Once across the river, Carew ran as hard as he could for the house of a friendly farmer living on the main road on the east side of the river, borrowed a bicycle from the man, and set off for Ballybor.
By great good luck, as Carew reached the barracks in Ballybor, he found Blake on the point of setting out on a night expedition with a Crossley load of police. On hearing his story Blake at once agreed to return with him, in the hope that they might be in time to save Rossbane.
In order to surprise the Volunteers, Blake went by the road on the east side of the river, and on reaching Carew’s demesne hid the car inside in the shadow of some trees. Carew then swam the river, brought back a boat, and ferried the police across in three parties.
The farm buildings and main yard of Rossbane lie between the house and the river, and on entering the yard the police found Coleman lying insensible and surrounded by his weeping wife and children. Learning from the woman that the Volunteers were on the point of setting fire to the house, the police, led by Blake and Carew, who was armed with rifle and revolver, and by now in a white heat of fury, made for the house in two parties, one under Carew for the front entrance, and the other under Blake for the back.
The last thing the Volunteers expected was a brutal assault by the police, and after eating and drinking all they could find and looting what happened to take their fancy, they had just sprayed petrol over the hall and set it on fire when the police entered.
It is not often that the R.I.C. have the pleasure of coming to grips with the elusive I.R.A., but when they do they put paid in capital letters to the accounts of their murdered comrades, men shot in cold blood in their homes, or dragged unarmed out of trains and butchered like cattle.
The R.I.C. are probably one of the finest fighting forces to be found in a continent where, at the present day, practically every man is trained to arms, and most people have seen the fight cornered rats will put up.
The main hall of Rossbane was in the centre of the house, and after setting fire to it the Volunteers had started to leave, some by the front door and others through the kitchen, with the result that they ran into the arms of the police, who did not waste time with futile shouts of “hands up,” but proceeded at once to business.
At first they fought in darkness; but soon the flames gathered strength, and their glow silhouetted the forms of the Volunteers, giving the police as good targets as man could wish for.
In a short time the Volunteers broke; some rushed upstairs never to be seen alive again, while others fled into the drawing-room which opened off the hall, only to find escape cut off by heavy barred shutters. By now the centre of the house was burning fiercely, and all the police had to do to complete the rout was to wait outside the two exits and let the flames act the part of ferrets. Ten minutes more saw the end, and with it the few Volunteers who escaped with their lives, handcuffed together in a miserable group in the big yard, covered by two Black and Tans. And when the captain of the Rossbane Company of the I.R.A. revised his company roll, his pen must have been busy with “gone to America” after many names.