'm handling corpses every day of the week; the smell of them is on me, Sully, and 'tis time my own turn came.”

“Here, Joe, here,” said Jerry, tapping him on the shoulder, “sit in my chair and drink this.”

“'Twasn't for that I came,” Broke said passionately, staring from the glass of stout to Jerry and back again.

“Sure, we know that well, old soldier,” said Jerry.

“But 'tis welcome all the same,” said Broke, swinging himself to his full height and staring down at Jerry with his queer piercing eyes. “'Tis my one bit of consolation. I have the pension drunk already, Jerry. As sure as God I have! Jerry, could I—? My old campaigner!”

“Ah, to be sure you could,” said Jerry.

“Wan tanner, Jerry!” hissed Broke feverishly. “That's all I ask.”

“There's two of them for you,” said Jerry.

“May God in Heaven bless you, my boy,” said Broke as the tears began to pour from his eyes. “I'm an affliction; an old sponger, a good-for-nothing. 'Twill be a relief to ye all when I go.… Cantillon,” he snarled with an astonishing change of tone, “put something to that like a decent man!”

“I suppose this is for the publicans?” said Bill with a scowl.

“And what do you think 'tis for, hah?” jeered Broke. “A bed in a hospital?” With a toothless smile he whipped off his old cap and waved it before the sergeant-major's face. “Make up the couple of bob for me, sir,” he said. “'Tis for the couple of drinks, I'm telling you no lies.”

Then he sat in Jerry's chair, a high-backed armchair with low armrests, and took a deep swig of his stout. He was restless; he glared at them all by turns; the face, like the body, lank and drawn with pain.

“Is he having a band?” he asked suddenly.

“Ah, where would he get a band, man?” snapped Bill.

“And isn't he damn well entitled to it?” said Broke.

“Begor, you couldn't get one now if you were a general,” said the sergeant-major.

“And why couldn't ye?” cried Broke. “What's stopping ye? The man should have his due. Give him what he's entitled to, his gun-carriage and his couple of volleys.… Company!” he shouted. “Reverse arms! Slow … march! Strike up there, drum major!”

It was very queer. He raised his crutch and gave three thumps on the floor. Then, very softly with an inane toothless smile, he began to hum the Funeral March, swaying his hand gently from side to side. The old soldiers bent their heads reverently and Bill began to beat time with the toe of his boot.

“That's a grand tune, that Chopin,” the sergeant-major said.