Civilized War

by George A. Birmingham

Civilized War

BY GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM

"THIS," said Captain Power, "is an utterly rotten war."

The rain was dripping through the roof of the shed which had been allotted to the mess as a billet. The mud outside was more than ankle-deep. The damp inside was chilly and penetrating. Ned Waterhouse, a second lieutenant, the only other occupant of the shed, looked up from an old newspaper which he was trying to read.

"All wars are rotten," he said.

Power stretched himself on the wire netting which formed the bed on which he sat. He looked at Waterhouse with a slow smile.

"Not at all," he said. "A properly conducted war run in a decent way by civilized men is quite agreeable—rather fun, in fact. The last one I was mixed up in was very amusing."

Waterhouse eyed Power suspiciously. He suspected that he was being made the victim of some kind of joke. Waterhouse was an Englishman and it was not of his own choice that he was an officer in the Hibernian Light Infantry. He felt himself out of place among Irishmen, whom he never quite understood. He was particularly distrustful of Captain Power. Power was an expert in the art of "pulling the legs" of innocent people. Waterhouse had several times found himself looking like a fool without knowing exactly why.

"What I call a civilized war," said Power, "is waged in fine weather and men have a chance of keeping clean. The combatants show some regard for the other side's feelings and don't try to make things as nasty for each other as they can. The business is done in a picturesque way, with banners and bands and speeches. There are negotiations and flags of truce and mutual respect for gallant foemen instead of this damned cold-blooded scientific slaughter."

"No war was ever like that," said Waterhouse. "Novelists and other silly fools write about war as if it were a kind of sport; but it never really was."

"The last one I was in was," said Power.

"I don't believe you ever were in a war before," said Waterhouse. "You're not nearly old enough to have gone to South Africa."

"All the same, I was in a war," said Power, "though I didn't actually fight. I was wounded at the time and couldn't; but I was there. You forget that we had an Irish war at Easter, 1916."

"That footy little rebellion!"

"You may call it what you like," said Power, "but it was a much better war than this one from every point of view except mere size. It was properly conducted on both sides."

"I suppose you want to tell a yarn about it," said Waterhouse, "and if you do I can't stop you; but you needn't suppose I'll believe a word you say."

"The truth of this narrative," said Power, "will compel belief even in the most skeptical mind. I happened to be at home at the time on sick leave—wounded in the arm. Those were the days when one got months of sick leave, before some rotten ass invented convalescent homes for officers and kept us in them. I had three months' leave that time and I spent it with my people in Ballymaher."

"The whole of it?" said Waterhouse. "Good Lord!"

"You'd have spent it in the Strand Palace Hotel, I suppose, running in and out of music-halls. But I prefer the simple joys of country life, though I couldn't shoot or ride properly, on account of my arm. I used to watch sunsets and listen to the birds singing, which I liked. Besides, I was absolutely stony at the time and couldn't have stuck it out in London for a week. As it happened, it was a jolly good thing I was there. If I'd been in London I'd have missed that war. Perhaps I'd better begin by telling you the sort of place Ballymaher is."

"You needn't," said Waterhouse. "I spent three months in camp in County Tipperary. I know those dirty little Irish towns—twenty public houses, two churches, a workhouse, and a police barrack."

"In Ballymaher there is also a court-house and our ancestral home. My old dad is the principal doctor in the neighborhood. He lives on one side of the court-house. The parish priest lives on the other. You must grasp those facts clearly in order to understand the subsequent military operations. The only other thing you really must know is that Ballymaher lies in a hole with hills all round it, like the rim of a saucer. Well, on Monday afternoon, Easter Monday, the enemy—that is to say, the Sinn-Feiners—marched in and took possession of the town. It was a most imposing sight, Waterhouse. There were about eight hundred of them. Lots of them had uniforms. Most of them had flags. There were two bands and several rifles. The cavalry—"

"You can't expect me to believe in the cavalry," said Waterhouse. "But, I say, when they came, supposing they really did come, didn't the loyal inhabitants put up any kind of resistance?"

"My old dad," said Power, "was the only loyal inhabitant, except four policemen. You couldn't expect four policemen to give battle to a whole army. They shut themselves up in their barrack and stayed there. My dad, being a doctor, was, of course, a non-combatant. I couldn't do anything with my arm in a sling, so there was no fight at all."

"I suppose the next thing they did was loot the public houses," said Waterhouse, "and get gloriously drunk."

"Certainly not. I told you that our war was properly conducted. There was no looting in Ballymaher, and I never saw a drunken man the whole time. If those Sinn-Feiners had a fault it was over-respectability. I shouldn't care to be in that army myself."

"I believe that," said Waterhouse. "It's the first thing you've said that I really have believed."

"They used to march about all day in the most orderly manner, and at night there were sentries at every street corner who challenged people in Irish. As I didn't know the language, I thought it better to stay indoors. But my dad used to wander about. He's a sporting old bird and likes to know what's going on. Well, that state of things lasted three days and we all began to settle down comfortably for the summer. Except that we got no newspapers or letters, there wasn't much to complain about. In fact, you'd hardly have known that there was a war on. It wasn't the least like this beastly country, where every one destroys everything he sees and wretched devils have to live in rabbit-holes. In Ballymaher we lived in houses with beds and chairs, and looked after ourselves properly. Then one morning—it must have been Friday—news came that a lot of soldiers were marching on the town. Some country girls saw them and came running in to tell us. I must say for the Sinn Fein commander that he kept his head. His name was O'Farrell and he called himself a colonel. He sent out scouts to see where the soldiers were and how many of them there were. Quite the proper thing to do. I didn't hear exactly what the scouts reported; but that afternoon O'Farrell came round to our house to talk things over with my dad."

"I thought you said your father was a loyal man."

"So he is. There isn't a loyaler man in Ireland. You'd know that if you'd ever seen him singing 'God Save the King.' He swells out an inch all over when he's doing it."

"If he's as loyal as all that," said Waterhouse, "he wouldn't consult with rebels."

"My dad, though loyal, has some sense, and so, as it happened, had O'Farrell. Neither one nor other of them wanted to have a battle fought in the streets of Ballymaher. You've seen battles, Waterhouse, and you know what they're like—messy things. You can understand my father's feelings. O'Farrell was awfully nice about it. He said that the people of Ballymaher, including my father and even the police, were a decent crowd and that he'd hate to see licentious English soldiers rioting through the streets of the town. His idea was that my dad should use his influence with the commanding officer of the troops and get him to march his men off somewhere else so as to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. O'Farrell promised he wouldn't go after them or molest them in any way if they left the neighborhood. My dad said he couldn't do that and even if he could he wouldn't. He suggested that O'Farrell should take his army away. O'Farrell said he was out to fight and not run away. I chipped in at that point and said he could fight just as well in some lonelier place where there weren't any houses and no damage would be done. I said I felt pretty sure the soldiers would go after him to any bog he chose to select. O'Farrell seemed to think there was something in the suggestion and said he would hold a council of war and consult his officers."

"What amazing things you do think of, Power," said Waterhouse.

Captain Power took no notice of the interruption. He went on with his story: "The council of war assembled next morning," he said, "and sat for about four hours. It might have sat all day if an English officer hadn't ridden in on a motor-bike about noon. He was stopped by a sentry, of course, and said he wanted to see the C.O. of the rebel army. So the sentry blindfolded him—"

"What on earth for?"

"In civilized war," said Power, severely, "envoys with flags of truce are invariably blindfolded. I told you at the start that our war was properly conducted, but you wouldn't believe me. Now you can see for yourself that it was. The sentry led that officer into the council, which was sitting in the court-house. I told you, didn't I, that the court-house was the rebel headquarters?"

"You didn't mention it; but it doesn't matter."

"It doesn't matter? As you'll see later on, it's a most important fact. Well, O'Farrell was frightfully polite to the officer and asked him what he wanted. The officer said he came to demand the unconditional surrender of the whole rebel army. O'Farrell, still quite politely, said he'd rather die than surrender. Everybody present cheered at that. The officer said that the town was entirely surrounded and that there was a gun on top of one of the hills which would shell the place into little bits in an hour if it started firing. O'Farrell said he didn't believe all that, and accused the officer of putting up a bluff. The officer stuck to it that what he said was literally true. That brought the negotiations to a deadlock."

"Why the devil didn't they shell the place and have done with it, instead of talking?"

"That's what would happen out here," said Power, "but, as I keep on telling you, our war was run on humane lines. After the officer and O'Farrell had argued for half an hour my dad dropped in on them. He's a popular man in the neighborhood and I think every one was glad to see him. He sized up the position at once and suggested the only possible way out. O'Farrell, with a proper safe-conduct of course, was to be allowed to go and see whether the town was really surrounded and especially whether there was a gun on the hill as the officer said. That—I think you'll agree with me, Waterhouse—was a sensible suggestion and fair to both sides. But they both boggled at it. The officer said he had no power to enter into negotiations of any kind with rebels and that all he could do was to take 'yes' or 'no' to his proposal of unconditional surrender. O'Farrell did not say as much, but he seemed to think he'd be shot no matter what safe-conduct he had. It took the poor old dad nearly an hour to talk sense into the two of them; but in the end he managed it. O'Farrell agreed to go if the safe-conduct was signed by my dad as well as the officer, and the officer agreed to take him on condition that my dad went, too, to explain the situation to his colonel. I went with them just to see what would happen."

"I suppose they made O'Farrell prisoner," said Waterhouse.

"You're judging everybody by the standards of this infernal war. That English colonel was a soldier and a gentleman. He stood us drinks and allowed O'Farrell to look at the gun. It was there, all right, and it was perfectly true that Ballymaher was entirely surrounded. We got back about five o'clock with an ultimatum written out on a sheet of paper. Unless O'Farrell and the whole army marched out and laid down their arms before 8 p.m. the town would be shelled without further warning. You'd have thought that would have knocked the heart out of O'Farrell, considering that he hadn't a dog's chance of breaking through. But it didn't. He became cheerfuler than I'd seen him before, and said that the opportunity he'd always longed for had come at last. His men, when he told them about the ultimatum, took the same view. They said they'd never surrender, not even if the town was shelled into atoms and they were buried in the ruins. That naturally did not suit my dad—or, for that matter, me. The soldiers were sure to begin by shelling the rebel headquarters, and that meant they'd hit our house. I told you, didn't I, that it is next door to the court-house? My poor dad did his best. He talked to O'Farrell and the rest of them till the sweat ran off him, but it wasn't the least bit of good. They simply wouldn't listen to reason. It was seven o'clock before he gave the job up and left the court-house. He was going home to make his will; but on the way he met Father Conway, the priest. He's a youngish man and a tremendous patriot, supposed to be hand in glove with the rebels. Dad explained to him that he had less than an hour to live and advised him to go home and bury any valuables he possessed before the shelling began. It took Father Conway about ten minutes to grasp the situation. I chipped in and explained the bracket system on which the artillery works. I told him that they wouldn't begin by aiming at the court-house, but would drop the first shell on his house and the next one on ours so as to make sure of getting the range right. As soon as he believed that—and I had to swear it before he did—he took the matter up warmly and said he'd talk to O'Farrell himself. I didn't think he'd do much good, but I went into the court-house with him just to see what he'd say. I'll give him this much credit; he wasted no time. It was a quarter past seven when he began, so there wasn't much time to waste.

"'Boys,' he said, 'will you tell me straight and plain what it is you want?'

"O'Farrell began a long speech about an Irish republic and things of that kind. I sat with my watch in my hand opposite Father Conway. Every now and then I pointed at the hands so as to remind him that time was going on. At twenty-five past seven he stopped O'Farrell and said they couldn't have an Irish republic just yet, though they might later on—on account of the gun the soldiers had on top of the hill. Then he asked them again to say exactly what they wanted, republics being considered a washout for the moment. You'd have been surprised if you'd heard the answer he got. Every man in the place stood up and shouted that he asked nothing better than to die for Ireland. They meant it, too. I thought it was all up and that Father Conway was done. But he wasn't.

"'Who's preventing you dying?' he said. 'Just form fours in the square outside and march up the hill and you'll all be dead in less than half an hour. But if you stay here a lot of other people who don't want to die for Ireland or anything else will be killed, too, along with having their houses knocked down on them.'

"Well, they saw the sense of that. O'Farrell formed his men up outside and made a speech to them. He said that if any one funked it he could stay where he was, and that only those who really wanted to die need go on. It was a quarter to eight when he'd finished talking and I was in terror of my life that there'd be some delay getting rid of the men who fell out. But there wasn't a single defaulter. Every blessed one of those men—and most of them were only boys—did a right turn and marched out of the town in column of fours. I can tell you, Waterhouse, I didn't like watching them go. My dad was standing on the steps of the court-house, blubbering like a child; and I never heard anything like the language that Father Conway was using—in the excitement of the moment, of course. I don't mean to say he usually swears."

"I suppose they weren't all killed?" said Waterhouse.

"None of them were killed," said Power. "There wasn't a single shot fired. You see, when the English officer saw them march out of the town he naturally thought they'd come to surrender and didn't fire on them."

"He couldn't possibly have thought that," said Waterhouse, "unless they had laid down their arms."

"As a matter of fact," said Power, "hardly any of them had any arms, except hockey-sticks. I suppose the colonel thought they'd piled them up somewhere. He seems to have been a decent sort of man. He made prisoners of O'Farrell and a few more and told the rest of them to be off home and not behave like silly asses."

"Ireland," said Waterhouse, "must be a damned queer country."

"It's the only country in Europe at the present moment," said Power, "that knows how to conduct a war in a civilized way. Now if a situation of that sort turned up out here there'd be bloodshed."

"I suppose O'Farrell was hanged afterward," said Waterhouse.

"No, he wasn't."

"Shot, then? Though I should think hanging is the proper death for a rebel."

"He wasn't shot, either," said Power. "He's alive still and quite well. He's going about the country making speeches. He was down in Ballymaher about a fortnight ago and called on my dad to thank him for all he'd done during the last rebellion. He inquired after me in the kindest way. The old dad was greatly touched, especially when a crowd of about a thousand men—all O'Farrell's original army and a few new recruits—gathered round the house and cheered, first for an Irish republic, and then for dad. He made them a little speech and told them I'd got my company and was recommended for the M.C. When they heard that they cheered me like anything and then shouted, 'Up the Rebels!' and, 'Down with England!' for about ten minutes."

"I needn't tell you," said Waterhouse, "that I don't believe a word of that story. If I did I'd say"—he paused for a moment—"I'd say that Ireland—"

"Yes," said Power, "that Ireland—"

"I'd say that Ireland is a country of lunatics and that there ought to be an Irish republic. I can't think of anything worse to say about you than that."