The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [326]
Another footstep sounded in the darkness. The Padre paused, leaning on his spade, his eyes feverishly searching for the identity of the newcomer. This time he knew it must be Fleury, guided to an appointment with him so that his heretical notions might be extirpated. The Collector noticed that while he himself was scarcely ankle deep in the grave he was digging, the Padre had already lowered himself to the level of his knees, for while the Padre argued, he dug.
Meanwhile, the burly form of Father O’Hara had loomed out of the shadows. He had a spade over his shoulder. “Glory be to God!” he muttered as he tripped over something in the darkness. “Did ye ever see such a dark? I’ve no mind for this at all at all. Are ye there, Mr Hopkins, sor?”
“Just at your side, Father O’Hara. Mind you don’t fall into the...ah...Here, let me give you a hand up.”
“Now then, show me the lads and I’ll be after taking mine to his eternal rest, God help him.”
“Hm, Padre? Perhaps you could tell Father O’Hara which is Mr Donnelly?”
The Padre knelt on the path beside the three dark forms and peered at them uncertainly in the dim light afforded by the stars. After a pause for consideration he said: “Mr Donnelly is the one at the end.”
“What! This little lad Jim Donnelly, is it? Not at all, not at all. He’s no more Jim Donnelly than I am meself. This big lad here’ll be your man.”
“The small one is Donnelly,” declared the Padre in a tone of conviction.
“Not at all. Sure, I’ve known him all me life.”
“I fear you are mistaken.”
“Indeed I am not! That big man over there is Donnelly if I ever saw him...He’s the very image.”
“Father O’Hara,” broke in the Collector with authority. “Both you and the Padre are mistaken. I happen to know that the man in the middle is Donnelly. Now kindly take him away and bury him in the appropriate place and with the appropriate rites.”
“But, Mr Hopkins...”
“Which lad is it?”
“This medium-sized corpse is the one you require.”
“Should we not open up the stitching to make sure?”
“Certainly not. The middle one is Donnelly without a doubt. Now take him away.” And the Collector returned to his digging. The matter was settled.
“Well, come along then, if you’re Jim Donnelly and we’ll put you in the earth,” declared Father O’Hara shouldering the medium-sized corpse. He hesitated for a moment as if waiting for a possible disclaimer from the shrouded figure on his back, then, as none came, he staggered away with it into the darkness. They could hear him bumping into gravestones and blessing himself and muttering for some time as he groped his way towards his own plot.
So rapidly was the Padre now digging that to the weary Collector it seemed that he must be visibly sinking into the ground. The Collector, too, set to work in a more determined fashion, thinking with a mixture of virtue and self-pity: “I’m tired but it’s my duty. It’s right that a leader should bury with his own hands his followers and comrades.” All the same, he was rather put out when the Padre dropped his spade for a moment to drag the shorter of the two remaining corpses over to measure against his half-dug trench. “He might at least have chosen the bigger one since he’s dug twice as much of his grave as I have.”
“Can I be of any assistance?” asked a voice at the Collector’s side, causing him to jump violently for he had heard nothing and now a luminous green wraith appeared to be trembling at his elbow. But it was only Fleury. He had stopped by on his way back to the banqueting hall for the night’s watch, still full of the energy generated by his love for Louise.
“Is that Mr Fleury?” came the Padre’s voice.
“Yes.”
A gargle of joy came from where the Padre was digging. Misinterpreting the reason for it the Collector said firmly; “He’s taking over my spade for a while, Padre,” and went to sit down on a nearby tombstone.
For a few moments there was no sound but the scrape of the spades in the earth; then, gentle as a dove, cunning as a serpent, came the Padre’s voice. “I hear, Mr Fleury, that in Germany there is much discussion of the