don’t know the answer to that, but what I do know is that joining the army is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me.’
Christy caught Finn’s mood and he gave a lopsided grin. ‘I can barely wait. People say that it’s all going to be over by Christmas and all I hope is that we finish our training in time to at least take a few pot shots at the Hun before we come home again.’
‘I’d say you’d get your chance all right,’ Tom said as they began to walk towards the town. ‘And maybe before too long you’ll wish you hadn’t. War is no game.’
‘Sure, don’t we know that,’ Finn commented. ‘When we decided to join up, we knew what we were doing.’
Tom said nothing. He knew neither Finn nor Christy was prepared to listen, and maybe that was the right way to feel when such an irrevocable decision had been made. The die was cast now and it was far too late for second thoughts.
Finn and Christy were part of the 109th Brigade, 36th Division, 11th Battalion, and they began their training at Enniskillen. The recruits had all been examined by a doctor, prodded and poked and scrutinised, and both Finn and Christy were pronounced fit for the rigorous training.
They were fitted with army uniform which Finn found scratchy and uncomfortable, but the discomfort of the uniform was nothing compared to the boots. He had been wearing boots most of his life, but the army boots were heavy, stiff and difficult to break in, even though route marches were undertaken on an almost daily basis, often carrying heavy kit.
Finn couldn’t see the point to some of the things that the recruits had to do and he wrote to his family complaining.
There have to be proper hospital corners on the bed sheets each morning, as if anyone cares. And there has to be such a shine on your boots that the sergeant says you will be able to see your face in them. Now what is the use of that? Unless of course we are supposed to dazzle the enemy with our shiny boots and will have no need to fire a shot at all.
And the marching would get you down. We are at it morning, noon and night, and I have blisters on top of blisters. The tramp of boots on the parade ground can be heard constantly because we are not the only company here.
Finn was looking forward to target practice with rifles, which he anticipated being quite good at. Both he and Christy, the sons of farmers, were used to guns.
However, Finn had never fixed a bayonet to a rifle before, nor screamed in a blood-curdling way as he ran and thrust that bayonet into a dummy stuffed with straw. He did this with the same enthusiasm as the rest, though after one such session he told Christy he doubted that he could do that to another human being. ‘In war you likely don’t have time to think of things in such a rational way,’ Christy replied. ‘They’re not going to stand there obligingly, are they? They more than likely will be trying to stick their bayonets in us too.’
‘I suppose,’ Finn said. ‘God, I’d hate to die that way, wouldn’t you?’
‘I’d hate to die any bloody way,’ Christy said. ‘I intend to come back in one piece 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 keen on 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 he wasn’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 right to wear. He had got used to the scratchiness of it and thought, as he looked in the mirror, that he had seldom been so smart. His dark amber eyes were sparkling; in fact his whole face was one big beam of happiness, though his full lips had a tendency
