_Thursday, May 4th._
Dearest G.,--I had not intended writing again so soon, but things are
still happening that I think you will like to know, so I am going on
with this series of letters, though I don't know when you will get
them. But as by this time you will have seen N. you will have heard
many details from him. How much he will have to tell his school-fellows
when he returns to Shrewsbury to-morrow! I hoped to have sent my second
and third letters by N., and in fact had actually packed them with his
things. But when I told H. he said the rules were so stringent about
letters that N. would certainly be questioned as to whether he was
carrying any, and if he replied in the affirmative, which he certainly
would have done, the letters would undoubtedly be confiscated and N.
might get into serious trouble. So I had to unpack them again and must
keep them till the censorship is removed, which will probably be in a
few days. They have been written under much stress of circumstances,
and are the only record we have of this most deeply interesting time,
so I don't want to lose them altogether.
I am not too well, as they say here. The loss of eight nights' sleep
seems to have robbed me of the power of sleeping for more than an
hour or two at a stretch, and even that is attended often with horrid
dreams and nightmares. But this is only the effect of over-strain, and
no doubt will pass, though my head feels like a feather bed; so don't
expect too much from these later letters.
Last night after dinner, when H. and I were sitting upstairs in
attendance on the telephone, who should walk in but Dr. W. We had not
met throughout the rebellion, so he had heaps to tell us. His wife
and children were down at Greystones, and the poor thing had had a
terribly anxious time, hearing nothing reliable of her husband or of
her father, Lord S. What she did hear was that Dr. W. had been killed
and also that H. had been shot in the G.P.O. She became so anxious that
her faithful Scotch nurse was determined to get into Dublin and get
news or die in the attempt. I must tell you her adventures, not only
to show you how impossible it was to get into the city, but also it is
such an extraordinary story of endurance and devotion that it ought to
be recorded.
The girl started from Greystones at 2.30 p.m. on the Thursday, I think
it was, carrying for the officers' home 14 lbs. of beef and 4 lbs. of
butter, as Mrs. W. feared supplies would have run short, since nothing
could be got in Dublin except at exorbitant prices (7_s._ a dozen for
eggs and 14_s._ for a pair of chickens); so the girl started carrying a
dead weight of 18 lbs.
She walked to Bray (five miles) and took train to Kingstown; here she
had to take to the road, as the line beyond Kingstown was wrecked.
She walked to Merrion Gates along the tram line about four miles,
when she was stopped by sentries. She retraced her steps as far as
Merrion Avenue (one mile), went up Merrion Avenue, and tried the
Stillorgan-Donnybrook route. Here she got as far as Leeson Street
Bridge (six miles), when she was within 300 yards of her destination,
Dr. W.'s house. Here again she was stopped by sentries and turned back.
She walked back to Blackrock (seven miles), when she was again stopped
by sentries. She then returned up Merrion Avenue and, seeing that all
routes were impossible to Dublin, took the road to Killiney (five
miles), where she arrived about 11.30 p.m., having done thirty miles.
Here she got hospitality at a cottage and stayed the remainder of the
night there, paying for her accommodation with the 4 lbs. of butter,
but she stuck gamely to the beef.
Next day she walked five miles to Shankhill, when she met a cart
going to Bray _viâ_ Killiney, so she rode back to Killiney on it and
from thence to Bray. She then walked the five miles from Bray back to
Greystones, her starting point.
Arrived back, she reached home absolutely exhausted, having walked
forty miles, and dropped down saying, "There's your beef, and I never
got there or heard anything." Mrs. W. was greatly distressed at her
having carried the meat back when so exhausted and asked her why she
had not given it away. "And what for should I give it away when we'll
be wanting it ourselves maybe?"
Next day Dr. W. managed to get a telephone message through to his wife
and relieved her anxiety.
He told us that on the first or second night of the rebellion--he could
not remember which--two ladies of the Vigilance Committee patrolling
the streets at night came on a soldier lying wounded in an alley off
Dawson Street, where he had crawled on being wounded. They went to
Mercer's Hospital and gave information, and stretcher-bearers were sent
out to bring in the man, the ladies accompanying them. When he was on
the stretcher the two ladies walked up to the railings of St. Stephen's
Green and gave the Sinn Feiners inside a regular dressing down, telling
them they were skunks and cowards to shoot people down from behind
bushes and asking them why they did not come out and fight in the open
like men. Meanwhile the stretcher-bearers had taken the man to the
hospital, where Dr. W. saw him.
"Well, my man; where are you hurt?"
"Divil a pellet, sorr, above the knee," laughing.
"Does it pain you?"
"Not at all, sorr. Wait till I show you." He pulled up his trousers and
showed five bullet shots below the knee.
"What regiment?"
"Royal Irish, sorr, like Michael Cassidy, of Irish nationality; and I
bear no ill-will to nobody."
Cheery soul! His great pride was that about forty shots had been fired
at him and not one hit him above the knee.
Dr. W. must bear a charmed life. He told us of several escapes he had.
One, the most dramatic, I must tell you.
You know he is one of the surgeons to Mercer's Hospital, and had to be
perpetually operating there at all hours of the day and night, besides
having his own private hospital, in which he takes wounded officers. It
too was filled with rebellion victims, so his work was tremendous.
One night he left Mercer's about 1 a.m., accompanied by another doctor.
When passing in front of the Shelbourne Hotel they were challenged
by our troops there. On explaining who they were they were of course
allowed to proceed, and they stepped briskly out, wanting to get home.
Suddenly, on the same pavement, about twenty yards away as far as they
could judge in the black darkness, out flashed two little lights from
small electric lamps, evidently Sinn Fein signals. Dr. W. stopped and
said to his companion: "Did you see that? it was a signal," when almost
before the words were out of his mouth two rifles blazed straight
at them, almost blinding them with the flash, and they _felt_ the
bullets whiz past their heads. The two Sinn Feiners, having signalled,
waited long enough to see if their signal was returned, and then fired
straight at where by their footsteps they supposed Dr. W. and his
friend to be, and missed them by an inch or two.
Dr. W. and his friend got into the shelter of a doorway and flattened
themselves out, trying to look as if they were not there, and quite
forgetting that they both had lighted cigarettes, whose red tips should
have been a beacon light to a vital spot had the Sinn Feiners noticed
them. But for some reason they did not proceed further, and Dr. W.
heard their steps dying away in the distance. Meanwhile his companion
had his finger on the electric bell of the doorway where they were
hiding, and after a time which seemed like an eternity an upper window
opened and a voice inquired who was there, whereupon the woman of the
house came down and let them in, and they spent the remainder of the
night there.
Yesterday the Post Office was able to pay the separation allowances to
the soldiers' wives. Last week of course it was impossible, but as it
would have been equally impossible for them to have bought anything it
did not so much matter. The question was how to get so large a sum of
money round to the outlying post offices in safety, for, though the
city is now comparatively safe, there are still snipers in outlying
districts, and any party of Post Office officials known to have
possession of large sums of money would undoubtedly have been attacked.
So H. bethought him to requisition for one of the boiler armoured cars
with military guard, and it was at once granted him. We had heard of
them from N., but had not seen one, and great was the excitement at
the hotel when this huge monster arrived for H.'s instructions. We all
went out and examined it.
It was not one of Guinness's, but one that had been rigged up by one of
the railway companies, with an engine boiler fixed on to a huge motor
trolley, all painted light grey; and all down each side were black dots
in an elegant design--something like this:--
[] [] []
[][][] [][][] [][][]
[] [] []
Here and there one of these squares was cut out and acted as an
air-hole, but they all looked exactly alike, so a sniper on a roof or
from a window aiming at one of these squares probably found his bullet
struck iron and bounded off to the accompaniment of derisive jeers from
the "Tommies" inside.
[Illustration: ARMOURED CAR.]
From the hotel the car proceeded to the Bank of Ireland, and took
over £10,000 in _silver_, and started on its round to all the post
offices, delivering the money in perfect safety. I will try and send
you a photograph of one of these most ingenious conveyances.
After it had started on its round I went with H. to see the temporary
sorting offices. H. had secured an enormous skating rink at the back
of the Rotunda, and here all the sorting of letters was going on, with
no apparatus whatever except what the men had contrived for themselves
out of seats, benches and old scenery. They were all hard at work--a
regular hive of bees. We think it is greatly to the credit of the
Post Office staff that in twelve days from the _outbreak_ of the
rebellion and three days after the actual cessation of hostilities the
whole service was reorganised, with two deliveries a day in Dublin,
besides the ordinary country and mail deliveries. The engineers and
telegraphists were no less wonderful. Indeed the staff from top to
bottom of the office have worked splendidly, and H. is very proud of
them. We looked in at the poor G.P.O. on our way back. It is still
smouldering, and it will be quite a fortnight before any excavations
can be begun, but H. hopes to get the safe that contains many of our
treasures out of the wall and opened in a few days.
To-day a Dr. C. who is staying in the hotel told me of an extraordinary
escape he had had during one of the days of the rebellion. He was
walking through one of the squares, which he had been told was clear
of snipers, with an old friend of about eighty, when suddenly a bullet
struck the pavement at the feet of his friend and ricochetted off. It
was within an inch of the old gentleman's feet, and he was greatly
interested, wanting to find the bullet to keep as a memento. While
they were looking about for it a man who had been walking just behind
them passed them on the pavement, and had only gone a few yards when
they heard a second rifle shot, and the man dropped like a stone, shot
through the heart. Dr. C. ran up to him, but he was quite dead. There
was absolutely no safety anywhere from the snipers; man, woman, or
child, nothing came amiss to them. It was dastardly fighting, if it
could be called fighting at all.
A few days after St. Stephen's Green was supposed to have been cleared
of rebels, we were told of a young woman whose husband was home from
the war wounded and in one of the hospitals. She was going to see him,
so took a short cut through the Green, when she was shot through the
thigh; it is supposed by a rebel, in hiding in the shrubberies.
_Sunday, 7th._
I am sending off my other letters to you to-morrow, as we hear the
censorship is no longer so strict, and as from the papers the position
here seems now to be known in England private letters are not likely to
be stopped. I will keep this till the safe is opened and tell you the
result.
_15th._
To-day Mr. O'B. brought his wife to see me, and they have offered us
their lovely house, Celbridge Abbey, about ten miles from Dublin, for
five or six weeks from June 1st as they are going abroad again, and
they thought we should like it for a change. We are more than grateful,
as all our plans for going to Greystones for June and July are knocked
on the head; but to Celbridge there is a good train service, and H. can
come into Dublin every day, while I can revel in the lovely garden and
grounds and recover in the peace and quiet my lost powers of sleep.
What a kind thought it is, and how welcome at such a time! Celbridge
Abbey was the home of Swift's "Vanessa," and later of Grattan,
Ireland's greatest orator, so is a most interesting and historical
place.
_17th._
To-day the safe was opened, and contained nothing of any value,--only a
few official papers!
With this has gone our last hope of any salvage from the wreck of our
property. Dillon's "perfect gentlemen," of whom he expressed himself
so proud in the House the other night, had evidently broken open H.'s
great official desk, and found the key of the safe and abstracted my
jewel-case, F.'s field-glasses and several other of his much-prized
possessions, and then locked the safe again. The only document they
stole from among the official documents was F.'s commission. Why, we
cannot imagine, unless the fact that it bore the King's signature made
it worthy of special insult and desecration.
H. was very sad when he told me, but I think I am past caring about
any possessions now. F. and all his precious things are gone. Nothing
else seems worth considering. Perhaps some day we may pluck up heart to
collect things again around us, but at present one can only feel, "Let
the dead bury the dead."
_20th._
To-day they are beginning on the excavations of H.'s room; the fire
burnt with such ferocity that there is much less rubble in it than
one would imagine. As you probably remember, H.'s room was on the
first floor, with a storey above it. When the whole place fell in,
H.'s room fell through into the room below, and a portion of that had
fallen through to the cellars. The men are removing everything of
the nature of bricks and iron and stone coping of the roof, and then
four extra-careful men are to be put on to shovel up the rest of the
_débris_, which is burnt to powder, and Noblett, H.'s confidential
messenger, is going to be there to receive anything of ours that may be
found.
_23rd._
Yesterday morning and this morning I have been down watching the
excavations of H.'s room. It is quite like the excavations at Pompeii.
Every shovelful is most carefully overlooked, and several of our things
have turned up, though so far nothing of any intrinsic value. When I
went there yesterday morning Noblett produced a great lump of molten
glass of no shape or form with one or two metal nobs sticking up at
odd angles. He thought it was the remains of a cruet, but we had none;
and on further examination it flashed across my mind that it was the
cut-glass bottles in the large rosewood and brass-bound dressing-case
in which I had packed all my jewellery--family miniatures, four gold
watches and chains, diamond pendant, etc. It had been stolen out of
the safe, and evidently the looters had not been able to get it away.
Noblett was thrilled, and the men redoubled their carefulness, hoping
to find some of the jewellery. When I went down again in the afternoon
Noblett produced three little brooches that F. had given me on various
birthdays when a wee boy. He always went out with his own sixpence, and
nearly always returned with a brooch, which I used to wear with great
pride. One, a Swastika brooch, he gave me when he was at Margate after
that terrible illness, and he used to go on the pier in his bath-chair.
The blue enamel on it was intact in several places; the other two were
intact in form, but charred and black, with the pins burnt off. But
how glad I was to see them again! During the afternoon two or three
more brooches turned up, but nothing of any value whatever. So we came
to the conclusion the rebels had broken open the box and taken out
everything of value and thrown away the rest. The few burnt bits of
jewellery that were found all came from one spot.
This morning when I went Noblett had nearly a sackful of curiosities,
which I sorted over. Evidently these were the whole contents of the
canteen of plated things we used to take with us when we took a
furnished house and put the silver in a bank, quantities of spoons
and forks, black, and looking like old iron, many twisted into weird
shapes, and the knives, which were new when we came here, without a
scrap of ivory handle, and the blades burnt and twisted in the most
extraordinary way. A most miserable-looking collection, fit only for
the dust-heap.
_25th._
They are nearing the end of the excavations, and nothing of any value
has been found. This morning when I went I found them cutting into
a mound of what looked like solid white chalk. I could not imagine
what it could be, but the men told me it was the books that had been
stored in one of the great mahogany presses; not a trace of burnt wood
was found. I could not believe that books could be reduced to such a
substance. I had expected to find quantities of charred black paper,
with possibly some fragments of binding, and was quite incredulous.
However, on examining it I found the substance was in layers like the
leaves of a book, but when I picked some up it felt like silk between
my fingers, and you could blow it away like thistle-down. Had I not
seen it myself I should never have believed such a thing possible.
Besides H.'s and P.'s books there were a number of great official books
in leather bindings half an inch thick, but _all_ was reduced to the
same substance.
Noblett gave me to-day one of Princess Mary's gift boxes that had been
sent to me by a soldier at the front; except for being black instead of
bright brass, it was absolutely uninjured--the medallion in the centre,
and the inscription, date, etc., perfect. The Christmas card inside and
the Queen's letter were just black charred paper, but you could see the
M. and the crown above it on the card. Also an antique brass snuff-box
inlaid with mother-of-pearl turned up but little injured.
_26th._
To-day the men finished their work on H.'s room. At the last about
eight fragments of silver forks and two tablespoons were taken out
and a foot of a silver sugar-bowl with a bit of something that looked
like burnt tissue paper attached to it; and that was all that was found
of all our silver. The half of a copper base of one of our beautiful
Sheffield plate candelabra came out of one of the last shovelfuls,--and
there was an end of all our property.
So that page is turned, and it seems a good place to end this over-long
letter. On Thursday we go down to Celbridge, where with memories of
Swift and the wretched and foolish Vanessa and in company with a
beautiful swan and swaness, which bring their babies to the lawn to be
admired and duly fed, I am going to rest and recuperate for the next
five weeks and try to remember out of this awful time only the kindness
and sympathy that has been shown to us by so many Irish friends.
I shall not write any more of these diary letters unless there are
further acute developments, which God forbid.
Ever yours,
L. N.