This attempt to seize the staff-officer convinced the Volunteers that there was a traitor in the district, and a Volunteer intelligence officer was sent down forthwith from Dublin to investigate.
Blake now felt that he was really beginning to break the Sinn Fein in his district, and decided to take the offensive to the full extent of his power. Not only did he have the town and country patrolled night and day, but he also sent out parties of “Black and Tans” to search houses in the country for suspected stores of arms, and also to try and obtain information by all means in their power.
Though at this time the people were beginning to get restive under the Sinn Fein tyranny, yet so great was the terror that not a single person in the whole district dared to give the police one word of information of his own will; and though the information from Mulligan was of vital importance as regards attacks and movements by the Volunteers, yet Blake was still in complete ignorance of the names of the most dangerous Sinn Feiners.
Blake felt that he was winning, but he knew that there would be no peace or rest in his district until he had arrested the leaders: the others would then be like sheep without a shepherd. To this end an interview with Mulligan was necessary, in order to get from him the names of these leaders.
This time Blake waylaid Mulligan as he was going to meet Bridgie O’Hara, and at once saw that the boy’s nerve was fast breaking. Mulligan gave him the names and addresses he wanted readily enough, and then implored Blake to have him arrested at once and taken to a place of safety, as he was in terror of his life.
He told Blake that the Volunteers were already suspicious of him, and that an intelligence officer had been specially sent down from Dublin to watch him and report on the leakage of information, and that he could not stick it any longer. Blake, knowing that once Mulligan was removed, he would not get any information at all, managed after a long argument to persuade him to carry on a little longer, by promising to arrest him when the other leaders were taken.
After parting from Blake the unhappy Mulligan met his girl, who by this time was half-mad from the misery of the boycott of her family. In despair she told him she had made up her mind to marry Connelly, and they would sail for America as soon as they could get passports.
Patsey, at the end of his tether and racked with terror, implored her to wait a little longer, saying that very soon he would have £500, and directly he got the money he would take her away.
The girl went home in the seventh heaven of delight, forgot all about the promises of silence she had made to Patsey, and told her mother, who, of course, told her husband, and it was not many days before the good news was common property in the district. A few days afterwards the intelligence officer returned to his H.Q.’s—his mission was fulfilled.
Having got the ringleaders’ names, Blake at once set about his plans for arresting them, realising that not until they were safe under lock and key could he truthfully say that he had won; but it is one thing to arrest two or three men, and quite a different story to arrest thirty or forty, as, if not all arrested at the same time, the majority would get warning and disappear on the run.