The War of Independence (or Anglo-
Irish War) brought bloodshed and
atrocity to nearly every corner of the
island of Ireland between 1919 and
1921. The Anglo-Irish Treaty that ended
it partitioned the island into Northern
Ireland and the Irish Free State, leading
to a Civil War between Pro-Treaty and
Anti-Treaty forces a few months later
(1922–1923). Against that traumatic
backdrop, this subtly weird story by
Dorothy Macardle, written while she was
imprisoned for her Anti-Treaty activities,
might make us wonder what a ‘vision’
really is – a precognitive dream, or a
warning sent backwards through time?
IT WAS SOON AFTER the truce began that Nesta McAllister came to Philadelphia. A little shyly she came among us and a little critically she was received; many of us had worked with Roger McAllister and delighted in him as the wittiest, believed in him as the most creative and inspiring of Ireland’s men, and we wondered, when we heard of his marriage, whether he had been lucky and wise.
We liked Nesta; very young, very dark, she was, very serious at times, without the defiant gaiety that is the only armour for such a war as she had to wage.
She contributed little to the talk and storytelling of those evenings, but loved to listen, and one felt in her a sensitive response to one’s precise meaning, one’s more discriminate thought, which made the talk grow subtler when she was there. Una, who knew her best, said of her: ‘She has lost herself in Roger’s life and mind.’ Frank said: ‘She is a little woman who’ll get hurt.’
It was on one evening when we had been recalling old prophecies and forebodings and telling of omens and dreams that she told us her troubling story; she told it, I think, chiefly to hear us assure her that the dream could never come true.
It had happened in January when she and Roger were living in hiding in the mountains of County Cork, he waging with his pen a campaign so dangerous to the enemy and so infuriating that we dreaded capture for him more than death. No man in Ireland was more remorselessly hunted then.
‘It was in the middle of the worst time of all,’ she said, ‘when martial law had been proclaimed and men were being tried by drum-head Court-Martial and shot on any pretext at all. You could be shot for “harbouring rebels”, you know. We didn’t harbour rebels, of course, because Roger’s work had all to be done “underground”; we lived without even a servant in a little four-roomed cottage in the hills. When it was necessary for Roger to meet the staff, he used to go off alone on his bicycle at night and come back just when there came a chance. Those, of course, were my worst times.
‘It was on a night when he was away that I had the dream. You know,’ she said, hesitating a little, ‘that I have had dreams sometimes that came true. I dreamed of my father’s stroke, though he was quite well, just before it came – I saw his face change – and my sister’s baby – before it was born. I saw it under the sea – and afterwards, in the Leinster, they were both drowned. It is terrible to dream like that.2
‘As a rule, when Roger was away I couldn’t sleep, but that night I was very tired and fell asleep before twelve o’clock. In the dream we were sitting, he and I, in a room lighted only by candles – the living-room of the cottage it was – I saw the makeshift couch by the fire and the door that opened straight on to the road. It was night; the door and shutters were bolted and there was no sound. I think I was looking into the fire – I was looking at something, anyhow, that shaped itself into a face – a thin, long face with hollow eyes. I hated it, I tried to drive it away. Then we were in the room, just as before, Roger writing by the candlelight, with no sound – I was waiting for a sound. Then it came – footsteps on the gravel outside, and a long, low, hissing call, then a knock, someone knocking with his knuckles on the door. Roger stood up and crossed the room quickly and opened the door and four men carrying a stretcher came in; they came walking slowly like figures in a play; there was a man lying on the stretcher – a dead man, with that long, thin face and those deep eyes; there was a blood-stained bandage round his head – I hated him – I was afraid – such terror gripped me that I woke. I woke cold and shuddering, but I didn’t wake properly. I fell asleep again and then – then came the other dream.’
Her face had gone white and her eyes wide and dark. ‘Better not be telling it,’ Frank said. But she crushed her hands together and said, ‘No, no – I’ll get rid of it – ’tis better for me to tell.’
‘In this dream I was not present myself – I knew in a way that I was asleep – there was a mad feeling that if only I could wake – if only I could cry out – but I had no power.
‘There were high stone walls and a dark yard; everything was cold; it was dawn. The yard was full of stones; it was narrow and long; there was a dark hole dug in the earth. There was a man standing near it, against the wall; his hands were behind his back and his eyes were bandaged; there was a bright red mark over his heart. It was Roger; he was going to be killed. Soldiers formed up with rifles and stood covering him. There were nine; I counted them; it was all quite clear. Then a tall man stood behind them, an officer, with a revolver, covering them. I looked at him and tried to scream – I tried to stop him, but I couldn’t, I had no power. He was the dead man – he had a great scar on his brow and hollow eyes, and that long, cadaverous face. I heard him shout “Fire!” and heard the volley, and saw Roger fall, and saw that man go over to him with his revolver and shoot – Oh, it was horrible. I can’t.’
She broke off. For a while none of us could think of anything to say, then Liam Daly said laughingly, ‘One of the uncounted terrors of martial law! I suppose our misfortunate wives and mothers were dreaming our executions every night! God pity them,’ he added soberly, ‘the time they had.’
Nesta looked up gratefully. ‘Yes, it was very natural,’ she said, ‘and there was one thing that showed how it was – just a crazy combination of hopes and fears. The uniforms of the soldiers were green! That comforted me, of course, but – the first part of the dream came true.’
‘The wounded man?’ I exclaimed.
‘That evening’, she said, ‘Roger came home. He was in splendid spirits; everything was going well; one man who’d been sentenced was reprieved, and another who was to have been executed in the morning had escaped. We had a leisurely supper and afterwards sat resting by the firelight, as usual, before beginning the night’s work. You know Roger,’ she said, smiling: ‘One resolves to conceal things from him, but it’s no good. In a few minutes I was telling him my dream. He knew, of course, that I had dreamed things that came true, and when I came to the execution he looked startled until I told him “the soldiers were in green”.
‘“In green!” he exclaimed. “In the uniform of the IRA?” and I said “Yes.” Then he laughed and began inventing nonsense, delightedly – “Victory for the Republic,” he said, “our army all swank in uniform and me charged with high treason and shot at dawn!” It was so absurd that the whole dread that had been over me fell away and I laughed too, and we lit the lamps and pulled out the files and papers and began work.
‘We both loved, for writing, the unbroken quiet of the midnight hours, and we worked in dead silence until after one o’clock; then the lamp began to flicker out, and Roger muttered, “Sorry, I forgot the oil,” so I had to light candles.
‘It was that, I suppose, the candles – that brought it back – the face out of my dream – suddenly I saw it before me in the shadows, ghastly clear, and my heart crumpled up with dread. I sat down at the table again, trying not to tell Roger, waiting – but I couldn’t work, couldn’t think.
‘At last it came, a sound of slow footsteps on the gravel and a long, low, hissing call. Roger sprang up instinctively and opened the drawer in which he kept his automatic, but then the knock came – someone knocking with his knuckles – and he put it back and crossed to open the door.
‘I cried out and stood against the door. I cried out to him, “Don’t open, don’t open!” He put his arm around me and drew me away, smiling. “It isn’t raiders,” he said.
‘He flung the door open and they came in, four men in dark coats, walking slowly, and laid the stretcher down. I saw the white face of the man who lay on it, the long, lean, hollow face – the bandaged head – the blood – Oh, I was not brave; I could do nothing; I sank down on a chair in the shadow and did nothing at all. I heard the men whispering with Roger and heard them go away. They had laid the man on the couch, and he was moaning – that was the dreadful thing – he was not dead.
‘Roger came over to me, smiling. “Nesta, we’ve got to harbour a rebel,” he said. He said that to call up my courage, of course, and it did make me ashamed. I stood up and went to the couch; then I looked at Roger and told him, “It’s the face in my dream.” “This boy was to be executed tomorrow,” he said gravely. “It was a great rescue: he was fired after and hit; it’s a bad wound, but I think he needn’t die.” I – I couldn’t help it – I said again, stupidly, “It’s the face in my dream.” Roger looked at me almost – he was almost stern – and said, “Nesta, we can’t let dreams—” I took off the bandage then and examined the wound; it wasn’t dangerous, only he’d lost so much blood; he’d need long, careful nursing I could see; but he needn’t die. He was five weeks in the house.’
‘Tell me, did you like him?’ Una asked.
‘No,’ Nesta said, frankly. ‘Roger did. Roger said he was a splendid fellow with a fine record since nineteen-sixteen – one of Mick Collins’s right-hand men. But I – I was ashamed – I could see nothing to hate, yet I – I hated him. But I did my best, he went away strong and well.’
‘And that’s the end of the story,’ Liam said.
‘Yes, that’s the end,’ said Nesta, looking up. ‘You see – the war will break out again of course, we all know that – but the green uniforms … it couldn’t come true.’
2. Editor’s note: the HMS Leinster, a mailboat sunk by a German submarine on its way from Dublin to Holyhead in October 1918, killing 500 people.