OFlaherty V.C. | Page 7

Don't you think it would fetch in almost as many
recruits if you reduced the number of guardsmen to six?
O'FLAHERTY. You're not used to telling lies like I am, sir. I got great
practice at home with my mother. What with saving my skin when I
was young and thoughtless, and sparing her feelings when I was old
enough to understand them, I've hardly told my mother the truth twice a
year since I was born; and would you have me turn round on her and
tell it now, when she's looking to have some peace and quiet in her old
age?
SIR PEARCE (troubled in his conscience]. Well, it's not my affair, of
course, O'Flaherty. But hadn't you better talk to Father Quinlan about
it?

O'FLAHERTY. Talk to Father Quinlan, is it! Do you know what Father
Quinlan says to me this very morning?
SIR PEARCE. Oh, you've seen him already, have you? What did he
say?
O'FLAHERTY. He says "You know, don't you," he says, "that it's your
duty, as a Christian and a good son of the Holy Church, to love your
enemies?" he says. "I know it's my juty as a soldier to kill them," I says.
"That's right, Dinny," he says: "quite right. But," says he, "you can kill
them and do them a good turn afterward to show your love for them" he
says; "and it's your duty to have a mass said for the souls of the
hundreds of Germans you say you killed," says he; "for many and many
of them were Bavarians and good Catholics," he says. "Is it me that
must pay for masses for the souls of the Boshes?" I says. "Let the King
of England pay for them," I says; "for it was his quarrel and not mine."
SIR PEARCE [warmly]. It is the quarrel of every honest man and true
patriot, O'Flaherty. Your mother must see that as clearly as I do. After
all, she is a reasonable, well disposed woman, quite capable of
understanding the right and the wrong of the war. Why can't you
explain to her what the war is about?
O'FLAHERTY. Arra, sir, how the divil do I know what the war is
about?
SIR PEARCE (rising again and standing over him]. What! O'Flaherty:
do you know what you are saying? You sit there wearing the Victoria
Cross for having killed God knows how many Germans; and you tell
me you don't know why you did it!
O'FLAHERTY. Asking your pardon, Sir Pearce, I tell you no such
thing. I know quite well why I kilt them, because I was afeard that, if I
didn't, they'd kill me.
SIR PEARCE (giving it up, and sitting down again]. Yes, yes, of
course; but have you no knowledge of the causes of the war? of the
interests at stake? of the importance--I may almost say--in fact I will
say--the sacred right for which we are fighting? Don't you read the
papers?
O'FLAHERTY. I do when I can get them. There's not many newsboys
crying the evening paper in the trenches. They do say, Sir Pearce, that
we shall never beat the Boshes until we make Horatio Bottomley Lord
Leftnant of England. Do you think that's true, sir?

SIR PEARCE. Rubbish, man! there's no Lord Lieutenant in England:
the king is Lord Lieutenant. It's a simple question of patriotism. Does
patriotism mean nothing to you?
O'FLAHERTY. It means different to me than what it would to you, sir.
It means England and England's king to you. To me and the like of me,
it means talking about the English just the way the English papers talk
about the Boshes. And what good has it ever done here in Ireland? It's
kept me ignorant because it filled up my mother's mind, and she
thought it ought to fill up mine too. It's kept Ireland poor, because
instead of trying to better ourselves we thought we was the fine fellows
of patriots when we were speaking evil of Englishmen that was as poor
as ourselves and maybe as good as ourselves. The Boshes I kilt was
more knowledgable men than me; and what better am I now that I've
kilt them? What better is anybody?
SIR PEARCE [huffed, turning a cold shoulder to him]. I am sorry the
terrible experience of this war--the greatest war ever fought --has
taught you no better, O'Flaherty.
O'FLAHERTY [preserving his dignity]. I don't know about it's being a
great war, sir. It's a big war; but that's not the same thing. Father
Quinlan's new church is a big church: you might take the little old
chapel out of the middle of it and not miss it. But my mother says there
was more true religion in the old chapel. And the war has