The Lost Soldier's Song

By Patrick McGinley

McGinley foregoes his usual murder mystery genre; instead, he presents an historical novel set during the Anglo-Irish War of 1919 to 1921.

The story opens and closes with Declan Osborne in jail, being interrogated by British officers. In between, we learn of the sequence of events that has led him there. Set in Ireland at the time of the Black and Tans, Declan is a young man who sets out to join the cause full of doomed idealism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Jun 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781448209644

Patrick McGinley

Patrick McGinley (b 1937) is an Irish novelist, born in Glencolumbkille, Ireland. After teaching in Ireland, McGinley moved to England where he pursued a career as a publisher and author. Among his strongest literary influences is his Irish predecessor, author Flann O'Brien, who McGinley emulates most noticeably in his novel The Devil's Diary.

Book preview

cover-image

THE

LOST

SOLDIER’S

SONG

Patrick McGinley

For Con and Una O’Gara

Contents

Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Part II

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Part III

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

A Note on the Author

Part I

Chapter 1

They both left Nolan’s shortly after dawn. The Shack was four miles to the west, on the far side of a rocky hill, at the end of a sheep track that they’d walked many times before. The May morning was cool, the sky cloudless after the freak fog of the previous afternoon. At any other time he would have been looking forward to the journey, with the low sun behind him casting light shadows on the young heather. Today was different. A prudent man would be travelling north, farther into the mountains, away from the villages and the towns. He took only one precaution; he went round the flank of the hill so as not to present an easy silhouette against the sky.

‘It’s risky going back,’ Maureen said reflectively. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to ask one of the neighbours? They’re all sheep farmers, they’ll be only too pleased to look after a sheep-dog.’

‘You know what people are like. They make a mountain of a molehill and then they crow on it. I’ve got to go back. I owe it to Tom Hurley, he’s very fond of Scram.’

Maureen wasn’t in a mood for talking, so he sought to concentrate his mind on rising snipe and the larks pouring music recklessly and profusely from above. After the action of the previous day the peace of the morning was like water flowing smoothly. When they came within sight of the cottage they called the Shack, they stood and looked at the empty track leading up to it from the valley below. It was strange seeing it again, so solitary and unsheltered, the green-stained walls and the small windows that blinked back at the morning sun.

He walked round the house. Nothing had been disturbed. He pulled the latch-cord of the door, and Scram came forward, wagging his tail in mournful silence. He took off the leather muzzle and the dog rubbed his snout against his trouser leg. He was a lovely dog with a shiny black coat and ears that were silk-soft and floppy. He was intelligent and lively without being frisky. He had the air of a dog that was accustomed to being spoken to as an equal.

‘We’ll have to find you a new home, Scram, at least for now.’ Scram paid no attention. He lay down on the hearth and rested his long nose on his white forepaws.

‘You’ve made a friend for life,’ Maureen said. ‘Hurley would be jealous if he knew.’

He walked round the house and barn, picking up anything that from the wrong point of view might be seen as incriminating evidence. He found several empty cartridges which he concealed in a ditch. The cartridges made him feel anxious. He went back to the house to find Maureen breaking a chunk of stale bread on a plate for the dog. She moistened it with water and the dog gulped it down and looked up at her for more.

‘I don’t feel safe here,’ she said. ‘I’ll be glad when we get to Glenreesk.’

The dog cocked his ears and whined. He went to the back door and began scraping the paintwork with his forepaws. ‘Quiet, Scram,’ Maureen said, going to the window. ‘Declan, come here. We must be surrounded..’

From the north window he saw four Tans coming down the slope with their guns drawn. He went to the other window and saw two RIC men on the bawn. It was a time for discretion rather than valour. He had Maureen to think of, though that wasn’t something he could discuss with her.

‘We’ll play it cool,’ he said. ‘You sit there and I’ll sit opposite. With any luck we’ll look like any ordinary couple. If they ask for names, I’m Philip Keegan and you’re my wife Sheila.’

He hid his revolver under the dresser and took an armful of turf from a creel by the door. He knelt in front of the bare hearth and laid the turf against the back-stone to light a fire.

‘It’s a pity we haven’t got some whiskey,’ Maureen said. ‘They expect all Irish people to be drunk like themselves.’

‘I doubt if even the Tans are drunk at eight o’clock in the morning. Try to look terrified, that will please them.’

She didn’t seem in the least terrified. She picked up an old newspaper and spread it over her knees. He had always seen her as level-headed and businesslike, well able to hold her own in a column of rough-spoken men. It was only in the last twenty-four hours that he’d begun to think of her as potentially vulnerable.

Scram barked furiously as a knock shook the door.

‘Leave this to me,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve got more charm than you.’

She drew back the thick wooden bolt with a clatter. In the doorway he saw two iron faces and Scram’s tail vanishing between two pairs of polished top boots.

‘Whose house is this?’

‘Philip Keegan’s,’ Maureen said brazenly. ‘What do you want?’

Three soldiers entered while the others remained outside. One of them, a lieutenant, said, ‘So you’re Philip Keegan?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And this is your missus, I suppose.’

‘There’s no need to suppose. She’s my lawful wife.’

‘I’d like to see your marriage certificate.’ The lieutenant looked slightly bored. His demand was an automatic response. He had been given an opportunity and he had taken it.

‘It’s behind the clock, Sheila.’

‘That’s funny,’ Maureen said. ‘It was there last week. We showed it to Uncle Jack when he was here.’

‘You must have moved it. You’re always tidying up.’ For the benefit of the lieutenant he tried to imitate an impatient husband talking to a wife whose secretarial skills left something to be desired.

Maureen went to the dresser and began rummaging in a drawer. The lieutenant sat in her chair and stretched two high-booted legs across the hearth. He was a slim, narrow-shouldered man with a smudgelike moustache that failed to lend his face a look of military distinction. His men had surrounded the house. His attitude expressed the confidence of an officer who had spied out the land and had anticipated every possible eventuality. There was no point in resenting his mastery of a situation. Best to keep calm and betray no hint of involvement in anything less innocuous than sheep farming.

‘We weren’t expecting to find anyone here,’ the lieutenant confided slyly. ‘From the outside your cabin looks quite uninhabited.’

‘We make a living as best we can. Mainly sheep. Times are hard.’

‘How many acres have you got?’

‘Acres, did you say? I’ve got half a mountain of useless ground.’

‘Half a mountain of hideouts, more like! You’d be better off with three good acres and a cow. Do you keep a cow?’

‘No. My father had a cow but she died without leaving a calf.’

‘You’re a sorry man, Mr Keegan. You don’t own a cow, you don’t thatch your cabin, you’ve lost your marriage certificate, and you have a sheep-dog that doesn’t come to heel.’

‘It’s the life I was born into. If I had three good acres and a cow, I wouldn’t have to drink black tea.’

‘I think you mock me. I may come from the city but I know that ewes give milk. How long have you lived here?’

‘All my life.’

‘But not long enough to light a fire. Your hearth is cold, Mr Keegan.’

‘We were about to light it when you came in.’

‘Quite so. If you’ve lived here all your life, you must know everyone hereabouts.’

‘I know everyone who goes to late Mass on Sunday.’

‘I think you’d better come with us to make an identification. There was an attempted ambush in Carrick Colman yesterday. I hope to find out if the culprits we’ve caught are locals.’

‘I’m too busy to go all the way to Carrick Colman.’

‘We’ll drive you there and back. The lambing season is over. I’m sure your ewes will graze without a shepherd for two hours.’

He looked the officer in the eye. He didn’t have a choice. If he refused to go, he’d be arrested or even shot for obstructing the course of imperial justice.

‘My husband knows nothing about rebels and murderers,’ Maureen said from the dresser. ‘We’re both too busy making ends meet to have anything to do with either.’

‘It’s all we can do, keeping our heads above water,’ he agreed.

A soldier came in and handed the officer a spent cartridge. ‘I found that behind the outbuildings,’ he said. The officer sniffed it, then turned it over with a great show of interested expertise.

‘Do you have a gun?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Do you know anyone who has?’

‘Not any more. All guns were handed in by order over a year ago.’

‘All guns? I think you exaggerate, Mr Keegan.’

‘I meant farmers’ guns.’

‘Of course. I don’t doubt your word for a moment. As a matter of interest, can you deduce from that cartridge anything about the weapon that fired it?’

He took the cartridge from the officer and looked down into it with deliberate sheepishness.

‘Try the other end, Mr Keegan. It’s obvious that you’ve never risen to a farmer’s gun. I think you could do with a lesson in ballistics. These are violent times. A knowledge of weaponry never goes entirely amiss.’

‘What would my husband know about guns?’ Maureen demanded a trifle over-emphatically. ‘I’ll not have you take him away like this, wasting weather that doesn’t come every day.’

‘If he does what he’s told, he’ll suffer no harm. To set your mind at ease, we’ll take you along as well. I’d like you to realise that we’re only doing our duty.’

Maureen had put her foot in it and there was no retracting. He told the officer that he was quite prepared to go to the barracks alone, but the officer had already made up his mind. They put Maureen in the first Crossley and her ‘husband’ in the second. He sat on the narrow seat between two soldiers while the officer sat opposite smoking a cigarette. He was a most superior officer, relaxed and affable without being friendly. On the way he kept enquiring about Irish place names and their meanings. As they drove through a gorge with two large, overhanging boulders on the slope, he enquired why the place was called Maggerley.

‘Maggerley means testicles. It’s named after the boulders, you see.’

One of the soldiers coughed to suppress a laugh. The lieutenant pretended to flick the ash from his cigarette. ‘Your translation has quite destroyed the mystery. I hope you have no more semantic surprises up your sleeve.’

‘Testicles will never be an adequate translation of Maggerley. Even Maggerley is a mongrel word. The old name was Magarlaigh Móra. We live in a half-way house which is neither Irish nor English. If Strongbow and his Normans had never come to Ireland, this place would still be called Magarlaigh Móra and there would be no need for translation or transliteration.’

‘We can’t undo history, Mr Keegan. This place is now called Maggerley, and Maggerley it will remain. There is no unploughing what has been ploughed. Next in sequence is planting and reaping.’

‘The planting has already been done. This is the harvest and I hope the weather holds up till it’s won. There’s nothing like good weather for the harvest.’

‘You take an interest in harvesting,’ the lieutenant said blithely.

‘Only from a distance. My business is sheep farming. For me the lambing in the spring is what keeps the wolf from the door in winter. You could say that I’m not as dependent on good harvest weather as those who make a living from tillage.’

‘Quite. I suspect, Mr Keegan, that contrary to appearances you’re nobody’s fool.’

He resented the way the lieutenant kept calling him ‘Mr Keegan’ as if he knew instinctively that it was not his real name. He could see that the officer possessed a personal spark not given to his men. By the look of it he was not accustomed to dwelling unduly on injured merit. It would be an achievement to jolt him out of his self-possession and demonstrate that he was not the only one with a cool head. He began telling the lieutenant about sheep farming and the need for care in cross-breeding. The lieutenant took a civilised interest in what must have been for him a subject of merely passing interest. ‘Have you any opinion on cross-breeding between nations?’ he enquired almost absentmindedly.

‘The problems must surely be different. I doubt if the danger of still-births is one of them.’

‘But there are problems, you would agree?’

‘If there are, I have no personal knowledge of them. My wife is Irish. In fact she comes from my own townland.’

The flicker of a smile played beneath the officer’s moustache. ‘For a man who lives among hills you are not much given to airy speculation. You never stray too far from your own ground and experience. You farm half a mountain, you say? Do you know every square perch of it?’

‘I know every square inch but not nearly as well as my ewes do. Year after year I watch them lead their lambs to the best places. One thing they’ve taught me: the greenest grass is not necessarily the sweetest.’

‘So much for the Emerald Isle.’ The lieutenant smiled with an upward tilt of the chin and Declan chuckled drily to show that he could appreciate a witty rejoinder. In making conversation he had been at pains to cultivate the lieutenant’s goodwill, to demonstrate that he was a practical, no-nonsense farmer whose point of view did not challenge received ideas of law and order. As they entered the village of Carrick Colman, he felt confident that he had achieved his purpose. He would say that he did not recognise any of the prisoners and the lieutenant would now be inclined to take his word for it. His self-assurance received a jolt when he spied Scram trotting light-footedly behind the Crossley. As they swung through the barracks gate, he pretended not to hear the dog’s urgent barking.

‘What loyalty!’ the officer exclaimed. ‘He must have followed us all the way.’ He told one of the men to admit the animal and see that it was fed. He stood watching as Scram came bounding across the square to lick Declan’s hand. Declan stooped and ruffled Scram’s ears between his fingers. He smiled proudly at the officer, determined not to betray any hint of anxiety or doubt. With a reassuring air of normality, the officer instructed one of the soldiers to give Maureen a cup of tea while Declan was helping the police in their investigations.

He was led into a small room where a gas lamp flickered faintly above the door. There was no window, only two newlycut loop-holes that were not designed to let in light. There was a table and two chairs, and behind the table an RIC constable sat with the stony impassivity of a Buddha. Quite unexpectedly, he pointed to the vacant chair, opened his notebook, and laid a stumpy pencil across a blank page. Declan knew that the shadow boxing was over, that his every word would be taken down for future scrutiny. He had reason to be wary of the Royal Irish Constabulary, not because of their claims to being ‘Royal’ but because of their misappropriation of the epithet ‘Irish’. Admittedly, most of them were Irish born, like the Duke of Wellington, and unfortunately they could boast of a formidable knowledge of the countryside and the people. To the Black and Tans they were invaluable as collectors of information and gossip and as scouts and guides in god-forsaken places where lurked rebels, Shinners and even lesser breeds without the so-called law.

The constable rocked his weight from one buttock to the other and asked him his name and where he lived.

‘I’m Philip Keegan. I’m a sheep farmer from the townland of Booley.’

The constable affected weary omniscience. He told him that there were no sheep farmers in Booley, apart from foxes and crows. He asked a string of questions and wrote down the answers with laborious breathing that filled the small room with the smell of fried onions as well as several other smells that defied identification. Finally, he told Declan to go to one of the loop-holes while he himself went to the other. Declan looked down on the barracks square where four handcuffed men stood side by side with four armed soldiers behind them. He recognised McColl, Ganly and Hurley but not the fourth who was bald and sallow-faced and looked as if he needed a holiday in the open air. McColl and Hurley were on crutches and McColl had one arm in a sling.

‘Do you recognise any of the prisoners?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t say no unless you mean it. Think carefully. Are you absolutely sure?’

‘I don’t know any of these men. Except possibly the pale one. I think I may have seen him pretending to be a jobber at a cattle fair.’

‘Wrong again. He’s pretending to be a Shinner. That man is an RIC constable.’

A soldier appeared with Scram on a lead. Scram waited to be released, then trotted across the square and licked Tom Hurley’s hand. Tom Hurley kept looking straight ahead. The dog stood on his hindlegs and placed both forepaws on his master’s chest.

‘Is that your dog?’ the constable asked.

‘Yes.’

‘He’s got a better memory than his master. He’s capable of recognising his friends.’

‘He’s always been a friendly dog. A bit silly, you might say. He’d mistake almost anyone for me.’

‘A likely story, Mr Keegan. I’ll give you an hour to think of a more plausible explanation. If I were you, I’d think carefully.’

He was taken to a cell in the basement and given a mug of water. They did not remove the contents of his pockets, and he took that to be a good sign. He sat on a stool because it looked cleaner than the horse-hair mattress which, apart from the ceremonial bucket, was the only other movable object in the room. He would stick to his story. He had given his name as Keegan. His mother’s maiden name was Keegan and he had a brother called Philip. Even under long interrogation Philip Keegan was not a name that would slip his mind. He was looking at the darker side, of course. They could hardly hold him just because a dog they took to be his had shown an interest in one of their prisoners. There was nothing to connect him with Hurley or the action of the previous day, and, though he was concerned about Maureen, he felt confident that she was capable of looking after herself. The constable had given him an hour to think. He waited and waited. It was already late afternoon when they came for him.

What they called the Intelligence Room was at the back of the building. The olive green walls stank sharply of new paint. There were two small windows above eye level with black iron bars both inside and out. The constable was seated behind a table on which lay a set of knuckle dusters and a jotter, and a soldier stood at ease inside the door. He sat on the other side of the table opposite the constable, with his hands resting loosely in his lap. He wanted to give an impression of relaxation and at the same time to be ready for whatever came his way.

‘The game is up, I regret to tell you. We’ve checked our records. There is no Philip Keegan in Booley. There isn’t even a Philip Keegan posing under a different name.’

‘I’ve always led a quiet life. I’m not surprised that my existence has gone unnoticed.’ He spoke with a show of calm self-confidence to mask the fear that had metamorphosed into whinstone in the pit of his stomach.

‘I must inform you that your quiet life has come to an end. You haven’t been very clever, have you? The last man who farmed Booley was a bachelor called Tim Madagan. He emigrated to Australia two years ago, sensible man.’

‘I think you should check your records again,’ he said recklessly. ‘I was born in Booley and so was my father before me.’

‘We’re holding you on suspicion. The times are against you. We know how to deal with awkward customers here.’

‘What about my wife? Surely you have nothing against her.’

‘Wife? The woman you were with at the