Borrowing a couple of spades, the police then went to the graveyard, and as soon as the dark man’s grave could be found, Blake ordered the Volunteers to open it again, and at the same time watched Brogan’s face carefully. On the way out to the cemetery, Brogan had been laughing and sneering as on the former occasion, but directly he heard Blake’s order he went as white as a sheet, and began to tremble, and a look of terror leapt into his eyes.
Blake knew that at last he was on the right track.
None of the Volunteers moved, waiting for Brogan to give a lead, and Blake had to repeat his order, calling on Brogan by name to start digging. Pulling himself together with a great effort, the Volunteer commenced slowly to throw the earth out of the grave, the sweat, though it was a cold day, pouring down his face.
The lower Brogan dug the slower he dug, until at last, when he had excavated about two feet of soil, he suddenly fainted and collapsed into the shallow grave.
The police were by now strung up to the highest pitch of excitement, and a huge sergeant, who had been a great favourite with Drake, suddenly gave a hoarse shout, and, jumping into the grave threw Brogan out, and started digging like a madman, while the rest began to fidget with the triggers of their rifles and look ominously at the uneasy Volunteers.
Suddenly the sergeant’s spade met a soft resistance, and in a few seconds he had uncovered and opened a sack, to find, as Blake expected, the body of poor Drake with a huge expanding bullet hole through his forehead.
The next five minutes will always be to Blake a nightmare: the police went stark mad,—when highly-disciplined troops break they are far worse to handle than any undisciplined crowd,—and with a howl of rage made for the cowering Volunteers, ignoring Blake’s shouts; and to this day Blake has no idea of how he kept his men from taking revenge on the Volunteers.
Probably he would have failed but for the lucky chance of noticing that Brogan, who had come to, was trying to escape. The diversion of chasing Brogan brought the police back to their senses, and by the time he had been captured and brought back, discipline was completely restored.
Before they left the cemetery, Brogan made a complete confession of all he knew about the tragedy. He told Blake that information had been given to the G.H.Q. of the I.R.A. in Dublin that Drake was on the point of taking command of a company of Auxiliaries who were to be stationed in his own house, the idea being to use Drake’s local knowledge, which Blake knew to be quite untrue. On the Sunday two gunmen arrived from Dublin with orders to shoot Drake and burn his house. Finding out that Drake intended to go to Dublin the following day by the mail train, they commandeered a Ford in Ballybor, taking Brogan with them as a guide, and took him out of the train at Knockshinnagh; and after the murder they returned to Ballybor, superintended the burning of Drake’s house, and then disappeared into the night on stolen bicycles.
Shortly afterwards Brogan heard a rumour that Drake had been murdered and buried in the bog cemetery, and he became very uneasy. That night he and three of the Volunteers received orders to take part in a police ambush on the far side of the Slievenamoe Mountains, which order they obeyed, going in a Ford.