Myles Away From Dublin Read Free Page B

invented and bullets from straight-bore muskets bounced off armour. Custume and his men did the apparently impossible job, and all were eventually killed. Another company which took their place were likewise wiped out.
    In a strict military sense, it was all a waste of blood and time. Yet I wish the young fellow I mentioned at the start would learn the considerable difference between the words Custume and Costume.

Uprooting, upheaval, a coming havoc?
    I suppose it is a commonplace to say that life is a series of crises, all fraught with danger. Three familiar points of crisis are birth, marriage, death. But there are many, many others, some of them quite unexpected, some very frightening. Some seem even pleasurable. But you never know what tomorrow’s day will bring. Maybe it’s just as well.
    I came almost literally to the crossroads recently. I had to move house. That phrase itself can be troublesome . The decent reader will know immediately that it means changing from one house into another or – to be even more explicit – shifting the furniture. The reasons for having to do this are innumerable. It might be a natural growth in the family, the terrible smell from some putrescence in the garden next door, or an all-out attempt to shift the wife’s mother, who came for a fortnight in 1926.
    But changing house is not as easy as it looks, if it ever looked easy. Most of us do not know how complicated being born frequently is because we don’t remember the occurrence. But nobody who has changed house is likely to forget it. I write this ‘at home’, i.e., the change has not yet been made. But the bruises of the ‘softening up’ artillery barrage are still very keenly felt. I am plain scared. The day takes on the sombre guise of Der Tag. Translating a simple term into German seems to give it a sinister edge.
    It is only on moving house that a man realises the unbelievable assortment of stuff with which he has surrounded himself in – say – ten years. Start, say, with old letters. They should have been torn up many years ago, of course, but they are still there, hoarded and yellowing. The householder cannot make out who wrote them and about what. What is the meaning of thepostcard which is headed warning in indigo ink with the message If it happens again action will be taken ?
    Under the stairs in a rusty biscuit tin is a lady’s full length ball dress probably fashionable early in the reign of Victoria. Why is it there and who put it there? It couldn’t be the property of your wife because she had not been born when it was in vogue and anyway would not be seen dead in such a ludicrous invention. For that matter, what is the front assembly of a child’s Edwardian tricycle doing under your bed? Who put that there?
Brain Washing
    The removal merchants are quite alive to the speculative nature of their trade and the unpredictable character of their customers. You are a sober, prudent individual and you go to one of them to get an estimate of cost of house removal. Jaunty as your step may be going in, you feel very much in need of an ambulance coming out – as I did. I set out initially to give the reader a word-by-word account of my interview but now find I cannot: it would be too harrowing. But let me just lift the hem. I am shown into a small room in which is seated at a desk a ruffianly-looking Gauleiter who does not look at me but barks out a demand for my name and address. I sit on a chair facing him, for there is no other. The dialogue starts like this:
    ‘Moving? I see. Scaling things down, ah? Lost the job, I suppose?’
    ‘I didn’t lose any job.’
    ‘I have them in here every day. Drink. The number of decent men destroyed by drink is terrible. It is drink, drink, drink, night and day. Home, family and religion – all is ignored. Just drink and then more drink.’
    ‘If you refer to intoxicants, I may say I never touch them.’
    He looked up at me for the first time and frowned.
    ‘But there’s