picture of the condition of the south and west of Ireland: heartrending
accounts of homeless and starving women and children, old and young men
and boys hunted like wild beasts in the mountains and living on berries
and roots; shops burnt to the ground and looted by Black and Tans in
mufti; and of men and boys shot by Auxiliaries in the dead of night
before the eyes of their relations.
He then asked the inspector who had given him this information, adding
that he would like to see the proof of it, and at the same time telling
him that he was a D.I. in the R.I.C.
The inspector invited Blake to go to the police station with him, and
here, as Blake had expected, he was shown the usual lying propaganda and
pamphlets of Sinn Fein, which have been distributed by the million
throughout England, Scotland, Wales, and the U.S.A. An extract from one
pamphlet is worth repeating:—
“Famine is about to add thousands of innocent victims to the hundreds of
thousands already in need of the bare necessities that keep body and
soul together. In every Irish village and town sickness, pestilence, and
death invade the humble homes, striking swiftly and surely the mothers
and children incapable of resistance through months of struggle against
cold and hunger.... Children of tender years, ragged and wretched,
trudge daily through the cold to a school now used for a relief station
to obtain the one meal a day on which they live—a piece of bread and a
warm drink.”
Seeing from his ribbons that the man had served in the war, Blake asked
him if he would take the word of a brother officer against that of a
Sinn Fein rebel. The inspector seemed to think this a good joke, and
replied: “A brother officer every time.” “Well, then,” said Blake, “as
an ex-British officer, I give you my word of honour that all those
pamphlets you have just shown me are a pack of lies circulated by Irish
rebels to ruin your country.”
Still the inspector was only half convinced, and in spite of all Blake
could say he saw when he at last left that the man’s belief in the
printed pamphlets of Sinn Fein was still unshaken. Such is the
tremendous effect of print, whether newspapers or pamphlets, on the
modern mind, and the firm belief in the old saying that there can be no
smoke without a fire.
That afternoon Blake was carried off by his hostess to a drawing-room
lecture at a big country-house. His hostess was not quite sure what the
lecture was about, but believed it had something to do with Russia.
After tea the lecturer arose, and before he uttered a word, Blake had a
premonition of what was coming. A tall thin man, with pronounced Celtic
peculiarities and a mane of long, lank, black hair, Blake had seen his
prototype thousands of times in the west of Ireland.
Throwing back his great mane with a jerk of his head, the lecturer
started on an impassioned recital of the atrocities committed in Ireland
by the British Army of Occupation, practically the same collection of
lies and wicked quarter truths which Blake had heard from the police
inspector that morning.
Blake watched the faces of the audience closely, mostly women of the
upper and middle classes, and could see that the lecturer’s ready tongue
was making a deep impression on them. There was no yawning or fidgeting,
and the audience, many of them with the parted lips of rapt attention,
kept their eyes riveted on the quite interesting face of the wild man of
the west, camouflaged by a London tailor to harmonise with an English
drawing-room.
Blake let the man have a fair innings, and then while he was drinking a
glass of water (Blake felt like asking him if he would not prefer
poteen) stood up and said quietly, “Ladies and gentlemen, so far this
lecture has been nothing but a pack of lies from beginning to end. The
lecturer is a Sinn Fein rebel camouflaged as an Irish gentleman, and I
am a D.I. of the Royal Irish Constabulary. During the war I fought for
your country, and the lecturer probably assisted the Boches in every
underhand and mean way he could. You can judge for yourselves which of
us is most probably telling the truth, and nothing but the truth.”
The wild man turned with a wicked snarl, all signs of the veneer gone,
and his face reminded Blake of a cornered gunman he had had to deal with
once during a raid on a Dublin lodging-house; and there would probably
have been an ugly and unseemly scene, but the owner of the house
intervened, and gently but firmly led the wild man out of the room,
while Blake and his friends left the house at once.
On his return Blake found a cipher wire from his County Inspector
recalling him at once, and going by car to London managed to catch the
Irish mail from Euston. All the sleepers were engaged, but by good luck
he found himself in possession of a first-class compartment.
While idly smoking a cigarette and meditating on the extraordinary
amount of Sinn Fein propaganda he had met with in the course of one
short day in England, he noticed a well-dressed slight girl pass and
repass the glass door of his compartment several times. As the mail
pulled out of the station this girl pulled open the sliding-door from
the corridor and sat down opposite Blake, remarking that it was a grand
evening, and thereby unconsciously informing him that she was Irish.
Suddenly realising that he was smoking, he asked the girl, who he could
see was unusually pretty and quite young, if she had any objection, and,
as he had expected, she readily entered into conversation.
After a time she remarked, with a pretty engaging smile, that she saw he
had nothing to read, and getting down her suit-case, handed Blake a
handful of the identical pamphlets he had already seen that morning in
the English country police station. In addition, there was one fresh one
on “The Irish Issue,” by William J. M. A. Maloney, M.D., captain in the
British Army, August 1914-August 1916.
Blake then saw that his original suspicion was correct, and that he had
to deal with that most dangerous of all spies, Sinn Fein or any other
breed—a pretty girl.
By the time Rugby was passed he had heard the simple life-history in a
rural part of England of the girl, ending with the information that she
was going to Dublin for three months, and that she was very much in
dread after all the dreadful happenings there she had read of in the
papers, and she had never been in Ireland before (all this in a very
fine rich Dublin brogue). And Blake began to think that he must really
possess that most priceless of assets, to look a much bigger fool than
you are.
After the stop at Crewe the girl again attacked him about Dublin, asking
if he lived in lodgings there, and, if so, was there a room to let in
the same house. A few days previously Michael Collins’s flat in a
certain Dublin street had been raided with satisfactory results to the
raiders, and Blake gave her this address, assuring her that she would
here find quarters entirely suitable to her requirements. The girl took
the hint, and the rest of the journey to Holyhead was spent in silence.
On the mail-boat Blake saw the girl once more, sitting with a youthful
officer of the Dublin garrison, and carrying on an animated conversation
with their heads touching.
On arriving at Ballybor Barracks Blake found further orders awaiting him
from the County Inspector to proceed at once to Castleport with all the
men and cars he could spare.
The wildest rumours were afloat amongst his men: that the I.R.A. were
going to take the field openly (this notable achievement was reserved
for the Truce); that a large force of Americans had landed from a yacht
at Errinane with stacks of arms, and that they were raising and arming
the mountain men of that district greatly against their wish and
inclination, and that De Valera had been landed on the west coast from a
submarine, was hiding in the mountains of Ballyrick, and was at long
last going to take the field himself.
Collecting every man he could spare and taking all the transport except
one Crossley, Blake set off with a strong convoy of police for
Castleport. The men were in great heart, and eagerly looking forward to
a good square fight in the open with the hitherto elusive soldiers of
the I.R.A.
At Castleport they found the barracks packed with police, drawn in from
all the outlying districts; even two large houses adjacent to the
barracks had had to be commandeered to hold all the men.
The County Inspector explained the situation, which was quite simple. A
large force of I.R.A. flying columns, estimated at over a thousand
strong, were reported to have refused to return to the south, and had
taken up permanent quarters in the Maryburgh Peninsula, north-west of
Errinane, and were playing old puck generally throughout that part of
the west. At first these flying columns had been distributed all through
the mountains, some in the Ballyrick country, more in the Slievenamoe
Mountains, and a large party to the south of Castleport; but owing to
the unpleasant attentions of Auxiliary flying columns they had gradually
retired towards the Maryburgh Peninsula, where so far they had been left
unmolested.
The gunmen on the Slievenamoe Mountains had had a bad fright from the
very efficient company of Auxiliaries quartered at Annagh. Father John
had done all in his power to get rid of these unwelcome guests in his
parish, but showing a fine turn of speed they just managed to escape,
actually dashing through Ballybor in the middle of the night in a convoy
of commandeered Fords a few days before Blake’s return.
For some time the gunmen had been in the habit of commandeering their
rations at night from Castleport, and during these nights the town would
be completely isolated. The first intimation of anything being wrong
which the townspeople had was the return one night of several
white-faced crying girls, who told their parents that they had just by
chance met Pat So-and-So, and that he had asked them to go for a stroll,
and hardly had they got outside the town when armed men had seized poor
Pateen and ordered the girls to go home at once. Incidentally the poor
Pateens were kept as a labour platoon by the gunmen, and made to do all
the dirty work of digging trenches, breaking down bridges, &c., which
occurred during the operations to follow. A different butcher, baker,
and grocer would be visited each time, just to show that there was no
question of favouritism with the I.R.A.
While this requisitioning was proceeding every road leading into
Castleport was held by strong pickets of gunmen, who, as soon as the
ration party returned, would make for the Maryburgh Mountains on
bicycles, the ration party travelling on a commandeered lorry.
Directly the County Inspector got wind of this proceeding, he made an
attempt to surprise the gunmen one night, but their local information
was too good, and he failed. Then, hearing that this big muster of
gunmen was hiding in the Maryburgh Peninsula, he collected all the
forces he could, and prepared to kill, capture, or drive them into the
Atlantic.
Soon after Blake’s arrival at Castleport, apparently reliable
information came in that a landing of arms had been carried out early
that morning at Errinane, and that these arms were to be taken as soon
as it was dark to the Maryburgh Peninsula. The County Inspector at once
detailed Blake and Black, the Castleport D.I., to take a large force of
police and attempt to seize the arms before they could be taken out of
Errinane.
Errinane lies about twenty-one miles to the south of Castleport, on a
narrow inland bay. The road runs the whole way through wild mountainous
country, though at no point does the road run very close to the
mountains.
On the way out Blake carefully looked out for any points where an ambush
might be carried out, and noticed that there were two bad spots: one
where the road skirted the edge of a wood with a rocky hill close on the
other side; the second, about eight miles from Castleport, where the
road twisted through a ravine with steep rocky sides dotted with bushes,
and at one place crossed a narrow high bridge—an ideal place for an
ambush. Blake was so much impressed with this place that he stopped the
cars and made his men search carefully the sides of the ravine, but not
a sign of any preparations for an ambush could they find. Nor were there
any trenches on the road.
After picketing Errinane, Blake searched every house, shop, store, and
barn in the village, but not a sign of arms could be found, nor was any
yacht to be seen in the harbour.
It was late when they started back for Castleport, and Blake, who was
suspicious of an ambush at the bridge in the ravine, which was the
nearest point on the road to the Maryburgh country, ordered Black to go
ahead with two Crossleys, and to search the ravine thoroughly, and then
to wait until the rest of the force caught him up.
Blake’s party was delayed by two punctures, and when they got near to
the ravine heavy firing suddenly broke out ahead of them. When within
half a mile of the bridge, they saw a party of men running away from a
culvert in a dip of the road ahead of them.
Luckily, Blake was in the leading car, and ordered the driver to pull up
about a hundred yards short of the culvert, which, sure enough, went up
before they had been waiting two minutes.
The firing ahead had now grown heavier, and every now and then the dull
thud of a bursting Mills bomb could be heard above the racket of
musketry. Realising that Black must be hard pressed, Blake divided his
force into two, ordered each party to deploy on one side of the road and
attempt to outflank the ravines.
When within three hundred yards of the bridge both parties came under
heavy enfilade machine-gun fire—machine-guns which made a noise none had
ever heard before, and were probably American Thompson guns,—and they
were forced to take the best cover they could find in the open bog.
The machine-gun fire at once died down, only to break out again every
time the police attempted to advance by short rushes. By painful degrees
they managed to get within eighty yards of the bridge, where the
formation of the ground protected them from that horrible enfilade hail
of bullets, and gathering themselves together they charged at the
reverse slope of the ravine.
At once the firing ceased, and when at last they had torn their way
through briars and gorse to reach the top, all that they found was small
piles of empty cartridges and two ordinary tweed caps—not a sign of a
gunman whichever way they looked.
They then turned their attention to their comrades on the road, and here
a heartrending sight met their eyes. At first it appeared as though all
the occupants of the two cars were either dead or wounded, but as they
descended towards the bridge a small party of police crawled from
underneath it, soaked to the skin. They found Black lying against the
front wheel of the leading car with four bullet wounds in his body and
his head smashed in by a dum-dum bullet—stone-dead.
Blake found out from the survivors that Black had disregarded his
orders, and had not pulled up until the cars had passed the bridge, when
a hail of bullets swept the cars from the top of both banks of the
ravine. Black was wounded by the first volley, was hit twice while
getting out of the car to lead his men to the attack, and in the head as
his foot touched the ground.
The sun had by now gone down, and collecting all his wounded and dead,
Blake pushed off for Castleport as fast as he could.
Beyond a blown-up culvert half a mile from the ravine, which the cars
crossed without difficulty on their own planks, they met with no further
trouble.
Then followed three feverish days of planning and preparing for the
great drive, which it was hoped would put a thousand gunmen out of
action for good and all; unless indeed a new Chief Secretary should come
to Ireland, perhaps this time from Australia or possibly from India, or
even a Jew, who would celebrate his arrival in this unfortunate country
by opening wide the gates of the internment camps.
The area to be driven was roughly three hundred and sixty square miles,
which will give some idea of the magnitude of the task which a handful
of police had to tackle with the aid of a battalion of infantry and a
company of Auxiliaries. And when it is added that the entire peninsula
consisted of mountains (five of them well over two thousand feet, and
unclimbable in many places), bogs, lakes, and rivers, with only one
decent road which ran _round the coast and at the base_, it will be
granted that the task was nearly an impossible one.
Also the few scattered inhabitants would be certain to be found to act
as unwilling scouts for the gunmen. Moreover, once the weather turned
wet, which may happen in the course of a few hours on the west coast, a
thick mist would cover the mountains, and all the gunmen had to do then
was to walk out of the trap and make their way inland.
The plan of attack was as follows. The Castleport-Errinane road crossed
the twenty-mile neck of the peninsula, and before dawn one day ten
columns, each of eighty men, formed up a mile apart.
As soon as it was light enough to see, these columns started, marching
in columns of route for the first two miles; they then deployed into
open order, got in touch with each other, and then started to drive the
country out of face for the remaining eighteen miles. Frequently the
line had to halt while a column would hunt a mountain in its line of
advance, or a detour round a lake had to be made.
For the first four miles there was no sign of the gunmen—the column only
met flocks of mountain sheep, and no sign of a human being; but, when
ten miles from the west end of the peninsula, the troops on both flanks
came under fire—evidently an attempt to stop them working round behind
the gunmen.
The troops in the centre now tried to advance, but were also held up by
heavy fire before they had gone half a mile; but at their third attempt
the flanks met with no opposition, and the whole line was able to
continue the advance. From now on the gunmen offered a determined
resistance at every ridge, but always retired before their positions
could be turned.
At last, close on nightfall, the Crown forces came to the strongest
position of all—a long ridge in the centre with small hills at each end,
extending to the north and south coasts of the peninsula.
As there was no time left for a turning movement, a direct assault was
tried, only to fail twice. It was then decided to wait until the full
moon had risen, when it would be possible to make a turning movement
along the coast.
Unfortunately the sky became cloudy, and during the whole night the
Crown forces were unable to move; but as soon as the daylight came
another assault met with no opposition.
Once on top of the ridge they could see the remainder of the peninsula
to the west coast, and not a sign of a gunman anywhere; nor when they
searched every valley and even some sand-hills on the coast could they
find so much as a single gunman.
The following day word was brought into the barracks at Castleport that
a column of gunmen, thousands strong, had been seen marching in column
of route into the Ballyrick Mountains from the coast; but how they could
have got there from the Maryburgh Peninsula did not transpire for some
time.
Later it was learnt that when the Crown forces gave up the attack on the
final ridge to wait for the moon, the gunmen waited until it was dark,
when they made their way to the coast. Here they had collected every
fishing-boat to be found. The sea being calm, the whole force managed
during the night to cross the bay to the north, a distance of fifteen
miles, landed on the Ballyrick coast soon after dawn, and at once set
off for the Ballyrick Mountains.
XX.
THE GREAT ROUND UP.
At the beginning of the Irish war, when the I.R.A., to use its own
words, “took the field against the British Army,” its activities were
purely local and sporadic. Some unfortunate police patrols of half a
dozen men, often less, walking along the King’s highway, interfering
with none except evil-doers, would be suddenly fired at with shot-guns,
sometimes loaded with jagged slugs and pieces of metal, from a safe
cover behind a stone wall with carefully-prepared loopholes.
These police patrols never had a dog’s chance, and should have been
discontinued long before they actually were.
At first the murderers did not trouble to make sure that they had a
perfectly safe line of retreat behind them when the location of these
cowardly ambushes was chosen, but after a few failures they made no
mistake in future, the line of retreat, either through a thick wood or
down the reverse slope of a hill, being always the first consideration.
Married police living in houses or rooms in the town of their station
afforded an easy and safe target for the venom of these hooligan
shop-boys and farmers’ sons. At first the police used to go home
unarmed, and used to be shot down in the back while passing along an
ill-lighted street or lane, or the assassins would knock at the door of
the policeman’s home, and if he came to the door would fire at him and
then run away.
Occasionally, in districts where the standard of bravery was very high,
all the Volunteers would collect in a small town after dark—always after
dark—and carry out an attack on the local police barracks. They knew
perfectly well that it was impossible for the police to leave their
barracks owing to the smallness of their numbers, and that as long as
they kept well under cover (which they did) they were just as safe as
they would be in their own beds at home.
These so-called attacks on police barracks simply consisted in gangs of
hooligans first taking careful cover in houses adjacent to the barracks,
and then firing off as many rounds as they possessed. They always ceased
fire long before daybreak, in order that they might be home in good time
before it was possible for the police to leave barracks or a relief
party to arrive on the scene.
At this period of the war, raiding the houses of the Loyalists for arms,
and incidentally for money and valuables, not forgetting drink, was a
much safer and more remunerative night’s amusement than shooting
policemen or attacking barracks, though the price then was £60 for every
policeman murdered.
A party of twenty to thirty Volunteers, usually boys from fifteen to
twenty years of age, would meet at a fixed rendezvous some time after
dark with all the arms they could raise. They would then don black cloth
masks, turn up their coat collars, pull their hats down, and sally forth
to spend the night robbing, murdering, and terrorising the unfortunate
Loyalists of the district.
Imagine the feelings of a respectable old man living in a lonely house,
who had probably never harmed any one during his lifetime, and whose
only crime consisted in being loyal or refusing to subscribe to the
funds of the I.R.A., in many cases a form of common robbery.
Night after night he lies in bed expecting to hear a loud knock at the
door, and at last it comes. He opens the door to find a dozen shot-guns,
old rifles, and pistols pointed at him. Some brute then demands his
arms; the old man says he has none. They push him aside and force their
way in. The old man is made to sit down while two young hounds keep
prodding him in the back of the neck with the muzzles of their pistols,
to remind him what they could do if they liked. The remainder ransack
the house from top to bottom, take away any money or valuables they can
find, and consume any drink there may be. If they cannot find any money
or valuables, they threaten him with death until he disgorges. And
lonely women suffered in like fashion.
The demand for arms used to be merely a blind for committing robbery.
The location of every firearm in a district was well known from the
beginning of the war.
If the reader happens to be an English country gentleman, let him think
what it would be like never to know the night or hour when he would be
raided by a gang of farm labourers or village loafers, armed and masked,
from the nearest village. He might retire to bed to be waked up by loud
knocking on his front door. If he did not open quickly a rifle shot
would be fired through the lock, and if the door did not open then, it
quickly would to the blows of hatchets which would follow. A wild gang
of drunken brutes would burst into his nice house, smash desks,
sideboards, and cupboards, searching for loot. Lucky man if he escaped
with the loss of arms, money, and valuables, and not of home and life as
well.