er this time. I thought to
myself, 'I won't make a bloomin' ass of myself this time!' An' there we
was ... off at last! 'This is a nice-old-'ow-d'ye-do!' I says. I didn't
want the girl to think I was 'oppin' it like that ... sayin' nothink or
anythink.... When we got to Kingstown an' 'eard we was in Ireland ...
well, I mean to say, it _surprised_ me, I tell you.... Wot I can't make
out is, wot's it all about? I mean to say, wot do these chaps want?"

"They want to be free!..."

"But ain't they free? I mean to say, ain't they as free as me?"

"They don't think so."

"Well, wot can I do that they can't do?"

Henry did not know. "You ast me anythink," the soldier went on, "they're
a lot freer'n wot we are. I mean to say, we got conscription in our
country, but they ain't got it 'ere...."

There was another interruption, to enable a motor-cyclist to pass along.
When he returned to Henry, he said, "You know, when we got 'ere, an' all
the people come out their 'ouses an' treated us like their long-lost
brother, we couldn't make it out at all, an' when we 'eard about the
Sinn Feiners, we didn't know wot to think. I mean to say, we didn't know
'oo they was. One of our chaps thought they was black ... you know ...
niggers ... but I told 'im not to be a bloody fool. 'They don't 'ave
niggers in Ireland,' I says, 'They're the same as us,' I says. 'I mean
to say ... they're _white_!...'"

12

He wrote to Mary again, hoping that he would be able to get it into the
Castle "pouch," and then he went to seek for Driffield who had promised
to try and send his previous letter to England by the same means, and
Driffield, very dubious, took the letter and said he would do what he
could. She would be full of alarm ... he did not know whether she had
received his messages, and, of course, he had received none from her. It
was Thursday now, and still the rebellion was not suppressed. The city
was full of dead and wounded men and women, and there was difficulty
about burial. He thought of people in the first grief for their dead,
unwilling that the hour of interment should come ... and then, when it
came, and there could not be interment, suddenly finding their grief
turned to consternation, and what had been the object of mourning love,
become abhorrent, so that there was an unquenchable desire, a craving
that it might be taken away....

It was dangerous to be out of doors after seven o'clock, and so, since
no one came to the Club,