Part 6

The prison actually held only twenty-two cells. There were in addition a hospital, a maternity ward, and two padded cells, one permanent and one temporary. The hospital and maternity ward consisted of two cells each, with the intervening wall removed. In each of these three men were placed (there being some little rivalry for the maternity ward), which with the use of the temporary padded cell provided for all of us. In addition to this, there was also an observation ward, on the ground floor, similarly constructed of two cells converted into one, and this was given to us as a recreation room. All these cells were on one side of the building, the other side being a blank wall, and the only light that came to the passage struggled down through skylights.

Such was the place that was to be our habitation for nearly six months, and in which we erected the structure of our communal life.

XIX.

We had all come with experience of prison life, and were not easily perturbed. We had become accustomed to taking things as we found them, and making them the basis of improvement, not in the mood of those who sought privileges, but as those who demanded rights. Our first act was to elect a Ceann-Phort, through whom to formulate our demands, and by whom to lay out the lines of our life together. Our next act was to put together the tables that stood in the passage in order that we might have our meals together. From the very first during the time we were permitted together we at once took the control of our affairs into our own hands, and it became a recognised principle that any dealings of officials with us were with us as a whole and not with individuals.

For instance, the prison had to be scrubbed through twice a week, and in addition there was orderly work to be appointed, such as daily sweeping, polishing of rails, cleaning of dishes, and, as we had elected to take our meals together, the preparation and clearance of tables. For this work it was proposed, as in the usual way, to select the required men, and to pay them at the prison rate of ten pence a day. Instead of that we desired that the payment should be made to the Ceann-Phort, saying that the work would be done under his arrangements. We were then drawn out into eight teams who took it in turns for orderly work. The fatigues on Wednesday and Saturday were taken by each half-company of four teams. All questions concerning our life were arranged between our Ceann-Phort and the prison Governor.

The moneys that were paid over to us were expended by us, together with contributions made from time to time from among us, on the canteen that was open three days in the week. For the food that we received was the same as we had received in other prisons, except that at first its quality was improved. While our exchequers lasted we were able to enrich our dietary to some extent by extra doles of bread, margarine and sugar. This canteen was in the hands of one of the grocers in the town for the use of all the prisoners in the jail.

The first night we were locked up at eight o’clock, with lights out at nine. This was one of the first matters to which we turned our attention. We were not successful in approximating this to the conditions that had prevailed elsewhere with us, such as at Stafford, but we were finally able to have the time altered to ten. The gravest hardships, however, in the conditions as at first announced to us were that we were only suffered one visit every three months and one letter each month. These were the ordinary conditions imposed on penal servitude convicts,

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Finally we were permitted one visit a month and two letters each week, the letters to be written on little slips of paper provided for us. At first also we were refused the right to receive parcels of food sent in by friends. This was clearly contrary to the code prevailing for Prisoners ...; and this also we had annulled.

Therefore our life, as finally adjusted, was on this wise. We were aroused at seven o’clock, and the orderlies for the day at once laid the breakfast, which was taken at a quarter to eight. At half-past ten we were taken out by the warders to the work yard for exercise. There we disported ourselves as we pleased until we were brought in for dinner at twelve. In the afternoon we went out, not to the work yard, but to the small exercise yard at the back of our prison. This was separated by a wall from the Debtors’ Yard, of which Wilde had sung:

In Debtors’ Yard the stones are hard, And the dripping wall is high.

Then tea at five—

And the bitter bread they weigh in scales Is full of chalk and lime.

After tea, during the summer months, we were allowed out into the yard again till it was dark, and at ten the key grated against us once more in our cell doors.

Each narrow cell in which we dwell Is a foul and dark latrine, And the fetid breath of living death Chokes up each grated screen, And all, but Lust, is turned to dust In Humanity’s machine.

XX.

We were treading a path that had already been sung (for even bitterness has its song) but we trod it in greater comfort. Above all we had one another’s company. The boon of this might conceivably have been blurred a little, as with the passage of months it became difficult in our cramped space to avoid treading on one another’s toes. And certainly it was impossible for each man not to know each other at his best and worst. The knowledge so gained had its value for future days. For at bottom the solidity with which we began was only cemented with the passage of time.

Yet our company was first to be revised, by a process of addition and subtraction, before it took its final shape. One Friday in August we were informed that on the Monday and Tuesday following we were to be taken in two parties before the Advisory Committee. We were asked to give our word that we would make no attempt to escape. If we gave that pledge we would be sent to London with warders in plain clothes; otherwise it would be necessary to send us handcuffed together. On this a keen discussion took place; for while the majority was content to give the undertaking there were some who would give no pledge, who would leave it to the authorities to decide for themselves on any action they pleased. Finally the Governor, who was very anxious to avoid handcuffs, assumed an undertaking, and so the issue was muffled. Two warders in plain clothes accompanied each party to Wormwood Scrubbs Jail; and nothing was done to advertise the fact that we were prisoners travelling. Had the question arisen a few months later hardly a man would have given the undertaking, or even have suffered it to be implied. The public display of handcuffs would have been coveted rather than avoided; for it was certainly not to comfort us that the offer was made, whatever the Governor’s personal inclinations might have been. For jails but straighten the back and harden the mind.

We also differed in our attitude towards the Advisory Committee. None of us differed in our opinion of its function. It sat, so the purport ran, to decide which of us might be liberated; or rather, more technically, in respect of which of us our internment orders should be confirmed; but these things, as we know, would be decided by political considerations quite outside the review of the Committee. None of us doubted that its main function was to check and complete our _Leabhrain_, as far as possible, by question and cross reference. But we differed in our attitude. Some refused to recognise the Committee in any way, as being a body set up by a foreign government, having no authority over Irishmen. These, when brought before the Committee, firmly defined their attitude, and were promptly escorted again into the outside air. Others answered the brief interrogatory to which they were submitted, and went their way in a matter of minutes. My own attitude was somewhat different.

In the first place, I had now been in prison for some months, without much chance of enlivenment. The opportunity of a debate through the labyrinth of the Defence of the Realm Regulations seemed too good a thing to be lightly put by. Moreover, I was anxious to discover some of the items that furnished my _leabhran_. I was not disappointed. As I had expected, deftly mixed among the questions put to me about my own doings were a number of questions that involved others. Also, as I had expected, a week’s study of the Regulations left the rather interesting legal debate not altogether a one-sided matter; for a number of points were conceded to me, which, when I afterwards sought to take advantage of them, proved to have been made without any deep knowledge of the possibilities the Regulations offered. One or two matters of interest emerged, however.

For instance, the Committee had some little difficulty in explaining exactly why, if I as an Irishman was to be interned as an

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This, I was told, was a political matter. Strangely enough, it was exactly so I had conceived it. Then I was informed that I was only considered as an _alien_ for the purposes of that particular act, that in other matters my citizenship under the law was not disputed. By which it appeared that I was an alien when my imprisonment was desired, but not an alien when my personal and national freedom was to be consulted.

Then, among other questions, I was asked if I had or had not endeavoured to get Irish farm labourers into touch with Irish farmers in order to stay their migrating to England, where they could be taken under the Military Service Act. On my asking on what authority the question was put, I was answered that it was so alleged in the local police report. My answer was an admission of the charge. I suggested that it might have a bearing that the assurance had been made in Parliament that farm labourers from Ireland could not be taken under the Military Service Act. But it was interesting to discover that a benefit intended to Ireland was made the basis of a charge; and it was interesting to discover the furniture that found its way into police reports.[A]

When I came out and explained how it was I had remained so long, when all the others had been dispatched in two minutes or three, I was told that I had at least ensured continued internment. The price was not exhorbitant.

FOOTNOTE:

[A] It seems worthy of note that as I write in the year 1917 the Department of Agriculture and Technical Education have adopted this scheme, and are being assisted in its prosecution by the police. It took a Clown to refer to Time as a whirligig.

XXI.

The week after our excursion to Wormwood Scrubbs, seven men were sent down to us from Frongoch, where trouble had already begun. There were no cells to hold them in our prison, and so they were lodged in the reception-cells under the offices, where neither light nor air was bold enough to venture. They were brought over to us for breakfast, and lived during the day with us until they were taken back to bed.

Shortly afterwards five of our number were summoned to the Governor’s office, and returned saying they were to be released that day. We already had had that joke played on us several times, and so we gave no heed to them. But when in a short time we saw them industriously packing their kit, the joke wore a more earnest expression. It was no jest, however. Although no man changed his mien yet none but felt what a jewel freedom was when it became within the grasp of his neighbour, and when that neighbour rose up and went forth proudly wearing it. We sang them home, however, gaily enough. In a week two more were sent home. These seven comprised all the releases from Reading at the same time that two thousand and more were released from Frongoch. It was not very difficult to discover the reasons prompting most of these releases, and it need hardly be said that they had little relation to the events of Easter Week. The internments covered a much wider ground, which was chosen for much subtler reasons. The soldier’s hand might rule in Ireland, but the politician’s hand indexed the internments. And as usual the politician over-reached himself. For the men who were released found on their return that the country judged them unworthy to remain; and the Home Office officials were finally convinced that Ireland was inhabited by the mad when they received shoals of letters from released men pitifully arguing that their releases must have been in error, and giving proofs of their part in the Rising-Out.

We, however, settled down to the honour of imprisonment with fortitude. Already, when we had learned that the celebrations of the 12th of July had been forbidden in Ulster we had filled the gap with a procession and a meeting in which excellent Orange speeches had been made. Now we held a Hibernian meeting. Such things enlivened our days.

We suffered greatly from lack of exercise, and the closeness of our confinement began to tell upon us as the autumn approached. We had given up going out to the work-yard for our morning exercise, and kept to the little yard. This yard was beset on three sides by the buildings of the jail, and on the fourth side, beyond the high wall, Huntley & Palmer’s chimneys belched black smoke that blotted the sky. In a corner of this yard we made a hand-ball alley. No stranger alley was ever devised. Two windows, a drain-pipe, a railing across steps leading to the basement, and a ventilator grating, gave opportunity for chance and skill. And the exercise saved us.

Nevertheless, with the coming of winter the effects of our confinement could be seen on most of us. The food, also, had become bad. The margarine was often rancid. On two occasions the meat made several of us ill; and for three months I lived only on bread and porridge, both of which were, at least, clean and wholesome. Prisons are not built as health resorts, yet precautions are supposed to be taken that a mean of temperature is maintained. During a week of frost, however, the temperature in my room was 46° to 48° Fahrenheit. This was inside the cells: outside, the passage was full of draughts. Yet the prison was never ventilated, for the only place where air could come or go was the door. The result was that when one of the warders came in once with influenza, every man in the prison in time fell to it.

Yet we kept our backs straight. P. J. D. was informed by the Governor, on the authority of the Home Office, that if he would sign an undertaking to be of good behaviour for the future he would at once be liberated. He replied that the offer was adding insult to injury, and he declared that if his liberation depended on his signature of any manner of undertaking, he was destined to remain long in prison. The Chief Warder approached others of us, thinking to try the ground before any other offers were made; but he left matters as he found them.

In Frongoch at this time the same attitude was being taken. Matters there were also complicated by the attempt of the military to search out Irishmen who had returned home from England on the passage of the Military Service Act—to search them out, not for the Army, but for the pleasure of thrusting them into jails. And the result of the ensuing resistance was that seven of the leaders there were brought to Reading and put into the reception-cells, making our number thirty-five once again.

XXII.

So the winter days passed. The prison was wrapt continually in an unpleasant amalgam of winter fog and Huntley & Palmer’s smoke. We never saw the sun, though occasionally, when the fog cleared, we could make a guess at it where it strode the sky.

Little wonder if we occasionally got upon one another’s nerves. None of our nerves were of the best, and we all felt the deathly system of prison life like an oppression on us, blotting out all intellectual life and making a blank of mind and soul. Yet no outsider saw cleavage among us. That was a principle we never let down.

Of an evening we met together and discussed different aspects of national affairs, partly with the intention of defining our future action, and partly with a view to defining our points of view in their relation to one another. The two things were really one; for satisfactorily to outline the second was already largely to complete the first; and we were determined not to lose the chance with which we had been so admirably furnished. Moreover, when birthdays arrived we had modest supper-parties, in which song and good will supplied the lack of viands.

Yet towards the end, with illness and depression settling on most of us, we kept largely to our own cells, despite their icy temperature. We were suffered books—carefully selected. It became part of our business carefully to test the selection by arranging for a variety of books to be sent in to us by friends. Especially was this so when a happy accident gave us the name of our censor; and it was deeply interesting to see his path among the classics of Irish literature.

In this we were assisted by our friends outside. Indeed, not the least value of our months of imprisonment was the revelation of friendship, and its spontaneity and strength and unity in those of our race. We had but to express a need and it was at once met by leagues and committees that had been gathered together, both at home and in England, to befriend and serve us. If our state was like that of an island it was at least an island washed by a great sea of friendship.

The gifts cast up by the tides of that sea became embarrassing as Christmas approached. We had altogether to dispense with prison fare; and our thrills of excitement were not the less because we were so remote from the outer world. But the full bounty of that sea was never to be experienced by us.

Shut away though we were, we watched political affairs closely—watched not merely the surface that appeared, but watched for indications of the hidden streams that ran—and when John Dillon brought forward his motion for the discussion of the Irish Prisoners of War we guessed that he had learned some hint that we were to be released. This came soon after the failure to get us to sign pledges of good behaviour. When, however, the threatened motion was never taken, it was clear that we were not to be released. We were not greatly affected; but we watched that pending motion with interest. It became a theme of daily jest with us. When, after the change of government, the motion at last was discussed, the sign was clear to us; and we were not surprised when, the following day, we learned that Irish interned prisoners were to be released. In a noncommittal way some of us began to pack—like men who were content, the next moment, to unpack, and take whatever came without perturbation. On Friday, the 22nd of December, we heard that the Frongoch men were going, and during that day we learned that a courier was expected during the afternoon with papers for our release. No courier, however, arrived; and Sunday saw us content again to continue as we were without complaint. It appeared, as I afterwards learnt, that the Home Office had actually arranged for our release together with the men at Frongoch, but that the Irish Office had intervened. It was not till the Sunday afternoon that the Home Office won its way. For on that day, Christmas Eve, at half-past two, the Governor came into the prison to tell us that we were to be ready to go out in two hours’ time. It seemed indeed that our maximum of inconvenience had been sought; for it was impossible then for many of us to reach home for Christmas, and such men had need to lodge where they could with the more fortunate.

So at half-past four we passed out through the streets of Reading, singing our songs as we went. Each man went to take up his duty as he had always conceived it, but with the added hardness inevitably begotten of a jail. And each man remembered his fellows who still were in jail, the men who, for the same duty and for the same high cause, were serving sentences at Lewes, beside whom our sufferings were a light thing lightly endured.

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Transcriber’s Note

Minor punctuation and printer errors repaired.

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=.