Espionage and Assasination with Michael Collins' Intelligence Unit: With the Dublin Brigade by Charles Dalton Page B

forget them. Cabs, taxis and hacks were rushing up all day filled with spies, touts and their wives, all in a panic, seeking safety.’
    â€˜But what about Dick?’
    â€˜The guardroom where they had put him and the others is just inside the gate, and the Auxiliaries’ canteen adjoins the guardroom. I went into the canteen to see if I could hear any word of their moving the prisoners, so that I could send word to Michael Collins to arrange a rescue. In the bar the Auxiliaries were all drunk and thirsting for vengeance. Captain X— was there too. I had several drinks with them, but there was not a word about transferring the prisoners, and I had to listen to them cursing them with every foul name. I knew there was no hope, and I felt dreadful, just waiting for what was to come.’
    â€˜Well, Mac,’ I said, ‘they gave them a terrible death, I believe.’
    â€˜They did. Poor Dick was beyond recognition. I saw the battered corpses being taken away to King George V Hospital. They flung them into a van. I was nearly mad, and I had to act my part somehow. I had to look on while Captain X— pulled back the canvas screen to satisfy his hate with a last look. He flashed his torch onto poor Dick’s ghastly face, swearing at him as if the dead ears could still catch an echo of his words, and at the same time hitting the body with his revolver.’
    Mac then took leave of me, bidding me hurry along with the message he had given me, and reminding me of my hat.
    I went on my way, my mind filled with all that I had just heard and my heart breaking, so fond and so proud I had been of our brigadier. I swore to myself that if ever fate gave me a chance of dealing with Captain X— I would be well rewarded.
    I found Liam Tobin in Vaughan’s Hotel and delivered my message. While I was speaking to him in the hallway, a tall, well-built figure passed by. It was Michael Collins. I caught only a glimpse of him. Liam told me he would see me in our office in the morning and, dismissing me, he hurried after Michael to a room at the back of the hotel.

Chapter XXI
    The evening following my interview with Mac I called to Amiens Street to meet Rosie.
    This was the first time I had seen her since the Sunday morning of the shootings, and I was very anxious to know what had happened afterwards at the boarding house.
    The minute she saw me she burst into tears. This greatly surprised and distressed me. Putting my arm around her, I asked her what was the matter. This only caused her to cry more convulsively, so that for a while she could not speak to me at all.
    â€˜Oh, why did you shoot them?’ she sobbed out at last. ‘I thought you only meant to kidnap them.’
    â€˜But, Rosie,’ said I, ‘surely you know we are at war, and that these men were shooting our fellows?’
    â€˜I know,’ she said, still crying, ‘but it was dreadful.’
    After a while she managed to calm herself and told me her story.
    â€˜After the gentlemen were shot, we were all terribly upset. Military and detectives arrived at the house, and they questioned us for hours. They took lorry loads of papers away with them. I was so upset I did not leave the house for days. You see, I felt I had had a hand in it, and I couldn’t bear my thoughts, and at last I felt I must speak to someone. So I went to a friend of mine who was a priest and I told him everything.’
    â€˜Well, Rosie, what did he say to you?’
    â€˜He was very nice to me. He told me I needn’t blame myself at all. He said that ye were fighting with your backs to the wall. “A defensive war”, that is what he called it. He said the English had no right to be here at all. “Our boys must defend themselves,” he said, and a lot more which I did not understand. He was grand and kind to me.
    â€˜Only, when I saw you, it all came back to me again.’

Chapter XXII
    Towards the end of November, our friend the