Liam O'Flaherty - Irish Portraits - 14 Short Stories

He had been talking at a terrific pace and stopped suddenly to draw breath. Speaking rapidly, the doctor interrupted him in the same jerky low tone. “And then, of course, you went to kill the editor, fust to make people believe you were ill,” murmured the doctor.

Dowling suddenly stiffened in bed. He dragged his hand from the doctor’s two hands. He held his two hands clenched in front of his face. His face contorted into a demoniacal grin. His eyes distended and then narrowed to slits. His body began to tremble. Gibbering, he began to mutter. Then he became articulate.

“I’ll kill the bastard yet,” he screamed, “I’ll kill him. Where is he? Where is he?”

Screaming he tried to jump out of bed, but the attendant’s giant hands were about him. He felt himself pressed down into the bed, flat on his back. Gibbering, he lay there trembling. Then another fit overcame him and he roared. The ward became filled with sound. All the other patients began to scream and cry and babble.

“Padded cell,” murmured the doctor to the attendant. Then he sighed and walked away to the door.

The sea was dead calm. There was no wind. The sun stood high in the heavens. Seamus O’Toole and Michael Halloran were coming from Kilmurrage to Rooruch in a new boat they had just bought. The fresh tar on the boat’s canvas sides glistened in the sun, and the polished wooden lathes of the frame emitted a strong smell of pine. The two men were singing snatches of coarse songs as they rowed. They had drunk a lot of whiskey in Kilmurrage. They were both strong young men. Seamus O’Toole rowed in the prow. His cap resting crookedly on the back of his head, showed his white forehead above a ruddy face. His blue eyes were glassy with drink and there was a slight froth around the corners of his thick lips. Michael Halloran rowed in the stern. His bare head was shaped like a cone, shorn to the bone all round with a short glib hanging over the narrow forehead. Sweat discoloured the knees of his white frieze trousers. His shoulder blades twitched convulsively under his grey shirt as he lay forward over the oars and he kept hanging his head sideways, as if he were trying to hit his left knee.

They were passing Coillnamhan harbour about a mile from the shore, when O’Toole stopped rowing suddenly and said, “Let us have a drink.” “I’m satisfied,” said Halloran, letting go his oars. The boat flopped ahead with a lapping sound on the eddies of her wake, O’Toole picked up a pint bottle of whiskey that rested on his waistcoat in the prow. He uncorked it and took a swig. The whiskey gurgled going down his throat. Then his lips left the neck of the bottle with a gasp and he passed it in silence to Halloran. Halloran took a long draught and passed it back. “That’s enough for us,” he said thickly. “Go to the devil,” said O’Toole with a rough laugh and put the bottle to his lips again. Halloran turned round in his seat and snatched the bottle. O’Toole’s teeth rasped against the rim as the bottle was wrenched from his mouth. Halloran swallowed his breath hurriedly and tried to put the bottle to his lips with his right hand. He was leaning backwards, his face to the sun, his left hand on the starboard gunwale.

O’Toole cursed, drew in a deep breath, and struck at Halloran’s upturned face with his right fist. His upper lip contorted as he struck. He struck Halloran between the eyes. The bottle fell to the bottom of the boat, hit a round granite stone that lay there and broke into pieces. Halloran’s head hit the bottom of the boat with a hollow thud and rebounded as he clawed with his hands and legs. His bloodshot eyes glared and he shrieked as he struggled to his feet. O’Toole with his jaws wide open jumped to his feet too and snatched at his waistcoat. He pulled a knife from the pocket. He was opening it when he dropped it suddenly and whirled about. Halloran had yelled again. He was standing athwart his seat, the round stone in his left hand. He drew back his arm to take aim when the boat rolled to port, and he slipped. His right shin struck against the seat. In seizing the gunwales with both hands to steady himself the stone dropped into the sea. Its splash sounded loud in the silence. Hissing, they both stood upright, swaying gracefully with the rocking boat, as agile as acrobats in their drunken madness. They stared into one another’s eyes for several seconds, their bodies twitching, their thighs taut. Each felt the other’s breath hot on his face. Their breathing was loud. Each stood astride his seat.

Then the boat stopped rocking. With a roar they rushed at one another’s throats. They met between the two seats, their feet against the sides, each clasping the other’s throat. They stood cheek to cheek, breast to breast. They had moved so lightly that the boat did not rock. The two of them close together looked like a mast. They stood still.

Then O’Toole raised his left leg and hit Halloran in the stomach. Halloran yelled and doubled up, The boat rocked as O’Toole pressed forward and the two of them tumbled across the second seat, Halloran beneath, O’Toole sprawling on top, his hands still gripping Halloran’s throat. Then Halloran heaved and struggled sideways to his knees. He threw O’Toole’s legs over the port gunwale. The boat canted ominously to port. The port gunwale was almost under water. They both shrieked. Halloran’s body bounded off the boat’s bottom as he wrenched himself to starboard and wound his legs about the seat. The boat rocked from side to side madly. Then O’Toole tried to lift his legs on board. They were almost on board when Halloran grasped at his head and seized his ears. They swung out again with a swish. The boat rolled with them, paused for a moment with the gunwale at the water’s edge and then it toppled over with a swoop. There was a muffled yell as the two men disappeared beneath the black dome of tarred canvas, Halloran’s legs clinging like a vice to the seat, O’Toole’s hands gripping Halloran’s throat.

For half a minute the boat hopped restlessly. There was a rustling noise of something splashing in water. Then all was still. The sun glistened on the tarred bottom of the boat. A cap floated near.

Then the upturned boat began to drift slowly westwards.

An old farmer called Sutton was the first to arrive at the forge. He was a big man, with a black beard shaped like the head of a shovel. He was dragging a limping plough-horse by the halter. He brought the horse into the little yard off the road, and saw that the door of the forge was still locked and barred.

“Well, be the …” cried Sutton, uttering a long string of oaths, “nine o’clock in the morning, an’ still no sign of him. Holy Moses!”

Although the door of the forge was locked and barred with a heavy iron crowbar, it was quite easy to enter it through an enormous hole in the wall to the right of the door. Through this hole, three men could enter abreast. Tinkers and tramps passed in and out there regularly at night. Still the smith locked and barred the door scrupulously every evening.

Sutton tied his horse to the stone fence, looked in through the hole and saw nothing. He growled again, sat down and waited patiently for half an hour until Joe Tierney, who kept the “Mountain Tavern,” five miles away the other side of the bog, arrived with his pony and trap.

“Morra, Joe,” said Sutton.

“Morra,” said Tierney. “Where’s Keegan?”

“The divil a bit o’ me knows,” said Sutton. “He’s not here, anyway, where he should be at this hour o’ the morn-in’.”

“God! Isn’t he an awful man,” said Tierney, getting out of his trap and going towards the hole in the wall. “Look at that, will ye? The door is locked an’ God Almighty could walk in an’out through this hole. Wha’?”