Our Casualty, and Other Stories: 1918Birmingham, George A.
General
Our Casualty, and Other Stories: 1918
Birmingham, George A.
Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, Irish
“There was another man,” said Sam, “whom I didn’t know and wasn’t
introduced to. The fact is there wasn’t much time for politeness. My dad
looked as if he’d been shot when he saw me, and old Dopping bristled all
over like an Irish terrier at the beginning of a fight, and asked me
who the devil I was and what I was doing there. Of course, he jolly well
knew who I was, and I thought he must know what brought me there, so I
just winked by way of letting him understand that I was in the game.
He got so red in the face that I thought he’d burst. Then the other
man chipped in and asked me what I’d got in the car. The three of
them whispered together for a bit, and I suggested that if they didn’t
believe me they’d better go and see. The car was outside the door, and
their own man was sitting on the guns. Dopping went, and I suppose he
told the other two that the guns were there all right. Dad asked me where
I got them, and I told them, mentioning Hazlewood’s name and the name
of the yacht. I was a bit puzzled, but I still thought everything was all
right, and that there’d be no harm in mentioning names. I very soon
saw that there was some sort of mistake somewhere. The governor and old
Dopping and the other man, who seemed to be the coolest of the three,
went over to the window and looked at the car. Then they started
whispering again, and I couldn’t hear a word they said. Didn’t want to.
I was as hungry as a wolf, and there was a jolly good breakfast on the
table. I sat down and gorged. I had just started my third egg when
the door opened, and a rather nice-looking young fellow walked in. The
footman came behind him, looking as white as a sheet, and began some
sort of apology for letting the stranger in. Old Dopping, who was still
in a pretty bad temper, told the footman to go and be damned. Then the
new man introduced himself. He said he was Colonel O’Connell, of the
first Armagh Regiment of National Volunteers. I expected to see old
Dopping kill him at sight. Dopping is a tremendous loyalist, and the
other fellow--well--phew!”
Sam whistled. Words failed him, I suppose, when it came to expressing
the disloyalty of a colonel of National Volunteers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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