“Did you hear how they did it?” I asked.
“They arrived this morning in covered lorries, and brought the straw and paraffin with them. I hear our people”—he dropped his voice as he said our people—“have got over a hundred prisoners at the Castle, so I don’t know how many there were on the job at the start. The Shinners took the Customs House people by surprise, and, of course, there was nobody armed to put up any resistance. They dismantled the telephones, herded up the clerks into one part of the place, chucked paraffin and straw all over the place, and set everything alight. They had taken the precaution to send men to hold up the firemen at the two nearest fire-stations. The coup was well planned, and they would probably have got away scot free; but there’s a story that some pickets standing on the bridge saw a tender of Auxiliaries coming along, got nervous, thought they were discovered, fired on them, and that gave the show away. In two minutes our fellows were pouring out of the Castle, and in five minutes the place was surrounded. I understand the Shinners inside went on with the work and completed it before they thought of escaping. Some of the fellows taken had petrol on their clothes. There was quite a good show for about twenty minutes between the Auxiliaries outside and the Shinners trying to get out.”
“Did some chaps get done in?”
“Quite a lot.”
“They seem to have got the laugh on you fellows this time,” I said, nodding over the river again.
“They have,” he agreed.
We stayed a few minutes watching the fire, and then I said, “How did you find things up North?”
He gave me a look meaning there were better places for talking, and we wormed our way to another part of the crowd. The view was not as good; but there was plenty of elbow room.
“Have you been back long?” I asked.
“A day or two.”