Now another three days on the sniper sat in the same place that he had repeatedly sat since returning to the house, which was beginning to smell of his brother’s decaying flesh. He grew weak his arm wasn’t healing as he had hoped he hadn’t been eating well. Not wanting to leave the body to go and get food, he’d eaten everything in the house he could stand it no longer it was driving him crazy staying. He could put it off no longer he had to start the journey to his childhood home.
He loaded his brother’s body into the wooden handcart he had located in the abandoned greengrocers two buildings up. With a last look into his brother’s face he pulled the cover over the cart so as not to attract attention to himself he started on his treacherous journey.
It wasn’t going to be easy he would have to walk the two-day journey also pushing the cart with his brother’s body in with his wounded arm and to add to his problems he hadn’t been to the farm in 8 years and had forgotten how to get there exactly.
He pushed the cart to the left down towards the O’Connell Bridge. He was going to have to go through the middle of the city, which still had sporadic machine gun fire. He knew he would need to get out of the city as quickly as possible, because anything that moves down on the abandoned streets of Dublin was shot at, unless they were informers, the sniper however pushing his big handcart did not look like an informer he looked extremely dodgy even under the cover of darkness. He was so scared his body was rigid his arm had gone numb he pushed his cart north only focused ahead he dare not look to the sides he just walked as quick as he could.
After an hour of walking and not even the roar of a single bullet he was reaching the edge of the city the houses were becoming few and far between but still not looking to the side he spotted on the horizon what was clearly recognizable as a free state checkpoint. There were three soldiers standing by a barrier smoking, there was no way around them he would have to go through them.
He parked the cart down a nearby back alley he pulled back the cover and pulled out the revolver. He had four bullets so he had to be as accurate as possible he dropped to the floor at the corner of the alley and took the cover off the cart and laid it over the top of himself. He aimed his revolver down the street with both hands on the gun he lined up the chest of the soldier closest to him and fired it was a great shot and the free stater fell to the floor the other two dropped almost as quick for cover looking around trying to spot the sniper but he could not be seen he quickly lined up the next soldier, he could not let them call for support or find themselves cover. He fired it hit him in the head he dropped his gun and lay lifeless. The other soldier had seen the flash of the revolver and knew were the sniper was he began to return fire with his rifle. The sniper couldn’t afford to lie there until he got hit, he roughly took aim and fired he hit the soldier in the arm but didn’t kill him. He was still under fire; he fired again and scored another head shot.
He picked himself up and sprinted down to the checkpoint to see whether it was clear. He stood in between the three dead soldiers scanning around, it was clear. He ran back got the cart and came back as quickly as possible he knew that he need to disappear as soon as possible because they probably would have called for back up as soon as the first man went down. He picked up all the rifles and the ammunition loaded them on the cart and ran as fast as he could down the road out of the hell that was Dublin.
He awoke with a shock the next day laying next to his brother’s dead body, uncomfortably lying on a rifle. He pulled back the cover on the cart to see the midday sun; he was in a hedge by the roadside about 3 miles north west of Dublin. He need to follow this road for another 30 miles which was going to take him, pushing that cart with his bad right arm, at least ten hours.
He carried on plodding along; he looked down at his watch, he had been walking for three hours, he was shattered he pulled his cart off the narrow country road and sat down for a brief well-earned rest. He pulled back the cover to quickly check on his brother, he thought back to 11 days ago when he played dead and how pleased with himself he had been when he shot down the enemy sniper and then how it had been the worst moment of his life, when he rolled over that sniper and looked into his brother’s face. He reminisced of playing with his brother, mum and dad he wished things could be that fun and carefree now he got up, watched a car go by and carried on with his journey.
He had passed through a few villages so far without any trouble he even got a wave off some old lady who was walking her dog, this village was a little larger fortunately darkness had drawn in and this was likely to be the sniper’s last piece of walking before he got to rest his throbbing feet. This particular village looked quite battle scared and abandoned, there were machine gun bullet holes in most of the houses. The Sniper quickened up his pace to nearly a sprint, his wooden cart echoing through the empty houses. He couldn’t believe that his beloved Ireland could get like this and how he was a part of this death and destruction. In his remorse he didn’t notice that he was out of the village he came to his senses, pulled over his cart and lay down to sleep.
He woke up the next morning knowing he had to take the next left turn, which would take him west and towards the O Driscoll farm, where would have to tell his parents that their favourite son was dead. All morning he practiced how he was going to tell them.
A few hours later he was there he didn’t really know how because he hadn’t been concentrating on where he was going it must have been instinct. He was shaking, he knocked on the farmhouse door, there was no answer, he knocked again still no reply. He thought that they must be in the garden he knew it must be Saturday or Sunday and they always used to have a family lunch on a Sunday. He opened up the gate to the back garden.
He pushed the cart round the corner of the house to see all of his family enjoying themselves. They noticed him; he left his cart and approached the silent table. His dad Murphy took a last sip of his beer, stabbed out his fag and stood up he was a reasonably large man about 6 ft 2 quite well built with some what of a beer belly. As he stood up so did the skinny little woman sitting next to him, she looked slightly scared but experienced in controlling his dad, this little woman was the sniper’s mum Sinead. He looked around the table at what must be his cousins kids looking scared and at his aunt and uncle who were looking disgusted. The sniper looked back at his father who was approaching him
“Is that chew Paddy?” said Murphy “I thought I told ya if ya ever set foot on this farm I’d kill ya.” Murphy pulled back his beefy right fist and smacked Paddy flush on the cheek, it started bleeding, there was a gasp of shock from the table, but Paddy stood there, motionless with no sign of shock, it was clear that he was not there to fight
“What are you doing here son?” asked Sinead putting herself between here husband and her son.
Paddy replied “I needed to tell you myself you deserve that much,” he pulled the tags out of his pocket and held them out for his mum, she took them and almost immediately broke down and cried, she turned and hugged her husband, who looked at the tags and walked forwards, tears swelling up in his eyes, he hit Paddy again who remained motionless for few seconds but then he let it all out, what he had been bottling up for twelve days he came forward, looked at his dad and they both broke down and hugged each other, Paddy looked back at the cart which his brother was laying dead in and thought to himself, how pointless and how much he hated war and he swore to himself that he would never fight in another war ever again.
The End
