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British Army garrison in Ireland.
A slight chill came over Bernadette's manner. She comes from a fiercely
Republican family. Perhaps I should have let well alone; not probed any more.
But my journalist's background forced me to go on asking the questions.
"Where were you based?" "In Dublin."
"Ah. We come from Dublin. Did you like Dublin?")
"No.
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."
We Dubliners tend to be rather proud of the place. We would prefer
foreigners, even garrison troops, to appreciate our city's qualities. The
earlier part of ex-Private Prices career came out
like the latter part, very, very, slowly. He had been born in the Rhondda in
1897, of very poor parents. Life had been hard and bleak. In 1914, at the age
of seventeen, more to secure food, clothing and barracks to live in than Outof
patriotic fervour, he had joined the Army. He had never gone beyond private
soldier.
For twelve months he had been in training camps as others went off to the
front in Flanders, and at an army stores depot in Wales. In late 1915 he had
been posted to the garrison forces in Ireland, quartered in the chill of
barracks at Islandbridge on the south side of the River Liffey in
Dublin. for him Life, I had to suppose, had
been boring enough
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to have said he did not enjoy Dublin. Sparse barrack dormitories, low pay
even for those, days, and an endless, mindless round of spit and polish,
buttons, boots and beds; of guard duty on freezing nights and p1cquets in the
streaming rain. And for leisure - - - not much Of that either on a soldier's
pay. Beer in the canteen, little or no contact with a Catholic population. He
had probably been glad to have been posted away after two years. or was he
ever glad or sad for anything, this lumbering, slow man?
"Did nothing ever happen of interest?" I asked him finally, in some
desperation.
"Only once," he replied at last. 'And what was that?"
An execution," he said, absorbed in his SOUPBernadette put down her spoon and
sat rigid. There
was a chill, in the air. Only Madame, who understood not a word, and her
husband, who was too insensitive, were oblivious. I should definitely have
left well alone.
After all, in those days a lot of people were executed. Common murderers were
hanged at Mountjoy. But hanged. By prison warders. Would they need the
soldiery for that? And British soldiers would be executed too, for murder and
rape, under military regulations after court martial. Would they be hanged or
shot? I did not know.
"Do you remember when it was, this execution?" I asked.
Bernadette sat frozen.
Aft. Price raised his limpid blue eyes to mine. Then he shook his head. "Long
time ago," he said. I thought he might be lying, but he was not. He had simply
forgotten.
"Were you in the firing party?" I asked.
He waited the usual period while he thought. Then he nodded.
I wondered what it must be like to be a member of a firing party; to squint
along the sights of a rifle towards another human being, tethered to a post 60
feet away; to pick out the white patch over the heart and hold the foresight
steady on that living man; on the word of command to squeeze the trigger, hear
the bang, feel the thud of recoil; to see the bound figure beneath the
chalk-white face jerk and slump in the ropes. Then go back to barracks, clean
the rifle and have breakfast. Thank God I had never known nor ever would.
"Try to remember when it was," I urged him.
He did try. He really did. You could almost feel the effort. Eventually he
said, "1916. In the summer I think."
I leaned forward and touched his forearm. He raised his eyes to mine. There
was no deviousness in them, just patient inquiry.
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"Do you remember. . . try to remember ... who was the man you shot?"
But it was too much. However he tried, he could not recall. He shook his head
at last.
"Long time ago," he said.
Bernadette rose abruptly. She flashed a strained, polite .le at Madame.
13n "I'm going to bed," she told me. "Don't be long."
I went up twenty minutes later. Mr. Price was in his armchair by the
fire, not smoking, not reading. Staring at the flames. Quite content.
The room was in darkness and I was not going to fiddle with the paraffin
lamp. I undressed by the light of the moon through the window and got into
bed.
Bernadette was lying quiet but I knew she was awake. And what she was
thinking. The same as me. Of that bright spring of 1916 when on Easter Sunday
a group of men dedicated to the then unpopular notion that Ireland should be
independent of Britain had stormed the Post Office and several other large
buildings.
Of the hundreds of troops being brought in to flush them out with rifle and
artillery fire-but not Private Price in his boring Islandbridge barracks, or
he would have mentioned the occasion. Of the smoke and the noise, the rubble
in the streets, the dead and the dying, Irish and British. And of the rebels
being finally led out of the Post Office defeated and disowned. Of the strange
greenorange-white tricolour they had hoisted atop the building being
contemptuously hauled down to be replaced again by the Union Jack of Britain.
They do not teach it now in schools of course, for it forms no part of the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]