9
He went back to his Club, and on the way, found that the rebels were in possession of Stephen's Green. The gates were closed, and at each gate were armed guards. He looked through the railings, and saw some boys lying on the turf, with their rifles beside them. They did not move nor look up, but lay very still and quiet, with a strange, preoccupied expression on their faces. A little further on, other lads were digging up the earth.
"What are you doing?" he said to one of them, and the lad straightened himself and wiped the sweat from his brow.
"I don't know, sir!" he said, smiling nervously. "I'm supposed to be diggin' a trench, but I think I'm diggin' my grave!..."
A trench! When he looked at the poor scraping of earth and sod, he felt a fierce anger against Marsh and his friends swelling in his heart "They haven't the gumption to know that this is the worst place they could have chosen to entrench themselves, even if they knew how to make trenches!" On all sides of the Green were high houses, from which it would be easy to pick off every man that lay in the trenches....
There were carts and motor-cars drawn across the street to make a barricade, and most of the gates of the Green had garden-seats and planks lying against them. There were even branches, torn from the trees and shrubs, thrust through the railings....
He went into his Club to lunch. "They're in the College of Surgeons, sir!" a servant said. "They say Madame's in the Green!..."
"Madame?" he said vaguely.
"Yes. Madame Markiewicz. They killed a policeman...."
"Do you mean the man at the Castle?"