British Voices

by William Sheehan

  At last the British Government in July 1921 decided to treat and compromise with the rebel leaders. To my mind this was the only sensible course left open to them, for though no doubt we, in the Army, given the powers of life and death, and official policy of ruthlessness, could easily have quelled the actual active Sinn Féin revolt, by means of really stern measures backed by the British Government, I feel certain the discontent would have merely smouldered underground. It would have burst into flames as soon as we withdrew. The really brutal measures which Cumberland and his Army took in Scotland in 1745, finally to crush the rising there, would never have been tolerated by public opinion in Britain in 1921!

  Soon after the Armistice, or truce, in Ireland, we, of the Camerons, were ordered back to Aldershot, and I do not think a single officer or man was sorry to leave the, so called, Emerald Isle behind us. Before we left Ireland, we were once more paraded by General Strickland in Belmont Hutments, and this time he was most complimentary in his remarks, on the part of we had played, and our spirit and morale. A few days later we embarked on a troopship in Cork Harbour on one of the most stormy nights of the whole year.

  Once more we were back at peacetime soldiering, but after theGreat War, North Russia, and then Southern Ireland, I had got so used to sleeping with a loaded pistol under my pillow, I found it quite difficult to drop the habit for many a month to come.

  CHAPTER 12

  Lieutenant Colonel Hughes-Hallett

  Detail

  This account is taken from the personal papers of the Lt Colonel Hughes-Hallett, and concerns his service with the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry in Ireland from 1919 to 1922. He joined the British Army in September 1914, enlisting in the 9th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment at Tidworth, Wiltshire. His training as a junior officer began in October 1914, when he joined the 7th Battalion King’s Shropshire Light Infantry. He served in France and Belgium during the First World War, and as a company commander at the Ypres salient from 1915 to 1916. He was seriously wounded in the Battle of Bazentin Ridge in 1916. After his service in Ireland, he was a company commander with the 1st Battalion KSLI in India from March 1925 to February 1934, serving at Poona, Dinapore, Muzaffapore, Razmak, Rawalpindi and Kuldana. During the Second World War, he was on garrison duty in Bermuda and in the Netherlands West Indies.

  With 2/KSLI in Ireland 1919 to 1922

  I JOINED THE 2nd Battalion at Fermoy, County Cork, in August 1919, from half-pay, and served with them in various stations until early 1922. Fermoy had been a pre-war station for the regiment and a number of regimental wives came from there. It had, I gathered, always been a happy station. One of my uncles had commanded his regiment there and my sisters had much enjoyed visiting their aunt and family there. When I first arrived, all seemed to be at peace – tennis parties and so forth in the surrounded country. Then – one Sunday – while the main body of the Battalion was falling-in in front of the Church, after Church parade, a hatless soldier rushed up calling out that he had a message for the CO. After being jumped on(!) by the RSM, he was fortunately seen by the CO, who called him up. His story was that he was one of the Wesleyan Party, going to their chapel in Patrick Street, some ‘baker’s dozen’ strong. As they filed into the chapel doorway (he was the last man in the file and a cross-country runner) a gang of locals, sitting lounging around – in ambush – on various walls, suddenly produced revolvers and ‘loaded’ staves from their sleeves, and opened up on the backs of the troops at point blank range. The troops were carrying their rifles (for safety, just as was the custom in India), but no ammunition. One soldier (Private Lloyd) was killed on the spot and the rest knocked down. Their assailants seized their rifles (thirteen, I think) and drove off towards Cork (where they had come from). Trees, which had been sawn were pulled down to block the road from pursuit. All the houses round at once barricaded themselves in, and – except for the Wesleyan Minister and his wife – who did everything they could to help – not one soul was prepared to assist the injured men, even with a glass of water, although many of them must have known what was ‘in the off ’. The last soldier in the queue, who saw what was about to happen, knocked down several men and leapt the wall across the road, into the cattle market and ran to where he knew the battalion would be parading. As he ran through the built-up area he threw his rifle to an old woman ordering her to hide it. Hatless, he raced towards the Colonel. Lieutenant Norton was ordered to rush his platoon down into the town and round to the scene of the outrage; but it was too late. The murdering thugs had bolted. A coroner’s inquest was ordered, and, owing to the machinations of a priest, it brought in a verdict of ‘Accidental death, unpremeditated’. That was too much for the troops, many of whom were ‘War’ soldiers awaiting demobilisation. That evening we were at dinner in Mess, when the Mess Sergeant rushed in to say that ‘The troops were in the town’.

  The sound of breaking glass was heard, from the town, a few hundred yards away across the river (there was only the one bridge giving access). Everybody hurried to exchange mess-jacket for tweed coat and cap and hastened into the town. The Sergeant’s Mess had been equally surprised and knew nothing of what was to occur. The troops had worked out a splendid plan. First they sent a screen ahead of the main body to clear the streets – ordering everybody, who was on foot, into their houses and to stay there. Then the demolition party proceeded to every shop or place of business of the coroner and the members of the jury, who had brought in their infamous verdict. I can’t recall all the details, but the Jeweller (Barker?), the Boot Shop (Tyler), and the Wine Shop and particularly the foreman of the Jury, etc., were all faithfully dealt with. Trays of rings and watches were soon being flung into the river. A chain of men supervised by a captain, who was later to become Chief Constable of Devon, smashed bottles on the pavement, and drink flowed in a stream down the gutter. The Boot Shop produced one incident that could only be Irish. An old woman – looter – like jackals they had soon got wind of matters – had filled a sack with boots and shoes, but when she had reached the exit-door she realised she had no laces. She hurried back to collect some, only for another looter to make-off with the sack. There she stood shouting for the police, as somebody was ‘after stealing her boots’!! The fall-in was sounded at 10pm. Not a man was absent; and nobody was drunk. Next morning the Divisional Commander (Strickland) from Cork addressed the Battalion. He said we had had a damned dirty trick played on us and had had an adequate revenge. But enough was enough. It was his job to see that discipline was observed and that there would be no more. In the meanwhile the Battalion would be confined to Barracks. That was observed by all in the Regiment. However, that evening a large party of Gunners, who had not been privy to the first revenge, had spent the day making petrol torches etc., as they intended to burn down the Church of the offending priest. They assembled outside our barracks, while our men just sat on the wall. The Gunners kept calling ‘What’s the matter with the Shropshires? Aren’t you coming with us?’ But our people said ‘No – they had done their bit’. Meanwhile I and Lieutenant Norton were sent on the double down to the town (leaving the barracks by a side exit; so the assembled Gunners would not see us go). Norton had to man the bridge over the river with fixed bayonets, I had to go into the town – clear St Patrick Street from end to end and keep it clear with my platoon in an open order of 4’s (fixed bayonets) covering the road from pavement to pavement, and slowly sweep it clear, and keep it so. How long this lasted I can’t recall, but at one time a senior RIC officer said to me that he hoped that the troops wouldn’t get across the Bridge as at least 500 armed men had moved into the town during the day and were in every house round us and round the threatened Church!! I’m glad to say that they did not get across the Bridge!! The next move was that the Battalion, with Band and Colours, made a demonstration march thro’ the town, it had been made very clear to the authorities that they had never yet apologised for the outrage and had not expressed one word of sorrow for the death of the soldier being killed in his chapel doorw
ay, etc., etc. The march was carried out and Fermoy grovelled. But – how stupid can the authorities be?! After a few days, when we were top dogs again, they suddenly moved us to – of all places – Cork, from where our assailants had come. We moved into Victoria Barracks (since burnt down) alongside the Ox & Bucks LI. We had a double company detachment about six miles out at Ballincollig. I was with that lot – about half a dozen Subalterns under a Major, who was resigning and emigrating. Except for me, all the Subalterns were ex cavalry war-time promoted ‘rankers’ (a splendid tough lot). We had to take turns to dine in Mess at Battalion headquarters on ‘Guest Nights’. I well remember my turn, as I had to cycle in in Mess Kit and, late at night, as I cycled back in the dark, I rounded a corner between high hedges slap into a parade of ‘Sinn Féiners’ drilling. They were as much surprised as I was, and they all turned outwards and hung their heads so that I could not see their faces, I don’t doubt my hair stood up a bit as I rode silently through! Our Fermoy incident was, I believe, the first incident of bloodshed after the quelling of the ‘1916 Easter Rising’ (looked on by us as a stab-inthe-back, but differently by them!!). Cork was not a happy station. There was soon trouble, started by Sinn Féin gangs cutting off the hair of girls seen to be chatting with soldiers, who naturally resented it. Entrenching-tool handles soon found their real use, up the sleeve, and heads were being cracked and opponents being pushed into the river. So our next move was to the Curragh (County Kildare). But before we go there, I would say that we used to find an ‘Officers Guard’ on important prisoners in Cork Gaol. I remember more than once being officer of the guard and marching with fixed bayonets from the Barracks the length of Patrick Street and spending my night outside the cell-door of The Countess Marcheviz (I can’t spell her!), to be known as the ‘Stormy Petrel’ of Irish politics. She was of good Irish family (Gore-Booth), but had married a Pole and become a fanatical rebel. I was to meet her again a half a century later, when I was reluctantly being forced to set foot in Ireland again, to do with some business connected with the death of an aunt of my wife’s. I had gone for a stroll in Dublin on St Stephen’s Green, which I had known long ago, and found myself alongside a statue. Looking up, it was to see that it was The Countess Marckeviz, as a national heroine!! So our next move – The Curragh, were stationed in Barracks, named after Wellington’s famous Peninsular General Beresford, and from appearances, untouched since those days! The Battalion was dispersed with Company Detachments in places like Maryborough and Tullamore, with a smaller detachment at a house on the River Shannon, named Hunston House. Military training was NIL, except for Weapon Training Courses. I had become the Weapon Training Officer and Asst/Adjt. Patrols and raiding parties were often out at nights in pursuit of wanted men required by ‘Intelligence’. I recall one particular occasion, when I had been ordered to take my platoon, by night, in a lorry across The Bog of Allan, form a road-block with the idea of capturing a badly wanted ‘bad-hat’, rumoured likely to come through. Our lorry proved too heavy for the bog road and sank through the surface. At dawn, while we were still endeavouring to get the lorry on to firm ground, a Sergeant of the RIC – that splendid body of men – cycled out from his Police Barrack near Edenderry, to see if he could help. He asked me how I would like his job separated so far from any help. I didn’t think I would particularly relish it, but he went on ‘of all the ignorant, dirty, cruel and treacherous people commend me to the Irish, and – he went on – I’m an Irishman myself and I have never left Ireland’. I said to him – referring to the crofter-types going off to work – all these chaps seem very polite (touching their caps and saying ‘Marnin’, Sgt’, etc.). He turned to me and disdainfully asked ‘Did you ever meet an Irishman who wasn’t polite – to your face? You wait until he’s gone ten yards past you’!! In view of so much that had happened since ( and happens daily) I have never forgotten what he said. In those days the RIC were split up into small isolated police barracks, with their families. One Sinn Féin trick was to ring round and raid and burn. The Army Recruiting notices used to read ‘Join the Army and see the World’. It was quite usual to see scrawled under it ‘Join the RIC and see the Next World’.

  One of the frequent jobs for the soldier was to be sent out at night with a raiding party to try and capture some wanted man. Some of the stories they told about the filth and squalor were very horrible – e.g., whole families in one bed, sleeping alternately head-feet-head and so on. Perhaps nine or ten in the bed, with rows of unemptied jerries under the bed. On one occasion the IO saw, in a mirror in the next room, a whole lot of papers being trust down the bosom of a woman. When he suddenly thrust his hand down and pulled them out there was a great to do! Rifles were hidden in peat stacks. We heard stories of arms being moved from A to B in coffins, hearses surrounded by ‘mourners’. In County Monaghan we heard of a cache of arms stored under the altar of their church!! Sometimes, when they had gone to great trouble and risk to apprehend some such wanted men (or women), the powers that were would let him (or her) out again as an act of clemency. They continually did that with people like de Valera and so on. Such an attitude got nowhere, and unsettled the Troops. Unluckily our – then – Battalion IO is dead and so is my old friend, who recently died in Kenya, who was Brigade IO. They knew far more than anybody like me could know. Loyalist farmers were continually having their cattle let out and driven miles in the night, often ham-strung and maimed. However, matters generally were not so bad as nowadays in Ulster. One could go to Race Meetings, and visit various studs, like the National Stud at Tullyho or Loder’s stud, where the great Pretty Polly was still on view, in foal, as always to Lemberg. We could even go shooting. I was once on a shooting party in Queen’s Company, with the Brigade IO, and several RIC police officers, when we had to withdraw, in fighting formation to our cars, driven off the bog by an armed party of locals! Matters did not always end so peacefully – viz – a tennis party at the home of the Bagot family, when Sinn Féiners opened fire from the surrounding shrubbery and killed a brother of Lord Cornwallis (17th Lancers. He had recently played cricket against us), and brother (also 17th Lancers) of McCreery (12th Lancers) later to become a famous General in North Africa, and also a young RIC officer (Blake). The daughter of the house, a teenage girl seized a horse and rode off across country for help (no good). Her brother was in the Connaught Rangers. Not many years ago I met him here (then an ex-Gloucester) and he told me the full story. It would be tedious to go on. So we transferred to Kilmainham Barracks, in Dublin. On one occasion our Divisional Commander ( Jeudwine) driving his wife and daughter to Dublin had been held up by a car-load of Sinn Feiners. They were left stranded, but not before the old lady had gone to war, thrashing right and left with her umbrella. (The daughter later told me the story!) I remember one visitor to the Battalion – A Colonel Montgomery, because he, with some thirteen other officers, was murdered in bed, in the Gresham Hotel, in Dublin on a Sunday morning on what was Bloody Sunday – the real ‘Bloody Sunday’, not the modern one! A traitor on the staff of the hotel had let the murderers in and shown them the rooms. The hotel was used by officers at Dublin headquarters. They were all shot in bed in the early hours. I was reminded of this by reading A Field Marshall in the Family by Brian Montgomery (a Baluchi Colonel brother of ‘Monty’ where he records their cousin being murdered. I’m glad to say I watched the last wall of that hotel being demolished – later on – when we were in Dublin. The so-called ‘Free State’ came into being and we (the Army) reverted to the touchline as spectators, while the Free State and Republicans fought it out. I remember dining on the boat at the next table to Michael Collins (who had been so badly wanted!!) on his way to visit Churchill and/or Lloyd-George – a good looking man, with his sinister body guard round him. He was later killed by his own people in their quarrel for power. We had one subaltern (Storey) murdered in the street one night after dining in another Mess. His car was deliberately rammed by another filled with armed men, who just shot and left him lying there. His uncle lived in Merri
on Square, which, I gather was excuse enough to shoot him. In this connection I met – only this week at a luncheon party a young ex ‘Sapper’ officer, whose family home is in Southern Ireland. He had been posted to Ulster; and WO wouldn’t change his posting; so he had no alternative but to resign his commission. Otherwise he risked his home being burnt down. Anybody who has visited parts of Eire like County Cork, County Kerry, etc., will know what I mean. Such abominable outrages have always been the accepted custom. – ( Just as an example: Castle Hackett in Galway – the home of General Bernard, who was Divisional Commander, 3rd Division in the late 1930s and later our Governor of Bermuda, was burnt down. So was the home of Colonel Head, RA, near Birr, who then bought Hinton in Salop, in the 1920s.) It was to prevent Hunston House being burnt down that we (2nd Battalion) had a Detachment there, refer to above. This detachment suffered a typical Irish ambush. They had a patrol out on bicycles, about half a dozen strong; as they cycled past a stone wall, the ambushers popped up from behind it. The patrol had no alternative but to surrender their rifles. Not a popular incident!! I could quote two other murders of female relatives of two of my former COs, who told me the stories, but perhaps I’d better not!

  In Dublin we watched the burning of the Four Courts in the quarrel between Free State and Republicans. We were not participants, but we were told our Gunners had lent the Free Staters a gun to help them; one day I and another (H.P. Miles) were on our way to play cricket at Trinity College, when the traffic was held up and news ran back from ’bus to ’bus that some soldiers had been shot. When we finally reached our ‘stop’ and were crossing the road, I said to the DM Policeman on point duty, as we passed him, ‘is it true that some soldiers have been shot?’ He replied ‘It is, Sir, three of our men have been shot on the steps of the Post Office’. Foolishly, I said ‘Oh, they were Free Staters, were they?’ With a blazing face he retorted ‘Sir, I said three of our men. I would have you know I was an Irish Guardsman’!! Of course we were in cricket clothes but he knew we were officers. Every Irishman (or girl) was a self-appointed spy. Did I feel ‘small’?! But it was a typical incident in that one never knew who was on what side. Another day, a magistrate travelling peaceably on a bus was just shot dead in his seat. The murderers merely walked away, as did those who shot the soldiers. Nobody ever dared to lift a finger. Another time, fire was opened from through the railings alongside Trinity College cricket ground, while a game was in progress against the garrison. A girl, daughter of a Dean, sitting with her fiancé was killed. The assassins just strolled away. The wicket-keeper was Colonel A.F. Spooner, Lancs Fusiliers. He knew he was too heavily equipped to run with any dignity. So he folded his arms and held his ground saying that the British Army would not be driven from the field by a set of gangsters. The other fielders, somewhat shame-facedly reappeared from behind cover and the game continued. Spooner was brother to the famous R.H. (Reggie) Spooner of England fame.