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 38british 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, 39and 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 40loud 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 41tried 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.
42for 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 43and 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 44should 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 45dark 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 46miles 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 47driver, 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 48water’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.
49bennett, 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 50drew 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 51regain 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 52waited, 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, 53and 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.