Katie's War (6 page)

‘No, we just came round the corner and –'

‘From now on we shoot on sight, and you can tell them that.'

‘I … we … it's just the messages.'

‘Well, stop looking all over the place for them!' The gun wobbled alarmingly. Katie
had
been looking, searching for a familiar face, but there were no friendly faces here. A group of soldiers in shirt sleeves stood idle but hostile, staring at them. A cross-cut saw emerged from the trunk of the tree, a neat pile of sawdust beneath it.

‘Get on with your sawing there,' the officer shouted. He turned back to Katie. ‘Well, are you spying? We used girls as spies often enough in the ‘Tan war.' She shook her head. ‘Corporal, do you know them?' he asked, turning to the soldier at Barney's head.

‘Her father, O'Brien's all right, Sir; he was in the Great War, lost a hand. He's trying to reopen one of the slate quarries, I've heard. Her uncle up the hill, he'd be a Republican now. He was with us against the ‘Tans.'

‘What a mess!' said the officer. ‘And now half of us are even wearing the same bloody uniforms! Back her off, corporal. You, girl, keep out of it. Go home where you belong, and stay there.' He turned on Dafydd and snapped, ‘Where did she say you were from then? Come on, quickly.' Dafydd looked bewildered, shrugged his shoulders, and murmured something, presumably in Welsh. ‘All right, off with you, and keep off the roads. They're not safe for children.'

Barney walked slowly, unurged. The foam from his gallop was
drying on his flanks. Katie was still shaking.

‘Here, Frog, take the reins.' She put them into his hands. She had no comb, but running her fingers through her hair calmed her. She found a ribbon in her skirt pocket and tied her hair. ‘Dafydd … I'm sorry.' They were approaching the crossroads again. ‘Do you want to go home? It's not far, just up the hill the way we came.'

‘Where are you going?'

‘I need to think,' she said.

Dafydd hesitated. ‘I'll be quiet.'

Katie turned Barney down the hill to the right towards the lake.

There was a patch of green beside the harbour. Katie hitched the reins so that Barney would not trip on them, and left him free. She led the way out on to the pier. The horse dropped his head gratefully and began to graze. The pier was deserted; coal and turf dust showed where a barge had been off-loaded.
Jackdaws
chattered in the ruins of the old castle that had once stood guard over the harbour. Ahead of them, Lough Derg spread out, a rippling sheet as far as the eye could see. Katie led the way down to a large slab of rock that sloped into the water. She sat there, gathering her skirts about her ankles. Dafydd sat down too, but at the far side of the slab. Water lapped softly with a rounded noise on the stones, the sound forming a
background
to Katie's silence.

‘Frog,' she said after a while.

‘Yes.'

‘You're Welsh, aren't you?'

‘Yes?' said Dafydd.

‘If I talk to you in English you won't understand me will you?'

‘Perhaps not. I haven't up to now anyway, have I?' He grinned.

‘That was just a game. This is serious, deadly serious. And you won't remember what I say afterwards?'

‘If I don't understand I can't, can I?'

Katie stared at the little waves as they raced in towards the shore. All she could see was the light reflected on their surfaces, then her eyes were drawn through the glitter to the honey-brown water-world below.

‘It began when I went to meet Father at the station,' she said.

Secrets, Megan, are terrible things. Your twin brother is growing up fast. But why did she tell me? Why me? She has this game, see. Pretends I don't speak English – shuts me up, I suppose. At any rate, there she stood, her ragged skirt blowing and the waves of the Shannon dashing against her feet, and she told me everything. All the years she has nursed her father, silenced by the fear that he was mad, convinced he was a coward fleeing from some dreadful shame
…

‘F
ather does not wantmeany more now,' said Katie as she
finished
her story. She gazed at the clouded sky while little waves dashed against the sloping stones at the edge of the lake. ‘I gave him everything, Dafydd! I gave him my childhood, thinking he was sick, afraid he was mad. It didn't seem to matter that he was a coward or ashamed while he was sick. Now your Dad says it's
just shell-shock and you, who never met him in your life before, can cure him with a word. “Angry” is all you said, and he was
better
. I don't know where I am, Dafydd. Is he sick, is he a coward, is he mad, or can't he face up to things because he ran away? Talk to me, Dafydd. Our game is over; I want to know.'

Out on the lake wind whipped at the water in front of an advancing storm. Katie took off her shoes and dipped her feet into the cool water. She thought of Barney and hoped there would be no thunder. Perhaps Dafydd had nothing to say. She looked down at him. He was folded up now, compact, legs crossed, looking out over the lake. She was surprised and a little frightened at the energy that seemed to be locked up inside him. ‘Answer me, Dafydd!' she demanded.

‘There is a story told among the Welsh miners who came back from the war of an Irishman who forgot his matches,' Dafydd began.

‘What? … Oh go on.'

‘The Welsh were the miners in the war, see. The idea was to dig tunnels under the ground – secretly, like – until the tunnel was right under the German trenches. You dug out a room there and filled it with explosives. Then, just before a big attack you would set it off. Kill a lot of Germans, but chiefly it made a gap for the soldiers to get through.'

Katie shivered.

‘Yes, it was horrible, but the Germans were doing it too. Dad talks of listening to them chattering away in their tunnel as they dug past in the opposite direction. Question of who got to the end first.'

‘What happened if they met in the middle?'

‘They bashed at each other with picks and shovels, hand to hand. Not nice. There was no-one in your Dad's tunnel when he found it though.'

‘What do you mean?' asked Katie.

Dafydd looked up at her. ‘He really told you
nothing
about all this?'

Katie stepped back out of the water and sat down, dropping her head on her knees. ‘Just tell me!' she mumbled.

‘One night an Irish sergeant was out on patrol in no-man's land when he and his men took shelter in a deep shell-hole quite close to a German machine-gun position. The soldiers hated that machine-gun but this was as close as they had ever managed to get to it. It had been raining and most of the shell holes had water in them, but this one was dry. Why was that? Where had the water gone to? the sergeant wondered. He crawled down, and there, to his surprise, was a hole; he
wriggled
into it. The shell had broken into a tunnel. It must have been one that the Germans had been digging towards the Irish trenches, but it was quite old. They must have abandoned it when the shell burst into it.

The sergeant could hardly believe his luck. In one direction it led straight towards the hated machine-gun, in the other it led back towards the Irish trenches. If they could tunnel in and find the end of the German tunnel from their own trenches they might be able to turn the tables on the Germans and blow that machine-gun sky high. That's when the sergeant asked for the Welsh miners to help.

‘Dad had just finished a tunnel, a long deep one, at a place called Hill 60, when the news came that the Irish were being killed in hundreds by a machine-gun positioned on a little hill overlooking their trenches, but that they had found an old tunnel or something. Could the Welsh miners open it up? The soldiers called the place “Watch-it” after some Belgian village. Horrible place it was. The Germans were up on a hill and if anyone showed a whisker the machine-guns would swing on
them. Cut through them like a scythe. There were three lines of trenches. Did your Dad tell you how it was?'

Katie nodded into her knees.

Dafydd went on. ‘They were joined by communication trenches. Dad was warned as he went up that the Irish were all Sinn Féiners and would run away as soon as fight, but he had heard the same said about the Welsh running away, so he didn't take any notice.

‘The sergeant who had had the idea of mining the machine-gun position was a chap called O'Brien.' Katie looked up; she'd wondered if it was Father. ‘Well, Dad and he got on fine, both had been in slate-quarrying, see. They planned the tunnel together. It had to intersect with the end of the German tunnel, also it had to be done quickly as there was a big attack planned. Usually the Welsh were left to themselves to do the tunnelling, but Sergeant O'Brien could get his men to do anything. He had refused a commission just so he could stay with his men and they loved him for it. So there was a steady stream of Irish volunteers to help.

‘It wasn't easy tunnelling. Then they had to repair places where the tunnel had collapsed. Eventually the day came when Dad knew they were under the German machine-gun position. They could hear it firing above them. The explosives were packed into the end of the tunnel, and only just in time too because the order came that they were to go over the top, machine-guns or no machine-guns, for a big attack that very night. Usually the explosion would be set off using an electrical wire, but O'Brien was old-fashioned and he said he didn't trust this wire, not when the lives of his men were at risk, so he asked for a back-up fuse, the sort you light with a match but which burns faster than you can walk. Dad agreed, and begged some from the engineers – “sappers” they called them.

‘The attack was to take place just before dawn. Dad was all right, he would not have to go over the top. His job would be done when the mine blew. Not so O'Brien. He was just a sergeant, but the officers were young and inexperienced, so he would lead the men over the top himself. Dad watched him getting them ready, talking to the them like they were all old friends, children almost, checking that they had everything, collecting letters to their loved ones. It was real quiet. They stopped for a moment and listened to a nightingale singing in the stump of a wood a little way off. Dad talks of that quiet like it was some gift from God. I think myself God had gone away and left them. Everything was ready. The big guns of the
artillery
would start by shooting shells into the German trenches, then Dad would blow the mine and, while the German machine-guns were silenced, O'Brien would lead the attack over no-man's land and take the German trenches. That was the plan at any rate.

‘Then disaster struck. Dad says he can hear the scream of that shell to this day. It was one of ours, meant for the German trenches, but it fell short. A huge column of mud and dirt shot up exactly where the tunnel lay. Immediately the German machine-gunners woke up and started to fire. Dad pressed the plunger to explode the mine but nothing happened. He lit the fuse and they watched the flame rush off into the tunnel. Himself and your dad counted how long it would take, but nothing happened. The shell must have burst into the tunnel and cut both the wire and the fuse. “I don't believe it!” Dad shouted over the din. “A shell has cut the tunnel a second time! There is nothing we can do.”

‘O'Brien went mad then. It was just minutes before he would have to take his men over the lip of the trench and the machine-guns were going wild. Above their heads there was a
singing hail of bullets. O'Brien knew that not one man in ten would survive the first ten seconds of the attack.

‘“I'm going to set it off myself!” he yelled.

‘“You can't,” shouted Dad. “The tunnel's been cut by that shell!”

‘“Yes I can. There's still that shell-hole where we
discovered
the tunnel first. Remember, you left an opening for air.”

‘“But you'll be blown up with the mine. It's just under the machine-guns, you'll never get there!”

‘Your Dad never replied. Dead against orders it was, but he was over the top in a flash. Bullets swept over the parapet like angry bees. Dad didn't even dare to put his head up, then suddenly O'Brien was back, falling down into the trench. They rushed to help him. No wonder he had run back. No one could face fire like that alone.'

Katie looked out over the bleak water – poor Father, poor, poor Father.

Dafydd had gone husky and cleared his throat. ‘But he hadn't given up, Katie. “Matches,” he was yelling. “I forgot my matches.” Dad couldn't believe it; he meant to go up there
again
? But he pulled out a box and gave it to him. Your father thrust his rifle at Dad. “I won't need that,” he shouted. Then he signalled to two of his men to help him; they seemed to know at once what he wanted. Like lifting a man on to a horse they literally threw him up and over. Dad leapt up on to the firing platform to see. It was foolish; everyone else had their heads down because at that moment the Germans sent up a flare – lit up the whole place it did. Our mad Irishman was in the middle of no-man's land streaking across the open ground like a hare, not even dropping into shell-holes for cover. Perhaps the flare blinded the German machine-gunners because it seemed impossible that anyone could survive that firing. Then the
running figure disappeared seemingly under the barrels of the machine-guns. At least he was sheltered there. Someone was pulling at Dad's trousers to get him to come down. The men were ready to go over. At that moment Dad saw a movement in the shell-hole. A hand appeared, waving. Could it be a signal? Then the hand was gone. A sheet of flame shot skywards from the German machine-gun position and my Dad was pulled off the ledge as the Irish went over the top.

‘It was the Welsh miners that dug your father out. They did not take kindly to going into no-man's land, not after weeks of mining, but they did it for Sergeant O'Brien. He was half-buried in the blast from the mine. Dad remembers him on the stretcher on the way to hospital. “I tried to signal,” he said, “but they shot my bloody hand off.”' Dafydd stopped. ‘O'Brien got a medal for it too – the Military Medal. Did he ever tell you?'

Katie sat in a daze. Could this really be the same story that Father had told her all those years ago up at the Graves of the Leinstermen? Where was the running away? Running into the fighting he was instead. And where was the terror? But it was the same story. It most gloriously was! She stood up unsteadily. A few huge drops of rain splashed on the rock between the two of them. The cloud which had bent over them like a black bat swept past and a shaft of vivid sunlight lit the rock from the south. Out on the lake the water foamed white where the rain lashed its surface. Katie could hear the hiss of the shower on the water as it passed them by. Stunned, she picked up her shoes.

‘We'd better be getting back,' she said, hardly trusting her voice. She helped Dafydd to his feet as if in a dream. They climbed back up the harbour wall. Barney glanced up and
whinnied
. Katie turned to look back over the lake. Crowned in white, the black cloud stood low over the water, propped up, it seemed, by the stump of a rainbow so bright, so vivid, it made her gasp.