the movements of the flying columns of the i.r.a.—gangs of armed ruffians, usually numbering about forty, but sometimes more, sometimes less, and led by men with military experience (ex-soldiers and even ex-officers, to their everlasting shame)—have always corresponded accurately to the amount of police and military pressure brought to bear on them, which pressure has continually fluctuated in agreement to the whims and brain-waves of the politicians in power.
figuratively speaking, these same politicians have kept the police and military with one hand tied behind their back, and sometimes when the screams of the mob politicians in the house have been loudest, have very nearly tied up both their hands. if a chart had been kept during the irish war showing the relative intensity of the politicians’ screams and the activities of the i.r.a., the reading of it would be highly interesting and instructive.
extra pressure, more rigid enforcement of existing restrictions on movement, and increased 263military activity have always resulted in a general stampede of flying columns to the mountains of the west, where the gunmen could rest in comparative safety, and swagger about among the simple and ignorant mountain-folk to their hearts’ content.
here they would stay until the politicians, frightened by inspired questions in the house, would practically confine the military and police to barracks. the gunmen would then, with great reluctance, leave the safety of the mountains, and return to the southern front, to carry on once more the good work of political murder.
and so the game of seesaw went on. every time that the crown forces saw victory in sight the politicians would drag them back again to start all afresh. the wonder is that the crown forces stuck it so long with every hand against them, and their worst abuse coming from a cowardly section of their own countrymen in england.
early in 1921 the crown forces in the south of ireland suddenly gave forth signs that a determined effort was to be made to deal effectively, once and for all, with the gangs of armed murderers and robbers roaming the country, masquerading as soldiers of the irish republic; and again the flying columns fled in haste to their mountain retreats in the west, a part of the country where the majority of the inhabitants have always done their best to keep out of the trouble, with a few isolated exceptions.
264this time they stayed longer; in fact, each time it became harder to induce the gunmen to forsake the peace of the mountains for the war in the south. after a time they started to vary the monotony by carrying out punitive expeditions against the police and the unfortunate loyalists in the surrounding lowlands, but always to fly back to the mountains at the first sight of a force of police or soldiers.
ex-soldiers were the chief game at this period. a district would be chosen where there were no troops and few police. a list of all ex-soldiers living in this district would be made out, and guides provided by the local i.r.a. commandant. each ex-soldier would be visited in turn during a night, given his choice of active service with the i.r.a. or a sudden death. those who remained loyal to the king would be led out and butchered like sheep, though possibly the murderers would not take the trouble to remove their victims, but would fire a volley into them as they lay in bed, and leave them there. truly a brave army!
transport presented no difficulty to the gunmen. the british government took practically no steps to control the movements of motors, motor bicycles, or push-bicycles, except the motor-permit farce, which greatly inconvenienced loyalists only. all they had to do was to commandeer as many cars or bicycles as they wanted, where, when, and how they liked.
however, this was not all the work which the sinn fein leaders intended their flying 265columns to carry out, and in order to induce the gunmen to return to duty the usual noisy peace squeal was started in england, so that conditions might be made pleasanter for the gunmen in the south. the murdering of ex-soldiers and helpless loyalists could be easily carried out by local volunteers under a well-seasoned murderer—an excellent method of initiating raw recruits into the methods of the sinn fein idea of warfare. the british government, always great judges of irish character, thought that the sinn fein leaders were coming to their senses at last, took off the pressure, and the gunmen duly returned to duty.
at length there came a time when these columns really got the wind up, stampeded to the western mountains, and this time refused point-blank to return to duty.
in the late spring of 1921 blake was suddenly called over to england on private business in london, and afterwards went down to the country to spend a few days with the parents of a man with whom he had served in france.
the day after his arrival blake’s host told him that a black and tan, a native of the place, had been murdered in ireland a few days previously, and was to be buried that day in the parish graveyard, and asked blake if he would accompany him to the funeral.
when passing through dublin on his way to england, blake had seen in the castle the account of how this unfortunate black and tan had met his death—shot in the back when 266walking in the streets of a small western town with a girl; and not content with that, the murderers had fired a volley at him as he lay wounded on the ground, and even fired several shots after the girl as she fled shrieking up the street. so terrified were the townspeople that, though there were many in the streets at the time, not one dared to even approach the dying constable, and it was not until a full hour afterwards that a passing police patrol found him lying dead in a great pool of blood. incidentally, the murderers had by then put sixteen miles behind them by means of stolen bicycles.
blake accepted, expecting to see a large funeral to do honour to the murdered policeman, but to his great surprise and indignation found that only the near relations of the murdered man were present.
returning from the funeral, blake happened to see the local police inspector in the main street of the little town, and at once tackled him about the funeral, wanting to know why the local police had not been present as a last mark of respect to a man who had died for his country.
the inspector seemed greatly surprised and rather taken aback, and replied that he could hardly be expected to turn his men out to attend the funeral of a murderer.
for a moment blake saw red, and but for a natural horror of making a scene in a public place, would probably have knocked the inspector down. then, thinking that there must 267be a bad blunder somewhere, he asked whom the black and tan had murdered, and how he had met his death. the inspector admitted that the black and tan had been murdered, he believed, and then opened out on the crimes and atrocities which the black and tans had committed in ireland—murder, rape, and highway robbery,—in fact, the usual list of atrocities which is generally to be read in the sinn fein propaganda pamphlets.
blake waited patiently until the inspector had given him a harrowing picture of the condition of the south and west of ireland: heartrending accounts of homeless and starving women and children, old and young men and boys hunted like wild beasts in the mountains and living on berries and roots; shops burnt to the ground and looted by black and tans in mufti; and of men and boys shot by auxiliaries in the dead of night before the eyes of their relations.
he then asked the inspector who had given him this information, adding that he would like to see the proof of it, and at the same time telling him that he was a d.i. in the r.i.c.
the inspector invited blake to go to the police station with him, and here, as blake had expected, he was shown the usual lying propaganda and pamphlets of sinn fein, which have been distributed by the million throughout england, scotland, wales, and the u.s.a. an extract from one pamphlet is worth repeating:—
“famine is about to add thousands of innocent 268victims to the hundreds of thousands already in need of the bare necessities that keep body and soul together. in every irish village and town sickness, pestilence, and death invade the humble homes, striking swiftly and surely the mothers and children incapable of resistance through months of struggle against cold and hunger.... children of tender years, ragged and wretched, trudge daily through the cold to a school now used for a relief station to obtain the one meal a day on which they live—a piece of bread and a warm drink.”
seeing from his ribbons that the man had served in the war, blake asked him if he would take the word of a brother officer against that of a sinn fein rebel. the inspector seemed to think this a good joke, and replied: “a brother officer every time.” “well, then,” said blake, “as an ex-british officer, i give you my word of honour that all those pamphlets you have just shown me are a pack of lies circulated by irish rebels to ruin your country.”
still the inspector was only half convinced, and in spite of all blake could say he saw when he at last left that the man’s belief in the printed pamphlets of sinn fein was still unshaken. such is the tremendous effect of print, whether newspapers or pamphlets, on the modern mind, and the firm belief in the old saying that there can be no smoke without a fire.
that afternoon blake was carried off by his hostess to a drawing-room lecture at a big country-house. his hostess was not quite sure 269what the lecture was about, but believed it had something to do with russia. after tea the lecturer arose, and before he uttered a word, blake had a premonition of what was coming. a tall thin man, with pronounced celtic peculiarities and a mane of long, lank, black hair, blake had seen his prototype thousands of times in the west of ireland.
throwing back his great mane with a jerk of his head, the lecturer started on an impassioned recital of the atrocities committed in ireland by the british army of occupation, practically the same collection of lies and wicked quarter truths which blake had heard from the police inspector that morning.
blake watched the faces of the audience closely, mostly women of the upper and middle classes, and could see that the lecturer’s ready tongue was making a deep impression on them. there was no yawning or fidgeting, and the audience, many of them with the parted lips of rapt attention, kept their eyes riveted on the quite interesting face of the wild man of the west, camouflaged by a london tailor to harmonise with an english drawing-room.
blake let the man have a fair innings, and then while he was drinking a glass of water (blake felt like asking him if he would not prefer poteen) stood up and said quietly, “ladies and gentlemen, so far this lecture has been nothing but a pack of lies from beginning to end. the lecturer is a sinn fein rebel camouflaged as an irish gentleman, and i am a d.i. of the royal irish constabulary. during 270the war i fought for your country, and the lecturer probably assisted the boches in every underhand and mean way he could. you can judge for yourselves which of us is most probably telling the truth, and nothing but the truth.”
the wild man turned with a wicked snarl, all signs of the veneer gone, and his face reminded blake of a cornered gunman he had had to deal with once during a raid on a dublin lodging-house; and there would probably have been an ugly and unseemly scene, but the owner of the house intervened, and gently but firmly led the wild man out of the room, while blake and his friends left the house at once.
on his return blake found a cipher wire from his county inspector recalling him at once, and going by car to london managed to catch the irish mail from euston. all the sleepers were engaged, but by good luck he found himself in possession of a first-class compartment.
while idly smoking a cigarette and meditating on the extraordinary amount of sinn fein propaganda he had met with in the course of one short day in england, he noticed a well-dressed slight girl pass and repass the glass door of his compartment several times. as the mail pulled out of the station this girl pulled open the sliding-door from the corridor and sat down opposite blake, remarking that it was a grand evening, and thereby unconsciously informing him that she was irish.
271suddenly realising that he was smoking, he asked the girl, who he could see was unusually pretty and quite young, if she had any objection, and, as he had expected, she readily entered into conversation.
after a time she remarked, with a pretty engaging smile, that she saw he had nothing to read, and getting down her suit-case, handed blake a handful of the identical pamphlets he had already seen that morning in the english country police station. in addition, there was one fresh one on “the irish issue,” by william j. m. a. maloney, m.d., captain in the british army, august 1914-august 1916.
blake then saw that his original suspicion was correct, and that he had to deal with that most dangerous of all spies, sinn fein or any other breed—a pretty girl.
by the time rugby was passed he had heard the simple life-history in a rural part of england of the girl, ending with the information that she was going to dublin for three months, and that she was very much in dread after all the dreadful happenings there she had read of in the papers, and she had never been in ireland before (all this in a very fine rich dublin brogue). and blake began to think that he must really possess that most priceless of assets, to look a much bigger fool than you are.
after the stop at crewe the girl again attacked him about dublin, asking if he lived in lodgings there, and, if so, was there a room to let in the same house. a few days previously 272michael collins’s flat in a certain dublin street had been raided with satisfactory results to the raiders, and blake gave her this address, assuring her that she would here find quarters entirely suitable to her requirements. the girl took the hint, and the rest of the journey to holyhead was spent in silence.
on the mail-boat blake saw the girl once more, sitting with a youthful officer of the dublin garrison, and carrying on an animated conversation with their heads touching.
on arriving at ballybor barracks blake found further orders awaiting him from the county inspector to proceed at once to castleport with all the men and cars he could spare.
the wildest rumours were afloat amongst his men: that the i.r.a. were going to take the field openly (this notable achievement was reserved for the truce); that a large force of americans had landed from a yacht at errinane with stacks of arms, and that they were raising and arming the mountain men of that district greatly against their wish and inclination, and that de valera had been landed on the west coast from a submarine, was hiding in the mountains of ballyrick, and was at long last going to take the field himself.
collecting every man he could spare and taking all the transport except one crossley, blake set off with a strong convoy of police for castleport. the men were in great heart, and eagerly looking forward to a good square fight in the open with the hitherto elusive soldiers of the i.r.a.
273at castleport they found the barracks packed with police, drawn in from all the outlying districts; even two large houses adjacent to the barracks had had to be commandeered to hold all the men.
the county inspector explained the situation, which was quite simple. a large force of i.r.a. flying columns, estimated at over a thousand strong, were reported to have refused to return to the south, and had taken up permanent quarters in the maryburgh peninsula, north-west of errinane, and were playing old puck generally throughout that part of the west. at first these flying columns had been distributed all through the mountains, some in the ballyrick country, more in the slievenamoe mountains, and a large party to the south of castleport; but owing to the unpleasant attentions of auxiliary flying columns they had gradually retired towards the maryburgh peninsula, where so far they had been left unmolested.
the gunmen on the slievenamoe mountains had had a bad fright from the very efficient company of auxiliaries quartered at annagh. father john had done all in his power to get rid of these unwelcome guests in his parish, but showing a fine turn of speed they just managed to escape, actually dashing through ballybor in the middle of the night in a convoy of commandeered fords a few days before blake’s return.
for some time the gunmen had been in the habit of commandeering their rations at night from castleport, and during these nights the 274town would be completely isolated. the first intimation of anything being wrong which the townspeople had was the return one night of several white-faced crying girls, who told their parents that they had just by chance met pat so-and-so, and that he had asked them to go for a stroll, and hardly had they got outside the town when armed men had seized poor pateen and ordered the girls to go home at once. incidentally the poor pateens were kept as a labour platoon by the gunmen, and made to do all the dirty work of digging trenches, breaking down bridges, &c., which occurred during the operations to follow. a different butcher, baker, and grocer would be visited each time, just to show that there was no question of favouritism with the i.r.a.
while this requisitioning was proceeding every road leading into castleport was held by strong pickets of gunmen, who, as soon as the ration party returned, would make for the maryburgh mountains on bicycles, the ration party travelling on a commandeered lorry.
directly the county inspector got wind of this proceeding, he made an attempt to surprise the gunmen one night, but their local information was too good, and he failed. then, hearing that this big muster of gunmen was hiding in the maryburgh peninsula, he collected all the forces he could, and prepared to kill, capture, or drive them into the atlantic.
soon after blake’s arrival at castleport, apparently reliable information came in that a landing of arms had been carried out early 275that morning at errinane, and that these arms were to be taken as soon as it was dark to the maryburgh peninsula. the county inspector at once detailed blake and black, the castleport d.i., to take a large force of police and attempt to seize the arms before they could be taken out of errinane.
errinane lies about twenty-one miles to the south of castleport, on a narrow inland bay. the road runs the whole way through wild mountainous country, though at no point does the road run very close to the mountains.
on the way out blake carefully looked out for any points where an ambush might be carried out, and noticed that there were two bad spots: one where the road skirted the edge of a wood with a rocky hill close on the other side; the second, about eight miles from castleport, where the road twisted through a ravine with steep rocky sides dotted with bushes, and at one place crossed a narrow high bridge—an ideal place for an ambush. blake was so much impressed with this place that he stopped the cars and made his men search carefully the sides of the ravine, but not a sign of any preparations for an ambush could they find. nor were there any trenches on the road.
after picketing errinane, blake searched every house, shop, store, and barn in the village, but not a sign of arms could be found, nor was any yacht to be seen in the harbour.
it was late when they started back for castleport, and blake, who was suspicious of an ambush at the bridge in the ravine, which 276was the nearest point on the road to the maryburgh country, ordered black to go ahead with two crossleys, and to search the ravine thoroughly, and then to wait until the rest of the force caught him up.
blake’s party was delayed by two punctures, and when they got near to the ravine heavy firing suddenly broke out ahead of them. when within half a mile of the bridge, they saw a party of men running away from a culvert in a dip of the road ahead of them.
luckily, blake was in the leading car, and ordered the driver to pull up about a hundred yards short of the culvert, which, sure enough, went up before they had been waiting two minutes.
the firing ahead had now grown heavier, and every now and then the dull thud of a bursting mills bomb could be heard above the racket of musketry. realising that black must be hard pressed, blake divided his force into two, ordered each party to deploy on one side of the road and attempt to outflank the ravines.
when within three hundred yards of the bridge both parties came under heavy enfilade machine-gun fire—machine-guns which made a noise none had ever heard before, and were probably american thompson guns,—and they were forced to take the best cover they could find in the open bog.
the machine-gun fire at once died down, only to break out again every time the police attempted to advance by short rushes. by painful degrees they managed to get within 277eighty yards of the bridge, where the formation of the ground protected them from that horrible enfilade hail of bullets, and gathering themselves together they charged at the reverse slope of the ravine.
at once the firing ceased, and when at last they had torn their way through briars and gorse to reach the top, all that they found was small piles of empty cartridges and two ordinary tweed caps—not a sign of a gunman whichever way they looked.
they then turned their attention to their comrades on the road, and here a heartrending sight met their eyes. at first it appeared as though all the occupants of the two cars were either dead or wounded, but as they descended towards the bridge a small party of police crawled from underneath it, soaked to the skin. they found black lying against the front wheel of the leading car with four bullet wounds in his body and his head smashed in by a dum-dum bullet—stone-dead.
blake found out from the survivors that black had disregarded his orders, and had not pulled up until the cars had passed the bridge, when a hail of bullets swept the cars from the top of both banks of the ravine. black was wounded by the first volley, was hit twice while getting out of the car to lead his men to the attack, and in the head as his foot touched the ground.
the sun had by now gone down, and collecting all his wounded and dead, blake pushed off for castleport as fast as he could.
278beyond a blown-up culvert half a mile from the ravine, which the cars crossed without difficulty on their own planks, they met with no further trouble.
then followed three feverish days of planning and preparing for the great drive, which it was hoped would put a thousand gunmen out of action for good and all; unless indeed a new chief secretary should come to ireland, perhaps this time from australia or possibly from india, or even a jew, who would celebrate his arrival in this unfortunate country by opening wide the gates of the internment camps.
the area to be driven was roughly three hundred and sixty square miles, which will give some idea of the magnitude of the task which a handful of police had to tackle with the aid of a battalion of infantry and a company of auxiliaries. and when it is added that the entire peninsula consisted of mountains (five of them well over two thousand feet, and unclimbable in many places), bogs, lakes, and rivers, with only one decent road which ran round the coast and at the base, it will be granted that the task was nearly an impossible one.
also the few scattered inhabitants would be certain to be found to act as unwilling scouts for the gunmen. moreover, once the weather turned wet, which may happen in the course of a few hours on the west coast, a thick mist would cover the mountains, and all the gunmen had to do then was to walk out of the trap and make their way inland.
279the plan of attack was as follows. the castleport-errinane road crossed the twenty-mile neck of the peninsula, and before dawn one day ten columns, each of eighty men, formed up a mile apart.
as soon as it was light enough to see, these columns started, marching in columns of route for the first two miles; they then deployed into open order, got in touch with each other, and then started to drive the country out of face for the remaining eighteen miles. frequently the line had to halt while a column would hunt a mountain in its line of advance, or a detour round a lake had to be made.
for the first four miles there was no sign of the gunmen—the column only met flocks of mountain sheep, and no sign of a human being; but, when ten miles from the west end of the peninsula, the troops on both flanks came under fire—evidently an attempt to stop them working round behind the gunmen.
the troops in the centre now tried to advance, but were also held up by heavy fire before they had gone half a mile; but at their third attempt the flanks met with no opposition, and the whole line was able to continue the advance. from now on the gunmen offered a determined resistance at every ridge, but always retired before their positions could be turned.
at last, close on nightfall, the crown forces came to the strongest position of all—a long ridge in the centre with small hills at each end, extending to the north and south coasts of the peninsula.
280as there was no time left for a turning movement, a direct assault was tried, only to fail twice. it was then decided to wait until the full moon had risen, when it would be possible to make a turning movement along the coast.
unfortunately the sky became cloudy, and during the whole night the crown forces were unable to move; but as soon as the daylight came another assault met with no opposition.
once on top of the ridge they could see the remainder of the peninsula to the west coast, and not a sign of a gunman anywhere; nor when they searched every valley and even some sand-hills on the coast could they find so much as a single gunman.
the following day word was brought into the barracks at castleport that a column of gunmen, thousands strong, had been seen marching in column of route into the ballyrick mountains from the coast; but how they could have got there from the maryburgh peninsula did not transpire for some time.
later it was learnt that when the crown forces gave up the attack on the final ridge to wait for the moon, the gunmen waited until it was dark, when they made their way to the coast. here they had collected every fishing-boat to be found. the sea being calm, the whole force managed during the night to cross the bay to the north, a distance of fifteen miles, landed on the ballyrick coast soon after dawn, and at once set off for the ballyrick mountains.
