And now the Rebellion began to bore him. He could not work, and the walks he could take were circumscribed. He walked down to Trinity College and stood there, watching the soldiers on the roof of the College as they fired up Dame Street to where some Sinn Feiners were in occupation of a newspaper office, or along Westmoreland Street towards the Post Office. Wherever he went, there was the sound of bullets being fired ... but after a while, the sound ceased to affect him. There were snipers on many roofs ... and people had been killed by stray bullets ... but, although the sudden crack of a rifle overhead made him jump, the boredom grew and increased. He wanted to get on with his work....

The soldiers were pouring into Dublin now ... more and more of them.

"It'll be over soon," he said to himself.

It seemed to him then that the thing he would remember always was the dead horse which still lay on the pavement, becoming more and more offensive. Wherever he went, he met people who said to him, "Have you seen the dead horse?" Impossible to forget the corrupting beast, impossible to refrain from saying too, "Have you seen the dead horse?" Magnify that immensely, increase enormously the noise, and one had the War! Noise and stench and dead men and boredom!...

He wandered about the streets, seeing the same people, listening to the same statements, making the same remarks, wondering vaguely about food. He had seen high officials carrying loaves under their arms, and little jugs of milk....

"I wish to God it was over," he exclaimed. "I'm sick of this ... idleness!"

He spoke to a soldier in Merrion Square. "Do you like Dublin?" he said.

"Oh, fine!" he answered. "We've been treated champion. I 'aven't seen much of it yet, of course," he went on. "I've been 'ere ever since I landed!" He pointed to the pavement. "But I know this bit damn well. You know," he went on, "we thought we was in France when we arrived 'ere. Couldn't make it out when we saw all the signs in English. I says to a chap, as we was walking along, ''I,' I says, 'is this Boolone?' 'Naow,' 'e says, 'it's Ireland.'"

"And what did you say?" said Henry.

"I said 'Blimey!'" He moved to the kerb as the soldier further along the street called "Pass these men along" and when he had called the warning to the next soldier, he returned to Henry. "I say," he said, "wot are these Sinn Feiners? I mean to say 'oo are they? Are they Irish, too?"

Henry tried to explain who the Sinn Feiners were.

"But wot they want to do? Wot's the point of all this ... this 'umbuggin' about? We don't want to fight Irish people ... we want to fight Germans!..." He looked about for a moment, and then added, as if to clinch his statement, "I mean to say, I know an Irish chap ... 'e's a friend of mine ... but I don't know no bloody Germans, an' wot's more I wouldn't know them neither ... dirty lot, I calls 'em!"

"You know," he went on, "this is about the 'ottest bit of work a chap could 'ave to do. These snipers, you know, they get on your nerves. I mean to say, 'ere you are, standin' 'ere, you might say, in the dark an' suddenly a bullet damn near 'its you ... or mebbe it does 'it you ... one of our chaps was killed in front of that 'ouse last night ... they been swillin' the blood away, see!..." Henry looked across the road to where a man was vigorously brooming the wet pavement. The soldier proceeded: "Well, you don't know where it's comin' from. 'E's up on one of these 'ere roofs, 'idin', an' you're down 'ere ... exposed. 'E kneels be'ind the parapet, an' 'as a shot at you, an' then 'e 'ops along the roof to another place, an' 'as another shot at you.... You don't 'alf begin to feel a bit jiggery when that's 'appening'...."