An Early Childhood Chapter 9 Part 4

CHAPTER NINE: THE CALL TO ARMS BY LORD KITCHENER, AND AN OVERVIEW OF MY LIFE DURING THE EASTER RISING, THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE, AND THE IRISH CIVIL WAR (PART FOUR)
Continued from Chapter 9 Part 3.

                Air anus, we formed our little group of freedom fighters in our village one summer on my return home from the nation’s capital for a holiday. Charlo Mallooolly, John Fisherman-O’Reilly, Sean Tubridy O’Reilly, Tancred Moorphy M’Nally and myself, setting off along the rail tracks with the trains full of Brithishers chasing us. I was the brains of the operation as I had written a few anti-imperialist articles for republican publications – or "republications" as they were known – as well as a modestly successful book of poetry and a few advertising slogans. Just a few of the "republications" in which my work featured included An Phoblacht, An Tiocfaidh Ducky, and Tiocfaidh 2: Chucky's Voodoo Nightmares ins an Chistin leis an Maicróbhaibhe Obhain agus an Piping Hot Dobbling Coddle Hot Pot.

Just some of the ingredients found in a Dobbling coddle hot pot

 
                No sooner had we formed our band of rebels than we decided to bomb the local army barracks, and no sooner had we decided that than the local British commanding officer of the region, Colonel Sir Edward “Gold Bollocks” Tiptoft, got wind of our plans and deemed it necessary to arrest and execute us.

                We were in a safe house at the time; Charlo Mallooolly had gone to the local market to buy half a dozen eggs, a pint of milk and a pinch of salt. Ever wary, Tancred was keeping look-out from the roof of the house. He wasn’t any longer than a blink of an eye on the roof than he roared out of him that a regiment of English soldiers was approaching, and quickly clambered down off the roof while we loaded our weapons.

                I had yet to meet Colonel Sir Edward Tiptoft in my true guise as an Irish patriot, having met him once before as a pretend baby, but I had heard of him by reputation, much as he had heard of me. He had a reputation as a gambling addict and a womaniser and carouser, a heavy drinker, and he had the ear of the British monarch, Charles I, which he kept in a jar on his desk in Dublin Castle. He was of the old school of the English Ascendancy, a devout Church of England worshipper and regular Puritan churchgoer, a follower of John Knox and Calvin and the other chipmunks, staunchly convinced that the British, and a fortiori the English - in a kind of a syllogistic Venn diagram of a thing - were the educators of the world, and the leaders of the rest of the world. According to his warped philosophy, the English were put on Earth to show peoples indigenous to less flourishing regions of the globe the custom by which to live.

                Colonel Sir Edward Tiptoft had a head of jet black hair that was greased back and parted in the middle with a streak of grey running through it. He never went anywhere without his pipe, which he held cupped in his left hand, which was an artificial hand, what with having lost the real hand in the Boer War some years previous. He had earned the nickname ‘Fake-Left-Hand Eddy’ as a result. His face was wrinkly, blotched and pocked like a used minefield, and that’s what it was, because as a young commissioned officer Tiptoft had volunteered his face to be used as a minefield in training exercises. His nose was purple from his fondness for the brandy; he had had it replaced with an artificial nose. He had a huge chin which stretched out and down to his chest. The chin was a prosthesis, as he had lost the real chin when he fought on the side of the Prussians in the Franco-Prussian War, thus earning the nickname ‘Chinless Eddy’.

                His body seemed very trim for his age and he gave the impression that he took good care of himself, but appearances can be deceptive—he wore a girdle. His testicles were made of gold, because his real testicles had been blown off in the American Civil War while serving the Confederacy. His torso wasn’t real either, and he had two artificial legs, and two glass eyes and a third one – for to see you all the better with – in the back of his head. He also had a fake brain, comprising a miniature steam engine and circuitry composed of tiny vacuum valves. He was Montgomery’s right hand man in Ireland, which was fortunate because Tiptoft’s right hand was the only part of him that was real. He was also Churchill's left hand man, Lloyd George's pinky toe man and my mortal enemy man. I was to have many a confrontation with Colonel Sir Edward Gold Bollocks Tiptoft over the succeeding weeks, months and years, and the following chapters are an account of my adventures against him. But first, my description of the Easter Rising.

Chapter 10 begins here.