• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 5397 0

exactly (because the kind of letter the Major was writing is seldom voluntarily finished before the Grim Reaper bids us lay down our pens); his difficulty was more practical than aesthetic: he was unable to send Sarah his letter in instalments because she had forgotten to send him her address. As time went by, as winter turned into spring, the Major became less and less hopeful that she would remember to rectify this oversight. His flood of confidences declined to a trickle and finally dried up altogether. The Major became gloomy and sensible once more. And the grey world returned to being as grey as it had always been. In due course his aunt died.

Meanwhile, in Ireland, the troubles ebbed and flowed, now better, now worse. He could make no sense of it. It was like putting out to sea in a small boat: with the running of the waves it is impossible to tell how far one has moved over the water; all one can do is to look back to see how far one has moved from land. So in the case of Ireland all one could do was to look back to the peaceful days before the war. And they already seemed a long way away.

* * *

INDIAN UNREST

Lord Hunter’s Inquiry

The Indian newspapers received by the Indian mail, says Reuter, contain further reports of the proceedings of the Hunter Commission which is inquiring into the Indian disorders of last year. On December 3rd Captain Doveton, who administered martial law at Kasur, in his evidence, while admitting that he did invent some minor punishments during the martial-law administration, punishments less severe in form than the usual martial-law sentences, denied that he ordered any persons to be whitewashed, or made people write on the ground with their noses...

Sir Chiman Lal Setalvad turned to the feeling of the people regarding martial law. “You say the people liked martial law?” he suggested.

“Very much so,” was the witness’s reply.

Sir C. Setalvad: “You say the people would have liked it to become practically permanent?” “That was the impression that was given.”

“Did the people actually tell you this—that the summary courts were things they liked?” “They liked people being tried by martial law, without any right of appeal. They preferred that to spending money on appeals.”

Questioned in regard to the story of women of loose character having been compelled to witness flogging sentences, witness said that it was a misrepresentation, although not a deliberate one...

Continuing, Captain Doveton said that as regards his order requiring convicted persons to touch the ground with their foreheads, he had heard of this being done before. He did not mean it to be debasing.

At this stage General Barrow, addressing Lord Hunter, suggested that witness was a young officer doing his duty to the best of his ability under rather trying conditions, but that he was not a criminal.

* * *

The Major returned to Kilnalough in the middle of May, expecting the worst. Since early in the year the number of violent incidents had steadily increased. An official return of “outrages” attributed to Sinn Fein had just been published and the Major had read it with apprehension: it listed the total number of murders for the first quarter of the year as thirty-six; of “firing at persons” eighty-one; three hundred and eighty-nine raids for arms had taken place, and there had been forty-seven incendiary fires. Tired from his journey and nervous in spite of the peaceful and familiar aspect of Kilnalough station, the Major started violently when a hand was put on his shoulder. He turned sharply to find the grinning and friendly face of the station-master, who wanted to inform him that Dr Ryan was waiting outside in his motor car and would give him a lift to the Majestic.

With Dr Ryan there was a youth of sixteen or seventeen with black hair and a pale, beautiful face. The doctor, his face almost totally obscured by a muffler and a wide-brimmed black hat, muttered an introduction. This was his grandson Padraig. They were going to tea at the Majestic, he added disagreeably, and Edward had asked them to...In short: “Get in,