Beneath the Earth Read Online Free PDF Page B

way to secure peace was for everyone who believed in the freedom of nations to do their bit. There was fierce debate over it and everyone took a side. Émile heard stories about fights in the local pub and a rule being made on the GAA team that no one could discuss Séamus Kilduff’s brother before a match as it only led to trouble. But then word came that he’d been killed in the Battle of the Somme and the whole town turned out for his funeral. Father Macallie said he was a credit to his family, a credit to his religion and above all a credit to West Cork, which would one day achieve independence from the rest of Ireland and be allowed to manage its own affairs as God intended.
    A copy of the
Skibbereen Eagle
appeared in their cottage most evenings and Marie pored over it, engrossed by every piece of information that she could find. Her own country, after all, was being overwhelmed by fighting. Her two brothers had fought to keep the Germans out of their home town of Reims but both had been arrested and she hadn’t heard from them in a long time. Émile had learned not to mention their names, as she would only start crying inconsolably.
    But Marie wasn’t the only one who read the papers. Émile did too. He’d become interested the previous Easter, when all the trouble had been happening up in Dublin and a group of men had barricaded themselves into the General Post Office on O’Connell Street demanding that the Irish be left alone to look after Ireland and the English had come along and said,
sorry about that, lads, but no chance
. And there’d been lots of shooting and lots of killing and one of the men from the GPO had been brought out in a terrible sickness, barely knowing who he was or what he was doing, and was tied to a chair so the English could turn their guns on him for showing cheek to their King.
    â€˜Why would they fight for the English?’ he asked now, looking down at the letter on the table.
    â€˜They?’ asked Stephen, turning his head quickly and staring at his son; it wasn’t often that he had a flash of anger like this. ‘Who’s this
they
that you’re talking about, son?’
    â€˜The Irish,’ said Émile quietly.
    â€˜The Irish are a
they
now, are they?’ he asked.
    â€˜Stephen, stop it,’ said Marie.
    â€˜Stop what?’
    â€˜Just stop it.’
    â€˜Come on ahead,’ said Stephen irritably, shaking his head. ‘I’ll not be having
they
s in this house.’
    Ã‰mile looked from his father to his mother and back again, angry and upset at being spoken to like this. ‘Well I don’t know, do I?’ he cried, trying to hold back tears. ‘You’re English, Mum’s French, sometimes you tell me I’m Irish, other times you tell me I’m half English and half French.’
    â€˜You’re Irish,’ said Stephen. ‘And don’t you forget it.’
    But he wasn’t fully Irish, he knew that. The boys at school picked on him and said he was only a blow-in and that if your family hadn’t lived in Ireland since before Cromwell had started his slaughter of the innocents then you had no business being here anyway. And why did he have to be anything, he wondered? The Irish hated the English, the English hated the Germans, the Germans hated the French, so it seemed that if you lived in a country, you had to have someone to hate. But then Cork people hated the Kerry people, and the Kerry people hated the Dubliners, and the Dubs were split in two by the Liffey, with the families who lived in the tenements in the city centre hated by all. It seemed to Émile that you weren’t allowed to be alive unless you had someone to hate and someone to hate you in return.
    â€˜You’re right,’ said Stephen, reaching forward and pulling Émile’s head into his shoulder for a moment. ‘I’m sorry, son. I shouldn’t have snapped.’
    Marie stood up,