The Child Left Behind

‘Finn,’ Biddy rapped out, ‘how dare you speak to me like that? Thomas John, haven’t you a word of censure for your son?’

Thomas John, however, said nothing. He knew he no longer had any jurisdiction over Finn, whom he loved so much, though he was unable to show it. Well, it was done now. The boy had stepped into a man’s world, only he had chosen a dangerous route and Thomas John knew he would worry about him constantly.

His brothers had a measure of sympathy for Finn, although Tom expressed concern for him.

‘Why worry?’ Finn said. ‘They say they fight in trenches, and a French or Belgian trench, I would imagine, is very like an Irish one, and those I am well familiar with. And if I pop off a few Germans along the way, so much the better.’

‘You don’t know the least thing about fighting.’

‘Neither do any of us,’ Finn said. ‘We’ll be trained, won’t we? And after that, I expect I’ll be as ready as the next man to have a go at the Hun. And there’s something else, Tom. They say the French girls are very willing. Know what I mean?’

‘Finn!’ Tom said, slightly shocked. ‘And how do you know, anyway? Just how many French girls do you know?’

‘God, Tom, it’s a well-known fact,’ Finn said airily. ‘Don’t get on your high horse either. A fighting man has to have some distraction.’ And Finn laughed at the expression on Tom’s face.

Much as he could reassure his brothers, though, Finn dreaded breaking the news to Nuala when she came home. He had missed her when she began work, more than he had expected and more than he would admit. She had always listened to him and often championed him. She did the same that day in front of her parents, but later she sought Fin out in the barn.

‘You will be careful, won’t you, Finn?’

‘Of course I will. I have got a whole lot of living to do yet.’

‘Will you write to me? Let me know that you’re all right?’

‘I will,’ Finn promised. ‘And I will address it to you at the Big House. That way I can write what I want, without worrying about Mammy possibly steaming it open.’

Nuala nodded. But she said plaintively, ‘Finn, I don’t think I could bear it if anything happened to you.’

Finn looked into his sister’s eyes, which were like two pools of sadness. He took hold of her shoulders. ‘Nothing will happen me. I will come back safe and sound, never fear. And it’s nice to have someone even partially on my side as I prepare to dip my toe into alien waters.’

‘I’ll always be on your side, Finn,’ Nuala said. ‘You know that.’ She put her arms around her brother’s neck and kissed his ruddy cheek. ‘Good luck, Finn and God bless you.’

The next morning, Tom told his father he was going with Finn as far as Buncrana. When Thomas John opened his mouth as if to argue the point Tom said, ‘He is not going in on his own as if he has no people belonging to him that love him and will miss him every minute till he returns.’

‘As you like,’ Thomas John said. ‘But remember that the boy made his own bed.’

‘I know that, Daddy, but it changes nothing.’

‘So be it then. Bid the boy farewell from me.’

‘I will, Daddy.’

Tom watched his father and Joe leave the cottage for the cow byre before going to see if Finn had all his things packed up.

Finn was ready and glad that Tom was going in with him and Christy, for his insides were jumping about as they set off up the lane.

‘This is real good of you, Tom,’ he said.

‘Least I could do for my kid brother,’ Tom replied easily.

Christy was waiting for them at the head of the lane and the two boys greeted each other exuberantly and then stood for a few moments to look around them at the landscape they saw every day. The September morning had barely begun. The sun had just started to peep up from behind the mountains but it was early enough for the mist to be rising from the fields. In the distance were rolling hills dotted with sheep, and here and there whitewashed cottages like their own, with curls of smoke rising from some of the chimneys, despite the early hour.

Finn knew soon the cows would be gathering in the fields to be taken down to the byres to be milked and the cockerel would be heralding the morning. Later, the hens would be let out to strut about the farmyard, pecking at the grit, waiting for the corn to be thrown to them just before the eggs were collected, and the dogs in the barn would be stretching themselves ready to begin another day.

It was all so familiar to Finn and yet wasn’t that the very thing that he railed against? Didn’t he feel himself to be stifled in that little cottage? Maybe he did, but, like Christy, he had never been further than Buncrana all the days of his life. As he felt a tug of homesickness wash over him he gave himself a mental shake

Christy was obviously feeling the same way for he gave a sigh and said, ‘I wonder how long it will be until we see those hills again?’

Finn decided being melancholy and missing your homeland before you had even left it, was no way to go on. He clapped Christy heartily on the shoulder.

‘I don’t know the answer to that, but what I do know is that joining the army is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me.’

Christy caught Finn’s mood and he gave a lopsided grin. ‘I can barely wait. People say that it’s all going to be over by Christmas and all I hope is that we finish our training in time to at least take a few pot shots at the Hun before we come home again.’

‘I’d say you’d get your chance all right,’ Tom said as they began to walk towards the town. ‘And maybe before too long you’ll wish you hadn’t. War is no game.’

‘Sure, don’t we know that,’ Finn commented. ‘When we decided to join up, we knew what we were doing.’

Tom said nothing. He knew neither Finn nor Christy was prepared to listen, and maybe that was the right way to feel when such an irrevocable decision had been made. The die was cast now and it was far too late for second thoughts.

Finn and Christy were part of the 109th Brigade, 36th Division, 11th Battalion, and they began their training at Enniskillen. The recruits had all been examined by a doctor, prodded and poked and scrutinised, and both Finn and Christy were pronounced fit for the rigorous training.

They were fitted with army uniform which Finn found scratchy and uncomfortable, but the discomfort of the uniform was nothing compared to the boots. He had been wearing boots most of his life, but the army boots were heavy, stiff and difficult to break in, even though route marches were undertaken on an almost daily basis, often carrying heavy kit.

Finn couldn’t see the point to some of the things that the recruits had to do and he wrote to his family complaining.

There have to be proper hospital corners on the bed sheets each morning, as if anyone cares. And there has to be such a shine on your boots that the sergeant says you will be able to see your face in them. Now what is the use of that? Unless of course we are supposed to dazzle the enemy with our shiny boots and will have no need to fire a shot at all.

And the marching would get you down. We are at it morning, noon and night, and I have blisters on top of blisters. The tramp of boots on the parade ground can be heard constantly because we are not the only company here.

Finn was looking forward to target practice with rifles, which he anticipated being quite good at. Both he and Christy, the sons of farmers, were used to guns.

However, Finn had never fixed a bayonet to a rifle before, nor screamed in a blood-curdling way as he ran and thrust that bayonet into a dummy stuffed with straw. He did this with the same enthusiasm as the rest, though after one such session he told Christy he doubted that he could do that to another human being. ‘In war you likely don’t have time to think of things in such a rational way,’ Christy replied. ‘They’re not going to stand there obligingly, are they? They more than likely will be trying to stick their bayonets in us too.’

‘I suppose,’ Finn said. ‘God, I’d hate to die that way, wouldn’t you?’

‘I’d hate to die any bloody way,’ Christy said. ‘I intend to come back in one piece from this war, don’t you?’

‘You bet,’ Finn said. ‘And at least when we are in the thick of it, they won’t be so pernickety about the shine on our boots.’

‘Yes,’ Christy agreed, ‘and if I looked anything like our red-faced sergeant, and had that pugnacious nose and piggy eyes, I wouldn’t be that keen on seeing myself in anything at all, let alone a pair of boots.’

‘Nor will they care about the way the beds are made,’ Finn said a little bitterly, remembering how the sergeant, angry at the state of his bed one day, had scolded him with his tongue in a manner that resembled Finn’s mother in one of her tantrums. And then he had not only upended his bed, but every other person’s in the hut too and Finn had had to remake them all.

He had been so keen to join up because he was fed up being at the beck and call of his father and brothers and was never able to make his own decisions. In the army he soon found it was ten times worse and a person had practically to ask permission to wipe his nose, and he realised that he had probably jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

It soon became apparent as 1914 gave way to 1915 that this was no short skirmish, and soon, with his training over, Finn would be in the thick of it. The family always looked forward to his letters, which arrived regularly. He wrote just as he spoke so it was like having him in the room for a short time.

In early January he mentioned he had a spot of leave coming up.