in the spring of 1920 blake suddenly received orders to proceed to a town in the south of ireland on special duty, and on applying for leave was granted a fortnight, which he determined to spend in dublin. in due course his relief arrived, and after handing over he found himself free from all responsibility for the first time for many months.
at this period the government and the irish railwaymen were enacting a comic opera worthy of gilbert and sullivan at their best, the government paying the railway companies a huge subsidy, the greater part of which found its way into the railwaymen’s pockets in the form of enormous wages, while the men refused to carry any armed forces of the crown; and the public, who, of course, indirectly paid the subsidy, looked on helplessly.
in order to get a passenger train blake had to motor thirty-two miles to a station in the next county, where, as yet, no armed forces had tried to travel. while waiting here a green country boy asked him some trivial question, 153and with little difficulty blake led him on to tell his whole history.
in spite of a sinn fein edict to the contrary, many young men, who could find no work in ireland, or who wished to avoid service in the i.r.a., were at this time contriving to emigrate to the states by crossing to england and sailing from southampton. in order to defeat this, sinn fein agents were in the habit of frequenting the termini in dublin for the purpose of getting in touch with these would-be emigrants and forcing them to return home.
this youth, who came from the ballyrick district, and had never been in a train in his life, told blake that a brother in the states had sent him his passage, and that he was due to sail from southampton in a few days’ time, but had to go to the american consul in dublin in order that his passport might be viséd, and asked blake where the consul’s office was.
blake warned him not to tell any one he met on his journey that he was going to america, or he would surely fall into the hands of the sinn fein police, and thought no more about the matter.
when the train reached a junction after about an hour and a half’s run, there was considerable delay while a large party of auxiliary cadets searched the train, and eventually arrested a police sergeant, whom they removed after a desperate struggle to a waiting motor. blake was reading at the time, and did not think anything was wrong until he saw the 154sergeant being dragged out of the station. it then occurred to him that, though he thought he knew every cadet in the west by sight, yet he failed to recognise any of the search-party. however, it was useless to interfere, as he was alone and unarmed.
blake stayed at a hotel near stephen’s green, and for the first part of the night, so silent and empty were the streets, that dublin might have been a city of the dead. however, about 2 a.m., a miniature battle broke out in some near quarter, and for hours rifle-fire and the explosions of bombs continued, varied at times by bursts of machine-gun fire.
the following morning after breakfast he set out to see a high official in the castle, a friend of his father’s, and also to report at the r.i.c. headquarters there. while walking along grafton street shots suddenly rang out at each end, and at once the crowd tried to escape down several by-streets, only to be held up by the cadets at every point; and it was not until two hours afterwards, when the cadets had satisfied themselves that the men they wanted were not there, that blake was free to proceed to the castle.
the streets appeared much the same as usual, but the castle was greatly changed from peace times. the entrance gates were heavily barred; barbed wire, steel shutters, and sandbags in evidence everywhere. outside, a strong party of dublin metropolitan police and military foot police. inside, a strong guard of infantry in steel helmets, while a tank and 155two armoured cars were standing by ready to go into action.
as nobody was allowed to enter the castle without a pass, blake had to get a friend from the headquarters of the r.i.c. to identify him before he could gain admission, and he learnt from his friend that the party of auxiliaries he had seen the previous day arresting the police sergeant at the junction were in reality a flying column of volunteers, who had managed to smuggle the cadets’ uniforms into the country from england.
blake found that most of the officials in the castle were virtually prisoners there, and in order to keep their figures down had improvised a gravel tennis-court and also a squash racket-court.
when training at the depot in dublin, blake had made the acquaintance of a colonel mahoney, who had retired and lived near kingstown with his only daughter, and his chief object in going to dublin was to see miss mahoney again. after leaving the castle he met her by appointment, and after they had lunched and been to a picture-house, they left by tram to be back in time for tea with the colonel. after the tram started blake found that he had an hour to spare, and got out at ballsbridge to see a friend, while miss mahoney went on alone.
on reaching the mahoneys’ house blake learnt that, when miss mahoney got out at kingstown, she had been followed by four young men, who had demanded the name of 156the man she had travelled in the tram with, and on her refusing to disclose blake’s name, they had knocked her down with the butts of their revolvers, and left her there partially stunned.
the following day, when on her way to meet blake again in dublin, her tram was held up by auxiliaries, and all the men on it carefully searched for arms; but before the cadets boarded the tram, miss mahoney saw several young men pass their revolvers to girls sitting next to them, with the result that the auxiliaries found no arms. on leaving the tram at the end of kildare street, the pockets of her coat feeling unusually heavy, she put her hands into them and found a revolver in each. at the same moment two men overtook her and demanded their arms.
when he had been in dublin four days blake had to go to broadstone station to inquire about a kit-bag which had been lost on the journey to dublin. he reached the station about a quarter of an hour before the departure of the train for the west, and passing a group of young men on the platform, recognised amongst them the youth who had asked him where to find the american consul.
there were no police within sight, and it was useless to interfere single-handed, but without doubt the talkative youth had fallen into the hands of the sinn fein police, who were returning him to his home minus his passage-money: the group consisted of four dejected-looking youths and three rough-looking men, obviously in charge of the others.
157when his leave was up blake left for the south by an express train, changing at a junction after about two hours’ run. here, just as the train was on the point of starting, an armed party of the royal fencibles under a subaltern marched on to the platform and took their seats in several different third-class carriages, the officer getting into blake’s carriage. there was a considerable delay, and blake expected that, as usual, the guard and driver would refuse to carry armed soldiers, but to his surprise the train started without any incident.
after an hour’s run, the train pulled up with a sudden jerk in a cutting just outside a station, and as the subaltern put his head out of the window to ascertain the cause, the train was raked from end to end by heavy rifle-fire, and the young subaltern collapsed on top of blake, his head shattered by a dum-dum bullet.
blake threw himself flat on the floor of the carriage until the fire from the top of the cutting slackened owing to a lewis gun opening fire from one of the carriages near the engine. taking the dead boy’s revolver, he then jumped on to the line, and made his way towards the forward carriages, where the soldiers had opened fire with their rifles.
here he found a gallant lewis gunner, badly wounded in an arm and leg, firing his gun as fast as he could mount the magazines, and so preventing the volunteers from leaving their cover at the top of the bank and attacking at close quarters.
158so hot was the lewis gunner’s fire that after five minutes the volunteers broke off the action and simply vanished. blake then turned his attention to the wounded civilians, and though he had grown indifferent to dreadful sights through years of war, the awful condition of the dead and wounded in that train made him physically sick.
the majority of the wounds were from flat-nosed bullets, with the most terrible results. in one carriage lay a young woman in a pool of blood, her chest literally blown away by one of these devilish bullets. in another, a middle-aged man was screaming like a mad wild animal, his arm and shoulder shattered, and at his feet lay an old countrywoman, the top of her head blown off.
very few of the soldiers had been wounded, and under blake’s command they at once started off in pursuit, only to catch a glimpse of the volunteers disappearing down a road on bicycles.
after a long delay the train went on, and in order to try and forget the awful scenes he had just witnessed, blake endeavoured to read two english papers. the first paper, in a long leading article, called for a policy of conciliation in ireland, while the second (a threepenny edition of the first) recounted at great length a speech made the previous day by a famous legal politician calling loudly upon the government to withdraw all troops from ireland, and demanding that the r.i.c. and auxiliary cadets should be severely dealt with for their brutal 159reprisals on innocent people, but never a word about the savage attacks on these same r.i.c. and cadets by these “innocent people,” or a single thought for the widows and orphans of the murdered policemen. in disgust he threw both papers out of the carriage windows, and consigned all politicians to the bottomless pit.
on arriving at esker, blake found that his chief duty was to act as liaison officer between the military and police, and that he would be attached to the staff of the g.o.c. of the district.
he quickly realised that the bad reports of the state of the south had not been exaggerated, and that it was in a far worse state than the west. ambushes of police and military, attacks on trains, shootings of unarmed soldiers and police in the streets at all hours of the day and night, the finding of dead men riddled with bullets in every kind of place, from an open field to an empty house, and the robbery of mails occurred daily with monotonous regularity; and so accustomed had people of all classes become to this saturnalia of crime, that they thought no more about the murder of a human being than the usual man thinks of killing a rat.
blake’s principal work consisted of investigating these crimes in company with police and soldiers, and afterwards in making out a report for the general. in addition, he accompanied the general when making tours through the district.
one morning they received news of a terrible 160ambush of cadets, and on arriving at the scene of the ambush blake found the dead bodies of the cadets still lying on the road. all their equipment and personal effects had been stolen, and their faces smashed in with an axe. probably in several cases this barbarous mutilation had been committed before the unfortunate cadets were dead.
two days afterwards the bodies of the murdered cadets passed through esker en route for england. all shops were closed, and great crowds collected in the streets. blake was greatly struck by the different attitudes of sections of the crowd, some taking their hats off with every mark of reverence and sympathy when the coffins passed, while others kept their hats on until ordered by the officers to uncover, and many showed plainly by their faces that they were in full sympathy with the murderers.
conditions in the south were now rapidly drifting into a war of extermination, and every morning brought fresh reports of men shot the previous night, either in bed before the eyes of their relations, or else against a wall outside their homes.
one evening word came to headquarters through the secret service that a baker in an outlying village was to be shot that night. it appeared that the baker, a moderate sinn feiner, had been chosen by the inner circle to take part in one of their nightly “executions,” and had refused. so the edict had gone forth that if the baker would not commit murder, he should be murdered himself.
161the general at once sent blake with a party of soldiers to try and save the baker’s life, but, missing their way in the dark, they arrived a few minutes too late. they found the unfortunate man lying on his bed shot through the head, while the only occupant of the house, the murdered man’s sister, sat white-faced by the bedside moaning and wringing her hands.
they could get nothing out of the sister, except that a party of armed and masked men, in “trench coats” as ever, had suddenly burst into the house and insisted that her brother should accompany them for some unknown purpose, and that he had refused. for a time they argued with him, until another man rushed into the house, calling out to them to be quick as the soldiers were near. whereupon they shot the baker as he lay in bed, with the sister looking on, and then left the house hurriedly.
there seemed nothing to be done, and blake was on the point of leaving when his eye caught a piece of white paper under the bed, which turned out to be the baker’s death-warrant for treason, signed by the c.m.a. of the i.r.a.
on his return blake handed the death-warrant to the intelligence people, who returned it shortly, saying that they could make nothing of it. after showing it to the general, blake put the warrant away, and thought no more about it.
some weeks afterwards, owing to the shooting of soldiers and police in the streets after 162dark, the curfew was advanced an hour. as a result, the number of curfew prisoners greatly increased—so much so on the first night that there was no room in the usual detention quarters, and the officer of the guard was obliged to use an empty office for the overflow.
while the general was working in his office after dinner, the officer of the guard brought a note from the mayor of the town, who, he explained, had been found on the streets after curfew hour by a patrol, and was now a prisoner in the office below. the note requested a personal interview with the g.o.c., and stated that the matter was of the highest importance. the general passed the note to blake, who was puzzled by the familiarity of the writing, but unable to remember where he had seen it before.
after some hesitation the general decided to see the mayor, who was brought in by the officer of the guard, and left alone with the general and blake. after beating about the bush for some time, the mayor asked that he might be kept under arrest and, if possible, deported by sea to england, as he was in great danger of assassination, but would give no reason for the danger, only stating that he had received threatening letters.
the general explained that under no circumstances would he allow the mayor to be detained under arrest or deported, unless he could show sufficient reasons. the mayor replied that he considered the threatening 163letters an ample justification for his request; he had not brought the letters with him, but that if allowed to go home with a guard he would fetch them. but the general, being determined to get all the information he could out of the man, and knowing that once he had granted his request it would be impossible to get anything out of him, refused.
by now blake had identified the mayor’s handwriting with the writing on the baker’s death-warrant, and getting out the latter, placed the two papers in front of the general, who at once taxed the mayor with being the head of the inner circle in esker. this he denied, but on being confronted with the two papers, broke down and made a complete confession.
it appeared that for a long time past he had been the leader of sinn fein in that district, and though himself a moderate man, he had been unable to control the wild men, who had forced him, as head of the inner circle, to sign the death-warrants of the men condemned to be “executed,” or, in other words, the men they wished out of the way. after a time, being a very religious man, his conscience had rebelled against wholesale murder, and he had refused to sign any more death-warrants.
whereupon the wild men, being afraid that the mayor might give them away, had signed his death-warrant themselves, and that very morning he had received by post a warning to prepare for death.
the general was now quite satisfied to order 164his arrest and deportation forthwith; but the mayor asked that he should be allowed to go home to say good-bye to his family, and that he might be arrested in his own house at some early hour in the morning. it was now nearly midnight, and the general, after granting his request, arranged that a patrol should arrest him at 4 a.m.
at 4 a.m. to the minute blake drove up to the mayor’s house in a lorry with an officer and fifteen men, but at once saw that something was wrong. instead of the house being in complete darkness, most of the windows were lit up, and the loud wails of women could be heard in an upstairs room.
leaving the officer to post sentries at the front and back of the house, blake knocked at the door, which was opened after some delay by a woman, who, on seeing a police officer, tried to slam the door in his face. blake, however, managed to slip into the hall, and asked the woman what was wrong, but she ran upstairs, calling out to some one above that the police had returned.
on the first landing the woman was joined by another woman and a man, and after a lot of trouble blake at last got out of them that an hour previously a party of tall men in black mackintoshes, with soft hats pulled over their eyes, had gained admittance to the house, and made their way straight to the mayor’s bedroom, where they found him kneeling down by his bed praying. after pushing the mayor’s wife out of the room they shot 165him, threw his body on the bed, and rushed out of the house.
blake asked to be shown the mayor’s body, and the man led him to a bedroom at the back and opened the door. after making certain that the dead man was the mayor, blake left and drove straight back to the general.
that day the town was seething with excitement, and it was openly stated by many men that the mayor had been murdered by the police.
shortly afterwards a public inquiry was held, and it was clearly proved that every policeman in the town could be satisfactorily accounted for during the night of the murder, and, moreover, that every round of rifle and revolver ammunition could also be accounted for. however, this did not suit the sinn feiners, and a verdict of “guilty” was brought in against the authorities, though there can be no possible doubt in any unbiassed mind that the mayor of esker was murdered either by, or by the orders of, the inner circle.
when he went home, after his interview with the g.o.c., the natural assumption was that he had been giving information, and the inner circle determined that he should give no more. whether they knew that he was to be arrested and deported at 4 a.m., and deliberately forestalled the arrest, or whether they merely knew that he was at headquarters, and were waiting to murder him on the first favourable opportunity, is not clear, and does not affect the question of the guilt of the murder.
