Sunday, November 21st, Himself and I went to Howth, and spent all day by the sea on that wild bit of foreland, which Dublin City has not managed to tame. It was getting dusk as we came back on the tram. The ride is long, and it was too late in the year for the tops of trams. We were soon shivering and wanting to be back home. Then something happened to make us forget the wind. As we came among the houses the reflection of a great fire caught our eyes. It was on the far side of the water, a strong, clear blaze, as if a ship were on fire.

“We must get along and see it,” said Himself. “What the deuce is it?”

“Government supplies, I bet. The Auxiliaries got bored and went to sleep, and the Sinn Feiners came along.” But I was not joking in my heart. I was feeling uneasy.

We did not go to the fire when the tram stopped at Nelson’s Pillar. It was too late and too cold. We climbed down into the middle of an ugly-looking crowd. A lorry passed quite close to us.

“Hello!” Himself exclaimed, “there’s a dead man!”

We stared after the lorry. The booted feet of a dead man poked out of one end. The crowd stirred unpleasantly. What had happened? More lorries, full of armed men, were following the first one. An armoured car rolled by. They all passed over O’Connell Bridge and fled down the quays towards the Castle. From the Castle another stream of lorries passed towards the fire.

A newsboy came quite close calling out something, and we got a paper. There, in great lines across the page, we read, “British Officers Murdered In Bed.” We went home astounded.

The flat seemed unusually still. Mrs. Slaney heard us and came down the stairs before we had shut the door. She looked a little shaken.

“Have you heard the news? Dreadful! Horrible! But I have no doubt they deserved it.”

“You can’t approve of this?”

“No, I don’t approve of it. I don’t approve of shooting at all; but you must remember how the Irish people are goaded.”

Without warning there was the sound of firing outside. We crowded to the window in time to see an armoured car rolling by at the end of the road, and people flying in all directions. A Lewis gun on top of the car was firing shots into the air at intervals.

“That’s blank cartridge,” Himself said. “It’s to clear the streets.”

“There!” Mrs. Slaney exclaimed. “Why do they terrify innocent people like that? No wonder the people of Ireland are bitter. Ireland is the most crimeless country in the world when she is left alone.”

Mrs. O’Grady came in with our teapot.

“You’ll feel the better, mum, iv a cup of tea,” she declared. “It do be dreadful, and all those beautiful young men.”

“I can’t understand why we didn’t hear the shooting this morning,” I said. “It must have been all round.”

“I’ll leave you to your tea,” said Mrs. Slaney, who wanted to stay. “You won’t be going out to-night. Perhaps you’ll come up and see me.”

“I’ll probably go and see what the fire is,” Himself answered. He turned to me. “It’ll do you good to get out.”

Mrs. Slaney retreated, and Mrs. O’Grady nodded her head. “It’d be a charity to leave her alone. She’s that frightened it would do her good.” Then she went out.

“Well?”

“What a haul,” Himself exclaimed.

“How about poor 47?” I cried.

“He must be all right. His name’s not in the paper. We must look him up.”

“Look his poor wife up.” And then I said, “Let’s have tea and get out for a bit. I hate the feeling of this house.”

“We’d better get back before it’s late. It’s sure to be a disturbed night. I expect they’ll make curfew earlier after this.”

As soon as I got into the street I felt better. The moving people gave me confidence, although all through the city there was a feeling of fear such as I cannot describe. Rumours of the Croke Park affair, where a dozen people had been shot by the police at a football match, were being whispered abroad; but nobody seemed to know much. We remembered the dead man in the lorry.

The fire was burning out. We saw it now and then through the openings of the streets; but we never got as far as it. It had long been dark, and I soon found the night was getting colder and colder. Presently I began to think a fire at home would be less dismal than this tramping about in the dark. After half an hour everybody seemed to have gone indoors, and there was danger of being curfewed if a sudden change was made in the time.

We went back.

When we were indoors again shooting began all through the city. Patrols were probably firing more blank cartridge to clear the streets. Down the roads tramped soldiers in tin hats, and armoured cars rolled by. We put out the light and leaned from the window watching. Now and then some passing officer, fearful of a bomb, would shout, “Keep your heads in.”

In the middle of it all Mrs. Slaney hustled into the room, giving us no time to answer her knock.

“I have just been talking to a leading Sinn Feiner,” she announced, “and those men who were shot this morning were all spies. I told you that our boys must have had something definite against them.”

“I don’t think it makes it a bit better,” I declared. “A life is a life, and it’s frightful to sneak into a man’s bedroom while he’s asleep, and kill him in front of his wife.”

“It’s disgusting,” exclaimed Mrs. Slaney, “to think that English officers and gentlemen will descend to such things. Monstrous! Before the war such a thing was never heard of.”

“I think it a pity the Sinn Feiners murdered them.” I stuck to my guns stoutly.

Mrs. Slaney borrowed the paper and departed.

“Her Sinn Feiners are all spies too,” I said, as soon as she had gone. “What’s she talking about?”

Himself nodded. “In any case I take off my hat to spies, Sinn Feiners or British. They have to be brave men. I should think a spy wants all the qualities of a soldier, and many more besides.”

That was all I got out of him. We went to bed soon after, but not to sleep, at least I did not. Desultory shooting and bombing went on all night.

After “Bloody Sunday” as it came to be called, the world drew a horrified breath over the men who were shot in bed. “Poor So-and-so shot asleep. Frightful!” What of his wife who was not shot, but who lost her reason three days after, and three weeks after lost her life and her baby’s life; his wife, who for the rest of her brief life saw men filing into the room, heard the sound of shooting, heard the raiders laugh, saw them wash their hands after the killing?

What of the other wife who cried out to her husband and tried to help him escape through the window, and saw his broken body on the windowsill?

What of the wife, coming from her bath, who was confronted with five men with revolvers? Pausing outside the bedroom door where her husband was sleeping, she faced them, appearing not to notice their revolvers. “Do you want my husband?” she asked, smiling. “He has just gone out, but do come in and wait.” Her face was untroubled. “Or perhaps you can leave a message,” she said. “I always take my husband’s messages, you can trust me.”

The man mumbled something, and the party filed away.

What of the wife who was held by two men while her husband was shot in front of her? When the raiders had left she found her husband still alive. She rushed into the street, looking wildly for a doctor, praying no doubt as she ran. She found a man and ran up to him.

“My husband has just been shot,” she gasped, “but he is alive. Will you get a doctor, quick!”

“Alive! My God, I’ll finish him!” He went up the steps pulling out his gun.

The Sinn Fein women fought and suffered for their men equally well, lied for them, fetched and carried for them. The men had the limelight; but with few exceptions the women were unknown, and were content to be unknown. There was no reward for their services. I wonder how far a national movement would go if there was no public recognition for any one. A man unable to read about himself and his hunted companions would cut a sorry figure. A man hanged for his cause would go far less steadily to the scaffold without the support of the newspapers and the crowd. But I fancy a woman would acquit herself in all circumstances because her greatest instinct is service.