While idly smoking a cigarette and meditating on the extraordinary amount of Sinn Fein propaganda he had met with in the course of one short day in England, he noticed a well-dressed slight girl pass and repass the glass door of his compartment several times. As the mail pulled out of the station this girl pulled open the sliding-door from the corridor and sat down opposite Blake, remarking that it was a grand evening, and thereby unconsciously informing him that she was Irish.
Suddenly realising that he was smoking, he asked the girl, who he could see was unusually pretty and quite young, if she had any objection, and, as he had expected, she readily entered into conversation.
After a time she remarked, with a pretty engaging smile, that she saw he had nothing to read, and getting down her suit-case, handed Blake a handful of the identical pamphlets he had already seen that morning in the English country police station. In addition, there was one fresh one on “The Irish Issue,” by William J. M. A. Maloney, M.D., captain in the British Army, August 1914-August 1916.
Blake then saw that his original suspicion was correct, and that he had to deal with that most dangerous of all spies, Sinn Fein or any other breed—a pretty girl.
By the time Rugby was passed he had heard the simple life-history in a rural part of England of the girl, ending with the information that she was going to Dublin for three months, and that she was very much in dread after all the dreadful happenings there she had read of in the papers, and she had never been in Ireland before (all this in a very fine rich Dublin brogue). And Blake began to think that he must really possess that most priceless of assets, to look a much bigger fool than you are.
After the stop at Crewe the girl again attacked him about Dublin, asking if he lived in lodgings there, and, if so, was there a room to let in the same house. A few days previously Michael Collins’s flat in a certain Dublin street had been raided with satisfactory results to the raiders, and Blake gave her this address, assuring her that she would here find quarters entirely suitable to her requirements. The girl took the hint, and the rest of the journey to Holyhead was spent in silence.
On the mail-boat Blake saw the girl once more, sitting with a youthful officer of the Dublin garrison, and carrying on an animated conversation with their heads touching.
On arriving at Ballybor Barracks Blake found further orders awaiting him from the County Inspector to proceed at once to Castleport with all the men and cars he could spare.
The wildest rumours were afloat amongst his men: that the I.R.A. were going to take the field openly (this notable achievement was reserved for the Truce); that a large force of Americans had landed from a yacht at Errinane with stacks of arms, and that they were raising and arming the mountain men of that district greatly against their wish and inclination, and that De Valera had been landed on the west coast from a submarine, was hiding in the mountains of Ballyrick, and was at long last going to take the field himself.
Collecting every man he could spare and taking all the transport except one Crossley, Blake set off with a strong convoy of police for Castleport. The men were in great heart, and eagerly looking forward to a good square fight in the open with the hitherto elusive soldiers of the I.R.A.