Free A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry

which was more or less making the stain worse - ‘you cannot keep news from an Irishman. In the old days, a new song could cross from London to Galway in a day and a night.’
    ‘Is that a fact, Sarge?’ said Pete O‘Hara, after a moment.
    ‘Anyhows,’ said Christy Moran, looking suspiciously at O‘Hara, ’a good song would cross from London to Galway, because the bellhops in the hotels would be singing it, from heart to fucking heart. It would be in Galway by nightfall. But now it’s not songs, but bad news that crosses, and crosses the world at that. From Irishman to Irishman. The fucking British army is full of us. It should be called the fucking Irish-British army.’
    There was a long silence then as the listeners imbibed this notion.
    ‘Well, there you are, Sarge’ said Pete O’Hara.

    And winter came in then like a hawk to afright the mice in the fields, like a wolf to test the stamina of his foes. Like a travelling salesman it brought all its white cloths and laces and spread them everywhere, on mucky trench sides, on battered roads, on the distant stubbled fields, it laid its stores of rime and frost in little luckless pockets, in turns of earth, it tried to go one better than the spring, giving the girlish trees long coats of glistening white, tenderly and murderously gilding the lily of everything, the autumn’s wildflowers bravely putting out a few mad flags of red and yellow. Thunderously without a whisper it drove the sap back in every green thing such as remained after the long destruction of the warring men.

    Now Willie’s lot were shunted back almost to the edge of the true world where there were quite peaceful-looking farms all frosted and beautiful under the moon, crisp and familiar as some stretch of Irish midlands under the struggling light of day. Even woods were impressively standing. The roads were all cobbled with mere fieldstones as you might find in a Wicklow yard, and they were rough ways to walk upon, in your hobnailed boots. But they marched the roads in three stages, and although they were weary from the stretch in the trenches, nevertheless they took some pride in their marching. Exhausted boys were carried by their pals, so as not to hinder the rate of progress. It was good to get the blood going round and it was better than sitting in trenches with the frost threatening fingers, toes and noses without cease. There was a timetable for everything and it pleased the men to make their distances on time.
    Maud had sent him out a sheepskin jacket for his nineteenth birthday and Willie wore it gratefully in the fierce air. His legs thumped along the roads. He thought time and again of the gangs of men that would have lain these cobbles in. He wondered did they batter up a mix of clay and ashes like they would at home, and spread out the slush till it rose about two inches from the required level, and then on their knees, had they pressed in the cobbles and tamped them level with a decent floor beam? He didn’t think there could be a hundred ways to do such a job. He began to think indeed that the methods of building were common to men everywhere, the ways of the ants and the ways of the bees were known to ants and bees wherever they might range about. He saw that the roads had been given a nice camber, so that the rain would run off quick and not cause mischief. There were miles and miles of it, with oftentimes highly pleasing stands of poplars for miles also.
    The people in the farms seemed indifferent to them.
    O‘Hara marched beside him, and O’Hara wasn’t a bad fellow by any gauge. His red hair burned out from under his helmet.
    Captain Sheridan, the new man in after poor Pasley, had a very merry way about him. He might have been thought handsome but that he had two queer-looking blooms of red, broken veins or the like, on his cheeks, which gave him the air of a circus clown at first sight. But he liked to hear the men singing anyhow.
    And it did Willie Dunne more good than