II—STORY OF THE YOUNG IRISH GUARD
What impresses people in O'Leary's deed is not only his bravery but the triumphant success with which he carried out the whole act. Other soldiers may have displayed more self-sacrifice and endurance, but not one of them appears to have done more for his side by one individual act of bravery than O'Leary.
It is the dashing quality of his deed that wins admiration and this quality, it is to be noted, is peculiarly Irish. He is credited by his admirers with having shot eight men in eight seconds. His quickness must have been phenomenal, and here again he showed a peculiarly Irish trait.
How one man could have shot eight soldiers, when all eight of them were armed and many of their comrades were only a few yards away, must appear a mystery to many. The Germans were perhaps retiring hastily from their positions, but they had magazine rifles in their hands and fired many shots at the British.
Why did they not get O'Leary, who was running out alone ahead of his companions? He must have been amazingly lucky, as well as amazingly quick.
Then it is almost equally astonishing that he could have shot eight men in a few moments while running. The best explanation of this is that the British soldier has a rifle carrying more bullets than that of any other army.
The Lee Enfield rifle now used in the British army carries ten bullets in the magazine and one in the barrel. O'Leary, of course, fired all his eleven bullets, and he is credited with making eight of them kill a man apiece. That is an amazing shooting record, said to be unequalled for a soldier.
Sergeant O'Leary is not a particularly fierce looking soldier, as might be expected, but a tall, slender, fair-haired young fellow. He is only twenty-five years old.
"A quiet, easy-going young fellow O'Leary is," said his friend, Sergeant Daly, of the Second Battalion of the Irish Guards. "But he is remarkably quick on his feet."
O'Leary was born in the little village of Inchigeelach, in the County Cork. His father and mother still live there. He has an older brother and four sisters, who are now in America.