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I need hardly say that a play thus carefully adapted to its purpose was voted utterly inadmissible; and in due course the British Government, frightened out of its wits for the moment by the rout of the Fifth Army, ordained Irish Conscription, and then did not dare to go through with it. I still think my own line was the more businesslike. But during the war everyone except the soldiers at the front imagined that nothing but an extreme assertion of our most passionate prejudices, without the smallest regard to their effect on others, could win the war. Finally the British blockade won the war; but the wonder is that the British blockhead did not lose it. I suppose the enemy was no wiser. War is not a sharpener of wits; and I am afraid I gave great offence by keeping my head in this matter of Irish recruiting. What can I do but apologize, and publish the play now that it can no longer do any good?

O’FLAHERTY V.C.

At the door of an Irish country house in a park. Fine, summer weather; the summer of 1916. The porch, painted white, projects into the drive: but the door is at the side and the front has a window. The porch faces east: and the door is in the north side of it. On the south side is a tree in which a thrush is singing. Under the window is a garden seat with an iron chair at each end of it.

The last four bars of God Save the King are heard in the distance, followed by three cheers. Then the band strikes up It’s a Long Way to Tipperary and recedes until it is out of hearing.

Private O’Flaherty V.C. comes wearily southward along the drive, and falls exhausted into the garden seat. The thrush utters a note of alarm and flies away. The tramp of a horse is heard.

A GENTLEMAN’S VOICE

. Tim! Hi! Tim! [He is heard dismounting.]

A LABORER’S VOICE

. Yes, your honor.

THE GENTLEMAN’S VOICE

. Take this horse to the stables, will you?

A LABORER’S VOICE

. Right, your honor. Yup there. Gwan now. Gwan. [The horse is led away.]

[General Sir Pearce Madigan, an elderly baronet in khaki, beaming with enthusiasm, arrives. O’Flaherty rises and stands at attention.]

SIR PEARCE

. No, no, O’Flaherty: none of that now. You’re off duty. Remember that though I am a general of forty years service, that little Cross of yours gives you a higher rank in the roll of glory than I can pretend to.

O’FLAHERTY

[relaxing]. I’m thankful to you, Sir Pearce; but I wouldn’t have anyone think that the baronet of my native place would let a common soldier like me sit down in his presence without leave.

SIR PEARCE

. Well, you’re not a common soldier, O’Flaherty: you’re a very uncommon one; and I’m proud to have you for my guest here today.

O’FLAHERTY

. Sure I know, sir. You have to put up with a lot from the like of me for the sake of the recruiting. All the quality shakes hands with me and says they’re proud to know me, just the way the king said when he pinned the Cross on me. And it’s as true as I’m standing here, sir, the queen said to me: “I hear you were born on the estate of General Madigan,” she says; “and the General himself tells me you were always a fine young fellow.” “Bedad, Mam,” I says to her, “if the General knew all the rabbits I snared on him, and all the salmon I snatched on him, and all the cows I milked on him, he’d think me the finest ornament for the county jail he ever sent there for poaching.”

SIR PEARCE

[Laughing]. You’re welcome to them all, my lad. Come [he makes him sit down again on the garden seat]! sit down and enjoy your holiday [he sits down on one of the iron chairs; the one at the doorless side of the porch.]