The Honest Constable

In World War I honest Bernard O'Reilly wore the uniform of a sergeant in the Royal Irish Constabulary. One day in 1916, near his post along the lonely Kerry coast, a U-boat surfaced, put a passenger ashore. Sir Roger Casement, famed Irish patriot, was back from the Kaiser's Germany with a message for Ireland's underground rebels. A countrywoman spied him sneaking along the beach, notified the constabulary. Sergeant O'Reilly hurried to the scene, made the arrest that sent Sir Roger to a traitor's hanging in the Tower of London.

In World War II Bernard O'Reilly is a neutral citizen of neutral Eire. He has one grief: his unneutral son, John Francis. Early in the war John turned up in Germany, broadcast Nazi propaganda, was dubbed the Irish Haw-Haw. Last December John came back to Eire by Nazi parachute, was seized by the De Valera Government, clapped in a Dublin prison. A fortnight ago John escaped, hopped a train from the capital, grubbed sympathy and sandwiches from fellow passengers, got off at Limerick, beat his way through forest & field to his father's home.

Bernard O'Reilly and his exhausted son shook hands. The son sat down to rest. The father looked at him sadly and said: "I am going to report your arrival to the Civil Guard." Ten minutes after his homecoming, John Francis O'Reilly was again under arrest.

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