Tales of the R.I.C.

by Unknown

The only result of the raid was the finding of an old shot-gun in the bed of the local blacksmith, a man who had always defied the local Volunteers, and kept a gun for poaching only, and who was taken off to Ballybor Barracks amidst the jeers of everybody. However, in a few days they realised how useful and necessary a person a smith is in a country district, and before the week was out the whole townland was clamouring for the smith’s release.

However, the raid had good results; the Volunteers refused point-blank to carry out the ambush on Wednesday night, though the gunmen stayed until that day, making every endeavour to bring it off. Finding it was useless, they disappeared that night as silently as they had come, promising to return shortly in greater numbers.

The whole district heaved a sigh of relief when it was known that there were no longer any strangers within the gates, and settled down to farm and lead the life God meant them to live, and hoped against hope that they might never see a cursed stranger again, be he gunman or Auxiliary. Blake let it be known that it was a case of no ambush, no Auxiliaries, and every farmer in the district was quite content to keep his side of the bargain.

But peace was not yet to be the portion of Cloonalla. Within three weeks of the first gunman leaving, a party of twenty arrived on a wild winter’s night, and, as on the former occasion, as silently dispersed to their allotted billets. This time the leader of the gunmen did not ask the local Volunteers to help, but ordered them to carry out the ambush in the wooded demesne on the main road from Castleport to Ballybor, as previously arranged.

The gunmen did not appear during the day-time at all, and had been nearly a week in the district before Father Tom heard of their arrival. Unfortunately, the priest was very ill with influenza at the time, and before he could take any action the damage was done.

As usual, the scene of the ambush was laid with great cleverness. Between the two entrance-gates of the demesne on the main road there was a sharp rise in the form of an S bend, with a thick thorn hedge on each side of the middle of this bend. Where the rise was steepest, there was a lane leading to the keeper’s house, about fifty yards from the road, and at the entrance of this lane the gunmen laid a mine in the main road to be fired by an electric wire running towards the keeper’s house. After laying the mine they forced the road contractor of that part of the road to cart broken stones and lay them right across the road over the mine, so that all traces of the mine were hidden.

The day after the mine had been laid word came to Cloonalla that the police had arrested three men in Ballybor during the previous night, and that it was thought that the prisoners would be sent to Castleport that night in a Crossley under a strong police escort. As soon as it was dark, the gunmen, after parking their bicycles in a wood of the demesne, collected all the Volunteers they could induce or force to accompany them, and made their way across country to the scene of the ambush.

The night was unusually fine with a full moon, and two hours after the Volunteers and gunmen had taken up their positions, the peculiar note of a Crossley engine could be distinctly heard approaching at a great pace from the Ballybor direction. The gunman who had laid the mine was a first-class electrician, and as the car tore past the lane there was a blinding flash, followed by a terrific roar, and the car seemed to jump clean off the road and then collapse in a burning heap on the road.

With the roar of the mine the ambushers opened a heavy fire on the car, but receiving no reply they quickly ceased fire, waiting to see what would happen next. But the mine had done its work only too well, and the only sounds which could be heard were the groans of dying men amid the burning ruins of the car. After some minutes two policemen rolled out of the end of the car and lay on the highroad, one man with both his legs paralysed, crying piteously for water, and the second with part of his head blown away by a flat-nosed bullet, crying for a priest.

Up to this point the leader of the gunmen had taken charge of all the proceedings, and when the Volunteers were collected on the road like a flock of sheep they still waited for orders. However, after five minutes, as no order was given, they began to look for their leader, suddenly to realise that every gunman had faded away.