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.
Very soon the Sinn Fein Courts in the Ballybor district were in full
swing; the country people received orders not to appear at a Petty
Sessions Court, and in a very short time every Petty Sessions clerk
found himself completely idle. However, as a matter of form, Mayne
attended every Court regularly, though the only people present were the
police, the clerk, and himself, and their only work to say good-day to
each other.
By now all the magistrates in the district had either resigned or feared
to attend, and if only the R.M. could be frightened out of the country
or removed, all Petty Sessions Courts would be closed, and the King’s
Writ would cease to run in the country both figuratively and in reality.
With this end in view, the Volunteers began to send threatening letters
to Mayne, and on two occasions he was fired at when motoring back from
holding Courts in outlying towns.
However, Mayne was made of the right stuff, and determined that as long
as he was alive the usual Courts should be held throughout his district,
no matter whether the people brought their cases to the King’s Courts or
to the Sinn Fein Courts, which were generally held the day before a
Petty Sessions Court was due in a town; and in order to provide cases he
arranged with Blake to carry out a poteen raid on a large scale in the
Ballyrick district, and that the cases should be tried at the next Court
there. Blake duly carried out the raid, which was most successful, and
the defendants were summoned to appear in Court, with the threat of
arrest held over their heads if they did not turn up.
On the day of the Ballyrick Court Mayne set out, alone as usual, on his
long drive about 9.45 A.M., and on reaching the level crossing found the
gates closed, though no train was due to pass for several hours. After
sounding his horn in vain, he went to open them himself, only to find
that both gates were heavily padlocked.
He then made his way to the crossing-keeper’s house, which was about
fifty yards up the line. The man’s wife, who was the only occupant of
the house, told him that the gates had been locked that morning by the
Volunteers, after the police cars had passed through, and the keys taken
away. Determined not to be beaten, Mayne now got a heavy stone, and had
actually succeeded in smashing the padlock on the near gate, when he was
shot in the head from behind, and at once collapsed on the road.
During the late war extraordinary cases were known of men shot through
the head, even through the brain, living for hours afterwards, though
generally unable to speak; and Mayne, though paralysed, was quite
conscious when his murderers came up to where he was lying.
For some time the murderers argued whether they should finish him off,
or remove him as he was. In the end they put him into his own car,
unlocked the far gate, and drove off in the direction of Ballyrick.
After proceeding about a mile they came to a lane, which led up to a
lonely farm close to the sea. After driving up to the farm they threw
Mayne—still alive and conscious—on to a manure heap at the back of the
farmhouse, and then drove off. It was afterwards found that they then
took the car to a high cliff and ran it over the edge, to be broken up
on the rocks below in the sea.
Mayne spent the rest of that day lying on the manure heap, and so
terrorised were the inhabitants of the farm that not one of them dared
go near him. To give poor Mayne even a cup of cold water would have
meant certain death to the giver.
Late that evening the murderers returned, expecting to find Mayne dead
by now; but he was still alive, though in a pitiable state. Again they
argued among themselves whether they would finish him off or not, and
again for some unknown reason they decided not to. And these are the men
who, according to an English paper (thank God! not an Irish one), are
“entitled to the treatment which, in _civilised_ countries, is given to
prisoners of war.”
After some time an ass was harnessed to a cart, into which they threw
Mayne’s body, and then proceeded to the seashore below the farm. Here,
after another discussion, they buried him—still alive, though quite
paralysed—up to his neck in the sand, at a place where they thought the
incoming tide would just reach him and slowly drown him during the
night-time. It was now several hours since Mayne had been shot, and one
can only hope that, though he was still alive, his senses had become
numbed.
The following morning these fiends returned again to find that they had
miscalculated the height of the tide, which had only reached the level
of poor Mayne’s chin, and that he was _still alive_, though probably by
now quite mad. They then dug him up, and this time made no mistake, but
buried him where the tide was bound to drown him. And the next flood
tide put an end to a torture the like of which Lenin and Trotsky could
hardly exceed for sheer malignant devilry.
Blake and a strong escort of police had motored out to Ballyrick ahead
of Mayne, in case there might be an ambush on the road. The Court was
due to begin at twelve, and when by two there was no sign of the R.M.,
Blake left for Ballybor, making inquiries on the way, but could get no
tidings of him anywhere.
On arriving in Ballybor, Blake wired for a force of Auxiliaries, who
arrived that night, and at once started with Blake and a strong force of
R.I.C. to hunt the countryside for Mayne; but nowadays in Ireland, so
dangerous is it for any civilian to be seen speaking to a policeman,
that it is always quite impossible to obtain any direct information.
People who had seen Mayne set out on his last ill-fated drive denied
that they even knew him by sight.
For three days and three nights they scoured the countryside from
Ballybor to Ballyrick, and from Ballyrick back again to Ballybor, but no
clue or tidings of Mayne could they get. From the time Mayne left
Ballybor, R.M. and car seemed to have disappeared as though the earth
had opened and swallowed them.
As there was no evidence of foul play, the police hoped that the R.M.
had been kidnapped and hidden away in the mountains to the east of
Ballyrick. So they posted notices throughout the district to the effect
that, if the R.M. was returned in two days all would be well, but if
not——
At the end of the two days’ grace a man, who said he kept the railway
crossing on the road to Ballyrick, arrived on a bicycle at the barracks
ashen with fear, and asked to see Blake. On hearing the man’s story,
Blake went out to the level crossing and there found poor Mayne’s body
in a rough wooden box, lying on the side of the line. The cause of death
appeared obvious; but they were greatly puzzled to find the clothes
soaked with sea-water and full of sand, and to hear from the doctor who
examined the body that death was due to—drowning.
The level-crossing man was detained at the barracks, and every means was
taken to extract information from him; but he denied all knowledge of
the murder, and proved an alibi to Blake’s satisfaction.
The police spent the next fortnight searching in vain for Mayne’s
murderers, and it is probable that, but for a curious trait in the
peasant’s character, they would never have solved the mystery.
Late one evening, about three weeks after the murder, a typical
Ballyrick peasant arrived at the barracks in Ballybor and asked to see
the D.I., and refused to state his business except to the D.I. Luckily
the police decided to admit the man, and he was led off to Blake’s
office.
When he was brought in Blake was up to his eyes in official
correspondence, with the prospect of an all-night sitting before him;
but hoping that the man might have news of Mayne, he ordered the police
to leave the man alone with him, and then waited for him to tell his
news.
If a western peasant has a favour to ask or a confession to make, he
will talk of everything and everybody except the object of his visit,
possibly for an hour and probably for two, and will generally not come
to the point until he is preparing to leave. The length of time required
to extract the necessary information depends entirely on the skill of
the interviewer.
Blake’s visitor was no exception to this rule, and many an Englishman,
cleverer than Blake, would have made the mistake of hurrying his man,
which is always fatal; and even Blake’s patience was nearly exhausted
before he made his confession.
Whether the man’s confession was genuine, or whether he hoped to save
his skin by turning informer is not quite clear; but at any rate he
confessed to Blake that he and five other men had murdered Mayne at the
level crossing, gave the full details of one of the worst atrocities
which has ever been committed in Ireland, and stated as his only reason
for confessing that he had not been able to sleep since the murder.
VI.
AN OUTLAW.
Probably the great majority of the British public had no idea of the
extraordinary situation in the south and west of Ireland during 1920,
and most likely never will have. In the summer of that sinister year,
when the Sinn Fein tyranny was at its height, an English newspaper sent
a lady journalist over to this unfortunate country to find out what
really was the matter with us, and, if possible, to give the world yet
another solution of the Irish Question.
In her first letter, this lady, quite unnecessarily, told her millions
of readers that she had never been in Ireland before, proceeded to
relate the peculiarities of the people of Dublin and Belfast, and
finished with a vivid description of the peaceful and happy condition of
the country, in spite of the interested rumours put about to the
contrary.
At the time when this lady journalist was discovering peaceful and happy
Ireland, the power of Sinn Fein was rapidly passing from the hands of
the hot-air merchants to the direct-action ruffians; in other words,
Arthur Griffiths became a mere cipher, and Michael Collins the dictator
of the south and west. And very soon Collins had several imitators.
Born in 1889 in the highlands of Ballyrick, Denis Joyce, after working
for a few years as gillie and general boy at a shooting-lodge near
Errinane, drifted to Dublin as a labourer, and at once came under the
influence of Connolly, the prince of Irish Bolsheviks. Taken prisoner
during the Easter rebellion of 1916, he was eventually released with
other small fry, and in return devoted himself to the extermination of
the British Empire in general, and Irish policemen in particular.
During the spring and summer of 1920, Joyce and his numerous bodyguard,
like an Irish chieftain of old, lived like fighting-cocks. Hailed as the
conquerors of the British Army (they had shot several unarmed soldiers)
wherever they went, not only did they live free, gratis, and for
nothing, but the country people literally fought for the honour of
entertaining these heroes. A great pity that the lady journalist could
not have been present at one of these banquets. What “copy” she could
have sent to her editor, and the certified net sale would have soared to
the skies.
But though Joyce and his merry men had a great time, they did not
neglect their duty; and on every occasion, when conditions were all in
their favour, they shot down police patrols from behind walls, and
murdered unfortunate policemen when visiting their wives and families.
However, every dog has his day, and in the autumn of 1920, when the
British Army and the Auxiliary Cadets started to take a hand in the
game, Joyce found himself changed from a popular hero into a hunted
outlaw, with the usual result that, where formerly he had found an open
door and a smiling welcome, he now was met by a closed door and a scowl;
and when seeking board and lodging, it became necessary to persuade the
unwilling hosts with a six-shooter.
The police and military now commenced paying calls at night; and a
farmer, living in the depth of the country, hearing a knock at his door
during the long winter’s nights, had always the pleasing excitement of
not knowing if he was to have the honour of entertaining some
badly-wanted gunmen, a patrol of the R.I.C., a party of Auxiliary
Cadets, a military search-party, or merely a posse of local robbers, any
of whom might take a sudden dislike to the unfortunate farmer, with
unpleasant results.
In the winter of 1920, Joyce, who would have made an excellent soldier,
made the bad mistake of mixing up love with war; in other words, he
became greatly enamoured of a girl living in the south, and in order to
be within reach of her, confined his attentions to that district for a
considerable time, instead of moving about the country with his usual
rapidity; and the Auxiliaries, getting an inkling of the situation from
a former lover of the girl, made a great effort to surround and capture
him.
Though he received repeated warnings of the activity of the Cadets,
Joyce put off his departure, until a day came when word was brought that
the place was surrounded by forces of the Crown, who would close in on
the little town that evening.
Joyce at once went to tell Molly, whose father kept a small hotel in the
town, and the girl’s quick wit soon thought out a plan of escape for her
lover. Five commercial travellers staying in the hotel, and at the time
out touring neighbouring villages, had left their heavy cases of samples
at the hotel, and their railway passes in the safe keeping of the hotel
proprietor.
That afternoon the train to the west carried Joyce and four of his
bodyguard disguised as bagmen; the remainder were left to shift for
themselves, and that evening, when the Cadets searched the town from
attic to cellar, they found that the principal bird had flown.
Joyce knew that it would not be safe to travel by train as far as
Ballybor, and as soon as he thought that they had cleared the Auxiliary
cordon, determined to alight at the next stop and continue the journey
by car. Just as they were on the point of leaving the train, however,
they noticed several Cadets waiting by the station exit, so did not get
out.
Two stations farther on they left the train, and being now outside the
net, quickly commandeered a Ford from the local garage and set out for
the Ballyrick country, where Joyce had decided to hide and rest for a
while. Keeping to byroads, they made their way westwards at a good rate
until it was nearly daylight, when, after hiding the car in a wood, they
proceeded to search for board and lodging.
Shortly they came across a good farmhouse, and, after the usual display
of pistols, were admitted reluctantly, made a hearty meal, and retired
to bed after ordering their host to have five good bicycles and another
meal ready for them as soon as it was dark.
It has been mentioned that Joyce had worked as a boy at a shooting-lodge
near Errinane, and he now conceived the brilliant idea of taking a
rest-cure there until such time as the police took less interest in him.
This lodge, Drumcar by name, belonged to a Connaught squire who had
married an Englishwoman, and except for a short time in the summer was
only occupied by a caretaker. Situated in one of the wildest parts of
the west, a mile from the road, hidden by woods of oak and birch, and
overlooking the bay on which Errinane stands, it was probably the last
place in Ireland where the police would think of looking for an active
gunman, and the chances were that not a single Auxiliary even knew that
such a place existed.
The gunmen arrived at Drumcar soon after dawn, and after rousing the
terrified caretaker, who lived with his son and daughter in a cottage in
the grounds, they settled down to a life of peace and comfort. The girl
attended on them, while the old man brought food from Errinane in a
donkey cart, and a good supply of poteen from a mountain farm near the
mouth of the bay.
The lodge was well supplied with turf, contained an excellent library of
novels, and Joyce and his men waxed fat with good living and soft lying;
but it is a case of once on the run, always on the run, until the
inevitable end comes, or the gunman is lucky enough to escape to the
States.
Now, it is a well-known truth in the west that a “mountainy” man will
always, when sick unto death, home-sick, or in dire distress, make for
his beloved mountains, no matter what far end of the world he may have
drifted to; and when in due course Blake learnt through official
channels that Joyce had escaped from the southern town, he at once began
to keep a sharp look-out for him in the Ballyrick country.
But when a fortnight passed and there was no sign of Joyce, nor yet any
report of his presence in that part of the country, Blake turned up the
man’s official record, from which he learnt two interesting facts:
first, that Joyce had worked at Drumcar; and, secondly, that he had a
married sister in Bunrattey, a district on the southern border of
Blake’s country.
Blake now turned his attention to the sister’s house, and when this
proved a blank, he determined to try Drumcar Lodge as a last resource;
but at the time of the landing of arms at Errinane, every police barrack
and coastguard station within a radius of many miles had been burnt, so
that it was impossible to get any news of the place without going there,
the nearest barrack in Blake’s district being fifty miles away.
A “travelling circus” of Auxiliaries happened to be passing through
Ballybor, and the leader undertook to investigate the lodge and let
Blake know if they found any trace of Joyce. Blake advised them to
surround the lodge in the day-time, as, owing to the wild and
mountainous nature of the country, a night attack would be impossible.
On the whole, the gunmen treated old Faherty, the caretaker, and his
children well, especially the son, Patsy, in the hope that he would join
them; but, luckily for himself, the lad had a wholesome dread of
firearms. After he had been at the lodge some days, in spite of feeling
quite secure, Joyce, with the instinct of the hunted, began to look
about for a bolt-hole in case of need; though in the midst of the wilds
the lodge had serious drawbacks, being situated on the side of a slope,
so that any one leaving the lodge would at once come under observation
from several points, and, moreover, an arm of the sea cut off all escape
to the north.
In fact, escape seemed very doubtful, until by chance Patsy mentioned
that in a boat-house, hidden by trees, on the shore of the bay, there
was a large motor-launch, which he had learnt to drive the previous
summer. The next time the old man went to Errinane for provisions, he
brought back with him twenty gallons of petrol (duly entered up in his
absent master’s account), and Joyce felt easier in his mind.
On a pouring wet afternoon the five gunmen were playing nap in front of
a comfortable turf fire in the drawing-room, while old Faherty’s
daughter brewed poteen punch for them, and Patsy was reading a novel in
an arm-chair, when a long-haired boy dashed in with the news that a
large party of Auxiliary Cadets had rushed through Errinane, taken two
countrymen they had met on the road as guides, and were surrounding the
lodge from all sides except the sea. Joyce had launched the motor-boat
only the previous day, and within a few minutes they were under way,
heading for the mouth of the bay with the throttle full open. Seeing the
launch in the bay below them as they reached the front of the lodge, the
Cadets opened fire, but before they could get on to their target the
launch vanished in the thick mist of rain.
As pursuit was out of the question, the Auxiliaries drove straight to
Errinane Post Office, only to find the wires cut. They then went on to
the nearest town, and wired to the naval authorities at Queenstown,
hoping that they might be able to get in touch with a destroyer off the
west coast by wireless, and so capture Joyce at sea.
Joyce knew that the hue-and-cry would be up, and that it would be fatal
to land anywhere on the coast near Errinane; and as the sea was calm, he
made up his mind to cut across a big bay to the north and make for
Buntarriv, a narrow passage between an island and the mainland, which
would lead them to Trabawn Bay, on the shores of which lay his own
country.
The launch left the slip at Drumcar at 1 P.M., and Joyce made out that
at eight miles an hour they ought to reach Buntarriv Sound at four
o’clock and Trabawn Bay in another hour, which should give them plenty
of time to land before darkness set in. Unfortunately, when out in the
open Atlantic, the engine stopped, and Patsy, who was thoroughly
frightened by now, would only sit down and cry. Two of the gunmen knew
something of motors, and after nearly two hours discovered that the
carburetter was choked with dirt, and it was nearly six o’clock before
the Sound was within sight: another quarter of an hour and they would
have been too late. As it was, a destroyer opened fire on them just as
they were entering the Sound, and they were only saved by the failing
light.
Knowing that the destroyer could not follow them, and afraid of wrecking
the launch in the dark, they anchored and waited for the moon to rise,
and eventually landed on the shore of Trabawn Bay. Joyce was at last in
his own country, and before day broke the gunmen were safely lodged in
different mountain farms close to Joyce’s home, and the next day Patsy
was handed over to the local Volunteers to be returned to Drumcar. The
following day they took the launch to a bay surrounded by high cliffs,
where no human being except an odd herd ever went, and beached her at
the height of the tide on the sandy shore, where they left her for
future use.
After a few days at home Joyce began to get restless, and resolved to
visit his married sister in the Bunrattey district; but the local
Volunteers could only supply them with two bicycles, and the distance
was too far to walk—forty-two miles as the crow flies. However, he
learnt from a postman that a police patrol visited Ballyscaddan, a small
village about sixteen miles east of Ballyrick, daily, and were in the
habit of leaving their bicycles outside a public-house which they
frequented.
The gunmen spent the night in Ballyscaddan, and about eleven o’clock a
patrol of six R.I.C. arrived in the village, left their bicycles outside
the public-house, and went inside to refresh themselves. The gunmen, who
were waiting in the next house, quickly cut the tyres of one bicycle to
ribbons, and rode off on the remaining five, leaving the unfortunate
villagers to bear the brunt of the infuriated policemen’s wrath. That
night Joyce and his four men slept in his sister’s house in Bunrattey.
Besides his courage, the only redeeming feature about Joyce appears to
have been his love for this sister. As usual, she was delighted to see
him, but by now the other inhabitants would have as soon welcomed the
devil himself as Joyce, knowing that his progress through the country
was blazed by reprisals.
Gone were the days when he used to hold audience daily in his sister’s
house like a king, and men came many miles simply to see the famous
Denis Joyce. Now the country people would avoid him on the road, and not
a single person came to see him.
His sister warned him repeatedly that it was dangerous to stay any
length of time with her; but Joyce seems to have lost heart, or perhaps
his Celtic soul had a premonition of coming disaster. At any rate he
refused to go, and spent most of this time sitting by the kitchen fire
brooding.
Blake soon learnt of Joyce’s escape by sea from Drumcar, and feeling
sure that sooner or later he would visit his sister before starting
operations in the south again, concentrated his attention on that
district. To this end, he kept his men well away, and at the same time
asked for the help of the Auxiliary “travelling circus,” among whom were
three Cadets who knew Joyce well by sight.
One of these Cadets, whose personal appearance favoured the disguise,
was dressed up as a priest, and sent out on a bicycle to spy out the
land. After two days he returned with the good news that he had passed
the famous gunman on the road in Bunrattey, and at once Blake made
preparations to surround the place that night.