TALES OF THE
R.I.C.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TALES OF THE
R.I.C.
William Blackwood and Sons
Edinburgh and London
1921
_ALL RIGHTS RESERVED_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE INFORMER 1
II. ON THE RUN 20
III. THE LANDING OF ARMS 37
IV. THE RED CROSS 54
V. THE R.M. 69
VI. AN OUTLAW 79
VII. THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES 97
VIII. MR BRIGGS’ ISLAND 108
IX. THE REWARD OF LOYALTY 120
X. POTEEN 137
XI. THE MAYOR’S CONSCIENCE 152
XII. A BRUTAL MURDER 166
XIII. SEAL ISLAND 176
XIV. A FAMILY AFFAIR 191
XV. THE AMERICAN NURSE 208
XVI. FATHER JOHN 223
XVII. THE BOG CEMETERY 236
XVIII. A JEW IN GAELIC CLOTHING 253
XIX. MOUNTAIN WARFARE 262
XX. THE GREAT ROUND UP 281
XXI. THE TRUCE 300
TALES OF THE R.I.C.
[Illustration]
I.
THE INFORMER.
In many parts of the west of Ireland one finds small mountain farms of
from five to twenty acres, generally consisting of twenty-five per cent
rock, twenty-five per cent heather, and the remainder of indifferent
grass-land. On such a farm a peasant will rear a large family, and how
it is done is one of the mysteries of Ireland; but done it is, and
often.
Patsey Mulligan was one of a family of ten, brought up on one of these
farms until he was seventeen, when his father told him that it was time
he thought of keeping himself, and, incidentally, of earning some money
for his mother. Patsey quite agreed with his father, but soon found that
it was much easier to talk of getting work in such a poor district as
Cloonalla than to get it.
In the end Patsey made up his mind that the only thing to do was to go
to England in search of work, and one cold winter’s morning he set off
from his home, in company with three other lads from the same townland,
to walk the fifteen miles across the mountains and bogs to the nearest
railway station at Ballybor. Arriving in England, they made their way to
a town in Yorkshire, where one of them had a brother working in a
coal-mine, and within three days of leaving his home in Ireland Patsey
found himself a Yorkshire miner.
Hardly had he settled down to his work in the coal-mine when the war
broke out, followed by a rush of young miners to enlist, amongst others
Patsey Mulligan; and before he realised what he was doing, he was a full
private in a famous Yorkshire regiment. Patsey had, however, enlisted in
the name of Murphy, hoping to keep his people in ignorance of the fact,
knowing it would break his mother’s heart if she knew he was fighting.
Patsey thoroughly enjoyed the training, and within seven months of
enlisting embarked for France; and after a few weeks’ pleasant life in
billets, gradually moved north until finally the battalion took over
trenches in the famous salient of Ypres—a great contrast to Patsey’s
home in the west of Ireland.
There happened to be in the battalion a young Irish subaltern by name
Anthony Blake, and when Blake told his Company Sergeant-Major to find
him a servant—an Irishman if possible—Patsey at once volunteered for the
job, and between the two young Irishmen there soon sprang up a
friendship through the common bond of danger and discomfort.
After some time Patsey learnt through one of the boys with whom he had
first crossed to England that his mother was dangerously ill, and that
she had repeatedly written to Patsey to come home and see her before she
died, but had naturally received no answer. In his trouble he appealed
to Blake, and that night found him waiting at Popperinghe Station for
the leave train with a return-warrant to Ballybor in his pocket.
On his arrival at Ballybor he set out on his long fifteen-mile tramp to
his home at Cloonalla, and late on a summer’s evening the family of
Mulligan were startled by a British soldier in full marching order
walking into their home.
Before his mother died she made Patsey promise that he would not go back
to France, and that he would stay at home and help his father to mind
the other children. It is hard for a son to refuse his dying mother, and
doubly so for an Irish boy.
When his mother’s funeral was over, Patsey buried his uniform and
equipment in a bog-hole at night; but his rifle he hid in the thatch of
an outhouse, and it was given out in the neighbourhood that he had been
discharged from the Army as medically unfit.
After the usual time Patsey was posted as a deserter in his battalion;
Blake found a new servant and forgot all about his late one, while
Patsey settled down to work with his father, and the memory of Blake and
the British Army faded from his mind.
Though wounded three times, Blake was one of the lucky men to return
home to Ireland at the end of the war, and at once set about looking for
a job. The son of a country doctor in the south of Ireland, at the
outbreak of war he had just left school, and had not had time to settle
on a career.
But if in England it was hard for ex-officers to get employment, in
Ireland it was doubly so; and Blake soon found that it was next to
impossible for a man who had worn the King’s uniform to get any work or
appointment. The power of Sinn Fein was beginning to be felt in the
land, and though many people would have gladly employed men returned
from the front, they dared not.
At last, when he had quite given up hope, he received by post an offer
to join the newly-formed Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish
Constabulary, and, gladly jumping at such an offer, was soon in training
at the depot in Dublin. After a tour of duty in the south, the
authorities offered him a cadetship in the R.I.C., and in the course of
two months Blake found himself the District Inspector at Ballybor.
At this time the R.I.C., after about as bad a hammering as any force
ever received, were beginning to get their tails up again; and whereas
previously no policeman dared show his face outside his barracks after
dark, they were now occasionally sending out strong patrols at
night-time, to the great concern of the local Sinn Feiners, who for a
considerable time had had things all their own way in the south and
west.
The police district of Ballybor is, like many others in the west of
Ireland, large, consisting chiefly of mountains, bogs, lakes, and a few
small scattered villages, some of them hidden away in the mountains—an
ideal district in peace time for a D.I. who is fond of shooting and
fishing, but in war time a hard district to control with the small force
of police at a D.I.’s disposal.
Previous to Blake’s arrival all the barracks in the district had been
vacated with the exception of Ballybor and “Grouse Lodge,” a small
barrack at the foot of the mountains in the Cloonalla district; and as
each barrack was vacated, it was blown up or burnt by the local
Volunteers.
In all former rebellions in Ireland the Government have found that to
get information it was only necessary to pay money. Sometimes it did not
cost much, other times they had to pay generously, but always money
produced information; and at the beginning of the Sinn Fein trouble the
Government naturally assumed that money would produce the informers as
before. But this time they were wrong, and it was only—when the
Government were at their wits’ end—by a lucky chance of finding
important papers on a man, who was shot at night during a military raid
on a Dublin hotel, that at last they received the information which
enabled them to grapple successfully with Sinn Fein.
There is no doubt that the originators of Sinn Fein had read their
country’s history carefully, and were determined that this time there
should be no informers; and to this end they organised a “Reign of
Terror” throughout Ireland such as few countries have ever seen at any
time in history. Their chief obstacle was the R.I.C., and once this
force was reduced to a state of inactivity—they thought they had broken
it for good and all—their task appeared comparatively easy. Every man,
woman, and child in the south and west of Ireland knew that if they gave
any information to the police they would be shot, and shot they were.
When Blake took over his duties at Ballybor, he found that the police
had no source of information whatsoever, with the result that each
attack on a barrack and every ambush of a patrol came as a surprise to
them. So great was the “Reign of Terror” in the Ballybor district that
no person dare speak to a policeman, and the shopkeepers were afraid to
serve one, even with the necessities of life.
Blake quickly realised that if he was ever to get the upper hand in his
district, he must discover some source of getting information, and find
it quickly, before the whole population were driven to join forces
against him.
One of Sinn Fein’s principles has been that the fewer who know the fewer
can tell, and, as a rule, there has only been one man in a
district—usually the local captain of the Volunteers—who has information
of coming events; and Blake knew that his only chance of reliable news
lay with this man, and with him alone.
About the only information which his men could give him of his area was
that a young man, who lived in the townland of Cloonalla, named Patsey
Mulligan, was the captain of the local Volunteers, and that his house
was close to the barracks at Grouse Lodge; so he determined to go out to
Grouse Lodge Barracks and stay there until he had either come to terms
with Patsey Mulligan, or saw that it was hopeless.
On a fine winter’s morning Blake set out from the barracks at Ballybor
in the Crossley tender with an escort of six police, the most he dared
take with him for fear of weakening the Ballybor garrison. It was
market-day in the little town, and all along the road to Grouse Lodge
they met the country people coming in—some in horse-carts, others in
ass-carts, and the poorer ones on foot—but not one of them would speak
to or even look at the police, the people on foot even getting off the
road into the fields directly they caught sight of the police-car
approaching.
On learning from one of the constables that Mulligan’s house was not on
the main road to Grouse Lodge Barracks, but on a byroad, Blake ordered
the driver to go by this road, and when he came to Mulligan’s house to
stop the car and pretend that something required adjusting in his
engine. After a time the driver stopped outside an ordinary thatched
cottage on the side of the road, and, as Blake had expected, the
inhabitants came to the door to see who it was.
The first to appear was a young man, and as the constable whispered to
Blake that he was Patsey Mulligan, Blake nearly shouted for joy, for he
saw that the man was none other than “Murphy,” his former servant in
France, and a deserter from his Majesty’s Army in the field!
At once, before Patsey could get a good look at him and possibly
recognise him, Blake ordered the driver to go on to the barracks as fast
as the bad road would allow them.
The question now was how to get hold of Mulligan alone, and this was
settled by the information which a constable at Grouse Lodge was able to
give. It appeared that this plucky constable had for some time past been
in the habit of slipping out of the barracks by the back entrance at
night in plain clothes and returning before daybreak. He had discovered
that Mulligan was in the habit of meeting a girl nearly every night at a
certain lonely spot about a mile from his house; and from overhearing
their conversation, had found out that Patsey wanted to marry this girl,
but that she had refused to marry him until he had enough money to take
her out of the country and to buy a small farm in America.
On questioning this constable, Blake was able to get a detailed account
of Mulligan’s movements since the time of his desertion. It appeared
that for a considerable time after he came back he hardly left his home
at all, contenting himself by working on his father’s farm, and it was
not until the Sinn Fein Volunteers were started in the district and
Mulligan was elected captain that he appeared in public.
About the same time there was a report in the neighbourhood that Patsey
Mulligan was courting a girl called Bridgie O’Hara, who lived in the
Cloonalla district; also that another man in the same townland with
money was doing his best to make her marry him.
Bridgie had two brothers in the Royal Irish Constabulary, and as the
Sinn Fein movement grew stronger and the resistance of the Government
weaker, the Volunteers started to boycott the O’Hara family. So savage
had the boycott become lately that not a soul dared speak to them, and
it was only by going to a town several miles away that they were able to
obtain food.
As soon as it was dark that night Blake and the constable, both in plain
clothes, slipped out at the back of the barracks and made their way to
Mulligan’s trysting-place. As usual, Mulligan and Bridgie met, and when
they parted Blake and the constable followed Mulligan until the girl was
well out of hearing, when they called on him to halt, at the same time
covering him with their automatics.
Mulligan at once stopped and put up his hands, but did not speak, and
while Blake continued to cover him, the constable searched him for arms.
Blake then ordered Mulligan to walk in front of him until they came to a
mountain track which was off the road; leaving the constable on guard,
he ordered Mulligan to walk up the track in front of him.
After they had gone about a hundred yards, Blake stopped and asked
Mulligan if he knew that he was liable to be arrested and shot for
desertion from the British Army, and waited to see the effect of his
words, as the whole success of his plan depended on this.
By now Mulligan had recognised Blake’s voice, and knowing well what
would happen to him if he fell into the hands of the military, fell on
his knees and begged Blake to spare him. Blake at once explained his
terms, which the boy eagerly accepted, thankful to get off at any price,
though not counting the cost and danger of what he was doing.
Blake’s terms were that Mulligan should give him information well
beforehand of every contemplated outrage in the district, and, in
return, promised him, on behalf of the British Government, a free
pardon, £500, and a passage for himself and Bridgie to any country he
wished to go to, but not until the Sinn Fein movement was crushed in the
district.
As it happened, only the evening before, Bridgie had told Patsey that
she could not stand the boycott any longer, and that if he could not
take her away to America at once she would marry Mike Connelly; hence
the promise of the £500 seemed to poor Patsey like a gift from heaven.
It was arranged, in order that no suspicion should be drawn down on him,
that Mulligan should leave his letter at night-time when going to meet
Bridgie O’Hara under a certain large stone a few feet from where they
were, near the point where the track and road met. As there was nothing
more to settle, Blake told Mulligan to go home at once, while he and the
constable made their way back to the barracks, and the following day
Blake returned to Ballybor.
At this time Blake found that several of his men showed a strong
disinclination to leave the barracks, and remembering how hard it used
to be sometimes during the war to get men who had been stuck in trenches
for months to go “over the top,” he decided to organise strong daylight
patrols so that each man should leave his barracks for a certain number
of hours every day. In addition to patrols round Ballybor, he sent out a
strong patrol on certain days to work its way across country—always by a
different route—to Grouse Lodge Barracks, where the patrol spent the
night, returning to Ballybor across country the following day.
Taking advantage of mistakes made in other parts of the country, he sent
no patrols on the main routes, but made them all go across country, only
using the roads for short distances when they were open, and when it was
practically impossible to be ambushed.
For some time there came no information from Mulligan, and when at last
a note was brought from him from Grouse Lodge, it only contained the
laconic news that the price for shooting a policeman had gone up from
£60 to £100; and though no further message came from Mulligan for
another ten days, as no outrages had been committed during this time,
Blake had no reason to think that he was not fulfilling his part of the
bargain.
Early one morning a bicycle patrol arrived at Ballybor Barracks from
Grouse Lodge, and the constable who had been with Blake the night he met
Mulligan handed him a note to the effect that two car-loads of arms were
to arrive in the Cloonalla district that night for the purpose of an
attack on Grouse Lodge Barracks the following night. Mulligan gave the
route the cars would take, but did not state at what hour they might be
expected.
On looking at an Ordnance map, Blake noticed that the cars would have to
pass through a small wood, and that the road took a sharp bend where it
entered the wood. Taking a leaf out of the Sinn Feiners’ book, he
determined to ambush the cars at the bend, and to try and seize cars and
arms.
The difficulty was to know what to do with the cars once they had gained
possession of them. The Volunteers would no doubt collect in the
Cloonalla district to take over the arms, hence it would be dangerous to
attempt to take them to Grouse Lodge Barracks, which was much the nearer
barrack to the proposed scene of the ambush; so in the end he settled,
if he came off victorious, to take the cars by byroads to Ballybor and
risk being attacked in the town at night. A few days before this Blake
had received his first batch of “Black and Tans,” bringing his force up
to a respectable number, so felt quite justified in making the attempt.
As soon as it was dark that night, Blake with five of his men left
Grouse Lodge, and made their way by the starlight across country to the
wood. The men brought axes with them, and soon had the road blocked with
two small fir-trees, after which they took cover on each side of the
road and waited.
At ten the moon rose and the night still remained fine, but it was not
until after two that they heard the cars approaching. The leading car
came round the bend at a good pace, pulling up just clear of the
barricade, while the second car, failing to see the obstacle on the
road, was unable to pull up in time, and ran into the back of the
leading car.
Blake at once stood up and called on the men—there were two in each
car—to put up their hands; but for answer they opened fire with
automatics in the direction of Blake’s voice, whereupon the police fired
a volley at the cars, and three of the men were seen to collapse, after
which the fourth put up his hands.
They found that two of the men were dead, while the third was shot
through the chest. After removing all papers and arms from the dead men,
they hid their bodies in the wood, removed the trees from the road, and
started off to Ballybor, where they arrived without mishap, and soon had
the two cars safely in the barrack-yard.
On investigation they found that the cars contained thirty carbines and
rifles, several thousand rounds of ammunition, and two boxes of
home-made bombs.
This capture had a great effect on the police _morale_ in the district,
and, in fact, marked the turning-point in the Sinn Fein campaign in that
area, while the two captured cars made a welcome addition to the police
transport.
Shortly afterwards Blake received a warning from Mulligan to expect an
attack on a named night on the barracks in Ballybor, and that an attempt
would be made to blow up the gable-end of the barracks. The night before
the expected attack Blake brought all the men that could be spared with
safety from Grouse Lodge, and made his preparations for defence.
The attack opened with heavy rifle-fire from all the surrounding houses,
which drove the unfortunate inhabitants of Ballybor in terror from the
town, and after an hour a determined rush was made under heavy covering
fire to ram the barrack door; but the fire of the police forced them to
drop the ram and run for shelter. Only one attempt was made to blow up
the gable, the police allowing the attackers to start laying the
gelignite, and then dropping a Mills bomb from the window above, where a
projecting V-shaped steel shutter had been put up, with deadly effect.
After this the attackers kept up an intermittent rifle-fire for another
two hours, and towards daybreak withdrew, leaving the police victorious;
and although several men had been seen to fall during the attempt to ram
the door, by the time it was light their bodies had been removed.
A subsequent attack on Grouse Lodge Barracks was also successfully
beaten off without any police casualties; but an attempt Blake made to
capture an important Volunteer staff-officer in the Cloonalla district
one night failed—the bird had flown a quarter of an hour before the
patrol surrounded the house where he had been staying.
This attempt to seize the staff-officer convinced the Volunteers that
there was a traitor in the district, and a Volunteer intelligence
officer was sent down forthwith from Dublin to investigate.
Blake now felt that he was really beginning to break the Sinn Fein in
his district, and decided to take the offensive to the full extent of
his power. Not only did he have the town and country patrolled night and
day, but he also sent out parties of “Black and Tans” to search houses
in the country for suspected stores of arms, and also to try and obtain
information by all means in their power.
Though at this time the people were beginning to get restive under the
Sinn Fein tyranny, yet so great was the terror that not a single person
in the whole district dared to give the police one word of information
of his own will; and though the information from Mulligan was of vital
importance as regards attacks and movements by the Volunteers, yet Blake
was still in complete ignorance of the names of the most dangerous Sinn
Feiners.
Blake felt that he was winning, but he knew that there would be no peace
or rest in his district until he had arrested the leaders: the others
would then be like sheep without a shepherd. To this end an interview
with Mulligan was necessary, in order to get from him the names of these
leaders.
This time Blake waylaid Mulligan as he was going to meet Bridgie O’Hara,
and at once saw that the boy’s nerve was fast breaking. Mulligan gave
him the names and addresses he wanted readily enough, and then implored
Blake to have him arrested at once and taken to a place of safety, as he
was in terror of his life.
He told Blake that the Volunteers were already suspicious of him, and
that an intelligence officer had been specially sent down from Dublin to
watch him and report on the leakage of information, and that he could
not stick it any longer. Blake, knowing that once Mulligan was removed,
he would not get any information at all, managed after a long argument
to persuade him to carry on a little longer, by promising to arrest him
when the other leaders were taken.
After parting from Blake the unhappy Mulligan met his girl, who by this
time was half-mad from the misery of the boycott of her family. In
despair she told him she had made up her mind to marry Connelly, and
they would sail for America as soon as they could get passports.
Patsey, at the end of his tether and racked with terror, implored her to
wait a little longer, saying that very soon he would have £500, and
directly he got the money he would take her away.
The girl went home in the seventh heaven of delight, forgot all about
the promises of silence she had made to Patsey, and told her mother,
who, of course, told her husband, and it was not many days before the
good news was common property in the district. A few days afterwards the
intelligence officer returned to his H.Q.’s—his mission was fulfilled.
Having got the ringleaders’ names, Blake at once set about his plans for
arresting them, realising that not until they were safe under lock and
key could he truthfully say that he had won; but it is one thing to
arrest two or three men, and quite a different story to arrest thirty or
forty, as, if not all arrested at the same time, the majority would get
warning and disappear on the run.
Once again Blake met Mulligan at night, and arranged with him to call a
meeting of the ringleaders the following Sunday at early Mass outside a
wayside chapel in the Cloonalla district, when he proposed to arrest
them, and promised Mulligan he would be separated from the others at
once and conveyed to England on a destroyer. At first Mulligan refused,
being now demented with the fear of assassination, but when promised the
payment of the £500 on his arrival in England, he consented.
Blake arranged that on the following Sunday morning as many men as could
be spared should be sent from Grouse Lodge and Ballybor Barracks to meet
near the Cloonalla chapel at the same time, when he hoped to surround
the crowd and make the arrests without any difficulty.
On a typical soft Irish morning Blake and his men set out early from
Ballybor Barracks on their drive to the chapel, full of hope that the
day’s work would clinch his victory, and that then he would apply for
leave, as the strain of the last few months was beginning to tell on
him, and he needed a rest badly.
When the Crossley was within half a mile of the chapel and still out of
view from there, Blake stopped the car, got out his men, and proceeded
to surround the chapel, while Blake himself advanced alone towards the
chapel gates. When he drew near he could see that the road in front of
the gates was a mass of country people, who did not move until Blake got
close to them, when they divided, forming a lane towards the gates.
And to his last day Blake will never forget the sight which met his eyes
as he advanced through the people in a deathly silence. Lashed to one of
the pillars of the chapel gates was the body of the unfortunate Patsey
Mulligan with two bullet-holes through his forehead, and pinned on his
chest a sheet of white paper bearing the single word TRAITOR, while at
his feet lay poor Bridgie O’Hara, her body heaving with sobs, and her
long dark hair, which had been cut off, lying on the ground beside her.
II.
ON THE RUN.
Paddy Flanagan stood in the doorway of his small shop in the main street
of the mean and dirty little village of Ballyfrack, watching the rain
coming down in torrents, while he listened with one ear to his wife
arguing with a countrywoman in the shop behind him over the price of
eggs, and with his other ear for the high-pitched sound of a powerful
car.
Presently the woman in the shop, having sold her eggs and bought
provisions, wrapped her shawl over her head and started to make her way
home. As Paddy moved aside to let the woman out, his ear caught the
dreaded sound he was expecting, growing louder every second, and
culminating in a shower-bath of mud as two Crossley tenders, full of
Auxiliary Cadets, dashed past the shop and disappeared as suddenly as
they had come.
Hardly had the noise of the engines died away than Paddy’s quick ear
caught the sound of cars approaching again, and two Ford cars—the first
carrying a huge coffin and the second apparently mourners—drew up at the
small hotel almost opposite Paddy’s shop.
Some two years previously Flanagan had become a rabid Sinn Feiner—he had
previously been as rabid a Nationalist—with a keen eye to business. For
a long time it looked as though Sinn Fein was the only horse in the
race, and the dream of an Irish Republic seemed more than likely to
become a reality; lately, however, the British Government had been
sitting up and taking a quite unnecessary interest in Ireland.
First, the British Government had formed the Auxiliary Division—“those
cursed pups of Cromwell,” as Paddy described them to his friends, while
Mrs Paddy used to say that the Government had recruited them from all
the prisons and asylums in England; then, to crown all, the Government
had had the audacity to put several counties within easy reach of
Ballyfrack under martial law.
So far Paddy had carried on the war for freedom with words only, but a
week before this story starts he had found to his great alarm that he
would be called upon for deeds. On a dark Sunday night, just as the
Flanagans were preparing to go to bed, there came two short sharp knocks
at the shop door, followed by a long one.
Now Paddy had always had a great dread of night work, and swore that
come what might he would not open his door to any man, be he policeman
or Sinn Feiner: for a minute there was a tense silence in the stuffy
dark shop, save for the heavy breathing of Mrs Flanagan, broken suddenly
by a blow which threatened to break in the street door, and a loud voice
called out to Flanagan to open in the name of the Irish Republican Army.
“God save us,” said Mrs Flanagan, and dived under the bed; and Paddy
would have liked to follow his wife, but he had heard of the unpleasant
results which always followed a refusal to open to the I.R.A. Before
another blow could be struck on the door he had it open, and at once
three dark figures slipped into the shop, the last one closing the door.
And in the darkness of the shop Paddy Flanagan listened to his fate: it
seemed that in the adjoining county, where martial law had recently been
proclaimed, the military were making life quite unbearable for the
Volunteers, and the Auxiliaries had openly declared that they would
shoot John O’Hara—the chief assassin of policemen in that county—at
sight.
Before Flanagan could realise the horror of the situation, two of the
men had disappeared into the night, and he found himself face to face
with the notorious John O’Hara, with instructions to pass him on without
fail to the port of Ballybor (some eighty miles), where O’Hara would be
smuggled on board a vessel bound for England.
It was some considerable time before Flanagan could induce his wife to
come out from under the bed and produce a meal for O’Hara. Before they
went to sleep his wife reminded Flanagan—quite unnecessarily—of the fate
which the Auxiliaries and “Black and Tans” had assigned to any one who
gave shelter or help to John O’Hara.
For days past Paddy had been racking his brains, spurred on by the
laments of his wife, how to get rid of O’Hara, and every day the danger
seemed to grow greater, until at last Paddy could stand it no longer.
The outstanding feature in a western peasant’s character is always
curiosity, and the longer Paddy stood in the doorway of his shop gazing
at the coffin on the car, the greater his curiosity became. He had never
seen so big a coffin; if there was a man inside he must be the “devil of
a fellow and all,” but perhaps it might be a woman—until at last the
coffin drew him as a magnet draws a needle.
A close inspection of the two cars told him nothing, so there only
remained to go inside in the hope of meeting the occupants. Inside the
hotel he found the mourners seated round the fire in a back room,
drinking porter and discussing the disappearance of John O’Hara, and
after ordering a drink he drew a chair up to the fire and joined in the
general conversation.
Paddy soon found out that the coffin contained the body of a policeman
who had been murdered in a recent ambush in the adjoining county, and
his relatives were bringing his body home, a village close to Ballybor.
Probably the name of the town gave Paddy the idea, but in a flash he saw
his way clear to get rid of O’Hara, and that at once—if a dead policeman
could be taken in the coffin to Ballybor, why not the live John O’Hara?
For the next two hours Paddy plied the relations of the dead policeman
with porter, whisky, and poteen, and by that time had learnt all he
wanted to know: they had permits to the police for the two cars to
travel to Ballybor, they were all strong and noisy patriots (in spite of
the murdered policeman outside), and were as ready as the next man to
turn an honest penny.
Now Flanagan, being no fool, knew that no sane man—drunk or sober—would
take upon himself the responsibility of John O’Hara unless he was forced
to, and bearing this in mind during the negotiations which followed, he
used the threat of the magic letters “I.R.A.” freely—pretending that he
himself was a member of the dreaded Inner Circle. In the end, after much
drink and a lot of haggling, it was settled that the cars should be
taken into the hotel yard for the night.
Then, during the night, the policeman’s body was to be removed to a
hay-loft and buried secretly the following night, under arrangements to
be made by Flanagan, in a bog outside the village, where several
unfortunate Volunteers, who had fallen in an attack on the local police
barracks, were buried. Meanwhile the hotel boots, who was a carpenter by
trade, would make ventilation holes in the coffin, and the “funeral”
party would set off for Ballybor before daybreak.
The last part of the negotiations resembled the selling of a horse at a
fair, and the price he had to pay sobered Flanagan and nearly turned his
hair white,—not one yard would they go with O’Hara until they got £100;
but by now Flanagan was desperate, and if they had demanded £200 he
would have paid it.
At last all the details were settled, and Flanagan went home to warn
O’Hara of his coming journey in the coffin: the thought that in a few
hours he would be free of the man for good and all made life worth
living again.
But his joy was short-lived. On entering the kitchen he found four
long-haired young men making a hearty meal—more victims of British
tyranny, all on the run for the murder of policemen—and his heart sank
at the thought that there would probably be more to follow: in fact his
house was being used as a clearinghouse for all the “wanted” men of the
adjoining county.
Flanagan woke up O’Hara, told him of the arrangements which had been
made to get him to Ballybor, and added that four more men had just
turned up, and that it failed him to know how to pass them on. O’Hara
thought for a moment, and replied, “Sure it’s easily known how—why
wouldn’t they do for the mourners?”
As soon as O’Hara was ready, and the young men could be persuaded to
stop eating, the party set out for the hotel in order to get away before
the mourners woke up. O’Hara took command, found out that one of his
companions could drive a Ford, but that none of them had any idea of how
to get to Ballybor, and told Flanagan that the driver of the coffin-car
would have to go with them as a guide.
On arrival at the hotel Flanagan roused the boots, O’Hara gave his
instructions about the driver, and they then proceeded to the bedrooms
of the poteen-logged mourners, who offered no protest while O’Hara
removed their topcoats and hats for his companions, Flanagan seizing the
opportunity of transferring his £100 from the sleeping chief mourner’s
trousers pocket to his own again.
By the light of a guttering candle O’Hara was packed into the coffin,
and in the darkness of a raw early morning the two cars pulled out of
the hotel yard, and disappeared down the road which leads to Ballybor.
Flanagan, with a sigh of relief, wiped his forehead, and prayed that he
might never see O’Hara in this world again, and went home feeling ten
years younger, but determined not to be at home when the mourners got
busy and came for an explanation.
* * * * *
On the morning O’Hara left Ballyfrack in the coffin, Blake had motored
to the town of Dunallen to see his County Inspector. On his way back,
about fourteen miles from Ballybor, the road leads over a narrow bridge
and up a steep hill with a sharp blind turn at the top.
As Blake swung his car, all out, round this corner, he saw about fifty
yards in front two Ford cars standing in the road, the leading car with
a huge coffin tied across the body of the car, and round the other car a
group of young men. Pulling up his car, he sounded his horn, as he had
not room to pass, but with no effect.
Blake, who was in mufti, had with him an orderly in plain clothes, and
being in a hurry told him to go and tell the driver to go on. As the
orderly returned, both cars started up and went on. Once started, they
went as fast as Blake could wish, and for some miles the three cars kept
close together until they reached a village about ten miles from
Ballybor.
Here the main road to Ballybor appears to carry straight on through the
village, but this only leads into a cul-de-sac—what looks like a side
road on the left of the main street being the Ballybor turning. The two
strange cars passed the turning, while Blake, once round the corner,
made for home at full speed.
He thought no more of the cars, but after they had gone about a mile the
orderly asked him if he had ever seen such a big coffin before. Blake
replied that he had not noticed the size of the coffin, and they both
relapsed into silence again, Blake concentrating his attention on
getting back to Ballybor before dark.
Meanwhile the orderly was thinking the matter out, and came to the
conclusion that the coffin party was not above suspicion. At this time,
when the railway strike was on in the west, it was not unusual to see a
coffin on a car; but, unless the coffin party belonged to the village,
they must be strangers to the district, or they would not have run into
the cul-de-sac.
When about three miles from Ballybor they had a puncture, and just as
Blake finished changing wheels, the cars of the coffin party drew up
about fifty yards behind, and three men advanced towards them. Blake,
who was still quite unsuspicious, thought that the men were going to ask
him to let them pass, and at once started up his car and got in.
The orderly, whose suspicions were now turned to certainties, drew his
revolver, covered the advancing men, and called on them to halt;
whereupon the three men opened fire, and the orderly replied.
Blake yelled to him to jump in, and as the man swung himself into the
seat beside him, he let the car go, while the men on the road continued
to fire. Luckily the light was by now nearly gone, and beyond a broken
wind-screen they got away with a good start.
It now developed into a race, Blake striving to reach the barracks for
reinforcements to stop the funeral party before they could get clear of
Ballybor, and the others to reach the first turning they came to off the
main road.
Blake switched on his lights and drove for his life, down hill as fast
as the car would go and round corners on two wheels, with the result
that in rounding one blind corner they nearly ran into a party of
Auxiliary Cadets, whose Crossley had broken down. The Cadets naturally
opened fire without asking any questions—a car going that pace in the
dusk on a country road in the west of Ireland nowadays is asking for
it—and again Blake and his orderly narrowly escaped being shot.
Blake clapped on his brakes, yelled out “R.I.C.”; the orderly held his
hands high above his head, and the Auxiliaries gave them the benefit of
the doubt. Luckily the leader of the Cadets recognised Blake, the
situation was quickly explained, and they took cover on both sides of
the road at the corner.
Hardly were they in position when the coffin-car rounded the corner, and
the Cadets opened fire; but so great was the impetus of the car, and so
bad the brakes, that it crashed into the rear of Blake’s car, the coffin
pitched on to the road, burst open, and out rolled a huge wild-looking
man.
The second car must have closed up with the leading one as the darkness
came on, for no sooner had the first car crashed than the second one ran
into it, overturned, and pinned the big man to the road; whereupon Blake
shouted hands up, but the men started to run back, and the Cadets at
once opened fire.
Three of them fell, but the fourth managed to get round the corner, and
Blake sent two Cadets after him. The driver of the coffin-car had fallen
clear, and, to avoid the Cadets’ bullets, ran round the Crossley,
straight into the driver’s arms.
As soon as the firing ceased, Blake made for the big man; the Cadets
lifted the car, and flashed a torch on his face.
Only that morning Blake had been reading a full account of O’Hara, and
had studied an excellent photograph of him, and as the electric light
shone on the man’s face, he realised the importance of the capture—the
most-wanted man in the west.
The Cadets rendered first aid to the three wounded men, while Blake
handcuffed O’Hara and placed him in the back of his own car, telling his
orderly to watch him closely, and to keep him covered with his revolver.
In the meantime the two Cadets had returned, having failed to capture
the fourth man.
Blake was now most anxious to get O’Hara safely in the Ballybor
Barracks, but nothing would induce the Crossley to start. At last, after
an hour’s delay, they got the engine going, and the whole party got
under way, the Cadets taking the three wounded prisoners in the tender,
and Blake, in his own car with his orderly, guarding O’Hara.
The distance to Ballybor was short, but the delay had made Blake very
uneasy, knowing that the local Volunteers would surely try and rescue
O’Hara if they got word of his capture. Ahead of them was a thick wood
on both sides of the road, and once past this the betting was in their
favour.
They started without lights, but when they reached the outskirts of the
wood the darkness was so intense that the Crossley driver switched on
his lights and tried to rush the place. Blake was forced to follow his
example, or get left hopelessly behind.
Faster and faster went the tender, bumping and skidding over the wet bog
road, the lamps throwing a brilliant ring of white light in front of the
car, the rest inky dark. When they had passed more than half-way through
the wood, and Blake was beginning to think that they were safe, the
Crossley suddenly began to pull up with a screech of brakes, drowned by
a volley of shots from both sides of the wood.
The driver kept his head, switched off his lights, and the dreadful
fight started in the black darkness of the wood. Blake turned his lights
off and started to back his car, but in the darkness and excitement ran
her into the ditch at the side of the road, where she overturned.
He shot clear of the car, and on regaining the road realised that at
present it was useless to try and get away with his prisoner, so he
shouted to his orderly to guard O’Hara until the fight was over, and
went forward to help the Auxiliaries.
Blake found them lying down on each side of the road, firing at the
flashes of the ambushers’ guns, while the leader and driver were
struggling to remove the barricade of timber and big stones across the
road under a hail of bullets and shot. By this time a Cadet had got a
Lewis gun into action, and at once sprayed the edge of the wood on each
side of the road with a magazine. Promptly the ambushers’ fire died
down, and after two more heavy bursts of fire from the Lewis gun their
fire ceased. The Cadets quickly switched on the lights of the Crossley,
and started to clear away the barricade.
Blake suddenly thought of O’Hara, and ran back to his car to find that
he had completely vanished, the orderly lying pinned to the ground by
the overturned car, unconscious.
The only chance now of recapturing O’Hara was to push on to Ballybor as
fast as possible, collect all the police available, and search the
country round the scene of the ambush. Without a motor it would be
impossible for the fugitive to get far during the next few hours.
But again the Crossley jibbed, and again a priceless hour or more was
wasted before the barricade could be removed and the car induced to
start. Nearly another hour was spent in reaching the barracks, getting
out the men, and starting on the hunt.
Until long after dawn they beat the country within a large radius of the
fatal wood, using powerful acetylene lamps, but to no avail: neither in
the open country nor in any village could they find any sign or get any
tidings of the missing prisoner.
As soon as the light was good, Blake climbed a tree on some high ground
which overlooked the country, and searched in vain with a powerful pair
of Zeiss glasses. At last, thoroughly exhausted, the police returned to
Ballybor, beaten.
* * * * *
When Blake’s car upset in the wood, O’Hara had the good luck to fall
clear, and to roll into the ditch at the side of the road. Here he lay
still for several minutes until he saw what move the orderly would make.
When the shooting slackened for a few seconds he could distinctly hear
the groans of the orderly pinned under the car, and at once realised
that if he could only crawl into the wood he might be free again.
With great difficulty he managed to drag himself out of the ditch and
over the bank, only to find another and deeper ditch on the far side.
Along this ditch he made his way until he judged that he must be close
to the attackers; then he wriggled into the wood, and lay down to await
further developments.
O’Hara was now afraid to go nearer to the ambushers, lest they should
mistake him for a Cadet; but before he could make up his mind what to do
the firing died down, and he could hear the attackers retiring through
the wood. Realising that his only hope lay with these men, he got up and
rushed after them, being mistaken in the darkness and confusion for one
of themselves.
Once clear of the wood, O’Hara found himself close to one of the
attackers, and while they ran explained to him who he was, and learnt
that the ambush had been organised in a village close to by the man who
had escaped from the two Cadets.
On reaching this village the handcuffs were soon filed off O’Hara’s
wrists, two bicycles provided, and in a few minutes he was on his way to
Ballybor with a guide who took him along a byroad. It was essential if
he was to catch the steamer the next day that he should hide that night
in Ballybor, and the chances were that the police would never think of
O’Hara hiding in the town, practically within the shadow of the police
barracks.
Owing to the delay in starting the Crossley, O’Hara and his guide were
actually in Ballybor before the police: as they neared the turning to
the barracks they could see the lights of the Crossley behind them.
Passing through the town they made their way to the quay, where it was
arranged that O’Hara should spend the night with a Volunteer called
Devine, from whose house it was hoped that he would be able to pass on
to the steamer next day in the company of the stoker.
At this time the police, except in strong force, did not leave the
barracks at night, and it was thought quite safe for O’Hara to remain in
Devine’s house. After a change of clothes and some food, he retired to
bed, hoping that his troubles were nearly over.
Early the next morning Devine woke O’Hara up with the bad news that a
picket of Cadets guarded the approach to the steamer, and that the game
was up. On looking out of the window O’Hara could see a sentry with
fixed bayonet on each side of the gangway, while others were resting in
the small weighing-house on the quay-side.
O’Hara, who a second before had been confident of escape, was in
despair, and collapsed on the bed. After a few minutes he pulled himself
together, and on looking at Devine was at once struck by the sinister
expression on the man’s face.
Remembering that there was a price of £1000 on his head, and from
Devine’s expression there was no doubt that he also was thinking of this
reward, without a second’s hesitation O’Hara covered him with a big Colt
automatic, and told him that if a way was not found to get him on to the
steamer he would shoot him. Devine, knowing O’Hara’s reputation, and
preferring his life to £1000, at once suggested a plan.
The town of Ballybor lies about five miles up a river, and all
outward-bound steamers drop the pilot in the bay at the mouth of the
river, where he is rowed to the little fishing village of Dooncarra. The
steamer was due to sail at high tide that afternoon, and Devine
suggested that they should bicycle to Dooncarra, where there ought to be
no difficulty in getting O’Hara aboard by the pilot-boat, as both the
police barracks and coastguard station there had been burnt some time
ago.
After some breakfast they started off, bicycled boldly past the picket
on the quay, and reached Dooncarra without any mishap, where Devine
arranged for O’Hara to stay in a fisherman’s house until the pilot-boat
left at dusk.
O’Hara had never been to sea before, and was ill before he ever reached
the steamer. As soon as he got aboard, a stoker, who had been warned by
Devine to expect O’Hara on the pilot’s boat, took charge of him, and at
once put him into a bunk.
That night the steamer ran into an Atlantic storm, and by the time they
had made the north coast of Ireland, O’Hara was beyond caring whether he
lived or died.