Sunday, November 21st, Himself and I went to Howth, and spent all day
by the sea on that wild bit of foreland, which Dublin City has not
managed to tame. It was getting dusk as we came back on the tram. The
ride is long, and it was too late in the year for the tops of trams.
We were soon shivering and wanting to be back home. Then something
happened to make us forget the wind. As we came among the houses the
reflection of a great fire caught our eyes. It was on the far side of
the water, a strong, clear blaze, as if a ship were on fire.
“We must get along and see it,” said Himself. “What the deuce is it?”
“Government supplies, I bet. The Auxiliaries got bored and went to
sleep, and the Sinn Feiners came along.” But I was not joking in my
heart. I was feeling uneasy.
We did not go to the fire when the tram stopped at Nelson’s Pillar.
It was too late and too cold. We climbed down into the middle of an
ugly-looking crowd. A lorry passed quite close to us.
“Hello!” Himself exclaimed, “there’s a dead man!”
We stared after the lorry. The booted feet of a dead man poked out
of one end. The crowd stirred unpleasantly. What had happened? More
lorries, full of armed men, were following the first one. An armoured
car rolled by. They all passed over O’Connell Bridge and fled down the
quays towards the Castle. From the Castle another stream of lorries
passed towards the fire.
A newsboy came quite close calling out something, and we got a paper.
There, in great lines across the page, we read, “British Officers
Murdered In Bed.” We went home astounded.
The flat seemed unusually still. Mrs. Slaney heard us and came down the
stairs before we had shut the door. She looked a little shaken.
“Have you heard the news? Dreadful! Horrible! But I have no doubt they
deserved it.”
“You can’t approve of this?”
“No, I don’t approve of it. I don’t approve of shooting at all; but you
must remember how the Irish people are goaded.”
Without warning there was the sound of firing outside. We crowded to
the window in time to see an armoured car rolling by at the end of the
road, and people flying in all directions. A Lewis gun on top of the
car was firing shots into the air at intervals.
“That’s blank cartridge,” Himself said. “It’s to clear the streets.”
“There!” Mrs. Slaney exclaimed. “Why do they terrify innocent people
like that? No wonder the people of Ireland are bitter. Ireland is the
most crimeless country in the world when she is left alone.”
Mrs. O’Grady came in with our teapot.
“You’ll feel the better, mum, iv a cup of tea,” she declared. “It do be
dreadful, and all those beautiful young men.”
“I can’t understand why we didn’t hear the shooting this morning,” I
said. “It must have been all round.”
“I’ll leave you to your tea,” said Mrs. Slaney, who wanted to stay.
“You won’t be going out to-night. Perhaps you’ll come up and see me.”
“I’ll probably go and see what the fire is,” Himself answered. He
turned to me. “It’ll do you good to get out.”
Mrs. Slaney retreated, and Mrs. O’Grady nodded her head. “It’d be a
charity to leave her alone. She’s that frightened it would do her
good.” Then she went out.
“Well?”
“What a haul,” Himself exclaimed.
“How about poor 47?” I cried.
“He must be all right. His name’s not in the paper. We must look him
up.”
“Look his poor wife up.” And then I said, “Let’s have tea and get out
for a bit. I hate the feeling of this house.”
“We’d better get back before it’s late. It’s sure to be a disturbed
night. I expect they’ll make curfew earlier after this.”
As soon as I got into the street I felt better. The moving people gave
me confidence, although all through the city there was a feeling of
fear such as I cannot describe. Rumours of the Croke Park affair, where
a dozen people had been shot by the police at a football match, were
being whispered abroad; but nobody seemed to know much. We remembered
the dead man in the lorry.
The fire was burning out. We saw it now and then through the openings
of the streets; but we never got as far as it. It had long been dark,
and I soon found the night was getting colder and colder. Presently I
began to think a fire at home would be less dismal than this tramping
about in the dark. After half an hour everybody seemed to have gone
indoors, and there was danger of being curfewed if a sudden change was
made in the time.
We went back.
When we were indoors again shooting began all through the city. Patrols
were probably firing more blank cartridge to clear the streets. Down
the roads tramped soldiers in tin hats, and armoured cars rolled by.
We put out the light and leaned from the window watching. Now and then
some passing officer, fearful of a bomb, would shout, “Keep your heads
in.”
In the middle of it all Mrs. Slaney hustled into the room, giving us no
time to answer her knock.
“I have just been talking to a leading Sinn Feiner,” she announced,
“and those men who were shot this morning were all spies. I told you
that our boys must have had something definite against them.”
“I don’t think it makes it a bit better,” I declared. “A life is a
life, and it’s frightful to sneak into a man’s bedroom while he’s
asleep, and kill him in front of his wife.”
“It’s disgusting,” exclaimed Mrs. Slaney, “to think that English
officers and gentlemen will descend to such things. Monstrous! Before
the war such a thing was never heard of.”
“I think it a pity the Sinn Feiners murdered them.” I stuck to my guns
stoutly.
Mrs. Slaney borrowed the paper and departed.
“Her Sinn Feiners are all spies too,” I said, as soon as she had gone.
“What’s she talking about?”
Himself nodded. “In any case I take off my hat to spies, Sinn Feiners
or British. They have to be brave men. I should think a spy wants all
the qualities of a soldier, and many more besides.”
That was all I got out of him. We went to bed soon after, but not to
sleep, at least I did not. Desultory shooting and bombing went on all
night.
After “Bloody Sunday” as it came to be called, the world drew a
horrified breath over the men who were shot in bed. “Poor So-and-so
shot asleep. Frightful!” What of his wife who was not shot, but who
lost her reason three days after, and three weeks after lost her life
and her baby’s life; his wife, who for the rest of her brief life
saw men filing into the room, heard the sound of shooting, heard the
raiders laugh, saw them wash their hands after the killing?
What of the other wife who cried out to her husband and tried to
help him escape through the window, and saw his broken body on the
windowsill?
What of the wife, coming from her bath, who was confronted with five
men with revolvers? Pausing outside the bedroom door where her husband
was sleeping, she faced them, appearing not to notice their revolvers.
“Do you want my husband?” she asked, smiling. “He has just gone out,
but do come in and wait.” Her face was untroubled. “Or perhaps you can
leave a message,” she said. “I always take my husband’s messages, you
can trust me.”
The man mumbled something, and the party filed away.
What of the wife who was held by two men while her husband was shot in
front of her? When the raiders had left she found her husband still
alive. She rushed into the street, looking wildly for a doctor, praying
no doubt as she ran. She found a man and ran up to him.
“My husband has just been shot,” she gasped, “but he is alive. Will you
get a doctor, quick!”
“Alive! My God, I’ll finish him!” He went up the steps pulling out his
gun.
The Sinn Fein women fought and suffered for their men equally well,
lied for them, fetched and carried for them. The men had the limelight;
but with few exceptions the women were unknown, and were content to
be unknown. There was no reward for their services. I wonder how far
a national movement would go if there was no public recognition for
any one. A man unable to read about himself and his hunted companions
would cut a sorry figure. A man hanged for his cause would go far less
steadily to the scaffold without the support of the newspapers and the
crowd. But I fancy a woman would acquit herself in all circumstances
because her greatest instinct is service.