Chapter II: Part 2

Blake reported O’Hara’s escape to the authorities in Dublin, who were most anxious to secure the man, knowing he had been the ringleader in the worst atrocities committed in the south recently. They at once came to the conclusion that O’Hara was trying to get away by boat from Ballybor to Liverpool and then on to America, hence the picket of Cadets on the quay; but to make doubly sure they ordered an ocean-going destroyer to search the steamer from Ballybor at sea.

After rounding the north of Ireland the steamer ran into smooth water, and O’Hara came on deck for a breath of fresh air. After a time he became interested in a queer-looking long grey steamer which was approaching them from the south, and very soon the queer boat came within hailing distance, and orders were megaphoned for the steamer to heave to.

O’Hara was greatly interested in watching the progress of the destroyer boat, and it was not until a sergeant of the R.I.C. in plain clothes, who had known O’Hara in the south, covered him with a Webley and commanded him to put up his hands, that he realised that this interesting show was all for his benefit.

III.
THE LANDING OF ARMS.

It was the busy hour of the evening in Stephen Foy’s public-house in the small western town of Ballybor, and Larry O’Halloran, the barman, never ceased drawing corks and measuring out “half ones” of whisky for the endless flow of customers.

Larry was a good example of a new type of Irishman which the Sinn Fein movement has produced—a type regarded with sorrow and amazement by the older generation, and at present unknown in England. Whatever faults an Irishman possessed, he always had the saving virtues of wit and cheerfulness.

Probably the British have been the last nation in the world to recognise the great value of clever propaganda, but there is no doubt that the originators of the Sinn Fein movement knew the great influence of judicious propaganda—they had efficient instructors in the Boches—and wisely started at the beginning, that is, with the children at school, and the result is sadly apparent in the south and west of Ireland to-day in the hatred of the British Empire among the young people; and so obsessed are they with this hatred that they have neglected to learn the good manners of their elders.

While Larry’s hands never ceased serving out drink, his brain—trained from childhood to one end only—never ceased running on one subject, how and when to obtain arms to defeat the British. Only the previous evening Larry had achieved the ambition of his young life, when he was elected captain by a large majority of the Volunteers in place of Patsey Mulligan, who had been tried by court-martial and executed for treachery to the Irish Republican Army.

Larry, in spite of his long hair and dreamy Celtic eyes, was no fool, and knew quite well that a battalion of Volunteers without arms was about as much use for fighting as a mob of old women with umbrellas, and that if ever they were to fight the British with any chance of success, they must have arms, and not only rifles, but machine-guns.

Previous to this, by a system of raids at night, every known shot-gun in the district had been collected by the Volunteers; but Larry realised that to send a Volunteer, armed with a single-barrel shot-gun, to fight a British infantryman armed with a magazine rifle, was only a good example of the old saying of sending a boy on a man’s errand.

While Larry was racking his brains how to obtain arms, a youth, obviously an American, walked in, accompanied by a strange countryman, and proceeded to a small private room at the back of the house. But though Larry’s thoughts were far away, trying to get Mausers in Germany, his eyes were busy in the public-house, and as the couple disappeared into the room, he saw at once that the countryman’s walk was the walk of a soldier.

Larry knew the boy, Micky Fee, well. His father was a wealthy Irish-American, who, amongst other business, owned an arms factory in the States, and had refused the request of the Inner Brotherhood repeatedly to send arms to Ireland for the Volunteers.

It was possible both to oversee and to overhear what went on in the inner room. Larry saw the couple sitting there in close conversation, and in a few minutes realised that the strange countryman was in reality a British Secret Service agent, and that Micky, who had drink taken, was giving the man all the information of the local Volunteers he could.

It did not take Larry long to determine what course to take with the Secret Service agent, and he had decided on the same fate for Micky Fee, when he suddenly realised that his prayers had been answered. His quick brain began to work out how many rifles, machine-guns, automatics, and bombs Fee’s father would value the life of his only child at; the more he thought of it, the higher he made the figures.

Micky had been on a visit to his grandparents in Ballybor for some months past, and had taken an active interest in the Volunteers. About 2 A.M. the next morning there came a loud knock at the grandparents’ house. When the old man opened the door he found himself looking into the muzzles of a ring of guns, and in a few minutes Master Micky left for an unknown destination.

About a fortnight later Michael Fee and his wife received the shock of their lives when they opened their letters at breakfast one morning. Among Fee’s was one bearing the Ballybor postmark, which stated briefly that his son had been tried by a court-martial of the I.R.A. on a charge of giving information to the enemy and condemned to death, and that the sentence would be duly carried out unless Michael Fee presented so many rifles, pistols, machine-guns, bombs, and ammunition to the I.R.A.

The letter also stated that Mr Fee’s answer was to be sent to a named Sinn Fein agent in New York within seven days of the receipt of the letter, who would give him a time-limit for handing over the arms, and would also tell him where the arms were to be landed. A P.S. was added suggesting that Fee should bring the arms to Ireland in a yacht, and that he would be able to take his son back to the States in her.

For many months the Irish papers had been full of accounts of men taken from their beds in the dead of night and executed outside their homes by armed and masked men; also of the bodies of missing men being found in a field, days after they had disappeared, riddled with bullets. Some of the Irish newspapers tried to throw the blame for these murders on the forces of the Crown by saying that the men wore “trench coats,” but never adding that practically every young man in Ireland nowadays wears a so-called trench-coat.

Fee knew that many of these murders were “executions” of men who had given information to the police, and the thought that one morning at breakfast he or his wife might open an Irish paper to read an account of the finding of their son’s body riddled with bullets, caused him to break out into a cold sweat. Being a good business man, Fee made up his mind at once, and that evening found him in New York making arrangements with the Sinn Fein agent for the immediate shipment of the arms to Ireland.

It’s one thing to talk of smuggling arms into Ireland, but quite another story to accomplish it. To the Irish peasant, who has never been outside his own country, it looks as easy as falling off a log; but then he has no idea of the power of the British Navy, and the British Government does not take the trouble to inform an Irish peasant that it has the finest navy in the world—he is supposed to know this, or to find it out for himself.

When Fee asked the agent for his suggestions, the agent trotted out the usual stock dodges—packing rifles in piano-frames, S.A.A. in bags of flour, and more equally futile plans, and he quickly realised that the man was a fool, so left him and retired to his room in the hotel to think out a plan for himself.

For a long time he could think of nothing but the picture of his son’s body lying in a vivid green field in his native land: he could even see the clothes Micky was wearing, and the dirty white handkerchief (he was quite sure it would be dirty) over his eyes. For hours his mind dwelt on this picture, but in the end he gained control over himself, and before he turned in his brain had evolved a sound plan of action, and with an Irishman’s sanguine temperament he fell asleep, thinking that his boy was as good as at home already.

The following morning Fee went to a big yacht agent, but found that he had only a steam yacht for charter. He explained that he wanted a motor yacht big enough to cross the Atlantic, and the man referred him to a firm of builders who had a yacht of this description, which he believed was on the verge of completion.

Fee next made his way to the yard of these builders, where he found the yacht he was looking for, which had been built for a rich American who had recently died. He soon came to terms, and arranged with the builders for the addition of large extra oil-tanks, in order that the yacht would be able to make the double journey to Ireland and back without having to take in oil there.

As soon as the yacht was ready for sea, Fee had large man-holes fitted to the extra oil-tanks, packed the arms inside them, and then filled up with oil. Within four weeks of the receipt of Larry O’Halloran’s letter, Mr and Mrs Fee sailed on their new motor yacht, the _Colleen_, for a pleasure trip to their native land of Ireland.

* * * * *

The place chosen for the landing of the arms is one of the most beautiful places in the British Isles, and one of the least known. If you picture the wildest Norwegian fjord, and add square miles of mountain, cliffs, moors, bogs, lakes, and rivers, you may get some idea of the scenery.

Before leaving America Fee cabled to his parents in Ballybor that he expected to be in Ireland on a certain date, knowing that the information would reach Larry through friends in the Post Office, and that he would take the necessary steps to meet the yacht at Errinane on that date, with the result that Larry passed the information on to the Volunteers in the Errinane district, and in a short time every coastguard station and police barracks within a twelve-mile radius of the landing-place was burnt.

On a fine September day the M.Y. _Colleen_ sighted the west coast of Ireland, and shortly afterwards made her way up the wonderful natural harbour which leads to the little fishing village of Errinane, where she dropped anchor and came to rest after her long voyage across the Atlantic. In a few minutes a boat left the quay, and Larry stepped aboard the yacht, and after explaining to the Fees that he had arrived in the district two days previously with their son Micky, insisted that the arms should be landed that night; but Fee refused, on the grounds that the British Navy was bound to know of the yacht’s arrival, and that if they attempted to land the arms that night they might be caught by a destroyer.

A hot argument ensued—Larry, now that at last the arms were almost within his grasp, being mad keen to get them ashore at once. However, the argument was cut short by a shout from the deck that a destroyer was coming up the harbour, and Fee had great difficulty to induce Larry to leave the yacht.

The destroyer came to an anchor within fifty yards of the _Colleen_, and Fee could see two machine-guns on the bridge trained to sweep the yacht’s deck. Before the rattle of the anchor-chain had died away a boat was lowered, and in a few minutes a party of bluejackets, headed by a lieutenant, came aboard the yacht.

Fee explained to this officer that he was an Irishman living in America, and that he had come over on a visit to his parents. The officer examined the yacht’s papers, and then gave orders to his men, who proceeded to search the yacht thoroughly: mattresses were opened, all panelling taken down by ship-carpenters, floors lifted, luggage searched, and even the oil-tanks sounded, while the taps were turned on to see if they contained oil.

After three hours’ searching the sailors left the yacht, and within half an hour the destroyer put to sea. Hardly had she disappeared when Larry came aboard again, and as it was nearly dark by now, he tried to insist on starting to land the arms, and again Fee refused.

The yacht settled down for the night, but soon after midnight a powerful searchlight was flashed on to her, and again the bluejackets came aboard and searched the yacht from top to bottom. Eventually they left, the searchlight was turned off, and the destroyer could be heard putting out to sea.

Larry’s original plan had been to land the arms on the north side of the bay, and to hide them in some caves in the mountains, where French arms had been hidden during the rebellion of 1798, then to await a favourable opportunity to remove them to Ballybor. However, the night the destroyer left the local fishermen filled their boats with herrings, which Larry found had all been bought by the big shopkeeper in Errinane, who intended sending them to Ballybor Station the next morning in his three Ford trucks. Not daring to land the arms during the day, Larry commandeered the lorries, and as soon as it was dark landed the arms openly at Errinane quay, packed them in the largest fish-boxes he could find, and loaded the boxes on to the lorries, putting boxes of herrings on top. The arms once landed, he restored Micky to his parents on the yacht, and within half an hour the reunited Fee family were on their way back to America.

Not long after the yacht had started, the lorries left Errinane on the long run through the mountains to Ballybor. When about fifteen miles from Errinane, Larry halted his convoy in a mountain pass, in order to let one of the drivers repair a tyre.

Hardly had they stopped when the lights of two cars were seen behind them, descending the road into the pass from the direction of Errinane. Larry knew at once that they could only be police cars, and must have been sent to Errinane on the suspicion that arms had been landed from the yacht.

He at once got his lorries on the move, going in the last one himself, and in a few minutes could hear the hoot of the oncoming cars close behind. Ahead of them lay miles of narrow bog road, and as long as he kept the rear lorry in the middle of the road, the police cars would not be able to stop them.

Soon he could hear shouts of halt, followed shortly afterwards by a volley of rifle bullets, but Larry and the driver were well protected by the boxes on the lorry. So they continued for about two miles, the police firing volley after volley at the lorry.

So far so good; but though Larry knew he could keep the police from overhauling them for several miles, yet he knew that in the end the police must defeat him, unless he could find some means of stopping them, and the only way to do this was by sacrificing the rear lorry. This he made up his mind to do, as the lorry only carried the bombs; but the difficulty was to stop the police altogether.

The idea which saved them came from the driver, who knew every yard of the road, and reminded Larry that half a mile ahead of them there was an arched bridge over a mountain river, the very place to block the road.

Larry climbed out on the boxes, and with great difficulty extracted a bomb; returning to the driving seat, they waited until the lorry was on the bridge, when they stopped the engine and started to run for the lorry in front. When they had gone about twenty yards, Larry stopped, flung the bomb at the lorry on the bridge, and ran like a hare.

Luckily there was a steep rise beyond the bridge, and just as they reached the slow-moving lorry a flame of fire shot up from the bridge followed by a deafening explosion. They learnt afterwards that the bridge was completely wrecked, the leading police car badly damaged, and that the police took three hours to return to Errinane, having to back their cars for several miles before they could turn.

The original plan was to hide the arms in a saw-mill in Ballybor, owned by a notorious loyalist, which fact would divert all suspicion from the mill; but Larry knew that after the encounter with the police the hue-and-cry would be up, and that the Auxiliaries would search every rat-hole in Ballybor before many hours were past.

On reaching Ballybor in the early hours they proceeded to the mill, which was situated on the bank of the river, and at once unloaded; but instead of hiding the arms there Larry ordered the men to carry them straight to the water’s edge, and then sent them to collect boats and also fishing tackle.

Within an hour six boats containing the arms went down the river, and half an hour afterwards the town was surrounded and searched through and through by Auxiliary Cadets who had concentrated on the place from three different points—their only bag being the unfortunate lorry drivers.

Some three miles below Ballybor there stand on the bank of the river the ruins of a fine old Franciscan Abbey, in the vaults of which the arms were safely hidden. Afterwards Larry and his men spent the morning fishing for sea-trout towards the estuary, returning to Ballybor in the afternoon, hungry and worn-out, to fall into the hands of the Auxiliaries, who commandeered their fish and then let them go home.

* * * * *

After the murder of Patsey Mulligan the district of Ballybor was comparatively free from outrages for several months, and Blake, the D.I., began to think that his troubles were over; but very shortly after Larry had successfully run his cargo of American arms Blake was undeceived, and in a short time the district became one of the worst in the west.

Success made Larry bolder, and further success made him rash. Being miles from a road, the old abbey was a most inconvenient place to keep the arms, and he determined to bring them to the mill in Ballybor.

Bennett, the owner, had a house alongside the mill, and another house some miles out in the country, where he was in the habit of going from Saturday until Monday morning, when the mill house used to be locked up.

Larry arranged another fishing expedition on a Saturday afternoon, and when it was dark they transferred the arms from the abbey to the mill, hiding them under piles of sawdust in the cellars below the saw-benches. It was then decided to make an assault on the Ballybor police barracks the following night, and to wipe out the police for good and all.

But this time his luck was out. On Sunday afternoon Bennett suddenly made up his mind to return to Ballybor, and motored there in the afternoon with his eldest son. After tea his son took a walk over the mill, and to his surprise found a brand-new American repeating-rifle in the clerk’s office: his father went at once to the police barracks to inform Blake of the discovery, who arranged to make a raid on the mill as soon as it was dark.

Blake had settled to take the arms, if found in the mill, straight off to the nearest military barracks, and to this end left the barracks with a strong force in two Crossleys. They went for some distance towards Grouse Lodge Barracks, turned off at a cross-roads, and made their way back to Ballybor, arriving at the mill by the time it was dark.

Leaving the cars about a hundred yards from the mill, Blake walked on to the entrance with a sergeant and a constable, and as they drew near, to their surprise they saw that the mill was lit up. Telling his men to wait, Blake advanced to the door, which led into the machinery buildings, and on peeping in saw that the place was full of masked men in a queue, being served out with rifles from the clerk’s office.

Blake saw that he must act quickly, but that by the time he could bring up his men all the masked men would be armed, so he determined on a ruse. In a loud voice he shouted out, “God save us, here are the Black and Tans; run, boys, for your lives,” and at the same time opened fire.

The magic words “Black and Tan” have the same effect on an Irish crowd as the name of Cromwell had during a previous period of Irish history, and a wild stampede ensued in the mill, the final touch being added by some one switching off the electric lights. As soon as Blake saw the effects of his words he dashed in to try and secure a prisoner, and managed to seize a man near the entrance, and hold him until his men, alarmed by the shots, arrived hurriedly on the scene.

By the aid of electric torches the police quickly collected the arms which the Volunteers had thrown away in their panic, and a constable having gone to fetch the cars, they were stowed in, and in a short time were on their long journey to the military barracks.

Larry stampeded with the rest of the men in the mill, but once outside he pulled himself together, and determined to make an effort to regain his beloved arms. Guessing that the police would be fully occupied removing the arms, he made his way back along the dark streets to the mill, and saw the cars drive off.

Part of the preparations for assaulting the barracks had been to block all roads along which help could come to the barracks; and, as Larry expected, after some time the cars returned to the barracks, being unable to proceed in any direction owing to deep trenches cut across the roads.

As soon as Larry had seen the cars return, he collected three of his best men, commandeered a car in the name of the I.R.A.—at this time in many parts of Ireland a harmless citizen stood an excellent chance of having his car taken by the military on a Monday, by the police on Tuesday, by the Auxiliaries on Wednesday, and by the I.R.A. for the rest of the week—and drove straight to the Cloonalla district, through which he knew that Blake would have to pass the next day on his way to the nearest military barracks. They took shovels with them, and soon had the trench across the road filled in, and made their way to the house of a local Volunteer.

That night Larry worked like a man possessed, and by daybreak had an ambuscade prepared for Blake at a point where the road, following the shore of a large lake, runs under an overhanging rock, and then turns sharp to the west. Beyond the bend they cut the usual trench, and above on the rock erected loop-holed walls of stone and sods, and here they waited, armed with every shot-gun, pistol, and home-made bomb which the district could produce.

That night Blake spent an anxious time in his small barrack-room, his ears straining for the sound of the first shot of the expected attack, and his brain striving to work out the problem of how to get the arms into safe keeping. After a time he tried to attend to some routine work, but soon gave it up as hopeless.

Leaning back in his chair he lit a cigarette. At that moment his eye was arrested by a large photograph of the notorious John O’Hara over the fireplace, and he began to think of how the man had tricked him by getting away by sea, while the police were hunting the countryside for him. From O’Hara’s photograph his eye wandered to a brightly-printed card hanging on the wall, with a drawing of a steamer on the top.

For some time he read the letterpress of the card without having any idea of what it meant; then in a flash he realised that the problem was solved. At high tide the next morning the s.s. _Cockatoo_ would sail from the port of Ballybor for Liverpool, and if O’Hara had tricked him by the sea, then he could trick Larry O’Halloran by the same means.

The following morning, a quarter of an hour before the _Cockatoo_ was due to sail, two Crossleys dashed on to the quay, and before the usual crowd of quay loafers knew what was happening, they were outside the yard gate, and a strong guard of police with rifles at the ready had surrounded the gangway to the steamer. In a few minutes more the arms were all aboard the boat, stacked in an empty passenger saloon, guarded by police, and two minutes after Blake had given the captain his instructions, the _Cockatoo_ was on her way down the river for England.

IV.
THE RED CROSS.

An Englishman who has lived in Ireland for any length of time, knows that rivalry in religion and politics not only divides parts of Ireland, but even causes divisions in families. At one time recently things had reached such a state of passion that an Irish soldier or policeman who visited his home in the south or west was liable to find the door of his home shut in his face, and even to lose his life.

In a small town in the west of Ireland—in England you would call the place a village—there lived some years ago a shopkeeper named John Dempsey, a steady hard-working man, who left politics alone and attended to his own business. In due course Dempsey married and had three children—two boys, Patrick and William, and a daughter, Sheila.

The children were educated at the national school, and as soon as their minds were capable of understanding anything, the wicked and stupid policy of hatred of and revenge on England was drummed into their ears week by week, month by month, and year by year, until the English appeared to their childish imaginations to be the greatest monsters of brutality in the world.

After the late war started, not before, the British newspapers and magazines impressed upon us the thoroughness of the German preparations for this war, and amongst other things, of how the present generation had had instilled into their minds from early childhood a hatred of the British by every schoolmaster and learned professor in Germany. For years past this German method has been carried on in Ireland, Irish national school teachers preparing the present generation of young men and women for the present Sinn Fein movement.

You have in England a saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, which applies very well to many national school teachers in the west and south of Ireland, who, though they can tell you of every wrong which England has inflicted on Ireland during the last three hundred years, yet know nothing of the greatness and power for good of the British Empire; nor do they realise the vast benefits which Ireland reaps as a partner of the Empire.

As time went on John Dempsey made and saved much money on porter, eggs, and other things, and as the boys appeared to be clever and anxious to get on in the world, he decided that they should complete their education in Dublin, Patrick eventually to become a doctor, and William to enter the priesthood; but as soon as the father announced his intentions, Sheila, who had never been separated from her brothers, implored that she might go with them and become a hospital nurse.

In the end the old man gave way and the three children went to Dublin, where Patrick duly qualified as a doctor, Sheila became a nurse in one of the hospitals there, but William did not become a priest.

When the brothers and sister first went to Dublin, Sinn Fein was rapidly becoming the great party of the Celts in Ireland, and every young man and woman was pressed hard to join. Patrick and Sheila joined eagerly, but William refused, and the idea of becoming a priest being now distasteful to him, he joined the R.I.C., to the bitter resentment of his brother and sister, who refused even to see him.

During the summer of 1919 the two brothers and sister met again at home, Sheila on her summer holidays, Patrick waiting for an appointment, and William, who was now stationed at the neighbouring town of Ballybor, on leave. At first the other two resented the presence of William, and there were bitter and passionate political arguments at every meal; but after a time their natural kindliness prevailed, and the three became nearly as great pals as formerly, but the shadow of William’s uniform seemed always to come between them.

Sheila was the first to go back. A letter from her matron came one morning asking if she would care to go abroad, to take entire charge of a patient who had been ordered to live in Switzerland by the doctors. She did not wait to answer, but returned to Dublin that day, lest she should be too late.

Patrick and William were at this time typical of the two parties into which the people of the greater part of Ireland were divided—in plain language, Patrick was a rebel and William a loyalist! And though the loyalist party was very small in comparison to the other, yet it would never have been so small if proper support from the Government had been forthcoming at the right time, but would have grown larger and larger as the outrages increased, and the decent elements of the population ranged themselves on the side of law and order.

During his time in Dublin, Patrick, young and enthusiastic, had become deeply involved in the Sinn Fein movement, and when one day he found himself bound hand and foot to a policy of outrage and murder, he made strong efforts to regain his freedom, but was quickly made to realise that he now belonged, body and soul, to Sinn Fein.

No sooner had Sheila gone than the two brothers began to quarrel—to end in hot and bitter words at supper one night, when William left the table and returned at once to Ballybor. A few days afterwards Patrick received an order from Dublin to report at once to the Sinn Fein H.Q.’s there, and though he would have liked to refuse, he dared not.

On arrival in Dublin, Patrick duly reported at H.Q.’s, and there learnt that he had been chosen for a most unpleasant job. About this time, after their signal initial successes, the I.R.A. were endeavouring to organise a force which would entirely wipe out the police, or at any rate reduce them to complete impotence.

To this end the General Staff of the I.R.A. were determined to leave no stone unturned to achieve success in the ambuscades of patrols and attacks on barracks. During the preliminary attacks the rebels had lost heavily through lack of medical care, and it was now determined that a doctor should attend all ambuscades and attacks.

Funds were plentiful, and in a few days Patrick found himself set up as a practising doctor in a large house in Dublin, and it was arranged that, when an attack was to take place in a certain district, he should receive a wire calling him to hold a consultation in a district close by. They supplied him with a good car, there were no restrictions on the movements of doctors, so that the busy young Dublin doctor, hurrying to the sick-bed of a country patient, excited no suspicion.

The plan was quite simple, and worked smoothly. An ambuscade would be arranged at H.Q.’s in Dublin to take place at a certain point where it was known that a police patrol passed. The day before Patrick would receive his wire, and early the next morning would leave Dublin for the scene of operations. When within a short distance of the attack he would stop his car, and remain there until the fight was over, attend to the wounded, and afterwards return to Dublin.

On two occasions he was surprised by relief parties of military, but each time he was able to explain his presence—that it was a mere chance that he happened to be passing, and that his professional instincts were at once aroused by the sight of the wounded men.

In the case of an attack on police barracks the procedure was somewhat different. Some days before Patrick would receive his usual wire—never from the place where the attack was to take place, but from a neighbouring town—and at the same time would receive instructions in Dublin of the time and place of the attack.

On arriving at the place of attack he would put up at the best hotel, giving out that he had come to attend a consultation in the town, from which the wire had been sent. After a talk with the local Volunteer captain, a house would be decided on as a temporary hospital, to which the wounded would be taken, and after the attack Patrick would simply disappear.

At first the danger and excitement appealed to his high-strung temperament, but soon the novelty wore off, and he saw that there could only be one end for him—exposure and professional ruin, if not a long term of imprisonment. In vain he asked to be allowed to resume his profession, but he might as well have begged for mercy from the Inquisition of old.

One evening, on his return from an ambuscade, Patrick found a wire from Sheila, saying that her patient had suddenly died in Switzerland, and that she was crossing to Dublin that night. The next morning she arrived, radiant with health, and eager for news.

Under her patient’s will Sheila received a legacy of about £2000 and a car, which was stored in a Dublin garage, and now she was free to devote herself to the cause of Ireland’s freedom. On hearing of Patrick’s occupation, she at once determined to join him.

Patrick was devoted to his sister, and tried hard to put the idea out of her head, but in the end had to give way. That very day she made him take her to H.Q.’s, where she offered the services of herself and car to the I.R.A.

Owing to an insufficient number of rifles for ambuscades and attacks on a large scale all over the country, the General Staff had decided to collect rifles in Dublin and send them down to the scenes of attacks in cars. Sheila’s offer coincided with this decision, and to Patrick’s horror he and Sheila received orders to attend attacks, and also to carry the rifles and ammunition.

The car was found to be a large touring car, to which a false bottom was fitted to take rifles, whilst further false bottoms under the seats gave sufficient room to hide revolvers, and a dummy space which was packed with S.A.A. Sheila had large red crosses painted on the lamps and wind-screen, and the camouflage was complete.

For months the brother and sister—Patrick looking a typical young doctor, and Sheila dressed as a hospital nurse—carried arms and first aid to ambuscades throughout the south and west, and not the slightest suspicion appears to have been aroused in the minds of the authorities. Sheila thoroughly enjoyed the excitement, and soon became known as the Florence Nightingale of the I.R.A.

One day there came a wire from home that their mother was dangerously ill, and begging them to go to her at once. Patrick knew that if they asked leave to go, their taskmasters would refuse, and so decided to take “French leave.”

William had also been sent for, and again the two brothers and sister met. After a few days their mother took a turn for the better, but Patrick, who dreaded returning to Dublin, insisted on staying, in spite of Sheila’s urgings to get back to their work.

Soon after their mother was out of danger Sheila received an invitation to a dance at a large farmhouse about two miles away, and drove there in the car, resplendent in a Paris evening dress. Patrick and William refused to go, the former making the excuse that he did not like to leave his mother, the latter because he knew that the presence of a policeman would break up the dance.

That evening, after it was dark, William walked across the fields to see an old school friend, one of the few men in the district who would speak to him at all, and then only at night in his own house. When William left, this man warned him that Knockbrack Wood would not be a healthy place for the next few days, but when pressed for an explanation would say no more.

When William reached home he learnt from his father that during his absence a stranger had called for Patrick, and that soon afterwards the two had left hurriedly to fetch Sheila, Patrick saying that he would have to return to Dublin that night by car.

Old Dempsey seemed much upset, and after the warning received that night William’s suspicions were aroused. As soon as supper was over he retired to bed, or rather to wait in his room until the house was quiet, when he meant to bicycle back to Ballybor.

William had not been in his room more than ten minutes when he heard Sheila’s car drive up, and the front door open and shut. Then he heard Sheila come upstairs to her bedroom, followed by Patrick and strange footsteps, and then the closing of Patrick’s door.

The bedrooms of the two brothers were separated by a thin partition, and William managed to overhear enough of their conversation to make out that there was to be an ambuscade in Knockbrack Wood on Wednesday night (this being Monday), and that Patrick was returning at once to Dublin.

William lay as still as a mouse, hoping that Patrick and Sheila would not realise that he was in the house, and in their hurry forget about him. He could tell from the tone of his brother’s voice that he was not for it, but further conversation was cut short by Sheila calling out that she was ready to start.

Shortly afterwards William heard the three leaving the house and the car go off in the direction of Dublin. He waited for a few minutes to give the stranger time to get well away, then got out his bicycle, and with his revolver ready in his right hand, started off for Ballybor.

While William was riding for dear life to Ballybor, Sheila and Patrick were tearing across Ireland to fetch the arms for the ambuscade. They reached Dublin without any trouble, had a short rest and a meal, collected the arms from the secret hiding-place, and then started off on the return journey by a different route.

By previous arrangement they were met outside the town after dark by the local Volunteer captain and a party of men, who took over the arms from them, when they drove on home. Owing to the fact that they had left and returned at night, no one in the town had any idea that they had been away.

For some weeks past the police had been bringing tremendous pressure to bear on the rebels throughout the south and west, which pressure corresponded with the appointment of a new Inspector-General of the R.I.C. So strong was the pressure growing that the rebel staff were afraid of a collapse, and when their secret service learnt that the I.G. would be motoring to Ballybor on this particular Wednesday night, they determined to ambush him in Knockbrack Wood, and to kill him at all costs.

Knockbrack Wood lies along both sides of a main road for a distance of about a mile and a half, and in the middle the road makes a sharp bend to avoid a huge granite rock which towers above the trees and makes this corner quite blind. On the far side of this bend from the direction of Ballybor the road rises suddenly, so that a car going towards that place would be likely to approach the bend at a good pace, and be unable to avoid an obstacle or trench just round the corner.

Here it was settled to make the attempt on the I.G.’s life, and on the Wednesday the local Volunteers, under the direction of staff officers from Dublin, started to make the preparations. By dark all was complete, except to cut a trench across the road, and a large party of Volunteers had taken up positions on each side of the road at the bend.

It was expected that the I.G.’s car would be wrecked, or at any rate brought to a standstill, just beneath the big rock, on the top of which there was a bombing post, with orders to drop a flare as soon as the car was below, to enable the riflemen to aim in the dark, and to follow up the flare with a shower of bombs.

Patrick and Sheila waited until it was nearly dark, when they motored to Knockbrack Wood, leaving the car up a narrow lane in the wood, about a hundred yards from the big rock on the Ballybor side. They then retired to a safe distance to await events.

After several hours of waiting they left the wood and walked up and down the road to Ballybor, as by this time they were half frozen with cold. Shortly afterwards they were joined by the Volunteer captain, and as it would soon be daylight, Patrick suggested to him that the men should be sent home.

The Volunteer captain was a stupid fellow, and further, he resented any suggestion as to what he should do from Patrick; and the three of them—Sheila, Patrick, and the captain—began a heated argument in the middle of the road: the captain argued that an order was an order, and that he would keep his men there until the next night if necessary, or even longer.

Patrick saw the mistake he had made, shrugged his shoulders, and started to return to the car with Sheila.

Now their whole attention had been centred on the direction from which the I.G.’s car was expected to come, and the last thing they expected was a counter-attack from the direction of Ballybor; but as Patrick and Sheila turned to leave the Volunteer captain, they found themselves covered by a party of R.I.C., with Blake at their head, and at the same time heavy firing burst out in the wood on both sides of the road.

Patrick and Sheila had no alternative but to put up their hands, but the Volunteer captain tried to escape, and was promptly shot by a constable. Blake asked what they were doing at such an hour on the highroad, and Patrick was starting his usual story of how he and his sister were on their way from Dublin to attend an urgent case in the country, but when he caught sight of his brother William standing behind Blake, he faltered and remained dumb.

Before Blake could ask any more questions they had to jump to one side to avoid a Crossley full of Auxiliaries, which dashed past, and stopped a few yards beyond them, the Cadets at once jumping out and taking up positions on each side of the car with Lewis guns trained to sweep the road as far as the big rock. Blake, after ordering William and a constable to take Patrick and Sheila down the Ballybor road out of the line of fire until he could deal with them, took command of the Auxiliaries, and waited for the action to develop.

By this time it was daylight, and the police, who had worked round the flanks of the ambushers, began to make it pretty hot for the men in the trenches. Now it is one thing to shoot an unfortunate policeman perched up in a stationary lorry in the middle of the road, and quite a different story when the policeman starts to shoot you in the back from behind a tree, and very soon the Volunteers broke from their trenches and started to stream down the Ballybor road.

There was a momentary lull in the firing, broken by two hurricane bursts of fire from the Cadets’ Lewis guns, and the Volunteers fell in little heaps on the grey limestone road; the remainder hesitated, and then ran for their trenches, to be met by a hail of bullets from the police, who had taken up positions commanding the trenches while the Volunteers were trying to escape by the road. Again they tried to escape along the road, and again the Lewis guns spat out a magazine of bullets whilst a man could count five, the noise of the guns being intensified by the dead wall of trees.

The few Volunteers now left threw down their arms, put up their hands, and the fight was over.

In the meantime William had taken his brother and sister down the Ballybor road until they came to the lane where the car was, and here he told them to wait. After a few minutes Sheila asked him to send the constable out of hearing, as she wished to talk to him.

After the constable had retired up the lane there was a terrible silence for several minutes. Patrick and Sheila both realised too late that William must have been in the house when they started on their journey to Dublin for the arms, and that he must have gone straight to Ballybor to warn the police of the impending ambuscade. They knew that, even if they were not sentenced to death, they could not escape a long term of imprisonment, and that they had been betrayed by their own brother, but would not—or could not—realise that William had only done his duty.

Suddenly Sheila burst into a passionate denouncement of William’s treachery to his country and his own flesh and blood, to be stopped by Patrick with great difficulty, who, controlling his rising passion and terror by a great effort, implored William for their mother’s sake to let them escape while there was yet time. At any rate to let Sheila go—surely the British Government did not wage war on women.

Poor William was torn between love for his brother and sister and his duty to his King. In those short moments he went through the agony of hell, knowing well that if he refused to let them escape he would carry for the rest of his life the brand of Cain; on the other hand, if he let them go he would not only be betraying his King, but also he would ruin his own career, and probably Blake’s as well.

To William’s great credit be it said, his sense of duty prevailed, and he refused to let them go; and to his great relief the unhappy scene was cut short by the sudden appearance of Blake.

Shortly afterwards the constable returned, and reported to Blake that he had found a Red Cross car up the lane. Blake gave orders for the car to be brought on to the highroad, and after collecting his men, started for Ballybor with Patrick and Sheila prisoners in their own car.

V.
THE R.M.

Since the period of Charles Lever, no book of Irish life has equalled ‘Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.’ in successfully portraying the character or “chat” of the true western peasant; but, at the same time, this book only shows the social side of a Resident Magistrate’s life, and hardly does justice to his work in the wild parts of the south and west.

And of recent years the life led by Resident Magistrates has become more and more dangerous as the country became more and more unsettled. A D.I. can always take an escort with him, also he can go where and when he pleases; but an R.M. has to drive alone about the country, and, moreover, every one knows that at a certain hour on a certain day the R.M. will drive to a certain Petty Sessions Court, and after the Court is over he must drive home, though possibly by a different road. It is one thing to face death with half a score of rifles at your back, and quite a different tale unarmed and alone.

Soon after Blake came to Ballybor, the R.M. stationed there retired on pension, and in his place there came a young man, Anthony Mayne, who had served with distinction in an Irish regiment during the war. Being unmarried, Mayne took up his quarters in a small hotel close to the police barracks, and in a short time struck up a friendship with Blake.

In addition to attending at Ballybor Petty Sessions once a week, Mayne had to go to several other small towns twice a month. The district was very large, chiefly wild mountainous country, and some of the places were many miles from Ballybor, one place in particular, Ballyrick, being over thirty miles away on the shores of the Atlantic.

The first Court which Mayne attended happened to be at Ballyrick, probably one of the wildest and most thinly populated districts in Ireland. Soon after leaving Ballybor the road crossed a railway line by a level crossing close to the sea, and then ran for many miles between the sea and a chain of mountains to the small seaside town of Ballyrick.

Mayne found that the people of this district were a race of small men; they looked as though the terrific Atlantic gales had stunted them in the same way as the trees are stunted on this coast, and, moreover, their faces were not pleasing. During his first Court here the nature of the cases showed plainly that the chief amusement of the peasants was to beat and batter each other on all opportunities, especially on dark nights after a fair, and the distillation of illicit whisky their chief occupation.

In Ireland the penalty for harbouring, keeping, or concealing a still or illicit spirits is £100, which can be mitigated to £6, luckily no lower; and from time immemorial the custom of the shopkeeper class of magistrate has always been to reduce every fine to the minimum, with the natural result that the peasants have come to regard the £6 fine as the legal penalty for the bad luck of being caught by the police. £6 is a mere fraction of the profits of a successful brew of poteen, and is looked upon in the light of a tax paid to the Government.

In one case a man was caught red-handed by the police with fourteen barrels of treacle, 200 gallons of wash, a complete still, and enough poteen to stock a fair-sized public-house. The man brought the £6 into Court with him, being certain he would be convicted and fined the usual amount.

But Mayne, the only magistrate on the bench, took a very serious view of the case, knowing the amount of crime and misery caused by this abominable drink, and fined the man £50.

Such a sentence had never been heard in Ballyrick Court-house within the memory of man; even the police received a shock, and a noise resembling a swarm of angry bees arose to defy the shouts of the police for silence and order. That evening, when Mayne returned to Ballybor, he was followed by a police car for many miles, but the peasants had not had time to organise their revenge.

About this time the magistrates of the district received letters from the I.R.A. calling upon them to resign their Commissions of the Peace, and giving them a time limit. The shopkeeper and farmer class, being threatened with that savage scourge in Ireland, a boycott, had no alternative but to resign, which they did at once with great promptness and unanimity. In most cases the gentry hung on to their commissions, but refrained from appearing on the Bench at a time when their presence might have made all the difference.