A Star Called Henry (14 page)

A voice got us moving.

—Form fours!

We assembled in front of the Hall, the main noise now our feet finding position, until Willie Oman started his bugling. There was no stopping the little fucker once he’d started; he must have died with blisters on his lips. I was given two sledgehammers to carry.

—Can you manage the two?

—Of course he can, the buck.

Connolly was on the steps now, and Pearse beside him, and other officers coming out of the Hall. A fine body of men: Clarke was there, as old and as frail as Ireland; MacDiarmada, left lopsided by polio, was leaning on his stick; Plunkett had his neck wrapped in bandages and looked like death congealing.

A woman ran up the steps and shouted at Pearse.

—Come home!

Pearse turned from her. He spoke to Mick Collins, behind him.

—Who’s your woman? I asked Paddy Swanzy who was standing to my left.

—Can’t say that I know, said Paddy.—She’s put the colour into Pearse’s cheeks though, look it.

—She’s his sister, said Seán Knowles.

—Ooops, said Paddy.—Watch it, lads. Jimmy’s hopping.

He was talking about Connolly and he was right. Connolly was furious. He barked something over his shoulder. Collins barked at somebody else. Then we heard the order.

—By the left. Quick march!

And Pearse’s sister was left alone on the steps as the generals ran down before we’d marched off without them. They went to the front. The crowd cheered and jeered as we went past.

—Here come the toy soldiers!

—Bang bang.

—Do your mammies know you’re out?

There weren’t many of us - there couldn’t have been more than two hundred after the others had followed their officers to the other posts throughout the city - but the thump of our feet in unison, like strange echoes that preceded bullets or the knocking off of seconds before something momentous, shuddered through me and shut up the crowd. Two hundred marching men, and Winnie Carney, Connolly’s secretary, with her huge typewriter in a case and a Webley revolver, almost as long as her leg, in her holster. We looked odd but we sounded like business.

At the corner of Abbey Street and Marlborough Street Paddy Swanzy tried to sink into his jacket.

—The missus, he said.—I’m not here.

—Paddy! Paddy! I see yeh!

He gave up.

—What?

—Will you be home for your tea?

—No talking in the ranks!

—I doubt it, love, Paddy shouted back to his wife.—But don’t give away the rasher, just in case.

—Did you not tell her? Walt Delaney asked him.

—No talking in the ranks!

—Not at all, said Paddy.—She’s a fuckin’ Unionist, God love her.

We marched out across Sackville Street. Behind me, the horses pulled two lorries, full of our pickaxes, crowbars, sledges - weapons for the working men’s war: Connolly’s idea of urban warfare was tunnelling and more tunnelling, knocking down walls, advance and retreat without having to go out into the rain - our few extra rifles and pistols, boxes of cartridges, bayonets, hatchets, cleavers. We marched straight across the wide street and felt the power as we stopped the trams and cars and the people gaped and wondered. There were British officers outside the Metropole Hotel. They were used to marching Paddys. They laughed and one or two of them waved.

—Laugh away, you gobshites.

Then we turned smartly to the right and our target was in front of us.

—Company halt. Left turn.

We were outside the G.P.O., the General Post Office, right under the portico. It was colossal, block on top of granite block, held up by white pillars that would stay put for ever. I could see Victor swinging behind a pillar, and a man going in to buy stamps with money no longer in his pocket.

Then I heard Connolly’s voice.

—The G.P.O. Charge!

And I ran. The hammers jumped on my shoulder, the rifle smacked my back. A few of the men fired into the air. I ran past Plunkett who was being held up by Collins and another officer, his arms around their necks, two enormous rings on his fingers. For a second, I thought he’d been shot - there was blood seeping through the bandage on his neck - and I ducked, half expecting to be knocked back by a bullet. But I looked back and I saw the signs; I’d seen them on Victor and thousands of others: the man had T.B. I ran into the main hall and my boots joined the chaos, in time to see the remaining shock on the faces of staff and customers.

Again, Connolly was in charge.

—Everyone out!

Some of the staff, men who hadn’t exerted themselves in years, hopped and skidded over the counter.

—Jesus, will you look at them, said Paddy Swanzy.—Men, women and children first.

And now, only a few minutes later, Pearse and Connolly were about to go back outside, and Clarke with them. We heard cheering: the crowd across the street was watching the green, white and orange flag of the Republic being hoisted to the top of the flagpole above us. They clapped and cheered. I pictured the flag being caught by the wind and opened, colour by colour. And Countess Markievicz’s bedspread was flying up there as well, with its gold and mustard lettering -
Irish Republic
. I cheered too; I couldn’t help it.

Connolly, Pearse and Clarke went out. I couldn’t see them now but I soon heard Pearse.

—He’s reading it, I whispered.

—Reading what?

—The
Sacred Heart Messenger
, said Paddy Swanzy.

—Shush in the ranks!

We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible.
There was jeering and laughter, small spells of applause, but at times as he read there wasn’t a noise. And his voice was soft; it drifted in the heat, barely there. The men with me were hearing the Proclamation for the first time. I watched their faces as the words rolled up to them. I watched the pride and excitement. I saw eyes shine and moisten . . .
We hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom.

Paddy Swanzy hadn’t said a word in at least a minute.

—Them’s fighting words, he said.

—Go home!

—Go home yourself. Let the man speak.

My part. My contribution. My present to Victor.

Only the night before.

Connolly had put the sheets of paper under my nose. We were in Liberty Hall. I’d been sitting on a bench outside his office, waiting to bring the finished Proclamation down to the
Worker’s Republic
printers in the basement. The sleeping bodies of Citizen Army men, and their bikes and haversacks, were all over the place. I could see that Connolly was excited; he was lifting himself onto his toes.

—Here, son. Have a read of that and tell me what you think.

I read it, the first man after Connolly and Pearse to do so. The Proclamation of Independence. (It was Connolly who’d finally taught me how to read. He’d slapped me, three years before, during the Lockout, when he’d heard me telling the women in the soup kitchen that I’d no use for reading or writing. He’d pushed me into a room and forced my face down to the pages of a book.

—It’s gibberish now, wee Henry, he’d said.—But by the time I’m finished with you it’ll be as precious as bread and water.

And he’d relaxed his grip on my head before I drowned in the words.) Three years later, I felt my heart in my fingers as I turned to the second page. I knew that Connolly was watching me carefully. He knew exactly when I’d reached the final full stop.

—What do you think? he asked.

—It’s the stuff, I said.

—Is it perfect?

—Well, I said.

—Go on, said Connolly.

—There should be something in there about the rights of children.

He looked at me. He saw my pain, and the pain of millions of others. And his own.

—You’re right, he said.—Where, though?

—Here, I said.—Between that there and the bit about the alien government. That’s where it would fit.

—Good, he said.—I’ll suggest that, so.

He looked straight at me again.

—I’ll insist on it. Anything else?

—I’d take out all that stuff about God.

—Can’t do that, son. We need Him on our side. And all His followers.

I nodded at the Proclamation in his hand.

—Can I sign it? I asked.

—No, he said.—No. You’re too young. You’ll be needed for other things.

He turned to go back into his room, and stopped.

—Thanks, son. All set for tomorrow?

—Yes, sir.

—I know you are.

—What’s rapine when it’s at home? said Paddy Swanzy.

—Messing around with the women, said Charlie Murtagh.—With a bit of robbery thrown in.

Pearse read off the names of the men who’d signed the Proclamation. We cheered when we heard Connolly’s name. Then he was finished, and the crowd dashed forward to have the first look at the Proclamation which was now being pasted to one of the pillars.

—Welcome to the Republic of Ireland, lads, said Charlie.

—That’s all fine and dandy, said Paddy Swanzy.—But I heard nothing in all that about the workers’ state.

—That comes after, comrade. Hold on to your rifle.

—Jaysis, said Paddy.—I definitely won’t be home in time for me tea.

Pearse and Connolly came back in and the big doors were shut with a resounding thump that left us still for a few seconds. Then men started to tear down the recruitment posters -
The Irishmen in the Trenches are calling for YOU
- and put Proclamations up in their place. The building and waiting continued. And Kitchener and George V were put propping up one of the barricades; someone had fecked them from the Waxworks around the corner on Henry Street. The far-off gunfire was still sprinkling the city.

Connolly did the rounds. He terrified all of us. He walloped one of the window barricades. Wood and paper fell to the floor.

—What use is that to us? he shouted.—Will that thing stop bullets? Some of us aren’t playing here, you know. I want barricades!

He sent men running, grown men scampering. They loved and feared him. He was sharp, always on the prowl, never ever happy. But everything he did and said, everything he slammed, lambasted, everything he was, was for us. And the men knew it. He came growling over to my barricade and tapped it with his foot. It stayed put, except for a loose page that fluttered out the window. He winked at me and moved on.

—Here come the military!

The call came from outside and it ricocheted from walls to ceiling of the main hall and upstairs to the other men and sent feet punching the boards and tiles, and officers shouting across each other. I climbed onto the bench we’d put against the barricade and watched for the arrival of the enemy. My rifle roamed the street, followed the retreating onlookers, searched for creeping men in khaki. A few people stayed behind, under the Pillar, including a family with a dog on a string. And there were some perched up on the lampposts. There were priests out there too, in black stovepipe hats, moving in a row, trying to disperse the crowd. They were wasting their time. The crowd let them through and immediately re-gathered.

The soldiers could have been coming from any or all directions, from North Earl Street right in front of us - the parked trams were blocking my view. Or Sackville Place or Abbey Street further down. From the streets behind us, or from Rutland Square, to the north. Or over the river, from the south. The city was full of military barracks; we were well and truly surrounded. I searched for khaki, horses, the glint or clink of metal, hooves, engines - anything that would allow me to declare war.

We listened for noise from upstairs, any confirmation or excitement. I leaned over, stretched out across the dusty ledgers and sand sacks as far as I could go, and aimed at Tyler’s window, far across the street. The safety was off. My rifle was a composite weapon, a bastard of many makes, from America and Germany, Lee-Enfield, Mauser -
Waffenfabrik Mauser
- and an evil old bayonet all the way from Russia. I was aiming at Tyler’s, the shoe shop, with its windows full of single shoes, its special corner for children’s boots. I knew where my first bullet was going. I waited for the order, the first shot, the sighting of a creeping Tommy or an officer with sword drawn and waving.

But there was nothing out there.

Just the heat and the silence - not even distant shots now - and the hidden enemy crawling nearer and nearer.

—Come on.

—They’re acting the maggot, said Paddy Swanzy.

—Come on. Come on.

I had to blink; the sweat stung my eyes. My trigger finger was aching, my calves, the elbow that anchored the arm propping up my rifle; every muscle and sinew I owned was hardening, screaming. A hint, the slightest thing or sound would save them and release all the anger and rage I’d been storing for today. I wanted to demolish every bit of glass and brick in front of me. The creak of stretched leather, a boot on a kerb, the sun on a badge, any tiny thing would let me go.

But the world out there was absolutely still. Absolutely nothing. And in here, around me. Nothing at all. From upstairs or anywhere. We hadn’t a hope. We were waiting for the world to drop on us.