It was Hercules O’Brien who started it.
Up he rose, arm in a sling – which he immediately cast off.
‘Head bandaged like a Turk, with only the ears out,’ as he described himself, he grabbed hold of the remaining arm of a grizzled old veteran.
‘C’mon, Alabarmy – let’s see if you can dance better than you fight!’ the little man challenged.
‘Well, I’ll be darned, O’Brien, if any o’ that Irish nigger-dancin’ will best ol’ Alabarmy,’ the Southron answered back.
And the two faced each other in the middle of the floor, Hercules O’Brien lashing it out heel to toe for all he was worth.
‘You’s sweatin’ like a hawg,’ Alabarmy goaded as the blood seeped out through his partner’s bandaged head. ‘Like a stuck hawg!’
A great roar of laughter arose at this goading of the Irishman.
Not to be outdone, Hercules O’Brien shouted back above the din, ‘And if you’d lost a leg ’stead of an arm, you’d be a better dancer,’ which raised another bout of laughter. Then the Irishman crooked his own good arm in Alabarmy’s one arm and swung him … and swung him in a dizzy circle with such a wicked delight. Until they all thought Alabarmy would leave this earth, courtesy of the buck-leppin’ O’Brien.
Next, another was up and then another, curtseying to prospective partners, the ‘ladies’ donning a strip of white bandage on whatever arm or leg they had left to distinguish themselves from the men.
‘Could I have the pleasure, Jennie Reb?’ Or ‘C’mon, Yankee, show us your nigger-jiggin’!’
Ellen stood watching them, the music reeling away the years. Back to the Maamtrasna crossroads, high above the two lakes – Lough Nafooey and Lough Mask. Them gathering in from every one of the four roads, the high bright moon lighting the way. Like souls summoned from sleep the dancers came, filtering out of the night to the gathering. There, under the moon and the great bejewelled sky they would merge out of shadow – a glance, a half-smile, then hand within hand, arm around waist, breath to breath. Then bodies in remembered rhythm would weave their spell, and they would rise above the ground, be lifted; the diamond sky now at their feet – a blanket of stars beneath them.
The priests were right – the devil was in the dancing, in the wicked reels; the way you danced out of your skin, out of yourself. ‘Going before themselves,’ the old women called it. Leaving sense and the imprisoned self behind. Being lost to the dance.
Remembering wasn’t good, Ellen reminded herself. A life could be lost to it … wasted, looking backwards. Looking forwards was as bad. She was of late looking too much backwards, and looking forwards, wondering where, if ever, she would find Lavelle and Patrick. Trapped between the future and the past, no control over either. Helplessly suspended in the now.
Ellen took in the scene in front of her. Was that all that mattered? All there was? The now of these broken men, momentarily lifted above the brutal earth to dance among the stars?
Across the room she saw Foots O’Reilly in conversation with Mary. Then she watched Mary bend, her arms encircling the man’s back, lifting him into a sitting position. He was from Cavan ‘and a mighty dancer,’ he had told Ellen, ‘could trip over the water of Lough Sheelin without dampening me toes.’ Hence, the nickname ‘Foots’. Then a Southern shell had ripped one dancing leg from under him.
‘That won’t hold Foots O’Reilly back none,’ he swore. Tomorrow he would undergo the surgeon’s saw to save the second leg, gangrened to the knee.
‘I could dance with the one, ma’am, but I can’t dance with the none. Now I’ll lose me name as well as me pegs. “Foots” with no foot at all to put under me.’ He had cried in her arms then.
Ellen watched Mary hoist the one-legged dancer, so that he half stood, half leaned against her, arms clasped to her, head draped over her shoulders. She dragged him out to the dancing square. The others witnessing it stopped, even the fiddle boy. Then Mary whispered into his ear, ‘Come on now, Mr O’Reilly. Dance with me … you show them!’
And she manoeuvred him slowly around in the silence, his gangrenous leg trailing behind them. Then again and again they turned, in grotesque pirouette, she in her white nun’s ballgown, he the mighty dancer, until Mary could support his dead weight no longer.
‘Thank you, Mr O’Reilly … Foots,’ Mary said to him. ‘I shall always remember this dance …’ and she sat him gently down again.
Then, all those who could were once more ‘footin’ it’: the wounded and the wasted, the stumped and the stunted. All flailed and flopped and picked themselves up again as the fiddler played his relentless reel. Then, suddenly, he changed into waltz-time.
‘I thought he’d kill the lot of them …’ Ellen said to Mary who had come beside her, ‘… but isn’t it wonderful to see?’
Mary smiled back at her.
As the young Tennessean, bow astride his fiddle, led them into the waltz, they watched Hercules O’Brien prop up Alabarmy in front of him, placing the Southerner’s shelled-out sleeve over his shoulder. Twins from Arkansas – a crutch apiece – hobbled around in a kind of teetering dance, Ellen ready to catch whichever one of them, who any minute must fall.
Then, someone bowing to Ellen … a deep bow. It was Herr Heidelberg, the Dutchman, as the men called the German soldier from the town of the same name. Like all who had come newly to America, Germans as well as the Irish, Poles and a host of other nations had joined in the fray to fight for their ‘new country’ – the North in Herr Heidelberg’s case.
‘I better likes dance mit de Frauen den de Herren,’ he said shyly.
What Ellen could see of Herr Heidelberg’s face was pink with both excitement and embarrassment. The German was the object of much ridicule from the rest of the men due to his manner of speaking, and now could risk further ridicule.
Ellen curtseyed to him.
‘Delighted, Herr Heidelberg!’ she replied.
It was the only name by which she knew him … and though denied his real name, the association with his hometown had always seemed to please him.
Herr Heidelberg swept her around like a Viennese princess, her dress spattered with the earlier work of the day, flouncing about her. The men made space for them, Ellen and her waltz king with half a face, clapping them on to twirl upon twirl, him counting to her under his breath.
‘Ein, zwei, drei, ein, zwei, drei.’ His bulk making her move like a turntable doll, just to keep pace with him. And all the while the young fiddler discoursing sweet music from his violin.
When they had finished, the others all clapped and cheered – and cheered again, more loudly; those who could not clap, clanking their crutches. He turned to her, flushed with delight.
‘Danke schön! Danke schön … I have not so very good time before in America,’ and she saw the tears form and spill down his bandaged cheek.
‘Thank you, Herr Heidelberg. You’re a brave dancer.’
He beamed at her and self-consciously retired away from her to the rear of the ward.
Finding herself beside the young fiddler Ellen enquired of him the tune. ‘It has no name … I picked it up from folk in the foothills.’ He smiled at her. ‘I could call it “The North and South Waltz”.’
‘More like “The Cripples’ Waltz”, ma’am, beggin’ your pardon,’ Hercules O’Brien chipped in, ‘’cos that’s what it was!’
‘If you was a gentleman, Sergeant O’Brien,’ the fiddler remonstrated,