Eternal Triangle

Revolutions? I never had any interest in them. A man in my position have
to mind his job and not bother about what other people are doing.
Besides, I never could see what good they did anybody, and I see more of
that kind of thing than most people. A watchman have to be out at all
hours in all kinds of weather. He have to keep his eyes open. All I ever
seen out of things like that was the damage. And who pays for the
damage? You and me and people like us, so that one set of jackeens can
get in instead of another set of jackeens. What is it to me who’s in or
out? All I know is that I have to pay for the damage they do.

I remember well the first one I saw. It was a holiday, and when I
turned up to the depot, I was told there was a tram after breaking down
in town, and I was to go in and keep an eye on it. A lot of the staff
was at the races, and it might be a couple of hours before they could
get a breakdown gang. So I took my lunch and away with me into town. It
was a nice spring day and I thought I might as well walk.

Mind you, I noticed nothing strange, only that the streets were a bit
empty, but it struck me that a lot of people were away for the
day. Then, all at once, just as I got to town, I noticed a handful of
them Volunteer boys in the street. Some of them had green uniforms with
slouch hats; more of them had nothing only belts and bandoliers. All of
them had guns of one sort or another. I paid no attention. Seeing that
it was a holiday, I thought they might be on some sort of manoeuvre.
They were a crowd I never had anything to do with. As I say, I’m a man
that minds his own business.

Suddenly, one of them raises his gun and halts me.

“Halt!” says he. “Where are you bound for, mate?”

“Just down here, to keep an eye on a tram,” I said, taking it in good
parts.

“A tram?” says he. “That’s the very thing we want for a barricade.
Could you drive it?”

“Ah, is it to have the union after me?” says I.

“Ah, to hell with the union,” says a second fellow. “If you’ll drive
it we’ll rig it up as an armored train.”

Now, I did not like the tone them fellows took. They were making too
free altogether, and it struck me as peculiar that there wouldn’t be a
bobby there to send them about their business. I went on a couple af
hundred yards, and what did I see only a second party. These fellows
were wearing khaki, and I recognized them as cadets from the college
They were standing on the steps of the big hotel overlooking the tram
and the young fellow that was supposed to be their officer was very
excited.

“That tram is in the direct line of fire,” he says. “It’s not a safe
place.”

“Ah, well,” I said, “in my job there’s a lot of things aren’t safe I
hope if anything happens me you’ll put in a good word for me with the
tramway company.”

Mind you, I was still not taking them seriously. I didn’t know what I
was after walking into. And the first thing I did was to go over the
tram to see was there anything missing. The world is full of
light-fingered people, and a thing like that, if you only left it for
five minutes, you wouldn’t know what would be gone. I was shocked when I
seen the upstairs. The glass was all broken and the upholstery
ripped

Then the shooting began, and I had to lie on the floor, but after a
while it eased off, and I sat up and ate my lunch and read the daily
paper. There was no one around, because whenever anyone showed himself
at the end of the road, there was a bang and he ran for his life. Coming
on to dusk, I began to worry a bit about whether I was going to be
relieved at all that day. I knew Danny Delea, the foreman, was a
conscientious sort of man, and if he couldn’t get a relief, he’d send me
word what to do, but no one came, and I was beginning to get a bit
hungry. I don’t mind admitting that a couple of times I got up to go
home. I didn’t like sitting there with the darkness coming on, not
knowing was I going to be relieved that night or the next week. But each
time I sat down again. That is the sort I am. I knew the light-fingered
gentry, and I knew that, firing or no firing, they were on the look-out
and I wouldn’t be out of that tram before one of them would be along to
see what could he pick up. I would not give it to say to the rest of the
men that I would leave a valuable thing like a tram.

Then, all at once, the firing got hot again, and when I looked out,
what did I see in the dusk only a girl coming from behind the railings
in the park and running this way and that in an aimless sort of way. She
looked as if she was out of her mind with fright, and I could see the
fright was more a danger to her than anything else. Mind, I had no wish
for her company! I saw what she was, and they are a sort of woman I
would never have much to do with. They are always trying to make friends
with watchmen, because we are out at all hours. At the same time, I saw
if I didn’t do something quick, she’d be killed under my eyes, so I
stood on the platform and shouted to her to come in. She was a woman I
didn’t know by sight; a woman of about thirty-five. Cummins her name
was. The family was from Waterford. She was a good-looking piece too,
considering. I made her lie on the floor to get out of the shooting, but
she was nearly hysterical, lifting her head to look at me and lowering
it not to see what was going on.

“But who in hell is it, mister?” she says. “God Almighty, I only came
out for a bit of sugar for me tea, and look at the capers I’m after
walking into!... Sacred Heart of Jesus, they’re off again. ... You’d
think I was something at a fair, the way they were banging their bloody
bullets all round me. Who is it at all?”

“It’s the cadets in the hotel here, shooting at the other fellows
beyond the park,” I said.

“But why don’t someone send for the police? Damn soon them fellows
would be along if it was only me talking to a fellow!”

“’Twould take a lot of police to stop this,” says I.

“But what are they shooting for, mister?” says she. “Is it for
Ireland?”

“Ireland?” says I. “A fat lot Ireland have to hope for from little
whipper-snappers like them.”

“Still and all,” says she, “if ’twas for Ireland, you wouldn’t mind
so much.”

And I declare to God but she had a tear in her eye. That is the kind
of women they are. They’ll steal the false teeth from a corpse, but let
them lay eyes on a green flag or a child in his First Communion suit,
and you’d think patriotism and religion were the only two things ever in
their minds.

“That sort of blackguarding isn’t going to do any good to Ireland or
anyone else,” says I. ““What I want to know is who is going to pay for
the damage? Not them. They never did an honest day’s work in their
lives, most of them. We’re going to pay for it, the way we always
do.”

“I’d pay them every bloody penny I have in the world this minute if
only they’d shut up and go away,” she says. “For God’s sake, will you
listen to them!”

Things were getting hotter again. What was after happening was that
some of the Volunteer fellows were after crossing the park behind the
shrubbery and were firing up at the hotel. They might as well be firing
at the moon. The cadets were after knocking out every pane of glass and
barricading the windows. One of the Volunteers jumped from a branch of a
tree over the railings and ran across the road to the tram. He was an
insignificant little article with a saucy air. You could tell by his
accent he wasn’t from Dublin. I took him to be from somewhere in the
North. I didn’t like him much. I never did like them Northerners
anyway.

“What are ye doing here?” he says in surprise when he seen us lying
on the floor.

“I’m the watchman,” says I, cutting him short.

“Begor, a watchman ought to be able to watch himself better than
that,” he says, and without as much as “By your leave” he up with the
rifle butt and knocked out every pane of glass in the side of the
tram. It went to my heart to see it go. Any other time I’d have taken
him and wrung his neck, but, you see, I was lying on the floor and
couldn’t get up to him with the firing. I pretended not to mind, but I
looked at the glass and then I looked at him.

“And who,” I said, “is going to pay for that?”

“Och, Mick MacQuaid to be sure,” says he.

“Ah, the gentleman is right,” says the woman. “Only for him we might
all be kilt.”

The way she about-faced and started to soft-solder that fellow got on
my nerves. It is always the same with that sort of woman. They are
people you can’t trust.

“And what the hell is it to anyone whether you’re killed or not?”  I
said. “No one asked you to stop. This is the tramway company’s property,
and if you don’t like it you can leave it. You have no claim.”

“We’ll see whose property this is when it’s all over,” says the man,
and he began shooting up at the windows of the hotel.

“Hey, mister,” says the woman, ““is that the English you’re shooting
at?”

“Who else do you think ’twould be?” says he.

“Ah, I was only saying when you came in that I’d never mind if ’twas
against the English. I suppose ’twill be in the history books, mister,
like Robert Emmet?”

“Robert Emmet!” I said. “I’d like to know where you and the likes of
you would be only for the English.”

“Well, do you know,” she says, as innocent as you please, “’tis a
funny thing about me, but I never cared much for the English
soldiers. Of course, mind you, you’d meet nice fellows everywhere, but
you’d never know where you were with the English. They haven’t the same
nature as our own somehow.

Then someone blew a whistle in the park, and your man dropped his
rifle and looked out to see how he was going to get back.  “You’re going
to get your nose shot off if you go out in that, mister,” says the
woman. “If you’ll take my advice, you’ll wait till ’tis dark.”

“I’m after getting into a tight corner all right,” says he.

“Oh, you’ll never cross that street alive, mister,” she says as if
she was delighted with it. “The best thing you could do now would be to
wait till after dark and come round to my little place for a cup of
tea. You’d be safe there anyway.”

“Och, to hell with it,” says he. “I have only to take a chance,” and
he crept down the steps and made for the railings. They spotted him,
because they all began to blaze together. The woman got on her hands and
knees to look after him.

“Aha, he’s away!” says she, clapping her hands like a child. “Good
man you are, me bold fellow. . . . I wouldn’t wish for a pound that
anything would happen that young man,” says she to me.

“The shooting on both sides is remarkably wide,” says I. “That fellow
should have more sense.”

“Ah, we won’t know till we’re dead who have the sense and who
haven’t,” says she. “Some people might get a proper suck-in. God,
wouldn’t I laugh.”

“Some people are going to get a suck-in long before that,” says
I. “The impudence of that fellow, talking about the tramway company. He
thinks they’re going to hand it over to him. Whoever is in, he’s not
going to see much of it.”

“Ah, what matter?” she said. “’Tis only youth. Youth is lovely, I
always think. And ’tis awful to think of young fellows being kilt,
whoever they are. Like in France. God, ’twould go to your heart. And
what is it all for? Ireland! Holy Moses, what did Ireland ever do for
us? Bread and dripping and a kick in the ass is all we ever got out of
it. You’re right about the English, though. You’d meet some very genuine
English chaps. Very sincere, in their own way.”

“Oh, they have their good points,” says I. “I never saw much to
criticize in them, only they’re given too much liberty.”

“Ah, what harm did a bit of liberty ever do anyone, though?” says
she.

“Now, it does do harm,” says I. “Too much liberty is bad. People
ought to mind themselves. Look at me! I’m on this job the best part of
my life, and I have more opportunities than most, but thanks be to God,
I can say I never took twopenceworth belonging to my employers nor never
had anything to do with a woman outside my own door.”

“And a hell of a lot of thanks you’ll get for it in the heel of the
hunt,” says she. “Five bob a week pension and the old woman stealing it
out of your pocket while you’re asleep. Don’t I know all about it? Oh,
God, I wish I was back in me own little room. I’d give all the countries
that ever was this minute for a cup of tea with sugar in it. I’d never
mind the rations only for the bit of sugar. Hi, mister, would you ever
see me home to the doss? I wouldn’t be afraid if I had you with me.”

“But I have to mind this tram,” says I.

“You have what?” says she, cocking her head. “Who do you think is
going to run away with it?”

“Now, you’d be surprised,” says I.

“Surprised?” says she. “I’d be enchanted.”

“Well,” I said, “the way I look at it, I’m paid to look after it, and
this is my place till I’m relieved.”

“But how the hell could you be relieved with this
merry-go-round?”

“That is a matter for my employers to decide,” says I.

“God,” says she, “I may be bad but you’re looney,” and then she
looked at me and she giggled. She started giggling, and she went on
giggling, just as if she couldn’t stop. That is what I say about them
women. There is a sort of childishness in them all, just as if they
couldn’t be serious about anything. That is what has them the way they
are.

So the night came on, and the stars came out, and the shooting only
got louder. We were sitting there in the tram, saying nothing, when all
at once I looked out and saw the red light over the houses.

“That’s a fire,” says I.

“If it is, ’tis a mighty big fire,” says she.

And then we saw another one to the left of it, and another and
another till the whole sky seemed to be lit up, and the smoke pouring
away out to sea as if it was the whole sky was moving.

“That’s the whole city on fire,” says I.

“And ’tis getting mighty close to us,” says she. “God send they don’t
burn this place as well. ’Tis bad enough to be starved and frozen
without being roasted alive as well.”

I was too mesmerized to speak. I knew what ’twas worth. Millions of
pounds worth of property burning, and no one to pour a drop of water on
it. That is what revolutions are like. People talk about poverty, and
then it all goes up in smoke—enough to keep thousands comfortable.

Then, all at once, the shooting got nearer, and when I looked out I
saw a man coming up the road. The first impression I got of him was that
he was badly wounded, for he was staggering from one side of the road to
the other with his hands in the air. “I surrender, I surrender,” he was
shouting, and the more he shouted, the harder they fired. He staggered
out into the middle of the road again, stood there for a minute, and
then went down like a sack of meal.

“Oh, the poor misfortunate man!” says the woman, putting her hands to
her face.

“Did you ever see such barbarity? Killing him like that in cold
blood?”

But he wasn’t killed yet, for he began to bawl all over again, and
when he got tired of holding up his hands, he stuck his feet in the air
instead.

“Cruel, bloody, barbarous brutes!” says the woman. “They ought to be
ashamed of themselves. He told them he surrendered, and they won’t let
him.” And without another word, away with her off down the street to
him, bawling: “Here, mister, come on in here and you’ll be safe.”

A wonder we weren’t all killed with her. He got up and started
running towards the tram with his hands still in the air. When she
grabbed him and pushed him up on the platform, he still had them
there. I seen then by his appearance that he wasn’t wounded but
drunk. He was a thin-looking scrawny man with a cloth cap.

“I surrender,” he bawls. “<em>Kamerad</em>.”

“Hi, mister,” says the woman, “would you for the love of the
suffering God stop surrendering and lie down.”

“But they won’t let me lie down,” says he. “That’s all I want is to
lie down, but every time I do they makes a cockshot of me. What in hell
is it?”

“Oh, this is the Rising, mister,” she says.

“The what?” says he.

“The Rising,” says she. “Like they said in the papers there would
be,”

“Who’s rising?” says he, grabbing his head. “What paper said that? I
want to know is this the D.T.’s I have or isn’t it?”

“Oh, ’tisn’t the D.T.’s at all, mister,” she says, delighted to be
able to spread the good news. “This is all real, what you see. ’Tis the
Irish rising. Our own boys, don’t you know? Like in Robert Emmet’s
time. The Irish are on that side and the English are on this. ’Twas the
English was firing at you, the low scuts!”

“Bugger them!” he says. “They’re after giving me a splitting
head. There’s no justice in this bloody world.” Then he sat on the
inside step of the tram and put his head between his knees. “Like an
engine,” he says. “Have you e’er a drop of water?”

“Ah, where would we get it, man?” says the woman, brightening up when
she seen him take the half pint of whiskey out of his hip pocket. ’Tis a
mystery to me still it wasn’t broken. “Is that whiskey you have,
mister?”

“No water?” says he, and then he began to shudder all over and put
his hand over his face. “Where am I?” says he.

“Where should you be?” says she.

“How the hell do I know and the trams not running?” says he. “Tell
me, am I alive or dead?”

“Well, you’re alive for the time being,” says the woman. “How long
we’re all going to be that way is another matter entirely.”

“Well, are you alive, ma’am?” says he. “You’ll excuse me being
personal?”

“Oh, no offense, mister,” says she. “I’m still in the queue.”

“And do you see what I see?” says he.

““What’s that, mister?”

“All them fires.”

“Oh,” says she, “don’t let a little thing like that worry you,
mister, That’s not Hell, if that’s what you’re afraid of. That’s only
the city burning.”

“The what burning?” says he.

“The city burning,” says she. “That’s it, there.”

“There’s more than the bloody city burning,” says he. “Haven’t you
e’er a drop of water at all?”

“Ah, we can spare it,” she says. “I think it must be the Almighty God
sent you, mister. I declare to you, with all the goings-on, I hadn’t a
mouthful to eat the whole day, not as much as a cup of tea.”

So she took a swig of the bottle and passed it to me. It is stuff I
would never much care for, the whiskey, but having nothing to eat, I was
feeling in the want of something.

“Who’s that fellow in there?” says he, noticing me for the first
time,

“That’s only the watchman,” says she.

“Is he Irish or English?” says the drunk.

“Ah, what the hell would he be only Irish?”

“Because if he’s English, he’s getting none of my whiskey,” says thé
drunk, beginning to throw his arms about. “I’d cut the throat of any
bloody Englishman.”

Oh, pure, unadulterated patriotism! Leave it to a boozer.

“Now, don’t be attracting attention, like a good man,” she says. “We
all have our principles but we don’t want to be overheard. We’re in
trouble enough, God knows.”

“I’m not afraid of anyone,” says he, staggering to his feet. “I’m not
afraid to tell the truth. A bloody Englishman that would shoot a
misfortunate man and he on the ground, I despise him. I despise the
English.”

Then there was a couple of bangs, and he threw up his hands and down
with him like a scarecrow in a high wind.

“I declare to me God,” says the woman with an ugly glance at the
hotel, “them fellows in there are wound up. Are you hit, mister?”  says
she, giving him a shake. “Oh, begod, I’m afraid his number’s up.”

“Open his collar and give us a look at him,” says I. By this time I
was sick of the pair of them.

“God help us, and not a priest nor doctor to be had,” says
she. “Could you say the prayers for the dying?”

“How would I know the prayers for the dying?” says I.

“Say an act of contrition so,” says she.

Well, I began, but I was so upset that I started the Creed
instead.

“That’s not the act of contrition,” says she.

“Say it yourself as you’re so smart,” says I, and she began, but
before she was finished, the drunk shook his fist in the air and said:
“I’ll cut the living lights out of any Englishman,” and then he began to
snore.

“Some people have the gift,” says she.

Gift was no word for it. We sat there the whole night, shivering and
not able to get more than a snooze, and that fellow never stirred, only
for the roar of the snoring. He never woke at all until it was coming on
to dawn, and then he put his head in his hands again and began
complaining of the headache.

“Bad whiskey is the ruination of the world,” says he.

“Everyone’s trouble is their own,” says the woman.

And at that moment a lot of cadets came out of the hotel and over to
the tram.

“Will you look at them?” says the woman. “Didn’t I tell you they were
wound up?”

“You’ll have to get out of this now,” says the officer, swinging his
gun.

“And where are we going to go?” says she.

“The city is all yours,” says he.

“And so is the Bank of Ireland,” says she. “If I was only in my own
little room this minute, you could have the rest of the city—with my
compliments. Where are you off to?” she asked the drunk.

“I’ll have to get the Phibsboro tram,” says he.

“You could order two while you’re about it,” she says. “The best
thing the pair of ye can do is come along to my little place and wait
till this jigmareel is over.”

“I have to stop here,” says I.

“You can’t,” says the officer.

“But I must stop till I’m relieved, man,” says I, getting angry with
him.

“You’re relieved,” he says. “I’m relieving you.”

And, of course, I had to do what he said. All the same, before I
went, I gave him a piece of my mind.

“There’s no need for this sort of thing at all,” I says. “There’s
nothing to be gained by destroying valuable property. If people would
only do what they were told and mind their own business, there would be
no need for any of this blackguarding.”

The woman wanted me to come into her room for a cup of tea, but I
wouldn’t. I was too disgusted. Away with me across the bridge, and the
fellows that were guarding it never halted me or anything, and I never
stopped till I got home to my own place. Then I went to bed, and I
didn’t get up for a week, till the whole thing was over. They had
prisoners going in by droves, and I never as much as looked out at
them. I was never so disgusted with anything in my life.

(1951)