Redemption - Leon Uris [258]
I laughed. They were scared of little Chester. He exuded a hundred and thirty-five pounds of Tasmanian Devil authority.
Jeremy produced a bottle of rum from his kit.
“Jesus, should that be going to the lads on the line?” I asked.
“It’s all right, I deducted it from Godley’s personal stash.”
We partook. Jesus, wouldn’t it be great if old Sonya was fixing us up a hash pipe? Wonder if she ever got to the continent.
“The Major greeted me like he had sand up his ass,” I said.
“He’s angry because you had all the fun during the Turkish counterattack.”
“Men,” I grunted, “are fucking crazy. Why would any sane human being want to get his stomach carved out?”
“E gloribus bellum,” Jeremy said.
“Why?” I asked again. “I wanted to be at Quinn’s.”
“I suppose we all want to prove something to Daddy, what? With Christopher, it’s very important. Father came home from some doings in the Northwest Territory with a medal pinned on him. The lingering finger of family.”
Swig.
Swig.
“Ahhhhh.”
“Ahhhhh.”
“Yurlob’s gotten to me,” I said.
“He got to me a long time ago,” Jeremy answered. “This is his entire dignity, his Sikh mountain artillery. He sees the hour of his death clearly. It’s difficult to retain dignity when dysentery is killing you. He’s a beautiful man.”
“Yeah…all he wants is that his departure goes down honorably in the eyes of his battalion.”
“Did you know he has four kids?” Jeremy asked.
“No.”
“It came out at the odd moment. He has three sons and one of those other things. I don’t think they treat their women too kindly. He prays that his sons will become Punjab fighters.”
The contents of the bottle evaporated before our very eyes. Our conversation segued into Ireland and Conor Larkin because Jeremy wanted to talk about Conor and knew I wanted to hear. Jeremy wondered how Conor would have viewed these blood-soaked fields.
“Conor was the complete opposite of Imperial Man,” Jeremy said. “He saw war only in terms of fighting for freedom. He viewed the American Revolution as man’s foremost justification for war. I don’t think he would view Gallipoli as a noble calling for New Zealanders and Aussies. He would have seen the greater war as stemming from Ireland’s birthright to bear arms against the British. Namely, if Britain is in Turkey fighting for the freedom of Belgium, then Irishmen certainly had the right to fight for their own freedom.”
Our tongues became gloriously loose.
“Something here must make sense,” I said. “Gallipoli can’t just go down as a forgotten page in history.”
“I think all of us have to come through it with our own meaning. Wouldn’t you say Christopher is evolving from something mucky to something fine?”
“Aye. I know the power I have to love a woman. Now I know I can love men.”
“How about knowing the magnificence of being a New Zealander?” Jeremy asked. “Quinn’s Post has defined the stuff of the men of your country.”
“At what a fucking price.”
“Everything comes with a price.”
“What happened after your last contact with Conor?” I asked. “After he escaped prison? Was he in Ireland all the time?”
“The rumor was that he was in America for a few years, then slipped back to Ireland.”
“Did he ever fall in love with another woman?”
“Very much so. It was a secret but quite an open secret.”
“How was that, now?”
“Well, him living underground. There was a woman named Atty Fitzpatrick. She was Anglo-Protestant ascendancy. That means Irish-born, but with British ancestry. My family is the same. We are the generations of inheritors after our English ancestors divided up the country. Many Anglos became republican patriots. Atty Fitzpatrick was somewhat sainted in that she distributed her family barony among the tenants and gave virtually all her money for humane causes. Actually, I saw her several times. She was a great actress on the Dublin stage. Tall, glorious bosom, stately in a Joan-of-Arc way, very commanding. She was a widow with a family. When Conor was imprisoned she was a one-man army in his cause doing street rallies from one end