The Soldier's Song (27 page)

‘Well, the best of luck to you, lads.’

‘Are you going to blow the mine, sir?’ the soldier asked, and his mates were all agog to know too.

‘Is it big? They told us it’ll be like a heavy bombardment, only all in one go.’

‘Oh, it’s big all right,’ he assured them. ‘They won’t know what hit them.’

He passed along to the firing station. Even though they were only whispering, these men seemed very noisy after the dead silence of the tunnel. They were in high spirits, almost ebullient, chatting and whispering to one another. Somewhere behind him a hoarse laugh barked out and just as he reached the station he passed a group of men saying the rosary.

Macmillan was already at the station, kneeling to his boxes and batteries. The place was packed with senior officers – divisional staff, engineers, artillerymen, brass of every description. Suddenly Stephen was aware of the extreme filth of his uniform, to say nothing of the grime streaking his face. But they paid him scant attention. All eyes were on Macmillan, who was screwing snaking wires to the terminals on a little wooden box. They peered over his shoulder, intrigued, excited. Stephen shielded his eyes as the sun peeked over the horizon and flooded the crowded trench with warm yellow rays.

‘We might not change history, but we shall certainly change the landscape, eh?’ a colonel cracked, and everybody laughed. Stephen found himself following the rosary, muttering the half-remembered words under his breath, but before long it finished with a final emphatic
amen.
The troops turned to face the rising sun, contented, ready to do their work.
They won’t know what hit them.

‘I make it a minute to zero,’ the same colonel said, staring intently at his wristwatch. Macmillan nodded, licked his gritty lips, and twisted the handle out of his little wooden box.

‘Stand by!’ The signal was shouted down the trench in both directions. The troops shouldered their rifles and put their fingers in their ears, then stood waiting with their mouths hanging open, trying to make each other laugh. Stephen covered his ears and waited. The colonel never took his eyes off his watch.

‘Fire!’ he barked, and with a wrench and a grunt Macmillan plunged the firing handle back into the box.

He woke with a start, instinctively curling up and huddling on the edge of the bed. He never heard the blast – the dream never got that far. But it was bad enough while it lasted: shapeless things chasing him, cleaving out of the earth to hound him down endless gloomy tunnels. On silent wings they flew, reaching out their blanched white hands to grab him and pull him back into the ground. Sometimes they caught him and he woke suffocating as the earth swallowed him up. Sometimes he escaped to the surface where they could not follow, but they sent their screams instead, unearthly noises that wrapped around him like smoking tendrils, stinking of the shattered ground and pulling him back. Then he would beg Macmillan to fire, for God’s sake, to blow the mine, to save him. And Macmillan would smile behind his opaque silver spectacles as he pushed the plunger, and the invisible electricity in the wires would jolt him awake.

He gasped, and instantly the memories of the explosion crowded in on him. The sound of the detonation was deep and muffled, felt as much as heard as the ground bucked beneath his feet. Then came the hot breath of wind on his face as the whole hillside bulged up into the air, slowly, slowly, like a great green balloon, until it finally cracked and burst into a towering cloud of smoke and fire that blotted out the rising sun. It took a moment for the roar of the blast to reach him, but when it came it washed over him like a wave, and brought with it a shower of stones and sods of fractured earth.

He could still hear it when he opened his eyes. The room was strange – he was in a big bed, well sprung, with smooth sheets and soft pillows. So soft it was as if they were holding him down. He thought he was still dreaming – a dream within a dream – but then he heard the insistent ticking of the clock, the twittering of birds outside the window. He raised his head and saw a shaft of white light piercing the gloom through a chink in the curtains. A horse and cart clip-clopped down the road outside and the delicate rattle of china on a tray came from downstairs. He sagged back against the pillows and waited for his heart to stop racing. It was real, he was safe.

Safely home. He remembered last night – coming in on the Holyhead packet and the thrill as the land suddenly loomed out of the darkness ahead. No lights with the blackout – just an absence of stars low on the horizon, and then the sense of safety as the arms of Dublin Bay reached out to pull him in. It had taken him a night and a day to get from France, and now that he’d finally arrived he couldn’t quite believe he was home. It was nearly midnight when he finally came down the gangplank, but there was Billy, leaning on his cane with a crooked smile and a tip of his hat.

‘There was no need to come and meet me,’ Stephen chided after they’d shaken hands. ‘It’s the middle of the night. I could have got a cab.’

‘Oh, shush, Stephen. It’s the least I could do. You are my guest, after all. Besides, I wanted to show you my motor car.’

He gestured at the black Ford parked on the quay, and Stephen gave him a disbelieving look. A junior barrister could hardly afford a motor car. But Billy knew this as well as he did.

‘Actually, it’s not mine, as such. It’s Uncle Tom’s – but I have the use of it. In fact, I have the run of the place now that they’ve decamped to Galway for the summer.’

‘Galway?’

‘Yes, they’re staying with my parents. Auntie Joan thought it would be safer there. She seems to think Dublin is liable to be bombed by Zeppelins.’ He gave his friend a wicked grin. ‘Heaven knows how she got that idea into her head. But, anyway, off they’ve gone down to the country, leaving yours truly holding the fort. I have the house to myself, and you are my first houseguest. So let’s have none of your complaining, lieutenant.’

‘Captain, actually.’ He heaved his valise into the back seat and then brandished his cuff at Billy, showing him the triple crowns.

‘Captain? Since when?’

‘Since last week.’

‘Blimey, Stephen. Medals, promotions.’ He gave him a playful nudge, ‘You’re not half bad at this soldiering lark after all.’

After he’d admired the car, Stephen helped Billy start it by winding the handle, and then sat up beside him as they chugged into the city. They reached O’Connell Bridge and swung across it, but Stephen twisted around in his seat to look back at Sackville Street.

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’

Even after a year, the ruins had still not been cleared. Piles of shattered masonry lined the roadway, broken windows gaping blackly from the few remaining buildings. He knew the damage was bad – the place had still been burning when he left Ireland just after the rebellion, but somehow this was worse. The more unsound buildings had been knocked down and their absence seemed to reveal a gaping hole at the heart of the city. He stared at it, aghast, remembering the elegant boulevard that used to be there, with its bright shop windows and criss-crossing tramlines. Now it just reminded him of Ypres.

‘Quite a sight, isn’t it?’ said Billy, changing gear with a loud grinding crash. ‘Oops, sorry about that. Our very own war zone, right in the middle of the city. It’ll turn into a bloody shrine to the rebellion if they don’t watch out. Not that they need one. The fickle folk of Dublin have already taken the rebels to their hearts.’

Stephen detected a note of bitterness and turned back around in his seat. ‘Why? Are they popular?’

‘Popular? I’ll say. They’re flaming heroes. I’m afraid they make old Johnny Redmond and his high hopes for Home Rule look rather anaemic by comparison. It’s independence or nothing now, and the Unionists will just have to lump it!’

Billy’s aunt’s house was a big Victorian villa on the Rathgar Road. Stephen had a vague impression of high ceilings and heavy furniture, but it was one in the morning and he could hardly stop yawning. After Billy had shown him to his bedroom and wished him goodnight he’d practically fallen into bed. Now he pushed himself up and looked blearily around. There was a bedside table, an armchair with his uniform draped across it and a
chinoiserie
screen in the fireplace. He was a million miles from plank beds and bombed-out farmhouses, but his eyes were still gritty, and there was a throbbing in his temples.

He felt better after a bath and a shave. More wonders: a proper bathtub, and hot water on tap. When he dressed and went downstairs, Billy was in the dining room, sitting at the end of a long polished mahogany table with a steaming cup of coffee and a newspaper. In the next room, a clock told the hour with musical chimes.

‘Stephen, there you are. Did you sleep all right?’

‘Yes, quite well, thanks.’

Billy set down his newspaper and gave him a stern look over the top of his spectacles.

‘Are you sure, Stephen?’

He had pulled out his chair and sat down a little self-consciously. He felt his cheeks beginning to glow.

‘Yes, why?’

‘Well, you look a bit peaky and, if you don’t mind my saying so, you made a bit of a racket last night. Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘What sort of racket?’

‘Shouting and whatnot. I wouldn’t have mentioned it, only it sounded like you were having a right old time of it.’

‘Oh, I beg your pardon.’ Stephen cast his eyes down and squirmed in his chair. They all did it back in France. It was so commonplace that nobody ever said anything. ‘I didn’t realize I was making a noise. I’m sorry if I disturbed you.’

‘Well, it’s not
me
I’m worried about. Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘Oh, I’ll be fine. It’s probably the bed. I’m not used to such a soft mattress – I’m not used to any mattress, to tell the truth. I dare say I’ll get used to it.’

Mentioning the mattress seemed to do the trick. Billy gave him a consoling grin as he lifted the coffee pot.

‘I shudder to think what you have to put up with over there,’ he said. ‘Is coffee all right, or would you prefer tea?’

‘Coffee would be fine.’ Stephen got up to the sideboard and helped himself to some bacon and toast, ‘We don’t get much of that either, as it happens.’

Billy looked at him aghast. ‘Good God. And we’re supposed to be fighting for civilization. What
do
you get, then?’

‘Tea. Endless cups of tea – usually stewed and, as often as not, cold. Sometimes cocoa if we’re lucky.’

‘And what do you eat?’

‘That depends on where we are. At the front it’s mostly stew of some description.’ He held up a rasher on a fork, ‘And bacon sandwiches. Lots of bacon sandwiches. I’ve developed quite a taste for them.’

‘Well, me too, as it happens,’ Billy admitted. ‘Bacon’s about the only thing we can get, what with all these shortages. Even coffee’s become a luxury thanks to these flaming submarines. Still, I suppose it hasn’t done me much harm.’ He proudly patted his belly, which was much reduced from the last time Stephen had seen him. He was by no means slim, but he was much more solid now, more of a man than the chubby schoolboy he used to resemble. A serious man, too, in his black suit and tie.

‘You’re off to work, then,’ Stephen observed, chewing on a piece of bacon and sipping some of the strong, bitter coffee to wash it down.

‘Yes, must earn a crust, you know. I’m not in court today, otherwise I’d invite you along to watch the fun. What about you? Any plans for your week in the old country?’

Stephen shrugged. How long had he been looking forward to this leave? And yet, in the end, it had rushed up on him. He wasn’t sure what to do with himself. There was so much he wanted to see, and yet he was unprepared. What with everything that went on, he hadn’t had time to send telegrams or letters. Apart from Billy, nobody knew he was home.

‘I’m not sure. I thought I’d drop in on Joe this morning. After that I think I’ll . . .’

‘Go and see Lillian Bryce?’ Billy asked avidly.

‘Perhaps,’ he answered coyly.

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Stephen, you don’t have to pretend with me. I saw her not a fortnight ago and she told me all about the letters you’ve been sending one another. She said she couldn’t wait to see you, so stop dragging your heels. Go and see her. When you do, you can invite her to dinner.’

Stephen felt his friend was pushing him. One part of him resented it, but the rest of him wanted him to push harder. He looked at him with growing interest. ‘Dinner?’ he asked.

‘Yes, you know, the evening meal. I’m in an entertaining mood, and I’m not going to send you back without at least one decent dinner inside you. But the last thing I want is to have to sit here all evening looking at your ugly mug. Some female company would do us both the world of good. Invite her to dinner here, just the three of us. Say on Sunday? I’ll see what Mrs Walsh can find. She’s a wonder, is Mrs Walsh.’

The reflected sun was warm on his face and the sound of the breeze rustling through the trees was soothing. Stephen sat with his eyes closed, feeling the sweat cooling in the small of his back. He was in St Stephen’s Green, sitting on a bench near the duck-pond, and he didn’t know what had just happened to him. His hands were still shaking and he pressed them together in his lap, willing them to stop.

Another fit. Was that what it was? A fit of the vapours? He didn’t know what it was, to tell the truth – had hardly realized it was happening the first time. That was on the train to Boulogne, but he’d been sleeping then and thought it was just another nightmare. This one was in broad daylight – it had come on him as he walked down the street, tipping his hat to ladies and thinking how well the meeting with his brother had gone.