“You cannot go down there for a while,” he remarked. “His Excellency is to pass along here in a few seconds.”
Now, I knew that His Excellency was due, much better than the Constable did. However, I could not explain to him that I had an appointment with His Excellency. Time was pressing. I tried to ignore the policeman. He evidently thought I was too stupid for this world. He went on protesting to me and explaining how necessary it was to have the road clear for His Excellency’s cars.
The amazing thing, when I afterwards came to think of it, was that he was apparently too dense to notice that I had two guns in my hands. If he did I’m sure he would have taken out his notebook and asked me for my name and address, for it was illegal to carry arms.
I did not want to use my gun so soon. In the first place I had no wish to hurt the poor man, and secondly, I knew that to fire a shot now would be fatal to our plans, as it would at once attract the attention and suspicion of the escort, who were now in their cars a hundred paces from us.
I did the only thing I could in the circumstances. I shouted at him—I threatened him and finally told him if he didn’t clear out of our way I would smash him up. But it was no use. Even then the policeman did not realise the position. He still kept on talking.
And while we stood there, wasting moments that were precious, our comrades were wondering what was wrong. One of our men who had been allotted a position on the ditch that ran along the road apparently realised the situation. Without considering how he was threatening our whole scheme, not to speak of endangering the lives of three of us who were standing by the cart, he drew the pin from his grenade and hurled the missile straight at the policeman’s head. Now any one of the three of us could easily have settled with the obstructionist with perfect safety to ourselves, but we had no desire to kill the poor man, and in any case we feared that a single shot would prevent Lord French from coming up to us from the station. He could, for instance, if he suspected an ambush have sent his escort ahead to clear the road, or he could have gone right into Broadstone Station, in the city, and so upset everything.
The policeman was struck on the head with the bomb and the weapon burst at my side without doing serious injury to any of us beyond the fact that the force of the explosion threw us violently to the ground. McLoughlin, the policeman, was not seriously injured. The rest of us quickly recovered from our shock, and we had no time now to bother about the policeman, for at that moment the motor cycle despatch rider (or scout, as he really was) who always rode forty or fifty yards ahead of the Viceroy’s party dashed by us from the station. A second later comes the first motor and we dash right in front of it opening fire on the occupants. Our fire is at once returned, and so close are we to the enemy that a new hat I had just bought is shot right off my head. It was a close shave, but my usual luck was with me that day. So fast was the car travelling that we had no time even to glance at the occupants, nor indeed were we greatly concerned with them, for our real object was to frighten that car into such speed that it would quickly seek safety in flight while we would hurl all our force against the second car, the one in which we knew Lord French always travelled.
Our cart had not completely blocked the road when the first motor sped by—we did not intend it to. Another dash to pull the cart right across the road and the second car is upon us. From every position held by our little party our concentrated attack opens and the air is rent with rapid revolver fire and bursting bombs and hand grenades. But it is by no means a one-sided battle. The enemy has his machine-gun and rifles in action, and there we stand a target for him on the roadside while we still pour volley after volley into car No. 2. The three of us near the cart are now in a double peril. The enemy’s bullets whistle round us and his grenades burst at our feet, but so close are we to our objective that we must also run the gauntlet from the bombs which our own men are hurling from the ditch.
With our smoking guns still spitting fire at the occupants of the car we back behind the cart, seeking what little cover it affords from the enemy’s hail of bullets. Another second and the cart is being riddled and the splinters from its shafts are flying round us. But our work must be accomplished and the fight must be kept up. Suddenly to our dismay another enemy car is rushing towards us from the opposite direction. We are now in greater danger than ever for we are trapped between two fires. I felt a bullet pierce my left leg, but I had no time to examine the wound though I reckoned the bullet had passed through. The British had by this time about a dozen rifles and a machine gun in action; but the marksmen’s nerves must have failed them, otherwise we could never have stood up so long against them. One man, however, gets his mark and poor Martin Savage falls into my arms, shot through the body. Poor chap! How light-heartedly he had been singing and reciting poems about Ireland and the glory of dying for one’s country, as we rode out to Ashtown only an hour ago. And he is breathing his last in my arms, dying as he would have wished to die—by an English bullet.
All the time the bullets were whizzing by and the enemy’s fire seemed to be growing more intense. I laid my dying comrade down on the roadside. His lips were moving as if he had a last message to give me. I stooped and put my ear to his face and catch the words spoken slowly and painfully but distinctly: “I’m done, Dan, but carry on!” Never can I forget that picture of my bleeding pallid comrade as he lay on the road at Ashtown that December day while bullets hopped around like hailstones striking everything but me at whom they were aimed.