At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [239]
“We’ll go on,” said MacMurrough.
“God damn yous for Irishmen,” Doyler cursed and spat.
Out on the road again, they discussed what could be made of it. “I’m telling no secrets,” Doyler said, “if I tell you now it was due on Sunday. Something went wrong then, and they called it off. I thought for good. Turns out now they only delayed it a day. But if I didn’t know, how many others in the same boat? Looks to me there was a split in the Volunteers and it’s only the madcaps gone out. Whatever about that, it’s gone off half-cock.”
Well, of course it has, MacMurrough thought to himself. It wouldn’t be an Irish rebellion else. There had always been something whimsical, even Punch-like, about Ireland at war. One thought of Emmett, the handsome romantic, and his long-laid plans confused by a riot. Of the Young Irelanders whose Tyrtaean anthems and Philippic gush could rise no further, push coming to shove, than the Battle of Widow McCormack’s Cabbage Patch. Of the Fenians, when the rebel force, numbering some hundreds, finding itself lost in the fog, surrendered to a dozen astonished constabulary; their captors then precluding any escape by the ingenious expedient of removing the men’s braces. A nation so famously seditious in song, so conspicuously inefficient in deed: it was only the comic that redeemed her. “You don’t really suppose Dublin can be in the hands of rebels?” he asked.
Doyler spat. “If they wasn’t arrested by the peeler on point.” MacMurrough nodded. Presently he added, “Maybe it’s true, there’s German aid.”
“There’s no German aid,” MacMurrough told him. “An arms ship was seized off Kerry. Sir Roger Casement is in prison in London.”
“Casement?”
“You’ve heard of him?”
“Everyone’s heard of Casement. You know that for sure now? They have him in London?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t say anything for a while. He shrugged. “Could be like they say, the country is up.”
“Yes,” MacMurrough agreed. Because really, the alternative was too awful. A few hundred madcaps in arms in Dublin, and the British Empire ranging to strike.
The hedges chirped their hungry news, crows barracked above them. The fat contented cows munched their post-emulgial cud. The fields passed them by. Green they passed, and lushly green they stretched to the hills, whence mildly came the mizzling rain. The turf-smoke rose in rakes from the cottages. The air had a flatulent reek of earth. MacMurrough felt his pace had quickened. He heard Doyler’s breath coming harder by his side. This country was not up. A fool would tell you this country was up.
Ballsbridge at last, the lip of the city; and here the rumors grew circumstantial. The OTC held Trinity for the Crown. The Castle had beat off a rebel attack. St. Stephen’s Green was barricaded and the Tommies drawn up in Merrion Row. And now they heard it. Crack. Crack. And then a score of cracks that scrunched together. “Volleying,” said Doyler. “That’s the military.”
It’s happening, MacMurrough told himself. I walk towards it. And yet, it was not happening. The Royal Spring Show was on. Tweedy hats, prize bulls, hobbled madams waited by the entrance. God damn this country, would it never make up its mind?
They turned towards Baggot Street. Way down from the canal, a lone figure cycled the middle of the road. “Peeler,” said Doyler.
Yes, one of Dublin’s famed giants in blue, a rain-caped spike topped copper. “I understood they were recalled to barracks.”
“Maybe only inside of the canals.”
“How far is the Green now?”
“Beyond over the bridge.”
“We need some momentum,” MacMurrough said. “It grates on the nerves, this walking to war.”
“It’s the dead that walk,” said Doyler.
Ghoulish thing to say. “Why the dead?”
“Something Jim told me. Dream he had of his brother.”
His white-gloved hand waving, the policeman was calling to the people to remain in their homes. He might have been the barker for some fairground attraction. The people crowded the road behind to find out the advertised peril.
“Remind me now,” said MacMurrough, “the police are the enemy?