Supply of heroes, p.19
Supply of Heroes, page 19
As she went to him, raising her eyes for a look of confirmation and finding it, the scent of his skin was what moved her, an earthy, unperfumed musk. When he took her into his arms now, brushing her face with his soft beard, she was surprised at his tenderness. He was kissing her, not roughly as he first had, but gently, all across her face and neck, into her hair and down to her breasts. His beard was like feathers, and the sensation was so light, so delicate, so unbearably sweet, she realized she had never felt her own skin as a distinct part of herself before. And the same was true, she saw, of sexual desire; neither had it seemed like hers until now.
Later, after they lay motionless in each other’s arms, he made as if to go. Was he disappointed, embarrassed? He had ejaculated all too quickly, so that her own first experience of real arousal had taken her nowhere. Even Jane knew that lovemaking was meant to be more. Still, that seemed unimportant to her. She held him, but he pulled away. She was sure that he was leaving her.
But a moment later he was above her, brushing wisps of hair away from her face, pulling her upright, turning her so that she faced away. She would always be his, she felt, to move as he willed, to shape.
She did not realize what he was doing until he lowered the locket from above her head, encircling her throat as if it was a prize. He deftly hooked the ends of the golden chain at the nape of her neck. The locket on her bosom was so cold it made her realize how hot his skin had been. His heat inside her, deep and wide, had made her know she was not empty. As she touched the locket, she understood that he had read what was written in her. The sensation—to be at once absolutely exposed and absolutely embraced—filled her with the awe of a lame person healed, one blind made to see. She turned to him.
Curry could never have said to that woman, Let me give you back your brother, yet that was his great wish. He could never have said, Let my love give you faith and hope. He was unworthy for once of words. It had nothing to do with class or politics that he felt unworthy at last of her.
Once more they kissed, and more slowly now, their young bodies having learned, they became one sign to each other again, giving grace.
10
Trier is the oldest city in central Europe. At the juncture of three rivers and close to the points where Belgium, France, and Luxembourg each touch Germany, it was a natural site for the large complex of camps that the Germans used as a clearing station for their prisoners. Thousands of French and British soldiers were brought through Trier. Most remained for only a matter of weeks before being transported by train to camps east of the Rhine, in the heart of Germany. But one group of prisoners remained there, segregated from the rest—men of the Irish regiments. By the fall of 1915 there were more than a thousand of them, including nearly three hundred from the Connaught Rangers. It was fitting that Trier should have been the site of their incarceration because, before it had served as the seat of the ancient Roman government for Western Europe—the Romans left behind in Trier the famous ruins of baths, the great bridge across the Mosel, the amphitheater, and the massive Porta Nigra, which was the northern gate to the entire empire—Trier had been settled by Celts.
The Celts left behind little more than a legend. It concerned the Leuk waterfall, a seventy-foot cataract, an overwhelming downpour of water that ran in a furious stream from the hills beyond Trier down to the Mosel, two miles or more away. The Celts believed it to be the flow of tears of gods who had lost their children in the wilderness of forest and mountain through which the river ran.
The compound in which the Irish soldiers were kept was in sight of the waterfall. The hill beyond, down which the water rushed, was crowned with the ruins of a castle just visible above the glorious red-and-gold spread of leaves on the turning trees. In that castle had lived the archbishops of Trier, who, as electors of the Holy Roman Emperor, had been for a time some of the most powerful men in Europe. Now the ruins of their hill fortress and the hill itself in its autumn splendor and the cascading river that had seemed sacred to the first settlers all combined in a rare, timeless beauty that seemed wrong to men who had to view it from behind barbed wire.
As likely as not, their idling gaze would go the other way, toward the main body of prison compounds, tent settlements arranged in neat squares and spread across the valley away from Trier itself. There were dozens of house-sized tents, encircled with barbed wire and set off from one another by muddy avenues through which streams of vacant-eyed prisoners were marched. The Irish soldiers could see with their own eyes that conditions in the main camp, from which they were set apart, were vastly inferior to their own. The Irish had true huts, not tents. They were on higher ground and so it was dry. Yet the avenues between buildings were paved with duckboard. They had laundries, an infirmary, a broad playing field with chalked boundaries, and a large mess tent in which they were served food that surpassed what they’d grown used to from their own cookers. Discipline was maintained not by harsh, spike-helmeted guards, but by their own officers. The Irish officers alone among the Allies had not been separated from their regiments, and as a group they made the men feel protected from their captors’ whims. Yet all of this, particularly as it contrasted with what went on in the rest of the internment camp, left the Irish prisoners feeling more guilty than grateful. What had they done to merit their relative privilege? No one was more sensitive to inequity than a foot soldier, and every Paddy understood why every Tommy and Jock would hate him for his exemptions. But as Irishmen they also felt that hatred as yet another undeserved English insult.
It was the middle of October, early morning, and the men were gathering for the day’s first muster in the large open yard between the mess tent and the high fence that separated the Irish prisoners from the others. The chill air had them slapping their shoulders, and their breath came in small white puffs. Tyrrell stood with Keefe by the fence while the men formed their ranks. After inspection Keefe would take them through their exercises, then Tyrrell, as senior of the seven officers, would address the men. His biggest problem had been to think of ways to occupy them. Today he was announcing a mandatory program of study of the Irish language. It would be conducted by the several dozen Gaeltacht lads for whom it was their native tongue. The nationalists among the men, who’d enlisted in the first place to help achieve Home Rule, would welcome the idea, but the men from Ulster regiments, about a quarter of the prisoners, would groan. Tyrrell himself cared nothing for the Irish language, but the men had to do more with their time than police the camp, play football, hurley, or surreptitious games of Crown and Anchor in which the betting was for cigarettes. However foreign the intellectual exercise would be for most of them, they would need it, particularly as the weather turned colder. The Germans had agreed to supply chalkboards.
A detachment of recently arrived French prisoners could be seen filing along one of the main camp avenues. They still had the drooped, resigned look of battle-shocked men, and paid little heed to the German guards who nipped at them like sheep dogs. Keefe said, “More Frogs. Every day this week, they bring in Frogs.”
Tyrrell watched the prisoners. “But still no officers. I keep waiting to see officers over there.”
“But if it’s French they’re bringing in, maybe that means things have eased up at last on our line. Maybe Wipers is over.”
“If the fight at Ypres is finished, Keefe, it’s because we lost it. In that case, we’d be seeing our boys by the lorryful over there, not Frenchmen. We haven’t lost at Ypres yet, don’t worry.”
Keefe laughed. “Did I sound worried?”
Tyrrell laughed too. Keefe was not indifferent. He was simply stating the obvious, that his concern did not manifest itself as worry. He was a pragmatic, steady man. Tyrrell had come to value him beyond any officer he knew, and he sensed that Keefe reciprocated, though a studied and mutual formality still formed the structure of their relationship.
Tyrrell fixed his stare on the distant row of copper trees that formed the far border of the internment camp. The stream from the waterfall ran down to them, and beyond those trees, invisible, was the next slope of land that fell off to the Mosel River. “Beech trees,” Tyrrell said. “I’ve been staring at those trees for four months and only now realize that they’re beeches.”
“You haven’t been thinking about the trees, Captain.”
“Oh really, Mr. Keefe? What have I been thinking about?”
“The river.”
Tyrrell looked at Keefe, but said nothing.
Just then Riley, the regimental sergeant major, presented himself. “Ready for roll call, sir.”
“Very well, Sergeant Major.” Tyrrell looked back at the men. They were standing easy in loose ranks, drably outfitted in what remained of their uniforms. Some had blankets draped around their shoulders against the chill. “Get those blankets back to billets, Sergeant Major. This is kit inspection, not slumber time.”
The NCO nervously looked back at the ranks. “Those men have no tunics, sir. I thought what with the cold . . .”
“Do they have shirts, Sergeant Major?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And are there surplus shirts in the quartermaster’s store?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then give them second shirts. We’ll wait. We can’t have men on parade looking like beggars, can we?”
“No, sir.” The sergeant major saluted and turned briskly.
When he was gone, Tyrrell said to Keefe, “I don’t know what we’ll do as the winter comes. Fritz won’t be handing out greatcoats.”
“If we all wear blankets, Captain, then there’s no affront.”
Tyrrell let his appreciation for his adjutant show. “You’ve a knack for solutions, Mr. Keefe.”
“Blanket solutions, Captain.” Keefe grinned, then abruptly assumed his more characteristic neutrality of expression. “In point of fact, sir, Jerry might very well offer us a supply of overcoats. Mind you, not that I expect it. But I didn’t expect meat once a day either.”
Tyrrell nodded and stared out across the main internment camp. “It’s a question of balancing the needs of our men with the solidarity we owe those other regiments. They’re not getting meat out there. Should I be refusing it for our lads, do you think?”
“No, sir. We should take what we can get, as long as we haven’t sold ourselves for it.”
“I keep thinking the Germans will be moving us along too, but now I wonder. I don’t understand what they’re up to.”
“The men think you and Captain Tyndale have pooled your family allowances to bribe the German commandant.”
Tyrrell laughed and said, “We’re so rich,” although he knew that Tyndale’s family fortune was vast. “I think it’s as simple as the fact that our situation is standard. These other prisoners are deprived because they’re still in transit camp. Perhaps, in contrast, this is our final destination.” Did he really believe this? He offered the argument to Keefe as if he did. “When they are settled, as we’ve been, their rations will improve, as will their facilities. Their officers will be reassigned to them. Their camps will be like ours, in other words, but they won’t have a clearing station full of desperate cases abutting them, undercutting their ability to savor their relief at having survived the trenches or to enjoy the few essentials—dry feet, meat, fresh bread, chalkboards—the Krauts dole out like luxuries. It bothers me that our lads should have to look across this wire and be made to feel like corrupted beneficiaries by what they see.” He watched the desolate column of French prisoners disappearing into the center of the shabby, makeshift compound. Suddenly, Tyrrell said bitterly, “Their suffering is not our doing, damn it. Our lads have what little they have by right, not charity and not bribery either. When the winter comes I’ll demand overcoats for them! I’ll demand them now!”
It was another day like that one, though a week later and somewhat colder, when an open German staff car drove into Trier. A German officer sat in the front seat next to the driver, his peaked hat strapped to his chin against the wind. From the fender in front of him fluttered a large square flag bearing a black Maltese cross in the center of which reared a talon-flashing black eagle. In the backseat of the large tan car sat the bearded figures, one dark and one red, of Sir Roger Casement and Daniel Curry.
Curry could not bring himself to look at the faces of the citizens they were driving past. No one was more conscious of the impact of his appearance than he, a redheaded Irishman in a country where all the men were black-haired or blond. But in fact few of the people they passed on the streets of Trier were men. Like most cities in Europe by then, Trier was populated mainly by women. The contingent of troops who served as guards at the burgeoning prisoner-of-war camp was made up largely of soldiers who themselves had been subjects of disciplinary action, and they were permitted to leave the camp barely more often than the prisoners were. Trier proper therefore seemed tranquil as Casement and Curry were driven through it. Their guide turned from his place in the front seat to point out the antiquities. A German officer named Bremer who’d accompanied them from Berlin, he carried himself as if he held great authority, but he wore the uniform of a Landsturm colonel. The Landsturm was the German reserve force made up of those too old to serve in the Regular Army. They counted for nothing, but one wouldn’t have known that from Bremer’s friendly self-assurance. On the train he and Casement had argued about Richard Strauss’s Elektra in a way that had made Curry feel excluded.
“A grotesque sensation, my dear Sir Roger,” Bremer had said mildly, flourishing his liberalism. He was no vulgar chauvinist, compelled to defend everything German. His informality with the titled Casement indicated a place of some rank in the rigid social caste of Imperial Germany.
“I saw Strauss himself conduct Elektra in London,” Casement replied. “The barbaric English disgraced themselves. I agree with Shaw, who said that anyone who disliked Elektra is an anti-German hysteric.”
Bremer, sitting opposite Curry in the train compartment, had exchanged a quick glance with him. He sensed Curry’s sympathy and sought to nudge the conversation his way. “You, Mr. Curry, have you seen Herr Strauss’s work?”
“I fancy Johann,” Curry said, “over Richard.” The Austrian over the German was the unspoken comment. He smiled.
Casement reacted as if Curry had insulted him. “Waltz music! What is that? The masses love waltz music!”
Casement’s haughtiness irked and embarrassed Curry, and he was moved to bring him down a notch. “English audiences aren’t the only ones to disgrace themselves. We’ve a tradition at the Abbey: we can always tell a masterpiece if the people riot.”
“My point exactly,” Casement said. “Strauss is the German Synge.”
Bremer leaned toward Curry. “You are associated with the famous Abbey Theatre? In Berlin, we often compare the Freie Bühne to the Abbey.”
Curry had heard of the German theater, but his contrariness carried over, making him want to deflect Bremer’s compliment. “At the Abbey we were inspired most by the Théâtre Libre.”
“Ah, yes,” Bremer said easily, “of Paris.” He smiled vaguely. “They riot in Paris too. Stravinsky, Diaghilev, Nijinsky.” He checked himself. It wouldn’t do to seem superior, yet who could think of an occasion on which a German audience had misbehaved?
Now the staff car was passing a large cathedral. Bremer turned from his place in front and pointed to it. He was a stout man, and the simple act of facing backward seemed like contortion. “The Liebfrauenkirche, one of the oldest Gothic cathedrals in Germany. In its treasury you will find the Holy Robe of the Lord, the seamless cloak which was given to the Bishop of Trier by Saint Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great. She brought the garment here personally from the Holy Land. We Catholics venerate the relic above all others.”
Curry understood the man’s heavy-handed purpose—to ingratiate himself with these Irish Catholics. Curry resisted the impulse to refer to Germany as the home of Luther, but he couldn’t stop himself from turning to Casement. “What would Protestants make of the Holy Robe, Sir Roger?”
Casement seemed not to hear him.
As the car left the massive Porta Nigra behind, Bremer said, “Of course, when the Emperor Augustus came to Trier in fifteen before the Lord, he is not beginning the city. You say that, ‘beginning’?”
“Founding.”
“Jah, founding.” Bremer smiled broadly, flashing a gold tooth. “Because it is that Irish people are already here.” When neither Curry nor Casement reacted, Bremer nodded vigorously. “Is true.”
What will he claim, Curry wondered: that the Irish settled Germany or that Germans settled Ireland? Sure, wasn’t theirs an alliance made, if not in heaven, in its anteroom?
In the journey from Berlin, Bremer’s obvious efforts to ingratiate himself had offended Curry, but it was Casement who disturbed him. Until their rendezvous two days before in Switzerland, Curry hadn’t seen him since that July night in Dublin. He’d been prepared to hear a stream of objections from Casement about his having been forced on him by Pearse, but Casement had seemed at first too distracted to grasp that Curry had been assigned with him to the same mission. Casement had been furtive with Curry, and at their meetings with Berlin officials, he had been unfocused, taking for granted a German commitment to arm, outfit, and train a large Irish force. But it was ludicrous, because the Germans knew as well as Curry did that such a force did not, as of yet, exist. Not in Ireland, anyway. Casement, having just come from the States, claimed there were thousands of Irish-Americans—the Clan na Gael—ready to come to Germany, and he spoke of the Paddies in the British army as if their transformation had already occurred. There was, in other words, an air of exaggeration, if not of unreality, about him, and it didn’t help that Casement had introduced himself to each German official, including Bremer, as the commander-in-chief of “the Irish Brigade.”
