Last Post


Bill Cantillon and the sergeant-major went together to Sully’s wake. It
was a lovely summer’s evening, and a gang of kids were playing at the
end of the lane, but the little front room was dark only for the far
corner where poor Sully was laid out in his brown habit, with the
rosary beads twisted between his fingers. Jerry Foley was there already
with Sully’s sister and Mrs Dunn. He opened a couple of bottles of
stout, while the other two said a prayer, and then they all lit their
pipes and sat around the table.

‘Yes,’ said Bill, with another glance at the corpse, ‘’twasn’t to-day
nor yesterday, Miss Sullivan. We were friends when I knew him first in
the Depot, forty-three years ago.’

‘Forty-three years!’ exclaimed the sergeant-major. ‘My, my!’

‘Forty-three years,’ Bill repeated complacently. ‘October ’98; I
remember it well. That was when he joined.’

‘He was a bit wild as a boy, sir,’ Mrs Sullivan said apologetically,
‘but, God help us, that was all! There was no harm in him.’

‘If it comes to that, ma’am,’ said the sergeant-major, ‘we were all
wild.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Bill, ‘but wildness like that—there’s no harm in
it. We were young, and high-spirited; we wanted to see a bit of the
world; that was all. Life in a town like this, with people that know
you, ’tis too quiet for boys of mettle.’

‘’Tis,’ the sergeant-major agreed, ‘’tis a bit slow.’

‘’Twas the excitement,’ Bill said, with a nod to the company, ‘that’s
what we fancied.’

‘Oh, and God help us, ye got it,’ Sully’s sister said quietly, rocking
herself to and fro. ‘Oh, my, and never to know till you heard his knock
at the door; it might be two or three in the morning, and to see him
standing outside with his kitbags and his rifle, after travelling for
days.’

‘Oh,’ said Jerry, ‘the kids playing outside there now will never see
some of the things we saw!’

‘And weren’t we right?’ exclaimed Bill. ‘Weren’t we wiser in the heel
of the hunt? Now, thanks be to God, after all our rambles, we’re back
among our own. We have our little pensions; they may not be much, but
they keep us independent. We can stroll out of a fine summer’s morning
and sit in the park and talk about old times. And we know what we’re
talking about. We saw strange countries and strange people. We’re not
like some of the young fellows you meet now, small or bitter or
narrow.’

‘Ah,’ said Jerry, mournfully, ‘we weren’t a bad class at all. We had
great spirit.’

‘And have still,’ said the sergeant-major.

‘We have,’ said Jerry, ‘but we’re dying, and there’s no one to take our
place. Sully is the fourth this year. We’re going fast; and one of
these days the time will come for one of us; we’ll be laid out the way
poor Sully is laid out; the neighbours will sit round us and somebody
will say: “That’s the last of them gone now: the last of the old
Munster Fusiliers. There isn’t one left alive of the old Dirty Coats,
that great regiment that carried the name of Ireland to the ends of the
earth.”’

And left their bones there, Jerry,’ said the sergeant-major.

‘Oh, God help us, they did, they did,’ said Mrs. Dunn, and she burst
into tears. The men looked uncomfortable.

‘I’m very sorry, ma’am,’ said the sergeant-major. ‘Very sorry, indeed.
I had no idea.’

‘’Twas her son, sir,’ Sully’s sister said in a quiet, little voice.

‘My little boy, sir,’ sobbed Mrs Dunn. ‘Hardly more than a child. He
was wild, too, sir, like you said, but there was no harm in
him. Mr. Sullivan knew him. He was well liked in the regiment, he
said.’

‘We’ll go out to the kitchen now and let the men have their little
drink in peace,’ said Miss Sullivan.

‘I’m sorry, gentlemen,’ Mrs Dunn said from the door. ‘Ye’ll excuse
me. it comes over me whenever I think of old times. But, oh,
Mr. Cantillon, wasn’t it queer, wasn’t it queer, with all the men that
knew him and liked him, that he could go like that on me without tale
nor tidings?’

‘Who did you say that was, Bill?’ whispered the sergeant-major.

‘Mrs Dunn,’ replied Bill. ‘You must have seen her before. Every old
Munster that dies, she’s at his wake.’

‘Dunn?’ said the sergeant, with a puzzled frown. ‘Dunn? What happened
him? Killed?’

‘No, missing.’

‘Dunn? I have no recollection of the name.’

‘Hourigan was the name,’ Bill said softly. ‘Dunn was his step-father.
That was why the boy ran away from home.’

‘And that’s why she has it on her mind,’ said Jerry. ‘Every wake of
every old Munster, she’s at it, hoping she’ll get news of him. For
years after the war, as long as people were turning up anywhere over
the world, she was still expecting he’d turn up. If you ask me, she’s
still expecting it.’

‘Ah, how could she?’ said Bill.

‘I don’t think the poor soul is right in her mind,’ said Jerry
softly. ‘A woman like that is never right unless she can have her cry
out. I think she still imagines that one night when she’s sitting by
the fire she’ll hear his step coming up the lane and see him walk in
the door to her: a man of—how old would he be now? He was only
sixteen when he ran away.’

‘Oh, God help us! God help us!’ said the sergeant-major. ‘He was young
to die!’

And in the darkness they heard a man’s step come up the lane, and a
moment later a devil’s rat-tat at the door. Mrs Dunn ran to open it.

‘Broke!’ exclaimed Bill with a grin.

The new arrival stumped in the hall and stood in the doorway with his
cap pulled over one eye; a six-footer slumped about a crutch, and
under the peak of the cap a long grey haggard face, a bedraggled grey
moustache and mad, staring blue eyes. His real name was Shinnick. In
France he had lost his leg and whatever bit of sense the Lord had
given him to begin with. People said he was queer because he had spent
so long at the front without leave. No sooner was he due for it than
something occurred; he was detained for looting, leaving his post or
beating up an N.C.O. They said he had earned the D.C.M. several times
over and lost it again by his own foolishness—a most unfortunate
man. Now he had a bed in the workhouse. He got a shilling or two for
looking after the corpses. Once a month he came out and drew his
pension, and after a day or two stumped back to the workhouse
again—without a fluke! A most unfortunate man!

The three old soldiers looked at one another and winked. Broke was
notorious for the touch. He could fly like a bird, crutch and all; head
and neck strained forward like an old hen; he hadn’t a spark of shame,
and thought nothing of chasing a man the length of the Western Road on
nothing more substantial than the smell of a pint.

‘So ye’re all there?’ he snarled. with a grin of wolfish good-humour.

‘We’re all here, Joe,’ Jerry said good-naturedly.

‘I suppose ’twas the porter brought ye?’ Broke said with a leer.

‘Whisht, now, whisht,’ said Bill. ‘Remember the dead!’

‘Ah, God, Sully, is this the way I find you?’ said Broke in a wail as
he threw down his crutch and manoeuvred himself on to his one good
knee by the bed. ‘Ah, Sully, Sully, wasn’t it queer of God to take a
good man like you instead of some old cripple like myself that was
never no use to anybody?’ He was sobbing and clawing the bedclothes
with his face buried in them. Then he grabbed the dead man’s hands and
began kissing them passionately. ‘Do you hear me, Sully boy, wherever
you are to-night?  Tell them who you left behind you! Tell them I’m
tired of the world!  I’m like the Wandering Jew, and I’m sick of
pulling and hauling. Do you hear me. I say? I made corpses and I
buried corpses, and I’m handling corpses every day of the week; the
smell of them is on me, Sully, and ’tis time my own turn came.’

Here, Joe, here,’ said Jerry, tapping him on the shoulder, ‘sit in my
chair and drink this.’

‘’Twasn’t for that I came,’ Broke said passionately, staring from the
glass of stout to Jerry and back again.

‘Sure, we know that well, old soldier,’ said Jerry.

‘But ’tis welcome all the same,’ said Broke, swinging himself to his
full height and staring down at Jerry with his queer piercing eyes.
’Tis my one bit of consolation. I have the pension drunk already,
Jerry. As true as God I have! Jerry, could I—? my old campaigner!’

‘Ah, to be sure you could,’ said Jerry.

‘Wan tanner, Jerry!’ hissed Broke feverishly. “That’s all I ask.’

‘There’s two of them for you,’ said Jerry.

‘May God in heaven bless you, my boy,’ said Broke as the tears began
to pour from his eyes. ‘I’m an affliction; an old sponger, a
good-for-nothing. ’Twill be a relief to ye all when I go...Cantillon,’
he snarled with an astonishing change of tone, ‘put something to that
like a decent man!’

‘I suppose this is for the publicans?’ said Bill with a scowl.

‘And what do you think ’tis for, hah?’ jeered Broke. ‘A bed in a
hospital?’ With a toothless smile he whipped off his old cap and waved
it before the sergeant-major’s face. ‘Make up the couple of bob for me,
sir,’ he said. ‘’Tis for the couple of drinks, I’m telling you no
lies.’

Then he sat in Jerry’s chair, a high-backed armchair with low
arm-rests, and took a deep swig of his stout. He was restless; he
glared at them all by turns; the face, like the body, lank and drawn
with pain.

‘Is he having a band?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Ah, where would he get a band, man?’ snapped Bill.

‘And isn’t he damn well entilted to it?’ said Broke.

‘Begor, you couldn’t get one now if you were a general,’ said the
sergeant-major.

‘And why couldn’t ye?’ cried Broke. ‘What’s stopping ye? The man should
have his due. Give him what he’s entitled to, his gun-carriage and his
couple of volleys....Company!’ he shouted. ‘Reverse arms!
Slow....march! Strike up there, Drum Major!’

It was very queer. He raised his crutch and gave three thumps on the
floor. Then, very softly, with an inane toothless smile, he began to
hum the Funeral March, swaying his hand gently from side to side. The
old soldiers bent their heads reverently and Bill began to beat time
with the toe of his boot.

‘That’s a grand tune, that Chopin,’ the sergeant-major said.

‘I heard it one time played over a young fellow in the Sherwood
Foresters,’ Bill said. ‘’Twas in Aldershot, and I never forgot it.’

‘Ah,’ said Jerry, ‘for a dead march there’s nothing like the pipes. You
should hear the Kilties play ‘The Flowers of the Forest.’ There’s a
sort of a—’

‘There is,’ said the sergeant-major. ‘A sort of a wail.’

And in the dark room, by the light of the flickering candles, they
began to talk of all the soldiers’ funerals they had attended, in
Africa, in India and at home, and the mothers began to shout from the
doorsteps, ‘Kittyaaa! Juliaaa!’ and the children’s voices died away,
and there was no longer any sound but some latecomer’s boots echoing
off the pavements, and all the time Broke hummed away to himself,
swinging his crutch like a drum major. His voice grew noisier and more
raucous.

‘Mind yourself or you’ll do some damage with that crutch,’ said the
sergeant-major.

‘The bloody man is drunk,’ Bill said savagely.

‘He isn’t drunk, Bill,’ Jerry said quietly. ‘Watch his face!’

They stared at him. Suddenly, in the middle of a bar, he stopped dead,
laid down the crutch and began to stare over the back of his chair. His
face had a curious strained look. With his tongue and teeth he produced
a drubbing sound—dddddrr! The old soldiers looked at one another. They
heard another sound that seemed to come from very far back in Broke’s
throat, travel up the roof of his mouth and then expand into a wail and
sudden thump—wheeeee-bump! And at the same moment Broke raised his
two arms over his head and crouched down in the chair, grasping and
staring wildly about him.

‘Aha, Jackie,’ he said in a high-pitched, unnatural voice, ‘that’s the
postman’s knock, Jackie. That’s for us, boy. And that old sod of a
sergeant knew ’twas coming and that’s where he left us to the last.’

His right hand reached down and picked up the crutch. He raised himself
and raised the crutch till it was resting on the back of the chair, and
they noticed how his thumb and forefinger worked as though it were a
rifle. Sully’s sister and Mrs Dunn stood in the doorway and gazed at
him in astonishment. Jerry raised his hand for silence.

I’m on my last couple of rounds Jackie,’ Broke hissed. ‘Are you all
right, little boy? You’re not hurt, are you Jackie? Don’t be a bit
frightened little boy. This is nothing to some of the things I
seen. I’ll get you out of this, never fear. They can’t kill me,
Jackie. I’m like the Wandering Jew, boy. I have a charmed life.’

He continued to make those strange noises—wheeeeebump, wheeeee-bump,
and each time he would crouch, following the sound with his mad eyes,
his arm raised above his head.

‘That’s close enough now, Jackie,’ he said, panting. ‘They have us
taped this time all right. Another five minutes now! I don’t mind,
Jackie. Curse of God on the care I care! There’s no one in the world
will bother much about me only yourself. Jackie, if ever you get back
to the Coal Quay, tell them the way I looked after you. Tell them the
way old Joe Shinnick minded you when you had no one else on your side.’

‘Oh, oh, oh!’ Mrs Dunn said, but Jerry glared at her, and she clasped
her hands.

‘I looked after you, Jackie, didn’t I? Didn’t I, boy? As if you were my
own. And so you were, Jackie. The first day I saw you and that tinker
Lowry at you I nearly went mad. I put that cur’s teeth down his throat
for him anyway...’ Broke rocked his head. His voice suddenly
dropped. ‘What’s that, Jackie? The guns are stopped! The guns are
stopped, boy! Pass us a couple of clips there, quick! Quick, do you
hear? We’re in for it now. There’s something moving over there, beyond
the wire. Do you see it?...Christ,’ he snarled between his teeth,
‘I’ll give you something to take home with you.’ He raised the crutch,
lightning-swift, and then his voice dropped to a moan. ‘Oh, God,
Jackie, they’re coming! Millions of them! Millions of them! And there’s
the moon, the way it is now over Shandon, and the old women going to
early Mass.’ Again his voice changed; now it was the voice of the old
soldier, curt and commanding. ‘Keep your head now, boy. Don’t fire till
I tell you. Where are you? I can’t see in here. Shake hands, kid. God
knows, if I could get you out of it, I would. Shake hands, can’t
you. What ails you? Jackie!’

His voice suddenly rang out in a cry. Sully’s sister went on her knees
by the door and began to give out the Rosary. Mrs Dunn was talking to
herself. ‘Oh, Jackie!’ she was saying over and over, ‘Jackie, Jackie,
Jackie!’ Broke was leaning over the edge of the chair as though holding
up a deadweight, pressing it close to his side and staring down at it
incredulously. Somehow they all said afterwards they could see it quite
plainly; the shell-battered dug out with the dawn breaking and the moon
paling in the sky, and Broke with the dead boy’s head against his side.

‘So long, Jackie,’ he said in a whisper. ‘So long, kid. I won’t be long
after you.’

Then he seemed to take something from the dead boy’s body and throw it
over his own shoulder. Bill nodded to the sergeant and the sergeant
nodded back. They both knew it was an ammunition belt. Then Broke
seemed to lay down the weight in his arms and swung himself up against
the back of the chair, raising the crutch as if it were a rifle, but
he no longer seemed to bother about cover. As his hands worked an
imaginary bolt his whole face was distorted; the mouth drawn sideways
in a grin, and he cursed and snarled over it like a madman. Something
about it made the other men uncomfortable.

‘That’s enough, Jerry,’ the sergeant-major said uneasily. ‘Wake him up,
now, for the love of God!’

‘No,’ said Jerry, though his face was very pale. ‘It might bring some
ease to his poor mind.’

‘I’m afraid nothing will ever do that now,’ said the sergeant-major.
‘Quick, Jerry,’ he shouted, jumping from his chair, ‘mind him!’

It was over before Jerry could do anything. Suddenly Broke sprang up on
his good leg; his crutch fell to the floor, and he spun clean into the
middle of the room before he crashed on his face and hands. Jerry drew
a deep breath. There was nothing else to be heard but the gabble of
Sully’s sister, ‘Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our
death.’ Broke lay there quite motionless for close on a minute. He
might have been dead. Then he raised his head from between his hands,
and with a tremendous effort tried to lift himself slowly on hands and
knees. He crashed down again, sideways. A look of astonishment came
into the mad, blue eyes that was always painful to watch. His hand
crept slowly down his body and clutched at his leg — the leg that
wasn’t there.

Then he seemed to come to himself; he swung himself nimbly up from the
floor and back into his chair. ‘Give the man his due,’ he said in a
perfectly normal voice. ‘An old soldier; his gun-carriage and his
couple of volleys.’ But as he spoke he covered his face with his hands,
and a long sigh broke through his whole body and seemed to shake him to
the very heart. It was as though he had fallen asleep, but his breath
came in great noisy waves that shook him as they passed over him.

‘Jackie,’ said Mrs Dunn in a whisper; ‘My boy, my little boy!’

And from far away, over Barrackton Hill, crystal-clear and pure in the
clear summer night, they heard the bugler sounding the Last Post.


(1941)