A Star Called Henry

  Archer passed me, already aiming his Parabellum. I walked on and heard two more bullets going into Smith, felt them in my legs as Smith was nailed to the pavement. It was late afternoon. Not a traditional killing time, but we were out to terrify the police. There were no safe times or sanctuaries. There was no one on the street, although there were kids somewhere near. I heard doors being slammed and windows, as the gunfire echoed and faded very slowly. Archer was beside me.

  —Seven kids, he said as we walked past Smith’s house. —It’s a hard business.

  —He was warned to back off, I said.

  —I know, said Archer.—I shot the man, didn’t I?

  Then we heard him.

  —You cowards!

  Smith was standing up. He was huge there. Legs apart and holding on to nothing. There was blood pouring off his coat to his feet and trousers. And he stood up even straighter.

  I ran back towards him and shot twice. Once into the mess on his chest. Once into his face. It came away from bone and seemed to linger in front of me for the time it took him to fall again. I turned and ran back past his house. No children calling now, nothing except the echoes of my shots. I couldn’t hear my feet on the ground.

  Archer turned left. I turned right. The gun burnt my leg through three layers of cloth. The Black Man was at the corner of Drumcondra Road and Fitzroy Avenue. A punch-drunk ex-boxer, he wandered the city and slept where he dropped; made huge by coats and their stink, he waddled through cordons and roadblocks. I dropped the gun into his pocket without looking at him or breaking stride and walked on up Dorset Street.

  I was free now, no more vulnerable than any other young man in the city. Another murder that would be made heroic by night-time, another verse added to my song. Another act that would bring undeserved punishment down on top of a city already restless and excited. I took off my trenchcoat - I had no gun to hide - and draped it over my shoulder. Crossleys charged past me. The city was being taken over by young, nervous soldiers with steel helmets and fixed bayonets, kids with English accents, and England was getting further away every day. I straightened my tie. Distant police whistles joined nearer ones. I was a young man on his way home from the office. People dashed to get home before the shake-up, and the raids. I put on a bit of a spurt myself; I didn’t want to look too innocent. I’d meet Mister Climanis and catch up with the Black Man later on, across the city.

  I turned onto Gardiner Street and began to run.

  I pedalled, she steered. We rode in from the west, nicely downhill. She sat on the crossbar in front of me.

  —How’s your arse?

  —Not so bad, she said.

  She held the handlebars and my arms were around her, clutching the Thompson. She’d invented it herself, a rack that clipped onto the handlebars and held the gun nice and steady; the cyclist could steer with one hand and fire accurately without slowing down or falling off. I was wearing my riding britches - she’d made me wear them. She was wearing the skirt of her Cumann na mBan uniform - I’d made her wear it.

  —No more sandwich making for me, she’d said.

  We sailed past jaunting cars and a cart carrying milk churns to the creamery on the other side of town. We’d cased the town the day before; we knew the streets we needed. It was the tail-end of market day. We cycled through drying dung. Ballintubber was still packed but, nicely for us, the post office was at the near edge of the commerce.

  —Is the door open?

  —It’s wide open, she said.—Like yesterday.

  —Hang on tight, so.

  As we came up to the door I lifted my arse off the saddle and hoisted the front wheel of the Arseless, to get us over the low step. We collided with no one but frightened them all.

  —Brake! I shouted.

  And Miss O’Shea did just that, front and back. We stopped dead. I dropped a leg to hold us up, and let go of a short round into a Wanted poster on the wall in front of us. Bodies and shawls hit the deck and slivers of bullet-hot brick pinged and dug in all around us.

  —Good morning! I yelled into the thick silence that was left after the screaming and shots.—No messing and there’ll be no one hurt.

  —This post office is a relic of the British presence, said Miss O’Shea,—and is now closed.

  She hopped from the crossbar as I got off the Arseless on the other side. She held and turned it, front wheel to the door, as I went over to the counter and vaulted it.

  She was talking again.

  —All you people should subscribe to the National Loan. It’s your patriotic duty and a sound investment. There will soon be republican post offices in place throughout the country. In the meantime, keep your money at home. Notify your local Volunteers of this and you’ll never be robbed.

  I grabbed a sack and handed it to the woman on the working side of the counter. She needed no further instructions. She swept everything in front of her with a meaty arm, banknotes, coins, stamps and rubber stamps, money orders and telegram pads, the crust of the jam sandwich she’d been finishing when we’d cycled through her door.

  She held out the sack.

  —Thanking you, I said.—You’re not the proprietor?

  —I am not, she said.—She’s above selling her calves.

  —You will be, I told her.—When the time comes. The country needs handsome post mistresses.

  —I’ll hold you to that, she said.—You were in yesterday, weren’t you?

  —That was my brother, I told her.—He said you were a great-looking birdie.

  —Tell him I never fly far.

  —I will, I said.—He’ll be chuffed.

  —So will I.

  Over the counter again, I landed on an oul’ one’s back.

  —Sorry, missis.

  —For what?

  And I was back on the Arseless. Miss O’Shea hopped onto the bar. I held up the sack before I shoved it between my gut and her back.

  —This money will be spent by the Government of the Republic of Ireland. Every penny will be accounted for. (Minus my 10 per cent.)—Apologies for any inconvenience. A few minutes on a dirty floor is a small price to pay for freedom. Up the Republic!

  Inspiration.

  I pulled the trigger and the door crumbled in front of us; the world under the roof was falling apart.

  And intimidation.

  We were gone, out the door, back onto the street. The stuff of more ballads. The rebel and the rebellette then cycled out of town. The earlier machine-gun fire had drawn the peelers. But not before they’d taken on the forces of the Crown. Four of them were making slow, fidgety progress, coming down from the market square. Peelers on foot or even on bikes had become a rare sight. They were deserting the outlying barracks since the burnings had started; they stayed in the towns behind the barrack walls and travelled in caged lorries or Crossleys. I looked past these four, for sight of reinforcements or machinery.

  —What was that I heard about a great-looking birdie? said Miss O’Shea.

  —That was called indoctrination, I said.—A bit of flattery makes great rebels. Look at Ivan.

  —I’d rather not, she said.

  They were on their own, the peelers, two on each side of the street. Miss O’Shea steered the Arseless straight at the two on the left. I opened fire and would have decapitated them if they hadn’t been so quick off their feet. Then she tilted us to the right and one of the gobshites, who had to hitch his pants before he ducked, took two bullets in the neck and dropped, still holding the knees of his uniform trousers. There’d be no undertaker to scrape him up; anyone touching a dead peeler would soon be needing his own undertaker.

  —And, tell me, Henry Smart. Does indoctrination stop at words?

  —Usually, I told her.—Don’t worry about that one, though. I’ve seen better tits on a sack.

  We cycled through the square and town with nothing more frightening than cattle, dogs and the open mouths of red farmers to meet us.

  —And an arse on her the size of the Congo.

  I hu
gged Miss O’Shea. I could feel her heart as we raced past the creamery and onto the road that went north-east to Tulsk. We let everyone see the route we were taking. Outside the town and alone on the road, we turned right onto a narrow road with a beard of rough grass growing down its centre, and right again onto an even narrower road where the grass was most of the road and we were heading south now, back past the town, past small farms and broken stone walls. We rode into the dark until it was too dangerous and, in a wood behind Kilbegnet, we lay down and rode away the night on a bed of stolen stamps.

  —Who’s the Jew? said Jack.

  The first time I’d seen him in over a year.

  In a room in Sinn Féin’s Harcourt Street headquarters. Sinn Féin had been outlawed but the office was still open and operating. The Castle needed work for its spies.

  —And how are you, Jack?

  —Who is he? he said.

  —Who’s who?

  —The little Jew you’re knocking around with.

  —That might be Mister Climanis, I said.—I don’t know if he’s Jewish. He’s Latvian.

  Jack snorted.

  —He’s grand, I said.

  —Stay clear of him.

  —He’s grand, I said.

  —Fucking do what I say!

  He stood up, took his hat off the desk and walked past me, out the door.

  —Come on.

  He went up the stairs. I followed him. He kept going until he came to a ladder that brought us into the attic. A hole had been knocked through the connecting wall. We went through it. My head was clear and singing as I went through another hole into another Harcourt Street attic; the dust and darkness couldn’t distract me. But, still, I could make nothing of what had just happened. Stay clear of him. Had I been warned or advised? Threatened? I didn’t know. I’d no idea and nothing that would bring an idea to me. Mister Climanis was sound. I knew that much. But so was Jack. I was better off keeping my mouth shut for the time being, until I knew a bit more and didn’t feel so slapped and stupid.

  —Here we go, said Jack.

  He started thumping our side of the attic door with his foot. We heard someone climbing steps, a key inserted and turned by a nervous hand.

  —Did you ever, when we started, said Jack,—think we’d have to go to all this trouble for a bloody pint?

  We walked across the city. It was a cold, dry January day - 1920 - and it hit its coldest as we crossed the Liffey at Butt Bridge.

  —You’d need more than a hat on a day like this, said Jack.—There’ll be snow before the weekend.

  —There was snow in Roscommon yesterday, I told him.

  —That doesn’t count, he said.—It’s a blessing there, covering up the bloody kip.

  We walked through a patrol of the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, on the Liberty Hall side of the bridge.

  —That’s a hardy one, men, said Jack.—It’d put drips on the ends of your bayonets.

  They said nothing but smiled back at the friendly faces.

  On, to Phil Shanahan’s and we found a corner for ourselves. We nodded to secret men we knew and there were other, younger men who nodded at Jack, lads I’d never seen before. I met some of them again in later days, some I worked with, others I never saw again. All organisation men. Expendable men, and the smarter men who decided who lived and who died.

  —That’s Dan Breen beyond, said Jack.

  —Don’t I know it, I said.—The fuckin’ head on him.

  —It’s the contents of the same head that leave me gasping, said Jack.—Sometimes I wonder what the hell we’re up to, letting these creatures loose on the country. He has half the population terrified. And I’ve to have a new ballad written about the bastard by the weekend. He wants to bring it home with him to Tipperary. It’s no exercise for a mind like mine. Writing songs about gurriers like him.

  —It’ll soon be over, I said.

  —It will in its hole, said Jack.—You don’t honestly think that, do you?

  —It had crossed my mind, I said.

  —Uncross it then, he said.—We haven’t a hope, man. Am I depressing you at all?

  —No.

  —Good. We cannot win and winning is not our intention. What we have to do, all we can do, is keep at them until it becomes unbearable. To provoke them and make them mad. We need reprisals and innocent victims and outrages and we need them to give them to us. To keep at them until the costs are so heavy, they’ll decide they have to go. But we’ll never beat them.

  —Who are you trying to impress, Jack? I’ve heard all this before.

  —I’m just reminding you. You’re too pleased with yourself. Too bloody well fed. It’s only starting, man. Those bastards in London are paying more attention to the Mad Mullah in Somaliland than they are to us. We’re going to have to go harder at it. A bit of our own Mad Mullahs. Breen beyond. Your pal, Ivan Reynolds. Yourself. The only way. The real killing is going to have to start soon. And I’m not looking forward to it. There were only eighteen R.I.C. men killed last year. Mick told me that this morning and it shocked me because sometimes it felt like a bloodbath. And look it here.

  He took a newspaper cutting from his back pocket and handed it to me.

  —Sent to me from Liverpool, said Jack.

  A recruitment ad.

  —They’re bringing in mercenaries, said Jack.—They’re going to top up the R.I.C. with hard men from Liverpool and Glasgow and Christ knows where else. Their own bloody Breens.

  —So what?

  —So we’re going to see a scrap like nothing we’ve seen before.

  —So what?

  —That’s the spirit, he said.—It’s good to see you again. I’ve missed you. Are you a father yet?

  It was good being with Jack again. Talking, meandering through the day. I was back. I’d been alone too much. I had Miss O’Shea, but every word and pause was sex; every sentence was a minefield and I stomped on every syllable in the easy hope that my leg would be blown off. I lived for it. Even now, away from her, glad of the rest, I wanted her enough to stand up and run all the way to Roscommon.

  —Another.

  —Sacrifice.

  —Awhh—

  —Reprisal.

  —Awhhhh—Maithú, maithú—

  There was no one else I could talk to on my travels. I was alone and I had to stay that way and, most often, that suited me fine. But sometimes, usually in the early evening when the urge for drink and tobacco smoke was strongest, I mourned the living as well as the dead and I ached for Dublin.

  —I’ll tell you, man, Jack said later that night.—The peasants will form the backbone of this nation.

  —They will in their holes, I said.—They couldn’t form a fuckin’ queue.

  It was the smart-arsed, giddy remark of a man who hadn’t been properly home in a long time. Dublin was a hateful kip but, Jesus, sitting now in its subversive heart, surrounded by the smoke and smell and the noise from outside, I felt the homesickness like a sudden, slow bite into my heart, because I knew that I was going to have to get up and go away again the next day.

  —The R.I.C. are all decent men, Jack said now.

  —Never liked them, I said.

  —Decent men, he said.—It’s a job. A career. I’ve a brother in the R.I.C. Did I ever tell you that?

  —No.

  —Stationed in Cork. I’ve another brother a priest, the brother in the R.I.C. and we’ve our own pump in the yard at home. We’re a respectable family, the Daltons. D’you follow me?

  —What happened to you? I asked.

  —I’ll be respectable when the time is right, he said.—On my own terms.

  —What about your brother?

  —I’ve been telling him to get out. But he’s a contrary man. It was a different place when he joined up. He doesn’t understand.

  He stared at the table as if his brother was on it, looking up at him in his uniform.

  —Is Gandon still your landlord? I asked him.

  —I’ve no landlord at the mom
ent, he said.—I live out of a suitcase and it’s my own.

  —Did you read about him saying he was in the G.P.O.?

  —I wrote it, said Jack.

  —Why?

  He snapped his eyes away from the shine on the table.

  —He’s too busy to be writing speeches, he said.—That’s my department.

  I knew I had to be careful.

  —I don’t remember seeing him in the G.P.O., I said.

  —He was there, said Jack.

  He looked straight at me.

  —Other people remember him.

  He took another piece of paper from his back pocket, still staring straight at me.

  —Here’s something else to remember. A job for you.

  He pushed the small square of notepaper over the table to me. I picked it up and read it.

  A name.

  —Give it back.

  I slid it back over to him. He took a match from his box - Maguire and Patterson - lit the paper and dropped it into the ashtray.

  —You know what to do.

  —Yes.

  —I know you do.

  Whiskey had joined our pints. I could have stayed there with Jack for the rest of my life. The whiskey sent the world away; the night would never end.

  —Listen to this, said Jack.—I picked it up this morning. Listen now.

  He looked at the ceiling.

  —If our opponent is to be made to comply with our will, we must place him in a situation which is more oppressive to him than the sacrifice which we demand.

  —That’s what we’re up to, I said.

  —Exactly, said Jack.—A lad called Count von Clausewitz wrote it. In 1832. I’ll make a few adjustments. Take out opponent, put in enemy, and I’ll credit it to Mick in the next Bulletin and hope that none of the foreign correspondents have read von Clausewitz recently. That’s my job, man.

  —You’re feeling sorry for yourself.

  —D’you know? I am. I should never have let them know I had brains. I’m a civil servant with no state, man. A pen pusher. Another thing I do, come here till I tell you. An invention of my own and I rue the day it came into my head. I bring the foreign journalists, the newly arrived lads, on tours of the city and we meet all these people on the way. Accidentally, like. Out to Sir Horace Plunkett’s place and he tells them about all the creameries being burnt down. Then on to the Shelbourne. I go for a wee-wee and three priests up from the country sit beside him, spot his accent and tell him about all the atrocities they’ve seen in their parishes. Then out we go, and who do we meet? Madame MacBride. Jesus, man, she’s a clown. She brings us off for tea with Missis Childers and the pair of them give us more atrocities. What a pair, man. They’re frightening. We end up in Vaughan’s and Ned the porter, a man of moderate nationalist views, fills him in on the sorry state of the country and what’s needed to put things right. It’s a good tour, I’ll grant you, but that’s what I am every time a new hack hits town. A bloody tour guide. But you’re the real thing, look at you. You’re the one that’ll be remembered, not me.