The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays by Gordon Bottomley et al. (i read a book TXT) 📗

is but one Captain of the Gate of Connaught—he who set me here—my cousin, Hugh Talbot.

BUTLER (muttering). Aye, and it's a deal you'll need to be growing, ere you fill Hugh Talbot's shoes.

JOHN TALBOT. And that's a true word! But 'twas Hugh Talbot's will that I should command, here at the Bridge of Cashala. And as long as breath is in me I—

DRISCOLL (raising his head heavily). Water! Water! Myles! Dick! Will ye give me to drink, lads? Jack Talbot! I'm choked wi' thirst.

JOHN TALBOT. There's never a drop of water left us, Phelimy, lad.

FENTON. Owen Bourke drained the last of it, God rest him!

BUTLER. 'Tis likely our clever new Captain of the Gate will hit on some shift to fill our empty casks.

(DRISCOLL rises heavily.)

JOHN TALBOT. Not the new Captain of the Gate. The old Captain of the Gate—Hugh Talbot. He'll be here this day—this hour, maybe.

FENTON. That tale grows something old, Jack Talbot.

JOHN TALBOT. He swore he'd bring us succor. He—

(DRISCOLL tries to unbar the exit door.)

Driscoll! Are you gone mad? Stand you back from that door!

(Thrusts DRISCOLL from the door.)

DRISCOLL (half delirious). Let me forth! The spring—'tis just below—there on the river-bank! Let me slip down to it—but a moment—and drink!

JOHN TALBOT. Cromwell's soldiers hold the spring.

DRISCOLL. I care not! Let me forth and drink! Let me forth!

JOHN TALBOT. 'T would be to your death.

BUTLER. And what will he get but his death if he stay here,
Captain Talbot?

DRISCOLL (struggling with JOHN TALBOT). I'm choked! I'm choked, I tell ye! Let me go, Jack Talbot! Let me go!

NEWCOMBE (still half-asleep, rises to his knees, with a terrible cry, and his groping hands upthrust to guard his head). God's pity! No! no! no!

DRISCOLL (shocked into sanity, staggers back, crossing himself).
God shield us!

BUTLER. Silence that whelp!

FENTON. Clear to the rebel camp they'll hear him!

JOHN TALBOT (catching NEWCOMBE by the shoulder). Newcombe! Kit
Newcombe!

NEWCOMBE. Ah, God! Keep them from me! Keep them from me!

JOHN TALBOT. Ha' done! Ha' done!

NEWCOMBE. Not that! Not the butt of the muskets! Not that! Not that!

JOHN TALBOT (stifling NEWCOMBE'S outcry with a hand upon his mouth). Wake! You're dreaming!

DRISCOLL. 'Tis ill luck! 'Tis ill luck comes of such dreaming!

NEWCOMBE. Drogheda! I dreamed I was at Drogheda, where my brother—my brother—they beat out his brains—Cromwell's men—with their clubbed muskets—they—

(Clings shuddering to JOHN TALBOT.)

FENTON. English officers that serve amongst the Irish—'t is thus that Cromwell uses them!

BUTLER. English officers—aye, like ourselves!

JOHN TALBOT. Be quiet, Kit! You're far from Drogheda—here at the Bridge of Cashala.

BUTLER. Aye, safe in Cashala Gatehouse, with five hundred of
Cromwell's men sitting down before it.

JOHN TALBOT. Keep your watch, Butler!

NEWCOMBE. You give orders? You still command, Jack? Where's
Captain Talbot, then?

(Snatches up his sword and rises.)

BUTLER (quitting the window). Aye, where is Captain
Talbot?

JOHN TALBOT. You say—

FENTON (rising). We all say it.

JOHN TALBOT. Even thou, Dick?

DRISCOLL. He does not come! Hugh Talbot does not come!

FENTON. He bade us hold the bridge one day. We've held it three days now.

BUTLER. And where is Hugh Talbot with the aid he promised?

JOHN TALBOT. He promised. He has never broken faith. He will bring us aid.

FENTON. Aye, if he be living!

DRISCOLL. Living? You mean that he—Och, he's dead! Hugh Talbot's dead! And we're destroyed! We're destroyed!

NEWCOMBE (cowering). The butt of the muskets!

FENTON. God!

(Deliberately BUTLER lays down his musket.)

JOHN TALBOT. Take up your piece!

BUTLER. Renounce me if I do!

FENTON. I stand with you, Myles Butler. Make terms for us, John
Talbot, or, on my soul, we'll make them for ourselves.

JOHN TALBOT. Surrender?

NEWCOMBE. Will Cromwell spare us, an we yield ourselves now? Will he spare us? Will he—

FENTON. 'Tis our one chance.

NEWCOMBE. Give me that white rag!

(Crosses and snatches a bandage from chimneypiece.)

FENTON (drawing his ramrod). Here's a staff!

(Together FENTON and NEWCOMBE make ready a flag of truce.)

JOHN TALBOT (struggling with BUTLER and DRISCOLL). A black curse on you!

BUTLER. We'll not be butchered like oxen in the shambles!

JOHN TALBOT. Your oaths!

BUTLER. We'll not fight longer to be knocked on the head at the last.

NEWCOMBE. No! No! Not that! Out with the flag, Dick!

FENTON. A light here at the grating!

(NEWCOMBE turns to take a candle, obedient to FENTON'S order. At that moment, close at hand, a bugle sounds.)

JOHN TALBOT. Hark!

DRISCOLL. The bugle! They're upon us!

BUTLER (releasing his hold on JOHN TALBOT). What was that?

JOHN TALBOT. You swore to hold the bridge.

BUTLER. Swore to hold it one day. We've held it three days now.

FENTON. And the half of us are slain.

NEWCOMBE. And we've no water—and no food!

JOHN TALBOT (pointing to the powder-keg). We have powder in plenty.

DRISCOLL. We can't drink powder. Ah, for God's love, be swift,
Dick Fenton! Be swift!

JOHN TALBOT. You shall not show that white flag!

(Starts toward FENTON, hand on sword.)

BUTLER (pinioning JOHN TALBOT). God's death! We shall! Help me here, Phelimy!

JOHN TALBOT. A summons to parley. What see you, Fenton?

FENTON (at the shot-window). Torches coming from the boreen, and a white flag beneath them. I can see the faces. (With a cry) Look, Jack! A'God's name! Look!

(JOHN TALBOT springs to the window.)

DRISCOLL. What is it you're seeing?

FENTON. It is—

JOHN TALBOT (turning from the window). 'Tis Hugh Talbot comes!
'Tis the Captain of the Gate!

BUTLER. With them? A prisoner?

JOHN TALBOT. No, no! No prisoner! He wears his sword.

(BUTLER snatches up his piece and resumes watch.)

FENTON. Then he'll have made terms with them! Terms!

NEWCOMBE (embracing DRISCOLL). Terms for us! Terms for us!

JOHN TALBOT. I told ye truth. He has come. Hugh Talbot has come.

(Goes to door.)

HUGH TALBOT (speaks outside). Open! I come alone, and in peace.
Open unto me!

JOHN TALBOT. Who goes there?

HUGH TALBOT (outside). The Captain of the Gate!

(JOHN TALBOT unbars the door, and bars it again upon the entrance of HUGH TALBOT. The latter comes slowly into the room. He is a man in his late thirties, a tall, martial figure, clad in much-worn velvet and leather, with sword at side. The five salute him as he enters.)

HUGH TALBOT (halts and for a moment surveys his followers). Well, lads?

(The five stand trembling on the edge of a nervous break, unable for the moment to speak.)

NEWCOMBE. We thought—we thought—that you—that you—

(Breaks into childish sobbing.)

FENTON. What terms will they grant us, sir?

JOHN TALBOT. Sir, we have held the bridge.

HUGH TALBOT. You five—

JOHN TALBOT. Bourke is dead, sir, and Tregarris, and Langdale, and—and James Talbot, my brother.

DRISCOLL. And we've had no water, sir, these many hours.

HUGH TALBOT. So! You're wounded, Phelimy.

DRISCOLL. 'Tis not worth heeding, sir.

HUGH TALBOT. Kit! Kit! (At the voice NEWCOMBE pulls himself together.) A light here! Dick, you've your pouch under your hand?

FENTON. 'Tis here, sir.

(Offers his tobacco pouch.)

HUGH TALBOT (filling his pipe). Leave the window, Myles! They've promised us a half hour's truce—and Cromwell's a man of his word.

NEWCOMBE (bringing a lighted candle). He'll let us pass free now, sir, will he not?

HUGH TALBOT (lighting his pipe at the candle). You're not afraid,
Kit?

NEWCOMBE. I? Faith, no, sir. No! Not now!

HUGH TALBOT. Sit ye down, Phelimy, lad! You look dead on your feet. Give me to see that arm! (As HUGH TALBOT starts toward DRISCOLL, his eye falls on the open keg of powder. He draws back hastily, covering his lighted pipe.) Jack Talbot! Who taught ye to leave your powder uncovered, where lighted match was laid?

BUTLER. My blame, sir.

(Covers the keg.)

JOHN TALBOT. We opened the keg, and then—

FENTON. Truth, we did not cover it again, being somewhat pressed for time.

(The five laugh, half hysterically.)

HUGH TALBOT (sitting by fire). And you never thought, maybe, that in that keg there was powder enough to blow the bridge of Cashala to hell?

JOHN TALBOT. It seemed a matter of small moment, sir.

HUGH TALBOT. Small moment! Powder enough, put case ye set it there, at the stairhead—d'ye follow me?—powder enough to make an end of Cashala Bridge for all time—aye, and of all within the Gatehouse. You never thought on that, eh?

JOHN TALBOT. We had so much to think on, sir.

HUGH TALBOT. I did suspect as much. So I came hither to recall the powder to your minds.

DRISCOLL. We thought—(BUTLER motions him to be silent.) We thought maybe you would not be coming at all, sir. Maybe you would be dead.

HUGH TALBOT. Well? What an if I had been dead? You had your orders. You did not dream of giving up the Bridge of Cashala—eh, Myles Butler?

BUTLER (after a moment). No, sir.

HUGH TALBOT. Nor you, Dick Fenton?

FENTON. Sir, I—No!

HUGH TALBOT (smoking throughout). Good lads! The wise heads were saying I was a stark fool to set you here at Cashala. But I said: I can be trusting the young riders that are learning their lessons in war from me. I'll be safe putting my honor into their hands. And I was right, wasn't I, Phelimy Driscoll?

DRISCOLL. Give us the chance, sir, and we'll be holding Cashala, even against the devil himself!

FENTON. Aye, well said!

HUGH TALBOT. Sure,'tis a passing good substitute for the devil sits yonder in Cromwell's tent.

NEWCOMBE (with a shudder). Cromwell!

HUGH TALBOT. Aye, he was slaying your brother at Drogheda, Kit, and a fine, gallant lad your brother was. And I'm thinking you're like him, Kit. Else I shouldn't be trusting you here at Cashala.

NEWCOMBE. I—I—Will they let us keep our swords?

HUGH TALBOT. Well, it's with yourselves it lies, whether you'll keep them or not.

FENTON. He means—we mean—on what terms, sir, do we surrender?

HUGH TALBOT. Surrender? Terms?

JOHN TALBOT. We thought, sir, from your coming under their white flag—perhaps you had made terms for us.

HUGH TALBOT. How could I make terms?

NEWCOMBE. Captain!

(At a look from HUGH TALBOT he becomes silent, fighting for self-control.)

HUGH TALBOT. How could I make terms that you would hear to?
Cashala Bridge is the gate of Connaught.

JOHN TALBOT. Yes.

HUGH TALBOT. Give Cromwell Cashala Bridge, and he'll be on the heels of our women and our little ones. At what price would ye be selling their safety?

DRISCOLL. Cromwell—when he takes us—when he takes us—

NEWCOMBE. He'll knock us on the head!

HUGH TALBOT. Yes. At the last. Your five lives against our people's safety. You'd not give up the bridge?

JOHN TALBOT. Five? Our five? But you—you are the sixth.

FENTON. You stay with us, Captain. And then we'll fight—you'll see how we shall fight.

HUGH TALBOT. I shall be seeing you fight, perhaps, but I cannot stay now at Cashala.

(Rises.)

DRISCOLL. Ye won't be staying with us?

BUTLER (laughing harshly). Now, on my soul! Is this your faith, Hugh Talbot? One liar I've followed, Charles Stuart, the son of a liar, and now a second liar—

JOHN TALBOT (catching BUTLER'S throat). A plague choke you!

HUGH TALBOT (stepping between JOHN TALBOT and BUTLER). Ha' done,
Jack! Ha' done! What more, Myles Butler?

BUTLER. Tell us whither you go, when you turn your back on us that shall die at Cashala—you that come walking under the rebel flag—that swore to bring us aid—and have not brought it! Tell us whither you go now!

HUGH TALBOT. Well, I'm a shade doubtful, Myles, my lad, though hopeful of the best.

BUTLER. 'Tis to Cromwell you go—you that have made your peace with him—that have sold us—

DRISCOLL. Captain! A' God's name, what is it that you're meaning?

HUGH TALBOT. I mean that you shall hold the Bridge of
Cashala—whatever happen to you—whatever happen to me—

FENTON. To you? Captain Talbot!

HUGH TALBOT. I am going unto Cromwell—as you said, Myles. I gave my promise.

DRISCOLL. Your promise?

JOHN TALBOT. We—have been very blind. So—they made you prisoner?

HUGH TALBOT. Aye, Jack. When I tried to cut my way through to bring you aid. And they granted me this half hour on my parole to come unto you.

JOHN TALBOT. To come—

HUGH TALBOT. To counsel you to surrender. And I have given you counsel. Hold the