Transcriber's Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

TALES OF THE

R.I.C.

TALES OF THE
R.I.C.

William Blackwood and Sons

Edinburgh and London

1921

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

CONTENTS

TALES OF THE R.I.C.

I.
THE INFORMER.

In many parts of the west of Ireland one finds small mountain farms of from five to twenty acres, generally consisting of twenty-five per cent rock, twenty-five per cent heather, and the remainder of indifferent grass-land. On such a farm a peasant will rear a large family, and how it is done is one of the mysteries of Ireland; but done it is, and often.

Patsey Mulligan was one of a family of ten, brought up on one of these farms until he was seventeen, when his father told him that it was time he thought of keeping himself, and, incidentally, of earning some money for his mother. Patsey quite agreed with his father, but soon found that it was much easier to talk of getting work in such a poor district as Cloonalla than to get it.

In the end Patsey made up his mind that the only thing to do was to go to England in search of work, and one cold winter’s morning he set off from his home, in company with three other lads from the same townland, to walk the fifteen miles across the mountains and bogs to the nearest railway station at Ballybor. Arriving in England, they made their way to a town in Yorkshire, where one of them had a brother working in a coal-mine, and within three days of leaving his home in Ireland Patsey found himself a Yorkshire miner.

Hardly had he settled down to his work in the coal-mine when the war broke out, followed by a rush of young miners to enlist, amongst others Patsey Mulligan; and before he realised what he was doing, he was a full private in a famous Yorkshire regiment. Patsey had, however, enlisted in the name of Murphy, hoping to keep his people in ignorance of the fact, knowing it would break his mother’s heart if she knew he was fighting.

Patsey thoroughly enjoyed the training, and within seven months of enlisting embarked for France; and after a few weeks’ pleasant life in billets, gradually moved north until finally the battalion took over trenches in the famous salient of Ypres—a great contrast to Patsey’s home in the west of Ireland.

There happened to be in the battalion a young Irish subaltern by name Anthony Blake, and when Blake told his Company Sergeant-Major to find him a servant—an Irishman if possible—Patsey at once volunteered for the job, and between the two young Irishmen there soon sprang up a friendship through the common bond of danger and discomfort.

After some time Patsey learnt through one of the boys with whom he had first crossed to England that his mother was dangerously ill, and that she had repeatedly written to Patsey to come home and see her before she died, but had naturally received no answer. In his trouble he appealed to Blake, and that night found him waiting at Popperinghe Station for the leave train with a return-warrant to Ballybor in his pocket.

On his arrival at Ballybor he set out on his long fifteen-mile tramp to his home at Cloonalla, and late on a summer’s evening the family of Mulligan were startled by a British soldier in full marching order walking into their home.

Before his mother died she made Patsey promise that he would not go back to France, and that he would stay at home and help his father to mind the other children. It is hard for a son to refuse his dying mother, and doubly so for an Irish boy.

When his mother’s funeral was over, Patsey buried his uniform and equipment in a bog-hole at night; but his rifle he hid in the thatch of an outhouse, and it was given out in the neighbourhood that he had been discharged from the Army as medically unfit.

After the usual time Patsey was posted as a deserter in his battalion; Blake found a new servant and forgot all about his late one, while Patsey settled down to work with his father, and the memory of Blake and the British Army faded from his mind.

Though wounded three times, Blake was one of the lucky men to return home to Ireland at the end of the war, and at once set about looking for a job. The son of a country doctor in the south of Ireland, at the outbreak of war he had just left school, and had not had time to settle on a career.

But if in England it was hard for ex-officers to get employment, in Ireland it was doubly so; and Blake soon found that it was next to impossible for a man who had worn the King’s uniform to get any work or appointment. The power of Sinn Fein was beginning to be felt in the land, and though many people would have gladly employed men returned from the front, they dared not.

At last, when he had quite given up hope, he received by post an offer to join the newly-formed Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and, gladly jumping at such an offer, was soon in training at the depot in Dublin. After a tour of duty in the south, the authorities offered him a cadetship in the R.I.C., and in the course of two months Blake found himself the District Inspector at Ballybor.

At this time the R.I.C., after about as bad a hammering as any force ever received, were beginning to get their tails up again; and whereas previously no policeman dared show his face outside his barracks after dark, they were now occasionally sending out strong patrols at night-time, to the great concern of the local Sinn Feiners, who for a considerable time had had things all their own way in the south and west.

The police district of Ballybor is, like many others in the west of Ireland, large, consisting chiefly of mountains, bogs, lakes, and a few small scattered villages, some of them hidden away in the mountains—an ideal district in peace time for a D.I. who is fond of shooting and fishing, but in war time a hard district to control with the small force of police at a D.I.’s disposal.

Previous to Blake’s arrival all the barracks in the district had been vacated with the exception of Ballybor and “Grouse Lodge,” a small barrack at the foot of the mountains in the Cloonalla district; and as each barrack was vacated, it was blown up or burnt by the local Volunteers.

In all former rebellions in Ireland the Government have found that to get information it was only necessary to pay money. Sometimes it did not cost much, other times they had to pay generously, but always money produced information; and at the beginning of the Sinn Fein trouble the Government naturally assumed that money would produce the informers as before. But this time they were wrong, and it was only—when the Government were at their wits’ end—by a lucky chance of finding important papers on a man, who was shot at night during a military raid on a Dublin hotel, that at last they received the information which enabled them to grapple successfully with Sinn Fein.

There is no doubt that the originators of Sinn Fein had read their country’s history carefully, and were determined that this time there should be no informers; and to this end they organised a “Reign of Terror” throughout Ireland such as few countries have ever seen at any time in history. Their chief obstacle was the R.I.C., and once this force was reduced to a state of inactivity—they thought they had broken it for good and all—their task appeared comparatively easy. Every man, woman, and child in the south and west of Ireland knew that if they gave any information to the police they would be shot, and shot they were.

When Blake took over his duties at Ballybor, he found that the police had no source of information whatsoever, with the result that each attack on a barrack and every ambush of a patrol came as a surprise to them. So great was the “Reign of Terror” in the Ballybor district that no person dare speak to a policeman, and the shopkeepers were afraid to serve one, even with the necessities of life.

Blake quickly realised that if he was ever to get the upper hand in his district, he must discover some source of getting information, and find it quickly, before the whole population were driven to join forces against him.

One of Sinn Fein’s principles has been that the fewer who know the fewer can tell, and, as a rule, there has only been one man in a district—usually the local captain of the Volunteers—who has information of coming events; and Blake knew that his only chance of reliable news lay with this man, and with him alone.

About the only information which his men could give him of his area was that a young man, who lived in the townland of Cloonalla, named Patsey Mulligan, was the captain of the local Volunteers, and that his house was close to the barracks at Grouse Lodge; so he determined to go out to Grouse Lodge Barracks and stay there until he had either come to terms with Patsey Mulligan, or saw that it was hopeless.

On a fine winter’s morning Blake set out from the barracks at Ballybor in the Crossley tender with an escort of six police, the most he dared take with him for fear of weakening the Ballybor garrison. It was market-day in the little town, and all along the road to Grouse Lodge they met the country people coming in—some in horse-carts, others in ass-carts, and the poorer ones on foot—but not one of them would speak to or even look at the police, the people on foot even getting off the road into the fields directly they caught sight of the police-car approaching.

On learning from one of the constables that Mulligan’s house was not on the main road to Grouse Lodge Barracks, but on a byroad, Blake ordered the driver to go by this road, and when he came to Mulligan’s house to stop the car and pretend that something required adjusting in his engine. After a time the driver stopped outside an ordinary thatched cottage on the side of the road, and, as Blake had expected, the inhabitants came to the door to see who it was.

The first to appear was a young man, and as the constable whispered to Blake that he was Patsey Mulligan, Blake nearly shouted for joy, for he saw that the man was none other than “Murphy,” his former servant in France, and a deserter from his Majesty’s Army in the field!

At once, before Patsey could get a good look at him and possibly recognise him, Blake ordered the driver to go on to the barracks as fast as the bad road would allow them.

The question now was how to get hold of Mulligan alone, and this was settled by the information which a constable at Grouse Lodge was able to give. It appeared that this plucky constable had for some time past been in the habit of slipping out of the barracks by the back entrance at night in plain clothes and returning before daybreak. He had discovered that Mulligan was in the habit of meeting a girl nearly every night at a certain lonely spot about a mile from his house; and from overhearing their conversation, had found out that Patsey wanted to marry this girl, but that she had refused to marry him until he had enough money to take her out of the country and to buy a small farm in America.

On questioning this constable, Blake was able to get a detailed account of Mulligan’s movements since the time of his desertion. It appeared that for a considerable time after he came back he hardly left his home at all, contenting himself by working on his father’s farm, and it was not until the Sinn Fein Volunteers were started in the district and Mulligan was elected captain that he appeared in public.

About the same time there was a report in the neighbourhood that Patsey Mulligan was courting a girl called Bridgie O’Hara, who lived in the Cloonalla district; also that another man in the same townland with money was doing his best to make her marry him.

Bridgie had two brothers in the Royal Irish Constabulary, and as the Sinn Fein movement grew stronger and the resistance of the Government weaker, the Volunteers started to boycott the O’Hara family. So savage had the boycott become lately that not a soul dared speak to them, and it was only by going to a town several miles away that they were able to obtain food.

As soon as it was dark that night Blake and the constable, both in plain clothes, slipped out at the back of the barracks and made their way to Mulligan’s trysting-place. As usual, Mulligan and Bridgie met, and when they parted Blake and the constable followed Mulligan until the girl was well out of hearing, when they called on him to halt, at the same time covering him with their automatics.

Mulligan at once stopped and put up his hands, but did not speak, and while Blake continued to cover him, the constable searched him for arms. Blake then ordered Mulligan to walk in front of him until they came to a mountain track which was off the road; leaving the constable on guard, he ordered Mulligan to walk up the track in front of him.

After they had gone about a hundred yards, Blake stopped and asked Mulligan if he knew that he was liable to be arrested and shot for desertion from the British Army, and waited to see the effect of his words, as the whole success of his plan depended on this.

By now Mulligan had recognised Blake’s voice, and knowing well what would happen to him if he fell into the hands of the military, fell on his knees and begged Blake to spare him. Blake at once explained his terms, which the boy eagerly accepted, thankful to get off at any price, though not counting the cost and danger of what he was doing.

Blake’s terms were that Mulligan should give him information well beforehand of every contemplated outrage in the district, and, in return, promised him, on behalf of the British Government, a free pardon, £500, and a passage for himself and Bridgie to any country he wished to go to, but not until the Sinn Fein movement was crushed in the district.

As it happened, only the evening before, Bridgie had told Patsey that she could not stand the boycott any longer, and that if he could not take her away to America at once she would marry Mike Connelly; hence the promise of the £500 seemed to poor Patsey like a gift from heaven.

It was arranged, in order that no suspicion should be drawn down on him, that Mulligan should leave his letter at night-time when going to meet Bridgie O’Hara under a certain large stone a few feet from where they were, near the point where the track and road met. As there was nothing more to settle, Blake told Mulligan to go home at once, while he and the constable made their way back to the barracks, and the following day Blake returned to Ballybor.

At this time Blake found that several of his men showed a strong disinclination to leave the barracks, and remembering how hard it used to be sometimes during the war to get men who had been stuck in trenches for months to go “over the top,” he decided to organise strong daylight patrols so that each man should leave his barracks for a certain number of hours every day. In addition to patrols round Ballybor, he sent out a strong patrol on certain days to work its way across country—always by a different route—to Grouse Lodge Barracks, where the patrol spent the night, returning to Ballybor across country the following day.

Taking advantage of mistakes made in other parts of the country, he sent no patrols on the main routes, but made them all go across country, only using the roads for short distances when they were open, and when it was practically impossible to be ambushed.

For some time there came no information from Mulligan, and when at last a note was brought from him from Grouse Lodge, it only contained the laconic news that the price for shooting a policeman had gone up from £60 to £100; and though no further message came from Mulligan for another ten days, as no outrages had been committed during this time, Blake had no reason to think that he was not fulfilling his part of the bargain.

Early one morning a bicycle patrol arrived at Ballybor Barracks from Grouse Lodge, and the constable who had been with Blake the night he met Mulligan handed him a note to the effect that two car-loads of arms were to arrive in the Cloonalla district that night for the purpose of an attack on Grouse Lodge Barracks the following night. Mulligan gave the route the cars would take, but did not state at what hour they might be expected.

On looking at an Ordnance map, Blake noticed that the cars would have to pass through a small wood, and that the road took a sharp bend where it entered the wood. Taking a leaf out of the Sinn Feiners’ book, he determined to ambush the cars at the bend, and to try and seize cars and arms.

The difficulty was to know what to do with the cars once they had gained possession of them. The Volunteers would no doubt collect in the Cloonalla district to take over the arms, hence it would be dangerous to attempt to take them to Grouse Lodge Barracks, which was much the nearer barrack to the proposed scene of the ambush; so in the end he settled, if he came off victorious, to take the cars by byroads to Ballybor and risk being attacked in the town at night. A few days before this Blake had received his first batch of “Black and Tans,” bringing his force up to a respectable number, so felt quite justified in making the attempt.

As soon as it was dark that night, Blake with five of his men left Grouse Lodge, and made their way by the starlight across country to the wood. The men brought axes with them, and soon had the road blocked with two small fir-trees, after which they took cover on each side of the road and waited.

At ten the moon rose and the night still remained fine, but it was not until after two that they heard the cars approaching. The leading car came round the bend at a good pace, pulling up just clear of the barricade, while the second car, failing to see the obstacle on the road, was unable to pull up in time, and ran into the back of the leading car.

Blake at once stood up and called on the men—there were two in each car—to put up their hands; but for answer they opened fire with automatics in the direction of Blake’s voice, whereupon the police fired a volley at the cars, and three of the men were seen to collapse, after which the fourth put up his hands.

They found that two of the men were dead, while the third was shot through the chest. After removing all papers and arms from the dead men, they hid their bodies in the wood, removed the trees from the road, and started off to Ballybor, where they arrived without mishap, and soon had the two cars safely in the barrack-yard.

On investigation they found that the cars contained thirty carbines and rifles, several thousand rounds of ammunition, and two boxes of home-made bombs.

This capture had a great effect on the police morale in the district, and, in fact, marked the turning-point in the Sinn Fein campaign in that area, while the two captured cars made a welcome addition to the police transport.

Shortly afterwards Blake received a warning from Mulligan to expect an attack on a named night on the barracks in Ballybor, and that an attempt would be made to blow up the gable-end of the barracks. The night before the expected attack Blake brought all the men that could be spared with safety from Grouse Lodge, and made his preparations for defence.

The attack opened with heavy rifle-fire from all the surrounding houses, which drove the unfortunate inhabitants of Ballybor in terror from the town, and after an hour a determined rush was made under heavy covering fire to ram the barrack door; but the fire of the police forced them to drop the ram and run for shelter. Only one attempt was made to blow up the gable, the police allowing the attackers to start laying the gelignite, and then dropping a Mills bomb from the window above, where a projecting V-shaped steel shutter had been put up, with deadly effect.

After this the attackers kept up an intermittent rifle-fire for another two hours, and towards daybreak withdrew, leaving the police victorious; and although several men had been seen to fall during the attempt to ram the door, by the time it was light their bodies had been removed.

A subsequent attack on Grouse Lodge Barracks was also successfully beaten off without any police casualties; but an attempt Blake made to capture an important Volunteer staff-officer in the Cloonalla district one night failed—the bird had flown a quarter of an hour before the patrol surrounded the house where he had been staying.

This attempt to seize the staff-officer convinced the Volunteers that there was a traitor in the district, and a Volunteer intelligence officer was sent down forthwith from Dublin to investigate.

Blake now felt that he was really beginning to break the Sinn Fein in his district, and decided to take the offensive to the full extent of his power. Not only did he have the town and country patrolled night and day, but he also sent out parties of “Black and Tans” to search houses in the country for suspected stores of arms, and also to try and obtain information by all means in their power.

Though at this time the people were beginning to get restive under the Sinn Fein tyranny, yet so great was the terror that not a single person in the whole district dared to give the police one word of information of his own will; and though the information from Mulligan was of vital importance as regards attacks and movements by the Volunteers, yet Blake was still in complete ignorance of the names of the most dangerous Sinn Feiners.

Blake felt that he was winning, but he knew that there would be no peace or rest in his district until he had arrested the leaders: the others would then be like sheep without a shepherd. To this end an interview with Mulligan was necessary, in order to get from him the names of these leaders.

This time Blake waylaid Mulligan as he was going to meet Bridgie O’Hara, and at once saw that the boy’s nerve was fast breaking. Mulligan gave him the names and addresses he wanted readily enough, and then implored Blake to have him arrested at once and taken to a place of safety, as he was in terror of his life.

He told Blake that the Volunteers were already suspicious of him, and that an intelligence officer had been specially sent down from Dublin to watch him and report on the leakage of information, and that he could not stick it any longer. Blake, knowing that once Mulligan was removed, he would not get any information at all, managed after a long argument to persuade him to carry on a little longer, by promising to arrest him when the other leaders were taken.

After parting from Blake the unhappy Mulligan met his girl, who by this time was half-mad from the misery of the boycott of her family. In despair she told him she had made up her mind to marry Connelly, and they would sail for America as soon as they could get passports.

Patsey, at the end of his tether and racked with terror, implored her to wait a little longer, saying that very soon he would have £500, and directly he got the money he would take her away.

The girl went home in the seventh heaven of delight, forgot all about the promises of silence she had made to Patsey, and told her mother, who, of course, told her husband, and it was not many days before the good news was common property in the district. A few days afterwards the intelligence officer returned to his H.Q.’s—his mission was fulfilled.

Having got the ringleaders’ names, Blake at once set about his plans for arresting them, realising that not until they were safe under lock and key could he truthfully say that he had won; but it is one thing to arrest two or three men, and quite a different story to arrest thirty or forty, as, if not all arrested at the same time, the majority would get warning and disappear on the run.

Once again Blake met Mulligan at night, and arranged with him to call a meeting of the ringleaders the following Sunday at early Mass outside a wayside chapel in the Cloonalla district, when he proposed to arrest them, and promised Mulligan he would be separated from the others at once and conveyed to England on a destroyer. At first Mulligan refused, being now demented with the fear of assassination, but when promised the payment of the £500 on his arrival in England, he consented.

Blake arranged that on the following Sunday morning as many men as could be spared should be sent from Grouse Lodge and Ballybor Barracks to meet near the Cloonalla chapel at the same time, when he hoped to surround the crowd and make the arrests without any difficulty.

On a typical soft Irish morning Blake and his men set out early from Ballybor Barracks on their drive to the chapel, full of hope that the day’s work would clinch his victory, and that then he would apply for leave, as the strain of the last few months was beginning to tell on him, and he needed a rest badly.

When the Crossley was within half a mile of the chapel and still out of view from there, Blake stopped the car, got out his men, and proceeded to surround the chapel, while Blake himself advanced alone towards the chapel gates. When he drew near he could see that the road in front of the gates was a mass of country people, who did not move until Blake got close to them, when they divided, forming a lane towards the gates.

And to his last day Blake will never forget the sight which met his eyes as he advanced through the people in a deathly silence. Lashed to one of the pillars of the chapel gates was the body of the unfortunate Patsey Mulligan with two bullet-holes through his forehead, and pinned on his chest a sheet of white paper bearing the single word Traitor, while at his feet lay poor Bridgie O’Hara, her body heaving with sobs, and her long dark hair, which had been cut off, lying on the ground beside her.

II.
ON THE RUN.

Paddy Flanagan stood in the doorway of his small shop in the main street of the mean and dirty little village of Ballyfrack, watching the rain coming down in torrents, while he listened with one ear to his wife arguing with a countrywoman in the shop behind him over the price of eggs, and with his other ear for the high-pitched sound of a powerful car.

Presently the woman in the shop, having sold her eggs and bought provisions, wrapped her shawl over her head and started to make her way home. As Paddy moved aside to let the woman out, his ear caught the dreaded sound he was expecting, growing louder every second, and culminating in a shower-bath of mud as two Crossley tenders, full of Auxiliary Cadets, dashed past the shop and disappeared as suddenly as they had come.

Hardly had the noise of the engines died away than Paddy’s quick ear caught the sound of cars approaching again, and two Ford cars—the first carrying a huge coffin and the second apparently mourners—drew up at the small hotel almost opposite Paddy’s shop.

Some two years previously Flanagan had become a rabid Sinn Feiner—he had previously been as rabid a Nationalist—with a keen eye to business. For a long time it looked as though Sinn Fein was the only horse in the race, and the dream of an Irish Republic seemed more than likely to become a reality; lately, however, the British Government had been sitting up and taking a quite unnecessary interest in Ireland.

First, the British Government had formed the Auxiliary Division—“those cursed pups of Cromwell,” as Paddy described them to his friends, while Mrs Paddy used to say that the Government had recruited them from all the prisons and asylums in England; then, to crown all, the Government had had the audacity to put several counties within easy reach of Ballyfrack under martial law.

So far Paddy had carried on the war for freedom with words only, but a week before this story starts he had found to his great alarm that he would be called upon for deeds. On a dark Sunday night, just as the Flanagans were preparing to go to bed, there came two short sharp knocks at the shop door, followed by a long one.

Now Paddy had always had a great dread of night work, and swore that come what might he would not open his door to any man, be he policeman or Sinn Feiner: for a minute there was a tense silence in the stuffy dark shop, save for the heavy breathing of Mrs Flanagan, broken suddenly by a blow which threatened to break in the street door, and a loud voice called out to Flanagan to open in the name of the Irish Republican Army.

“God save us,” said Mrs Flanagan, and dived under the bed; and Paddy would have liked to follow his wife, but he had heard of the unpleasant results which always followed a refusal to open to the I.R.A. Before another blow could be struck on the door he had it open, and at once three dark figures slipped into the shop, the last one closing the door.

And in the darkness of the shop Paddy Flanagan listened to his fate: it seemed that in the adjoining county, where martial law had recently been proclaimed, the military were making life quite unbearable for the Volunteers, and the Auxiliaries had openly declared that they would shoot John O’Hara—the chief assassin of policemen in that county—at sight.

Before Flanagan could realise the horror of the situation, two of the men had disappeared into the night, and he found himself face to face with the notorious John O’Hara, with instructions to pass him on without fail to the port of Ballybor (some eighty miles), where O’Hara would be smuggled on board a vessel bound for England.

It was some considerable time before Flanagan could induce his wife to come out from under the bed and produce a meal for O’Hara. Before they went to sleep his wife reminded Flanagan—quite unnecessarily—of the fate which the Auxiliaries and “Black and Tans” had assigned to any one who gave shelter or help to John O’Hara.

For days past Paddy had been racking his brains, spurred on by the laments of his wife, how to get rid of O’Hara, and every day the danger seemed to grow greater, until at last Paddy could stand it no longer.

The outstanding feature in a western peasant’s character is always curiosity, and the longer Paddy stood in the doorway of his shop gazing at the coffin on the car, the greater his curiosity became. He had never seen so big a coffin; if there was a man inside he must be the “devil of a fellow and all,” but perhaps it might be a woman—until at last the coffin drew him as a magnet draws a needle.

A close inspection of the two cars told him nothing, so there only remained to go inside in the hope of meeting the occupants. Inside the hotel he found the mourners seated round the fire in a back room, drinking porter and discussing the disappearance of John O’Hara, and after ordering a drink he drew a chair up to the fire and joined in the general conversation.

Paddy soon found out that the coffin contained the body of a policeman who had been murdered in a recent ambush in the adjoining county, and his relatives were bringing his body home, a village close to Ballybor. Probably the name of the town gave Paddy the idea, but in a flash he saw his way clear to get rid of O’Hara, and that at once—if a dead policeman could be taken in the coffin to Ballybor, why not the live John O’Hara?

For the next two hours Paddy plied the relations of the dead policeman with porter, whisky, and poteen, and by that time had learnt all he wanted to know: they had permits to the police for the two cars to travel to Ballybor, they were all strong and noisy patriots (in spite of the murdered policeman outside), and were as ready as the next man to turn an honest penny.

Now Flanagan, being no fool, knew that no sane man—drunk or sober—would take upon himself the responsibility of John O’Hara unless he was forced to, and bearing this in mind during the negotiations which followed, he used the threat of the magic letters “I.R.A.” freely—pretending that he himself was a member of the dreaded Inner Circle. In the end, after much drink and a lot of haggling, it was settled that the cars should be taken into the hotel yard for the night.

Then, during the night, the policeman’s body was to be removed to a hay-loft and buried secretly the following night, under arrangements to be made by Flanagan, in a bog outside the village, where several unfortunate Volunteers, who had fallen in an attack on the local police barracks, were buried. Meanwhile the hotel boots, who was a carpenter by trade, would make ventilation holes in the coffin, and the “funeral” party would set off for Ballybor before daybreak.

The last part of the negotiations resembled the selling of a horse at a fair, and the price he had to pay sobered Flanagan and nearly turned his hair white,—not one yard would they go with O’Hara until they got £100; but by now Flanagan was desperate, and if they had demanded £200 he would have paid it.

At last all the details were settled, and Flanagan went home to warn O’Hara of his coming journey in the coffin: the thought that in a few hours he would be free of the man for good and all made life worth living again.

But his joy was short-lived. On entering the kitchen he found four long-haired young men making a hearty meal—more victims of British tyranny, all on the run for the murder of policemen—and his heart sank at the thought that there would probably be more to follow: in fact his house was being used as a clearinghouse for all the “wanted” men of the adjoining county.

Flanagan woke up O’Hara, told him of the arrangements which had been made to get him to Ballybor, and added that four more men had just turned up, and that it failed him to know how to pass them on. O’Hara thought for a moment, and replied, “Sure it’s easily known how—why wouldn’t they do for the mourners?”

As soon as O’Hara was ready, and the young men could be persuaded to stop eating, the party set out for the hotel in order to get away before the mourners woke up. O’Hara took command, found out that one of his companions could drive a Ford, but that none of them had any idea of how to get to Ballybor, and told Flanagan that the driver of the coffin-car would have to go with them as a guide.

On arrival at the hotel Flanagan roused the boots, O’Hara gave his instructions about the driver, and they then proceeded to the bedrooms of the poteen-logged mourners, who offered no protest while O’Hara removed their topcoats and hats for his companions, Flanagan seizing the opportunity of transferring his £100 from the sleeping chief mourner’s trousers pocket to his own again.

By the light of a guttering candle O’Hara was packed into the coffin, and in the darkness of a raw early morning the two cars pulled out of the hotel yard, and disappeared down the road which leads to Ballybor. Flanagan, with a sigh of relief, wiped his forehead, and prayed that he might never see O’Hara in this world again, and went home feeling ten years younger, but determined not to be at home when the mourners got busy and came for an explanation.

On the morning O’Hara left Ballyfrack in the coffin, Blake had motored to the town of Dunallen to see his County Inspector. On his way back, about fourteen miles from Ballybor, the road leads over a narrow bridge and up a steep hill with a sharp blind turn at the top.

As Blake swung his car, all out, round this corner, he saw about fifty yards in front two Ford cars standing in the road, the leading car with a huge coffin tied across the body of the car, and round the other car a group of young men. Pulling up his car, he sounded his horn, as he had not room to pass, but with no effect.

Blake, who was in mufti, had with him an orderly in plain clothes, and being in a hurry told him to go and tell the driver to go on. As the orderly returned, both cars started up and went on. Once started, they went as fast as Blake could wish, and for some miles the three cars kept close together until they reached a village about ten miles from Ballybor.

Here the main road to Ballybor appears to carry straight on through the village, but this only leads into a cul-de-sac—what looks like a side road on the left of the main street being the Ballybor turning. The two strange cars passed the turning, while Blake, once round the corner, made for home at full speed.

He thought no more of the cars, but after they had gone about a mile the orderly asked him if he had ever seen such a big coffin before. Blake replied that he had not noticed the size of the coffin, and they both relapsed into silence again, Blake concentrating his attention on getting back to Ballybor before dark.

Meanwhile the orderly was thinking the matter out, and came to the conclusion that the coffin party was not above suspicion. At this time, when the railway strike was on in the west, it was not unusual to see a coffin on a car; but, unless the coffin party belonged to the village, they must be strangers to the district, or they would not have run into the cul-de-sac.

When about three miles from Ballybor they had a puncture, and just as Blake finished changing wheels, the cars of the coffin party drew up about fifty yards behind, and three men advanced towards them. Blake, who was still quite unsuspicious, thought that the men were going to ask him to let them pass, and at once started up his car and got in.

The orderly, whose suspicions were now turned to certainties, drew his revolver, covered the advancing men, and called on them to halt; whereupon the three men opened fire, and the orderly replied.

Blake yelled to him to jump in, and as the man swung himself into the seat beside him, he let the car go, while the men on the road continued to fire. Luckily the light was by now nearly gone, and beyond a broken wind-screen they got away with a good start.

It now developed into a race, Blake striving to reach the barracks for reinforcements to stop the funeral party before they could get clear of Ballybor, and the others to reach the first turning they came to off the main road.

Blake switched on his lights and drove for his life, down hill as fast as the car would go and round corners on two wheels, with the result that in rounding one blind corner they nearly ran into a party of Auxiliary Cadets, whose Crossley had broken down. The Cadets naturally opened fire without asking any questions—a car going that pace in the dusk on a country road in the west of Ireland nowadays is asking for it—and again Blake and his orderly narrowly escaped being shot.

Blake clapped on his brakes, yelled out “R.I.C.”; the orderly held his hands high above his head, and the Auxiliaries gave them the benefit of the doubt. Luckily the leader of the Cadets recognised Blake, the situation was quickly explained, and they took cover on both sides of the road at the corner.

Hardly were they in position when the coffin-car rounded the corner, and the Cadets opened fire; but so great was the impetus of the car, and so bad the brakes, that it crashed into the rear of Blake’s car, the coffin pitched on to the road, burst open, and out rolled a huge wild-looking man.

The second car must have closed up with the leading one as the darkness came on, for no sooner had the first car crashed than the second one ran into it, overturned, and pinned the big man to the road; whereupon Blake shouted hands up, but the men started to run back, and the Cadets at once opened fire.

Three of them fell, but the fourth managed to get round the corner, and Blake sent two Cadets after him. The driver of the coffin-car had fallen clear, and, to avoid the Cadets’ bullets, ran round the Crossley, straight into the driver’s arms.

As soon as the firing ceased, Blake made for the big man; the Cadets lifted the car, and flashed a torch on his face.

Only that morning Blake had been reading a full account of O’Hara, and had studied an excellent photograph of him, and as the electric light shone on the man’s face, he realised the importance of the capture—the most-wanted man in the west.

The Cadets rendered first aid to the three wounded men, while Blake handcuffed O’Hara and placed him in the back of his own car, telling his orderly to watch him closely, and to keep him covered with his revolver. In the meantime the two Cadets had returned, having failed to capture the fourth man.

Blake was now most anxious to get O’Hara safely in the Ballybor Barracks, but nothing would induce the Crossley to start. At last, after an hour’s delay, they got the engine going, and the whole party got under way, the Cadets taking the three wounded prisoners in the tender, and Blake, in his own car with his orderly, guarding O’Hara.

The distance to Ballybor was short, but the delay had made Blake very uneasy, knowing that the local Volunteers would surely try and rescue O’Hara if they got word of his capture. Ahead of them was a thick wood on both sides of the road, and once past this the betting was in their favour.

They started without lights, but when they reached the outskirts of the wood the darkness was so intense that the Crossley driver switched on his lights and tried to rush the place. Blake was forced to follow his example, or get left hopelessly behind.

Faster and faster went the tender, bumping and skidding over the wet bog road, the lamps throwing a brilliant ring of white light in front of the car, the rest inky dark. When they had passed more than half-way through the wood, and Blake was beginning to think that they were safe, the Crossley suddenly began to pull up with a screech of brakes, drowned by a volley of shots from both sides of the wood.

The driver kept his head, switched off his lights, and the dreadful fight started in the black darkness of the wood. Blake turned his lights off and started to back his car, but in the darkness and excitement ran her into the ditch at the side of the road, where she overturned.

He shot clear of the car, and on regaining the road realised that at present it was useless to try and get away with his prisoner, so he shouted to his orderly to guard O’Hara until the fight was over, and went forward to help the Auxiliaries.

Blake found them lying down on each side of the road, firing at the flashes of the ambushers’ guns, while the leader and driver were struggling to remove the barricade of timber and big stones across the road under a hail of bullets and shot. By this time a Cadet had got a Lewis gun into action, and at once sprayed the edge of the wood on each side of the road with a magazine. Promptly the ambushers’ fire died down, and after two more heavy bursts of fire from the Lewis gun their fire ceased. The Cadets quickly switched on the lights of the Crossley, and started to clear away the barricade.

Blake suddenly thought of O’Hara, and ran back to his car to find that he had completely vanished, the orderly lying pinned to the ground by the overturned car, unconscious.

The only chance now of recapturing O’Hara was to push on to Ballybor as fast as possible, collect all the police available, and search the country round the scene of the ambush. Without a motor it would be impossible for the fugitive to get far during the next few hours.

But again the Crossley jibbed, and again a priceless hour or more was wasted before the barricade could be removed and the car induced to start. Nearly another hour was spent in reaching the barracks, getting out the men, and starting on the hunt.

Until long after dawn they beat the country within a large radius of the fatal wood, using powerful acetylene lamps, but to no avail: neither in the open country nor in any village could they find any sign or get any tidings of the missing prisoner.

As soon as the light was good, Blake climbed a tree on some high ground which overlooked the country, and searched in vain with a powerful pair of Zeiss glasses. At last, thoroughly exhausted, the police returned to Ballybor, beaten.

When Blake’s car upset in the wood, O’Hara had the good luck to fall clear, and to roll into the ditch at the side of the road. Here he lay still for several minutes until he saw what move the orderly would make. When the shooting slackened for a few seconds he could distinctly hear the groans of the orderly pinned under the car, and at once realised that if he could only crawl into the wood he might be free again.

With great difficulty he managed to drag himself out of the ditch and over the bank, only to find another and deeper ditch on the far side. Along this ditch he made his way until he judged that he must be close to the attackers; then he wriggled into the wood, and lay down to await further developments.

O’Hara was now afraid to go nearer to the ambushers, lest they should mistake him for a Cadet; but before he could make up his mind what to do the firing died down, and he could hear the attackers retiring through the wood. Realising that his only hope lay with these men, he got up and rushed after them, being mistaken in the darkness and confusion for one of themselves.

Once clear of the wood, O’Hara found himself close to one of the attackers, and while they ran explained to him who he was, and learnt that the ambush had been organised in a village close to by the man who had escaped from the two Cadets.

On reaching this village the handcuffs were soon filed off O’Hara’s wrists, two bicycles provided, and in a few minutes he was on his way to Ballybor with a guide who took him along a byroad. It was essential if he was to catch the steamer the next day that he should hide that night in Ballybor, and the chances were that the police would never think of O’Hara hiding in the town, practically within the shadow of the police barracks.

Owing to the delay in starting the Crossley, O’Hara and his guide were actually in Ballybor before the police: as they neared the turning to the barracks they could see the lights of the Crossley behind them. Passing through the town they made their way to the quay, where it was arranged that O’Hara should spend the night with a Volunteer called Devine, from whose house it was hoped that he would be able to pass on to the steamer next day in the company of the stoker.

At this time the police, except in strong force, did not leave the barracks at night, and it was thought quite safe for O’Hara to remain in Devine’s house. After a change of clothes and some food, he retired to bed, hoping that his troubles were nearly over.

Early the next morning Devine woke O’Hara up with the bad news that a picket of Cadets guarded the approach to the steamer, and that the game was up. On looking out of the window O’Hara could see a sentry with fixed bayonet on each side of the gangway, while others were resting in the small weighing-house on the quay-side.

O’Hara, who a second before had been confident of escape, was in despair, and collapsed on the bed. After a few minutes he pulled himself together, and on looking at Devine was at once struck by the sinister expression on the man’s face.

Remembering that there was a price of £1000 on his head, and from Devine’s expression there was no doubt that he also was thinking of this reward, without a second’s hesitation O’Hara covered him with a big Colt automatic, and told him that if a way was not found to get him on to the steamer he would shoot him. Devine, knowing O’Hara’s reputation, and preferring his life to £1000, at once suggested a plan.

The town of Ballybor lies about five miles up a river, and all outward-bound steamers drop the pilot in the bay at the mouth of the river, where he is rowed to the little fishing village of Dooncarra. The steamer was due to sail at high tide that afternoon, and Devine suggested that they should bicycle to Dooncarra, where there ought to be no difficulty in getting O’Hara aboard by the pilot-boat, as both the police barracks and coastguard station there had been burnt some time ago.

After some breakfast they started off, bicycled boldly past the picket on the quay, and reached Dooncarra without any mishap, where Devine arranged for O’Hara to stay in a fisherman’s house until the pilot-boat left at dusk.

O’Hara had never been to sea before, and was ill before he ever reached the steamer. As soon as he got aboard, a stoker, who had been warned by Devine to expect O’Hara on the pilot’s boat, took charge of him, and at once put him into a bunk.

That night the steamer ran into an Atlantic storm, and by the time they had made the north coast of Ireland, O’Hara was beyond caring whether he lived or died.

Blake reported O’Hara’s escape to the authorities in Dublin, who were most anxious to secure the man, knowing he had been the ringleader in the worst atrocities committed in the south recently. They at once came to the conclusion that O’Hara was trying to get away by boat from Ballybor to Liverpool and then on to America, hence the picket of Cadets on the quay; but to make doubly sure they ordered an ocean-going destroyer to search the steamer from Ballybor at sea.

After rounding the north of Ireland the steamer ran into smooth water, and O’Hara came on deck for a breath of fresh air. After a time he became interested in a queer-looking long grey steamer which was approaching them from the south, and very soon the queer boat came within hailing distance, and orders were megaphoned for the steamer to heave to.

O’Hara was greatly interested in watching the progress of the destroyer boat, and it was not until a sergeant of the R.I.C. in plain clothes, who had known O’Hara in the south, covered him with a Webley and commanded him to put up his hands, that he realised that this interesting show was all for his benefit.

III.
THE LANDING OF ARMS.

It was the busy hour of the evening in Stephen Foy’s public-house in the small western town of Ballybor, and Larry O’Halloran, the barman, never ceased drawing corks and measuring out “half ones” of whisky for the endless flow of customers.

Larry was a good example of a new type of Irishman which the Sinn Fein movement has produced—a type regarded with sorrow and amazement by the older generation, and at present unknown in England. Whatever faults an Irishman possessed, he always had the saving virtues of wit and cheerfulness.

Probably the British have been the last nation in the world to recognise the great value of clever propaganda, but there is no doubt that the originators of the Sinn Fein movement knew the great influence of judicious propaganda—they had efficient instructors in the Boches—and wisely started at the beginning, that is, with the children at school, and the result is sadly apparent in the south and west of Ireland to-day in the hatred of the British Empire among the young people; and so obsessed are they with this hatred that they have neglected to learn the good manners of their elders.

While Larry’s hands never ceased serving out drink, his brain—trained from childhood to one end only—never ceased running on one subject, how and when to obtain arms to defeat the British. Only the previous evening Larry had achieved the ambition of his young life, when he was elected captain by a large majority of the Volunteers in place of Patsey Mulligan, who had been tried by court-martial and executed for treachery to the Irish Republican Army.

Larry, in spite of his long hair and dreamy Celtic eyes, was no fool, and knew quite well that a battalion of Volunteers without arms was about as much use for fighting as a mob of old women with umbrellas, and that if ever they were to fight the British with any chance of success, they must have arms, and not only rifles, but machine-guns.

Previous to this, by a system of raids at night, every known shot-gun in the district had been collected by the Volunteers; but Larry realised that to send a Volunteer, armed with a single-barrel shot-gun, to fight a British infantryman armed with a magazine rifle, was only a good example of the old saying of sending a boy on a man’s errand.

While Larry was racking his brains how to obtain arms, a youth, obviously an American, walked in, accompanied by a strange countryman, and proceeded to a small private room at the back of the house. But though Larry’s thoughts were far away, trying to get Mausers in Germany, his eyes were busy in the public-house, and as the couple disappeared into the room, he saw at once that the countryman’s walk was the walk of a soldier.

Larry knew the boy, Micky Fee, well. His father was a wealthy Irish-American, who, amongst other business, owned an arms factory in the States, and had refused the request of the Inner Brotherhood repeatedly to send arms to Ireland for the Volunteers.

It was possible both to oversee and to overhear what went on in the inner room. Larry saw the couple sitting there in close conversation, and in a few minutes realised that the strange countryman was in reality a British Secret Service agent, and that Micky, who had drink taken, was giving the man all the information of the local Volunteers he could.

It did not take Larry long to determine what course to take with the Secret Service agent, and he had decided on the same fate for Micky Fee, when he suddenly realised that his prayers had been answered. His quick brain began to work out how many rifles, machine-guns, automatics, and bombs Fee’s father would value the life of his only child at; the more he thought of it, the higher he made the figures.

Micky had been on a visit to his grandparents in Ballybor for some months past, and had taken an active interest in the Volunteers. About 2 A.M. the next morning there came a loud knock at the grandparents’ house. When the old man opened the door he found himself looking into the muzzles of a ring of guns, and in a few minutes Master Micky left for an unknown destination.

About a fortnight later Michael Fee and his wife received the shock of their lives when they opened their letters at breakfast one morning. Among Fee’s was one bearing the Ballybor postmark, which stated briefly that his son had been tried by a court-martial of the I.R.A. on a charge of giving information to the enemy and condemned to death, and that the sentence would be duly carried out unless Michael Fee presented so many rifles, pistols, machine-guns, bombs, and ammunition to the I.R.A.

The letter also stated that Mr Fee’s answer was to be sent to a named Sinn Fein agent in New York within seven days of the receipt of the letter, who would give him a time-limit for handing over the arms, and would also tell him where the arms were to be landed. A P.S. was added suggesting that Fee should bring the arms to Ireland in a yacht, and that he would be able to take his son back to the States in her.

For many months the Irish papers had been full of accounts of men taken from their beds in the dead of night and executed outside their homes by armed and masked men; also of the bodies of missing men being found in a field, days after they had disappeared, riddled with bullets. Some of the Irish newspapers tried to throw the blame for these murders on the forces of the Crown by saying that the men wore “trench coats,” but never adding that practically every young man in Ireland nowadays wears a so-called trench-coat.

Fee knew that many of these murders were “executions” of men who had given information to the police, and the thought that one morning at breakfast he or his wife might open an Irish paper to read an account of the finding of their son’s body riddled with bullets, caused him to break out into a cold sweat. Being a good business man, Fee made up his mind at once, and that evening found him in New York making arrangements with the Sinn Fein agent for the immediate shipment of the arms to Ireland.

It’s one thing to talk of smuggling arms into Ireland, but quite another story to accomplish it. To the Irish peasant, who has never been outside his own country, it looks as easy as falling off a log; but then he has no idea of the power of the British Navy, and the British Government does not take the trouble to inform an Irish peasant that it has the finest navy in the world—he is supposed to know this, or to find it out for himself.

When Fee asked the agent for his suggestions, the agent trotted out the usual stock dodges—packing rifles in piano-frames, S.A.A. in bags of flour, and more equally futile plans, and he quickly realised that the man was a fool, so left him and retired to his room in the hotel to think out a plan for himself.

For a long time he could think of nothing but the picture of his son’s body lying in a vivid green field in his native land: he could even see the clothes Micky was wearing, and the dirty white handkerchief (he was quite sure it would be dirty) over his eyes. For hours his mind dwelt on this picture, but in the end he gained control over himself, and before he turned in his brain had evolved a sound plan of action, and with an Irishman’s sanguine temperament he fell asleep, thinking that his boy was as good as at home already.

The following morning Fee went to a big yacht agent, but found that he had only a steam yacht for charter. He explained that he wanted a motor yacht big enough to cross the Atlantic, and the man referred him to a firm of builders who had a yacht of this description, which he believed was on the verge of completion.

Fee next made his way to the yard of these builders, where he found the yacht he was looking for, which had been built for a rich American who had recently died. He soon came to terms, and arranged with the builders for the addition of large extra oil-tanks, in order that the yacht would be able to make the double journey to Ireland and back without having to take in oil there.

As soon as the yacht was ready for sea, Fee had large man-holes fitted to the extra oil-tanks, packed the arms inside them, and then filled up with oil. Within four weeks of the receipt of Larry O’Halloran’s letter, Mr and Mrs Fee sailed on their new motor yacht, the Colleen, for a pleasure trip to their native land of Ireland.

The place chosen for the landing of the arms is one of the most beautiful places in the British Isles, and one of the least known. If you picture the wildest Norwegian fjord, and add square miles of mountain, cliffs, moors, bogs, lakes, and rivers, you may get some idea of the scenery.

Before leaving America Fee cabled to his parents in Ballybor that he expected to be in Ireland on a certain date, knowing that the information would reach Larry through friends in the Post Office, and that he would take the necessary steps to meet the yacht at Errinane on that date, with the result that Larry passed the information on to the Volunteers in the Errinane district, and in a short time every coastguard station and police barracks within a twelve-mile radius of the landing-place was burnt.

On a fine September day the M.Y. Colleen sighted the west coast of Ireland, and shortly afterwards made her way up the wonderful natural harbour which leads to the little fishing village of Errinane, where she dropped anchor and came to rest after her long voyage across the Atlantic. In a few minutes a boat left the quay, and Larry stepped aboard the yacht, and after explaining to the Fees that he had arrived in the district two days previously with their son Micky, insisted that the arms should be landed that night; but Fee refused, on the grounds that the British Navy was bound to know of the yacht’s arrival, and that if they attempted to land the arms that night they might be caught by a destroyer.

A hot argument ensued—Larry, now that at last the arms were almost within his grasp, being mad keen to get them ashore at once. However, the argument was cut short by a shout from the deck that a destroyer was coming up the harbour, and Fee had great difficulty to induce Larry to leave the yacht.

The destroyer came to an anchor within fifty yards of the Colleen, and Fee could see two machine-guns on the bridge trained to sweep the yacht’s deck. Before the rattle of the anchor-chain had died away a boat was lowered, and in a few minutes a party of bluejackets, headed by a lieutenant, came aboard the yacht.

Fee explained to this officer that he was an Irishman living in America, and that he had come over on a visit to his parents. The officer examined the yacht’s papers, and then gave orders to his men, who proceeded to search the yacht thoroughly: mattresses were opened, all panelling taken down by ship-carpenters, floors lifted, luggage searched, and even the oil-tanks sounded, while the taps were turned on to see if they contained oil.

After three hours’ searching the sailors left the yacht, and within half an hour the destroyer put to sea. Hardly had she disappeared when Larry came aboard again, and as it was nearly dark by now, he tried to insist on starting to land the arms, and again Fee refused.

The yacht settled down for the night, but soon after midnight a powerful searchlight was flashed on to her, and again the bluejackets came aboard and searched the yacht from top to bottom. Eventually they left, the searchlight was turned off, and the destroyer could be heard putting out to sea.

Larry’s original plan had been to land the arms on the north side of the bay, and to hide them in some caves in the mountains, where French arms had been hidden during the rebellion of 1798, then to await a favourable opportunity to remove them to Ballybor. However, the night the destroyer left the local fishermen filled their boats with herrings, which Larry found had all been bought by the big shopkeeper in Errinane, who intended sending them to Ballybor Station the next morning in his three Ford trucks. Not daring to land the arms during the day, Larry commandeered the lorries, and as soon as it was dark landed the arms openly at Errinane quay, packed them in the largest fish-boxes he could find, and loaded the boxes on to the lorries, putting boxes of herrings on top. The arms once landed, he restored Micky to his parents on the yacht, and within half an hour the reunited Fee family were on their way back to America.

Not long after the yacht had started, the lorries left Errinane on the long run through the mountains to Ballybor. When about fifteen miles from Errinane, Larry halted his convoy in a mountain pass, in order to let one of the drivers repair a tyre.

Hardly had they stopped when the lights of two cars were seen behind them, descending the road into the pass from the direction of Errinane. Larry knew at once that they could only be police cars, and must have been sent to Errinane on the suspicion that arms had been landed from the yacht.

He at once got his lorries on the move, going in the last one himself, and in a few minutes could hear the hoot of the oncoming cars close behind. Ahead of them lay miles of narrow bog road, and as long as he kept the rear lorry in the middle of the road, the police cars would not be able to stop them.

Soon he could hear shouts of halt, followed shortly afterwards by a volley of rifle bullets, but Larry and the driver were well protected by the boxes on the lorry. So they continued for about two miles, the police firing volley after volley at the lorry.

So far so good; but though Larry knew he could keep the police from overhauling them for several miles, yet he knew that in the end the police must defeat him, unless he could find some means of stopping them, and the only way to do this was by sacrificing the rear lorry. This he made up his mind to do, as the lorry only carried the bombs; but the difficulty was to stop the police altogether.

The idea which saved them came from the driver, who knew every yard of the road, and reminded Larry that half a mile ahead of them there was an arched bridge over a mountain river, the very place to block the road.

Larry climbed out on the boxes, and with great difficulty extracted a bomb; returning to the driving seat, they waited until the lorry was on the bridge, when they stopped the engine and started to run for the lorry in front. When they had gone about twenty yards, Larry stopped, flung the bomb at the lorry on the bridge, and ran like a hare.

Luckily there was a steep rise beyond the bridge, and just as they reached the slow-moving lorry a flame of fire shot up from the bridge followed by a deafening explosion. They learnt afterwards that the bridge was completely wrecked, the leading police car badly damaged, and that the police took three hours to return to Errinane, having to back their cars for several miles before they could turn.

The original plan was to hide the arms in a saw-mill in Ballybor, owned by a notorious loyalist, which fact would divert all suspicion from the mill; but Larry knew that after the encounter with the police the hue-and-cry would be up, and that the Auxiliaries would search every rat-hole in Ballybor before many hours were past.

On reaching Ballybor in the early hours they proceeded to the mill, which was situated on the bank of the river, and at once unloaded; but instead of hiding the arms there Larry ordered the men to carry them straight to the water’s edge, and then sent them to collect boats and also fishing tackle.

Within an hour six boats containing the arms went down the river, and half an hour afterwards the town was surrounded and searched through and through by Auxiliary Cadets who had concentrated on the place from three different points—their only bag being the unfortunate lorry drivers.

Some three miles below Ballybor there stand on the bank of the river the ruins of a fine old Franciscan Abbey, in the vaults of which the arms were safely hidden. Afterwards Larry and his men spent the morning fishing for sea-trout towards the estuary, returning to Ballybor in the afternoon, hungry and worn-out, to fall into the hands of the Auxiliaries, who commandeered their fish and then let them go home.

After the murder of Patsey Mulligan the district of Ballybor was comparatively free from outrages for several months, and Blake, the D.I., began to think that his troubles were over; but very shortly after Larry had successfully run his cargo of American arms Blake was undeceived, and in a short time the district became one of the worst in the west.

Success made Larry bolder, and further success made him rash. Being miles from a road, the old abbey was a most inconvenient place to keep the arms, and he determined to bring them to the mill in Ballybor.

Bennett, the owner, had a house alongside the mill, and another house some miles out in the country, where he was in the habit of going from Saturday until Monday morning, when the mill house used to be locked up.

Larry arranged another fishing expedition on a Saturday afternoon, and when it was dark they transferred the arms from the abbey to the mill, hiding them under piles of sawdust in the cellars below the saw-benches. It was then decided to make an assault on the Ballybor police barracks the following night, and to wipe out the police for good and all.

But this time his luck was out. On Sunday afternoon Bennett suddenly made up his mind to return to Ballybor, and motored there in the afternoon with his eldest son. After tea his son took a walk over the mill, and to his surprise found a brand-new American repeating-rifle in the clerk’s office: his father went at once to the police barracks to inform Blake of the discovery, who arranged to make a raid on the mill as soon as it was dark.

Blake had settled to take the arms, if found in the mill, straight off to the nearest military barracks, and to this end left the barracks with a strong force in two Crossleys. They went for some distance towards Grouse Lodge Barracks, turned off at a cross-roads, and made their way back to Ballybor, arriving at the mill by the time it was dark.

Leaving the cars about a hundred yards from the mill, Blake walked on to the entrance with a sergeant and a constable, and as they drew near, to their surprise they saw that the mill was lit up. Telling his men to wait, Blake advanced to the door, which led into the machinery buildings, and on peeping in saw that the place was full of masked men in a queue, being served out with rifles from the clerk’s office.

Blake saw that he must act quickly, but that by the time he could bring up his men all the masked men would be armed, so he determined on a ruse. In a loud voice he shouted out, “God save us, here are the Black and Tans; run, boys, for your lives,” and at the same time opened fire.

The magic words “Black and Tan” have the same effect on an Irish crowd as the name of Cromwell had during a previous period of Irish history, and a wild stampede ensued in the mill, the final touch being added by some one switching off the electric lights. As soon as Blake saw the effects of his words he dashed in to try and secure a prisoner, and managed to seize a man near the entrance, and hold him until his men, alarmed by the shots, arrived hurriedly on the scene.

By the aid of electric torches the police quickly collected the arms which the Volunteers had thrown away in their panic, and a constable having gone to fetch the cars, they were stowed in, and in a short time were on their long journey to the military barracks.

Larry stampeded with the rest of the men in the mill, but once outside he pulled himself together, and determined to make an effort to regain his beloved arms. Guessing that the police would be fully occupied removing the arms, he made his way back along the dark streets to the mill, and saw the cars drive off.

Part of the preparations for assaulting the barracks had been to block all roads along which help could come to the barracks; and, as Larry expected, after some time the cars returned to the barracks, being unable to proceed in any direction owing to deep trenches cut across the roads.

As soon as Larry had seen the cars return, he collected three of his best men, commandeered a car in the name of the I.R.A.—at this time in many parts of Ireland a harmless citizen stood an excellent chance of having his car taken by the military on a Monday, by the police on Tuesday, by the Auxiliaries on Wednesday, and by the I.R.A. for the rest of the week—and drove straight to the Cloonalla district, through which he knew that Blake would have to pass the next day on his way to the nearest military barracks. They took shovels with them, and soon had the trench across the road filled in, and made their way to the house of a local Volunteer.

That night Larry worked like a man possessed, and by daybreak had an ambuscade prepared for Blake at a point where the road, following the shore of a large lake, runs under an overhanging rock, and then turns sharp to the west. Beyond the bend they cut the usual trench, and above on the rock erected loop-holed walls of stone and sods, and here they waited, armed with every shot-gun, pistol, and home-made bomb which the district could produce.

That night Blake spent an anxious time in his small barrack-room, his ears straining for the sound of the first shot of the expected attack, and his brain striving to work out the problem of how to get the arms into safe keeping. After a time he tried to attend to some routine work, but soon gave it up as hopeless.

Leaning back in his chair he lit a cigarette. At that moment his eye was arrested by a large photograph of the notorious John O’Hara over the fireplace, and he began to think of how the man had tricked him by getting away by sea, while the police were hunting the countryside for him. From O’Hara’s photograph his eye wandered to a brightly-printed card hanging on the wall, with a drawing of a steamer on the top.

For some time he read the letterpress of the card without having any idea of what it meant; then in a flash he realised that the problem was solved. At high tide the next morning the s.s. Cockatoo would sail from the port of Ballybor for Liverpool, and if O’Hara had tricked him by the sea, then he could trick Larry O’Halloran by the same means.

The following morning, a quarter of an hour before the Cockatoo was due to sail, two Crossleys dashed on to the quay, and before the usual crowd of quay loafers knew what was happening, they were outside the yard gate, and a strong guard of police with rifles at the ready had surrounded the gangway to the steamer. In a few minutes more the arms were all aboard the boat, stacked in an empty passenger saloon, guarded by police, and two minutes after Blake had given the captain his instructions, the Cockatoo was on her way down the river for England.

IV.
THE RED CROSS.

An Englishman who has lived in Ireland for any length of time, knows that rivalry in religion and politics not only divides parts of Ireland, but even causes divisions in families. At one time recently things had reached such a state of passion that an Irish soldier or policeman who visited his home in the south or west was liable to find the door of his home shut in his face, and even to lose his life.

In a small town in the west of Ireland—in England you would call the place a village—there lived some years ago a shopkeeper named John Dempsey, a steady hard-working man, who left politics alone and attended to his own business. In due course Dempsey married and had three children—two boys, Patrick and William, and a daughter, Sheila.

The children were educated at the national school, and as soon as their minds were capable of understanding anything, the wicked and stupid policy of hatred of and revenge on England was drummed into their ears week by week, month by month, and year by year, until the English appeared to their childish imaginations to be the greatest monsters of brutality in the world.

After the late war started, not before, the British newspapers and magazines impressed upon us the thoroughness of the German preparations for this war, and amongst other things, of how the present generation had had instilled into their minds from early childhood a hatred of the British by every schoolmaster and learned professor in Germany. For years past this German method has been carried on in Ireland, Irish national school teachers preparing the present generation of young men and women for the present Sinn Fein movement.

You have in England a saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, which applies very well to many national school teachers in the west and south of Ireland, who, though they can tell you of every wrong which England has inflicted on Ireland during the last three hundred years, yet know nothing of the greatness and power for good of the British Empire; nor do they realise the vast benefits which Ireland reaps as a partner of the Empire.

As time went on John Dempsey made and saved much money on porter, eggs, and other things, and as the boys appeared to be clever and anxious to get on in the world, he decided that they should complete their education in Dublin, Patrick eventually to become a doctor, and William to enter the priesthood; but as soon as the father announced his intentions, Sheila, who had never been separated from her brothers, implored that she might go with them and become a hospital nurse.

In the end the old man gave way and the three children went to Dublin, where Patrick duly qualified as a doctor, Sheila became a nurse in one of the hospitals there, but William did not become a priest.

When the brothers and sister first went to Dublin, Sinn Fein was rapidly becoming the great party of the Celts in Ireland, and every young man and woman was pressed hard to join. Patrick and Sheila joined eagerly, but William refused, and the idea of becoming a priest being now distasteful to him, he joined the R.I.C., to the bitter resentment of his brother and sister, who refused even to see him.

During the summer of 1919 the two brothers and sister met again at home, Sheila on her summer holidays, Patrick waiting for an appointment, and William, who was now stationed at the neighbouring town of Ballybor, on leave. At first the other two resented the presence of William, and there were bitter and passionate political arguments at every meal; but after a time their natural kindliness prevailed, and the three became nearly as great pals as formerly, but the shadow of William’s uniform seemed always to come between them.

Sheila was the first to go back. A letter from her matron came one morning asking if she would care to go abroad, to take entire charge of a patient who had been ordered to live in Switzerland by the doctors. She did not wait to answer, but returned to Dublin that day, lest she should be too late.

Patrick and William were at this time typical of the two parties into which the people of the greater part of Ireland were divided—in plain language, Patrick was a rebel and William a loyalist! And though the loyalist party was very small in comparison to the other, yet it would never have been so small if proper support from the Government had been forthcoming at the right time, but would have grown larger and larger as the outrages increased, and the decent elements of the population ranged themselves on the side of law and order.

During his time in Dublin, Patrick, young and enthusiastic, had become deeply involved in the Sinn Fein movement, and when one day he found himself bound hand and foot to a policy of outrage and murder, he made strong efforts to regain his freedom, but was quickly made to realise that he now belonged, body and soul, to Sinn Fein.

No sooner had Sheila gone than the two brothers began to quarrel—to end in hot and bitter words at supper one night, when William left the table and returned at once to Ballybor. A few days afterwards Patrick received an order from Dublin to report at once to the Sinn Fein H.Q.’s there, and though he would have liked to refuse, he dared not.

On arrival in Dublin, Patrick duly reported at H.Q.’s, and there learnt that he had been chosen for a most unpleasant job. About this time, after their signal initial successes, the I.R.A. were endeavouring to organise a force which would entirely wipe out the police, or at any rate reduce them to complete impotence.

To this end the General Staff of the I.R.A. were determined to leave no stone unturned to achieve success in the ambuscades of patrols and attacks on barracks. During the preliminary attacks the rebels had lost heavily through lack of medical care, and it was now determined that a doctor should attend all ambuscades and attacks.

Funds were plentiful, and in a few days Patrick found himself set up as a practising doctor in a large house in Dublin, and it was arranged that, when an attack was to take place in a certain district, he should receive a wire calling him to hold a consultation in a district close by. They supplied him with a good car, there were no restrictions on the movements of doctors, so that the busy young Dublin doctor, hurrying to the sick-bed of a country patient, excited no suspicion.

The plan was quite simple, and worked smoothly. An ambuscade would be arranged at H.Q.’s in Dublin to take place at a certain point where it was known that a police patrol passed. The day before Patrick would receive his wire, and early the next morning would leave Dublin for the scene of operations. When within a short distance of the attack he would stop his car, and remain there until the fight was over, attend to the wounded, and afterwards return to Dublin.

On two occasions he was surprised by relief parties of military, but each time he was able to explain his presence—that it was a mere chance that he happened to be passing, and that his professional instincts were at once aroused by the sight of the wounded men.

In the case of an attack on police barracks the procedure was somewhat different. Some days before Patrick would receive his usual wire—never from the place where the attack was to take place, but from a neighbouring town—and at the same time would receive instructions in Dublin of the time and place of the attack.

On arriving at the place of attack he would put up at the best hotel, giving out that he had come to attend a consultation in the town, from which the wire had been sent. After a talk with the local Volunteer captain, a house would be decided on as a temporary hospital, to which the wounded would be taken, and after the attack Patrick would simply disappear.

At first the danger and excitement appealed to his high-strung temperament, but soon the novelty wore off, and he saw that there could only be one end for him—exposure and professional ruin, if not a long term of imprisonment. In vain he asked to be allowed to resume his profession, but he might as well have begged for mercy from the Inquisition of old.

One evening, on his return from an ambuscade, Patrick found a wire from Sheila, saying that her patient had suddenly died in Switzerland, and that she was crossing to Dublin that night. The next morning she arrived, radiant with health, and eager for news.

Under her patient’s will Sheila received a legacy of about £2000 and a car, which was stored in a Dublin garage, and now she was free to devote herself to the cause of Ireland’s freedom. On hearing of Patrick’s occupation, she at once determined to join him.

Patrick was devoted to his sister, and tried hard to put the idea out of her head, but in the end had to give way. That very day she made him take her to H.Q.’s, where she offered the services of herself and car to the I.R.A.

Owing to an insufficient number of rifles for ambuscades and attacks on a large scale all over the country, the General Staff had decided to collect rifles in Dublin and send them down to the scenes of attacks in cars. Sheila’s offer coincided with this decision, and to Patrick’s horror he and Sheila received orders to attend attacks, and also to carry the rifles and ammunition.

The car was found to be a large touring car, to which a false bottom was fitted to take rifles, whilst further false bottoms under the seats gave sufficient room to hide revolvers, and a dummy space which was packed with S.A.A. Sheila had large red crosses painted on the lamps and wind-screen, and the camouflage was complete.

For months the brother and sister—Patrick looking a typical young doctor, and Sheila dressed as a hospital nurse—carried arms and first aid to ambuscades throughout the south and west, and not the slightest suspicion appears to have been aroused in the minds of the authorities. Sheila thoroughly enjoyed the excitement, and soon became known as the Florence Nightingale of the I.R.A.

One day there came a wire from home that their mother was dangerously ill, and begging them to go to her at once. Patrick knew that if they asked leave to go, their taskmasters would refuse, and so decided to take “French leave.”

William had also been sent for, and again the two brothers and sister met. After a few days their mother took a turn for the better, but Patrick, who dreaded returning to Dublin, insisted on staying, in spite of Sheila’s urgings to get back to their work.

Soon after their mother was out of danger Sheila received an invitation to a dance at a large farmhouse about two miles away, and drove there in the car, resplendent in a Paris evening dress. Patrick and William refused to go, the former making the excuse that he did not like to leave his mother, the latter because he knew that the presence of a policeman would break up the dance.

That evening, after it was dark, William walked across the fields to see an old school friend, one of the few men in the district who would speak to him at all, and then only at night in his own house. When William left, this man warned him that Knockbrack Wood would not be a healthy place for the next few days, but when pressed for an explanation would say no more.

When William reached home he learnt from his father that during his absence a stranger had called for Patrick, and that soon afterwards the two had left hurriedly to fetch Sheila, Patrick saying that he would have to return to Dublin that night by car.

Old Dempsey seemed much upset, and after the warning received that night William’s suspicions were aroused. As soon as supper was over he retired to bed, or rather to wait in his room until the house was quiet, when he meant to bicycle back to Ballybor.

William had not been in his room more than ten minutes when he heard Sheila’s car drive up, and the front door open and shut. Then he heard Sheila come upstairs to her bedroom, followed by Patrick and strange footsteps, and then the closing of Patrick’s door.

The bedrooms of the two brothers were separated by a thin partition, and William managed to overhear enough of their conversation to make out that there was to be an ambuscade in Knockbrack Wood on Wednesday night (this being Monday), and that Patrick was returning at once to Dublin.

William lay as still as a mouse, hoping that Patrick and Sheila would not realise that he was in the house, and in their hurry forget about him. He could tell from the tone of his brother’s voice that he was not for it, but further conversation was cut short by Sheila calling out that she was ready to start.

Shortly afterwards William heard the three leaving the house and the car go off in the direction of Dublin. He waited for a few minutes to give the stranger time to get well away, then got out his bicycle, and with his revolver ready in his right hand, started off for Ballybor.

While William was riding for dear life to Ballybor, Sheila and Patrick were tearing across Ireland to fetch the arms for the ambuscade. They reached Dublin without any trouble, had a short rest and a meal, collected the arms from the secret hiding-place, and then started off on the return journey by a different route.

By previous arrangement they were met outside the town after dark by the local Volunteer captain and a party of men, who took over the arms from them, when they drove on home. Owing to the fact that they had left and returned at night, no one in the town had any idea that they had been away.

For some weeks past the police had been bringing tremendous pressure to bear on the rebels throughout the south and west, which pressure corresponded with the appointment of a new Inspector-General of the R.I.C. So strong was the pressure growing that the rebel staff were afraid of a collapse, and when their secret service learnt that the I.G. would be motoring to Ballybor on this particular Wednesday night, they determined to ambush him in Knockbrack Wood, and to kill him at all costs.

Knockbrack Wood lies along both sides of a main road for a distance of about a mile and a half, and in the middle the road makes a sharp bend to avoid a huge granite rock which towers above the trees and makes this corner quite blind. On the far side of this bend from the direction of Ballybor the road rises suddenly, so that a car going towards that place would be likely to approach the bend at a good pace, and be unable to avoid an obstacle or trench just round the corner.

Here it was settled to make the attempt on the I.G.’s life, and on the Wednesday the local Volunteers, under the direction of staff officers from Dublin, started to make the preparations. By dark all was complete, except to cut a trench across the road, and a large party of Volunteers had taken up positions on each side of the road at the bend.

It was expected that the I.G.’s car would be wrecked, or at any rate brought to a standstill, just beneath the big rock, on the top of which there was a bombing post, with orders to drop a flare as soon as the car was below, to enable the riflemen to aim in the dark, and to follow up the flare with a shower of bombs.

Patrick and Sheila waited until it was nearly dark, when they motored to Knockbrack Wood, leaving the car up a narrow lane in the wood, about a hundred yards from the big rock on the Ballybor side. They then retired to a safe distance to await events.

After several hours of waiting they left the wood and walked up and down the road to Ballybor, as by this time they were half frozen with cold. Shortly afterwards they were joined by the Volunteer captain, and as it would soon be daylight, Patrick suggested to him that the men should be sent home.

The Volunteer captain was a stupid fellow, and further, he resented any suggestion as to what he should do from Patrick; and the three of them—Sheila, Patrick, and the captain—began a heated argument in the middle of the road: the captain argued that an order was an order, and that he would keep his men there until the next night if necessary, or even longer.

Patrick saw the mistake he had made, shrugged his shoulders, and started to return to the car with Sheila.

Now their whole attention had been centred on the direction from which the I.G.’s car was expected to come, and the last thing they expected was a counter-attack from the direction of Ballybor; but as Patrick and Sheila turned to leave the Volunteer captain, they found themselves covered by a party of R.I.C., with Blake at their head, and at the same time heavy firing burst out in the wood on both sides of the road.

Patrick and Sheila had no alternative but to put up their hands, but the Volunteer captain tried to escape, and was promptly shot by a constable. Blake asked what they were doing at such an hour on the highroad, and Patrick was starting his usual story of how he and his sister were on their way from Dublin to attend an urgent case in the country, but when he caught sight of his brother William standing behind Blake, he faltered and remained dumb.

Before Blake could ask any more questions they had to jump to one side to avoid a Crossley full of Auxiliaries, which dashed past, and stopped a few yards beyond them, the Cadets at once jumping out and taking up positions on each side of the car with Lewis guns trained to sweep the road as far as the big rock. Blake, after ordering William and a constable to take Patrick and Sheila down the Ballybor road out of the line of fire until he could deal with them, took command of the Auxiliaries, and waited for the action to develop.

By this time it was daylight, and the police, who had worked round the flanks of the ambushers, began to make it pretty hot for the men in the trenches. Now it is one thing to shoot an unfortunate policeman perched up in a stationary lorry in the middle of the road, and quite a different story when the policeman starts to shoot you in the back from behind a tree, and very soon the Volunteers broke from their trenches and started to stream down the Ballybor road.

There was a momentary lull in the firing, broken by two hurricane bursts of fire from the Cadets’ Lewis guns, and the Volunteers fell in little heaps on the grey limestone road; the remainder hesitated, and then ran for their trenches, to be met by a hail of bullets from the police, who had taken up positions commanding the trenches while the Volunteers were trying to escape by the road. Again they tried to escape along the road, and again the Lewis guns spat out a magazine of bullets whilst a man could count five, the noise of the guns being intensified by the dead wall of trees.

The few Volunteers now left threw down their arms, put up their hands, and the fight was over.

In the meantime William had taken his brother and sister down the Ballybor road until they came to the lane where the car was, and here he told them to wait. After a few minutes Sheila asked him to send the constable out of hearing, as she wished to talk to him.

After the constable had retired up the lane there was a terrible silence for several minutes. Patrick and Sheila both realised too late that William must have been in the house when they started on their journey to Dublin for the arms, and that he must have gone straight to Ballybor to warn the police of the impending ambuscade. They knew that, even if they were not sentenced to death, they could not escape a long term of imprisonment, and that they had been betrayed by their own brother, but would not—or could not—realise that William had only done his duty.

Suddenly Sheila burst into a passionate denouncement of William’s treachery to his country and his own flesh and blood, to be stopped by Patrick with great difficulty, who, controlling his rising passion and terror by a great effort, implored William for their mother’s sake to let them escape while there was yet time. At any rate to let Sheila go—surely the British Government did not wage war on women.

Poor William was torn between love for his brother and sister and his duty to his King. In those short moments he went through the agony of hell, knowing well that if he refused to let them escape he would carry for the rest of his life the brand of Cain; on the other hand, if he let them go he would not only be betraying his King, but also he would ruin his own career, and probably Blake’s as well.

To William’s great credit be it said, his sense of duty prevailed, and he refused to let them go; and to his great relief the unhappy scene was cut short by the sudden appearance of Blake.

Shortly afterwards the constable returned, and reported to Blake that he had found a Red Cross car up the lane. Blake gave orders for the car to be brought on to the highroad, and after collecting his men, started for Ballybor with Patrick and Sheila prisoners in their own car.

V.
THE R.M.

Since the period of Charles Lever, no book of Irish life has equalled ‘Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.’ in successfully portraying the character or “chat” of the true western peasant; but, at the same time, this book only shows the social side of a Resident Magistrate’s life, and hardly does justice to his work in the wild parts of the south and west.

And of recent years the life led by Resident Magistrates has become more and more dangerous as the country became more and more unsettled. A D.I. can always take an escort with him, also he can go where and when he pleases; but an R.M. has to drive alone about the country, and, moreover, every one knows that at a certain hour on a certain day the R.M. will drive to a certain Petty Sessions Court, and after the Court is over he must drive home, though possibly by a different road. It is one thing to face death with half a score of rifles at your back, and quite a different tale unarmed and alone.

Soon after Blake came to Ballybor, the R.M. stationed there retired on pension, and in his place there came a young man, Anthony Mayne, who had served with distinction in an Irish regiment during the war. Being unmarried, Mayne took up his quarters in a small hotel close to the police barracks, and in a short time struck up a friendship with Blake.

In addition to attending at Ballybor Petty Sessions once a week, Mayne had to go to several other small towns twice a month. The district was very large, chiefly wild mountainous country, and some of the places were many miles from Ballybor, one place in particular, Ballyrick, being over thirty miles away on the shores of the Atlantic.

The first Court which Mayne attended happened to be at Ballyrick, probably one of the wildest and most thinly populated districts in Ireland. Soon after leaving Ballybor the road crossed a railway line by a level crossing close to the sea, and then ran for many miles between the sea and a chain of mountains to the small seaside town of Ballyrick.

Mayne found that the people of this district were a race of small men; they looked as though the terrific Atlantic gales had stunted them in the same way as the trees are stunted on this coast, and, moreover, their faces were not pleasing. During his first Court here the nature of the cases showed plainly that the chief amusement of the peasants was to beat and batter each other on all opportunities, especially on dark nights after a fair, and the distillation of illicit whisky their chief occupation.

In Ireland the penalty for harbouring, keeping, or concealing a still or illicit spirits is £100, which can be mitigated to £6, luckily no lower; and from time immemorial the custom of the shopkeeper class of magistrate has always been to reduce every fine to the minimum, with the natural result that the peasants have come to regard the £6 fine as the legal penalty for the bad luck of being caught by the police. £6 is a mere fraction of the profits of a successful brew of poteen, and is looked upon in the light of a tax paid to the Government.

In one case a man was caught red-handed by the police with fourteen barrels of treacle, 200 gallons of wash, a complete still, and enough poteen to stock a fair-sized public-house. The man brought the £6 into Court with him, being certain he would be convicted and fined the usual amount.

But Mayne, the only magistrate on the bench, took a very serious view of the case, knowing the amount of crime and misery caused by this abominable drink, and fined the man £50.

Such a sentence had never been heard in Ballyrick Court-house within the memory of man; even the police received a shock, and a noise resembling a swarm of angry bees arose to defy the shouts of the police for silence and order. That evening, when Mayne returned to Ballybor, he was followed by a police car for many miles, but the peasants had not had time to organise their revenge.

About this time the magistrates of the district received letters from 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.