The Soldier's Song (15 page)

When he turned his head and looked down the length of Dame Street, though, his delight turned to dismay. He found himself looking straight at the stone front of Trinity College and it made him anxious. With its high walls and iron railings it was well fortified, and if the Brits got troops in there they’d have a near-impregnable base right in the centre of the city.

And he knew that was exactly what they would do. As soon as they realized what was going on they would bring men in from all over, reinforcing and infiltrating and slowly putting a stranglehold on the city. They weren’t stupid, and they wouldn’t take this lying down. They would do whatever it took to crush the rebellion. Connolly had once said the British wouldn’t use artillery in the city, but Joe thought he was wrong. They would. They would call this treachery and raze Dublin to the ground if they had to.

‘We’re in a great old spot here,’ Brennan grinned, looking down the street beside him. ‘We’ll have them in a right old crossfire when they come.’

He was chattering again, but Joe let it pass.

‘Just you keep your eyes on that gate,’ he said, but he kept his own eyes on the college. It reminded him of his brother and he wondered where he was. He knew he was home from Turkey – Mrs Lyons had made sure the whole bloody building knew his brother was in the army – but he had no idea if he’d gone away again. Connolly had asked about him that morning in Beresford Place. They’d all paraded there – Volunteers and Citizen Army together – and Connolly had made a point of going around and shaking hands with his men before they marched off to their allotted positions. With most of the others it had been nothing more than a handshake, but he’d taken Joe by the arm and led him out of earshot.

‘Have you heard anything from your brother, Joe?’ he asked earnestly.

Joe shook his head.

‘Well, is he still in the country? If he is, he might be sent against us. Have you thought of that?’

‘Sure, of course I have.’

‘And you might end up fighting him.’

Joe shrugged. ‘We’ve been fighting one another ever since we were kids.’

‘This is different, Joe. The next time you see him could be over the sights of your rifle.’

‘Look, Jim, we’re both grown men. He made his choice and I made mine. I’d rather not fight with him, but I’ll do whatever I have to do if the time comes. You can rely on me for that.’

Connolly thought for a moment and then held out his hand.

‘The best of luck to you, so. I’ll pray God that you get through this.’

Joe forced a smile. That morning was the first time he’d ever seen fear in Connolly’s face. Not for himself, he realized, but for the others, for the men who were following him.

‘Sure, we’ll all get through this,’ he said, though his voice cracked on the words.

‘No we won’t,’ Connolly replied, and with an unhappy shake of his head he quickly marched away.

‘A soldier!’ Brennan exclaimed, bringing Joe back to the present. He blinked and tried to follow a jabbing finger.

‘Where?’

‘Down at the gate. He’s coming out, look.’

The castle gates had been opened about a foot and a khaki figure was crouched in the gap, carefully checking the street for signs of life.

‘Well, what are you gawping at him for?’ Joe asked, seeing Brennan’s rifle still propped against the windowsill. ‘Shoot him!’

VI

Stephen yawned, stretched and scratched the stubble on his chin. He needed a shave, and he’d better see to it before Captain Lawford came around. Lawford was a regular officer home on leave from France, and he’d been put in charge of the college defences. A sharp crack from over the roof told him he had nothing to worry about for the time being. Not content with merely organizing sentries, Lawford had installed himself at a window over the front gate and started sniping at the rebel positions around Dublin Castle. He’d been at it all yesterday afternoon and on into the evening until the light grew too dim. Now it was bright he was off again. Bloodthirsty little sod.

Stephen counted the little row of cartridges that lay on the roof beside him. Twenty, same as yesterday. He hadn’t fired a shot.

But his men had. There were only three of them, all Australians here on sick leave from France. They’d tried a few shots when they saw the rebels fortifying the buildings on the corner of Sackville Street and eventually provoked a furious volley that sent them ducking down behind the balustrade as bullets spat and whizzed overhead.

‘Fucking Irish bastards!’ one of them shouted, laughing, but then looked aghast at Stephen, who pretended not to notice.

There was no sign of life in those buildings this morning, but the windows were still barricaded. When he slid Billy’s racing glasses from one to the other he saw the corpse still lying below O’Connell’s statue. There since yesterday. God knows how he wandered into the middle of it, but a sniper got him. As he watched the eastern corner, a figure walked into his field of view from further up the street. A young girl, barefoot, but wearing a fur coat and an oversized hat. The looters were growing bold now – not even a corpse would frighten them off. It was early yet, and there would probably be more as the day wore on. But nothing like the number he saw yesterday – hundreds of them pouring out of the tenements and rampaging through Dunn’s and Nobbett’s and Clery’s. They’d cleared the place out and there was hardly anything left to loot, the street carpeted with glass and strewn with discarded clothes and cardboard.

He turned around at the sound of the hatch opening. He’d only sent his men down for breakfast ten minutes ago and they couldn’t be back already. Perhaps it was Billy coming back. He’d gone down last evening when he finally got bored looking at the empty streets. But it certainly wasn’t Billy. He was so startled to see a woman emerging that she was halfway across the roof before he recognized her.

‘Get down,’ he whispered, waving urgently. Lillian’s smile changed to a look of surprise before she dropped into a crouch and hurried forward, her heavy skirt rustling.

‘Sorry,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Are they shooting at us?’

‘Not just at the moment,’ he admitted, carefully scanning the strongpoints again before he put the glasses down. ‘But I don’t like to encourage them.’

‘I brought you some breakfast.’ She knelt down beside him and handed him a brown-paper parcel and an earthenware bottle that felt warm in his hand. ‘Courtesy of your friend Billy. He’s been drafted into the kitchen.’

He weighed the parcel dubiously. ‘You mean Billy actually cooked something?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t put it as strongly as that. He’s only making sandwiches and tea at the moment, though he says he has ambitions to try his hand at soup for lunch. May I?’ She gestured at the racing glasses.

‘By all means.’ He took a bite from one of the sandwiches and chewed thoughtfully, watching her out of the corner of his eye. It was a year since he had last seen her and the time had been kind. Her face was fuller and her brown hair longer; it was now tied in a neat ponytail at the nape of her neck. She looked less gaunt and therefore less severe, a little more good-humoured. There was the faint trace of a smile on her face as she focused the glasses on the shattered shop fronts of Sackville Street.

‘I heard you were back from Turkey,’ she said, still looking through the glasses, and just as Stephen felt a jet of embarrassment burning his cheeks, she exclaimed, ‘Oh! There’s one. He just ran right across the street!’

Stephen swallowed hastily, glad of the change in subject.

‘Which way?’

‘Left to right – towards Clery’s. Here, take a look.’

He took the glasses but found the street empty, as he expected. The corpse was still there, but even the little girl had vanished. All he could see was the sun glittering on broken glass.

‘Probably a messenger,’ he observed, ‘Their headquarters is in the GPO, but they’ve got outposts across the street as well.’

‘My goodness. They really have dug themselves in, haven’t they? I imagine it will be quite difficult to get them out.’

Stephen nodded. ‘Not without artillery, at any rate.’

‘Well, it’s funny you should say that,’ she said. ‘I saw some artillerymen earlier, digging a field gun into the lawn in New Square. Did you ever think you’d see the day? It’s mad. The whole place is gone mad.’

‘Strange days indeed,’ he admitted, setting down the glasses and returning to his sandwich. ‘But how do you come to be here? Did you come in this morning?’

‘Not at all. I’ve been here since yesterday afternoon. I was trying to get up to Dublin Castle to see my sister. You do remember Sheila, don’t you? You met her that night at Mary D’Arcy’s party.’

Stephen smiled as he uncorked the bottle and took a drink of sweet tea. How could he forget?

‘Of course I do. She wanted to be a nurse, didn’t she?’

‘That’s right. Well, she got her wish and now she’s working in the hospital above in the castle. When I heard there was trouble starting I tried to get up to see her, but a policeman turned me back. I thought I might be able to go up after it got dark, but the soldiers said there was a curfew, so I had to stay here.’

‘There was some heavy fighting going on around the castle yesterday. I heard machine-gun fire coming from up there.’

‘Yes. One of the soldiers told me the Citizen Army had occupied City Hall and they were trying to get them out last night.’

Stephen stopped the bottle halfway to his lips.

‘The Citizen Army?’

‘So he said. Apparently they’re involved in this rebellion as well. About half of them are in Stephen’s Green but the rest of them are up around the castle.’

‘God Almighty,’ he murmured, and in the brief pause that followed he heard the cracking report of Lawford’s rifle from across the roof. Stephen had been in that room, and he’d seen the table pulled up to the window with clips of ammunition strewn around it. The window gave a clear shot right up Dame Street, to Dublin Castle and City Hall.

‘So, what will you do now?’ he asked, ‘Do you still want to get up to the castle?’

‘I’d like to, but I don’t see how I can unless there’s a ceasefire this afternoon. They’re still fighting up there and I won’t be let out on my own after dark.’

‘I’ll take you,’ he offered, before he was even sure he would be allowed. But the more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed. The telephone lines were still out and they’d be keen to get messages back and forth. ‘If you don’t mind waiting until tonight, I’ll take you up there when it gets dark.’

‘Is it dark yet?’

Joe looked around at the question. Brennan’s face was just a white blur in the gloom of the basement. His voice was a dry croak, little more than a whisper, and Joe licked his own cracked lips as he looked up through the grating at the dying light outside. He’d never felt more in need of a drink in all his life, but there was nothing to be done. They had no water and no hope of getting any until it was fully dark. Just their luck to end up in the basement of a haberdasher’s shop – nothing but bolts of cloth and reels of thread all over the place. A few yards further and they would have made it to a pub.

‘We’ll give it another few minutes just to be sure,’ he said, and went over to where Brennan was lying propped in the corner. ‘How’s the leg?’

‘Not so bad.’ Brennan forced a weak smile through the grime on his face, ‘I think the bleeding’s stopped, but I’ve a woeful thirst on me.’

‘That makes two of us, so.’ Joe slid his back down the wall, yawning as he finally sat down, ‘But not to worry, there’ll be plenty to drink once we get out of this hole.’

If we get out.
Christ knows we’ve done well to get this far. He shuddered to think about those last few minutes in the office with bullets thudding up through the floorboards and plaster flying from the walls. All morning they’d had machine guns firing at them from the smouldering roof of City Hall. Then came the first charge from the castle, and they’d knocked it back. They’d hit them hard, cutting down ten, twenty of them in the street. But they came again, and again, and suddenly they were in the door, trying to force their way up the stairs – fifty of them: shouting, screaming, howling like savages. They wanted revenge. They wanted blood for the blood on the street.

But, by God, they’d made them pay for it. Shooting down the stairs through the smoke and the dust. Screaming, blood, the smell of gun smoke. And all the time more of them kept pouring in through the door. It couldn’t last. They were running out of ammunition but the rifles were getting too hot to shoot anyway. Men were being hit – dying, screaming, bleeding – but the khaki kept creeping up the stairs until it was butts and bayonets, feet, fists and bodies.

In the end they broke and ran. The only way out was through the windows, a long drop into the alleys behind. Joe found Brennan leaning out of a window, hurt in the leg, afraid of the height.

‘It’s too far—’

‘Get out, for God’s sake, get out.’

The only thing holding the British forces back was the pile of dead and dying men lying on the stairs, the ominous silence with the threat of another volley through the smoke. But they were coming, picking their way slowly.

‘For fuck’s sake! Get out or we’re dead!’