We were all happy that night as we camped in St. Stephen's Green. Despite the handicap we were under through lack of men, almost everything was going our way. It was a cold, damp night. The first-aid and despatch-girls of our command went into a summer-house for shelter. It had no walls, but there was a floor to lie upon, and a roof. I slept at once and slept heavily.

Madam was not so fortunate. She was too tired and excited to sleep. Instead, she walked about, looking for some sheltered place and, to get out of the wind, tried lying down in one of the trenches. But the ground was much too chilly, so she walked about until she noticed the motor-car of her friend, Dr. Katherine Lynn, seized that morning for the barricade. She climbed in, found a rug, and went to sleep in comparative comfort. When morning came she could not forgive herself for having slept there all night while the rest of us remained outdoors. She had intended to get up after an hour or two of it and make one of us take her place. She did not waken, however, till she heard the hailing of machine-gun bullets on the roof of the car. The girls in the summer-house, with the exception of myself, were awakened at the same moment in the same way, and ran for safety behind one of the embankments. It seems the British had taken possession of a hotel at one side of the Green—the Hotel Shelbourne—and had placed a machine-gun on the roof. At four o'clock in the morning they began firing.

The chill I was having woke me, but I quickly followed the others to their hiding-place. From the first we were aware that had we taken possession of all buildings around the Green, according to our original plan, this morning salute of the British would have been impossible. As it was, our intrenchments and barricades proved of no avail. We realized at once we should have to evacuate the Green and retire into the College of Surgeons.

Commandant Mallin sent me with a despatch to headquarters. He recognized immediately that a regiment could not hold the Green against a machine-gun on a tall building that could rake our position easily.

As soon as I returned, I was sent away again to bring in sixteen men guarding the Leeson Street bridge. If we abandoned the Green before they could join us, they would be cut off and in great danger. As I rode along on my bicycle, I had my first taste of the risks of street-fighting. Soldiers on top of the Hotel Shelbourne aimed their machine-gun directly at me. Bullets struck the wooden rim of my bicycle wheels, puncturing it; others rattled on the metal rim or among the spokes. I knew one might strike me at any moment, so I rode as fast as I could. My speed saved my life, and I was soon out of range around a corner. I was not exactly frightened nor did I feel aware of having shown any special courage. My anxiety for the men I was to bring in filled my mind, for though I was out of range, unless we could find a roundabout way to the College of Surgeons seventeen of us would be under fire. To make matters worse, the men were on foot.

After I reached this group and gave the order for their return, I scouted ahead up streets I knew would bring us back safely to the college, unless already guarded by the British. It was while I was riding ahead of them that I had fresh evidence of the friendliness of the people. Two men presently approached me. They stepped out into the street and said quietly:

"All is safe ahead."

I rode back, told the guard, and we moved on more rapidly. At another spot a woman leaned out of her window just as I was passing. "You are losing your revolver," she called to me.

She may have saved my life by that warning, for my revolver had torn its way through the pocket of my raincoat, and, in another moment, would have fallen to the ground. Had it been discharged, the result might have been fatal.

As we came to the College of Surgeons and were going in by a side door, the men were just retiring from the Green. Since every moment counted, I had ridden ahead to report to Commandant Mallin, and while he stood listening to me, a bullet whizzed through his hat. He took it off, looked at it without comment, and put it on again. Evidently the machine-gun was still at work.

One of our boys was killed before we got inside the College of Surgeons. Had the British gunners been better trained for their task, we might have lost more, for we were completely at their mercy from the moment they began to fire at dawn until the big door of the college closed, and we took up the defense of our new position in the great stone fortress.

Every time I left the college, I was forced to run the gauntlet of this machine-gun. I blessed the enemy's bad marksmanship several times a day. To be sure, they tried hard enough to hit something. Once that day I saw them shooting at our first-aid girls, who made excellent targets in their white dresses, with large red crosses on them. It was a miracle that none of them was wounded. Bullets passed through one girl's skirt, and another girl had the heel of her shoe shot off. If I myself had not seen this happen, I could not have believed that British soldiers would disobey the rules of war concerning the Red Cross.

Mr. Connolly had issued orders that no soldier was to be shot who did not have arms, and he did not consider the side-arms they always carried as "arms." My revolver had been given me for self-defense in case I fell into the hands of any soldiers. I confess that, though I never used it, I often felt tempted when I saw British soldiers going along in twos and threes, bent on shooting any of our men. I was not in uniform, however, and had had orders not to shoot except thus clothed and so a member of the Republican Army.

Some of the streets I had to ride through were as quiet and peaceful as if there was no thought of revolution in Dublin, but in others I could hear now and then scattered shots from around some corner. It was more than likely that snipers were trying to hold up a force of British on their way to attack one of our main positions. Sometimes I would hear the rattle of a machine-gun, and this warned me that I was approaching a house where the enemy was raking a position held by our men. Generally, however, it was the complete and death-like emptiness of a street that warned me I was close to a scene of hot fighting. This was not always so, for there were times when the curiosity of the crowd got the better of its caution, and it would push dangerously near the shooting.

Several days elapsed before the people of Dublin became fully aware of the meaning of what was going on. Riots are not rare, and this might well seem to many of them only rioting on a large scale, with some new and interesting features. The poor of Dublin have never been appeased with bread or circuses by the British authorities. They have had to be content with starvation and an occasional street disturbance. But little by little, as I rode along, I could detect a change in attitude. Some became craven and disappeared; in others, it seemed that at last their souls might come out of hiding and face the day.

The spirit at the post-office was always the same—quiet, cheerful, and energetic. I used to stand at the head of the great central staircase waiting for answers to my despatches and could see the leaders as they went to and fro through the corridor. Padraic Pearse impressed me by his natural air of command. He was serious, but not troubled, not even when he had to ask for men from the Citizen Army to eke out the scant numbers of his Volunteers for some expedition. No one had thought it would be that way, for the Volunteers were originally two to one compared with the Citizen Army. Recruits were coming in every day, but at the most there were not fifteen hundred men against twenty thousand British soldiers stationed in or near Dublin.

Whenever there came a lull in business or fighting, the men would begin to sing either rebel songs or those old lays dear to Irishmen the world over. And sometimes they knelt in prayer, Protestants and Catholics side by side. From the very beginning there was a sense of the religious character in what we were doing. This song and prayer at the post-office were all natural, devoid of self-consciousness. A gay song would follow a solemn prayer, and somehow was not out of harmony with it.

One source of inspiration at the post-office was "old Tom Clarke," who had served fifteen years for taking part in the rising of sixty-seven. His pale, worn face showed the havoc wrought by that long term in an English prison, but his spirit had not been broken.

There was Jo Plunkett, too, pale and weak, having come directly from the hospital where he had just undergone an operation. But he knew what prestige his name would lend to this movement—a name famous for seven hundred years in Irish history. He looked like death, and he met death a few days later at the hands of the English.

I talked about explosives one day with Sean McDermott and we went together to consult a wounded chemist in a rear room to find out what could be done with chemicals we had found at the College of Surgeons. Sean McDermott was like a creature from another planet who had brought his radiance with him to this one. Every one felt this and loved him for the courage and sweetness he put into all he did.

The O'Rahilly was another of the striking figures at the post-office. He was known as one of the handsomest men in Ireland, and, in addition to being head of a famous old clan, had large estates. He had given much property to the cause, and now was risking his life for it. He was killed on the last day of the fighting as he led a sortie into the street at one side of the post-office. His last words were, "Good-by and good luck to you!" He said those words to British prisoners he was setting free because the post-office had caught fire and the game was up. They afterward told of his kindness and care for them at a moment when he himself was in the greatest possible danger.

I can pass anywhere for a Scotch girl,—I have often had to since the rising,—and friends will tell you I am hard-headed and practical, without the least trace of mysticism. Yet, whenever I was in general headquarters in the post-office, I felt, despite commonplace surroundings and the din of fighting, an exalted calm that can be possible only where men are giving themselves unreservedly and with clear conscience to a great cause.