A Star Called Henry (20 page)

More hours. Mumbling and groans; the smell of new blood and old fish. The coughing upstairs had stopped. She came back alone, with a note.
In order to prevent further slaughter of Dublin citizens, and in the hope of saving the lives of our followers now surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered, the members of the Provisional Government present at H.Q. have agreed to an unconditional surrender—
. Signed by Pearse.

We marched, four abreast and steady, down Moore Street. Eyes ahead, arms sloped. Past the silent Tommies; they looked as wasted as us, red-eyed, faces blacked by gun-powder. Another bright, glorious day. Great rebellion weather. We marched onto Henry Street, past the dead and the burning, the bullet-riddled walls and shutters, through the brick dust and heat, into the stink of the horses and smoke, onto Sackville Street, what was left of it. And, for the first time in days - a lifetime - I felt alive again. I felt the blood running through me: I’d wrecked the place, brought it to its knees. I wanted Miss O’Shea. Now. On the street. I wanted to celebrate and cry. Felix and Paddy. We’d really wrecked the place.

We swung around the Pillar, to the left. The flag of the Republic was still up there, scorched and smoking, on the remains of the roof, swinging from a pole that was hanging over the street.

We stopped outside the Gresham. The military were waiting for us, up at the Parnell Monument.

—Step five paces forward and deposit your arms!

We laid down our guns on the street.

—What’s that in your holster, Paddy?

—My father’s leg, I said.

—Out with it. With the rest of the weapons.

—No.

The rifle butt went into my back.

—Drop it.

—No.

The butt again, and others. They struck and lashed till I was numb. I wouldn’t fall. But the leg was gone, flung onto one of the fires. I was pushed and carried with the rest, up the street to the Rotunda lawn. And there all night without food or drink or permission to piss. The coldest night. I was a statue. Surrounded by soldiers who waited till dark before they got close in and robbed us. My date stamp and money orders, my shawlie commissions.

—Any German marks in your pockets?

I didn’t object or budge; I stood absolutely still. My snake belt and holster, the bandolier. Men cried, awake and in their sleep, continued to die in their dreams, cried out for their mammies and God. They shat themselves and stayed put in their shit, afraid of the drunken officers who kept Mooney’s open all night. Every streetlight broken and out, it was a darkness that only the farmers’ sons had ever known. And the soldiers were all around and among us. Beating and touching, strange accents in our ears. Promising revenge. All night. I stood still and straight, in a ring of bayonets and machine-guns.

Daylight came and the G-men with it, and other slinking bastards who walked around us and looked over the shoulders of the Tommies minding us. Clarke was pulled out and hauled away. And Daly. Two more men we never saw again. And, one by one, the rest of us were taken out.

—Name? said a fat rozzer.

He never wore a uniform but I’d seen him many times, hanging around the railings outside Liberty Hall and against the quay wall. A fat rozzer trying to look like a citizen.

—Name? he said again.

—Brian O’Linn, I said.

He looked at me.

I’d walked past him dozens of times, in and out of the Hall, but he’d never seen me before.

—Address? he said.

—None, I said.

—Are you being smart now?

—No.

—Britches but no home.

—I couldn’t afford both, I said.

He smiled, and saved himself a slow and painful death.

—Jesus, he said.—What were yis up to?

—It was a holiday, I said.—You have to do something special on a holiday.

—True for you, he said.—Go on.

We were marched across the city, to Richmond Barracks. No drink or food, still no permission to go to the jacks. Brian O’Linn was bursting and gasping. But he walked head-up through the rubbish and abuse, the sticks and smouldering masonry that were thrown at us as we crossed Dublin. The kids and shawlies, beggars and workers came out and lined the streets. They spat and cursed, followed us down through the Cornmarket and James’s Street, all the way. We marched right through it. Rotten meat, loosened cobbles, the contents of their chamber pots.

—Bastards.

—Hangin’s too good for yis!

They hated us. They absolutely hated us. I could feel it, a heat coming off them. The British were protecting us. I didn’t blame the women. It was the first anniversary of the first Battle of Ypres; many of them were in mourning for their husbands. And I didn’t blame the others. They were starving, some of them homeless, and a slum was better than no home at all. They wanted to tear us with their own nails and teeth. There were men around me sobbing.

—We did it for them. Don’t they know that?

And other men sang.
She’s the most distressful country that ever yet was seen.
I marched.
For they’re hanging men and women for the wearing of the green.
Stones hopped off me. A gob of poor man’s spit landed on my cheek. I could smell the furious breath of the city. I marched right through it. I saw other men hanging back, and women, faces behind the angry ones. Sad faces, looking out at us. Standing there to let us know: they didn’t all hate us. I saw them.

Into Richmond Barracks. We were stopped on the parade ground. More cursing and kicking. More G-men and rozzers. Roll-calls. Searches, robbing and pushing.

—O’Linn, Brian.

No one laughed.

—
Anseo.

—Step forward.

There was a face in my face, daring me to flinch or twitch.

—In English, you bastard.

—Here, I said.

And de Valera marched into the barracks, the Spaniard himself, led by two Foresters on bikes, surrounded by other soldiers who looked thrilled to be off the streets. A man near me cheered and was butted to the ground. De Valera walked straight up to us. He had the staring, empty eyes of someone who hadn’t slept in years and knew he’d never sleep again.

—Solitary for that one, said an English voice to my right.

—Photograph first, sir. The last of the Shinners.

The famous photo. The last man to surrender. Hands behind his back, a Tommy on each side of him, another behind. I was there, to the left of de Valera (I never called him Dev). The photographer was a bollocks called Hanratty. A slithery little get with premises on Capel Street and connections in the Castle. I was beside the great man but Hanratty wouldn’t see me. I’d just put my life into the hands of the Empire by answering back with one of the few Irish words I knew -
Anseo
- still defiant, still proud and unrepentant. But I wasn’t important. The first time I saw the photo my elbow was in it, but even that went in later versions. No room for Henry’s elbow. Just all of de Valera and his guards, three English kids barely bigger than their rifles. If Hanratty had moved his camera just a bit to the right, just a fraction of a bit, I’d have been in. You’d know my face, you’d know who I was.

—Big smile now, said Hanratty before he disappeared under the focusing cloth. I was smiling. I hadn’t eaten in a week, I was manky and sore, I’d watched my friends die, but I still smiled for him. And he missed me. It became the photograph of Éamon de Valera. It became proof, part of the legend. There he is, the soldier, the father of the state. A foot taller than his guards. Serious and brave, undaunted and straight. I was there. He was wearing red socks and he smelt of shite. They marched him away.

We were put into cells and taken out. More roll-calls. The G-men strolled and took their pick. Hoey, the biggest bastard of the lot, pointed his finger. And MacDiarmada went. Never seen again. There were still snipers out there, refusing to surrender. Every distant shot brought khaki down on top of us. But something was happening to me; I was beginning to shake. I could feel my blood racing, starting to pull. I was being dragged away from the parade ground. By something I couldn’t see or hear. Something inside me.

—Name?

—O’Linn.

The G-man, a new one, stared at me. He knew me, but I didn’t care. There was something more urgent; I could feel it - water. Under me. Running under the barracks. And it was dragging me. Every bone I owned was bending towards it, quivering, promising to snap if I didn’t move.

—Smart, said the G-man.

And my blood was steaming now too, roaring, refusing to wait. I yelled; it was agony.

The G-man mistook my cry.

—Caught, he said.

—My hole, I said.

And I didn’t have to search for the manhole. I knew exactly where I ran. Across the parade ground, I was there without moving and I had my fingers in under the cover. A loose part of me remembered that there were other men and I forced myself to stop - my bones; I’d never known such pain - and I shouted.

—Come on, lads!

The cover came up for me like paper and I held it up, a shield against the bullets that were coming for me, and I walked backwards into the hole. I sent the cover spinning at the G-man.

And fell.

Into darkness and nothing. I fell and the pain left me and, just before I hit the water, in the second it took to fall, I caught the sweet smell of my father’s coat and I could feel his neck against my face as he held me to him, and I could hear Victor’s excited and terrified breath from the other side of my father.

Into the Camac River. I came up out of the water.
The bridge it broke down and they all tumbled in.
My legs could feel the bottom and my hands found a wall.
We’ll go home be the water.
I pushed myself, fell away from under the opening and the light that came through it. I fell into the water and let it take me away from the bullets that were churning the river. I could see nothing.
Says Brian O’Linn.
I went under - I had air enough to take me anywhere - and up. I used my legs and the current. I saw nothing and I could smell nothing except the water, sewer that it was. Right under Inchicore. And Golden-bridge. I knew exactly what was over me, where I was being brought. I saw light and the river rushed out into the day, but I knew that I was safe; weeds and overhanging branches hid me from harm. Past the Metropolitan Laundry. Suds and the washed-out shit of the filthy rich tore at my eyes but a hand I knew I could feel lifted my head, then lowered it into clean water and I was under again, in darkness. Light again, behind Kilmainham Gaol, tucked under the wall, and away. Back under the city. Bow Bridge and the Royal Hospital, under St John’s Road and I was in a sewer again and I felt fingers under my chin - safe safe safe - holding my mouth over the goo. Kingsbridge Station, right under the buffers, I could feel the locomotives, under all the rail-lines and ballast stones, and I was dropped into the Liffey. Opposite the munitions factory: I felt its burning sludge in my eyes as I swam back up to the surface.

I was on my own again. I could feel it through me; it was up to me and me only. Safe as long as I worked at it. I hugged the quay wall, in under any shadow or ledge that could hide me. Under Bloody Bridge, I created no foam, never kicked my legs. I let the retreating tide carry me. Victoria Quay, Usher’s Island. No faces looking down. Whitworth Bridge. No wheels or footsteps. Martial law all over the country; the half-seven curfew was approaching. Merchant’s Quay, Wood Quay, under a barred-up hole in the wall of the quay, and the River Poddle dropped its load of shit down on top of me. I crossed the river under Grattan Bridge, and heard the last shouts of a paperboy.

—Castle official hit be a manhole cover!

Getting dark now, he was going home, off the streets. Selling all the way.

—Official hit be manhole!

Now that it was dark enough, I climbed out of the river at the Metal Bridge. I ran across to Liffey Street and went looking for Piano Annie. The river had dyed me. I took off the jacket and dropped it as I went. There was no uniform now. I was just a big wet boy in a pair of brown britches, caught out in the street after the curfew.

 

 

On Wednesday morning, the 3rd of May, in Kilmainham Gaol, Pearse, Clarke and MacDonagh were taken out to the Stonebreakers’ Yard and shot. At dawn. And across the city, in Summerhill, Henry Smart couldn’t get out of his britches.

—They’re welded to you.

Annie grabbed my waistband.

—Come here to me. One. Two. Terr-eee!

Together, we pushed and pulled my britches down to my thighs. Then Annie grabbed my arse before it had had a chance to draw breath.

—Jesus, what’s that?

It was a sheet of twopenny stamps, still stuck to my cheeks a week after Miss O’Shea had thrown me down onto them.

—Stamps, I said.

—What are they doing there?

—It was the only way I could smuggle them out. You can write to your husband now, Annie, I said.

—The dead can’t read, said Annie.—And he couldn’t read, anyway, when he wasn’t dead.

—Oh, I said.

—Oh is right.

They brought the bodies across the river to Arbour Hill and threw them into the pit and covered them up in quicklime.
Huns, huns, huns.
There were cheers in the House of Commons when the news was announced.

Annie threw my britches out the window, down onto Langrish Place.

—Don’t do that, I pleaded, too late.—Ah, Annie.

—They stink.

—Could you not have washed them?

—Fuck off. Come here.

The britches would have been gone by now, wrecked and all as they were, already covering someone else’s arse, so I took my shirt off on the way over to the mattress.

Annie placed her fingers on the knuckles of my spine. She blew into my belly button, as if clearing it.