In that statement Mr. Carolan made it quite clear and emphatic that the time he was shot we had escaped. We had been a quarter of an hour out of the house, he declared, before he was put standing with his face to the wall, and deliberately shot by a British officer. When he first opened the door for the raiders they asked him who was in the house, and the faithful man said he thought Ryan was the name—giving a name common in that part of the country from which our accents would tell we came. That accounted for the shouts we heard, “Where is Ryan? Where is Ryan?”
A revolver was kept pressed to the poor man’s temple all the time, and when the British saw their leaders killed they murdered him as a reprisal. Generous, noble and patriotic he dared to shelter us when few of our pretended friends would have done so. I shall always think of him and his family’s kindness to us, and regret from the bottom of my heart that he met such a sad death. May he rest in peace.
On the evening of the 13th October, while I was being taken into the Mater, the village of Finglas, where Sean had found shelter, and only a mile from the house where I had been befriended, was invested by hundreds of British troops in full war kit. Evidently they had either traced Sean to the district or had suspected that I got farther than I actually did.
Every house in the village and district was searched, but without avail.
One other sequel to the Drumcondra fight I must relate before I proceed with my own story. Every male member of the Fleming family was arrested next day. That is the best proof we got that our footsteps were dogged all that night. Michael Fleming was sentenced to six months imprisonment for refusing to give information about me.
Thursday, 14th October, 1920, is a date I shall never forget. That was my third day in the hospital.
Early in the afternoon one of the Sisters came running into my room. Before she spoke I could read that she had serious news. A few hours before I had heard some firing in the neighbourhood, but that, I had been told, had been an encounter at Phibsboro’ corner where an attempt to capture an armoured car proved unsuccessful—one I.R.A. man giving his life in the effort. That occurred only three hundred yards from where I was lying.
But the Sister had more serious news than that for me. The hospital was surrounded by troops and armoured cars, and the hospital was being searched for me.
My bed was beside the window. I raised myself on my elbow and looked out. Below I saw the burly figures and the Glengarry caps of a dozen Auxiliaries on guard outside.
“It is all up this time, Dan,” I remarked to myself, “and you can’t even pull a gun!”