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

convent and I knew that it was half-past eight.
    The sound of the bell brought to me a vivid sense of the reality of the situation.
    â€˜Joe,’ I said, ‘what will we do now? The job must be over and the fellows on their way back. Will they blame us for not turning up? They will surely walk into the
military.’
    â€˜Can’t we do something ourselves?’ he replied. ‘Can’t we do something to make them disperse?’
    â€˜I think we can,’ I said, turning my eye towards the soldiers on the opposite bridge. Joe’s eyes followed mine. We read each other’s thoughts.
    We knelt down on the parapet and, with my Mauser in my hand, we levelled our pistols at three of four soldiers who were standing on the footpath of the bridge. Some civilians were crossing at the time.
    As soon as they had passed, I said: ‘Now!’
    We both pressed the triggers of our pistols and continued to do so until the magazines were empty.
    Then, without waiting to see what was the effect of our fire, we ran along the railway for some hundreds of yards, until we found a spot where we could get down onto a road.
    My heart was thumping with excitement and from running at such speed. Every moment I expected to hear the sound of a military lorry dashing after us.
    But when we reached the road there was nobody in sight. We exchanged a look of infinite relief. Walking on to a house of a Volunteer in the neighbourhood, we gave him our guns to hide for us.
    We were now close to the street in which I lived, and Joe and I called at my home, where we had breakfast, of which we were badly in need.
    When we had finished, we went out again and were just in time to see the troops driving away.
    We called at Mick Mac’s house, and told him why we were unable to join him and that we had taken action on our own account. He asked us for the details of what had happened, but he did not seem to attach much importance to our exploit.
    That night I was going home just before curfew, which was then at midnight, when a large touring car passed me. I noticed that there were several men in it, dressed as civilians. I was amazed to see the car draw up outside my house.
    Immediately I scented danger. Already a number of Volunteers had been shot in midnight raids by military officers in mufti under the leadership of a Captain X.
    I at once retraced my steps and made for the home of a Volunteer who lived nearby, where I spent the night.

Chapter XIII
    I did not go home the following night, and my judgment proved very advisable.
    Having failed to get me the night before, the enemy decided to raid for me officially. Troops arrived late in the evening, entered and searched the house, and finding me absent they arrested my brother, Emmet. Apparently a neighbour had seen me leaving the railway track on the morning of the scrap and had informed the authorities.
    As my brother had fought in Flanders, it was not easy to keep him as a hostage for me. After a few hours’ detention he was released and came home full of his experience.
    I now knew that it would not be safe for me to go home again, and from this time onwards I was ‘on the run’.
    Brigadier McKee sent for me and questioned me very closely as to what was in my mind in firing on the British soldiers. I was dreading this interview as I expected to be court-martialled for acting without orders.
    So I kept lying to him, saying that the troops had seen us and that we feared pursuit and capture. But it was plain that he was not convinced and that he believed we had acted with deliberation and without provocation, which was the truth.
    Though he could not get me to admit the facts, he seemed very pleased with the affair. It appeared that two soldiers were killed by our fire, and their officers, supposing that they were being ambushed by a large party of our men, caused the cordon immediately to be withdrawn.
    In the next issue of our Volunteer Weekly Paper, An t-Óglach (The