Our Casualty, and Other Stories Part 27

"Well, they saw the sense of that. O'Farrelly formed his men up outside and made a speech to them. He said if any man funked it he could stay where he was and only those who really wanted to die need go on. It was a quarter to eight when he finished talking and I was in terror of my life that there'd be some delay getting rid of the men who fell out But there wasn't a single defaulter. Every blessed one of those men--and most of them were only boys--did a right turn and marched out of the town in column of fours. I can tell you, Waterhouse, I didn't like watching them go. Father Conway and my dad were standing on the steps of the court house, blubbering like children."

"I suppose they weren't all killed?" said Waterhouse.

"None of them were killed," said Power. "There wasn't a shot fired.

You see, when the English officer saw them march out of the town he naturally thought they'd come to surrender, and didn't fire on them."

"He couldn't possibly have thought that," said Waterhouse, "unless they laid down their arms."

"As a matter of fact," said Power, "hardly any of them had any arms, except hockey sticks, and the Colonel thought they'd piled them up somewhere. He seems to have been a decent sort of fellow. He made O'Farrelly and a few more prisoners, and told the rest of them to be off home."

"Ireland," said Waterhouse, "must be a d____d queer country."

"It's the only country in Europe," said Power, "which knows how to conduct war in a civilized way. Now if a situation of that sort turned up out here there'd be bloodshed."

"I suppose O'Farrelly was hanged afterwards?" said Waterhouse.

"No, he wasn't."

"Shot, then? Though I should think hanging is the proper death for a rebel."

"Nor shot," said Power. "He is alive still and quite well. He's going about the country making speeches. He was down in Ballymahon about a fortnight ago and called on my dad to thank him for all he'd done during the last rebellion. He inquired after me in the kindest way. The old dad was greatly touched, especially when a crowd of about a thousand men, all O'Farrelly's original army with a few new recruits, gathered round the house and cheered, first for an Irish republic and then for dad.

He made them a little speech and told them I'd got my company and was recommended for the M.C. When they heard that they cheered me like anything and then shouted 'Up the Rebels!' for about ten minutes."

"I needn't tell you," said Waterhouse, "that I don't believe a word of that story. If I did I'd say----"

He paused for a moment.

"I'd say that Ireland----"

"Yes," said Power, "that Ireland----"

"I'd say that Ireland is a country of lunatics," said Waterhouse, "and there ought to be an Irish Republic I can't think of anything to say worse than that."

XV -- THE MERMAID

We were on our way home from Inishmore, where we had spent two days; Peter O'Flaherty among his relatives--for everyone on the island was kin to him--I among friends who give me a warm welcome when I go to them.

The island lies some seventeen miles from the coast We started on our homeward sail with a fresh westerly wind. Shortly after midday it backed round to the north and grew lighter. At five o'clock we were stealing along very gently through calm water with our mainsail boom out against the shroud. The jib and foresail were drooping in limp folds. An hour later the mainsheet was hanging in the water and the boat drifted with the tide. Peter, crouching in the fore part of the c.o.c.kpit, hissed through his clenched teeth, which is the way in which he whistles for a wind. He glanced all round the horizon, searching for signs of a breeze.

His eyes rested finally on the sun, which lay low among some light, fleecy clouds. He gave it as his opinion that when it reached the point of setting it "might draw a light air after it from the eastward."

For that it appeared we were to wait I shrank from toil with the heavy sweeps. So, I am sure did Peter, who is a good man in a boat but averse from unnecessary labour. And there was really no need to row. The tide was carrying us homeward, and our position was pleasant enough. Save for the occasional drag of a block against the horse we had achieved unbroken silence and almost perfect peace.

We drifted slowly past Carrigeen Glos, a low, sullen line of rocks. A group of cormorants, either gorged with mackerel fry or hopeless of an evening meal, perched together at one end of the reef, and stared at the setting sun. A few terns swept round and round overhead, soaring or sliding downwards with easy motion. A large seal lay basking on a bare rock just above the water's edge. I pointed it out to Peter, and he said it was a pity I had not got my rifle with me. I did not agree with him.

If I had brought the rifle Peter would have insisted on my shooting at the seal. I should certainly not have hit it on purpose, for I am averse from injuring gentle creatures; but I might perhaps have killed or wounded it by accident, for my shooting is very uncertain. In any case I should have broken nature's peace, and made a horrible commotion.

Perhaps the seal heard Peter's remark or divined his feeling of hostility. It flopped across the rock and slid gracefully into the sea.

We saw it afterwards swimming near the boat, looking at us with its curiously human, tender eyes.

"A man might mistake it for a mermaid," I said.

"He'd have to be a fool altogether that would do the like," said Peter.

He was scornful; but the seal's eyes were human. They made me think of mermaids.

"Them ones," said Peter, "is entirely different from seals. You might see a seal any day in fine weather. They're plenty. But the other ones--But sure you wouldn't care to be hearing about them."

"I've heard plenty about them," I said, "but it was all poetry and nonsense. You know well enough, Peter, that there's no such thing as a mermaid."

Peter filled his pipe slowly and lit it I could see by the way he puffed at it that he was full of pity and contempt for my scepticism.

"Come now," I said: "did you ever see a mermaid?"

"I did not," said Peter, "but my mother was acquainted with one. That was in Inishmore, where I was born and reared."

I waited. The chance of getting Peter to tell an interesting story is to wait patiently. Any attempt to goad him on by asking questions is like striking before a fish is hooked. The chance of getting either story or fish is spoiled.

"There was a young fellow in the island them times," said Peter, "called Anthony O'Flaherty. A kind of uncle of my father's he was, and a very fine man. There wasn't his equal at running or lepping, and they say he was terrible daring on the sea. That was before my mother was born, but she heard tell of what he did. When she knew him he was like an old man, and the heart was gone out of him."

At this point Peter stopped. His pipe had gone out. He relit it with immense deliberation. I made a mistake. By way of keeping the conversation going I asked a question.

"Did he see a mermaid?"

"He did," said Peter, "and what's more he married one."

There Peter stopped again abruptly, but with an air of finality. He had, so I gathered, told me all he was going to tell me about the mermaid. I had blundered badly in asking my question. I suppose that some note of unsympathetic scepticism in my tone suggested to Peter that I was inclined to laugh at him. I did my best to retrieve my position. I sat quite silent and stared at the peak of the mainsail. The block on the horse rattled occasionally. The sun's rim touched the horizon. At last Peter was rea.s.sured and began again.

"It was my mother told me about it, and she knew, for many's the time she did be playing with the young lads, her being no more than a little girleen at the time. Seven of them there was, and the second eldest was the one age with my mother. That was after herself left him."

"Herself" was vague enough; but I did not venture to ask another question. I took my eyes off the peak of the mainsail and fixed them inquiringly on Peter. It was as near as I dared go to asking a question.

"Herself," said Peter, "was one of them ones."

He nodded sideways over the gunwale of the boat. The sea, though still calm, was beginning to be moved by that queer restlessness which comes on it at sunset. The tide eddied in mysteriously oily swirls. The rocks to the eastward of us had grown dim. A gull flew by overhead uttering wailing cries. The graceful terns had disappeared. A cormorant, flying so low that its wing-tips broke the water, sped across our bows to some far resting-place. I fell into a mood of real sympathy with stories about mermaids. I think Peter felt the change which had come over me.

"Anthony O'Flaherty," said Peter, "was a young man when he saw them first. It was in the little bay back west of the island, and my mother never rightly knew what he was doing there in the middle of the night; but there he was. It was the bottom of a low spring tide, and there's rocks off the end of the bay that's uncovered at the ebb of the springs.

You've maybe seen them."

I have seen them, and Peter knew it well I have seen more of them than I want to. There was an occasion when Peter and I lay at anchor in that bay, and a sudden s.h.i.+ft of wind set us to beating out at three o'clock in the morning. The rocks were not uncovered then, but the waves were breaking fiercely over them. We had little room for tacking, and I am not likely to forget the time we went about a few yards to windward of them. The stretch of wild surf under our lee looked ghastly white in the dim twilight of the dawn. Peter knew what I was thinking.

"It was calm enough that night Anthony O'Flaherty was there," he said, "and there was a moon s.h.i.+ning, pretty near a full moon, so Anthony could see plain. Well, there was three of them in it, and they playing themselves."

"Mermaids?"

This time my voice expressed full sympathy. The sea all round us was rising in queer round little waves, though there was no wind. The boom s.n.a.t.c.hed at the blocks as the boat rocked The sail was ghostly white.

The vision of a mermaid would not have surprised me greatly.

"The beautifulest ever was seen," said Peter, "and neither s.h.i.+ft nor s.h.i.+rt on them, only just themselves, and the long hair of them. Straight it was and black, only for a taste of green in it. You wouldn't be making a mistake between the like of them and seals, not if you'd seen them right the way Anthony O'Flaherty did."

Peter made this reflection a little bitterly. I was afraid the recollection of my unfortunate remark about seals might have stopped him telling the story, but it did not.