THE CAUSE

 

THE CAUSE

Like a newborn baby at its mother’s breast the stick thin legs clung gently to the old soldier’s body. The old man stirred. Reaching over he patted the bed sheet. The sheet felt warm to his touch as if someone had slept there beside him recently. The scent of his youth filled his nostrils.

“It was a dream,” he murmured sorrowfully his dry lips quivering with the effort to string the words together. His dream had awoken memories of his brother long dead,

“It was a dream,” he whispered brokenly. He recognised it now – like the people he imagined he saw when the light from the lamp threw long shadows on the floor and walls, in the small hours before dawn. “Maybe I will see them all again. Make my peace with them.”

His breath came out in small, quick spurts, like the water gurgling out of the old black kettle that had stood pride of place on the shining range.

He lay back in the bed to wait. He was pleased to die in his own bed. There had been a time when he might have died in the mud of a bloodied ditch like he had left many others to die.

Despite his best intention to keep alert, his eyelids closed over. Memories assailed him. It had been in this bed that he and Margaret had discovered the joy of each other’s bodies. A thing not talked about then. Their six children had been born in this bed. Each one wanted and loved despite the fear of the crash of the door and stampede of the heavy boots on the concrete floor. He shifted anxiously.Death was waiting impatiently. He could feel its presence . He knew its smell. He had brought it often enough to others.

He forced open his weighty eyelids and probed the shadowy corners of the room. He wouldn’t sleep again. He wanted to be awake and ready when the black dog of hell’s fire came for him.

He wondered if his mother had been right and if you were sorry God forgave you your transgressions. He wouldn’t, couldn’t call them sins. To fight and even kill wasn’t a sin. Surely his Maker knew that?

His mind went back to his mother. He didn’t attempt to avert his thoughts. Every man he had even seen die had called out for his mother as death took him. He would be no different.He had no doubt that his mother and indeed, his Margaret, had been let in through the heavenly gates. He wouldn’t. He had never believed in all that good and evil stuff. What was the point of going cap-in-hand to his Maker now? He would only unfurl the sheet that held him to account and note the endless black marks against him.

A small chink of light crept into the room. Dawn was breaking.

He thought of another kind of  Dawn. For that was what Margaret had named the daughter she had given birth to too early as he had lain in the hedgerows of Ulster, the intent to kill  burning in his heart.By the time he got home the old woman who was the local midwife had gathered up his only daughter’s body and buried it on waste ground where all unchristened babies were laid to rest.

He remembered as if it was yesterday the words of kind neighbours and the sad expressions on their faces as they watch the other children gather round their mother. Their faces full of bewilderment at their mother’s anguish and their father’s anger. “It’s a kindness to it. It was too early,” had been the old midwife’s judgement bouncing around the stone walls of the house and echoing off the nearby mountains. “Blast her to Hell’s Gates,” he muttered.

He fumbled his shaking legs over the edge of the bed. His gaze drawing in their unfamiliar shape, bone smooth to the touch now. Where had the strong limbs gone that had bounded over fields evading capture? He didn’t know.Strange, how he could remember all the happening of his past life all those years ago but couldn’t remember who had helped him to bed the night before. He muttered angrily to himself and stretched out his hand to his powerless legs. Fear struck at his heart as a clock somewhere in the house chimed the hour. Time was running out. The scent of death was closing in choking him now. It would be upon him soon..

He would not beg forgiveness for himself but he had to do one last thing before he met Margaret and his mother again on the otherworld. He had to make amends; find his daughter Dawn a decent  burial place .Guilt gnawed at his very soul. If only he had been here! He’d have defied the mumbling clergy and buried her with his mother in the graveyard beyond. But you weren’t here you were out taking a life. A life for a life, his inner voice shrieked. Unsteadily, he marshalled his body towards the wooden end of the bed.“Damm you to hell, “he swore as his legs folded beneath him and he fell back.

. The flickering flames of the fire danced fingers of light across the ceiling, casting shadowy faces on the walls. The room was silent except for the clicking of tongues as prayers were offered for his release.

“Be silent,” the old man screamed. “What is done is done. I did what I did for my country.”He’d felt proud to fight for his country but he wasn’t so sure now. What had it achieved only stain his hands red with the blood of other  men.

He began to mumble words; one indistinguishable from the other to the gathered watchers praying for his soul. Then, savagely, he beat at the bedclothes. “No glory in killing my own countrymen,” he lamented, Tears ran unheeded down his sunken face; remembering, remembering, pictures flashed through his tortured mind of ambushes in townlands and mountain terrain; bodies, with familiar names and faces.

He shot upright in the bed. The face of his dead brother stared at him from the foot of the bed blood dripping from his body. He shrank back. Then stretched forward but his brother’s hand stayed just out of reach. “Forgive me, forgive me, please,” he screamed hoarsely.

The praying assembled had seen it all before. They preyed on reverently.Brother against brother; families splintered by The Cause. Unable to forgive themselves for past deeds they went mad.

“What Glory is there laying low my own blood?” the old man demanded There was no answer to his question.

The fire burning in the black grate fell sending a shower of sparks out on to the floor. The old man, crazy with guilt, drew his last breath and surrendered his will to Death.

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