The Child Left Behind Read Free Page A

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 keenon 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.
I won’t make it home as it’s only for three days so I am spending it with one of my mates. They say we’re for overseas afterwards,but no one really knows. I can’t wait because it is what I joined up for. Bet we’re bound for France. Them French girls better watch out. Ooh la la.
    The tone of Finn’s letter amused Tom, Joe and Nuala, but it annoyed Thomas John, who said the boy wasn’t taking the war seriously enough.
    ‘God, Daddy, won’t he have to get a grip on himself soon enough?’ Tom said.
    Biddy pursed her lips. ‘War or no war,’ she said, ‘Finn has been brought up to be a respectable and decent Catholic boy, and I can’t believe he talks of women the way he does. Of course you get all types in these barracks. I just hope he doesn’t forget himself and the standards he was brought up with.’
    Joe sighed. ‘Do you know what I wish? Just that Finn keeps his bloody head down. That’s all I want for him.’
    ‘Don’t speak in that disrespectable way to your mother,’ Thomas John admonished.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Joe said, ‘but really, isn’t Finn’s survival the most important thing?’
    ‘Anyway,’ Tom put in, ‘it’s likely this is the way he copes. He’s probably a bit scared, or at least apprehensive.’
    ‘Doesn’t say so,’ Thomas John said, scrutinising the letter again. ‘According to this he can’t wait.’
    ‘Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? Joe said. ‘That’s how he was: always claiming hewasn’t scared, even when we could see his teeth chattering.’
    ‘None of this matters anyway, does it?’ Nuala said, her voice husky from the tears she was holding back. ‘All this about how he feels and the words he writes in a letter. I agree with Joe. All I care about is that Finn will come home safe when all this is over.’
    ‘That’s all any of us care about, cutie dear,’ Thomas John said gently. ‘We just have different ways of expressing things. Didn’t know myself how much I would miss the boy until he wasn’t here. He would irritate the life out of me at times and yet I would give my eyeteeth now for him to swing into the yard this minute, back where he belongs.’
    By the end of April, Finn and Christy’s training was complete, and they were ready and anxious to take on the Hun. In Belfast on 8 May they were all paraded in front of City Hall before the Lord Mayor and were warmed by the cheers from the watching people.
    How proud Finn felt that morning as he donned the uniform he now felt he had a