An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War Read Free

duncher. “Sorry about that, sir. He’s only young, so he is. He just run off, like.”
    Fingal forced a smile. “Don’t worry about it.” Bloody dog. The moment was ruined. He started walking, all the while groping for the little box in his pocket.
    Deirdre, soft-hearted as ever, bent and patted the puppy’s head, and it waggled its stiff tail so hard its backside swung from side to side. She looked up at the owner. “What’s his name?”
    O’Reilly, who had stopped, immediately thought, Who gives a damn, but seeing Deirdre’s gentle enthusiasm he could only smile.
    â€œO’Reilly,” the man said solemnly.
    The dog wagged even more ferociously at hearing his name.
    O’ what ? Fingal thought. It can’t be.
    Deirdre’s laughter tinkled through the glen and she clapped her hands. Then, controlling her features, she said, “That’s a lovely name.”
    â€œThank you, miss.” The man touched his cap’s peak. “Come on, O’Reilly.” Together they left, the terrier frisking and frolicking.
    Deirdre trotted over to O’Reilly, chuckled, took his hand, and said, “Come on, O’Reilly,” and immediately burst into peals of laughter.
    And although O’Reilly could not control his own mirth, inside he hated to have lost the moment.
    Deirdre seemed to have got her giggles under control. “What was it you wanted to ask me, Fingal?” she said, cocking her head, still smiling.
    He couldn’t ask now. Not now, with the man and his pup still in view and two blasted schoolboys, Bangor Grammar lads judging by their yellow-and-royal-blue-ringed school caps, charging up the path. One chased the other, pointing his right hand with the thumb cocked up and the first two fingers extended and yelling, “Dar, dar. Got ye. You’re dead, Al Capone, so you are.”
    â€œI saw it in the paper,” said Fingal to cover his confusion. “About Al Capone. D-did you know that he’s going to be released from Alcatraz in a few months?”
    â€œYou, missed me, G-man,” shouted the other boy. “You can’t shoot for toffee.” He stopped, held both arms as if firing a Tommy gun, made a rat-tat-tatting noise, then ran on.
    â€œNo,” she said, rolling her eyes at the boy and laughing. “I didn’t. And what’s that got to do with the price of corn anyway?”
    â€œNothing,” he said, and now that the hound of the Baskervilles and public enemy number one were round the far corner and no one else was in sight he quickly kissed her and said, “I love you, Deirdre. I really do.”
    â€œAnd I love you too, Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly, you great, shy, tongue-tied bear. I know what you were going to say.” She pursed her lips, cocked her head to one side again and, raising one eyebrow, stretched up and kissed him hard. Then she hitched up her grey mid-calf-length skirt and, looking down at her shoes, said, “I’ve got my walking shoes on today, Fingal, so if you can’t beat me to the shore, I’ll tell you what it was.” She took off like a fawn.
    Fingal chased her. He might not be able to catch her—after all, she’d played hockey for Ulster, and he knew she was fleet of foot.
    Two girls … both beautiful, one a gazelle.
    You got that right, Willy Butler Yeats, Fingal thought, as his brown boots pounded on the springy moss underfoot. He grinned. At fourteen stone he was more like—he struggled for an analogy—more like a Canadian moose, built for endurance, not for speed. Beside him, the stream that since the last ice age had receded and gradually eroded the valley gurgled and chuckled. They ran out from under the trees, Deirdre ahead of him, and crossed the short stretch of coarse marram grass hillocks that lay between the glen and the shingly shore. Deirdre stood grinning, her skirt already returned to its proper length. She