At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [241]
A shout. He looked round. The sergeant had followed him. He was down. Jim’s feet carried on, teetering a bit, before he had command of them. He turned back. The sergeant was waving him away, cursing him. Jim shook his head, trying to think why the man had followed him at all. Couldn’t he see it was dangerous? It was only his ankle, his bleddy ankle, twisted it. Jim took his arm but he couldn’t shift his weight. It was all very awkward with his gun in one hand and the clutch of cartridges he kept in the other. The sergeant carried on cursing in his bleddy way, telling Jim he had hold the wrong arm, was he born defective. Jim thought quickly. He took the man’s rifle and ran up the mound, flung both their guns into the keeping of hands there and ran back down the slope. The sergeant had hobbled to his feet. Jim saw them floatingly, a line of dancing raindrops, tracing their lenient curve towards him. The sergeant was a goner. There was only the one way to save him, and he threw himself on top, hurling the man to the ground. He lay covering his corporation with as much as his body and limbs would allow. The bullets veered as he had known they must, though it was astonishing how close they would come and still not hit you. He had felt their wind even. Can you walk at all? Bleddy lunatic.
At last they woke up on the mound. Fellows were coming out, reaching their hands down. “Will you hurry up,” said Jim. It was vexing beyond belief. They hopped the sergeant one way or another round the bank of elm trees and down behind the hump in the ground. Jim lay with his head against the slope, breathing, luxuriating in breath. Suddenly, he was shivering cold.
“Is he all right?” a girl asked. “He’s shocking pale.”
“Leave him stew,” said a man.
“Ankle,” uttered Jim. “He got it twisted.”
“That’s right,” said the girl, “heave it up now, you’ll be fine.”
“What’s up with him?” said a boy’s voice piping.
“He’s after getting his sergeant near killed.”
“Oh,” said the boy’s voice piping.
Jim wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He swallowed, his throat bitter and raw. The flush receded. He took off his bush-hat. He was sweating and cold and hot.
The boy said, “You want a custard pie?”
Jim’s eyes focused. “How old are you supposed to be?” he asked.
“Jeez,” said the boy and walked away.
Twice now Mr. Mack had returned to Ballygihen, but no sign of anyone, nor Doyler nor Mr. MacMurrough, only that chappie of a gardener who wished it be known he was caretaker now and who did Mr. Mack think he was, agitating this here bell of the big house. No luck at the Forty Foot: nobody swimming and no sight of Jim, the only news on any man’s tongue was Dublin, Dublin, Dublin. Wearily, traipsily, Mr. Mack set his face in the rain toward Kingstown.
The streets were awake now. Already George’s Street crawled with traffic. At the junction with Marine Road he saw the why of that: a kind of a picket had formed, manned by respectable gentlemen of the Georgius Rex with brassards on their sleeves, and a couple Baden-Poweller boys in uniforms and hats. They were stopping drivers and asking questions. Nothing what you would call official, they assured Mr. Mack, but still something had to be done to put a halt to these Sinn Feiner rascals; and Mr. Mack, saluting with a tip of his boater, agreed, saying it was a shocking state of affairs altogether, and only for he was stepping into town himself he would stop to lend a hand.
“What business would that be on?” asked one of the gentlemen, and Mr. Mack, taking a breath to reply, had the breath taken from him by the sound that now approached from the harbor below. Soldiers, hundreds of them, sure what was he saying, half a battalion at the very least,