During the late war extraordinary cases were known of men shot through the head, even through the brain, living for hours afterwards, though generally unable to speak; and Mayne, though paralysed, was quite conscious when his murderers came up to where he was lying.
For some time the murderers argued whether they should finish him off, or remove him as he was. In the end they put him into his own car, unlocked the far gate, and drove off in the direction of Ballyrick.
After proceeding about a mile they came to a lane, which led up to a lonely farm close to the sea. After driving up to the farm they threw Mayne—still alive and conscious—on to a manure heap at the back of the farmhouse, and then drove off. It was afterwards found that they then took the car to a high cliff and ran it over the edge, to be broken up on the rocks below in the sea.
Mayne spent the rest of that day lying on the manure heap, and so terrorised were the inhabitants of the farm that not one of them dared go near him. To give poor Mayne even a cup of cold water would have meant certain death to the giver.
Late that evening the murderers returned, expecting to find Mayne dead by now; but he was still alive, though in a pitiable state. Again they argued among themselves whether they would finish him off or not, and again for some unknown reason they decided not to. And these are the men who, according to an English paper (thank God! not an Irish one), are “entitled to the treatment which, in civilised countries, is given to prisoners of war.”
After some time an ass was harnessed to a cart, into which they threw Mayne’s body, and then proceeded to the seashore below the farm. Here, after another discussion, they buried him—still alive, though quite paralysed—up to his neck in the sand, at a place where they thought the incoming tide would just reach him and slowly drown him during the night-time. It was now several hours since Mayne had been shot, and one can only hope that, though he was still alive, his senses had become numbed.
The following morning these fiends returned again to find that they had miscalculated the height of the tide, which had only reached the level of poor Mayne’s chin, and that he was still alive, though probably by now quite mad. They then dug him up, and this time made no mistake, but buried him where the tide was bound to drown him. And the next flood tide put an end to a torture the like of which Lenin and Trotsky could hardly exceed for sheer malignant devilry.
Blake and a strong escort of police had motored out to Ballyrick ahead of Mayne, in case there might be an ambush on the road. The Court was due to begin at twelve, and when by two there was no sign of the R.M., Blake left for Ballybor, making inquiries on the way, but could get no tidings of him anywhere.
On arriving in Ballybor, Blake wired for a force of Auxiliaries, who arrived that night, and at once started with Blake and a strong force of R.I.C. to hunt the countryside for Mayne; but nowadays in Ireland, so dangerous is it for any civilian to be seen speaking to a policeman, that it is always quite impossible to obtain any direct information. People who had seen Mayne set out on his last ill-fated drive denied that they even knew him by sight.
For three days and three nights they scoured the countryside from Ballybor to Ballyrick, and from Ballyrick back again to Ballybor, but no clue or tidings of Mayne could they get. From the time Mayne left Ballybor, R.M. and car seemed to have disappeared as though the earth had opened and swallowed them.