Age 14 by Geert Spillebeen

Author:Geert Spillebeen [Spillebeen, Geert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

In Dublin's Fair City...

The usually quiet army post in the southern Irish town of Clonmel turns into an ants' nest. The barracks look like a fortress of men who are armed to the teeth. Recruits come flocking in without stop, causing the buildings to nearly burst at the seams. Everyone is wound up, as if the enemy were to appear at the gate on that very day. Reports from Belgium and France seep in through the newspapers and are laid on thick. The First Battalion, which conscripted a lot of John and Tom's comrades, is the first to leave. No one knows where it is going. Later they hear that the battalion is fighting with the Tenth Division in Egypt and Palestine.

***

It's not long before the Third Battalion leaves by train and heads north. John Condon ends up in the vicinity of Dublin, where the Royal Irish Regiment stays in the countless barracks around the capital.

The men receive rigorous training in Dublin. Even so, John has a wonderful time: endless shooting practice in the freezing cold, marching with full packs for hours and hours, man-to-man combat, bayonet practice in which they attack huge straw dummies and heavy jute sacks that are swishing all around...

"Look, you have to turn the bayonet around in the damned Hun," says John as he demonstrates to Tom. "Then the wound won't heal." John learned about that from his old drill sergeant.

It's a game for young John as long as sand is spilled, not blood, Thomas Carthy thinks. The forty-six-year-old Irishman secretly hopes that it will remain a game. But such a thought is better kept to oneself.

The British Army hauls the newest weapons out of the closet. John can't take his eyes off them. Biplanes and triplanes stretch in formation flight above the glowing rocky practice fields and are applauded by the foot soldiers. The pilots, clad in leather caps and goggles, wave to the men on the ground and disappear in their crafts behind the hills surrounding the city.

The regiment receives a demonstration of a gigantic Vickers machine gun. No one has ever seen the likes of it: a fire-spewing monster on a tripod and a water-cooling system to go with it.

"I could win the war all by myself with that," John crows.

Tom shrugs. "You need a whole platoon just to lug that thing along. Besides, they have those machine guns, too."

John throws his first grenade into a practice trench. Get down to the ground, cover your ears, there's a dull bang, the earth shakes... What an experience!

The captain walks approvingly among the crawling troops. Using his cane, he urges those lagging behind to move closer. A strange apparatus is being dragged over the field. The soldiers must come see this new gadget: a grenade launcher. Everyone admires this little machine. It looks like a portable mini cannon without a barrel. The captain inserts a blank cartridge, slips a whopper of a shell into the holder, and fires. The officer is applauded when the projectile is hurled effortlessly a hundred yards into the air.

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