Guests of a Nation; Geists of a Nation

Frank O'Connor's 1931 story "Guests of the Nation" is about the Irish war of independence and an imaginary action in which two English soldiers, Hawkins and Belcher, are being held in a gentle form of captivity by two members of the IRA, Bonaparte and Noble. The story begins,

At dusk the big Englishman, Belcher, would shift his long legs out of the ashes and say, "well, chums, what about it?" and Noble or me would say, "All right chum" (for we had picked up some of their curious expressions), and the little Englishman, Hawkins, would light the lamp and bring out the cards. Sometimes Jeremiah Donovan would come up and supervise the game and get excited over Hawkin's cards, which he always played badly, and shout at him as if he was one of our own, "Ah, you divil you, why didn't you play the tray?"¹

From the outset, any form of racial, political, or ideological enmity between the captors and their captives is dissolved: "I never in my short experience seen two men take to the country as they did" (CISS 173). The feelings toward the Englishmen would seem to set this story in the realm of honorable comradeship—the notion that war is a form of advanced game and when chaps are not fighting they can show each other mutual respect and treat each other decently, as chums. It all seems a far cry from Abu Ghraib, or the horrific pictures of Iraqi prisoners being tortured by American soldiers, or of suicide bombers destroying themselves and innocent bystanders in the name of their cause, or of the horrific internet-circulated scenes of the execution of the equally horrific Saddam Hussein.

In O'Connor's story, this notion of a genteel conflict is further enhanced in the telling of how the previous captors of the Englishmen used to have dances with the local girls and "seeing that they were such decent chaps, our fellows couldn't leave the two Englishmen out of them" (CISS 173). Hawkins, the more garrulous of the two, learned to dance "The Walls of Limerick," "The Siege of Ennis," and "The Waves of Tory." Even the vocabulary used is redolent of a form of British stiff upper lip, as these "decent chaps" seemed quite content to stay among their admiring captors, almost as if they have decided not to escape as it would be a form of bad taste. Thus far, we are in a world of romance, where war is a game for grown-up boys, and where honor and humanity triumph over hatred and horror. The two soldiers are indeed guests of the nation; there is even the stock figure of the grumpy old woman in the house, who is charmed by the more taciturn Belcher, who had "made her his friend for life" (CISS 174) by doing little jobs for her and generally being pleasant. The first note of dark irony comes into the story with that phrase "friend for life"; we will shortly see how truncated that life will be, and how this rather jolly affair will end.

This is compounded by another proleptic phrase, a phrase that gave rise to the title of this article. The first person narrator, Bonaparte, is speaking of how Belcher was able to move around the house anticipating the needs of the old woman:

As Noble said, he got into looking before she leapt, and got water, or any little thing she wanted, Belcher would have it ready for her. For such a huge man . . . he had an uncommon shortness—or should I say lack?—of speech. It took us some time to get used to him, walking in and out, like a ghost, without a word.

(CISS 174)

The irony here is telling. In a few pages, both Belcher and Hawkins will be transformed from "guests of the nation" to "ghosts of the nation," as they are executed in reprisal for the killing of four IRA members, "four of our lads" (CISS 179). Belcher will die silently, but before his death he will say more...