God of My Faith
The Curtain Discloses a Dark Oak Room
Nelson Dartrey is seated at a writing table studying maps. He is a man in the early thirties, prematurely worn and old. His face is burned a deep brick color and is sharpened by fatigue and loss of blood. His hair is sparse, dry and turning gray. Around the upper part of his head is a bandage covered largely by a black skull-cap. Of over average height the man is spare and muscular. The eye is keen and penetrating: his voice abrupt and authoritative. An occasional flash of humor brings an old-time twinkle to the one and heartiness to the other. He is wearing the undress uniform of a major in the British army.
The door bell rings.
With an impatient ejaculation he goes into the passage and opens the outer door. Standing outside cheerfully humming a tune is a large, forceful, breezy young man of twenty-eight. He is DERMOD GILRUTH. Splendid in physique, charming of manner, his slightly-marked Dublin accent lends a piquancy to his conversation. He has all the ease and poise of a traveled, polished young man of breeding. Dartrey’s face brightens as he holds out a welcoming hand.
Dartrey
Hello, Gil.
Gilruth
(Saluting him as he laughs genially) May I come into officers’ quarters?
Dartrey
I’m glad to have you. I’m quite alone with yours on my hands. (He brings Gilruth into the room and wheels a comfortable leather arm chair in front of him) Sit down.
Gilruth
Indeed I will not. Look at your desk there. I’ll not interrupt your geography for more than a minute.
Dartrey
(Forces him into the chair) I’m glad to get away from it. Why, you look positively boyish.
Gilruth
And why not? I am a boy. (Chuckles)
Dartrey
What are you so pleased with yourself about?
Gilruth
The greatest thing in the world for youth and high-spirits. I’m going to be married next week.
Dartrey
(Incredulously) You’re not?
Gilruth
I tell you I am.
Dartrey
Don’t be silly.
Gilruth
What’s silly about it?
Dartrey
Oh, I don’t know.
Gilruth
Of course you don’t know. You’ve never tried it.
Dartrey
I should think not.
Gilruth
Well, I’m going to and I want you to father me. Stand up beside me and see me through. Will you?
Dartrey
If you want me to.
Gilruth
Well, I do want you to.
Dartrey
All right.
Gilruth
You don’t mind now?
Dartrey
My dear chap. It’s charming of you to think of me.
Gilruth
I’ve known you longer than any one over here. And I like you better. So there you are.
Dartrey
(Laughing) Poor old Dermod! Well, well!
Gilruth
There’s nothing to laugh at, or “well, well” about.
Dartrey
Do I know the—-?
Gilruth
(Shakes his head) She’s never been over before. Everything will be new to her. I tell you it’s going to be wonderful. I’ve planned out the most delightful trip through Ireland—she’s Irish, too.
Dartrey
Is she?
Gilruth
But, like me, born in America. She’s crazy to see the old country.
Dartrey
She couldn’t have a better guide.
Gilruth
(Enthusiastically) She’s beautiful, she’s brilliant: she’s good—she’s everything a man could wish.
Dartrey
That’s the spirit. Will you make your home over here?
Gilruth
No. We’ll stay till the autumn. Then I must go back to America. But some day when all this fighting is over and people talk of something besides killing each other I want to have a home in Ireland.
Dartrey
I suppose most of you Irishmen in America want to do that?
Gilruth
Indeed they do not. Once they get out to America and do well they stay there and become citizens. My father did. Do you think he’d live in Ireland now? Not he. He talks all the time about Ireland and the hated Sassenachs—that’s what he calls you English—and he urges the fellows at home in the old country to fight for their rights. But since he made his fortune and became an American citizen the devil a foot has he ever put on Irish soil. He’s always going, but he hasn’t go there yet. And as for living there? Oh, no, America is good enough for him, because his interests are there. I want to live in Ireland because my heart is there. So was my poor mother’s.
(Springing up) Now I’m off. You don’t know how happy you make me by promising to be my best man.
Dartrey
My dear fellow—
Gilruth
And just wait until you see her. Eyes you lose yourself in. A voice soft as velvet. A brain so nimble that wit flows like music from her tongue. Poetry too. She dances like thistledown and sings like a thrush. And with all that she’s in love with me.
Dartrey
I’m delighted.
Gilruth
I want her to meet you first. A snug little dinner before the wedding. She’s heard so much against the English I want her to see the best specimen they’ve got.
(Dartrey laughs heartily) I tell you if you pass muster with her you have the passport to Kingdom come. (Laughing as well as he grips Dartrey’s hand) Good-by.
Dartrey
(As they walk to the door) When will it be?
Gilruth
Next Tuesday. I’ll ring you up and give you the full particulars.
Dartrey
In church?
Gilruth
Church! Cathedral! His Eminence will officiate.
Dartrey
Topping.
Gilruth
Well, you see, we Irish only marry once. So we make an occasion of it.
Dartrey
Splendid. I’ll look forward to it.
Gilruth
(Looking at the bandage) Is your head getting all right?
Dartrey
Oh, dear, yes. It’s quite healed up. I’ll have this thing off in a day or two. (Touching the bandage) I expect to be back in a few weeks.
Gilruth
(Anxiously) Again?
Dartrey
Yes.
Gilruth
If ever a man had done his share, you have.
Dartrey
They need me. They need us all.
Gilruth
The third time.
Dartrey
There are many who have done the same.
Gilruth
(Shudders) How long will it last?
Dartrey
Until the Hun is beaten.
Gilruth
Years, eh?
Dartrey
It looks like it. We’ve hardly begun yet. It will take a year to really get the ball rolling. Then things will happen. Tell me. How do they feel in America? Frankly.
Gilruth
All the people who matter are pro-Ally.
Dartrey
Are you sure?
Gilruth
I’m positive.
Dartrey
Are you? Come, now.
Gilruth
Why, of course I am.
Dartrey
They may be pro-Ally, but they’re not pro-English.
Gilruth
That’s true. Many of them are not. But if ever the test comes, they will be.
Dartrey
(Shakes his head doubtfully) I wonder. It seems a pity not to bury all the Bunker-Hill and Boston-tea-chest prejudices.
Gilruth
You’re right there.
Dartrey
Why your boys and girls are taught in their school-books to hate us.
Gilruth
In places they are. Now that I know the English a little I have been agitating to revisit them. It all seems so damned cheap and petty for a big country to belittle a great nation through the mouth of children.
Dartrey
There’s no hatred like family hatred. After all we’re cousins, speaking the same tongue and with pretty much the same outlook.
Gilruth
There’s one race in America that holds back as strongly as it can any better understanding between the two countries, and that’s my race—the Irish. And well I know it. I was brought up on it. There are men to-day, men of position too, in our big cities who have openly said they want to see England crushed in this war.
Dartrey
So I’ve heard. It would be a sorry day for the rest of civilization, and particularly America, if we were.
Gilruth
You can’t convince them of that. They carry on the prejudices and hatred of generations. I have accused some of them of being actively pro-German; of tinkering with German money to foster revolution in Ireland.
Dartrey
Do you believe that?
Gilruth
I do. Thank God there are not many of them. I have accused them of taking German money and then urging the poor unfortunate poets and dreamers to do the revolting while they are safely three thousand miles away. I don’t know of many who are willing to cross the water and do it themselves. Talking and writing seditious articles is safe. Take my own father. He says frankly that he doesn’t want Germany to win because he hates Germans. Most Irishmen do. Besides they’ve done my father some very dirty tricks. But all the same he wants to see England lose. All the doubtful ones I know, who don’t dare come out in the open, speak highly of the French and are silent when English is mentioned. I blame a great deal of that on your Government. You take no pains to let the rest of the world know what England is doing. You and I know that without the British fleet America wouldn’t rest as easy as she does to-day, and without the little British army the Huns would have been in Paris and Calais months ago. We know that, and so do many others. But the great mass of people, particularly the Irish, cry all the time, “What is England doing?” Your government should see to it that they know what she’s doing.
Dartrey
It’s not headquarters’ way.
Gilruth
I know it isn’t. And the more’s the pity. Another thing where you went all wrong. Why not have let Asquith clear up the Irish muddle? Why truckle to a handful of disloyal North of Ireland traitors? If the Government had court martialed the ring-leaders, tried the rest for treason and put the Irish Government in Dublin, why, man, three-quarters of the male population of the South of Ireland would be in the trenches now.
Dartrey
Don’t let us get into that. I was one of the officers who mutinied. I would rather resign my commission than shoot down loyal subjects.
Gilruth
(Hotly) Loyal? Loyal! When they refused to carry out their Government’s orders? When they deny justice to a long suffering people? Loyal! Don’t prostitute the word.
Dartrey
(Angrily) I don’t want to—-
Gilruth
(Going on vehemently) It’s just that kind of pig-headed ignorance that has kept the two countries from understanding each other. Why shouldn’t Ireland govern herself. South Africa does. Australia does. And when you’re in trouble they leap to your flag. Yet there is a country a few miles from you that sends the best of her people to your professions and they invariably get to the top of them. Irishmen have commanded your armies and Ireland has given you admirals for your fleet and at least one of us has been your Lord Chief Justice. Yet, by God, they can’t be trusted to govern themselves. I tell you the English treatment of Ireland makes her a laughing-stock of the world.
Dartrey
(Opens the door, then turns and looks straight at Gilruth) My head bothers me. Will you kindly—-
Gilruth
(All contrition) I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to blaze out. Do forgive me like a good fellow. It’s an old sore of mine and sometimes it makes me wince. It did just now. Don’t be mad with me.
(The sound of a boy’s voice calling newspapers is heard faintly in the distance; then the hoarse tones of a man shouting indistinctly; then a chorus of men and boys comes nearer and nearer calling of some calamity. Dartrey hurries out through the outer door. Gilruth stands ashamed. He does not want to leave his friend in bad blood. He would like to put things right before going. He waits for Dartrey to come back.
In a few minutes Dartrey walks through the outer doorway and into the room. He is very white, very agitated and his face is set and determined. He is reading a special edition of an evening paper with great “scare” head lines.
The sound of the voices crying the news in the street grows fainter and fainter.
Dartrey stops in front of Gilruth and tries to speak; nothing coherent comes from his lips. He thrusts the paper into Gilruth’s hands and watches his face as he reads.
Gilruth reads it once slowly, then rapidly. He stands immovable staring at the news-sheet. It slips from his fingers and he cowers down, stooping at the shoulders, glaring at the floor.)
Dartry
(Almost frenzied) Now will your country come in? Now will they fight for civilization? A hundred of her men, women and children done to death. Is that war? Or is it murder? Already men are reading in New York and Washington of the sinking of that ship and the murder of their people. What are they going to do? What are YOU going to do?
Gilruth
(Creeps unsteadily to the door; standing himself with a hand on the lock; his back is to the room. He speaks in a strange, far-off, quavering voice)
She was on the LUSITANIA! Mona. She was on it. Mona was on it.
(Creeps out through the street door and disappears)
(Dartrey looks after him)
(The curtain falls and rises again in a few moments. Several days have elapsed. Dartrey, in full uniform, is busily packing his regimental kit. The bandage has been removed from his head. The telephone bell rings. Dartrey answers it)
Dartrey
Yes. Yes. Who is it? Oh! Do. Yes. No. Not at all. Come up. All right.
(Replaces the receiver and continues packing)
(In a few moments the door-bell rings. Dartrey opens the outer door and brings Gilruth into the room. He is in deep mourning; is very white and broken. He seems grievously ill. Dartrey looks at him commiseratingly. He is sensitive about speaking)
Gilruth
(Faintly) Put up with me for a bit? Will you?
(Dartrey just puts his hand on the man’s shoulder)
(Gilruth sinks wearily and lifelessly into a chair)
She is buried.
Dartrey
What?
Gilruth
(Nods) She is buried. In Kensal Green. Half an hour ago.
Dartrey
(In a whisper) They found her?
Gilruth
(Nods again) Picked up by some fishermen.
Dartrey
Queenstown?
Gilruth
A few miles outside. I went there that night and stayed there until—until she—they found her.
(Covers his face. Dartrey puts his arm around him and presses his shoulder)
I wandered round there for days. Wasn’t so bad while it was light. People to talk to. All of us on the same errand. Searching. Searching. Hoping—some of them. I didn’t. I knew from the first. I KNEW. It was horrible at night alone. I had to try and sleep sometimes. They’d wake me when the bodies were brought in. Hers came toward dawn one morning. Three little babies, all twined in each others arms, lying next to her. Three little babies. Cruel that. Wasn’t it?
(Waits as he thinks; then he goes on dully; evenly, with no emotion)
Fancy! She’d been out in the water for days and nights. All alone. Tossed about. Days and nights. She! who’d never hurt a soul. Couldn’t. She was always laughing and happy. Drifting about. All alone. Quite peaceful she looked. Except—except—
(Covers his eyes and groans. In a little while he looks up at Dartrey and touches his left eye)
This. Gone. Gulls.
(Dartrey draws his breath in sharply and turns a little away)
In a few hours the cuts opened. The salt-water had kept them closed.
Dartrey
Cuts?
Gilruth
(Nods) Her head. And her face. Cuts. Blood after all that time.
(He clenches and unclenches his hands nervously and furiously. He gets up slowly, walks over to the fireplace, shivers, then braces himself trying to shake off the horror of his thoughts. Then he begins to speak brokenly and tremblingly endeavoring to moisten his lips with a dry tongue)
Never saw anything to equal the kindness of those poor peasants. They gave the clothes from their bodies; the blankets from their beds. And took nothing. Not a thing. “We’re all in this,” they said. “We’re doing our best. It’s little enough.” That’s what they sayd. Pretty find the Irish of Queenstown. Eh?
(Dartrey nods. He does not trust himself to speak)
A monument. That’s what the Irish peasants of Queenstown should have. A monument. Never slept, some of them. Wrapped the soaking woman in their shawls—and the little children. Took off their wet things and gave them dry, warm ones. Fed them with broths they cooked themselves. Spent their poor savings on brandy for them. Stripped the clothes off their own backs for them to travel in when they were well enough to go. And wouldn’t take a thing. Great people the Irish of Queenstown. Nothing much the matter with them. A monument. That’s what they should have. And poetry.
(Thinks for a while, then goes on)
Laid out the bodies too; just as reverently as if they were their own people. They laid her out. And prayed over her. And watched with me over her until she was put into the—. Such a tiny shell it was, too. She had no father or mother or brother or sisters. I was all she had. That’s why I buried her here. Kensal Green. She’ll rest easy there.
(He walks about distractedly. Suddenly he stops and with his hands extended upwards as if in prayer, he cries)
Out of my depths I cry to Thee. I call on you to curse them. Curse the Prussian brutes made in Your likeness, but with hearts as the lowest of beasts. Curse them. May their hopes wither. May everything they set their hearts on rot. Send them pestilence, disease and every foul torture they have visited on Your people. Send the Angel of Death to rid the earth of them. May their souls burn in hell for all eternity.
(Quickly to Dartrey)
and if there is a god they will. But is there a good God that such things can be and yet no sign from Him? Listen. I didn’t believe in war. I reasoned against it. I shouted for Peace. And thousands of cravens like me. I thought God was using this universal slaughter for a purpose. When His end was accomplished He would cry to the warring peoples “Stop!” It was His will, I thought, that out of much evil might come permanent good. That was my faith. It has gone. How can there be a good God to look down on His people tortured and maimed and butchered? The women whose lives were devoted to Him, defiled. His temples looted, filled with the filth of the soldiery, and then destroyed. And yet no sign. Oh, no. My faith is gone. Now I want to murder and torture and massacre the foul brutes…. I’m going out, Dartrey. In any way. Just a private. I’ll dig, carry my load, eat their rations. Vermin: mud: ache in the cold and scorch in the heat. I will welcome it. Anything to stop the gnawing here, and the throbbing here.
(Beating at his head and heart)
Anything to find vent for my hatred.
(Moving restlessly about)
I’m going through Ireland first. Every town and village. It’s our work now. It’s Irishmen’s work. All the Catholics will be in now. No more “conscientious-objecting.” They can’t. It’s a war on women and little children. All right. No Irish-Catholic will rest easy; eat, sleep and go his days round after this. The call has gone out. America too. She’ll come in. You watch. She can’t stay out. She’s founded on Liberty. She’ll fight for it. You see. It’s clean against unclean. Red blood against black filth. Carrion. Beasts. Swine.
(Drops into a chair mumbling incoherently. Takes a long breath; looks at Dartrey)
I’m selling out everything back home.
Dartrey
Why?
Gilruth
I’m not going back. I’m bringing everything over here. England, France, Russia, Belgium, Serbia—they can have it. All of it. They’ve suffered. Only now do I know how much. Only now.
(Fiercely) I want to tear them—tear them as they’ve torn me. As they mangled her.
(Grits his teeth and claws with his fingers) Tear them—that’s what I want to do. May I live to do it. May the war never end until every dirty Prussian is rotting in his grave. Then a quick end for me, too. I’ve nothing now. Nothing.
(Gets up again wearily and dejectedly; all the blazing passion burnt out momentarily)
This was to have been my wedding-day; our wedding-day. Now she’s lying there, done to death by Huns. A few days ago all youth and freshness and courage and love. Lying disfigured in her little coffin. I know what you meant now by wanting to go back for a third time. I couldn’t understand it the other day. It seemed that every one should hate war. But you’ve seen them. You know them. And you want to destroy them. That’s it. Destroy…. The call is all over the world by now. Civilization will be in arms…. To hell with your Pacifists. It’s another name for cowards. They’d lose those nearest them: the honor of their women; the liberty of their people—and never strike a blow. To hell with them. It’s where they should be. I was one of them. No more. Wherever I meet them I’ll spit in their faces. They disgrace the women they were born of; the country they claim…. To hell with them.
Dartrey
(Tries to soothe him) You must try and get some grip on yourself.
Gilruth
(His fingers ceaselessly locking and unlocking) I’ll be all right. It’s a relief to talk to you. (Sees the preparations for Dartrey’s departure) Are you off?
Dartrey
Yes. To-night.
Gilruth
I envy you now. I wish I were going. But I will soon. Ireland first. I must have my say there. What will the “Sinn Feiners” say to the LUSITANIA murder? I want to meet some of them. What are our wrongs of generations to this horror? All humanity is at stake here. I’ll talk to them. I must. They’ll have to do something now or go down branded through the generations as Pro-German. Can a man have a worse epitaph? No decent Irishman will bear that; every loyal Irishman must loathe them…. I’ll talk to them—soul to soul…. Sorry, Dartrey. You have your own sorrow…. Good of you to put up with me. Now I’ll go….
(Goes to the door, stops, takes out wallet)
Just one thing. If it won’t bother you.
(Tapping some papers)
I’ve mentioned you here…. If I don’t come through—see to a few things for me. Will you? They’re not much. Will you?
Dartrey
Of course I will.
Gilruth
(Simply) Thank you. You’ve always been decent to me…. Dartrey. To-day! You would have been my best man—and she’s—
Dartrey
(Shaking him by the shoulders) Come, my man. Pull up.
Gilruth
I will. I’ll be all right. In a little while I’ll be along out there. I hope I server under you. (Grips his hand) Good-by.
Dartrey
Keep in touch with me.
Gilruth
All right.
(Passes out, opens and closes the outer door behind him and disappears in the street. Dartrey resumes his preparations)
The End of the Play
[signed]J. Hartley Manners