Winter Song: A Novel

By James Hanley

When her husband comes back from the dead, Mrs. Fury plans a voyage

Dennis Fury was too old to return to sea. Nearing seventy, his sailing days long behind him, he should have stayed home—but Britain was at war, and his family needed the money. When his ship was reported lost, his wife, the stalwart Mrs. Fury, staggered into St. Stephen’s Hospice, prepared to die. Twelve months later, as she clings to life, a shipwrecked old man appears near the docks, feeble, sick, and too drunk to know his own name. He has crossed half the planet to return home, but Dennis Fury will find that there is no home waiting for him.
 
His return is enough to rouse Mrs. Fury from her deathbed. With her last burst of life, she wants to fulfill a dream she gave up on long ago and return with her husband to Ireland. The sea may stand in their way, but the Furys have never hesitated to cross an ocean.
 
Winter Song is the fourth book of James Hanley’s acclaimed Furys Saga.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Mar 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504005074

James Hanley

James Hanley (1897–1985) was born in Liverpool, England, to an Irish Catholic family. He spent time in the merchant navy and served with the Canadian Infantry during World War I. From 1930 to 1981 Hanley published forty-eight books, including the novels Boy, The Furys, The Ocean, Another World, and Hollow Sea. He penned plays for radio, television, and theater and published a work of nonfiction, Grey Children, on the plight of coal miners. Hanley died in London but was buried in Wales, the setting for many of his works. 

Book preview

Chapter 1

There was nothing to be heard in the small office save the clock’s tick and the scratching nib. Once or twice Father Twomey had paused to look up, to listen. He thought he had heard heavy lumbering footsteps outside the door, but the sounds had died on the air. He went on writing. Suddenly the door was flung rudely open, and three sailors staggered into the room. The priest swung round and exclaimed somewhat angrily:

‘What is the meaning of this? Couldn’t you have knocked first?’

He stared at the three men, one of whom, the tallest, promptly collapsed and lay sprawled in the middle of the room.

‘You’re hurt,’ he said, rising to his feet. He stood looking down at them, he was a very tall man.

‘S’Apostleship sea?’

‘This is the office of the Apostleship of the Sea.’ He studied the men.

They were looking stupidly at him. He saw that two of them were little more than youths—the other was a white-faced trembling old man and, seeing this, he at once pushed a chair forward and said to him, ‘Sit down.’

‘I say sit down,’ the priest said, he stood close to him—he thought he must be deaf. He pushed him into the chair.

‘There,’ he said, but the old man made no reply.

‘Where have you come from?’

‘Bahia.’ This was stuttered out by the tallest one who had now got into a sitting position on the floor.

‘Bahia?’ said Father Twomey.

He was a fair-haired youth, no more than twenty, he wore blue dungaree trousers, a jersey and reefer jacket, he was without a hat.

At that moment the old man fell out of the chair. Father Twomey exclaimed: ‘He’s drunk, too.’

‘He’s sick,’ the man on the floor said—‘s’Apostleship sea—?’

The priest pressed a button on his desk.

‘You had better take this old man upstairs,’ he said as the caretaker opened the door, ‘he’s ill.’

‘Yes, Father.’

The man lifted the old man up and led him out.

‘There’s one vacant bunk on the top floor,’ called the priest as the door closed.

‘Get up off that floor.’ He bent down and dragged the youth to his feet. ‘Come along now, stand up.’

He looked at the other.

‘We stood in the train all night,’ this one said; he looked directly at the priest.

‘Where have you come from?’

‘I said where—Bahia.’

‘I’m speaking of the train—and who are you?’

‘We’re going home.’

Father Twomey had meanwhile seated the other in the chair.

He sat looking at them for a long time without speaking. He was not unused to this sort of thing. The oceans yielded up all types, all colours, all manner of men. ‘These,’ he thought, ‘are derelict.’

Two cups of tea had been brought to them. They drank thirstily.

‘When you have collected yourself,’ said the priest, ‘you may offer some explanation.’

The sound of snoring came to his ears; when he glanced round, he found the man in the chair fast asleep.

‘We were in the train all night.’

‘I see.’

‘We came off at King George’s.’

‘Of course. Your ship docked at King George the Fifth Dock in London. You came direct from Bahia.’

‘No.’

‘Well then …’

‘He’s sick—he’s very sick.’

‘Who? The old man?’

‘Yes—he was in the sea twice.’

‘Were you in the sea?’

‘Yes, but only once.’

‘What happened?’

‘Torpedoed.’

‘What is the name of your ship?’

‘It was the Winifredia.’

‘Where was she sunk?’

‘South Atlantic.’

‘And this one,’ Father Twomey jerked a thumb towards the sleeping sailor.

‘Same ship as me.’

‘You’re not so drunk,’ the priest said.

The sailor smiled stupidly and said, ‘No.… Father.’

‘Can you explain a little more? Won’t you sit down?’

‘Rather stand. I want to go home.’

‘Of course. How long have you been away?’

‘Eighteen and a half months. We were in hospital at Bahia.’

‘All of you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Go on.’

‘He’s ill, he’s very ill,’ the sailor said.

‘I can see that—you’ve already told me that. What happened to him?’

‘He was in the Lucian—she went down in the South Atlantic too. He was took aboard the Oresenta and he was in sick bay on her and then in three days he was in the sea again. See his head?’

‘What about his head?’

The sailor suddenly said ‘Nothing—see it.’

‘Tell me, are you Gelton men?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have the authorities informed your people.…?’

‘Don’t know,’ the sailor said. Suddenly he was sick.

‘This is a fine how d’ye do,’ Father Twomey said, he rang the bell again, waited.

‘I want you to get both of these men upstairs, they’re not in a fit condition for questioning. They are shipwrecked men. They have come from the other side of the world.’

He helped the man to get them out of the office.

‘Is the old man all right?’

‘He’s fast asleep’—he stared at the two young men—‘poor devils,’ he thought.

There was some difficulty in getting this dead weight to the upper floor, but they managed to put them into two beds in the same room.

‘They are all drunk, they had better sleep it off. It’s really disgraceful the manner in which these derelict sailors are sent home—and after what must have been quite frightful experiences. A parcel in the post has more consideration.’

‘It’s a shame,’ the caretaker said—they went downstairs, they parted.

As the caretaker was shutting the door Father Twomey said ‘Whatever papers …’

‘All the papers found on them are already on your desk, Father. There were no papers on the old man. But he’s a Catholic—he’s a medal round his neck and he has some tattoo marks on him—they may help.’

‘Thank you, Delahane,’ said the priest. He sat down to look through the papers.

They had dragged the old man with them half-across the world. The moment they were discharged in Bahia they got drunk. They got the old man drunk. They sailed for New York. They were drunk when they arrived there. In the West St Bethel the old man’s screams upset everybody. They were drunk from New York to London. They dragged the old man behind them. They carried to the train enough liquor to keep them drunk and singing all through the five hours that the train lurched towards Gelton, and the three of them reeled from one side of the corridor to the other. For the last hour the old man had lain in a heap just outside the lavatory door and he was quite unconscious of the continuous movement, the continuous passage of bodies. Once or twice he screamed in his sleep, but this was almost unheard owing to the roar of the train and the loud singing of the two youths. They held whisky bottles in their hands, every passer-by was hailed loudly, truculently, was invited to have a drink. Finally, they slithered down to the floor, lay sprawled there, the empty bottles rolled from side to side, they slept deeply and did not wake until the train pulled into the main Gelton Station. Somehow they managed to drag themselves to their feet, somehow managed to support the shaking old man and together they lurched out of the station. A policeman stopped them. He questioned them. He gathered that they were looking for Father Twomey of the Apostleship of the Sea. They had travelled light, in only the clothes they stood in; he saw at once that they were shipwrecked sailors—he called a taxi and paid their fare. So they arrived, so they flung themselves into this quiet, white-walled room; they were home from the sea.

‘The old man is the problem here,’ Father Twomey said to himself, ‘there is no name, no address. The other two only live a mile or so from here. I must question them again.’

Glancing at his watch he saw it was getting on to noon. He left the office and went upstairs. He went straight to the room where the two men lay. They were asleep. He shut the door, and went along to where the old man lay. When he went in he saw that the old man was awake, his eyes were wide open—he was staring up at the ceiling. Father Twomey pulled a chair after him and sat down by the bed.

‘Are you … you are awake?’ he said.

There was no reply. The old man breathed heavily, he took a good look at him. A man of medium height, probably in the late sixties. Grey ashen features, greenish-grey eyes, the forehead was furrowed with deep lines. He looked at the hands lying helplessly on the coverlet. They were broken, misshapen, the nails smashed, he noticed a tattooed five-pointed star just below the back of the thumb. The neck was thin, he had obviously not shaved for some days. He saw then a great livid scar which ran from the back of his head down to the nape of his neck. It was so livid it reminded him of a raw wound.

‘Poor old man,’ he thought, ‘I wonder what he’s been through? Far too old for the hazards of the sea, and in wartime. Far too old.’

His glance came back to the eyes again and again, too bright, too staring.

‘Can you hear me?’ said the priest, and then the old man’s head slowly turned, he looked at the priest.

‘You have no papers. Please tell me your name.’

The eyes closed—after a momentary silence, he heard the old man say, ‘Gelton.’

‘Gelton! You mean you belong to Gelton. What is your name?’

There was another pause.

‘Fury,’ … and then … ‘Dennis.’

‘I see. How long have you been away?’ he asked gently—he put a hand lightly upon one of the ugly hands on the coverlet.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Don’t you remember?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘What was your ship, Mr Fury?’

‘I don’t care. Where is my wife—her name’s Fanny?’

‘All in good time. I see you have been in hospital.’

‘Yes,’ almost sullenly.

‘You are very ill,’ said the priest.

There was no answer.

He put his fingers on the man’s forehead, he stroked the forehead, then he wiped the sweat on his handkerchief. ‘Rest,’ he said, then he turned away and went quietly out.

He sent for Delahane as soon as he reached his office.

‘When those young fellows have slept off their drunkenness, you may return these papers to them, and then see them off the premises.’ He handed the collection of documents to Delahane.

‘I have got the old man’s name. He has just told me. I’m afraid that old man has been dragged everywhere imaginable by those two sailors. They would seem to have entirely forgotten that they had had given into their charge a very sick old man. They seem to have drunk their way home. I’m not surprised and I do not blame them, but they are all of them lucky men. Now, I want you to go through the Missing List, if this man’s name isn’t there, it’s bound to be amongst KNOWN LOST. Will you do that, Delahane? The lists are in the top drawer of the bureau in the next room.’

‘I know, sir. I will go and examine them.’

‘His memory must have been affected. He must have had a blow on the head, an ugly wound.’

Delahane returned after a few minutes.

‘Here are the particulars you want, Father. I think we’ve got our man safely home.’ He began to read:

‘Dennis Fury, stoker. Aged sixty-seven. H.M.T. Ronsa …’

‘The address. Is there any address given?’ asked Father Twomey, impatiently.

‘Yes, Hey’s Alley.’

‘Hey’s Alley. Let me see now. What parish is that, Delahane?’

‘Saint Sebastian’s,’ replied Delahane.

‘Good. We are nearly there. I shall ring up the parish priest. If they lived in Hey’s Alley, then they belong to St Sebastian’s.’

‘Yes, Father! That’s right. Father Moynihan.’

‘Yes, Richard Moynihan. Get me his number, Delahane.’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘Then go up and see if those men are still asleep. If they are in any decent shape, you had better take them to the canteen for a meal. It will shut down in an hour.’

‘Your call, Father.’

‘Thank you.’

He waited till the caretaker had gone out.

‘Hello, Father Moynihan?’

‘I’m very sorry,’ replied the voice at the other end, ‘but Father Moynihan has just been called out.’

‘Is that his housekeeper?’

‘Speaking.’

‘Please give Father Moynihan this message. It is urgent. Ask him will he please call here—the office of the Apostleship of the Sea. This is the chaplain speaking, Father Twomey.’

‘Very well, Father, I’ll surely do that.’

‘Thank you.’

Father Twomey smiled as he put down the receiver. ‘He’ll be home soon now, very soon. Poor old chap. I wonder what on earth he’s doing on the wide oceans at his time of life? Imagine those young fools getting him drunk like that, what a journey it must have been! But I don’t think that man will ever put foot on shipboard again.’

He got up, took his hat and umbrella and went out to lunch.

At three o’clock he was back again. He sat in the chair before the fire, his legs sprawled, he filled a pipe and smoked. He waited for Father Moynihan.

‘In twelve months,’ he thought, ‘four hundred good men have gone from my parish and two hundred and twenty-two have found the bed of the sea. God help their very own! From one street alone fifteen of my parishioners are missing. If this war goes on much longer I’ll have no parish at all.’ He suddenly sat up, ‘Yes?’ he called out.

‘Father Moynihan, Father.’

Father Twomey jumped up and opened the door.

‘How are you, Richard?’ his hand outstretched. ‘I haven’t seen you since five years ago at Maynooth.’

‘How are you, Joseph Twomey?’ said the tall, grey-haired priest. ‘How are you getting along?’ His voice was grave, quiet, he took the proffered chair and sat down.

‘Your housekeeper …’

‘I believe I have one of your parishioners upstairs—I hope I have. The name is Fury.’

‘I know the name. I knew the family of that name.’

‘This is an old man, very old, very sick, very tired,’ continued Father Twomey.

‘The husband was posted missing from a transport a year ago,’ said Father Moynihan. ‘A sad thing indeed. It struck the wife a bitter blow. What makes you think this man named Fury might be …,’ he paused—‘Where is he? Is he here? I believe I should know him. Could I see him?’

‘In a moment, yes, but first I would like you to run your eye over these particulars, Richard.’ He handed a long typewritten list to the priest.

‘I know the man indicated here. I know him very well. But I’m doubtful that you have the living man upstairs, Father Twomey, this man was definitely reported lost a year ago. There were no survivors from the Ronsa.’

‘Perhaps you had better come upstairs.’

Father Twomey knocked out his pipe and pocketed it. Father Moynihan followed him out. They went upstairs.

‘He may be asleep.’

‘Even so,’ replied Father Moynihan, and followed the other to the end of the corridor.

‘In here.’

Father Twomey opened the door, stood aside for the other to pass, then closed it. He did not follow Father Moynihan to the bedside, but stood and waited. He saw the other bend low over the bed, then the hand was raised, a finger beckoned.

‘This poor creature,’ said Father Moynihan ‘is Dennis Fury. I know. I know that face though the man has altered—dreadfully so—I know those tattoo marks on hand and wrists. And this,’ he said pointing, ‘how terrible.’

He stared at the scar, ‘The old man must have been struck by something, a spar or the like.’

‘Probably. It is quite healed—and yet it looks always a fresh wound.’

‘The miracle to me,’ said Father Moynihan ‘is that this man is here—lying in this bed, alive—warm—breathing. It is indeed a terrible home-coming, for there is no home to come to.’

He turned away from the bed, then on the point of leaving the room, he once more turned to look down at the old man. ‘He is deeply asleep,’ he said.

‘I sat him in a chair this morning and he fell out of it. He was brought here by two young men, quite drunk. They said they were in charge of him, that they had to deliver him here, he might have been a sack of potatoes. They had got him drunk.’

‘Disgraceful. No matter, I think we had better go downstairs. There are things that I must do now.’

The two priests sat opposite each other in the office.

‘You know the man?’ asked Father Twomey, offering his tobacco pouch to the other.

‘Thank you, Twomey. Yes, that man is Dennis Fury all right. I have known him for over twenty years. But there is a great change in him. He looks like a very old child. How astounding—he was not only given up as dead, but registered as such. I’m afraid this is going to be a terrible shock for the old woman.…’

‘His wife?’

‘Yes.’

‘He cannot be moved at present. And I think a doctor should see him this evening. I shall not forget to let the Marine authorities have a bit of my mind. To have sent that old man back in that state, dragged half-across the world by a couple of drunks …’

‘I myself would hold nothing against such men for getting drunk. Imagine what they may have been through,’ said Father Moynihan.

‘I have been dealing with seamen for fifteen years,’ Father Twomey protested.

‘Then you should have known better, Twomey.’

‘If you had seen the old man when they dragged him in here. However, the main thing is to get him home.’

‘It will be sad for him to learn that there is no home,’ Father Moynihan said. ‘His wife has a room at St Stephen’s Hospice, and has been there these past twelve months. She arrived there one very hot afternoon last July and asked for a room. She looked very tired and exhausted, and they took her in. She may not have known it at the time, but St Stephen’s, as you know, is a hospice for the dying. Anyway, she has been there ever since. Her son, who is a trade union worker, and now in London, pays for her keep. But she does not know this. I’m afraid it’s going to be a great disappointment to Dennis Fury, a man who has worked so hard all his life, and made one home after another for his family, the children of which are now scattered. I doubt very much whether the old woman has any heart left, certainly there can be no question of starting a home again. She has one other son in the Navy, at present stationed on the China coast—the youngest is in prison, and may be expected to get out in three years, all being well.…’

‘Oh! Those Furys—why I remember that case,’ Father Twomey exclaimed.

‘I shall of course write to the children and tell them what has happened. This indeed is a return from the dead.…’

‘I’ve known cases of men turning up after two years, even three, who were assumed to have been drowned.…’

‘Well,’ said Father Moynihan, ‘I shall now be able to persuade this woman to go home to Ireland and take the old man with her. It has been her pursuing dream for years. She has a sister there, living in a big empty house in Cork, the Mall, you know …,’ and the other nodded his head—‘let them end their days there in peace! It is the best thing. There is nothing for them to remain for now, his days are numbered, one can see that, poor old chap—he’ll never work again, never. Ah, but it’s sad to be thinking of going home when there is no home. His wife did the most extraordinary thing on that hot July afternoon. She received a telegram that day about the sinking of the Ronsa, and in a sort of daze, went down to the shipping office to have it denied or confirmed. She left the door of her home wide open to the world, and never went back to shut it and has never been there since. Fortunately, her son-in-law heard about it and went down to Hey’s Alley where she lived, he had the furniture put into storage, and then after a few visits paid to the woman in the Hospice, he decided to sell the few things there were—he knew she would not come away now—that all thought of home-making was finished. The few pounds he got he gave to the Mother Superior to look after for her. It will certainly carry them both to Ireland in comfort.’

He sat up in the chair, the smoking pipe dangling in his hand.

‘It was good of you to have contacted me right away. But I never expected as I came along here to be confronted by a man I’d long ago regarded as dead.’

Father Twomey took out his watch. He got up.

‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘would you like to come up again, he may have waked.’

‘Yes, let us go up now.’

But looking into the room they found the man still sleeping, lying like a log, his heavy breathing filling the room.

‘He may sleep for hours.’

‘Let him sleep. But now I must go. You will call me again, Twomey, when the old man wakes up. You won’t have him moved or anything—it is essential that I should talk to him. If I must prepare his wife for shocks, I must equally prepare him. It makes me glad I’ve known them so very long.’

‘I shall ring you at once. But I shall have a doctor here within the hour. He is very weak.’

They walked out again into the busy street, and stood there talking for a few minutes. Father Moynihan looked away towards the sea and thought of the old man in that sea and of the sea that had flung him back again.

‘It’s sad, and at the same time it’s wonderful,’ he said—‘those two people united at last. They saw little of each other. Old Fury spent a whole life-time at sea except for a few years when he worked ashore … but that was always a cage to him, and I think, too, he was glad to escape out of it, and from the old woman’s tongue. A simple man, too simple, for that woman who gathered the children round her and left the husband outside. Now they’ve all torn themselves away from her, and she has only him. I hope she will learn to be kinder to him now. But I must fly. Bye-bye, Twomey.’

‘Bye-bye,’ Father Twomey gave a wave of the hand, smiled, then went back to the office.

Delahane was waiting for him, anxious, impatient.

‘That old chap’s woken up, and his shouts made me nearly jump out of my skin. Will you come up at once, Father. He’s been shouting about the sea, the sea on fire, somebody by the name of Lenahan.’

‘He’s probably been dreaming. He may have had a nightmare. Let’s go up.’

‘Yes, Father,’ and he preceded the priest to the room where the old man lay.

When they came in, the old man was lying quiet in the bed, but he had heard the door open, and as they approached the bed, he opened his eyes and looked up at them.

‘Are you feeling better now?’ Father Twomey asked him. He repeated: ‘Are you feeling better?’

‘Yes.’ It was a bare whisper. He turned over on his side; ‘where am I?’

‘You are safe. You will soon be home.’

‘Where’s Fanny?’

‘She will be here soon. Here, drink this.’ He put his hand behind the old man’s head, he held the glass to his lips.

After a moment or two, he withdrew the tumbler, sat back a little, and stared at Dennis Fury. He saw a shortish man, with iron-grey hair close cropped, long thin features, quite bloodless, and on his neck, seated like a vulture, the legacy from the sea. The partly opened mouth revealed blackened, broken teeth. The green-grey eyes were almost lost to view under the bushy grey brows. Somehow lying there with his knees drawn up, it seemed to accentuate the weakness, the fragility, of the old man. Father Twomey suddenly turned to Delahane.

‘You took the names and addresses of the two men who brought him here, I hope? We shall have to get much more information from them. It is most extraordinary that the man should have been returned to his country in this manner.’

‘I’ve seen worse, Father, in my time.’

‘I doubt it.’

They spoke in whispers and all the time the man on the bed was watching them.

‘You were shouting in your sleep.’

‘Was I?’

‘Yes. Would you like another drink?’

The eyes closed. Father Twomey and Delahane turned away from the bed.

‘You rang for Dr McClaren?’

‘He should be here any minute now.’

‘I don’t like the look of the old chap.’

‘Nor do I.’

‘Let’s go downstairs,’ Father Twomey said. ‘It’s no use questioning him now. He’s extremely exhausted. I can’t get out of my mind the picture of this very sick man, standing in between two drunks on a crowded reeling train, for nearly five hours.’

‘Nor can I.’

They went downstairs again.

‘Perhaps he’ll be better in his own home. I expect McClaren will have him shifted at once.’

‘He hasn’t any home.’

‘No home.’

‘His wife, so I gather, has a room at St Stephen’s Hospice. I daresay Father Moynihan will see to them both. They are his parishioners.’

‘He’s coming again?’

‘Yes, but he’ll have to see the old man’s wife. It’s going to be something of a shock. She is an old woman, and she had given up her husband as dead months ago. Indeed, she got some compensation and a small pension. It seems a pity that he has neither home nor family to return to. And, of course, he doesn’t know. That’s another job for Father Moynihan. Now I must get ready to meet those men coming in on the Torsa. I believe there are eleven of them altogether. Have a good fire in the big room, and ask Mrs Shane to have plenty of hot drinks and blankets ready.’

‘Very good, Father.’

He watched the priest put on his hat, pick up the umbrella and go out.

Delahane sat down.

‘What a lot of men get lost in the sea, poor devils.’

Through the window he saw the river, the ships, the tugs, barges, liners, the ferry boats, the wheeling gulls. ‘I’d better go and see Mrs Shane right away. Those men will be here in an hour.’

When he returned a few minutes later he found a tall, red-faced, very stout man sitting there.

‘Why, Dr McClaren, how are you? The man is upstairs. Will you come up?’

The doctor rose. ‘Where is Father Twomey? Isn’t he here? Didn’t he know I was coming?’

‘Of course, but he was suddenly called out. His work is much like yours, doctor.’

He led the doctor upstairs. As they went up, the doctor became even more abrupt.

‘What’s the matter with the man? Is he very ill? I’m a busy man, you know that.’

‘Father Twomey would not ask you to come urgently if the matter did not seem to him serious.’

‘Tut, tut! Sailors are all alike. Handled them all my life, an unpredictable lot. Where has Father Twomey gone?’

They stood looking at each other on the landing.

‘This way, Dr McClaren,’ said Delahane, completely ignoring the fussy man’s question.

He opened the door, the doctor went in—‘This him?’ he asked.

Delahane shut the door and went down to the office.

‘The callous old swine. He’s never any different. I don’t think he’s got any pity at all. Upset because he was called away from The Pitch Pine, I expect.’

He sat down. ‘I shan’t go up unless he calls. Damned if I will.’

He hated the ship’s doctor. He had always hated him. A drunken sot.

And then he heard the thundering on the floor. Dr McClaren’s heel was actually making the ceiling shake.

‘Coming,’ shouted Delahane, ‘coming.’

Father Twomey lived at the sea’s edge. He waited there, at all hours, and all weathers, for what the sea tossed up: the derelict, the sick, the wounded, the dying and the dead. They came from every ocean and, as he rushed off that afternoon to meet eleven shipwrecked men, he knew that the old man upstairs was only a fragment. He had always fought with the sea, he hated her, and yet he knew that sometimes, by an unpredictable mercy, men were yielded up, and Dennis Fury was one of them. Like the room he slept in and like the room he worked in, Father Twomey smelt of the sea. This ugly old house now painted a pretty white and green might close all doors and windows, yet not keep the sea out, for men brought in its very breath. He brought warmth into their cold nights and hope to the battered and broken pieces of men that the sea surrendered. This man Fury, they said, had no home to return to, but he was alive and many men were dead. He knew this and he went off to meet the newly arrived.

‘I expect McClaren has called,’ he told himself, as he caught a tram at the corner of the road and was whirled northwards. ‘It’s a hospital case, not less than that, but not too bad.’ Nothing was ever too bad. He had to remember this whenever he thought of the women, the sleepless women and the sweated uncomforting pillows. He had once knocked on the doors of eleven houses in one Gelton street, and he had had to say that the sea was bare and the sea was silent. At all hours he had to rise from his bed to interview the women, the shattered hearts, he had to ration hope.

So each day, each night, he was called forth to confront the sea.

‘I daresay Father Moynihan will see to everything. It will be a shock for his old wife, a terrible one but beautiful.’ He thought how, in the end, the deep simplicity of these men could, in frightful moments, come to their aid, like balm, closing down the doors in their minds and the terrible story. He remembered how the old man had slowly opened his eyes and looked at him—and saw them, blind with trust. Dreaming of fiery seas and dead youths clasped and held, and suddenly freed, and floating far away over ever-receding horizons.

‘Poor old chap, God help him, I say. But there has been mercy here.’

The tram rattled through the busy roads, on towards the water’s edge, under a leaden sky, an air heating under a west wind, reeking salt.

‘One loves these men, one must go on loving them.’

‘Your stop, Father,’ the tram conductor said, touching his hat and smiling.

All Gelton knew this fisherman, selfless, of untiring energy.

‘Good-morning to you.’

‘Good-morning.’

Father Twomey shot across the road, his cape flying in the wind. There was the sea and there the ship. And coming to the end of the quay, he saw them, lining the rails, looking out, waiting. Eleven lost men.

‘More fish, Father,’ the dock-gate man said, ‘more fish to-day,’ and he watched the priest go up the broad gangway, saw him shaking hands with the men, chatting to them.

‘And you,’ he said, ruffling an already tousled head of hair, and the white-faced youth with frightened eyes said ‘North Atlantic, Father.’

‘And you?’

‘Pacific, Father,’ the grizzled old man replied, ‘but I always knew she’d sink.’

They laughed.

‘We’ll soon have you warm and comfortable. You all of you have your papers?’

They nodded.

‘Not now,’ he said, pushing back proffered documents—‘at the House.’

Father Twomey turned his back on the sea, he stood, hands gripping the rails, waiting for the conveyance for these men. At any moment the battered old red bus would drive up and they would board her. He suddenly looked at the nearest man, very fat, bareheaded, barefooted, wearing borrowed clothes—‘I actually found a survivor from the Ronsa this morning, just think of that.’

‘The Ronsa, Father?’ exclaimed the fat sailor, ‘why her was sunk a year ago, a whole year ago, him’s lucky, by heck, who’s him, Father?’

‘Just an old stoker.’

‘Oh! A stoker,’ the fat sailor said. ‘Oh, I see.’

‘Anything wrong with a stoker?’

‘Oh, the black crowd are not too bad, Father, not too bad.’

‘And here’s the bus,’ Father Twomey said.

They lined up, holding their pathetic belongings in their hands, they filed slowly down the gangway. He shot questions at one and another of them.

‘Treat you well aboard this ship?’

‘Fine.’

‘Not too bad.’

‘Nice to be a passenger for a change.’

‘Yes.’

Suddenly he caught a tall, gaunt-looking man by the shoulder. ‘I’ve seen you before.’

‘Yes, Father, you have.’

‘I thought so. How many times have they sunk you?’

‘Three.’

‘Will you sail again?’

‘I expect so.’

He thought of them as children as he hustled them into the bus. Then he called ‘ready’ to the driver, and the bus moved off. When it drew up outside the green gate of the Home, Delahane was already waiting for them. The men climbed slowly out of the bus.

‘Take these men to the canteen at once, Delahane. Then I want you to collect their papers. None I gather are Gelton men. They’ll be travelling from all points of the compass.’

‘Right, Father. Follow me, men,’ Delahane said. He turned to Father Twomey.

‘The doctor’s been.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Says he ought to be got into hospital. Says the old chap is completely exhausted. You were right, Father, about that scar, but the doctor says it was caused by a piece of iron. He was with him for half an hour. He has left a note for you. Apparently there are blanks in the old chap’s mind. There are some things he cannot remember.’

‘You had better come back here as soon as you have seen to a meal for those men.’

‘Father Moynihan came ten minutes ago,’ Delahane said, ‘he’s up there now.’

Then he went off with his charges.

‘Well,’ thought Father Twomey, ‘that’s one more the sea will never meet again.’

He hung up his hat, his umbrella, he glanced through the newly arrived mail. A boy brought in his evening meal on a tray.

‘Your supper, Father.’

‘Thank you, Owen,’ he said.

Through the open door he could hear the noises from the canteen, the sound of clicking billiard balls, the sound of running water.

‘Please close the door like a good boy,’ he said.

Father Twomey began his supper.

‘Where is my wife? She never came to see me,’ the old man said.

Father Moynihan leaned over the bed. ‘You will see her very soon. The doctor tells me you will have to go into hospital for a little while. He says you’ll be on the mend soon.’

‘Where is my wife?’

‘I’ve just said you will see her soon. Dennis Fury, you are a lucky man indeed to be lying breathing in this bed to-day. Are you too tired to talk now? Shall I come again? Could you tell me what happened?’

‘She went down fast.’

‘Yes, I know that.’

‘I swam.’

‘Yes.’

‘I was picked up. The boy was dead.’

‘What boy?’

‘His name was Lenahan. That day the sea was on fire.’

‘Did they take you to Bahia direct, Dennis?’

The old man paused, an utter weariness covered his face; after a while he began again.

‘I can’t hear you—can you speak up?’ the priest asked. He put his hand on the man’s head.

‘They put me in sick bay on the Turcoman, after three days she was set on fire, it was very quick, they put me on a stretcher, lashed me down. There was no time, they dropped me in the sea again.’

He shut his eyes. ‘I’m tired. Why hasn’t Fanny come? I want to go home. I’m tired. I want to go home.’

Father Moynihan got to his feet. Gently he lifted the old man’s hands and put them under the sheet. ‘Sleep now. I’ll come back and see you again,’ and then the eyes opened and a flood of words broke across the old man’s tongue, ‘Don’t leave me here! Where am I? Who are you?’

‘My God,’ thought the priest, ‘he has forgotten me again.’

He stood there, he felt unable to speak.

‘How on earth am I going to tell this man what has happened? How can I convey to him that there is nothing to expect?’

‘Take me home.’

‘Very soon,’ said the priest, ‘very soon. I shall come and see you in the morning. Meanwhile you must try to sleep. You are a very tired old man.…’

‘I’m not old,’ and it was the first real spark of life that Father Moynihan saw.

‘Good-bye now,’ he said.

But the man in the bed did not answer, and Father Moynihan went out.

He felt sad and uncomfortable. ‘There is only me who can tell him, and he must be told. There is no home. His home is finished, his family are gone. What a homecoming! This man may not live and that would be merciful—against the terrible disappointment, the blow to his old heart. Everything is finished.’

He went downstairs and knocked at the door of Father Twomey’s office. He was glad to sit there and share a cup of coffee with him.

‘I’ve seen the doctor,’ he said.

‘Delahane told me. He must be shifted first thing in the morning.’

‘Then I must return again to-night, the sooner the man is told everything, the better. Apparently the scar is healed of itself, McClaren said, the sea water, I expect.’

‘I’ve just brought in eleven men,’ said Twomey, he drank coffee, he ate toast.

‘You have wonderful patience, Joseph Twomey, you are a rather wonderful person.’

‘More coffee?’

‘No thanks. I must go. I’ve a service in ten minutes. You may rely on me to do all that’s necessary with Mr Fury. There is still the wife to be told. However, she is a strong-hearted, courageous woman—she won’t flinch. I know her of old. I’ve known many people in my time, Twomey, and I must say it gives me a great feeling to think that these old people are united again. I think they were always meant to be together in spite of all that has happened.’

Delahane came in. He glanced at Father Moynihan, ‘Good-evening, Father,’ at which Father Moynihan got up.

‘In the morning, I must go and see that woman.…’

‘Doesn’t she know—oughtn’t she to know at once?’ Father Twomey turned to Delahane.

‘Yes, just coming, are those men all right?’

‘Yes, Father. I’ve arranged for you to see them in the dining-room in half an hour. They are anxious to get away.’

‘Excuse me, Father Moynihan—you see how it is.’

‘I see how it is. I do wish I’d been able to say what I wanted to say to that old man upstairs.’

‘Come after the service.’

They both went out.

‘I hope he can be shifted to-morrow.’

‘Nothing can be done until his wife has seen him. She’ll have to be brought here to-morrow.’

They parted without another word, Father Moynihan to his church, the other to arrange for transportation to the houses of the eleven newly arrived men. Thinking of this, he forgot all about Dennis Fury. He was only one, and there were always the others.

‘I want you to travel to the station and see these men off,’ he informed Delahane.

‘I was intending that, Father. I suppose you know you have been on your feet