The Pipes, the Pipes Were Calling

Jimmy Breslin

September 12, 2002

The first call to awaken a city for the start of its day dedicated to mass grief was a single note that came through the overnight darkness and mist at Floyd Bennett Field, where Brooklyn goes into the water.

The note was from a bagpiper, who could not be seen.

It started as a squeak, then became slightly louder, a squeal, and suddenly it was a full, thrilling note that rose from the old airfield and flew through a silent sky across two- and three-story buildings on its way to touch Manhattan - the city.

Other bagpipes sounded. A drum rattled. The bagpipes grew louder. Now a bass drum announced its size.

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"Circle!" a voice commanded.

They were through the mist on the far side of a field of wet grass. They had blue jackets and kilts and white boots and tam-o-shanters with tassels.

The Police Department's bagpipe band was in a circle. In the center, his high drum major's hat speaking of authority, his big silver staff pumping up and down, was Philip Thompson. Once, he worked in the 79th Precinct in Brooklyn and now he is retired in College Point and he leads the band.

The time was 3:05 a.m. They were to leave here at 3:20 and march down Flatbush Avenue to the Brooklyn Bridge and then on to Manhattan, where the throngs and politicians would grieve for TV.

For this moment in the dark, with everything around them in night silence, the bagpipers could warm up and then play their instruments with a wonderful pureness. This was the emotion that got them through a year where they had to be police officers and then play at more than 40 funerals and memorial services, and they would have needed broken legs to miss one.

Now Thompson urged them through "The Minstrel Boy," which was clear and so stirring, particularly in this place and at this hour, that perhaps the day ahead could actually be bearable.

"The Minstrel Boy" is a great song, a truly Irish song. It is about getting killed.

The tune for it is an ancient Irish air, "The Moreen." The words were written by Thomas Moore as a memorial to two friends who died in an uprising in 1798.

"The Minstrel Boy" was a standard in the Revolution and in the Civil War. You hear it all through every St. Patrick's Day. Every St. Patrick's Day for the last 150 years. The marvelous Irish words were perfect for a day like yesterday:

"The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone

In the ranks of death you will find him;

His father's sword he hath girded on,

And his wild harp slang behind him ...

The Minstrel fell! But the foeman's chain

Could not bring that proud soul under ...

For he tore its chords asunder"