bull.”
They climbed back in, she sighed without looking at Robert, and they roared away. Once again, she took out her mirror, held it in her left hand, and from time to time glanced at her reflection. As she did, the car swung across the narrow road like a dancer or a drunk. The wind froze Robert and his teeth chattered; now and then she glanced sideways at him again, like some large amorous wardress.
Setting up the network for Father Shannon posed no problems in country places. Towns differed, but not insolubly Limerick had proved a worry. The only large city on the river, a personal touch there would be harder to achieve. Archbishop Sevovicz had fretted: Where would Robert stay? He wrote the most anxious of his letters to the Bishop of Limerick.
He, a resourceful man, knew what to do. From the day Robert had landed in Tarbert, he had sent out scouts, looking for a lone American hiker. And, as the bishop knew would happen, one of them had found him and she now drove him in. But on Limerick's first wide street, Robert caught his breath. The car began to drive through military lines— men with rifles again—and then they encountered a roadblock: a truck, an armored car, men with guns aimed outward.
“Whoo-hoo, there's something brewing,” said Maeve MacNulty and she brought the car to a stop. Two officers in uniform stepped forward and looked at this Martian in blue.
“I'm not a good girl,” she said, with a chortle. “I can't drive past handsome men. What's going on?”
“A military exercise, ma'am,” one began.
“Miss,” she corrected. “It looks serious.”
“All these matters are serious,” said the senior officer.
When feelings are impaired, inquiry falls away. As yet Robert had no capacity for research— and his Boston mentor, though protective as a bear, had not asked essential questions or made basic inquiries about such ordinary matters as food, transport, safety—or politics. Sevovicz had in fact allowed his fragile young ward to walk into a civil war. Bands of gunmen now lurked everywhere in Ireland, the first shots were ringing out, and the southwest was the heart of the fire.
Robert had already been scorched. The dying Edward Dargan defined the war. He and his comrades, the Irregulars, opposed the treaty with Britain. They claimed to be the genuine IRA, and these true-to-their-oath soldiers of the Irish Republican Army would never rest until the British had gone home. For them a border was no success. They had mounted the rebellion of 1916. They had fought the War of Independence to force the treaty. They would not settle for a twenty-six-county “Free State”—how they spat the words!—while there was a six-county British dominion in the north.
And they meant it. If the recent struggle had been bloody, it would pale before this. Old comrades were hunting each other down— even if they had all eaten off the same table, slid from the same womb. Brother was already fighting brother, father would soon kill son, as kinship yet again forged the worst enmities of all.
Many loathed this war: Joe O'Sullivan, for instance, refused to take sides. But he knew its rules, and he'd feared for Robert after Eddie Dargan's death. That was why he had made Robert hide in the hollow field; innocent men were getting shot on sight by both sides.
As for Robert himself, Dr. Greenberg and his colleagues might have made the judgment that somewhere in the recesses of Robert's mind their patient had grasped some of this. That might have explained why he had attacked Joe: frustration, incomprehension, and fear, a classic trigger for recurring shell shock. Part of the original ailment came from bewilderment at the very threat of carnage and death.
Now in Limerick, Robert was bewildered again, stung by the sights that had led him into shock in the first place: soldiers everywhere, rifles pointing, two officers with handguns ten feet from his head—his eyes blurred at the sight of their uniforms.
And he knew
They climbed back in, she sighed without looking at Robert, and they roared away. Once again, she took out her mirror, held it in her left hand, and from time to time glanced at her reflection. As she did, the car swung across the narrow road like a dancer or a drunk. The wind froze Robert and his teeth chattered; now and then she glanced sideways at him again, like some large amorous wardress.
Setting up the network for Father Shannon posed no problems in country places. Towns differed, but not insolubly Limerick had proved a worry. The only large city on the river, a personal touch there would be harder to achieve. Archbishop Sevovicz had fretted: Where would Robert stay? He wrote the most anxious of his letters to the Bishop of Limerick.
He, a resourceful man, knew what to do. From the day Robert had landed in Tarbert, he had sent out scouts, looking for a lone American hiker. And, as the bishop knew would happen, one of them had found him and she now drove him in. But on Limerick's first wide street, Robert caught his breath. The car began to drive through military lines— men with rifles again—and then they encountered a roadblock: a truck, an armored car, men with guns aimed outward.
“Whoo-hoo, there's something brewing,” said Maeve MacNulty and she brought the car to a stop. Two officers in uniform stepped forward and looked at this Martian in blue.
“I'm not a good girl,” she said, with a chortle. “I can't drive past handsome men. What's going on?”
“A military exercise, ma'am,” one began.
“Miss,” she corrected. “It looks serious.”
“All these matters are serious,” said the senior officer.
When feelings are impaired, inquiry falls away. As yet Robert had no capacity for research— and his Boston mentor, though protective as a bear, had not asked essential questions or made basic inquiries about such ordinary matters as food, transport, safety—or politics. Sevovicz had in fact allowed his fragile young ward to walk into a civil war. Bands of gunmen now lurked everywhere in Ireland, the first shots were ringing out, and the southwest was the heart of the fire.
Robert had already been scorched. The dying Edward Dargan defined the war. He and his comrades, the Irregulars, opposed the treaty with Britain. They claimed to be the genuine IRA, and these true-to-their-oath soldiers of the Irish Republican Army would never rest until the British had gone home. For them a border was no success. They had mounted the rebellion of 1916. They had fought the War of Independence to force the treaty. They would not settle for a twenty-six-county “Free State”—how they spat the words!—while there was a six-county British dominion in the north.
And they meant it. If the recent struggle had been bloody, it would pale before this. Old comrades were hunting each other down— even if they had all eaten off the same table, slid from the same womb. Brother was already fighting brother, father would soon kill son, as kinship yet again forged the worst enmities of all.
Many loathed this war: Joe O'Sullivan, for instance, refused to take sides. But he knew its rules, and he'd feared for Robert after Eddie Dargan's death. That was why he had made Robert hide in the hollow field; innocent men were getting shot on sight by both sides.
As for Robert himself, Dr. Greenberg and his colleagues might have made the judgment that somewhere in the recesses of Robert's mind their patient had grasped some of this. That might have explained why he had attacked Joe: frustration, incomprehension, and fear, a classic trigger for recurring shell shock. Part of the original ailment came from bewilderment at the very threat of carnage and death.
Now in Limerick, Robert was bewildered again, stung by the sights that had led him into shock in the first place: soldiers everywhere, rifles pointing, two officers with handguns ten feet from his head—his eyes blurred at the sight of their uniforms.
And he knew
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