THE MARTYR

"There’s your martyr! Commandant Myles Hartnett, killed
by Free State Troops in Asragh Barrack, November 18, 1922. “For the
glory of God and the honor of Ireland.” Every year they lay a wreath
there.

It was really my fault that he was killed. I was in charge of the
barrack. A young fellow called Morrissey captured him, and, as he was
carrying a gun at the time, that meant one thing only. I didn’t like
Morrissey; he was one of those conceited young fellows who go through
life with a grievance against everybody, and he had a particular
grievance against me because I tried to keep some sort of discipline in
the infernal place.

I was alone in the office, wondering what all the row was about when
Morrissey, Daly, and a few others pushed him in. I could see they’d
knocked him about pretty badly already. He was a tall, powerful man with
fair hair, blue, short-sighted eyes (they had smashed his glasses), and
that air of a born athlete that I, for one, always like in a man. Even
then, he looked as though he could still have made smitheens of them but
for the guns.

“And who have we here?” asked.

“This is the fellow that organized the Duncartan ambush,” said
Morrissey triumphantly. Now the Duncartan ambush was a bad slip-up on my
part. Believing the information I had got, I had just walked my men
right into it. In the scrap I had lost the only friend I had in the
barrack, MacDunphy.

“Oh, is that so?” I asked. “You’re the chap we’re indebted to for our
welcome there? How nice!”

“I am not,” he said contemptuously.

“You are,” shouted Morrissey, clenching his fists. “You were the man
who used the Lewis gun that killed MacDunphy. You needn’t try to get out
of it.”

“I’m not trying to get out of it,” said Hartnett in the same scornful
tone. “I’m only telling you you don’t know what you’re talking
about.”

“Shut up, you—liar!”  shouted Morrissey, and drove his fist into
Hartnett’s mouth.

Hartnett took out his handkerchief, wiped off the blood, and looked
at me. Then he smiled. I knew what the smile meant and he knew I
knew.

“Have you quite finished with the prisoner, Captain Morrissey?” I
asked.

“But don’t you know this was the fellow that killed Harry MacDunphy?”
he shouted.

“No,” I said, “and as things are shaping I’m hardly likely to find
out.”

He muttered an obscenity, turned on his heel, and went out, banging
the door.

“Were you in the Duncartan ambush?”  I asked.

“Ah, not at all,” said Hartnett. “I was over in Derreen the day it
happened. Not that it makes any difference.”

“Not the least,” I said. “All right, Jimmie,” I said to Daly, a young
lieutenant. “Take him downstairs. And tell the sentry that Captain
Morrissey isn’t to go into his cell without my permission.”


It was the same at the court-martial. He was quiet, self-possessed, and
almost contemptuous of the men who were supposed to be trying him. He
denied nothing and stood on his right as an officer and prisoner of
war. He had the education which they lacked (I discovered he was a
spoiled priest), and succeeded in making them look like the fools they
were. Not that that made the least difference either. The verdict and
sentence were a foregone conclusion; so was the sanction unless he had
friends in Headquarters.

Then one night about a week later I was working alone in the office
when a sentry came in. He was a little Dubliner, one of my own men and
one I could trust.

“Mick,” he whispered conspiratorially (he always called me “Mick”
when we were alone), “that Hartnett fellow would like to talk to
you.”

“What does he want to talk to me for at this hour?” I asked
irritably.

“He said he wanted to speak to yourself,” said the sentry. “Morrissey
and Daly are out, boozing. I think you ought to have a word with
him.”

I knew that Hartnett had managed to get round my sentry and that I
wouldn’t get any peace till I saw him.

“Oh, all right,” I said. “Don’t bring him up here. I’ll come down and
see him later.”

“Good man!” said the sentry. “I’ll leave on the light in his
cell.”

I finished up and then went down to the cells with my own keys. It
wasn’t very pleasant at that hour. The cell was small; the high barred
window had no glass in it; the only furniture was a mattress and a
couple of blankets. Hartnett was standing up in his shirtsleeves and
socks. He had got a spare pair of spectacles. He tried to smile, but it
didn’t come off.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you at this hour,” he said in a low voice
so as not to be heard in the neighboring cells.

“Well?” I asked. “What is it?”

“Tell me, by the way,” he said, cocking his head, “aren’t you a
friend of Phil Condon’s?”

“Very much by the way,” I replied. “Was it to talk about Phil Condon
that you brought me here?”

“There are times you’d be glad to talk about anything,” he said with
a touch of bitterness. Then, after a moment, “I thought any friend of
Phil’s would be a decent man. That’s more than you could say for most of
your officers.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“I suppose I’m going to be shot?” he asked, throwing back his head
and looking at me through the big glasses.

“I’m afraid so,” I said without much emotion.

“When, do you know?”

“I don’t know. If the sentence is confirmed by tomorrow, probably the
following morning. Unless you have friends in Headquarters.”

“That gang!” he said scornfully. “I haven’t, only all the enemies I
have.” He put his hands in his trouser pockets and took a couple of
short steps up the cell beside the mattress. Then he looked at me over
the glasses and dropped his voice still farther. “You could stop that,
couldn’t you?”

I was a bit taken aback by this direct appeal. It wasn’t what I had
expected.

“I dare say I could,” I said lightly, “but I’m not going to.”

“Not on any account?” he asked, still looking at me over the glasses,
his eyebrows slightly raised.

“Not on any account.”

He waited. Then he took two steps towards me and stood, looking at
me.

“Not even if I made it worth your while?”

Again I was taken aback. I felt the first time I saw him that we
understood one another, and now I was irritated at his low opinion of
me. I tried to smile.

“Are you trying to bribe me?” I asked.

“Were you ever in my position?” he asked, cocking his head again.

“No.”

“Would you blame me if I was?”

“I’m not short of money, thanks,” I said. “If you want anything else
you can ask the sentry.”

“Ah, you know what I mean all right,” he said, nodding. “You know
well enough ’tisn’t money I’m talking of.”

“What the hell is it then?” I asked angrily.

“Something that fellow, Morrissey, said upstairs, about the Duncartan
ambush,” he said, nodding in the direction of the door. “This
MacDunphy—was he a great friend of yours?”

“He was,” I said. “Can you bring him back to life?”

“Do you know who the chap was that shot him?”

“I have a fairly good idea.”

“The man who had the Lewis gun that day?” he said scornfully, raising
his voice so that I was certain he could be heard. “You have not.”

“All right,” I said. “I haven’t.”

“You’d like to know who he was, wouldn’t you?”

“Why?” I asked mockingly. “Are you thinking of turning informer?”

I was sorry the moment I’d said it. It wasn’t fair from a man at
liberty to one with only his wits between him and the firing squad. His
big face grew as red as if I’d slapped it.

“All right,” he muttered, “I was asking for that. But you see the way
I am! The man is no particular friend of mine, and it’s his life or
mine.”

“That’s what you’re assuming,” I said.

“And aren’t I right?”  he asked, pushing his big face into mine with
a sort of hypnotic look in his eyes.

The trouble was, he was. That’s the curse of civil war. No matter
what high notions you start with, it always degenerates into a series of
personal quarrels, family against family, individual against individual,
until at last you hardly mind what side they’re on.

“Very well,” I said. “You are. Who was it?”

“Micky Morgan—Monkey Morgan from Dirrane.”

“And what was Monkey Morgan from Dirrane doing in Duncartan?”

“Ah, he shouldn’t have been there at all, man,” he said, tapping me
on the elbow, and for a moment it was just one officer speaking to
another. “’Tisn’t his area. But fellows like that, nobody can control
them.”

“And where does Monkey Morgan hang out?” I asked.

“Mostly in Mick Tom Ogue’s in Beensheen; Mick is a sort of cousin of
his mother’s.”

“This isn’t another invitation like the one in Duncartan?”  I
asked.

“What sort of fool do you take me for?” he asked contemptuously.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I was just wondering. ... All right, hang
on!”

Then I went out and ordered up two lorries and twenty men. I made
sure the sentry was out of the way before I went back to the cell. I had
a cap and greatcoat with me.

“Put these on,” I said, and Hartnett did.

“They’re a good fit,” he said, thrusting his hands into the
pockets.

“Yes,” I said. “They belonged to MacDunphy.”

Then we went out to the waiting lorries. Hartnett avoided the
headlights; apart from that there was nothing to show that he wasn’t
just another officer from Dublin on a tour of inspection.

“All right, colonel,” I said in a loud voice to him. “Step in!”

He sat in front between me and the driver. It was a dark night with
brilliant stars. We went up through the hills by roads we both knew
well, though he knew them far better than I. Once he made me cross an
open field to avoid the delay at a blown-up bridge. At last we stopped
at the foot of a lane, and the men got out quietly. He pointed out to me
where to post sentries so that the house was completely covered, and
then he and I led the way up the lane. When we reached the door of the
farmhouse he stood on one side and let me do the knocking. We didn’t
knock long because the door began to give under the rifle butts, and it
was hastily opened for us by an old man in his shirt.

“Ye can’t do anything to me,” he shouted. “I have varicose
veins,”

We caught Morgan in the bedroom, pulling on his socks. He made a dive
for his Peter the Painter, but two of our men got him on the floor
before he could use it. He was a slight man with a long, hard, fighting
face. We waited while he dressed. Then he pulled himself erect and went
out with his chin in the air. He didn’t notice the tall man standing by
the door with his chin in his chest. I wondered what Hartnett’s feelings
were just at that moment.

I wondered more a few days later when I glanced out of the office
window and saw the prisoners exercising within the barbed wire. Hartnett
and Morgan were walking side by side. I stood leaning for a long time on
the window, thinking how curious it was.

It was next day or perhaps the day after that that Morrissey slouched
into my office in his usual uninhibited manner with a cigarette hanging
from one corner of his mouth. He stood with his back to the fire, his
hands folded behind him.

“Did you hear anything about this escape?” he asked.

“No,” I said without interest. “Has there been one?”

“There’s going to be. It’s all arranged with the fellows outside. One
of our contacts brought in the news.”

“And who’s planned it?” I asked. “Hartnett?”

“I don’t know. I suppose it is. Listen,” he added in a squeaky voice,
knocking his ashes behind him into the fire, “when is that fellow going
to be bumped?”

I was exasperated almost beyond endurance by the fellow’s tone. It
was both ill-bred and childish. He was like a schoolboy expecting a
prize. Hartnett was his prize.

“I’m not sure that he is going to be—bumped,” I said. (In fact, I
knew perfectly well that he wasn’t, but I was taking care that Morrissey
didn’t know. Nobody must know if Hartnett’s life was to be saved from
his own men.)

“Well, all I can say is, it’s a damn shame,” said Morrissey. “Any
idea what’s behind it?”

“Some people have friends in high places,” I said oracularly.

“Looks like it,” Morrissey said impudently, and I knew he meant me.
 
“You might remember,” I said, “that there was a time when people like
Hartnett were considered quite useful. ... All right. I’ll speak to him
myself. Send him up, will you, please?”

Hartnett was led up a few moments later by the sentry. He looked
rather more like himself, confident and at the same time watchful.

“Tell me,” I asked, “what’s all this about an escape?”

“An escape?”  he asked wonderingly. “What escape? ’Tis news to
me.”

“Oh, is it?”  I asked. “Are you quite sure you’re not the
ringleader?”

He looked at me doubtfully for a moment and then his lip began to
curl.

“You’re not by any chance looking for an excuse to break your
bargain?”  he asked almost contemptuously.

“No,” I said without taking offense, “I don’t have to look for
excuses. Your friend, Morrissey, has just been in to know why you
haven’t been executed. Several others would like to know the same
thing. They’re not going to be told if I can manage it. So there isn’t
going to be any escape. Do you understand?”

He thought for a moment, sighed, and nodded.

“I understand,” he said hopelessly. “You’re right, of course.”

He was going out when I stopped him. I couldn’t let him go like
that. Afterward I was glad I didn’t.

“Don’t think I’m criticizing you,” I said. “It’s just that there are
certain actions we can’t hedge about, that’s all.”

He nodded again and went out.


Two days later Morgan was executed. I was wakened by the noises outside
and then I lay awake listening for the bangs. “That’s for you,
MacDunphy,” I said, but it gave me no satisfaction. I wondered if
Hartnett was awake listening to them, too. Two men regretting a
bargain. When I got up there was the usual air of gloom and hysteria in
the barrack. Morrissey was on the drink from early morning. Shutters had
been put up in the town, and I sent round a lorry of men to take them
down again. Then I went off to Moorlough for a conference.

While I was there a telephone message came through from Daly to say
that two of our men had been shot in the street. I realized the danger
at once.

“All right, Jimmie,” I said, trying to make my voice sound natural.
“Hold everything ’till I come back.”

I didn’t even wait to clear up things after the conference but got
the driver to go hell for leather through the dusk. It was the darkness
I was afraid of, and darkness had fallen when we reached the barrack
gate.

“Everything all right, sergeant?” I asked at the guardroom.

“Everything all right, sir,” he said. “You heard that two of our
fellows were shot.”

“Yes, I heard that. Nothing else?”

“Only one of the prisoners shot, trying to escape.”

“I see,” I said. “Hartnett, I suppose?”

“That’s right, sir,” he said in confusion. “Did they tell you?”

“I was expecting something of the sort,” I said. “And Captain
Morrissey shot him. Where is the body, sergeant?”

He began to stammer. The damn fools had even been trying to keep the
truth from me! I found the body lying in a shed in the yard, abandoned
on the straw. I picked it out with my torch. The head had fallen
sideways as though he were trying to sleep. He had been shot through the
back.

As I was coming in, Morrissey came up to me; he was recovering from
his drinking bout and a bit frightened.

“Oh, about that fellow, Hartnett,” he began to stammer.

“I know,” I said. “You murdered him. Good-night.”

Afterward he came up and started hammering on my door, demanding an
explanation, but I only told him to go to hell. I felt sick of it
all. That’s what I mean about civil war. Sooner or later it turns into a
set of personal relationships. Hartnett and I were like that;
accomplices, if you care to put it that way.

(1951)