At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [185]
“What would have you calling on the Castle though?”
“What it is, I’m to sign up for the Georgius Rex.”
“Them old crocks?”
“Now now, fair’s fair. They may be old but the heart’s in the right place. I was thinking if it wasn’t time we put some beef into the home defenses. Enter stage right, an old sweat of the Old Toughs.” He laughed at his humor and Doyler nodded his head. “Hasn’t the Castle called me in special to discuss the matter. Down this way you say?”
“Over the river and right by the bank.” A group of cavalry officers was strolling up with their judies on their arms. It wasn’t only peelers Doyler had to look out for. He’d often be dodging the canes of the military.
“Jim will be delighted now that I met you. Have you any message at all?”
The officers passed under the portico. Doyler held up his paper for them to read. The canes swaggered. One of the ladyfriends looked back amused. “I don’t know now, Mr. Mack.”
“Will I say you’re looking fine and smart, and that’ll do?”
He stared after the officers. “Tell him I’m a Citizen soldier.”
“Citizen soldier,” repeated Mr. Mack. Doyler felt him, in girth and circumstance like a peeler himself, looking gravely down at him. “Is that what this uniform is about?”
“That I’m in the Citizen Army and I’m under orders.”
“I was wondering what was this you was caught up in. Are you sure now you know what you’re about, young man?”
“Mr. Mack, I tell no lie, but I’ve known since before I can remember that this was what I wanted.”
“Well now.” There was a genuine concern in his big round face. He had his hand in his pocket.
“Ah no,” said Doyler, “I couldn’t take that.”
“Take heed of an old soldier now. You won’t never fill a tunic without a good feed first. Get along and get something to eat. Something with peas. You’re not getting your greens at all, by the looks. I know you’re a sound man for a lend.”
“All right, Mr. Mack, I will so, and I’ll have it back—”
“Don’t be in any hurry about that.” Doyler was looking down at the money. He felt Mr. Mack’s hand on his shoulder. “You know now with your folks gone and all, you might kip down the night at home with us. If you wanted to get out of this, a moment even. Jim would go crackers to see you.”
“That’s kind of you, Mr. Mack.”
“Mind now, I mean it.”
“Thanks for that, Mr. Mack.”
“Not a word.”
Doyler wandered back to Liberty Hall. A couple of kidgers, seeing him in uniform, play-marched beside him. He felt lonely in himself, very lonely in the tenement-shadowed streets. The guard at the door told him he was wanted above. It was his captain. “I hear you were trying to get yourself arrested again, Private Doyle.”
“I was trying to sell the paper, sir.” He’d sometimes get this off the officers, a carpeting for selling in the main thoroughfares. But Doyler couldn’t see much use selling to people who wanted to read the paper. It was the people who didn’t, or didn’t know they wanted, you had to catch. Else you was talking to yourself.
“When will you learn, Doyle, that there is such a thing as a revolutionary moment. And that moment will not be decided by a harum-scarum hothead getting himself arrested for selling without a license and answering the police in Irish.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. They tell me you’ve been looking for a gun.”
“I believe I’ve paid up regular as the next man.”
The captain was writing on a slip of paper. “We had a shout from one of our people. Volunteers are shifting pieces down Ferns way. Our man thinks there might be one goes missing first. You up for that?”
“From under the nose of the Volunteers? Too right I am.”
The paper slid over the table. Doyler picked it up, but before he could read the captain had it plucked away again.
“You’re a puzzle to me, son. I think you’d prefer a rifle off the Volunteers than off the constabulary. Or off of the British