Tales of the R.I.C.

by Unknown

The yacht settled down for the night, but soon after midnight a powerful searchlight was flashed on to her, and again the bluejackets came aboard and searched the yacht from top to bottom. Eventually they left, the searchlight was turned off, and the destroyer could be heard putting out to sea.

Larry’s original plan had been to land the arms on the north side of the bay, and to hide them in some caves in the mountains, where French arms had been hidden during the rebellion of 1798, then to await a favourable opportunity to remove them to Ballybor. However, the night the destroyer left the local fishermen filled their boats with herrings, which Larry found had all been bought by the big shopkeeper in Errinane, who intended sending them to Ballybor Station the next morning in his three Ford trucks. Not daring to land the arms during the day, Larry commandeered the lorries, and as soon as it was dark landed the arms openly at Errinane quay, packed them in the largest fish-boxes he could find, and loaded the boxes on to the lorries, putting boxes of herrings on top. The arms once landed, he restored Micky to his parents on the yacht, and within half an hour the reunited Fee family were on their way back to America.

Not long after the yacht had started, the lorries left Errinane on the long run through the mountains to Ballybor. When about fifteen miles from Errinane, Larry halted his convoy in a mountain pass, in order to let one of the drivers repair a tyre.

Hardly had they stopped when the lights of two cars were seen behind them, descending the road into the pass from the direction of Errinane. Larry knew at once that they could only be police cars, and must have been sent to Errinane on the suspicion that arms had been landed from the yacht.

He at once got his lorries on the move, going in the last one himself, and in a few minutes could hear the hoot of the oncoming cars close behind. Ahead of them lay miles of narrow bog road, and as long as he kept the rear lorry in the middle of the road, the police cars would not be able to stop them.

Soon he could hear shouts of halt, followed shortly afterwards by a volley of rifle bullets, but Larry and the driver were well protected by the boxes on the lorry. So they continued for about two miles, the police firing volley after volley at the lorry.

So far so good; but though Larry knew he could keep the police from overhauling them for several miles, yet he knew that in the end the police must defeat him, unless he could find some means of stopping them, and the only way to do this was by sacrificing the rear lorry. This he made up his mind to do, as the lorry only carried the bombs; but the difficulty was to stop the police altogether.

The idea which saved them came from the driver, who knew every yard of the road, and reminded Larry that half a mile ahead of them there was an arched bridge over a mountain river, the very place to block the road.

Larry climbed out on the boxes, and with great difficulty extracted a bomb; returning to the driving seat, they waited until the lorry was on the bridge, when they stopped the engine and started to run for the lorry in front. When they had gone about twenty yards, Larry stopped, flung the bomb at the lorry on the bridge, and ran like a hare.

Luckily there was a steep rise beyond the bridge, and just as they reached the slow-moving lorry a flame of fire shot up from the bridge followed by a deafening explosion. They learnt afterwards that the bridge was completely wrecked, the leading police car badly damaged, and that the police took three hours to return to Errinane, having to back their cars for several miles before they could turn.