The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [25]
But Angela failed to appear at lunch. The Major sat beside Edward, who was by turns morose and indignant about the state of the country. Another R.I.C. barracks had been attacked and stripped of arms; the young hooligans had nothing better to do these days, it seemed. They preferred shooting people in the back to doing an honest day’s work. But for all that, he hadn’t noticed many of them coming forward when Sir Henry Wilson had called for volunteers to join in a fair fight. At this the “friend of Parnell,” who was sitting at the next table, stirred uncomfortably and muttered something.
“What’s that you say?” demanded Edward.
“Thousands of Nationalists fought against Germany,” the old man murmured, his voice still scarcely above a whisper. “Constitutional Nationalists who fought not only for France’s and Belgium’s freedom but for Ireland’s too. Not all Nationalists belong to Sinn Fein, you know...”
“But they’re all tarred with the same brush. Sinn Fein demands a republic. Why? Because they hate England and sided with Germany during the war. Would they change their tune if Ireland was given Dominion Home Rule? Of course they wouldn’t! It would merely whet their appetites for more. There’s no middle of the road in Ireland, for the simple reason that the Home Rulers are playing right into the hands of Sinn Fein. Perhaps they mean well. Maybe they’re just fools. But the result is the same.”
“They’re not fools!” cried the old man, raising his voice. A faint flush had crept over his gaunt cheeks and water slopped on to the table-cloth from the trembling glass he had been in the process of lifting to his lips. “Irishmen fought in the British Army in defence of the Empire. Those men have a right to a voice in the settlement of their country’s future.”
“Exactly so,” agreed Edward with a contemptuous smile. “And you know as well as I do that the bulk of those who served and died came from the Unionist families of the south and west. Who have a better right to a voice than the survivors of the men who fought at Thiepval, their fathers, sons and brothers? And yet everyone seems to take it for granted that they can be suppressed or coerced just for the sake of a temporary peace or because a rabble of Irish immigrants in America have been kicking up a fuss. My dear fellow, it simply won’t wash. No British Government, not even one with a tremendous victory under its belt, could get away with being so rash and unjust. If you simple-minded Dominion-Home-Rulers got your way and tried to coerce Ulster we’d end up with a bloodbath and the Empire in ruins. I repeat, there are only two sides in Ireland. Either you are a Unionist or you support Sinn Fein, which means endorsing their mad and criminal rebellion in 1916, not to mention their friend the Kaiser...”
“Who will shortly be tried and hanged in London,” spoke up a gentleman in heavy tweeds. “Lloyd George said so in the House yesterday.” There was a moment of approving silence and then the gentleman in tweeds went on to say that he’d met a man who knew personally one of the constables killed at Soloheadbeg quarry, a fine young man, “as straight as the day,” who had only been doing his job. If that wasn’t murder what was?
The Major had listened to all this with detachment. After all, it was hardly any of his business (and would be even less of his business once he had managed to have a talk with Angela). Although he felt sorry for the “friend of Parnell” who, whitefaced and evidently upset, had pushed his plate aside, unable to swallow another mouthful, it seemed to him that Edward was undoubtedly right. The Irish, as far as he knew, had always had a habit of making trouble. That was in the nature of things. As for the aim of their unruly behaviour, self-government for Ireland, that seemed quite absurd. What would be the advantage to the Irish themselves? They were so ill-educated that they could not possibly hope to gain anything from it. The English undoubtedly knew more about running the country.