The tallest of them was a docker called Peter Hackett. He was a fair-haired young giant, slim and lean-faced, with sleepy blue eyes and a gentle mouth. His great bony hands were thickly covered with long white hairs. He stood with his arms folded on his chest, one leg thrust forward, his eyes wide open and strained, his forehead wrinkled. He was only twenty-two. This was the first time he had been chosen for an affair of this sort. It was particularly strange and odious to him, because he was a good-natured soul, loved by all on the quays where he worked. He had no conception of politics or of any problem other than hurling, football, horse racing and pitch and toss, which he played all Sunday afternoon on the Canal bank with his cronies. He often lost his whole week’s wages playing pitch and toss. On these occasions, when he went home to his young wife penniless, he would first of all dance around the kitchen in a fit of rage and perhaps break a thing or two, threatening to blow Kitty’s brains out if she said a word. Then his anger would suddenly evaporate, to be followed by a fit of sobbing. During this fit he sat by the fire with his head in his hands, moaning and begging Kitty to forgive him. His wife always felt exalted when these outbursts occurred, because the excitement of the quarrel and Peter’s kisses, which lasted far into the night afterwards, were a welcome break in the dreary monotony of everyday life as a docker’s wife, scouring, cooking, washing, with two children to look after on a docker’s wages.
Peter had no imagination. He lacked the refined conscience and sense of injustice that attracts most gentle natures like his towards a revolutionary movement. He was not the stuff of which the other sort of revolutionary is made either. He belonged to the Organization simply because the rest of “the boys” belonged to it, and out of fanatical hero-worship for Commandant Dan Gallagher.
Dart Flynn, on the other hand, was designed by nature as a revolutionary, a man to stalk ahead of the bulk of humanity, grimly destroying obstacles, disturbing the sluggish existence of the herd, terrifying the contented ones into activity, born with a curse upon his brow, anathema to the mass of beings who always seek tranquillity and peace at any price. He was dour, dark visaged, built like the base of an oak tree, almost square. His body and face were fleshy and jealous of movement. His eyes were small. They moved horizontally. He was clean shaven, with a pink and white complexion, in spite of the fact that he was thirty-five and lived a hard life as a carter. In company, he hardly ever expressed an opinion on politics, religion, or on any other of the fundamental things that are discussed with avidity by revolutionaries who carry their lives in their hands. But in the secrecy of his own soul he thought deeply on these matters. In his little bare room in a lodging-house in Capel Street, he had several works on philosophy and economics. He had also worked out an amazing system of philosophy, based on the premise that each human being shares his soul with several different animals. The man who could discover and have constant intercourse with these animals would be supremely happy and immortal.
Flynn had no moral sense. He hated all human beings who were not Communists. He loved all children and animals. He gave most of his wages to the hungry little ruffians in the street. He had no relatives or dependents. He was an old member of the Organization, highly respected for his courage, his fidelity and his taciturn habits.
The third man, Laurence Curley, was of a totally different type from both his companions. He was also the most nervous and timorous. He was twenty-eight, pale faced, red haired, with a tall, thin frame, slightly consumptive-looking, on account of his hollow chest and stooping shoulders. His father had been a doctor in a country dispensary district. He had received a good education, but he early grew dissatisfied with life and refused to study for the Bar as his father wished. Instead he took a job in Dublin as a clerk, in order that he might plunge into the revolutionary movement.
The theory of Revolutionary Communism interested him far more than working for a revolution. He gradually became a crank, hated by everybody. He was always finding fault and reading or discussing dull works on Socialism. His views were always the most extreme and bloodthirsty. He used to whisper excitedly, whenever he met a stranger who did not know him yet, or when the least industrial disturbance occurred:
“The red flag will be hoisted any minute. Wait till you see. Then blood will spill. Wait till you see. ‘Justice’ and ‘liberty’ are bourgeois watchwords. The proletarian watchwords are ‘revenge’ and ‘bread.’ The proletariat knows how to deal out their deserts to the oppressors.”
He had always this sort of patter.
Now, however, the three of them, so different in essential characteristics, had reached a common level of emotion. The silence of the night, the phantom-filled cellars, the illegality and danger of the contemplated act, the torturing uncertainty of the choice, filled them with such delirious emotions that they were beside themselves. They were not afraid. They were beyond fear, on to a distant level of emotion, where the common impulses, that agitate the hearts of men, are unknown.
Then Mulholland approached with the matches arranged in his hand, so that their red heads alone were visible.
“Who’ll draw first?” he said carelessly, standing in front of the group.
After a moment’s pause Flynn came forward hurriedly. He stretched out a fleshy hand, fumbled
