Cheery soul! His great pride was that about forty shots had been fired at him and not one hit him above the knee.
Dr. W. must bear a charmed life. He told us of several escapes he had. One, the most dramatic, I must tell you.
You know he is one of the surgeons to Mercer's Hospital, and had to be perpetually operating there at all hours of the day and night, besides having his own private hospital, in which he takes wounded officers. It too was filled with rebellion victims, so his work was tremendous.
One night he left Mercer's about 1 a.m., accompanied by another doctor. When passing in front of the Shelbourne Hotel they were challenged by our troops there. On explaining who they were they were of course allowed to proceed, and they stepped briskly out, wanting to get home. Suddenly, on the same pavement, about twenty yards away as far as they could judge in the black darkness, out flashed two little lights from small electric lamps, evidently Sinn Fein signals. Dr. W. stopped and said to his companion: "Did you see that? it was a signal," when almost before the words were out of his mouth two rifles blazed straight at them, almost blinding them with the flash, and they felt the bullets whiz past their heads. The two Sinn Feiners, having signalled, waited long enough to see if their signal was returned, and then fired straight at where by their footsteps they supposed Dr. W. and his friend to be, and missed them by an inch or two.
Dr. W. and his friend got into the shelter of a doorway and flattened themselves out, trying to look as if they were not there, and quite forgetting that they both had lighted cigarettes, whose red tips should have been a beacon light to a vital spot had the Sinn Feiners noticed them. But for some reason they did not proceed further, and Dr. W. heard their steps dying away in the distance. Meanwhile his companion had his finger on the electric bell of the doorway where they were hiding, and after a time which seemed like an eternity an upper window opened and a voice inquired who was there, whereupon the woman of the house came down and let them in, and they spent the remainder of the night there.
Yesterday the Post Office was able to pay the separation allowances to the soldiers' wives. Last week of course it was impossible, but as it would have been equally impossible for them to have bought anything it did not so much matter. The question was how to get so large a sum of money round to the outlying post offices in safety, for, though the city is now comparatively safe, there are still snipers in outlying districts, and any party of Post Office officials known to have possession of large sums of money would undoubtedly have been attacked. So H. bethought him to requisition for one of the boiler armoured cars with military guard, and it was at once granted him. We had heard of them from N., but had not seen one, and great was the excitement at the hotel when this huge monster arrived for H.'s instructions. We all went out and examined it.
It was not one of Guinness's, but one that had been rigged up by one of the railway companies, with an engine boiler fixed on to a huge motor trolley, all painted light grey; and all down each side were black dots in an elegant design—something like this:—
Here and there one of these squares was cut out and acted as an air-hole, but they all looked exactly alike, so a sniper on a roof or from a window aiming at one of these squares probably found his bullet struck iron and bounded off to the accompaniment of derisive jeers from the "Tommies" inside.
