Part 5

Soon after Blake came to Ballybor, the R.M. stationed there retired on pension, and in his place there came a young man, Anthony Mayne, who had served with distinction in an Irish regiment during the war. Being unmarried, Mayne took up his quarters in a small hotel close to the police barracks, and in a short time struck up a friendship with Blake.

In addition to attending at Ballybor Petty Sessions once a week, Mayne had to go to several other small towns twice a month. The district was very large, chiefly wild mountainous country, and some of the places were many miles from Ballybor, one place in particular, Ballyrick, being over thirty miles away on the shores of the Atlantic.

The first Court which Mayne attended happened to be at Ballyrick, probably one of the wildest and most thinly populated districts in Ireland. Soon after leaving Ballybor the road crossed a railway line by a level crossing close to the sea, and then ran for many miles between the sea and a chain of mountains to the small seaside town of Ballyrick.

Mayne found that the people of this district were a race of small men; they looked as though the terrific Atlantic gales had stunted them in the same way as the trees are stunted on this coast, and, moreover, their faces were not pleasing. During his first Court here the nature of the cases showed plainly that the chief amusement of the peasants was to beat and batter each other on all opportunities, especially on dark nights after a fair, and the distillation of illicit whisky their chief occupation.

In Ireland the penalty for harbouring, keeping, or concealing a still or illicit spirits is £100, which can be mitigated to £6, luckily no lower; and from time immemorial the custom of the shopkeeper class of magistrate has always been to reduce every fine to the minimum, with the natural result that the peasants have come to regard the £6 fine as the legal penalty for the bad luck of being caught by the police. £6 is a mere fraction of the profits of a successful brew of poteen, and is looked upon in the light of a tax paid to the Government.

In one case a man was caught red-handed by the police with fourteen barrels of treacle, 200 gallons of wash, a complete still, and enough poteen to stock a fair-sized public-house. The man brought the £6 into Court with him, being certain he would be convicted and fined the usual amount.

But Mayne, the only magistrate on the bench, took a very serious view of the case, knowing the amount of crime and misery caused by this abominable drink, and fined the man £50.

Such a sentence had never been heard in Ballyrick Court-house within the memory of man; even the police received a shock, and a noise resembling a swarm of angry bees arose to defy the shouts of the police for silence and order. That evening, when Mayne returned to Ballybor, he was followed by a police car for many miles, but the peasants had not had time to organise their revenge.

About this time the magistrates of the district received letters from the I.R.A. calling upon them to resign their Commissions of the Peace, and giving them a time limit. The shopkeeper and farmer class, being threatened with that savage scourge in Ireland, a boycott, had no alternative but to resign, which they did at once with great promptness and unanimity. In most cases the gentry hung on to their commissions, but refrained from appearing on the Bench at a time when their presence might have made all the difference.

Very soon the Sinn Fein Courts in the Ballybor district were in full swing; the country people received orders not to appear at a Petty Sessions Court, and in a very short time every Petty Sessions clerk found himself completely idle. However, as a matter of form, Mayne attended every Court regularly, though the only people present were the police, the clerk, and himself, and their only work to say good-day to each other.

By now all the magistrates in the district had either resigned or feared to attend, and if only the R.M. could be frightened out of the country or removed, all Petty Sessions Courts would be closed, and the King’s Writ would cease to run in the country both figuratively and in reality. With this end in view, the Volunteers began to send threatening letters to Mayne, and on two occasions he was fired at when motoring back from holding Courts in outlying towns.

However, Mayne was made of the right stuff, and determined that as long as he was alive the usual Courts should be held throughout his district, no matter whether the people brought their cases to the King’s Courts or to the Sinn Fein Courts, which were generally held the day before a Petty Sessions Court was due in a town; and in order to provide cases he arranged with Blake to carry out a poteen raid on a large scale in the Ballyrick district, and that the cases should be tried at the next Court there. Blake duly carried out the raid, which was most successful, and the defendants were summoned to appear in Court, with the threat of arrest held over their heads if they did not turn up.

On the day of the Ballyrick Court Mayne set out, alone as usual, on his long drive about 9.45 A.M., and on reaching the level crossing found the gates closed, though no train was due to pass for several hours. After sounding his horn in vain, he went to open them himself, only to find that both gates were heavily padlocked.

He then made his way to the crossing-keeper’s house, which was about fifty yards up the line. The man’s wife, who was the only occupant of the house, told him that the gates had been locked that morning by the Volunteers, after the police cars had passed through, and the keys taken away. Determined not to be beaten, Mayne now got a heavy stone, and had actually succeeded in smashing the padlock on the near gate, when he was shot in the head from behind, and at once collapsed on the road.

During the late war extraordinary cases were known of men shot through the head, even through the brain, living for hours afterwards, though generally unable to speak; and Mayne, though paralysed, was quite conscious when his murderers came up to where he was lying.

For some time the murderers argued whether they should finish him off, or remove him as he was. In the end they put him into his own car, unlocked the far gate, and drove off in the direction of Ballyrick.

After proceeding about a mile they came to a lane, which led up to a lonely farm close to the sea. After driving up to the farm they threw Mayne—still alive and conscious—on to a manure heap at the back of the farmhouse, and then drove off. It was afterwards found that they then took the car to a high cliff and ran it over the edge, to be broken up on the rocks below in the sea.

Mayne spent the rest of that day lying on the manure heap, and so terrorised were the inhabitants of the farm that not one of them dared go near him. To give poor Mayne even a cup of cold water would have meant certain death to the giver.

Late that evening the murderers returned, expecting to find Mayne dead by now; but he was still alive, though in a pitiable state. Again they argued among themselves whether they would finish him off or not, and again for some unknown reason they decided not to. And these are the men who, according to an English paper (thank God! not an Irish one), are “entitled to the treatment which, in _civilised_ countries, is given to prisoners of war.”

After some time an ass was harnessed to a cart, into which they threw Mayne’s body, and then proceeded to the seashore below the farm. Here, after another discussion, they buried him—still alive, though quite paralysed—up to his neck in the sand, at a place where they thought the incoming tide would just reach him and slowly drown him during the night-time. It was now several hours since Mayne had been shot, and one can only hope that, though he was still alive, his senses had become numbed.

The following morning these fiends returned again to find that they had miscalculated the height of the tide, which had only reached the level of poor Mayne’s chin, and that he was _still alive_, though probably by now quite mad. They then dug him up, and this time made no mistake, but buried him where the tide was bound to drown him. And the next flood tide put an end to a torture the like of which Lenin and Trotsky could hardly exceed for sheer malignant devilry.

Blake and a strong escort of police had motored out to Ballyrick ahead of Mayne, in case there might be an ambush on the road. The Court was due to begin at twelve, and when by two there was no sign of the R.M., Blake left for Ballybor, making inquiries on the way, but could get no tidings of him anywhere.

On arriving in Ballybor, Blake wired for a force of Auxiliaries, who arrived that night, and at once started with Blake and a strong force of R.I.C. to hunt the countryside for Mayne; but nowadays in Ireland, so dangerous is it for any civilian to be seen speaking to a policeman, that it is always quite impossible to obtain any direct information. People who had seen Mayne set out on his last ill-fated drive denied that they even knew him by sight.

For three days and three nights they scoured the countryside from Ballybor to Ballyrick, and from Ballyrick back again to Ballybor, but no clue or tidings of Mayne could they get. From the time Mayne left Ballybor, R.M. and car seemed to have disappeared as though the earth had opened and swallowed them.

As there was no evidence of foul play, the police hoped that the R.M. had been kidnapped and hidden away in the mountains to the east of Ballyrick. So they posted notices throughout the district to the effect that, if the R.M. was returned in two days all would be well, but if not——

At the end of the two days’ grace a man, who said he kept the railway crossing on the road to Ballyrick, arrived on a bicycle at the barracks ashen with fear, and asked to see Blake. On hearing the man’s story, Blake went out to the level crossing and there found poor Mayne’s body in a rough wooden box, lying on the side of the line. The cause of death appeared obvious; but they were greatly puzzled to find the clothes soaked with sea-water and full of sand, and to hear from the doctor who examined the body that death was due to—drowning.

The level-crossing man was detained at the barracks, and every means was taken to extract information from him; but he denied all knowledge of the murder, and proved an alibi to Blake’s satisfaction.

The police spent the next fortnight searching in vain for Mayne’s murderers, and it is probable that, but for a curious trait in the peasant’s character, they would never have solved the mystery.

Late one evening, about three weeks after the murder, a typical Ballyrick peasant arrived at the barracks in Ballybor and asked to see the D.I., and refused to state his business except to the D.I. Luckily the police decided to admit the man, and he was led off to Blake’s office.

When he was brought in Blake was up to his eyes in official correspondence, with the prospect of an all-night sitting before him; but hoping that the man might have news of Mayne, he ordered the police to leave the man alone with him, and then waited for him to tell his news.

If a western peasant has a favour to ask or a confession to make, he will talk of everything and everybody except the object of his visit, possibly for an hour and probably for two, and will generally not come to the point until he is preparing to leave. The length of time required to extract the necessary information depends entirely on the skill of the interviewer.

Blake’s visitor was no exception to this rule, and many an Englishman, cleverer than Blake, would have made the mistake of hurrying his man, which is always fatal; and even Blake’s patience was nearly exhausted before he made his confession.

Whether the man’s confession was genuine, or whether he hoped to save his skin by turning informer is not quite clear; but at any rate he confessed to Blake that he and five other men had murdered Mayne at the level crossing, gave the full details of one of the worst atrocities which has ever been committed in Ireland, and stated as his only reason for confessing that he had not been able to sleep since the murder.

VI. AN OUTLAW.

Probably the great majority of the British public had no idea of the extraordinary situation in the south and west of Ireland during 1920, and most likely never will have. In the summer of that sinister year, when the Sinn Fein tyranny was at its height, an English newspaper sent a lady journalist over to this unfortunate country to find out what really was the matter with us, and, if possible, to give the world yet another solution of the Irish Question.

In her first letter, this lady, quite unnecessarily, told her millions of readers that she had never been in Ireland before, proceeded to relate the peculiarities of the people of Dublin and Belfast, and finished with a vivid description of the peaceful and happy condition of the country, in spite of the interested rumours put about to the contrary.

At the time when this lady journalist was discovering peaceful and happy Ireland, the power of Sinn Fein was rapidly passing from the hands of the hot-air merchants to the direct-action ruffians; in other words, Arthur Griffiths became a mere cipher, and Michael Collins the dictator of the south and west. And very soon Collins had several imitators.

Born in 1889 in the highlands of Ballyrick, Denis Joyce, after working for a few years as gillie and general boy at a shooting-lodge near Errinane, drifted to Dublin as a labourer, and at once came under the influence of Connolly, the prince of Irish Bolsheviks. Taken prisoner during the Easter rebellion of 1916, he was eventually released with other small fry, and in return devoted himself to the extermination of the British Empire in general, and Irish policemen in particular.

During the spring and summer of 1920, Joyce and his numerous bodyguard, like an Irish chieftain of old, lived like fighting-cocks. Hailed as the conquerors of the British Army (they had shot several unarmed soldiers) wherever they went, not only did they live free, gratis, and for nothing, but the country people literally fought for the honour of entertaining these heroes. A great pity that the lady journalist could not have been present at one of these banquets. What “copy” she could have sent to her editor, and the certified net sale would have soared to the skies.

But though Joyce and his merry men had a great time, they did not neglect their duty; and on every occasion, when conditions were all in their favour, they shot down police patrols from behind walls, and murdered unfortunate policemen when visiting their wives and families.

However, every dog has his day, and in the autumn of 1920, when the British Army and the Auxiliary Cadets started to take a hand in the game, Joyce found himself changed from a popular hero into a hunted outlaw, with the usual result that, where formerly he had found an open door and a smiling welcome, he now was met by a closed door and a scowl; and when seeking board and lodging, it became necessary to persuade the unwilling hosts with a six-shooter.

The police and military now commenced paying calls at night; and a farmer, living in the depth of the country, hearing a knock at his door during the long winter’s nights, had always the pleasing excitement of not knowing if he was to have the honour of entertaining some badly-wanted gunmen, a patrol of the R.I.C., a party of Auxiliary Cadets, a military search-party, or merely a posse of local robbers, any of whom might take a sudden dislike to the unfortunate farmer, with unpleasant results.

In the winter of 1920, Joyce, who would have made an excellent soldier, made the bad mistake of mixing up love with war; in other words, he became greatly enamoured of a girl living in the south, and in order to be within reach of her, confined his attentions to that district for a considerable time, instead of moving about the country with his usual rapidity; and the Auxiliaries, getting an inkling of the situation from a former lover of the girl, made a great effort to surround and capture him.

Though he received repeated warnings of the activity of the Cadets, Joyce put off his departure, until a day came when word was brought that the place was surrounded by forces of the Crown, who would close in on the little town that evening.

Joyce at once went to tell Molly, whose father kept a small hotel in the town, and the girl’s quick wit soon thought out a plan of escape for her lover. Five commercial travellers staying in the hotel, and at the time out touring neighbouring villages, had left their heavy cases of samples at the hotel, and their railway passes in the safe keeping of the hotel proprietor.

That afternoon the train to the west carried Joyce and four of his bodyguard disguised as bagmen; the remainder were left to shift for themselves, and that evening, when the Cadets searched the town from attic to cellar, they found that the principal bird had flown.

Joyce knew that it would not be safe to travel by train as far as Ballybor, and as soon as he thought that they had cleared the Auxiliary cordon, determined to alight at the next stop and continue the journey by car. Just as they were on the point of leaving the train, however, they noticed several Cadets waiting by the station exit, so did not get out.

Two stations farther on they left the train, and being now outside the net, quickly commandeered a Ford from the local garage and set out for the Ballyrick country, where Joyce had decided to hide and rest for a while. Keeping to byroads, they made their way westwards at a good rate until it was nearly daylight, when, after hiding the car in a wood, they proceeded to search for board and lodging.

Shortly they came across a good farmhouse, and, after the usual display of pistols, were admitted reluctantly, made a hearty meal, and retired to bed after ordering their host to have five good bicycles and another meal ready for them as soon as it was dark.

It has been mentioned that Joyce had worked as a boy at a shooting-lodge near Errinane, and he now conceived the brilliant idea of taking a rest-cure there until such time as the police took less interest in him. This lodge, Drumcar by name, belonged to a Connaught squire who had married an Englishwoman, and except for a short time in the summer was only occupied by a caretaker. Situated in one of the wildest parts of the west, a mile from the road, hidden by woods of oak and birch, and overlooking the bay on which Errinane stands, it was probably the last place in Ireland where the police would think of looking for an active gunman, and the chances were that not a single Auxiliary even knew that such a place existed.

The gunmen arrived at Drumcar soon after dawn, and after rousing the terrified caretaker, who lived with his son and daughter in a cottage in the grounds, they settled down to a life of peace and comfort. The girl attended on them, while the old man brought food from Errinane in a donkey cart, and a good supply of poteen from a mountain farm near the mouth of the bay.

The lodge was well supplied with turf, contained an excellent library of novels, and Joyce and his men waxed fat with good living and soft lying; but it is a case of once on the run, always on the run, until the inevitable end comes, or the gunman is lucky enough to escape to the States.

Now, it is a well-known truth in the west that a “mountainy” man will always, when sick unto death, home-sick, or in dire distress, make for his beloved mountains, no matter what far end of the world he may have drifted to; and when in due course Blake learnt through official channels that Joyce had escaped from the southern town, he at once began to keep a sharp look-out for him in the Ballyrick country.

But when a fortnight passed and there was no sign of Joyce, nor yet any report of his presence in that part of the country, Blake turned up the man’s official record, from which he learnt two interesting facts: first, that Joyce had worked at Drumcar; and, secondly, that he had a married sister in Bunrattey, a district on the southern border of Blake’s country.

Blake now turned his attention to the sister’s house, and when this proved a blank, he determined to try Drumcar Lodge as a last resource; but at the time of the landing of arms at Errinane, every police barrack and coastguard station within a radius of many miles had been burnt, so that it was impossible to get any news of the place without going there, the nearest barrack in Blake’s district being fifty miles away.

A “travelling circus” of Auxiliaries happened to be passing through Ballybor, and the leader undertook to investigate the lodge and let Blake know if they found any trace of Joyce. Blake advised them to surround the lodge in the day-time, as, owing to the wild and mountainous nature of the country, a night attack would be impossible.

On the whole, the gunmen treated old Faherty, the caretaker, and his children well, especially the son, Patsy, in the hope that he would join them; but, luckily for himself, the lad had a wholesome dread of firearms. After he had been at the lodge some days, in spite of feeling quite secure, Joyce, with the instinct of the hunted, began to look about for a bolt-hole in case of need; though in the midst of the wilds the lodge had serious drawbacks, being situated on the side of a slope, so that any one leaving the lodge would at once come under observation from several points, and, moreover, an arm of the sea cut off all escape to the north.

In fact, escape seemed very doubtful, until by chance Patsy mentioned that in a boat-house, hidden by trees, on the shore of the bay, there was a large motor-launch, which he had learnt to drive the previous summer. The next time the old man went to Errinane for provisions, he brought back with him twenty gallons of petrol (duly entered up in his absent master’s account), and Joyce felt easier in his mind.

On a pouring wet afternoon the five gunmen were playing nap in front of a comfortable turf fire in the drawing-room, while old Faherty’s daughter brewed poteen punch for them, and Patsy was reading a novel in an arm-chair, when a long-haired boy dashed in with the news that a large party of Auxiliary Cadets had rushed through Errinane, taken two countrymen they had met on the road as guides, and were surrounding the lodge from all sides except the sea. Joyce had launched the motor-boat only the previous day, and within a few minutes they were under way, heading for the mouth of the bay with the throttle full open. Seeing the launch in the bay below them as they reached the front of the lodge, the Cadets opened fire, but before they could get on to their target the launch vanished in the thick mist of rain.

As pursuit was out of the question, the Auxiliaries drove straight to Errinane Post Office, only to find the wires cut. They then went on to the nearest town, and wired to the naval authorities at Queenstown, hoping that they might be able to get in touch with a destroyer off the west coast by wireless, and so capture Joyce at sea.

Joyce knew that the hue-and-cry would be up, and that it would be fatal to land anywhere on the coast near Errinane; and as the sea was calm, he made up his mind to cut across a big bay to the north and make for Buntarriv, a narrow passage between an island and the mainland, which would lead them to Trabawn Bay, on the shores of which lay his own country.