Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 29, 2025
When that subsided there was no sign of there ever having been tramcars in that particular spot. McConkey evidently noticed that he had not aimed his pet quite straight. He stopped it at once. An officer I think it was Bob's friend Henderson sprang to his feet at the far end of the street and ran along the line of soldiers shouting an order. "They'll begin in earnest now," said Bland.
"If you really feel it to be your duty," I said, "to go round the district working up " "You'll have heard of the Home Rule Bill, maybe," said Crossan. I had heard of it, several times. After my visit to Castle Affey I even understood it, though it was certainly a measure of great complexity. I think I appreciated the orthodox Protestant view of it since the day I talked to McConkey.
So long as Cahoon and McConkey have a common taste for making domestic pets of machine guns they are not likely to fall out over such minor matters as wages and hours of work. I had a good deal to think of as Cahoon drove me back to Castle Affey. My main feeling was one of great personal thankfulness. I shall never, I hope, take part in a battle.
At the end of another quarter of an hour of furious driving he gave me a little further information about McConkey. "He neither drinks nor smokes." This led me to think that he might be some relation to my friend Crossan, possibly a cousin. "I happen to know," said Cahoon a little later, "that he has upwards of £500 saved."
"There's a gentleman here," said Cahoon, "who wants to know whether you mean to fight rather than submit to Home Rule." "Aye," said McConkey, "I do." Then he looked me square in the face without winking. Cahoon did the same thing exactly. Neither of them spoke. It was clearly my turn to say something; but with four hard grey eyes piercing my skin I found it difficult to think of a remark.
The regular soldier has his guns bought for him with other people's money. He does not mind much if no gory dividend is earned. McConkey, on the other hand, spends his own money, and being a business man, will hate to see it wasted. He would not be satisfied, I imagine, with less than fifty corpses per cent. as a return on his expenditure.
In the end I said: "Really?" They both continued to stare at me. Then McConkey broke the silence again. "You'll no be a Papist?" he said. "Certainly not," I replied. "In fact I am a church-warden." McConkey thrust his hand deep into a hip pocket in the back of his trousers and drew out a somewhat soiled packet of yellow tracing paper. "Look at thon," he said.
McConkey and his assistants had turned up from somewhere and were dragging their weapon into position under the window of a large jeweller's shop on the left flank of Bob's firing line. This was bad enough. In street fighting at close quarters a gun of this kind is very murderous and ought to do a terrible amount of destruction. But things would have been much worse if the soldiers had had it.
They, I suppose, would have known how to use it. I doubted McConkey's skill in spite of his practice on the slob lands below the Shore Road. "The soldiers will have to shoot in earnest now," said Bland. "If that fellow can handle his gun he'll simply mow them down." It looked at first, I am bound to say, as if McConkey had really mastered his new trade.
I unfolded the tracing paper and found on it drawings of a machine gun. Cahoon peered over my shoulder. "She's a bonny wee thing," said McConkey. She looked to me large and murderous. Cahoon expressed his admiration for her, so I said nothing. "I'll no be that badly off for something to fight with," said McConkey, "when the time comes."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking