Short Fiction of Flann O'Brien (Irish Literature) by Flann O’Brien Page B

undisclosed sacrifice made in the interest of immutable principle early in life. Most of the strangers, startled out of their private thoughts, stammered a salutation in return. And Mr. Toole was shrewd. He stopped at that. He said no more to his companion, but by some little private gesture, a chuckle, a shake of the head, a smothered imprecation, he nearly always extracted the one question most melodious to his ear: “ Who was that? ”
    Mr. Toole was shabby, and so was Mr. O’Hickey, but Mr. O’Hickey had a neat and careful shabbiness. He was an older and a wiser man, and was well up to Mr. Toole’s tricks. Mr. Toole at his best, he thought, was better than a play. And he now knew that Mr. Toole was appraising the street with beady eye.
    “Gorawars!” Mr. Toole said suddenly.
    We are off, Mr. O’Hickey thought.
    “Do you see this hop-off-my-thumb with the stick and the hat?” Mr. Toole said.
    Mr. O’Hickey did. A young man of surpassing elegance was approaching; tall, fair, darkly dressed; even at fifty yards his hauteur seemed to chill Mr. O’Hickey’s part of the street.
    “Ten to one he cuts me dead,” Mr. Toole said. “This is one of the most extraordinary pieces of work in the whole world.”
    Mr. O’Hickey braced himself for a more than ordinary impact. The adversaries neared each other.
    “ How are we at all, Sean a chara? ” Mr. Toole called out.
    The young man’s control was superb. There was no glare, no glance of scorn, no sign at all. He was gone, but had left in his wake so complete an impression of his contempt that even Mr. Toole paled momentarily. The experience frightened Mr. O’Hickey.
    “Who . . . who was that ?” he asked at last.
    “I knew the mother well,” Mr. Toole said musingly. “The woman was a saint.” Then he was silent.
    Mr. O’Hickey thought: there is nothing for it but bribery—again. He led the way into a public house and ordered two bottles of stout.
    “As you know,” Mr. Toole began, “I was Bart Conlon’s right-hand man. We were through ’twenty and ’twenty-one together. Bart, of course, went the other way in ’twenty-two.”
    Mr. O’Hickey nodded and said nothing. He knew that Mr. Toole had never rendered military service to his country.
    “In any case,” Mr. Toole continued, “there was a certain day early in ’twenty-one and orders come through that there was to be a raid on the Sinn Féin office above in Harcourt Street. There happened to be a certain gawskogue of a cattle-jobber from the County Meath had an office on the other side of the street. And he was well in with a certain character be the name of Mick Collins. I think you get me drift?”
    “I do,” Mr. O’Hickey said.
    “There was six of us,” Mr. Toole said, “with meself and Bart Conlon in charge. Me man the cattle-jobber gets an urgent call to be out of his office accidentally on purpose at four o’clock, and at half-four the six of us is parked inside there with two machine-guns, the rifles, and a class of a home-made bomb that Bart used to make in his own kitchen. The military arrived in two lurries on the other side of the street at five o’clock. That was the hour in the orders that come. I believe that man Mick Collins had lads working for him over in the War Office across in London. He was a great stickler for the British being punctual on the dot.”
    “He was a wonderful organiser,” Mr. O’Hickey said.
    “Well, we stood with our backs to the far wall and let them have it through the open window and them getting down offa the lurries. Sacred godfathers! I never seen such murder in me life. Your men didn’t know where it was coming from, and a lot of them wasn’t worried very much when it was all over, because there was no heads left on some of them. Bart then gives the order for retreat down the back stairs; in no time we’re in the lane, and five minutes more the six of us upstairs in Martin Fulham’s pub in Camden Street. Poor Martin is dead