We did at last seem to be putting the winter behind, and like divers
in a sea, to be coming out of darkness and cold. Spring did seem to be
arriving. The sun shone, the days lengthened, and the leaves began to
poke out of the barren boughs of the lilacs and the hawthorns across
the way. One could not do other than grow cheerful with the carolling
birds. And surely the Republican Volunteers lying out on the mountains,
and surely the police driving up hill and down hill, found time to do
as we other men were doing?
These Volunteers lying in ambush, drunk with patriotism and hate, must
have been aware of the high blue sky, of the bright white clouds; they
must have raised their eyes now and then from the turn of the road
round which their prey was to come, to watch the birds wildly wheeling;
they must have felt the strong grass pushing up.
And the police driving, driving, driving, furious and foiled, seeking,
seeking, seeking their invisible enemy, above the throb of the engines
must have heard a little of the singing in the hedges, through the
reek of petrol must have drawn in a little of the bouquet of the
flowers.
With spring came rumours of a change in policy. It went from mouth to
mouth that the British Cabinet was debating a definite peace offer,
which would prove acceptable to the Republicans, or as an alternative,
the making of real war.
Could Britain survive the humiliation of a truce? Yes. Her very might
permitted her to take this step. Her strength was so overwhelming, and
so plainly had never been exerted to any extent, that she could make
an offer of peace without mortal injury to her prestige. There were no
doubt Republican Volunteers, men who had never had a taste of real war,
the war of heavy rifle fire and shell fire, who believed the Republican
Army the equal of the British Army in the open field; but these men
could not be many.
The rumour came and went, and came again.
Rumour brought other news besides talk of peace. The return of the sun
had laid the bogey of the long winter nights; but winter had left a
mark upon a good many people. Rumour said the men on the run were at
the end of their tether. The barber to Michael Collins reported that
the Minister of Finance jumped out of his skin at any sound. The barber
experienced a good deal of difficulty shaving the Minister. Possibly
the said Minister used a safety razor; but the whisper was a sign of
the times.
“What I notice most about our boys is the way they have aged,” Mrs.
Desmond Fitzgerald said to me. “Some of them, who were quite young men
at the Rising four years ago, walk and talk like middle-aged men.”
I asked Mrs. Fitzgerald how the leaders with a price on their heads
kept their nerve day after day, and her answer was they had no time to
think of danger because of the work to get through. These people slept
in a different house most nights of the week; but all arrangements were
made for them, and when they laid down to sleep, be it by night or by
day, they knew those round them put their safety first of all things.
They knew they were the chosen of a nation, which had lifted them out
of obscurity in a few brief years, and this must have been a stout prop
to their courage. Nevertheless, I have been assured the life told on
the stoutest, for in this warfare, carried on below the surface, it was
in the most secure moment a man found himself destroyed.
So spring brought rumours of peace, but did not bring peace. Attacks
upon the Crown Forces had increased, and though the Republican
Volunteers had returned to their old ambushing tactics, having found
the open skirmishing too costly, they carried out daring coups now and
then, which helped to restore the damage to their reputation caused by
their tactics in the cities.
Then one day I met a neighbour who told me her greengrocer, one of
the I.R.A., had announced that the six weeks to follow were to be the
worst weeks of the struggle. Lo! anything might happen to anybody at
any moment, and the most obscure citizen might find all in an instant
that though the age of chivalry might be dead, the age of romance still
existed.
One sunny day, when the wind was shaking open the lilacs across the
way, a thin stream of smoke curled up into the sky over the river, and
the word went round that the Customs House, the most beautiful building
in Ireland, was in flames.
I turned my steps that way. The wind was high, and there was little
hope for the building. I came in good time to the shabby streets, which
have an end upon the quays. The stream of smoke was rolling up, filling
all one part of the sky. I judged the building must be in its death
throes. At last, through a gap in the streets, I saw the Customs House
straight before me on the other side of the river, and on the quays on
this side all the world had gathered. When I emerged from my dive into
the mean streets, I came against a wedge of several thousand people.
They were from all parts of the city; but swallowing up all the others
were the denizens of this slum quarter.
There were women with babies, women without babies, and women who
might have had babies with them had the Volunteers delayed their
operations for a few weeks. There were urchins with boots and urchins
without boots, and half-grown people in their fathers’ coats, and
other half-grown people in their mothers’ skirts, and children who
would grow up into touts, and other children who would grow up into
beggar-women and flower-girls.
And here and there, like islands in a sea, were prosperous citizens;
high and low all brought to a single level by their curiosity. And,
of course, there were Republican Volunteers in the crowd, and perhaps
agents of the British secret service.
To the man who could bide his time the crowd presented a gap here
and a gap there, and I slipped into this place and slipped into that
place, and presently had a front row view of what was going forward.
The Liffey held us in check. It was a high tide, and the wind sent the
wave-tops into the air in spray. A quay was on the farther side, and
rising beyond, the lovely building of the Customs House, that morning
doomed to death and now in the agony.
“Sure, and it’s the clock is still going, God save us,” said a lady on
my left, drawing a shawl round her infant’s face, and giving it a jerk
to send it into dreamland.
“And Lady Liberty standing up there so brave, it’s her we must see come
down,” answered her crony.
“Indade, and I hear tell it’s Lady Hope up there,” retorted she of the
baby.
I looked up at the statue of Commerce, which crowned the dome of the
building. It seemed the final prize to which all the flames were
leaping.
There was a great to-do going on on the farther side, but the building
was large, and the space before it ample. The place was picketed by
military, and every now and then some Government motor would dash up
or roll away, bringing or carrying off military officials, police
officials, and less glorious officials in mufti.
Upon the face of the building firemen were at work, pigmy people of no
consequence beside the statue, who nevertheless seemed to be making a
last stand like warriors driven to the corners of their country.
For the wind blew steadily, and every now and then sprang upon the
great stone building in a squall, and the tops of the waves which held
us where we were, would fly off in spray. And the fiery heart of the
building would glow and redden and become fiercer, and the firemen
would doubly toil at the hose, which looked like the dead body of some
great sea-serpent lately come out of the river. Their backs would bend,
and it would come after them ever so unwillingly. And other firemen,
creeping about the grey face of the building upon their ladders, would
peer at the molten heart through some gaping window, and direct tons of
water within.
And then the wind would sigh and fall again, and the water roaring
down upon some outwork of the conflagration would batter it to death;
and a new wind springing up would blow like a giant’s bellows upon the
quenched sparks, blow a new fury of destruction into them, and they
would leap up again.
“Och, it’s a grander sight than the Post Office in Easter week.”
“It is, it is.”
Moving to and fro upon Butt Bridge, and moving up and down the quays,
were Crossley tenders with their load of police. Now and then a gust
of rage would seize those people, as indeed rage was consuming all
Ireland now, the tender would awaken to a new pace and come running
in the direction of the crowd, and a panic like a live thing, would
seize us; we would start running and bunch up into the alleyways. The
car would roll down to where we had been, and the men would lean over
its armoured sides, shaking their guns and grinding their teeth, as if
their dumb lips were shouting for the phantom enemy to come out of the
crowd and give them battle. The car would back and turn, and roll up
the quay towards the bridge again, and we would come out from our holes
like rats.
“Indade, and it’s shooting ye they would be if ye was to look at them,”
said a stout lady in a shawl, gazing up the quay after the departed
enemy.
“It’s grand they look in them hats,” said her daughter of twenty, who
had enjoyed the scuttle into covert, and was wiping her nose on her
finger.
“And it’s meself,” agreed the mother, “will be sad to see the last iv
the military, thieves and murderers as they are. It’s a grand sight is
the military.”
“Sure, and it’s our boys are going to show them the way out iv the
country. And it’s a grand sight our boys will look in green.”
“They will. Them Auxiliaries be good fighters. I hear tell this morning
they got out iv their motors and stood up there, and banged away with
their legs apart and their rifles to their shoulders. I hear tell
there was a girl standing by, and one iv them Auxiliaries, sez he to
she, ‘Lie ye down, mum, or it’s shot ye’ll be,’ and he puts her on the
ground, and his foot in the stomach iv her for to protect her, and he
goes on shooting, and its not a minute after he falls dead atop iv her
with a bullet to the heart.”
At the end of one of these panics, when the police had retreated up the
quay and we had emerged into the open, I found myself in a new place. I
started to gape across the river again just as somebody beside me said,
“How’s the world treating you?” I found 47 at my elbow.
“Hallo,” I said.
“Hallo,” he answered.
“Where have you sprung from?”
“I came along to see what was doing.”
“They’ve made a good job of it?” I suggested, nodding over the river.
“They have,” he admitted. “About their best stunt up to date.”
“Did you hear how they did it?” I asked.
“They arrived this morning in covered lorries, and brought the straw
and paraffin with them. I hear our people”--he dropped his voice as he
said our people--“have got over a hundred prisoners at the Castle, so
I don’t know how many there were on the job at the start. The Shinners
took the Customs House people by surprise, and, of course, there was
nobody armed to put up any resistance. They dismantled the telephones,
herded up the clerks into one part of the place, chucked paraffin and
straw all over the place, and set everything alight. They had taken
the precaution to send men to hold up the firemen at the two nearest
fire-stations. The coup was well planned, and they would probably have
got away scot free; but there’s a story that some pickets standing
on the bridge saw a tender of Auxiliaries coming along, got nervous,
thought they were discovered, fired on them, and that gave the show
away. In two minutes our fellows were pouring out of the Castle, and in
five minutes the place was surrounded. I understand the Shinners inside
went on with the work and completed it before they thought of escaping.
Some of the fellows taken had petrol on their clothes. There was quite
a good show for about twenty minutes between the Auxiliaries outside
and the Shinners trying to get out.”
“Did some chaps get done in?”
“Quite a lot.”
“They seem to have got the laugh on you fellows this time,” I said,
nodding over the river again.
“They have,” he agreed.
We stayed a few minutes watching the fire, and then I said, “How did
you find things up North?”
He gave me a look meaning there were better places for talking, and we
wormed our way to another part of the crowd. The view was not as good;
but there was plenty of elbow room.
“Have you been back long?” I asked.
“A day or two.”
“Well, what about things? What’s the good of you if you don’t amuse me?”
“I found the people up there another race as far as outsides go to
these people. In a way they’re the complement to the Southerners. If
you could scrap the religious question so that North and South could
intermarry, I believe a first-class race would be produced. I had a
look over the internment camp at Ballykinler while I was in that part
of the world.”
“What did you think of the place?”
“It was an internment camp. It doesn’t pretend to be anything better
than that. But it was quite a good camp as far as internment camps go.
There are about eighteen hundred fellows there in two big enclosures
they call cages. Men can go on the run in there if they like. That
gives you some idea of the size of the place.”
“It’s pretty country, isn’t it?”
“In good weather; but the men can’t see much more than the mountains.
Weather has a lot to do with making a place of that sort bearable or
not. The fellows who arrived in the winter must have found it pretty
ghastly; but the fellows arriving now haven’t much to complain of
beyond the loss of their liberty. In fact, fellows from the slums and
from poor country homes were never better off in some ways.”
“That may be; but it must be pretty deadly putting in time.”
“They’ve plenty to do, especially if they like work. The organisation
there is quite good. The men are more or less under military
discipline, their own military discipline. There’s a commandant, who
is an internee, to each cage, and orders trickle through from him. In
fact, I find responsible Sinn Feiners saying that it would be a good
thing for the nation if all the uneducated fellows could be roped into
one of these camps for a bit.”
“They’re educated free, gratis and for nothing?” I asked.
“Arrivals are taken to the commandant’s office and are put through
it there, for they are very afraid of spies, and everybody suspects
everybody else. Each hut has an intelligence officer to find out what
he can about his men, to prevent them talking rashly, and to keep note
of all that goes on outside the cages. They try to take the numbers of
motor-cars, to remember any faces they can get a glimpse at for future
reference, and to glean any information that’s going.”
“But what’s taught?”
“Irish first and foremost. There used to be daily drills; but it
has been put a stop to. There’s not much doubt that they still hold
military classes in the huts. There appear to be all sorts of other
classes--book-keeping, shorthand, and lots of commercial things.
There’s a sprinkling of educated chaps among the others. Let’s see
what else? There’s football and that kind of thing. There are shops
of sorts, too. A young chap can knock a bit of fun out of things. The
people who find conditions hardest are elderly cultivated men, and,
of course, it must be the devil for fathers of families, who must be
wondering whether their people are starving or not.”
“What are the rations like?”
“The same as the soldiers, and if anybody goes short it’s the soldiers.
There’d be such a fuss otherwise. At first the Tommies cooked for them;
but they made such a fuss they were allowed their own cooks, and the
military cooks were left to do their worst among their own people.
There are a good many food complaints, chiefly from chaps who never had
a square meal in their lives before. Their people send parcels, to the
sorrow of the censors, who have to probe into cakes and gape into pots
of jam for messages. And some devoted mothers send meat, which goes
bad.”
“To the still greater sorrow of the censors?”
“The fellows have built their own chapel and furnished it, and services
are held by an interned priest.”
“I suppose letters are censored?”
“Every one of them. It’s the devil’s own job. I gave a hand for a bit.
I found it stupefying. Of all the letters I opened, only one remained
in my mind five minutes after. It was an in-going letter, a love
letter from a girl, a school teacher. This delightful writer had ideals
and liked nice things, and he, it seemed, was rather uncouth. She was
telling him what he must be dressed in, and how he must look when he
came first to see her after release. There were pages of the letter
full of tender urgings and gentle reasonings. A fellow feels rather
guilty having to put his nose into a thing like that.”
I nodded my head.
“One thing the letters did, they proved how thoroughly the rank and
file were under the whip of the leaders. On the days of the out-going
mail some leading spirit seemed to order what opinion was to be
expressed on this or that event, for in most of the letters there was
a single well-turned sentence blooming like a rose in the desert of
illiteracy. The brain reeled finding the same thing, said more or less
correctly, over and over again. Oh, and another thing these letters did
was to make one realise how real a thing religion was to a good many of
these people.”
I was looking at the burning building. “I don’t believe that dome is
going to go this afternoon.”
“Neither do I, and I can’t wait for it anyhow.”
“Were you at the camp long?”
“Only a day or two. I was on other business. I’m off.”
“When are we going to see you again?”
“We’ll run across each other soon. I don’t suppose I shall be leaving
Dublin again.”
I knew once 47 intended to go nothing stopped him. I gave a flourish of
my hand, and he flourished his and left me.
He had not gone very long when the Auxiliaries paid us another of their
intermittent visits, panic swept over us again, and we retreated to our
holes to the sound of hundreds of steps pattering on the quay. These
terrible men came along again, leaning over the armoured sides of the
car, flashing their eyes, grinding their teeth, waving their guns and
crying, “Move along there,” and then, their fury eased, they turned the
car about and sped back to Butt Bridge.
The crowd had thinned a good deal since I came, and there was plenty of
room to move about. This time who should I run across but Mrs. Slaney?
She was standing very stiffly contemplating the burning building.
“It seems rather a pity,” I said.
For once she appeared a little abashed. A great flurry of wind came
along, and the inferno within the stone walls glowed, and flames pushed
through the stone crevices here and there, leapt out of the windows,
climbed through the roof, and turning into smoke, went whirling into
the sky. Great pieces of charred material went floating like black
birds into the air. All eyes were fixed on the clock, which continued
to tick.
“It was the most beautiful building in Ireland,” Mrs. Slaney said.
“Many a time I have been in there when I was a girl with my cousins,
who held their heads very high on the north side of the city. It
seems unfortunate that the Volunteers should have considered it
necessary to burn it.” Then the old fire came back. “But England is
to blame, England for what has happened. The Customs House represents
to us the very heart of England. After Dublin Castle everything that
is iniquitous in English rule is most strongly represented by that
building. England has caused the ruin of that place just in the same
way as she caused the destruction of the Post Office, another of our
beautiful buildings.”
I departed before very long, vanquished. The clock was still going
at the time; but it had stopped before next morning. The following
afternoon I was down that way again when the dome, which seemed to
be supporting the statue of Commerce, capitulated. The flames pushed
through its joints, like the edges of some starving tongue thrusting
up from within; it crumpled, it palpitated, it curled in agony, it
disappeared. But the statue stood, defying the lust of the great crowd
gathered to see it crash down to the pavement, and was standing high
over the wreckage after the last spark had been quenched.
This coup of the Republican Volunteers, though one of the most
brilliant they had carried out, was never mentioned with special
satisfaction even in the ranks of Sinn Fein. There was regret in the
note of rejoicing. Ireland had lost her finest building.