Will Thomas - To Kingdom Come

“Fine morning, gentlemen. The sun is out,” he announced.

“It is,” Barker agreed, finishing his tea. “How is the colonel?”

“He is just getting up, but he requested to speak with you in the smoking lounge at twelve. He has asked me to express his apologies for being a bit concerned in his liquor last night. The month has been a rather strenuous one for him.”

Barker nodded. “And where is Mr. Garrity this morning?”

“He should be halfway to Dublin by now. He’s not an actual member of our faction but an officer of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and he acts as an advisor to the various factions, as well as constructing explosives for us.”

“Ah. And what is in the bag?” Barker asked. “Surely you are not carrying the dynamite around with you openly, I trust.”

“Faith, no.” O’Casey chuckled. “It’s just my uniform. Most of us faction lads are in a hurling club, and though it’s off season, we keep in shape by playing unofficial games. We begin one in about an hour.”

“What is hurling?” I asked.

“Hurling? What’s hurling? Why, it’s the greatest game, the only game. A fellow’s only half a man if he hasn’t tried hurling; and if he has tried it, it’s in his blood, and there’s no going back. Why don’t you come with me and meet the boys, Mr. Penrith, while the older gentlemen strategize? It’ll give you a chance to see something of Liverpool, such as it is.”

“Well, I don’t know …” I said, looking at my employer.

“Go ahead, Penrith,” Barker said to me, and made a little gesture with his fingers that I interpreted to mean I was to stay alert and be his eyes and ears. “You’ve been restless all morning. You young pups go and play your games.”

“Very well, sir, if you are certain you don’t need me.”

Outside, O’Casey rested his stick comfortably against his shoulder as he took the stairs down to the lobby two at a time.

“How was the ale last night?” he asked.

“It was fine. I noticed you didn’t drink. That’s unusual for an Irishman, isn’t it?”

“I’m in training,” he explained. “I’m captain of the local hurling team. I’ve never been a drinker, though. I’ve seen too many good Irishmen ruined by it.”

“What did you read at university?” I asked.

“Politics and economics. If I can see how other governments have dictated policy, perhaps I can help my own country. My father died in his pursuit of Ireland’s freedom. He was a great believer in Malthusian reasoning, that war, famine, and disaster are inevitable, since population increases geometrically while crop production increases arithmetically. It was the whole reason for the Irish famine in the first place. He was evicted from his own land and forced to go to Dublin for work. It is now my duty to carry on his dream to free Ireland. He was a barrister, who often took on cases against Her Majesty’s government, cases he felt were unjust to the Irish people. Eventually he was arrested on a vague charge of sedition. They put him in solitary for months. He starved himself to death in Kilmainham Gaol, in protest against the tyranny of the English government.”

“How did you fend for yourself after your father’s death?”

“My sister and I were befriended by an Irish patriot who stepped in and acted as a mentor to us. He helped pay for my schooling and took us under his wing. He helped set us on our feet here. But that’s enough about me, Mr. Penrith.”

“Tell me more about this hurling.”

“It is thousands of years old and was invented as a way to keep the Celtic warriors in shape between battles. There is a large field with goals, like for football, and two teams of fifteen players. Each of us has a stick called a hurley, and the purpose is to get the ball, or sliotar, into the opposing team’s goal for three points, or over it for one point. You can hit the ball to your own team members or balance the sliotar on the edge of the hurley, which takes a little practice.”

“So, who’s the wee curly man?”

We’d been progressing down Renshaw Street, when suddenly, there was a man at my elbow, walking as casually as if he’d been there all the while. He was a big fellow, too, with brawny shoulders and a red, meaty face under his cloth cap. I would put him in his late twenties. He had a stick over his shoulder almost identical to O’Casey’s, and the handle of his bag was looped around the end. For his size, he moved so silently, he’d been upon us before I saw him, despite all the training I’d received. Either this man was good, or I was not paying enough attention.

“Fergus, this is Mr. Thomas Penrith, Mr. van Rhyn’s assistant, whom I was telling you about. Mr. Penrith, this is Mr. Fergus McKeller, the best right forward you’ve ever seen.”

“Pleased to may-tcha,” McKeller said.

“I was just explaining the rules of hurling to him,” O’Casey said.

“That’s a good thing, then. It sounds like there’s been a serious breach in your education, Mr. Penrith. It all comes of having the terrible misfortune of not being born Irish.”

“We’ll soon set your woeful ignorance to rights,” O’Casey agreed. “You can watch us play the English today, and if you’re interested, I’ll teach you the game.”

We crossed Upper Parliament Street, and entered Prince’s Park. Traversing it, we came to a pitch marked out in chalk, with goals set up, and a clubhouse for the players to change.

“Eamon,” McKeller snorted. “Will you look who’s here?”

My eyes followed his to a tall, thin fellow wearing a black suit with a large red tie. He had a wave of black hair that flopped down over his pince-nez. He caught sight of us and waved.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” O’Casey muttered under his breath, but went over to shake the fellow’s hand.

“That’s Willie Yeats,” McKeller explained. “He’s a Dublin boy who’s sweet on Eamon’s sister. Comes over on the ferry as often as he can afford. Tries to ingratiate himself with us.”

“He’s not a part of the faction, then,” I stated.

“He is, and yet he isn’t. He’s delivered a message now and then for Colonel Dunleavy and attended a meeting or two. He knows about us, but he’s not the type you’d trust to set a bomb, if you know what I mean. Studyin’ to be an artist, and doesn’t know one end of a hurley from the other.”

I didn’t know this myself either, but I wasn’t going to bring that up. I went forward and met the young Irishman, while O’Casey and his friend went to change.

“I have a message for you from Colonel Dunleavy,” he said to me. “Your things are being moved out of your rooms at the Midland and taken over to the O’Casey house.”

“I wasn’t told of the arrangement before.”

Yeats shrugged his thin, loose-limbed shoulders, and I realized that was all the information I was going to get.

“Do you play?” I asked, pointing at the field, where the hurlers had begun to warm up and hit the ball about.

“My good Mr. Penrith, I am quite useless at the game, and my hands are too important to me to risk being battered with a stick.”

“Ah, yes. McKeller said you are an artist.”

Yeats smiled, as if at a private joke. “Not much of one, I’m afraid. It is my father who is the artist. Actually, I prefer to think of myself as a poet.”

“Ah, I love poetry,” I said. “‘The poet’s pen turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name.’”

“You’ve read Shakespeare?” he asked, a surprised look on his face. It was an odd face, handsome at some angles, not so at others.

“Yes, I studied him in school. And not long ago, I read a book about your Celtic legends.”