The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [111]
“A cold, is it?” grunted the old man querulously. “Sure, we all get ’em...a cold is nothing at all.”
And he went on to say something confused about things not being the way they used to be...or perhaps people weren’t the way they used to be, one or the other, or perhaps both, it was hard to make out precisely.
“But I just want to know what medicine to take,” the Major interrupted him plaintively. He had been going hot and cold by turns and felt that at any moment he would be suffocated by fever or roasted alive, if he was not actually poignarded to death by the painful “absence-of-Sarah” that had suddenly started to afflict him—indeed, the pangs of self-pity and Sarahlessness became appallingly acute as he listened to the old man grumbling on. A wave of fever clutched him. His shirt and underwear clung damply to his skin.
“Thought you’d come sooner or later,” the doctor was saying contemptuously. “This is no place for the likes of you...You must leave Ireland, leave Kilnalough, it’s no place at all now for a British gentleman like you. Clear yourself out of here, bag and baggage, before it’s too late!”
“But I only asked about my cold,” protested the Major petulantly. “I suppose I shall have to go to bed before it gets any worse.”
“Yes, go to bed, go to bed, that’s it,” sneered the doctor. “You’re as right as rain, just sorry for yourself.”
The doctor, splendid old chap though he no doubt was, thought the Major indignantly, was really becoming a tiny bit tiresome.
The great gong boomed for dinner. The Major dolefully wandered along a corridor. Padraig was still talking volubly to the alarmed Miss Bagley as they passed on their way to the dining-room. Did she know...did she know...did she know then what had happened to Héloise and Abélard? he was asking slyly, well, to Abélard anyway, since nothing much in that line could happen to Héloise? Well, he’d better not be telling her because it might spoil her appetite...
The Major decided not to go in to dinner. Instead he sat down dizzily in an armchair in the residents’ lounge, not his favourite room at the Majestic but he felt too weak to go any farther. His mouth open like a dying fish, he fell asleep. His last conscious image was of Dr Ryan pottering past, grumbling to himself, his stick held in a knobbly, freckled hand.
“Go on out of it, the whole bally lot o’ ye,” he might have been muttering as his boots scraped by on the other side of the Major’s drooping eyelids—but before it had time to consider this, his waking mind had slipped away into a quieter and darker area beyond.
* * *
MESOPOTAMIA
Serious Agitation on the Lower Euphrates
The situation in Mesopotamia shows some improvement in the disturbed areas, but is becoming more tense in the districts not yet in open rebellion. The Lower Euphrates and Hammar Lake neighbourhood are being seriously affected by the agitation now breaking out among the Muntafik Arabs. The besieging forces are said to be increasing in numbers.
* * *
TERRIBLE OUTBREAK IN BALBRIGGAN
Town Partially Destroyed by Fire
During Monday night and Tuesday morning there was a violent outbreak in Balbriggan, following the murder of Head Constable Burke in that town. Head Constable Burke, with other police in plain clothes, had motored from Dublin on their way to Gormanstown. At Balbriggan they stopped for refreshments, which were refused by the publican. In the disturbance which appears to have ensued, revolver shots were discharged, and the Head Constable was shot dead, and his brother, Sergeant Burke, was wounded. Subsequently, it is stated, a number of auxiliary police stationed at Gormanstown came into Balbriggan. Many houses were burned and shots fired in the streets. Two civilians were killed during the night. In the morning large numbers of the panic-stricken population left the town by road and railway and apparently only those who were unable to get away remained.
* * *
EYE-WITNESS STORY
An old gentleman resident, describing what followed the