having the best of tea, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that
he insisted on paying a high price. At one time, so great were the
profits on tea, that merchants used to send carts through the country
districts selling nothing but tea, called by the country people “tay
carts.”
David Evans found out that the principal tea merchant for the Ballybor
district—in fact, for many miles round—was a grocer called Terence
O’Dowd, who kept a large shop in Ballybor, and had a branch in
Ballyrick. Hearing that O’Dowd was fond of coursing, Evans called at his
shop, and after buying a quantity of provisions, invited the man to
bring his hounds out to Ardcumber the following Sunday for some
coursing.
After the coursing they took O’Dowd into their confidence, showed him
the distillery and arranged that he should act as their agent. This part
was simple, but the difficulty was how, when, and where to deliver the
goods to O’Dowd. If the “tay carts” came to Ardcumber, or the distillery
Ford went to O’Dowd’s continually, suspicion would be aroused. After a
long discussion they decided on a plan of action.
Once a week, when Evans drove into Ballybor for provisions, he was to
fill up the Ford with poteen and leave the car in a shed in O’Dowd’s
yard, where the poteen could be transferred to O’Dowd’s cellars and the
car loaded up with empties. O’Dowd wanted to use earthenware jars, but
Evans decided on two-gallon petrol tins as being less likely to excite
suspicion.
For a considerable time the plan worked well. Evans took a full load
weekly to O’Dowd’s, whose tea carts distributed the poteen far and wide
throughout the district.
One morning Blake, who had spent a busy night raiding in the district
for arms and poteen stills, called in at Ardcumber on his way home and
had breakfast with the Evans. During the conversation he mentioned
casually that the country was flooded with poteen, and that they had
failed to find out where it was being made, but that they suspected it
was being delivered in tea carts from Ballybor.
As soon as Blake had gone David drove off into Ballybor, settled up his
accounts with O’Dowd, who was only too thankful to be rid of the job in
time, and before he left for home had arranged with an egg merchant
called Michael Flanagan, who sent lorries out to all the villages for
miles around collecting eggs, to take over the agency, the petrol tins
to be hidden in the straw of the empty egg-crates.
The police appear to have had no suspicion of Evans, and the
probabilities are that the Ardcumber distillery would have worked on
indefinitely but for interference from a quite unsuspected quarter. The
Sinn Fein leaders of the district began to grow uneasy at the effects of
the apparently unlimited supply of poteen on the discipline of the
Volunteers, and determined to put down the industry.
Any men who were now found with stills in their possession by the Sinn
Fein police were paraded before the congregation outside the chapels
after Mass on Sunday morning, the stills broken up with hammers, the
owners heavily fined, and then let go with a warning of much severer
penalties if they were found guilty of the same offence again.
Afterwards Evans and Flanagan received summonses to appear on a named
date before a Sinn Fein Court. Flanagan went and was heavily fined, but
Evans took no notice of the summons.
Flanagan was now, of course, afraid to act as agent, and the question
again arose of how they were to get the poteen to the different buyers.
While matters were in this state Flanagan sent a warning to Evans that
the Volunteers would raid Ardcumber on a certain night, and that the
results would be very unpleasant for them.
The situation was now serious. It was impossible for two men to defend
such a large house, and once inside, the Volunteers, apart from the fact
that they would probably shoot them, would certainly break up the
distillery, and the rapid increase of their bank balances would cease.
That evening they received a letter stating that they had been banished
from Ireland by an order of the Sinn Fein Court, and giving them two
days in which to leave the country. The same night, after dark, a volley
of shots was fired through the window of every room showing a light, and
the following morning they had to cook their own breakfast, as the old
woman did not turn up.
But David Evans was not beaten yet. After breakfast he motored into
Ballybor, where he waited until it was dark. He then went to the
barracks, and told Blake that the Volunteers had threatened to raid
Ardcumber the following night for arms, and suggested that the police
should ambush the Volunteers in the grounds.
Blake, only too glad to help a friend, and eager to get the Volunteers
together in the open, consented, and before Evans left the two had
thought out a very pretty trap.
It has been mentioned that Ardcumber stood at the foot of a range of
mountains, which isolated the Ballybor country on the east, and across
them for many miles there was only one track, which led down to the back
of the demesne, and which was never used except by country people
bringing turf in creels on donkeys from the mountain bogs during the
day-time.
Blake proposed to start out the following afternoon with a good force,
cross the mountains by the main road, which ran through a pass due east
of Ballybor, and return by the mountain track, reaching Ardcumber
demesne soon after dark. Here David Evans was to meet them and guide
them to the scene of the ambush. The district between the demesne and
the mountains was thinly populated, and at that hour no one would be
abroad for fear of the Black and Tans. The attackers would be certain to
come from the opposite direction, and would not be likely to arrive
before the moon rose at 11 P.M.
The police, with a party of Cadets and two Lewis guns, were in position
by 9 P.M. in a shrubbery on each side of the avenue, about a hundred
yards from the house. At 11.30 P.M. the Volunteers, sure of their prey,
marched up the avenue in column of route, singing the “Soldiers’ Song.”
When they were within forty yards Blake called on them to halt, lay down
their arms, and put up their hands.
The column halted at once, and for a second appeared to waver, but an
officer gave the order to deploy. Before the column could break up both
Lewis guns opened fire.
Unfortunately at this moment a dark cloud obscured the moon and heavy
rain began to fall, with the result that, after the first short burst of
fire, the Volunteers were invisible; and though the police started in
pursuit, they failed to overtake the flying rebels, and had to
concentrate on the house.
After collecting and rendering first-aid to the wounded—there were none
killed—the police brought their cars up to the house, and shortly
afterwards returned to Ballybor.
The Evanses were now fairly safe from the Volunteers, but again the
question of distributing the poteen arose, and this time it looked as
though they would have to do it themselves. They tried to induce
Flanagan to come on again; but the egg merchant was by now thoroughly
frightened, and thankful to get off with a heavy fine. O’Dowd, being a
police suspect, was out of the question, but there still remained His
Majesty’s mails.
The story of how the Evanses had played the police off against the
Volunteers was soon the talk of the countryside for many a mile, and so
queer and uncertain is the Irish peasant’s mentality that, where one
would have expected them to be furious and determined to be avenged, on
the contrary their great sense of humour was immensely tickled at the
idea of the police defending the Ardcumber distillery, and the Evanses
became popular heroes.
After the Volunteer attack, Blake, being afraid that they might make
another attempt to capture the arms in Ardcumber House, offered David a
party of Black and Tans for protection, but this offer was refused.
For some time His Majesty’s mail cars carried the Ardcumber poteen
punctually and efficiently—in fact, far better than either O’Dowd or
Flanagan had done. Petrol tins were still used to put the poteen in, and
Evans would leave the full tins at a garage twice a week, where the mail
cars got their petrol from, and if a mail car carried a few extra tins
of petrol, who thought anything about it?
Unfortunately the mail contract for that district ran out a few months
afterwards, and this time was given to a man from the north, an
Orangeman, and once again Evans had to find a fresh way of sending round
the country his now famous poteen.
But so popular had the Evanses become that, instead of having to seek
agents, they received offers to deliver the poteen from the manager of a
creamery in the Cloonalla district, and also from the manager of a
Cooperative Society in a village distant about four miles from
Ardcumber. Evans closed with both offers, and the cousins redoubled
their efforts to turn out all the poteen they possibly could, knowing
that an end must come sooner or later.
Two months afterwards the Auxiliaries discovered that the creamery was
being used as a Sinn Fein prison, and, as a result, raided the place one
night and burnt it to the ground. Incidentally, they found several full
petrol tins in the manager’s office, filled up their petrol tanks with
them, and could not make out why the cars would not start.
It is both possible and probable that, except for some unforeseen
accident, the Evanses might have gone on making and selling poteen for
an indefinite time—in fact, as long as the country remained in the
present state of chaos. The distillation of poteen always has and always
will appeal to the western peasant, and the story of how the Evanses
called in the police to defend their still against the attack of the
Volunteers will be told over the firesides of many a cottage for
generations to come—long after Sinn Fein is dead and buried.
But at last their good luck deserted them. One night while working at
the still, John carelessly knocked over an oil-lamp, and in a moment the
old dry woodwork of the attic was in flames. Before morning the grand
old house, with its great collection of priceless furniture, was a
smouldering ruin, nothing but the bare blackened walls standing, and so
it is likely to remain for all time.
The Evanses, having made a considerable sum of money by now, said
good-bye to Blake, and returned to their native land.
XI.
THE MAYOR’S CONSCIENCE.
In the spring of 1920 Blake suddenly received orders to proceed to a
town in the south of Ireland on special duty, and on applying for leave
was granted a fortnight, which he determined to spend in Dublin. In due
course his relief arrived, and after handing over he found himself free
from all responsibility for the first time for many months.
At this period the Government and the Irish railwaymen were enacting a
comic opera worthy of Gilbert and Sullivan at their best, the Government
paying the railway companies a huge subsidy, the greater part of which
found its way into the railwaymen’s pockets in the form of enormous
wages, while the men refused to carry any armed forces of the Crown; and
the public, who, of course, indirectly paid the subsidy, looked on
helplessly.
In order to get a passenger train Blake had to motor thirty-two miles to
a station in the next county, where, as yet, no armed forces had tried
to travel. While waiting here a green country boy asked him some trivial
question, and with little difficulty Blake led him on to tell his whole
history.
In spite of a Sinn Fein edict to the contrary, many young men, who could
find no work in Ireland, or who wished to avoid service in the I.R.A.,
were at this time contriving to emigrate to the States by crossing to
England and sailing from Southampton. In order to defeat this, Sinn Fein
agents were in the habit of frequenting the termini in Dublin for the
purpose of getting in touch with these would-be emigrants and forcing
them to return home.
This youth, who came from the Ballyrick district, and had never been in
a train in his life, told Blake that a brother in the States had sent
him his passage, and that he was due to sail from Southampton in a few
days’ time, but had to go to the American Consul in Dublin in order that
his passport might be viséd, and asked Blake where the consul’s office
was.
Blake warned him not to tell any one he met on his journey that he was
going to America, or he would surely fall into the hands of the Sinn
Fein police, and thought no more about the matter.
When the train reached a junction after about an hour and a half’s run,
there was considerable delay while a large party of Auxiliary Cadets
searched the train, and eventually arrested a police sergeant, whom they
removed after a desperate struggle to a waiting motor. Blake was reading
at the time, and did not think anything was wrong until he saw the
sergeant being dragged out of the station. It then occurred to him that,
though he thought he knew every Cadet in the west by sight, yet he
failed to recognise any of the search-party. However, it was useless to
interfere, as he was alone and unarmed.
Blake stayed at a hotel near Stephen’s Green, and for the first part of
the night, so silent and empty were the streets, that Dublin might have
been a city of the dead. However, about 2 A.M., a miniature battle broke
out in some near quarter, and for hours rifle-fire and the explosions of
bombs continued, varied at times by bursts of machine-gun fire.
The following morning after breakfast he set out to see a high official
in the Castle, a friend of his father’s, and also to report at the
R.I.C. Headquarters there. While walking along Grafton Street shots
suddenly rang out at each end, and at once the crowd tried to escape
down several by-streets, only to be held up by the Cadets at every
point; and it was not until two hours afterwards, when the Cadets had
satisfied themselves that the men they wanted were not there, that Blake
was free to proceed to the Castle.
The streets appeared much the same as usual, but the Castle was greatly
changed from peace times. The entrance gates were heavily barred; barbed
wire, steel shutters, and sandbags in evidence everywhere. Outside, a
strong party of Dublin Metropolitan Police and Military Foot Police.
Inside, a strong guard of infantry in steel helmets, while a tank and
two armoured cars were standing by ready to go into action.
As nobody was allowed to enter the Castle without a pass, Blake had to
get a friend from the headquarters of the R.I.C. to identify him before
he could gain admission, and he learnt from his friend that the party of
Auxiliaries he had seen the previous day arresting the police sergeant
at the junction were in reality a flying column of Volunteers, who had
managed to smuggle the Cadets’ uniforms into the country from England.
Blake found that most of the officials in the Castle were virtually
prisoners there, and in order to keep their figures down had improvised
a gravel tennis-court and also a squash racket-court.
When training at the depot in Dublin, Blake had made the acquaintance of
a Colonel Mahoney, who had retired and lived near Kingstown with his
only daughter, and his chief object in going to Dublin was to see Miss
Mahoney again. After leaving the Castle he met her by appointment, and
after they had lunched and been to a picture-house, they left by tram to
be back in time for tea with the Colonel. After the tram started Blake
found that he had an hour to spare, and got out at Ballsbridge to see a
friend, while Miss Mahoney went on alone.
On reaching the Mahoneys’ house Blake learnt that, when Miss Mahoney got
out at Kingstown, she had been followed by four young men, who had
demanded the name of the man she had travelled in the tram with, and on
her refusing to disclose Blake’s name, they had knocked her down with
the butts of their revolvers, and left her there partially stunned.
The following day, when on her way to meet Blake again in Dublin, her
tram was held up by Auxiliaries, and all the men on it carefully
searched for arms; but before the Cadets boarded the tram, Miss Mahoney
saw several young men pass their revolvers to girls sitting next to
them, with the result that the Auxiliaries found no arms. On leaving the
tram at the end of Kildare Street, the pockets of her coat feeling
unusually heavy, she put her hands into them and found a revolver in
each. At the same moment two men overtook her and demanded their arms.
When he had been in Dublin four days Blake had to go to Broadstone
Station to inquire about a kit-bag which had been lost on the journey to
Dublin. He reached the station about a quarter of an hour before the
departure of the train for the west, and passing a group of young men on
the platform, recognised amongst them the youth who had asked him where
to find the American consul.
There were no police within sight, and it was useless to interfere
single-handed, but without doubt the talkative youth had fallen into the
hands of the Sinn Fein Police, who were returning him to his home minus
his passage-money: the group consisted of four dejected-looking youths
and three rough-looking men, obviously in charge of the others.
When his leave was up Blake left for the south by an express train,
changing at a junction after about two hours’ run. Here, just as the
train was on the point of starting, an armed party of the Royal
Fencibles under a subaltern marched on to the platform and took their
seats in several different third-class carriages, the officer getting
into Blake’s carriage. There was a considerable delay, and Blake
expected that, as usual, the guard and driver would refuse to carry
armed soldiers, but to his surprise the train started without any
incident.
After an hour’s run, the train pulled up with a sudden jerk in a cutting
just outside a station, and as the subaltern put his head out of the
window to ascertain the cause, the train was raked from end to end by
heavy rifle-fire, and the young subaltern collapsed on top of Blake, his
head shattered by a dum-dum bullet.
Blake threw himself flat on the floor of the carriage until the fire
from the top of the cutting slackened owing to a Lewis gun opening fire
from one of the carriages near the engine. Taking the dead boy’s
revolver, he then jumped on to the line, and made his way towards the
forward carriages, where the soldiers had opened fire with their rifles.
Here he found a gallant Lewis gunner, badly wounded in an arm and leg,
firing his gun as fast as he could mount the magazines, and so
preventing the Volunteers from leaving their cover at the top of the
bank and attacking at close quarters.
So hot was the Lewis gunner’s fire that after five minutes the
Volunteers broke off the action and simply vanished. Blake then turned
his attention to the wounded civilians, and though he had grown
indifferent to dreadful sights through years of war, the awful condition
of the dead and wounded in that train made him physically sick.
The majority of the wounds were from flat-nosed bullets, with the most
terrible results. In one carriage lay a young woman in a pool of blood,
her chest literally blown away by one of these devilish bullets. In
another, a middle-aged man was screaming like a mad wild animal, his arm
and shoulder shattered, and at his feet lay an old countrywoman, the top
of her head blown off.
Very few of the soldiers had been wounded, and under Blake’s command
they at once started off in pursuit, only to catch a glimpse of the
Volunteers disappearing down a road on bicycles.
After a long delay the train went on, and in order to try and forget the
awful scenes he had just witnessed, Blake endeavoured to read two
English papers. The first paper, in a long leading article, called for a
policy of conciliation in Ireland, while the second (a threepenny
edition of the first) recounted at great length a speech made the
previous day by a famous legal politician calling loudly upon the
Government to withdraw all troops from Ireland, and demanding that the
R.I.C. and Auxiliary Cadets should be severely dealt with for their
brutal reprisals on innocent people, but never a word about the savage
attacks on these same R.I.C. and Cadets by these “innocent people,” or a
single thought for the widows and orphans of the murdered policemen. In
disgust he threw both papers out of the carriage windows, and consigned
all politicians to the bottomless pit.
On arriving at Esker, Blake found that his chief duty was to act as
liaison officer between the military and police, and that he would be
attached to the staff of the G.O.C. of the district.
He quickly realised that the bad reports of the state of the south had
not been exaggerated, and that it was in a far worse state than the
west. Ambushes of police and military, attacks on trains, shootings of
unarmed soldiers and police in the streets at all hours of the day and
night, the finding of dead men riddled with bullets in every kind of
place, from an open field to an empty house, and the robbery of mails
occurred daily with monotonous regularity; and so accustomed had people
of all classes become to this saturnalia of crime, that they thought no
more about the murder of a human being than the usual man thinks of
killing a rat.
Blake’s principal work consisted of investigating these crimes in
company with police and soldiers, and afterwards in making out a report
for the General. In addition, he accompanied the General when making
tours through the district.
One morning they received news of a terrible ambush of Cadets, and on
arriving at the scene of the ambush Blake found the dead bodies of the
Cadets still lying on the road. All their equipment and personal effects
had been stolen, and their faces smashed in with an axe. Probably in
several cases this barbarous mutilation had been committed before the
unfortunate Cadets were dead.
Two days afterwards the bodies of the murdered Cadets passed through
Esker _en route_ for England. All shops were closed, and great crowds
collected in the streets. Blake was greatly struck by the different
attitudes of sections of the crowd, some taking their hats off with
every mark of reverence and sympathy when the coffins passed, while
others kept their hats on until ordered by the officers to uncover, and
many showed plainly by their faces that they were in full sympathy with
the murderers.
Conditions in the south were now rapidly drifting into a war of
extermination, and every morning brought fresh reports of men shot the
previous night, either in bed before the eyes of their relations, or
else against a wall outside their homes.
One evening word came to headquarters through the secret service that a
baker in an outlying village was to be shot that night. It appeared that
the baker, a moderate Sinn Feiner, had been chosen by the Inner Circle
to take part in one of their nightly “executions,” and had refused. So
the edict had gone forth that if the baker would not commit murder, he
should be murdered himself.
The General at once sent Blake with a party of soldiers to try and save
the baker’s life, but, missing their way in the dark, they arrived a few
minutes too late. They found the unfortunate man lying on his bed shot
through the head, while the only occupant of the house, the murdered
man’s sister, sat white-faced by the bedside moaning and wringing her
hands.
They could get nothing out of the sister, except that a party of armed
and masked men, in “trench coats” as ever, had suddenly burst into the
house and insisted that her brother should accompany them for some
unknown purpose, and that he had refused. For a time they argued with
him, until another man rushed into the house, calling out to them to be
quick as the soldiers were near. Whereupon they shot the baker as he lay
in bed, with the sister looking on, and then left the house hurriedly.
There seemed nothing to be done, and Blake was on the point of leaving
when his eye caught a piece of white paper under the bed, which turned
out to be the baker’s death-warrant for treason, signed by the C.M.A. of
the I.R.A.
On his return Blake handed the death-warrant to the Intelligence people,
who returned it shortly, saying that they could make nothing of it.
After showing it to the General, Blake put the warrant away, and thought
no more about it.