Short Plays

do but apologize, and publish the play now that it can no longer do any good?

Dramatis Personae

• Private Dennis O’Flaherty V.C.

• Sir Pearce Madigan

• Mrs. O’Flaherty

• Teresa Driscoll, a parlor maid

• A laborer’s voice (offstage)

O’Flaherty V.C.

At the door of an Irish country house in a park. Fine summer weather: the summer of 1915. 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. G’wan now. G’wan. 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.
O’Flaherty	Holiday, is it? I’d give five shillings to be back in the trenches for the sake of a little rest and quiet. I never knew what hard work was till I took to recruiting. What with the standing on my legs all day, and the shaking hands, and the making speeches, and⁠—what’s worse⁠—the listening to them and the calling for cheers for king and country, and the saluting the flag till I’m stiff with it, and the listening to them playing “God Save the King” and “Tipperary,” and the trying to make my eyes look moist like a man in a picture book, I’m that bet that I hardly get a wink of sleep. I give you my word, Sir Pearce, that I never heard the tune of “Tipperary” in my life till I came back from Flanders; and already it’s drove me to that pitch of tiredness of it that when a poor little innocent slip of a boy in the street the other night drew himself up and saluted and began whistling it at me, I clouted his head for him, God forgive me.
Sir Pearce	Soothingly. Yes, yes: I know. I know. One does get fed up with it: I’ve been dog tired myself on parade many a time. But still, you know, there’s a gratifying side to it, too. After all, he is our king; and it’s our own country, isn’t it?
O’Flaherty	Well, sir, to you that have an estate in it, it would feel like your country. But the divil a perch of it ever I owned. And as to the king, God help him, my mother would have taken the skin off my back if I’d ever let on to have any other king than Parnell.
Sir Pearce	Rising, painfully shocked. Your mother! What are you dreaming about, O’Flaherty? A most loyal woman. Always most loyal. Whenever there is an illness in the Royal Family, she asks me every time we meet about the health of the patient as anxiously as if it were yourself, her only son.
O’Flaherty	Well, she’s my mother; and I won’t utter a word agen her. But I’m not saying a word of lie when I tell you that that old woman is the biggest kanatt from here to the cross of Monasterboice. Sure she’s the wildest Fenian and rebel, and always has been, that ever taught a poor innocent lad like myself to pray night and morning to St. Patrick to clear the English out of Ireland the same as he cleared the snakes. You’ll be surprised at my telling you that now, maybe, Sir Pearce?
Sir Pearce	Unable to keep still, walking away from O’Flaherty. Surprised! I’m more than surprised, O’Flaherty. I’m overwhelmed. Turning