OFlaherty V.C. | Page 6

help him, my mother would have taken the skin off my back
if I'd ever let on to have any other king than Parnell.
SIR PEARCE [rising, painfully shocked]. Your mother! What are you
dreaming about, O'Flaherty? A most loyal woman. Always most loyal.
Whenever there is an illness in the Royal Family, she asks me every
time we meet about the health of the patient as anxiously as if it were

yourself, her only son.
O'FLAHERTY. Well, she's my mother; and I won't utter a word agen
her. But I'm not saying a word of lie when I tell you that that old
woman is the biggest kanatt from here to the cross of Monasterboice.
Sure she's the wildest Fenian and rebel, and always has been, that ever
taught a poor innocent lad like myself to pray night and morning to St
Patrick to clear the English out of Ireland the same as he cleared the
snakes. You'll be surprised at my telling you that now, maybe, Sir
Pearce?
SIR PEARCE [unable to keep still, walking away from O'Flaherty].
Surprised! I'm more than surprised, O'Flaherty. I'm overwhelmed.
[Turning and facing him.] Are you--are you joking?
O'FLAHERTY. If you'd been brought up by my mother, sir, you'd
know better than to joke about her. What I'm telling you is the truth;
and I wouldn't tell it to you if I could see my way to get out of the fix
I'll be in when my mother comes here this day to see her boy in his
glory, and she after thinking all the time it was against the English I
was fighting.
SIR PEARCE. Do you mean to say you told her such a monstrous
falsehood as that you were fighting in the German army?
O'FLAHERTY. I never told her one word that wasn't the truth and
nothing but the truth. I told her I was going to fight for the French and
for the Russians; and sure who ever heard of the French or the Russians
doing anything to the English but fighting them? That was how it was,
sir. And sure the poor woman kissed me and went about the house
singing in her old cracky voice that the French was on the sea, and
they'd be here without delay, and the Orange will decay, says the Shan
Van Vocht.
SIR PEARCE [sitting down again, exhausted by his feelings]. Well, I
never could have believed this. Never. What do you suppose will
happen when she finds out?
O'FLAHERTY. She mustn't find out. It's not that she'd half kill me, as
big as I am and as brave as I am. It's that I'm fond of her, and can't
bring myself to break the heart in her. You may think it queer that a
man should be fond of his mother, sir, and she having bet him from the
time he could feel to the time she was too slow to ketch him; but I'm
fond of her; and I'm not ashamed of it. Besides, didn't she win the

Cross for me?
SIR PEARCE. Your mother! How?
O'FLAHERTY. By bringing me up to be more afraid of running away
than of fighting. I was timid by nature; and when the other boys hurted
me, I'd want to run away and cry. But she whaled me for disgracing the
blood of the O'Flahertys until I'd have fought the divil himself sooner
than face her after funking a fight. That was how I got to know that
fighting was easier than it looked, and that the others was as much
afeard of me as I was of them, and that if I only held out long enough
they'd lose heart and give rip. That's the way I came to be so
courageous. I tell you, Sir Pearce, if the German army had been brought
up by my mother, the Kaiser would be dining in the banqueting hall at
Buckingham Palace this day, and King George polishing his jack boots
for him in the scullery.
SIR PEARCE. But I don't like this, O'Flaherty. You can't go on
deceiving your mother, you know. It's not right.
O'FLAHERTY. Can't go on deceiving her, can't I? It's little you know
what a son's love can do, sir. Did you ever notice what a ready liar I
am?
SIR PEARCE. Well, in recruiting a man gets carried away. I stretch it a
bit occasionally myself. After all, it's for king and country. But if you
won't mind my saying it, O'Flaherty, I think that story about your
fighting the Kaiser and the twelve giants of the Prussian guard
singlehanded would be the better for a little toning down. I don't ask
you to drop it, you know; for it's popular, undoubtedly; but still, the
truth is the truth.