The Red Hand of Ulster Part 30

"What did he say?"

"I don't know. I didn't stay to listen. I expect he urged them not to kill any one. But it does not matter what he said. The men with rifles, the volunteers, began to march off at once, in good order, some in one direction, some in another. In five minutes there wasn't anybody left to listen to Lord Moyne except a few corner boys. I can tell you this, Lord Kilmore, there's a man with a head on his shoulders behind this insurrection. He has those men of his holding all the most important parts of the town. I got hold of a bicycle--"

"How?" I said. "You're very wonderful, Bland. How did you get a bicycle in the middle of a battlefield?"

"Stole it," said Bland. "It belonged to a policeman, but he is probably dead, so he won't mind. I rode after two or three different parties of volunteers just to see where they were going. When I got back to the place of the meeting there was a body of cavalry trotting up. I had a sort of feeling that the battle would come this way. It ought to. This is the most important place in the town. All lines of communication meet here. Your side has brains enough to see that. The question is, will the soldiers attack them here? I chanced it. If there's any good fighting to-day it ought to be here."

I am not sure whether the General in command of the troops had the brains to recognize that the post which Bob Power held was the key to the whole situation. He did a good deal of desultory street fighting in other places, and though he made a strong show of attacking Bob Power in the end I think he was drawn into it by accident.

Bland lit a cigarette, and he and I stood at the window watching.

A crowd of men appeared at the far end of the street, running in wild disorder. They ran quite silently with bent heads and outstretched hands. Behind them, immediately behind them, came a squadron of dragoons galloping. As the fugitives turned into the street the soldiers overtook them and struck right and left with their swords.

They were using the flats, not the edges of the blades. The fugitives staggered under the blows. Some of them stumbled and fell; but I do not think that any one was seriously hurt.

"Lord Moyne's audience," said Bland. "The corner boys. There's not an armed man among them."

I noticed that when he pointed it out to me. The flying men, wild with terror, rushed into the empty trams. For the moment they were safe enough. The dragoons could not get at them without dismounting.

They pulled up their horses.

Bob Power gave an order. Rifles cracked all along his line. The men must have emptied their magazines before they stopped firing. The officer of the dragoons gave an order. His squadron wheeled and galloped back the way they came. Five horses lay plunging on the ground. Four men dragged themselves clear of their saddles and ran after their comrades. The other lay where he fell.

Six men detached themselves from Bob's lines and ran forward. In a few minutes they were dragging the terrified fugitives from the trams and driving them along the street. They came towards us, wailing aloud in high shrill voices, like women. Behind them came Bob's volunteers, carrying the wounded dragoon, and supporting a couple of the fugitives who had been knocked down by the soldiers. The howling men were pushed through the ranks to the rear. The volunteers closed up again in silence. Not even when the dragoons turned and galloped away did they break their silence. I have heard of soldiers going into battle with shouts and greeting moments of success with cheers. These men fired on their enemies without a shout and saw them fly without a cheer. Five minutes later a company of infantry marched into the street, extended into open order, and fired. Bob's men fired. More infantry came. They deployed along the front of the City Hall. The rifle fire from both ends of the street was rapid and continuous. It was the first time in my life that I had ever been in danger of being killed by a bullet. I confess that for a few minutes I was so nervous that I was unable to give any attention to the fighting going on in front of me. So many rifles were going off at the far end of the street that it seemed certain that not only Bland and I but every one of Bob's men must necessarily die at once. To my very great surprise I was not hit. My nervousness began to disappear. I peered out of the window and noticed that none of Bob's men were either killed or wounded.

"I suppose," I said to Bland, "that this is a regular battle. You've had some experience so you ought to know."

"Oh yes," said Bland, "it's a battle right enough--of sorts."

A bullet snicked through the window gla.s.s above my head and buried itself in the wall at the far end of the room. I looked at the volunteers again. They did not seem to be suffering. I took a glance at the soldiers at the far end of the street. The firing did not seem even to annoy them.

"There seems to me," I said, "to be very little damage done. Don't they usually kill each other in battles?"

"The shooting's d.a.m.ned bad," said Bland, "d.a.m.ned bad on both sides. I never saw worse. I wonder if they mean to shoot straight."

Bob's men, I think, were doing their best; but they were certainly making very bad practice. It did not seem to me that during the first twenty minutes they hit a single living thing except the four dragoon horses. The walls of the houses on both sides of the street were filled with bullet marks. A curious kind of shallow furrow appeared about halfway down the street. At first it seemed a mere line drawn on the ground. Then it deepened into a little trench with a ridge of dust beyond it.

"There must be a ton or two of good bullets buried there," said Bland.

"They haven't sighted for the distance."

"I don't blame the volunteers," I said, "but the soldiers really ought to shoot better. A lot of money is spent on that army every year, and if they can't hit a single enemy at that distance--"

"I rather think," said Bland, "that the soldiers are firing up into the air on purpose. That bullet which came through our window is the only one which hit anything. It's shocking waste of ammunition."

The door of the reading-room opened behind me. I turned and saw Sir Samuel c.l.i.thering. He staggered into the room and looked deadly white.

For a moment I thought he must be blind. He plunged straight into a table which stood in the middle of the room in front of him.

"My G.o.d! My G.o.d!" he cried.

Then he was violently sick. He must have got into the club somehow from the back. I went over to him, intending to get him out of the room before he was sick again. He clutched my arm and held me tight.

"Stop it," he said. "Stop it. Promise them anything, anything at all; only get them to stop."

I did not quite know what c.l.i.thering wanted me to do. It seemed absurd to go down to Bob Power and offer, on behalf of the Government, to introduce amendments into the Home Rule Bill. Yet something of the sort must have been in c.l.i.thering's mind when he urged me to promise anything. He probably had some vague idea of consulting the wishes of the electorate. That is the sort of thing c.l.i.thering would think of doing in an emergency.

"It's horrible, too horrible," he said. "Oh G.o.d! Bloodshed!

Bloodshed!"

"Cheer up," I said, "I don't think a single man on either side has been hit yet."

"I say," said Bland from the window, "did the soldiers get orders to fire over the people's heads?"

"Yes," said c.l.i.thering. "Strict orders. The Cabinet was unanimous. The Prime Minister telegraphed this morning."

"Rather rough on the peaceable inhabitants of the town," said Bland, "the men who have kept out of the battle. I suppose you forgot that bullets come down again somewhere."

"I was in one of the back streets," wailed c.l.i.thering, "far away--"

"Exactly," said Bland, "it's just in back streets that those things happen."

"It was a woman," said c.l.i.thering, "a girl with a baby in her arms. I did not know what had happened. I ran over to her. She and the baby--both of them. I shall never forget it. Oh!"

Then he was sick again. c.l.i.thering is a highly civilized man. I suppose one must be highly civilized if one is to keep pace with the changing fashions in stockings. It was out of what is called "Fancy Hosiery" that c.l.i.thering made most of his money. I felt very sorry for him, but his performances were making me feel sick too. I joined Bland again at the window.

"They've got a machine gun," said Bland. "Things will get brisker now."

I looked out anxiously and saw with a sense of relief that it was Bob's side which had got the new gun. McConkey and his a.s.sistants had turned up from somewhere and were dragging their weapon into position under the window of a large jeweller's shop on the left flank of Bob's firing line. This was bad enough. In street fighting at close quarters a gun of this kind is very murderous and ought to do a terrible amount of destruction. But things would have been much worse if the soldiers had had it. They, I suppose, would have known how to use it. I doubted McConkey's skill in spite of his practice on the slob lands below the Sh.o.r.e Road.

"The soldiers will have to shoot in earnest now," said Bland. "If that fellow can handle his gun he'll simply mow them down."

It looked at first, I am bound to say, as if McConkey had really mastered his new trade. He got his weapon into position and adjusted a belt of cartridges, working as coolly as if he were arranging the machinery of the Green Loaney Scutching Mill. He seemed to find a horrible satisfaction in what he was doing. Twice I saw him pat the muzzle of the thing as if to give it encouragement. I dare say he talked to it.

"He's d.a.m.ned cool," said Bland. "I've seen fellows who'd been fighting for months not half so--"

Then McConkey started his infernal machine. The effect was most surprising. Two tramcars, which were standing close to the far end of the street, simply disappeared. There was a kind of eruption of splintered wood, shattered gla.s.s and small fragments of metal. When that subsided there was no sign of there ever having been tramcars in that particular spot. McConkey evidently noticed that he had not aimed his pet quite straight. He stopped it at once.

An officer--I think it was Bob's friend Henderson--sprang to his feet at the far end of the street and ran along the line of soldiers shouting an order.

"They'll begin in earnest now," said Bland. "Why doesn't he rattle them again with the gun?"

McConkey had the best will in the world, but something had gone wrong with his gun; it was a complicated machine, and he had evidently jammed some part of it. I saw him working frenziedly with a large iron spanner in his hand; but nothing he could do produced the least effect. It would not go off.

In the meantime Henderson's soldiers stood up and stopped firing. The volunteers stopped firing too. The soldiers formed in a line. There was silence in the street for a moment, dead silence. I could hear McConkey's spanner ringing against the iron of his gun. Then Bob Power shouted.

"They're going to charge us. Up, boys, and come on! We'll meet them halfway."

"They're all gone mad together," said Bland. "You can't charge down magazine rifles. It's impossible."

"It seems to me," I said, "that if this battle is ever to be finished at all they'll have to get at each other with their fists. So far weapons have been a total failure."

c.l.i.thering crawled across the room while we were speaking and clutched me by the legs. I do not think it was fear of the bullets which made him crawl. He had been so very sick that he was too weak to walk.