However, in contrast, there are several characters using the conflict to achieve their own goals, such as the fascinating character of Captain Shannon in ‘First Casualty’, whose personal mantra is ‘any drink, any meal, any girl, anytime’. Captain Shannon has had his opinions hardened by war, has come to accept his death. He tells Kingsley ‘So when that bullet finally finds its billet, or I’m gassed, or shit myself to death with dysentery or I’m blown to bits or drowned in the mud or just keel over with plain funk I shall know that there was never a single girl I could have that I didn’t have, nor any drink, not any grub nor any other comfort either which came my way and which I did not grab’ which although gives off a debonair and devil-may-care attitude that would appeal to some, often gives way to brutality and callousness, leading to his eventual death. His philosophy is almost disguised by the soldiers’ cant in which it is spoken, but upon closer inspection, bares Shannon’s soul – the man is well aware of his own mortality. When Kingsley tries to remind him of his ‘duty’, he retorts ‘the walking dead like me have a higher duty. A duty to what’s left of their short lives’ Even though Captain Shannon is undoubtedly a bad man, as events at the end of the book prove, I cannot help but respect and admire his outlook. It is ironic really, that both men are manipulated into fighting in the war- Kingsley by the intelligence services, who need his brain and experience to solve a politically charged murder, Willie by the British government and public, who need him as just another soldier to fight just another war.
There are several key pointers as to why the two men hold different opinions. Kingsley is English, a Cambridge University graduate, and a police inspector. He is clearly highly intelligent, logical and methodical. He is strongly against the war, and only goes to France after being kidnapped from prison and blackmailed by the Secret Intelligence Services. This contrasts with the character of Willie, the son of an Irish police inspector, who only achieved basic education before being apprenticed to a builder, brought up on staunchly loyalist views, and has limited knowledge of the world outside Co. Wicklow, where he was born and raised. Willie has obviously neither the education nor experience of Kingsley, although the latter is seventeen years his senior and has experienced more of the world. Kingsley is married with a child; Willie is ‘walking out’ with a young girl from his village. Both men would do anything to protect their loved ones from harm, but whereas Willie joins the Army to prevent Greta becoming, Kingsley is sure the events in Europe will not endanger his family, and going off to fight would harm them more. This reluctance to leave his family without a provider and protector comes from his position as head of the family; this is opposite to Willie, whose father is very much a patriarchal figure, having been forced to become both father and mother after the death of his wife. However, Kingsley’s reluctance results in him being taken away from his family anyway, in a bitter catch-22 situation. All these differences contribute to shape their views in certain ways. Most integral to Willie’s views are the views imposed on him by his father, and the mainstay of Kingsley’s views come from his personal view, created by his analytical mind and experience of life. I believe the key differences between the two men are their age, geographic location, education and status in their family- I feel these reasons combine to shape their views more than any others.
However, in many ways, the men are similar- both come from a police background, Kingsley an inspector, Willie the son of one, only prevented from joining the police force because he didn’t meet height requirements, much to his father’s secret disappointment. Both conflict with their family over their views, Kingsley is divorced by his wife over his strong stance against the war, Willie disowned by his father for daring to question the validity of the Irish Republican cause.
Indeed, both men encounter Irish Republicans, Kingsley in prison when he tries to bargain with them for his safety, Willie when he is sent to put down the Easter Rising, at Dublin’s General Post Office in 1916. Kingsley has also experienced the Republican brotherhood during his time as a policeman. Their experiences with this different kind of conflict cause them to question themselves and their previously deep-seated beliefs, and both men come out of these experiences with more questions than answers. Kingsley recognises that the Irish Republicans are ‘incarcerated not for greed, but for a principle’ like him, ‘prisoners not of greed but of conscience’. It takes a severe beating at the hands of ‘pimps and thieves’ for him to look to the Irish Republicans for protection, and while he considers what he has to trade, realises he cannot give up the names of informants, who will almost certainly be killed, just so he can have an easier life in prison. This almost seems to be a renunciation of his earlier selfish actions that led to his imprisonment- if he had put his family first, he would not have been in this situation. But he chooses not to sacrifice the lives of men he doesn’t know, even if they are ‘traitors. Men who sacrificed their country out of pure greed’ and in doing so takes a valuable step forward, and starts to become concerned with the welfare of people who he has a direct impact upon, if not without a brief inner struggle ‘Surely his life was worth easily three of such men?’. This is the first real sign where a conflict has changed his opinion on a matter.
Willie has always held the views of his father on matters regarding Irish Nationalism- namely that it is wrong, but by and large, he does not know much about it. When he experiences for himself the conflict, he begins to sympathise with the rebels ‘I wish they had not seen fit to shoot the three leaders’, which leads to his estrangement from his father. Willie tells him that ‘It’s a funny, dark old world out at the war, Papa… It brings to your mind to think a thousand thoughts, a thousand new thoughts’. Willie’s simple language camouflages the seriousness of the situation, but shows his maturing outlook. Irish Nationalism is a recurring subject throughout the novel, with Willie encountering many different views, from the passionate Jesse Kirwan, who is later shot for refusing to carry on soldiering after the execution of the leaders of the uprising to Christy Moran, Willie’s Sergeant Major, who holds the opposite opinion ‘The fuckers… What the fuck are they doing, causing mayhem at home, when we’re out here, fucking risking our fucking lives for them?’ Moran’s use of expletives demonstrate the impotent rage he feels towards the men he feels are ruining the country he is fighting for, and too far away from to do anything about. Willie differs from Kingsley in that he listens to others opinions and considers them, however trivial or uninformed, whereas Kingsley brushes them aside.
The men’s original opinions are immediately challenged by their first experiences of conflict. Kingsley is on trial over his beliefs, and although he vigorously and intelligently defends himself, he dooms himself through his arrogance and lack of humility, and is imprisoned. Tellingly, He does not, however, alter his stance, even when being violently assaulted and hospitalised by the other prisoners, several of whom are in prison due to his efforts. This is quite indicative of his character, because it shows he is no coward or shirker, and unafraid to stand up for his beliefs, even at the expense of his reputation and that of his family, his liberty and his health. Also, this shows that while he is not willing to leave his wife and child to go to war, he is willing to abandon them, and have them face the shame of his imprisonment for the sake of his beliefs: ‘In happier times Kingsley had believed that nothing on earth could ever mean more to him than his family, yet he had sacrificed them for a cold, dry principle and a part of him loathed himself for it’ While this shows his inner strength, it also shows his remoteness, and self-belief.
Willie exhibits no such selfish beliefs; indeed he often goes out of his way to aid others, often at his own expense. For example, when another soldier accidentally knocks his bible into Willie’s chamber pot, he offers his own to the man, and continues to offer it even after the soldier inexplicably attacks him: ‘So Willie stooped to his pack and reluctantly ferreted out his fine bible and looked at it and offered it to the man’. This is perhaps something Douglas Kingsley would not have done.
Kingsley also shows his humanity, when he conflicts with Captain Shannon over a young girl that Shannon is forcing himself on. Shannon is living up to his credo of ‘any girl’. However, when the girl tells him she is ‘saving it’, Shannon is furious, telling her ‘Your countrymen are dying for you…If you had any decency at all you’d offer your skinny little body to every single serviceman you met!... Fuck a platoon a day and think yourself honoured! Lord Kitchener wants your cunt!’ That Shannon can not only think this, but voice it to a sixteen year old girl shows the level of depravity and immorality that exposure to conflict can bring, and while on some levels understandable, is terrible, both that Shannon has become so accustomed to violence that he can sink to this, and also terrible that the girl is exposed to it. Kingsley, who has followed Shannon, steps in ‘Unhand that girl this instant’, his ‘forceful tone…used to giving commands’ persuades Shannon to release the girl. I do not think Willie would have been able to achieve this, but he does show a similar level of disgust when a comrade tells him of an incident where he helped another soldier rape an injured woman. The other soldier was convinced he was going to die shortly, so takes the opportunity to have sex with the woman, who dies not long afterwards. Willie’s initial reaction is disgust ‘You black cunt… You think I want to hear your foul fucking story?’ and seemingly out of character, attacks him, punching him repeatedly in the face, and we realise it is because he imagines his girlfriend in that situation ‘all he could see in his minds eye was Gretta, Gretta in that dark blue skirt, and that stupid vicious lad getting a hold of her in a ditch like a dog’. His comrade retorts by calling him self-righteous, saying ‘Didn’t you fucking come with me with those whores just weeks past?’ The encounter shows Willie himself has also been affected by the war, and done things that before, he never would have countenanced, such as committing violence, and taking comfort in loveless sex. Willie questions ‘If O’Hara and his pal did that at the start of the war, what would he be able to do now? What would Willie be capable of himself?’. He begins to think deeper, into what kind of men war creates, wondering ‘was O’Hara a child thrown among blood and broken souls?...Was the family of mankind in all of itself the enemy?’ The language here is poetic, deep, and clearly shows Willie’s transition from a wide-eyed, naïve young Irish boy, to a thoughtful, more worldly wise and yet sadder adult, robbed of the innocence of conflict, death and destruction that comes with childhood.
Willie is perhaps the more affected of the two characters because of his youth and naivety ‘but everything, no matter what, no matter how vexing, ruinous or cheering, could be brought into battle, with the rest of a soldier’s pack. It had to be; grief and horror could not be left behind.’ The language used in the descriptions of the men’s experiences is at times beautiful, and horrible, steeped, like the soldiers, in blood, filth, excrement and violence. Of the two novels, ‘A Long Long Way’ definitely goes into greater detail to describe the suffering experienced by the ordinary soldiers, at times drowning out Willie, for although he is the protagonist, he is clearly shown to be no more or less important then the rest of the men he serves with, ‘when the bodies of his mates were visible and tormented in his dreams, and he was following after to the same sites of hurt and death’. Because of their experiences, is it any wonder that men like O’Hara’s ‘pal’ and Captain Shannon turn to the pleasures of the flesh, to try and block out the horror that their eyes have seen, and is now imprinted forever on their brain?
Later in ‘First Casualty’ Kingsley inadvertently takes part in a raid on an enemy trench, and although he had ‘almost sought this chance to see action’, ‘finally he would be able to share the dangers that his countrymen faced without compromising his conscience’ it does nothing to change his feelings toward the war. Even though he only goes on the raid to collect a vital piece of evidence for his case, Kingsley is forced to involve himself, killing several Germans and leading the raiders home after their officer is badly wounded, and this reinforces his feelings of hypocrisy, and he is well aware of the ‘perverted irony’ of his situation, and is sure the deaths of the men he killed will weigh heavily on his conscience. Even though he undoubtedly saves ‘half the raiding party’ from being ‘slaughtered’, he still cannot justify the deaths of ‘ten Germans, innocent conscripts in a wicked war’. It is interesting how he bears no antipathy to the men that not a moment ago he was engaged against in bloody hand-to-hand combat.
In conclusion, the two men are changed significantly by their experiences of conflict. Willie, although tragically killed at the end of the novel, experiences life at its most dangerous, and is forced to question his views, alienating him from his father, but forcing him to grow up. His growing maturity is tracked throughout the novel, and his progress from a young, wide-eyed recruit to a hardened soldier comes with increased wisdom, and an awareness of the world around him. His experience of conflict gives him an insight into the best, and the worst, of human nature. This experience turns him into a man, a man who has seen death, has seen his friends killed beside him, has killed, and has tried, like every soldier does, to forget it through drink, women, and song. Unfortunate though his death is, for the novel to succeed it is also inevitable. Gretta ends their courtship after O’Hara writes to her about his visiting a prostitute, in revenge for the beating. He is estranged from his father for his views, and the letter asking for reconciliation comes just after his death. I think the key aspect of this move from child to man is his rejection of his father’s views, showing he is old and experienced enough to have formed his own opinions.
Kingsley’s experience of war leaves him more open to the needs of other people, and is rid of the arrogance he previously displayed. He returns from France, in my opinion, a better man, than when he left. He has suffered, although not as greatly as Willie, and has not been as greatly affected as Willie, being older and not so impressionable, having a strong will, and being protected, by his status as an officer in the Military Police, from some of the stark horrors of the war. He returns to his wife and child, and although forced by circumstances to take a new identity, it can be safely assumed he resumes life as normally as possible. The final contrast is that where Kingsley is fighting to get back to the family he loves, Willie is trying to escape the bonds of his, and through conflict, both achieve their ultimate goals. It is ironic really, that both men are manipulated into fighting in the war- Kingsley by the intelligence services, who need his brain and experience to solve a politically charged murder, Willie by the British government and public, who need him as just another soldier to fight just another war.
