The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry Page B

reared back against the wall as one, and the bullets that went into the two lads must have made queer tracks through them, because I saw sudden exploding pocks in the plaster of the old wall beside me. First the bullets, and then a thin falling cascade of lightest blood, over my uniform, my hands, my father, my life.
    The two irregulars were not killed, but writhed now on the ground caught up in each other.
    'For the love of God,' cried Fr Gaunt, 'desist – there is a young girl in here, and ordinary people.' Whatever he meant by the latter.
    'Put down your guns, put down your guns,' shouted one of the new soldiers, almost a scream it was. Certainly the last man our side of the table threw down his gun, and his handgun out of his waistband, and he stood up immediately and raised his hands. He looked back at me just for a second and I thought his eyes were weeping, his eyes were doing something or other, certainly piercing into me anyhow, fiercely, fiercely, like those eyes could be used to kill, could be better than the bullets they did not have.
    'Look,' said Fr Gaunt. 'I believe – I believe these men have no bullets. Just everyone do nothing for a moment!'
    'No bullets?' said the commander of the men. 'Because they've put them all into our men up on the mountain. Are you the bastards were up on the mountain?'
    Oh dear, oh dear, we knew they were, and yet for some reason none of us spoke a word.
    'You've killed my brother,' said the man called John on the ground. He was holding the top of his thigh, and there was a great strange dark pool of blood just under him, blood as black as blackbirds. 'You killed him in cold blood. You had him captured, you had him harmless, and you shot him in the stomach, three fucking times!'
    'So you wouldn't be creeping down on us and murdering us where we went!' said the commander. 'Hold these men down, and you,' he cried to him who had surrendered, 'count yourself arrested. Bring them all out to the truck, lads, and we'll sort this out. In the dark of the night we catch you, in this filthy place, gathered like rats. You, man, what's your name?'
    'Joe Clear,' said my father. 'I'm the watchman here at the graveyard. This is Fr Gaunt, one of the curates in the parish. I called him, for to see to the dead boy there.'
    'So you bury the likes of him in Sligo,' said the commander, with extraordinary force. And he rushed around the table and held the gun to Fr Gaunt's temple. 'What sort of a priest are you, that would be disobeying your own bishops? Are you one of those filthy renegades?'
    'Are you going to shoot a priest?' said my father in astonishment.
    Fr Gaunt had his eyes closed fast and was kneeling now just the same as he might in the church. He was kneeling and I don't know if he was praying soundlessly, but he wasn't saying anything.
    'Jem,' said one of the other Free State soldiers, 'there was never a priest shot yet in Ireland by us. Don't shoot him.'
    The commander stood back and raised his gun away from Fr Gaunt.
    'Come on, lads, gather them up, we're getting out of here.'
    And the soldiers raised up the two wounded gently enough and led them out through the door. Just as the third man was being arrested he turned his face full on me.
    'May God forgive you for what you done but I never will.'
    'But I never done nothing!' I said.
    'You told them we were here.'
    'I did not, I swear to God.'
    'God's not here,' he said. 'Look at you, guilty as Jack.' 'No!' I said.
    The man laughed then a horrible laugh like a lash of rain into your face, and the other soldiers brought him away. We could hear them cajoling the prisoners along the paths. I was shaking in all my body. The commander, when the room was clear, held out a big hand to Fr Gaunt, and helped him to his feet.
    'I'm sorry, Father,' he said. 'It has been a terrible night. Murder and mayhem. Excuse me.'
    He spoke so sincerely my father I'm sure was as struck by the words as I was.
    'It was a blackguardly thing to do,' said Fr Gaunt, in a