CHAPTER XI.THE RESCUE AT KNOCKLONG.
As I have said, we arrived at Emly at 3.30 a.m. The first train on which the prisoner might come was not due till noon. When all was in readiness a few hours before noon we waited eagerly for the arrival of the men from Tipperary town in response to our request. As the hour approached we grew anxious and restive. The minutes grew into hours. Eagerly our eyes scanned the road from Tipperary, but no cyclist appeared. What had happened? We could not let ourselves believe that the help we needed so badly was not at hand. Eleven o’clock—still no reinforcements. The minutes travelled all too fast now. Half-past eleven came, and still no sign. And the train was due at 12!
But we were not going to let Sean Hogan be taken away without a fight. We knew that the escort, armed with rifles, bayonets and revolvers, would consist of four to eight policemen, but it was possible that other policemen or soldiers would beon the same train. We could only fail. At 12 o’clock the three of us rushed up to the station just as the engine steamed into the platform.
In my hurry I dashed right into an old woman at the entrance. To save her I had to throw my arms around her. The two of us were swung round and round by the force of the collision, and I finished what must have looked like a dance by falling heavily to the ground. Unfortunately, there was no time for explanations or apologies, and I don’t know whether the poor woman ever heard yet the explanation of the collision. Before she could even see my face, I was up again and racing along the platform with my finger all the time on the trigger of the revolver.
But there was no prisoner! We were sadly disappointed. In a sense, too, we felt a little relieved for there would be still time to seek help before the next train was due. But waiting is always the hardest part of any fight; suspense is more severe than action.
As we returned crestfallen to our resting-place, after scanning every carriage, our pill was made more bitter by the thought that the Tipperary men had failed us. Our minds searched for other help. We thought of the old Galtee Battalion, the boys from the mountain districts, from Galbally and Ballylanders. Their Battalion we knew had lately been suspended by Headquarters. But we knew,too, that their hearts were right, and their hands strong and daring. They would not turn a deaf ear to a call like ours.
The next train was not due from Thurles till 7 o’clock in the evening. We sent word to the boys of the Galtee Battalion, told them our errand and the danger of the work that was to be tackled. Within an hour the reply came. Five of their men would join us at 5 o’clock. Never before had we got such a heartening message.
The men were as good as their word, and they came before their time. At 4.45 p.m. they arrived, Eamon (Ned) O’Brien, James Scanlon, J. J. O’Brien, Sean Lynch, and poor Martin Foley, who was hanged in Mountjoy Jail exactly two years later for his part in the rescue. With him was hanged poor Maher, who knew nothing in the world about the incident for which he was hanged. But they gave their lives gladly for Ireland, and the brave words of their last message from the foot of the gallows will keep their memory for ever fresh in the hearts of Irish patriots. May they rest in peace!
We were now eight strong, five of us armed with revolvers and three unarmed. After a consultation we decided on a slight change of plan. Sean Treacy, Seumas Robinson, Ned O’Brien and myself cycled on to Knocklong, the next station, about three miles south of Emly. We selected Knocklong because, except Emly, all the other stations wereheld by strong British forces, but this being only a wayside one, and a couple of miles distant from a police barrack, was comparatively safe for us. If this attempt failed we had plans to motor to Blarney, where we could again intercept the escort party. The other four men we sent to Emly station with instructions to board the train without arousing suspicion, to find out what carriage our comrade was in. In that way they could give us the hint as soon as Knocklong was reached, and no time need be lost in getting to the rescue.
We reached Knocklong just as the train’s departure from Emly was signalled. We walked up the platform looking as cool and unconcerned as we could, but with our guns gripped tightly in our hands. Little did the people who awaited the train that evening think that they were soon to be witnesses of a drama for which a film-producer would have given a fortune. In the distance we saw the smoke of the engine rise into the sky. Another minute and the train was pulling into the platform. At the same moment another train on the opposite platform came in from Cork direction. It was only the next day we learned that the second train contained a company of armed British troops for Dublin. There they remained within a few feet of the struggle for life or death that ensued. I neverlearned why they took no part in the struggle. Perhaps it was too late when they realised what was afoot.
Our train had not yet come to a standstill when the signal for which we waited was given us by two different parties. In accordance with the arrangements made in Thurles the previous day a member of the I.R.A. Secret Service boarded the train after the prisoner, and was at the window to give us the signal. Our men were at their window, too, not knowing about the other man.
There was not a moment to be lost. The train would delay only a minute, and we had not thought it necessary to hold up the driver. A slight motion of the hand from our colleagues indicated the carriage where we would find our man.
It was a long corridor carriage divided into about a dozen small compartments, each shut off from the others, and a passage running alongside the whole way. Our Galtee men were in the passage. In one of the compartments we saw Sean Hogan. He sat in the middle of the seat handcuffed, and facing the engine. Beside him sat a sergeant of the police, on the other side a constable. On the opposite seat were two other constables—all four fully armed.
Sean Treacy was, by arrangement, to take charge of the attack. He gave the word. Within five seconds of the arrival of the train we wererushing along the corridor and bursting into the prisoner’s compartment with our guns drawn, and with the order, “Hands up!” “Hands up!” Only a moment before, as we heard later, Sergeant Wallace had viciously struck his prisoner with the sarcastic query, “Where are Breen and Treacy now?” His query was answered; Breen and Treacy were at his service.
As we burst in the door of the compartment, the police quickly realised our purpose. Constable Enright had his revolver drawn and pointed at the prisoner’s ear. Orders had been given the escort to shoot the prisoner dead if any attempt were made to rescue him. A fraction of a second saved Sean Hogan. It was his life or the Constable’s. The policeman was in the act of pulling his trigger when he was himself shot through the heart—death being instantaneous.
And now ensued an episode in comparison with which a Wild West show would grow pale. The passengers realised our object. In a moment panic reigned. My most vivid recollection of that scene is the figure of a soldier-passenger, dressed in England’s khaki uniform; but under that uniform there beat an Irish heart. I shall never forget the triumphant smile on his face as he waved his hat and shouted, “Up the Republic!”
I had little time for studying the passengers. That first shot prevented the escort from murderingtheir prisoner, and it was the first shot in a grim battle that was to end in the death of two and the wounding of four. With the first shot one of the policemen literally dashed himself through the window of the train, roaring like a wild bull. We never saw him again, but I heard that he ran through the country like a maniac and reported the fight in a very incoherent manner at Emly police barrack next morning.
Constable Enright was dead, so that there remained Sergeant Wallace and Constable Reilly. A fierce and rapid exchange of shots followed. Constable Reilly lay stiff on the floor. We thought he was dead, but we soon found he was only shamming.
Sergeant Wallace fought to the end. A braver man I have never seen in the ranks of the enemy. Several times we called on him to surrender, but he never answered, even when deserted by his men. The confusion and panic were indescribable. Cramped as we were for space, we were in danger not only from the bullets of the police, but also from those of our own men. And all the time we were struggling to push out our handcuffed comrade.
We handed out our comrade in safety. Meanwhile Sergeant Wallace had also struggled on to the platform. I looked around me. I knew I waswounded, but, in the excitement, I could not know where or how seriously, though I knew it was in the region of the lung.
Suddenly I realised that Treacy, Ned O’Brien and Scanlon were also wounded, and we were the only four with arms. Blood was streaming from all of us. The other three had lost their guns in the fight. I alone was in a position to fight, and I had more than the plucky sergeant to face, for Constable Reilly, who had shammed death a moment ago, was now out on the platform firing continuously from his rifle. A second bullet now found its mark in me. I was shot in the right arm. If Constable Reilly had been as cool as the old sergeant one of us would never have escaped alive. He saw my revolver drop from my wounded hand—and he saw me pick it up again. If he had been quick he would have dashed my brains out before I got the chance to do so. I had always prepared for such an emergency as this. I had practised so that I was as good a marksman with my left hand as with my right. I fired again, and at Reilly, and when he saw me level my gun he turned and fled down the platform. Meantime the Sergeant had collapsed on the platform, and victory was ours. Reilly escaped because I was blinded with blood and unable to take steady aim; but I made sure that he would not turn again, while the rest of my comrades carried Hogan off in safety.
We left the dead Constable and the dying Sergeant at Knocklong Station. The people had fled in terror from the platform, and many of the passengers had jumped wildly from the train. Even the engine driver, who did not apparently hear the first shots, was about to start the train after the usual delay while the battle was still in progress, when a girl told him there was a battle going on. The same girl also states that she later saw Reilly praying near the station.
Late that evening the dead body of Enright was taken in the train to Kilmallock, as was also Sergeant Wallace who lived until the following afternoon.
At the inquest afterwards there was of course nobody but Reilly to give his version of the fight. One of the jurors boldly remarked to the police: “You are simply trying to paint your own story in your own way.” The police witnesses were not allowed by their superiors to answer any important questions calculated to show that we would not have shot their men if they had surrendered.
The inquest was also noteworthy for the fact that the jury not only refused to bring in a verdict of murder, but spoke out. I quote the newspaper of 22nd May:—“Condemning the arrest of respectable persons, and exasperating the people, and called for Self-Determination for Ireland, and blamed the Government for exposing the police todanger.” Our efforts were having their effect. The plain people were realising that ours was a fight for Irish Freedom. They realised too that we had no enmity against the police as such, if they confined themselves to the work of ordinary police; but when they became spies and soldiers in the pay of England we had to treat them accordingly.
This is the true story of Knocklong, condemned as it was at the time by archbishop, priests and press—the same people who, two years later, would have treated us as heroes and loudly boasted of “the freedom we had won.” Time works wonders!
The heroes of the fight were Sean Treacy and the two O’Briens. In the next chapter I must tell of our equally exciting escape from the scene, and the story our rescued comrade had to tell when we clasped his hand again.