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me when my time comes.’
    Rashers reflected on what he had said.
    ‘They’ll do it with us all, for that matter,’ he added, ‘you and the sergeant before you, King Edward and Rashers Tierney. We’re all booked for the same trip.’
    ‘Don’t talk so much,’ the sergeant commanded.
    ‘It was always my failing,’ Rashers admitted.
    ‘Did you get anything to eat?’
    ‘Damn the scrap.’
    The sergeant went out, locking the door. A little while later he returned with a mug of tea and roughly cut bread.
    ‘Take that,’ he said.
    Rashers took it and began to eat. The sergeant sat on the bed too, in the warm gloom locked up, a prisoner within himself, his thoughts pacing around and around in his skull. For much of the time they were not thoughts at all, just the name of the child being repeated to him over and over again by some voice which he had no power to silence. The names of Jesus, Mary and Joseph also went through his mind and he prayed to these because he too, like Rashers, had been taught to look to them in trouble. He did not expect a miracle from them. The child was doomed to die. But he wanted comfort, he wanted to feel there was a Court of Appeal, that there was a world beyond this one, a world untouched by sorrow and disease and death, to which the child would go. His child must not cease to exist.
    ‘I’m going to let you out,’ he said when Rashers had finished.
    ‘Thanks be to God,’ Rashers said. ‘The oul dog at home will be demented.’
    ‘Have you money?’
    ‘Every penny was lifted off of me. Isn’t that what has me where I am?’
    The sergeant took a shilling from his pocket and gave it to Rashers.
    ‘Take that,’ he said.
    Rashers looked at it suspiciously. A charity from a police sergeant was one of the impossibilities of his world.
    ‘Go on, take it,’ the sergeant commanded. Rashers put it in his pocket.
    ‘Now get on home.’
    Rashers collected his bag and his board with the few remaining favours. He found it hard to walk. The sweat had dried on his socks. His feet were numb. He took a set of colours from the board and offered them to the sergeant.
    ‘You’re a loyal servant who’ll appreciate them,’ he said.
    ‘I’ve no use for them. Say a prayer for me.’
    ‘I’ll say a rosary,’ Rashers promised warmly.
    They went to the door of the station. The streets were bright still, but the sky had the evening look of waiting. At some invisible point night was mustering to invade it. Rashers pressed the colours into the sergeant’s hand.
    ‘Take them home for one of the kids,’ Rashers insisted generously.
    He hobbled down the street. The sergeant clutched the colours tightly and stared at the street without seeing it. He went back into his office and let the colours fall into the fireplace, to take their place among the dust and cartons and the pile of cigarette stubs.
    ‘They returned by motor,’ Mr. Belton Yearling informed the company.
    ‘I was fortunate enough to see them. At a distance, of course,’ Father O’Connor volunteered.
    ‘Are they dining aboard the royal yacht?’ asked Mrs. Bradshaw.
    ‘Yes. With his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant and Lady Aberdeen.’ Mr. Yearling’s tone was tinged a little with disrespect. ‘Such a strenuous day for the Queen and the young princess.’
    ‘I hope we have finished with salutes, anyway,’ Mr. Bradshaw said grumpily. ‘I can’t abide them.’
    Mrs. Bradshaw smiled at everybody. The meal had been excellent. Young Father O’Connor, though normally abstemious, had consented to a glass of port after it, in honour of the occasion, and when they retired for music Mr. Yearling’s first request had been for Sinding’s ‘Rustle of Spring’, a piece she was just a little bit afraid of, but which she had managed to play surprisingly well. She flushed with pleasure at their compliments, the more so because, in all modesty, she felt them at that moment to be well deserved. Mr. Yearling had responded on the ’cello