At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill [246]
Up along the street the trace of bullets came. Jim flattened on top of Doyler and the blast veered short. He sprang up and reached his arms under Doyler’s shoulders. He hefted him up. “MacEmm!” he cried. He was dragging Doyler toward the Surgeons. A burst of fire riddled the street and Doyler’s body jerked. His shirt was, his shirt was ripped, and his belly was, his belly was ripped too. Jim turned the other way, himself between Doyler and harm, dragging him against the fire, but the bullets zipped from the other gun now, and again the body jerked, just jerked. No no no, I saved the sergeant. “I saved the sergeant!” he screamed. Even as Doyler slipped from his arms, another fire ripped through him. Jim stood bestride his body, his rifle aimed. A body blundered by. The rifle was snatched from his hands. “MacEmm,” he said, “I can’t see where they are.”
MacMurrough aimed the rifle. His head teetered with ponderables: windage, distance, sighting, all useless. He could not hold his hand still. He lowered the gun. The fingers were gripped in his hand and he forced them to loose. The pain shot through and blood blinked in his eye again. Then all of one movement, he swung the gun up where it aimed and fired.
The near rattering ceased.
Jim was cradling Doyler’s head. He seemed in a shock. He was telling of some incident with a sergeant, most persistently telling it. “Yes,” MacMurrough said, “that’s good.” He took off his coat and he laid it over the maul of Doyler’s wounds. He slewed the rifle over his shoulder and pushed his Webley into Jim’s hand. “Guard me,” he said, knowing his words could have no meaning.
“You’re hit,” said Jim.
MacMurrough said, “My hand, nothing.”
“No, your head, hit in the head.”
He bent down and lifted Doyler in his arms. It seemed the very edge of madness, for they were talking in the middle of a street that whizzed with bullets and ricochets. Fire was returned from the Surgeons roof. Symbolic, like his own with the machine-gun that already had started again.
“Come now,” he said to Jim. He carried the body to the far pavement, Jim treading beside. The bollards twanged about them, the cobbles rebounded. In the sanctuary of a lane by the Surgeons, he laid Doyler down.
Already a man was at his side, whispering into his ear. Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatae Mariae semper Virgini . . .
MacMurrough looked at Jim’s face. The eyes were blinking with a strange period. His chin trembled. The whispered prayer stuttered on his lips. He lifted his face. “I saved the sergeant,” he said to MacMurrough.
. . . nimis cogitatione, verbo et opere . . . Of all things fatuous, MacMurrough noted the man’s pronunciation. A European Latin, as though it were a language.
“Volunteer Mack.” A hand touched on Jim’s shoulder. “Volunteer Mack, there.”
It was an officer. MacMurrough saw Jim snap to attention. His blinking had ceased.
“Is this a civilian death, do you know?”
Jim answered, “Doyle, sir. Citizen Army.”
“So it is,” said the officer. “May God rest his soul. He would best be removed to a hospital. I’ll detail two men.”
MacMurrough said, “No. He’s a soldier. He’ll be coming inside.”
The officer looked him up and down. “Do you say so?”
“So,” said MacMurrough. He bent down again to Doyler. His hand passed through the scrag of his hair and under his head. The man with the prayer had closed his eyes. Gently again he lifted his body. The pain seared up his arm to sway his head. He looked at Jim, who cold and unseeing stared. “Come now, my dear,” he said. “We’ll bring him in now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
They were walking as they had often walked, dosey-doe together, with his arm round Jim’s neck and Jim’s head bending to his shoulder. He said, Will I tell you a story of Johnny Magorey? Tell so, said Jim. But he didn’t tell. His arm squeezed a pinch and he danced out ahead. Jim had a notion of his shirt loose in the wind and his black hair flowing. Then he dipped