British Voices

by William Sheehan

  A LETTER FROM the War Office 23rd October, 1920 informed that I had been selected for a regular commission. On the 11th December I was gazetted to the Essex Regiment and posted to the 1st Battalion, the old 44th Foot. I was given leave for a month and ordered to report to the Battalion at Kinsale, which I discovered to be a small port on the south coast of County Cork.

  The Battalion was quartered in ancient barracks designed for defence as well as accommodation, a characteristic of most, if not all, the barracks in Southern Ireland. The unit was, however, split up, and only Headquarters and one company with a few recruits were in these barracks. One company and the machine gun platoon were at Fort Charles about two miles away overlooking the harbour entrance. Then there was one company at Bandon, ten miles to the west and another at Clonakilty (to which name the locals added ‘God help us’) on the sea coast ten miles south of Bandon. There were also several detachments of one platoon.

  I was posted to ‘B’ Company at Fort Charles and left at once to this old fort, which had been built during the reign of Elizabeth I. The mess and living rooms were quite comfortable, and the men’s quarters were warm and dry.

  The Company was commanded by one Thompson a keen fisherman, better known as ‘Trout’ not only for his skilling this fish, but a facial resemblance to it. He had about 21 years service, had fought in the Boer War and finally commanded the 2nd Battalion in France during the autumn of 1917. He was full of anecdotes and strange names for things and people. For instance, doctors were ‘farriers’; a clergyman a ‘God-Botherer’; a perambuler was a ‘spawn truck’.

  I was soon settled down and got on well with the Trout who taught me a good deal about peacetime administration. As a result I was never in my regimental service called upon to pay for losses, which was the fate of a good many officers. A few days after I joined ‘R.G.’ turned up. He was posted to ‘C’ Company so I did not see much of him at first.

  It was at Kinsale I first met Regimental-Sergeant-Major ‘Bill’ Bailey who was a ‘proper Essex calf ’ from Coggeshall where the ‘wise men’ come from. When the Battalion was serving in the famous 29th Division Gallipoli he rose from Sergeant to RSM and won the DCM.

  It was not long before I took part in a sweep to trap some notorious ‘shinners’. Leaving the Fort at crack of dawn, with two sections of my platoon, we travelled a number of miles in RAF Crossley trucks to an arranged rendezvous with other parties and where we debussed. It appeared to me that this movement in trucks was unsatisfactory, not only did it give the game away, but one soon heard that the most successful ambushes of troops and police were when riding in vehicles. But, then, I had the value of a suspicious mind drummed into me at the Mountain Warfare School in India.

  Having left the vehicles we moved to search a given lane with other parties on either side of us at a distance of several hundred yards. We saw nobody in the fields as we tramped over them. A sergeant who had been on a number of these parties told me, that the people were usually in bed until well after eight o’clock. We searched a so-called farm and found one old woman in bed sharing the one room with fowls, pigs and traces of a cow. The stink was awful.

  The next was a better farm with two storeys. Having surrounded the place I went in with my sergeant and found the family at breakfast. I told them to sit down, put their hands on the table and keep still. I covered them with my revolver whilst the sergeant searched downstairs where he found nothing. He then went upstairs whilst a corporal searched the few outbuildings. Presently the sergeant rushed down stairs and was violently sick outside. I turned to leave and on going out a spinster with a nasty sneer, produced a bottle of whisky from a drawer and handed it towards me so as to show that my sergeant had forgotten to pick it up. I ignored the woman and spoke to the father of the flock, a decent looking old fellow, and told him I was sorry to have disturbed them. The sergeant would never tell me what horrid sight he had seen upstairs.

  And, so we went on all the morning until about 2 p.m. we arrived at the final rendezvous with the other parties. Nothing had been accomplished by any of them which appears to have been the usual result.

  The Battalion owned a large black dog of uncertain parentage. He was known as Niger and had been largely responsible for the death of two Shinners. They were up a tree, probably with the intention of acting as snipers. Niger passing with a patrol scented them and barked by the tree until the patrol noticed and shot the would-be snipers. He did not belong to any particular company but seemed to visit all in turn but not noticing any individual. He would always follow a body of troops he saw wearing equipment and leaving barracks, so he took part in many drives against the Shinners. He would go to Cork and wander through the barracks there but always found his way back to the Essex lorry in time. The locals used to say he was an emissary of Satan, and when he happened to be riding conspicuously, which he often did, on the leading lorry of a convoy, they would remark: ‘There goes the bludy Essex wid the divil leading ’em’.

  In March the Company was ordered to relieve the garrison at the lighthouse on the Old Head of Kinsale about eight miles to the south west of the town. I was detailed to go with my platoon. We lived in old coast guard cottages and suffered from intense boredom, bad rations, dust instead of coal and paraffin lamps. We were there a month and during that time were never visited by a senior officer.

  To keep the troops amused I wired the area round our billet and constructed one or two fire positions. We had no means of contact with the outer world except by patrols. There was, however, a telephone to a switchboard in the local post office cum-public house about a mile down the track towards Kinsale. This was, of course, useless from the point of view of security. The following anecdote gives some idea of how we managed to ensure the secrecy of a particular little operation. One morning I was called to the telephone by an officer at Kinsale who spoke to me in kitchen Urdu:

  ‘Salaam, Sahib.’

  ‘Kya bat hai?’ I replied. (What is the matter)

  ‘Top ke chiz batti khana kewasti kai suba jehaz.’

  This, of course, was not a proper sentence and his vocabulary was very small; but, after some thought and, repetition I translated it as follows: ‘Artillery thing for lamp room tomorrow early in boat.’ I thought about this cryptic for a long time then it suddenly struck me that ‘artillery thing’ could be some sort of banger for use by the lighthouse in fog, but I dare not ask the lighthouse people. The word boat seemed important.

  At the crack of dawn next morning I managed to acquire a horse and cart. Then with two sections I marched down to the little landing stage near the post office. On arrival we saw a small steamer anchored close in Shore. Boats apparently loaded, put off at once and we lost no time in unloading the cargo which we found was consigned to the lighthouse and which we delivered safely. Needless to state that precautions against surprise were taken throughout the operation.

  After my spell at the lighthouse I was loaned to ‘D’ company at Bandon, said to be a hot spot in more ways than one. Not only were the Shinners active in this area against the Crown forces but they had the habit of shooting their own countrymen in the back. There had been a big fire in the town about the same time as that at Cork – origin of both known unknown.

  I went out with a drive with ‘D’ Company in which we covered many miles in trucks. But, it ended without any result. About this same time a statue of the Maid of Erin was pulled down during the night. This caused rather a panic amongst the superstitious inhabitants of the town. I happened to learn afterwards who did this. At the time it was put abroad that the ‘foul deed’ had been perpetrated by a column of ‘Black Irish’ from Ulster.

  ‘D’ Company soon went back to Kinsale and ‘B’ Company took over Bandon. They arrived with a subaltern new to me names Terence O’Cahir Doherty – this being his first visit to old Ireland. His father was the rector of Felsted in Essex where Terence went to school as a day boy. He was at once named ‘Cyclops’ by the ‘Trout’ as he had lost one eye on the Somme.<
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  The following is an example of the treacherous tricks our opponents were capable of. We had no army doctor, but a local practitioner, ex. RAMC, looked after what few sick we had. He was not treated as a Shinner and appeared to be a well-educated man. One morning, after his usual daily visit, he asked me to come to dinner at his house and to bring the Trout. The superstitious mind came into play at once, as we had no social contact with any civilians of whatever political beliefs. So we declined. There is no doubt that by doing so we saved him from being mixed up in a kidnapping or murder in his house as had probably been planned by the enemy who had ordered him to get us there. I believe he was pleased when we politely declined his invitation.

  We were very bored at being confined to barracks for so long except for small patrols round the streets of the town which did not serve any useful purpose. But, we soon had a little excitement, for the Shinners, quite contrary to their usual tactics, took the offensive against us and several other of the Regiments’ detachments on the 13 or 15 of May.

  At Bandon, it being Saturday afternoon the company was playing a football match with the police when fire was suddenly opened on both players and spectators from the edge of a nearby wood. But not for long as we had a picquet concealed in some bushes who opened rapid fire with commendable speed and covered the retreat of the unarmed players and spectators back to barracks about 150 yards away. Unfortunately for us the picquet had one man killed who had only just joined after passing of the square. This infuriated the troops.

  On the alarm sounding the troops were very quick at getting into their equipment and manning the defence posts, some still in their football kit. The Shinners, having failed in their first attack, opened fire on our barracks and those of the constabulary nearby. We located some of the attackers in the depression on the top of a small hill about 1,000 yards away and overlooking the barrack square on which a few bullets arrived. We also located some movement along the edge of a wood, which was dealt with by two Lewis guns, whilst I directed the fire of my platoon on the hill top. It was also discovered afterward that the company storeman, a veteran of South Africa and an old contemptible, had joined in by firing the stripping gun out of his storeroom window.

  They soon gave up and I was ordered to take a patrol out. I chose the dead fellow’s platoon who were anxious to catch some Shinners; and, it would have been bayonets if we had. They had managed to get away quickly with their casualties. The attacks on other detachments of the Regiment were utter failures; their morale was at a very low ebb.

  About this time a recruiting poster all over the British Isles with an attractive picture of service in the middle east. It was worded: ‘Join the Army and see the World.’ One was soon discovered with the following addition: ‘Join the Black and Tans and see the Next.’

  At last plans were being made, co-ordinated from above, for sweeps to be made by columns on foot. It was, however, too late. The British politicians had arranged an armistice just when we could have quelled the rebellion.

  After the armistice was signed we were no longer confined to barracks and were able to arrange bathing parties etc., for the troops. Arms were not to be shown on these occasions; nevertheless they were carried in the trucks, loaded.

  A strange meeting took place at a chemist’s shop in the town when a big middle aged man unknown to me said ‘Good morning, Mr ——’ I made an appropriate reply and he added: ‘we could not have met like this a few weeks ago’. Then nodding to me he left the shop and the chemist said ‘Do you know who that was?’ I shook my head and he replied ‘That was John Hales’. How did he know my name? Now John Hales, a big farmer, was said to have been descended from one of Cromwell’s settlers, nevertheless, he had been the rebel leader over most of County Cork. He was murdered during the civil war after we had left the south.

  The rank and file of our late opponents started to drive around in Ford cars and trucks. They looked rather a pallid, unwashed crowd who endeavoured to look important. As time went on they became bolder and stopped outside our barracks. One day they started to sing an absurd propaganda song of which the following is one verse:

  Ireland’s maidens, pure as snowdrops,

  Shall I say it; God I must,

  They were outraged of their virtue

  By the hounds of England’s Lust.

  This was treated as a joke by the troops, and for many weeks, if not longer, they referred to the Irish girls as ‘Snowdrops’, and their comrades as ‘’ounds’.

  One Saturday morning when the company was cleaning up barrack rooms a party in a large truck drew up and started to sing one of their war songs which commenced as follows:

  We are the boys of Kilmichael,

  Who laid the Black and Tans low.

  Now Kilmichael was a particularly bad ambush and our troops knew all about it as an army patrol arrived at the place very soon after the ambush. They discovered the bodies of the Auxiliary Police scattered about and abominably mutilated.

  Suddenly every window facing the singers was filled by troops who retoried with:

  We are the boys of the Essex

  So brave, so true and so bold,

  We fight for the flag of old England,

  And b----r the Green, White and Gold

  Followed by some cocknies with:

  Old yer rarw!

  What did yer siay?

  We kills all the Shinners what comes darn our wiy!

  The opposition then departed.

  The author of this masterpiece about the boys of Essex remained anonymous. But, the song was sung again through the town by a draft going to the 2nd Battalion abroad. This draft also contained a comedian who swarmed up the rigging of the ship as she was about to leave the quay at Cork, pulled out a Green, White and Gold flag from a pocket, blew his nose on it, put it back in his pocket, and came down the rigging to loud cheers. I think the above anecdotes give a fair idea of the attitude of Thomas Atkins after the armistice.

  One Saturday morning shortly after this a gang of fishwives arrived and spread a lot of evil smelling fish on the pavement outside the barracks. Doherty, who happened to be orderly officer, was called by the commander of the guard on the gate. He went outside and ordered the ‘ladies’ to remove the offending fish. When I arrived a dreadful old fishwife was calling our Terrence ‘a long legged gasoon’. He appealed to me and I told him to send for the Green Fellows (Royal Irish Constabulary) as, after all, we were supposed to be soldiers and not police. When the representatives of law and order arrived, the old hags departed at speed, leaving the stinking fish behind. Somebody had to move it, but not the soldiery. I suppose the Shinners thought this a good joke.

  It must have been in the autumn of 1921 that we moved back to Fort Charles. By this time we knew we were going to evacuate Southern Ireland. How we hated the idea of giving this fine old fort, which had the arms of Queen Elizabeth I carved in stone on the front wall of the officer’s quarters. We tried to get it out of the wall but found that it had been carved on a huge block of stone, which we were unable to move.

  Every officer and other rank felt angry and ashamed as we marched out in the dark from the fort, which had been held by British troops for about 350 years. We did not see the rabble waiting somewhere nearby to take over the fort, which they never would have captured, but which our politicians had given to them.

  The Battalion assembled at Kinsale and finally arrived at the hutted camp at Carrickfergus a few miles east of Belfast. We had observed a plethora of Union Jacks flying after the train crossed the border into Ulster and thought this seemed a welcome change after County Cork, but we were soon to be disappointed in more ways than one. It was not long before I found myself part of a two company detachment sharing an ancient lunatic asylum with a Highland Regiment.

  The local Shinners seemed to be very careful about attacking the ‘Bloody Essex’. But one day after being fired at in a street, presumably, we thought, by Shinners we captured a man with a hot rifle who turned out to be an Ulster
Special Constable – so both sides were attacking us. Engaged in clearing a street one day an officer of my Company told a lout lounging with hands in pockets (hands in pockets being an offence) to take them out and move on. ‘I will not move for an English bastard,’ was the reply. The words were scarcely out his mouth before his jaw was broken by a rifle butt wielded by a sergeant behind the officer. This man was not a Shinner. We soon started to fire back without any delay whenever shot at.

  A Sergeant Donnely with a patrol of eight men in the notorious Catholic Falls Road was confronted by a small mob who refused to move. He fixed bayonets and shouted: ‘I was in a bayonet charge here in ’08; there will be another if you don’t move.’They soon did. The long shining bayonet of the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield always had a considerable moral effect when ever shown.

  At one time we learnt that the Shinners were likely to throw bombs into crowds coming out of cinemas, etc., so we were ordered to disperse them as they had a habit of standing about before going home. One Saturday night I was confronted by a crowd who refused to disperse when I ordered them to do so. I spread my eight men across the road and gave the preliminary order ‘Fix’ very loudly. They began to shake out a little, but when I gave ‘Bayonets’ they scattered and we moved along an empty road.