When Shadows Fall

by Paul Reid

  “We’ve poor cover here for our ambush party, but if we were to attack them on the Macroom side they’d have reinforcements out in no time, and if we let them as far as the Gleann Cross, there are four possible ways they could turn. So this spot here,” he stamped his foot on the roadside turf, “is the only place we can be sure of meeting them.”

  Adam looked up and down the road. There wasn’t a house or a speck of human civilisation to be seen. “I have to ask, Commandant. They’ll be in trucks, won’t they? We’ll barely get a shot off before they’re away from us. I mean, they’re hardly going to hang about once they know there’s an ambush in place.”

  “I’ve thought about that,” Barry said. “Where’s Paddy? Paddy O’Brien, come here to me a moment.”

  O’Brien strode over, a confident-looking young man in a starched green tunic, its fabric slightly rough for wear but striking nonetheless.

  “Ever seen one of these before, Bowen?” Barry asked.

  Adam shook his head.

  “Ach, shame on you. This is an IRA uniform. You’ll not have seen many parading around Grafton Street and Merrion Square, I’ll grant. Paddy, you’ll be good enough to loan me that getup on the day. The Brits won’t recognise it. I’ll be on the road alone, or so they’ll think. And they’ll stop, have no doubt.”

  Adam was sceptical. “You mean you’ll just stand out there exposed? You’ll be a sitting duck.”

  “I hope I won’t be exposed for very long.” Barry eyed him. “That’s what this week’s training is all about.”

  Macroom was an old market town in a valley beside the River Sullane. Through the centuries it had hosted epic battles from those of Brian Boru and the Vikings to the McCarthy tribes and the Cromwellian troopers. More recently it had prospered through milling industries and agricultural fairs. William Penn, the founder of the American state of Pennsylvania, had spent much of his childhood here, the birthplace of his father.

  By 1920, however, Macroom was the Cork base of the RIC Auxiliary Division.

  Though the town was outside Tom Barry’s scope of authority, its Auxiliaries had been leading forays into his territory with increasing aggression. There was a determination to defeat the West Cork IRA through attrition and terror, and the usual casualties of that campaign, in the main, were innocent locals. The convoys would roll into villages without warning, often at night, fire their weapons in the air and drag terrified families from their homes. With prejudice to neither age nor gender the villagers would be searched, interrogated, beaten with belts and rifle butts, sometimes shot. The entire village could be held captive for hours while the Auxiliaries helped themselves to all the food and drink they could pilfer, and in their wake they liked to leave a few burning buildings for good measure. The following day the raids would continue somewhere else.

  This had been going on for months. Not a single shot was fired at them in reprisal, mostly because people were afraid. It was whispered that the Auxiliaries were invincible. Morale amongst communities and the IRA was sapped. The Auxies began to enjoy themselves.

  Tom Barry had his men out the following morning in the rain-drenched bogs near Togher. The week saw them advance the ground day-by-day and taking a new billet each night. By the small hours of Sunday morning each member of the sections had been armed with a rifle and a few dozen rounds. At three o’clock the column was assembled and told of the next day’s mission—to ambush the Auxiliary patrol coming out from Macroom.

  At this news, heads dipped in dismay, prayers were whispered. A priest sat on a stone wall, barely visible in the light from Tom Barry’s lantern. One by one the riflemen went to him to give confession. It was a sombre hour, and when finished the priest walked to Barry and said, “I have no idea what this business is about, Tom. Are you sending these lads out to fight the English?”

  “I am, Father,” Barry replied.

  “The Catholic Church has taken a stand against it, Tom. You know that. But I’ll pray for your boys, and for you.” With that he mounted his horse and rode away into the rain-lashed darkness.

  By road, field, low hill, they advanced through the night. Rest was allowed at intervals, smoking permitted only in the cover of trees.

  Adam spoke to his section to learn their names and to establish some basic camaraderie. These young men would have to answer to his every word tomorrow, when he directed them into the big guns of the Auxiliaries. They moved hardily now, silent during the march.

  They had covered several miles through muck and heather when he began to feel uncertain. Once, twice, he glanced back into the darkness, wondering who was out there. Imagination stirred by nerves and tension. And yet . . .

  They stopped for rest at a thicket of gorse. The rain had eased and a lance of moonlight broke through the clouds, illuminating a strip of rocky landscape.

  And Adam saw the unmistakeable movement of a man.

  A quarter mile back, the figure was moving fast despite the glutinous ground. The other sections were farther on beneath the trees, Adam’s section the rearguard.

  He was on his feet in an instant.

  “Stand to attention,” he hissed at his charges. “Prepare your weapons. We’re being followed. You, boy, run ahead and alert the others.”

  He took two more men and skirted a shallow dike. The interloper was on their left, below them on the slope. It was black countryside and Adam strained his eyes, knowing there had to be more than one.

  The shape climbed over a collapsed stone fence, close enough for Adam to hear his ragged breathing. They waited several agonising seconds until the man’s progress eventually brought him to within a few feet.

  “That’s far enough.” Adam cocked his rifle. “One more step and I’ll blow your insides into County Kerry.”

  The man froze.

  With the aid of the moonlight, Adam hesitated. Not a man at all, but a skinny adolescent, shaking from wet and cold. He looked ready to burst into tears in relief.

  “Sir, thank God, sir. It’s me, Deasy. Pat Deasy, Battalion Lieutenant of Signalling from Bandon, sir.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Sir, I’ve been ill these past days, bound to the bed. Commandant Barry thought to leave me behind, and he gave my rifle and rounds to another man. But I’m fighting fit, sir, honest I am, and when I reckoned you were going after a fight,” he shook his head adamantly, “damned if I was going to lie in that bed a moment longer, sir. Begging your pardon.”

  Adam, bemused, later saw Tom Barry hand Deasy back his weaponry and order his replacement home. The young lad’s determination and utter dread of missing the fight should have been inspirational. Yet Adam remained wary. Brave youngsters, full of belly-fire and zeal.

  Will his mother and father know where to find his corpse?

  It was half-past seven and a winter dawn gave shape to fields and hills. The sections trudged through ankle-deep mud for several more miles until they found shelter at a farmhouse hidden amidst a stand of pine. Gratefully they warmed themselves around the old couple’s turf fire and drank copious amounts of tea. Barry ordered everyone back on the road again two hours later.

  Even by midday the countryside around Kilmichael was a rain-dulled wasteland. Barry directed the sections behind knolls and ditches, giving their leaders his last advice. The cloud cover had begun to thicken. The wind picked up and the sun was a distant notion beyond that doleful sky. They sat in cover and shivered. A gloomy afternoon slid towards evening.

  At approximately half past four, two vehicles came rolling into view.

  Colonel Francis Crake of Northumberland was the District Inspector commanding the Auxiliary Division at Macroom. He knew this was bad country. Stubborn heather and stony soil and pools of the blackest bog water.

  “And wide open,” he murmured.

  “Sir?” asked the driver.

  “Bad country out here, Evans, I was thinking. Was God not in a sour humour when he created this place?”

  “I don’t know, sir. Bu
t a miserable spot if ’ee says so, sir.”

  The two Crossley Tenders had no covers, and so the wind whipped cruelly through them. It had been a long day of patrolling and Crake relished the thought of the fireside and a juicy cut of steak once they returned to Macroom Castle.

  “And what’s this blighter’s business? See him, Evans?”

  Evans eased off on the accelerator. There was a lone figure on the road about three hundred yards ahead. As the Crossley rolled closer, Crake saw that he was in uniform. Not a uniform that he recognised, however.

  “Pull up,” he ordered in curiosity. “I’ll have a word.”

  Evans braked. The truck following them did likewise.

  Crake leaned over the side and gestured to the man on the road. “You there. Come here.”

  The figure stepped towards him. Crake’s nose twitched. “Damned odd garb, my man. Who are you?”

  He received no answer. The man suddenly pulled something from his coat and tossed it over the truck’s windshield. It landed neatly on the seat between Crake and Evans and rolled onto the floor.

  In that tiny, dreadful second, Crake recognised the object as a Mills bomb. He bellowed and leapt over the door, just before the grenade exploded. Evans was shredded in the blast and the idling truck shot forward as his foot jerked involuntarily on the accelerator. It went off the road and crashed into a boulder and the engine died.

  Crake hit the gravel painfully. “Ambush,” he shrieked and grabbed at the truck’s railing to pull himself up. “Ambush, take cover!”

  The roadsides lit up like a cannonade. The Auxiliaries poured out of the vehicles and scrambled for the rocks and heather as bullets tore up the scrub around them. They tried to return fire but were blind to the ambushers’ positions, and the gunfire quickly intensified. After a number of Auxiliaries were hit, the attackers burst from cover and advanced. The road was narrow and within seconds both sides were engaged hand-to-hand. Rifle butts were driven into stomachs, arms and heads were swiftly broken, and blood spattered across the sides of the Crossley.

  Crake discharged round after round until his revolver was empty. There was a body next to him, a severed artery visible in its leg. He reloaded and glanced up the road to the second truck. If he could reach it, if they could only hold off the animals for long enough.

  He ducked his head and began to run.

  Adam was commanding the second section on a low ridge of rock. He watched as both trucks rolled into view, as Barry threw the Mills bomb into the first one, before the scene erupted into chaos and ricocheting bullets.

  He roared an order to engage the second truck.

  The action blazed furiously for several minutes, the surviving Auxiliaries managing to gather and return fire upon the IRA positions. One of them braved the assault and sprinted forward to get a better aim with his rifle. Adam spotted him, adjusted his sights, and squeezed the trigger. The man went down. Two more fell nearby. Back at Barry’s section the fighting was over. Adam could see dead Auxiliaries in the grass and on the road. Barry’s men were gathering up their clips and Lee-Enfields.

  He heard a cry ring out, and a hand waved from behind the second Crossley. The shooting from the remaining Auxiliaries had stopped. Adam hesitated only briefly, then gestured to his men and yelled, “Cease firing. Cease firing!”

  The noise died away. He craned his neck and now he could hear the unmistakable cries of “Surrender!”

  “They’re done,” he panted. “No more fire. All right, lads? No more fire. Keep your positions until I say so.”

  He rose to his feet, rifle aimed. Two of the other IRA men, Paddy O’Brien and young Pat Deasy, stood with him.

  “The buggers have had enough.” Deasy rubbed his bloodshot eyes.

  “Disarm them fast,” O’Brien urged, but Adam stilled them with his hand.

  “Watch yourselves. Can anybody see how many are out there?” He shouted across, “Put your weapons down and stand into view, all of you. We won’t fire.”

  Bodies began to shuffle behind the truck. Adam lowered his rifle and waded through the heather towards the road. O’Brien and Deasy followed. The rest of the section was coming out of cover, breathless and dazed.

  The next shot was as loud as it was unexpected.

  O’Brien’s head snapped back, blood spewing from his temple. He collapsed into the turf, and suddenly a hail of bullets was directed from the Auxiliary side to where Adam and Deasy stood like dazzled rabbits.

  Both were hit.

  “False surrender,” somebody roared.

  The IRA volunteers raced back into cover, and the games recommenced with blistering gusto.

  Adam hit the rocks and wheezed. The bullet had stuck his thigh. For a moment he pictured a pumping femoral, his leg turning black. They’d remove the leg for sure. Before gangrene killed him. He’d seen it in Brighton, men with stumps for limbs, dead eyes and dead minds.

  “Fuck it,” he snapped, forcing control on himself, and checked again.

  It was a glancing blow, a nasty gouge in the flesh but nothing serious. He spat grass out of his mouth and crawled through the heather.

  Deasy was dead. A hole in his chest dribbled blood over his coat.

  Pinned under the two-way exchange of gunfire, Adam couldn’t see the enemy’s position. He was forced to lie still, listening to the sound of bullets piercing stone, metal, flesh. There was movement farther back along the road. Tom Barry came on the scene. His men opened fire and the Auxiliaries were now taking the heat from two different angles. Gunfire echoed across the hills and valleys.

  But both sides were running out of time.

  Colonel Crake cursed as he reloaded. The false surrender hadn’t worked.

  “We need to get back on the truck,” he snarled at the nearest soldier. “You, Lucas. Can you drive? We have to get out of here.”

  The white-faced cadet stared at him. “We’ll never get away from them, sir.”

  “Damn you, boy, of course we will. I’m going to try another surrender. You be ready to climb behind that wheel and get her going. These filthy rascals, damned if I don’t take one or two of them down along the way.”

  He crept forward by the front axle of the Crossley. “Surrender,” he croaked. Then, louder, “Surrender! We surrender, you lot. Hold your fire. We’re coming out.”

  There was a man coming closer now. A man with a head of unruly black hair. He gestured to the men nearby and then turned his eyes on Crake.

  “I think I’ve seen enough of your surrenders.”

  He took aim with his pistol. The noise of a dozen discharged guns almost tore Crake’s eardrums apart.

  It was the last sound he ever heard.

  IRISH TIMES

  A TERRIBLE tragedy is reported from Macroom, Co. Cork, where on Sunday evening a party of Auxiliary Police was ambushed by about 80 or 100 men. The attackers, according to a statement by Sir Hamar Greenwood in the House of Commons last night, were in khaki and wore trench helmets. The party was fired on from both sides, and there was also direct enfilading fire down the road. According to unofficial reports, many houses in the district and adjoining villages have been burned.

  An official telegram received at Dublin Castle at five o’clock yesterday stated that seventeen members of the Auxiliary Force of the Royal Irish Constabulary went out on patrol duties at 3.15 p.m. on Sunday in motor lorries from Macroom, Co. Cork. They were ambushed by a body of armed men, and fifteen of them were killed outright, one man was wounded and is dying, and another man is missing.

  It is reported that reprisals took place yesterday. Shops in the district were set on fire, and scarcely a house was left undamaged. People are clearing out of the locality in terror. Business was at a stand-still in Macroom, and all shops are being closed as a precautionary measure against reprisals. Large parties of Auxiliary Police arrived with rifles and revolvers and patrolled the town, and travellers who motored there were ordered by the military to leave.

  Towards the close of a reply to Mr.
[Joseph] Devlin on the adjournment of the House of Commons last night, Sir Hamar said the matter raised that evening (the carrying of arms in Ulster, particularly by the Ulster Volunteers) did not involve murder, and he passed on a telegram that he had received that evening—one of the most distressing telegrams he had ever read to the House. He reminded the House that the Auxiliary Division in Ireland was composed entirely of ex-officers, selected for conspicuous merit in the Great War.

  “Tonight, in Macroom,” Sir Hamar continued, “there are fifteen officers lying side by side, dead, the victims of Irish assassins. I do not think the House would care to pursue questions about some odd patrol in Ulster, or the burning of some farm, in the face of this challenge to the authority of this House and of civilisation.”

  Adam took the train back to Dublin once dismissed by Tom Barry. His absence from Bowen & Associates had run much longer than Duncan had grudgingly agreed to, and he wasn’t expecting an amicable reception upon his return.

  There was guilt at that. Duncan genuinely wanted him to have a place in the firm, to grow and prosper within it. Yet it would be unfair to them both to continue the charade for much longer. Adam was no lawyer. He loathed the work. He was looking for a fresh start, a breakaway from the shackles of the years, the trenches, the war here at home. Once England no longer cast her shadow over his every path, he would be free to live his life the way he wanted. He fancied the countryside, the clean air. A craft of some sorts. Maybe even a plot of land to farm.

  And until a week ago, he would have married Tara. Of that he was certain. Now, however, he wasn’t so sure. He would still ask her, but only after she knew everything. He would hide from the truth no more.

  In that spirit, he resolved to have a frank discussion with Duncan as soon as possible. He would thank him for his good faith but explain that he was finished with the firm. All the family would be outraged, of course, except for Allister, who would be glad to see him gone. That incident at Merrion Street would only strain their relations all the more, in any case. And as for his mother, he could already see those glacial eyes upon him, voicing alone what words could never express.