The Soldier's Song (13 page)

‘What’s wrong with me?’ Stephen asked at last.

‘You’ve had malaria and dysentery, lieutenant,’ the doctor answered cheerfully, signing something with a flourish, ‘and you’re bloody lucky to be alive, if you ask me. Not many survive that combination. But you’re past the worst of it now. We’ll have you on your feet in no time.’

Lucky? He didn’t feel lucky. He felt weak and tired. He wanted to sleep again.

‘What about my battalion?’ he asked, feeling as if the room was fading away from him. He had to make an effort to regain his grip on it. The doctor leaned closer, frowning, and he felt strong fingers on his wrist.

‘What was that, mate?’

He couldn’t find the breath at first, but somehow he managed to push the words out in little gasps.

‘Seventh Dublins . . . Tenth Division . . . where are they?’

‘Oh, they’re in Salonika, mate. Gone to Greece to fight the Bulgarians. But don’t you worry about them. It’s home for you now. A few weeks’ rest and then straight back to Ireland.’

And home it was – home to Dublin at the bitter end of January. They’d kept him in hospital for two months, followed by another month of light duties. It was only then that he realized how sick he’d been. His arms and legs were gone to bone, and if he climbed a flight of stairs he had to stop and wait for the dizziness to pass. Even when they sent him home he was still weak, still dosing himself with quinine and camphor, and the cold cut him to the marrow. He stayed in barracks and went to bed early every night, clutching the hot-water bottle to his chest and wondering if he would ever feel warm again.

When spring came and the weather grew warmer he felt his strength begin to return. In March he saw his first medical board – a panel of stone-faced doctors who prodded him as if he was a laboratory specimen, muttered to each other about his liver, and at length pronounced him fit for home service.

But if his body had shrugged off the worst rigours of his ordeal, his mind still bore the scars. Part of him was still in Turkey. Some nights, when he was on the edge of sleep, he thought he could hear the distant boom of the naval guns, or smell the sickly stench of sun-bloated corpses. In his waking hours he would often shiver if the sun caught his eye just so, or the breeze rustled the leaves in the park. Even sitting in the breakfast-time clamour of the Empire Café, he found his eye drawn to the white twinkling of the sun on a glass and it was only when he felt a touch on his sleeve that he came to his senses.

‘Penny for them, Stephen?’ Billy asked.

Stephen smiled, embarrassed. Nothing could be further from Turkey than the sight of his friend in his striped blazer and straw boater. They were going to the Easter races at Fairyhouse and Billy’s face was already glowing with excitement.

‘Sorry, I was miles away. You were saying?’

‘I was saying you should really make another effort to see your brother. I mean, since you’re going away again next week. It might be your last chance.’

‘Oh, come on, Billy. They’re only sending me to Gravesend – not Timbuktu.’

‘Yes, it’s Gravesend next week, but then where?’

Then France, he admitted to himself. He was due another medical board in a few weeks, and he would almost certainly be passed fit for overseas service.

‘Well, I already went to his—’ the word was on the tip of his tongue, but he pulled himself up short. House was overstating it. Joe lived in a tenement room in Bull Alley, near Christchurch. ‘I already went to his place, but he wasn’t there.’

‘Well, go again! He’s only up the road now – but he’ll be a damned sight further away when you’re in Gravesend.’

Stephen didn’t answer. He wanted to tell Billy it was none of his business, but he kept his mouth shut. Billy literally didn’t know the half of it. He didn’t know that before he’d tracked him down to Bull Alley, Stephen had first gone to their family home in Sandwith Street. Only it wasn’t their family home any more. The first he knew about it was when he found it occupied by a family of strangers. He was so shocked that the first thing he did was walk away, determined to have it out with Joe. But then reason prevailed: Fool! Where had he gone? And he went back and knocked on the door of Mrs Byrne, the neighbour. It was she who gave him the address, as well as a box of books that Joe had left with her. He had taken some of the furniture with him and sold or given away the rest. Stephen listened to all this with as much equanimity as he could muster, and when he took his leave he thanked her for her trouble. But inside he was fuming. The cheek of him to take off like that without a word. To give away half their things and take the rest! He would kill the little bastard.

Encumbered by his books, Stephen had to go back to the barracks, but he went straight to the tenement house the next morning. As he walked through the courtyard, criss-crossed with lines of washing, he saw small children and young women staring at him from the corners and lower windows. It was the uniform. In that place, an army uniform only ever meant bad news or trouble.

The second-floor landing was gloomy and worn, but spotlessly clean. One of the doors was open, and his eyes met those of the stout woman who was inside on her hands and knees, scrubbing the floor.

‘Good morning, ma’am. I’m looking for Joe Ryan.’

She stopped scrubbing and looked at him warily. ‘Why? Is he after running?’

‘Running?’ It took a moment for him to realize it was the uniform again, ‘Oh, no. It’s not army business. I’m his brother.’

‘He’s out working.’

‘Do you know where?’

‘Down the docks.’

With one last suspicious glance at his uniform, she went back to scrubbing, but Stephen thanked her as he went down the stairs. He’d made up his mind before he even reached the doorway and walked back out into the yard. He stopped on the street and looked back at the building. It was completely alien to him – it could have been anywhere. There was no link between him and Joe now, no common ground. He wouldn’t trawl the docks looking for him. They were finished. He turned on his heel and went back to the barracks.

Billy had probably guessed at least some of this from Stephen’s silence, but he didn’t press it, and instead gave him a steely look as he buttered a slice of toast.

‘And whatever about him, I can’t believe you didn’t go and see Lillian Bryce.’

He felt his cheeks redden. ‘Why would she want to see me?’

‘God only knows, but, do you know what? I saw her not three weeks ago and she was asking after you again. I hadn’t the heart to tell her you were home. It amazes me that you didn’t even write to her from Turkey. If you’re not careful you’ll miss your chance with that girl.’

Once again, he was tempted to tell Billy it was none of his business. What did he know about girls, in any case? But what he didn’t tell him was that he
had
written a letter to her. He’d written it the day after he came down from Karakol Dagh. He’d stuffed it with some of the elation he felt at having survived and thought it was the best thing he’d ever written. It was witty, effusive, bound to strike the right note. But that night they’d brought down the bodies from the ridge. They’d got a short truce to collect them before they bloated in the sun. More and more and more came down until there were hundreds of blanket-covered bundles lying on the sand. Some of the survivors prayed for their friends, but Stephen just sat there and looked at them until he started to shake. The next morning he was in charge of one of the burial parties. He tore up his letter and threw it into the shallow grave.

‘I’m sure she was only being polite,’ he answered evasively. ‘She’s a good-looking girl. I bet there’s no shortage of chaps asking her out.’

‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong. They’re all afraid of her, same as you,’ Billy said acidly.

‘I’m not afraid of her.’

‘And yet you think she’s a good-looking girl?’

‘Well, she is, in her own way.’

‘Then why haven’t you been to see her?’

Why not? That was a question he asked himself often – every day, now that his departure was imminent. He had recently returned to studying mathematics by himself; partly because he now had a box full of books in his Spartan room at the barracks, partly out of boredom. His day job was a mind-numbingly dull round of reports and summaries, and he spent half his time working out problems in his head before sitting down to write them up in the evenings. It was refreshing to return to the subject, and a relief to find that he hadn’t lost his touch. By now, he had accumulated a thin sheaf of papers that he’d thought worth keeping. Nothing groundbreaking, but they might be of interest to the right person. He’d thought of sending them to Professor Barrett before he went away, but decided that would be far too formal. Besides, he’d soon realized that the person who most came to mind as he worked wasn’t his old tutor, but Lillian Bryce. She seemed so close, and yet – when he glanced at the sun-bleached haversack he’d brought back from Turkey, with his tattered diary and other knick-knacks – so far away. It would never do. He knew it, and it pained him to think about it. It pained him that Billy kept asking about it too, but he did his best to mask his irritation with a smile.

‘Don’t be cross-examining me, Billy. It’s your day off.’

But Billy wouldn’t be put off. He merely changed his tack, carefully wiping his lips with a napkin before folding it and placing it on the table in front of him. When he spoke, his voice was measured and serious.

‘I’m not cross-examining you. It’s a simple enough question. Why don’t you go and see her?’

‘I don’t want to burden her,’ he answered, and grimly faced down Billy’s incredulous look.

‘What do you mean, you don’t . . . ?’

Suddenly a man burst into the café.

‘The Shinners are after taking over the post office!’ he shouted, and dashed out again.

Along with most of the customers, Stephen twisted around in his seat to stare at the empty doorway. As he turned back he saw a policeman running past the window.

‘Good Lord!’ Billy exclaimed, ‘What do you think that’s about?’

‘I honestly have no idea. Do you think it’s a joke?’

Billy drained his coffee with a gulp. ‘Come on, let’s go down and have a look.’

Ah, Billy,’ Stephen looked uncertainly at his wristwatch. ‘We’ll miss our train!’

‘Not if we’re sharp about it. We can go down to Sackville Street, have a peek, and then hop across to Amiens Street Station. Come on, Stephen, it could be a laugh. We’ll be at the course before the 12.30, and I’ll bet you now it’s not the Shinners at all – probably some students pulling a holiday prank. It might even be somebody we know.’

There was something going on in the bakery. Every day on her way to college Lillian passed the open gates, and she liked the warm yeasty smell that wafted out – but this morning the gates were locked and there was no such smell.

It was the first tangible clue she had that something was amiss. She stopped her bicycle and listened. The gates might be closed but there were definitely people inside. She could hear them running about, shouting, and then a steady hammering that echoed over the quiet streets. Maybe Mr Purcell had been right after all.

Mr Purcell was their next-door neighbour, a shy old gentleman who was a retired solicitor and sounded like it – dull, prosy and precise. He had knocked on the door just after the breakfast things had been tidied away and, in his roundabout rambling way, told Lillian and her mother that he had just come up from town, where he had gone to meet his friend, Mr Donohue. Here, Mrs Bryce’s face took on a look of bored indifference to both Mr Purcell and his friend, but it soon changed to consternation when he explained that he had seen men in uniforms taking over the post office and heard shooting coming from Dublin Castle. A lot of shooting – it sounded like a proper battle. And wasn’t young Sheila on duty up there this morning?

Young Sheila certainly was on duty up there this morning, and Lillian saw the blood drain from her mother’s face at the mention of shooting. Mr Purcell carried on blithely, trying to console them with the thought that it probably wasn’t the Germans, but Sinn Fein, or perhaps the Volunteers. There were far too many people going about with rifles, in his opinion. Lillian cut him off with a polite but firm thank you, and practically bundled him out through the hall door. When she came back into the sitting room she was buttoning up her cardigan.

‘And where do you think you’re going?’ her mother asked, though she never stirred from her armchair. She wouldn’t have called her oldest daughter headstrong, but she could be very determined. Once she had decided to do something, there was no stopping her.

‘I’m going into town to see what’s happening, Mam.’

Her mother nervously twisted a handkerchief between her fingers. ‘If there’s trouble, I don’t want the pair of you out in it.’

‘Don’t worry about either of us, Mam. Sheila’s in the castle, and there’s no safer place in the city. I’ll try to get up to see her, but if I can’t, I’ll go back to the college. It’ll be safe enough there.’

‘If there’s any trouble I want you to come straight back here. Don’t be taking any chances, now.’

‘Don’t worry, Mam. It’s probably only the Volunteers having another drill. They’re always taking over places.’

But she had to admit that it felt different. Even standing out on the street in front of the bakery – not five minutes from her house – she could feel a quiet tension in the air. She almost jumped at the sound of cartwheels grinding close behind the wooden gates. There was a bump, and then a young man’s head appeared above the wall. He was wearing the light green slouch hat that she recognized as part of the Irish Volunteer uniform.