A Long Long Way (29 page)

Nevertheless, the distance between the site of war and the site of home was a long one and widening. Not the ordinary pragmatic miles between, but some other, more mysterious measure of distance. Icons could be cold things in an army bed, no matter how bright, no matter how burnished. So it was in dreams that his father weighed most heavily; in dreams lay Gretta.

The great spectacle of those days was not a battle but a fight. Not a fight belonging to a battle as such, because now the foul winter was coming in with fearsome frosts and the locking of the land. They pitied the battalions still up the line, with all of the winter ahead to freeze their bones in and try to keep their feet from turning black with frostbite. Boys, with poor food at home and only in those times a few months of hurried training, could freeze in a few hours of that, like poor folk found in the yards of tenements when the temper of the weather snapped in Dublin and brought down a great cloth of murderous snow. So it was along the lines, Willie feared and knew, with French, Irish, English and German alike suffering in the raw ditches of that world.

The fight in question was the closing bout of the great inter-regimental boxing match and, as fate would have it, two Irish lads were posted to face each other, one a Belfast man called William Beatty and the other a tall, bleak-faced hero called Miko Cuddy. The fact that the first was in the 36th and the second in the 16th was strongly noted, and before Guillemont and Guinchy it was billed as a clash of enemies, but after the battles, since some battalions of the Northerners had taken part, this seemed less true, and it was billed as the ‘Battle of the Micks’. But the clash of divisions still gave the proceedings a certain tasty salting. Even God, said Father Buckley, could make up an Irish story like the best of them.

The fight was held in the divisional hall, a decent, big building where Father Buckley was wont to say his masses, and lectures were given in the arts of foot hygiene and the driving in of the bayonet to kill or to wound, distances, how to know where you were in an attack and read the map references correctly, and all such things important but always less interesting than a boxing match.

The hall could boast of four great gasoliers that had been attached to the beams of the ceiling, and that cast down four tents of murky light. The carpenters were drawn from the battalions and a beautiful arena was constructed, with panelled sides and even some Gothic detailing on the uprights, which strictly was not necessary. But everyone felt the passion and rightness and the poetry of the contest. There was nothing about it that anyone objected to. It was, in Father Buckley’s odd term, ‘unobjectionable’. By which he meant it wasn’t an engagement in the field of death and therefore no one would get killed by machine-gun or shrapnel bomb, and an hour or two of good excitement would be had by the men watching and well deserved. Father Buckley had buried so many men after Guinchy and heard so many death-bed confessions and spoken the rites of the dead to so many that every minute and a half his whole body went into a strange tremble, like a chilly dog, so slight it would not be noticed only that a man might see the soutane minutely wavering. He was a warm man now who could not get warm. About three dozen men had had to be packed off to London on the trains because with them the trembling was ten times more afflicting. Willie had seen lads sitting on the ground and their arms flailing and their heads shooting here and there out of control, and sane as saints but for that, rendering them useless to war and probably to themselves but that they might be cured.

Willie Dunne himself was deep in the pleasure of the times. He was longing to see the fighters come out and he was longing to see them tear into each other with that vicious elegance. , Never in his life had he seen a boxing bout, never in his life had he thought of such matters. And now he, in the days leading up to it, was as anxious and oddly happy as the rest, and edgy, and talking with Christy Moran about it, and O‘Hara. Beyond these impulses swung the heavy and bloodied blades of terror, but within, for the moment ... O’Hara himself unwisely opened a little book on the outcome, but because the odds were so short for both men he quickly closed it again, because he saw that he would lose a fortune in the fractions.

Everyone went to the fight because a fight without death — in all likelihood, though indeed it was a bare-knuckle contest — seemed to a man’s mind like a bird singing in a verdant wood.

They came in after their grub in great noisy droves and filled the hall speckled with its curious light. Because of the position of the gasoliers, there was little enough light on the ring itself — why a square yoke like that was called a ring was a mystery to Willie Dunne. He sat down with his own platoon, or the remnant of it, on small wooden chairs with metal backs, that creaked under their arses but held. There were fifty rows of chairs encircling, or perhaps en-squaring, the ring. They tried to leave a little ditch of a gap by which the combatants themselves could enter. The sergeant-majors of the companies did their best, but they knew the nature of the evening. The line officers were content to sit among their men, as they had grown accustomed to doing in the trenches. But the staff officers had a section to themselves right up against the ring, and they sat down there in all their braided glory, having elected to wear their evening dress uniforms. These were creatures rarely seen who nevertheless designed and planned the battles, if did not fight the actual buggering things (said Christy Moran, without evident bitterness).

The gathered faces were plundered by the gaslights, like an audience at a strange theatre where only males were allowed to enter. A person might have suspected a risque show was about to start, but of course it wasn’t so. The rickety doors opened at the top of the hall and the two warriors emerged together, or at least at a discreet distance of a few feet, and came down towards the ring. Whatever Ulstermen were in among the Southerners roared in a mighty bellowing, because William Beatty walked down first, and when Miko Cuddy came stepping grimly along, up went the cheers and caterwauls of the Southerners.

The boxers were both big men but Beatty was a giant.

‘Holy mother of Jesus,’ said O‘Hara, ’that’s never a man, that’s a bullock.‘

Willie Dunne laughed joyously.

‘That’s a fucking bullock,’ said O‘Hara. ’I swear to the good Jesus.‘

‘Poor Cuddy’s a midget beside that fella,’ said Joe Kielty, ‘and I stood beside Miko Cuddy in Westport one time, and all I could see was his waistcoat buttons.’

‘Westport, Joe, did you see him in Westport?’ said Willie Dunne.

‘Didn’t he fight his whole way along the western seaboard three or four time,’ said Joe Kielty, the gentlest man along that seaboard. ‘He’s from Crossmolina.’

‘Three or four times?’ said Willie Dunne.

‘Ah, yes, Willie, ah yes, Willie,’ said Joe Kielty.

But the boxers were very polite, and as the referee examined their hands for possible shards of tin or glass, and saw that the bandages over their knuckles were tight and clean, and were not soaked in oil or vinegar, one to wipe on their own face after the bell, or the other to give a wound a bit of a sparkle all unbeknownst, as the referee saw to these essential but tedious matters, the two boxers stood opposite each other without hostility, ‘in the best Irish tradition’, as Father Buckley pointed out to no one in particular, and when all was ready they shook hands — at least, they knocked knuckles against knuckles in a friendly fashion. Then someone rang a bell. It seemed to Willie that it was the colonel himself, who only some days ago had ridden down to them on his fine black horse and praised their actions at Guinchy, who must have banged the bell, because the noise came from just behind that regal person. Then there was a slight pause and every man in the hall erupted into a wild cheer, and then they fell into the deepest dark silence, and suddenly the four lamps were heard guttering in the smoky air. The pause went on, it seemed to Willie, for a whole minute, and then William Beatty gave a little frisky dance, and lunged forward wonderfully, and gave poor Miko Cuddy such a blow to the head that Willie was sure it would have to fall off, if such a thing were possible. His ear took that blow and he must have heard music all right. Then William Beatty, as if in an ecstasy of good manners and glory, stood back on his heels, and let down his arms, and shook them, as if they might be hurting him a little, and Miko Cuddy leaned and flung such an uppercut at his chin that the hundreds of assembled men gasped as with one breath. No human person could take such a blow and not see blooming stars.

William Beatty stepped back three or four steps, as if indeed he might be counting the galaxies with his eyes open, but then he stepped forward again to Cuddy, and the two circled each other on light feet, and began an exchange of murderous blows, every one to the head if they could. And Willie Dunne could not only hear the odd thud of fist against cheekbone, which had a noise all its own, and sounded excruciatingly sore, but see the sweat break from the men’s heads in little fountains, and all under the weird gloom of the hall. Then some invisible person rang the bell and the two fighters slumped away from each other and staggered over a little to their corners, where regimental sergeant-majors from both divisions were dressed in khaki vests and trousers and had bowls of water for their charges and, from what everyone could hear, very severe advice.

But the crowd was deeply pleased. It was evenly matched and, what was more, there was a measure of quite good-natured banter between the different sectors of the audience. Certain political names were mentioned, and other political names were thrown back. The recent trouble in Dublin was indeed mentioned in the tones of Derry and Belfast. And the likely allegiances, religion and backgrounds of both sides were referred to, but not in a way to cause the ultimate difficulty of a furore beyond the furore in the ring, which was curious to Father Buckley, and well noted. For in his heart Father Buckley was a Redmondite — not so much John Redmond, who was the actual leader of the Irish Party, but his brother Willie, who was just a Member of Parliament, and who was with the division at the front and indeed an ‘old man’ like the priest. Father Buckley was reading just yesterday a speech of Willie Redmond in the House of Commons, where he had expressed the pious hope again that the fact of Nationalist and Unionist Irish soldiers fighting side by side might some day foment a greater understanding of each other and bring Ireland in spite of the recent rebellion to a place of balance, peace and mutual nationhood ... Now the bell went again and it seemed Miko Cuddy was in a fever to finish the fight, no doubt at the prompting of his seconds — the very same name as the men in an old-fashioned duel, Father Buckley noted — who had probably measured the big Ulsterman with mental measuring tape and had fearfully taken in the long reach and the thick muscle of the arms. So Miko Cuddy came forth like a veritable whirligig, like a windmill on the flat white plain of the ring, whirling, whirling his arms, and before he could do much damage, William Beatty came at him like a ballet dancer, side-stepping and jigging and bouncing and finessing every punch, like a man inspired by the very poetry and possibility of movement, and curled in another punch to the very same ear he had caught in the first moment of the fight, and Willie Dunne swore afterwards that he seemed to feel that very punch himself on his own ear, and O’Hara did point out that in his excitement he had indeed landed a gentle box there, but only a shadow of the real thing.

Miko Cuddy stood there a few moments staring at William Beatty. He didn’t seem to be thinking very deep thoughts. His ear had swelled between bells, and now with the new blow it was as large as an orange, a very flat, raw blood-orange. William Beatty’s chin was profusely bleeding, so maybe one of those whirling punches had caught him after all; it was difficult to say in the gloom. But Miko Cuddy regarded William Beatty. Father Buckley doubted he was thinking of the peace-making words of any Willie Redmond, or thinking of anything much. There was going to be a great deal of throbbing pain in that head shortly, but not just yet, because Miko Cuddy’s legs folded under him and he went down to the canvas — strictly speaking, the side of armament boxes fixed end to end with devious under-screwing - in a flounder of sweat and blood, and a little divvying up of dust.