The men fell back; and the Irishman, seeing an iron railing, raised his hands above his head and brought them down upon the iron, smashing the handcuffs, and turned upon me like a wild beast at bay. The man was in a frenzy. Standing directly in front of him, I spoke to him quietly.
"Now, my lad, listen to me. You're an Irishman." He looked down at me. "You're an Irishman, and you've had a little too much to drink, like many of us at times. But you are all right. Think a moment. Irishmen don't behave like this in the presence of the enemy. Nor will you. Why, we may be in a tight place to-morrow, and who's going to back me then? You are. You're worth fifty of the enemy. You're the man I want."
As I talked to him, the expression of his face changed from desperation to a look of bewilderment, and from bewilderment to understanding; and then he suddenly broke down. He turned his head aside and cried. I told the sergeant to take him away and give him some tea.
Having heard from the Governor of Alexandria that a quantity of arms was concealed in a village lying a few miles outside the city, I took thither a party of Egyptian military police and a guard of Marines. On the way we were joined by some 800 British soldiers, who surrounded the village, while the police conducted a house-to-house search. A certain newspaper correspondent accompanied me. The police knocked at the door of a house, and received no reply; whereupon the correspondent drew his revolver and incontinently blew in the lock. I told him that he had no right to do such a thing; that he might have killed innocent persons; and that he must not do it again.
"Oh, but," says he, "you don't understand how to do these things."
I requested him to understand that I was provost-marshal, and that unless he obeyed orders, he would be sent back to Alexandria.
"Oh, but," says he, "you can't do that. You don't understand——"
"Sergeant!" said I, "a file of Marines."
"Oh, but," protested the correspondent, "you can't——"
"Sergeant, take this gentleman back to Alexandria."