The Young Rebels (11 page)

N
one of us slept well last night.

At precisely ten o’clock in the morning the
British
begin bombarding Lower Sackville Street. One building after another goes on fire. Kelly’s Gun Shop, on the corner by the bridge, is abandoned, and the men who were holding that position retreat to the GPO. Captain Fitzsimons leans out a window to shout to them, ‘Good job lads, keep the heart up!’

I’m glad we have the snipers with us, because from time to time a messenger brings them news. It’s the job I should have had, being a messenger.

We learn that the British gunboat
Helga
is not doing all of the damage to Dublin. Field guns are being fired from Trinity College as well, adding to the
bombardment
and destruction. Students of the Officers’ Training Corps are manning the university as a temporary
garrison
until the British military take over.

Last night there was a huge battle at the Mount Street Bridge. For five hours a mere handful of Volunteers in Clanwilliam House held out against a whole British column.

Although most of the Citizen Army have been forced to evacuate their outposts, about a hundred are still in the Royal College of Surgeons across from St Stephen’s Green. Among them is Constance Markievicz.

I am confident that Madame, like Mr Pearse, will fight to the last.

From the sounds of battle we can tell that the British army is drawing closer and closer. They are tightening a noose around all our necks. Yet there is no talk of trying to escape. Even little Gerry seems quite unafraid.

Just a few minutes ago Captain Fitzsimons gave an exclamation of surprise. ‘Come over here John Joe,’ he says beckoning me to his window. ‘Look down there. What do you see?’

I can hardly believe my eyes. Seven more young boys are cautiously making their way up Sackville
Street, dodging from building to building while gunfire echoes all around them. ‘Do you know any of that lot?’ the captain asks me.

‘All of them. They’re Fianna from St Enda’s.’

‘Stay here,’ he says sternly. We hear him running down the passage. Shortly afterward he appears in the street. He uses an ear-splitting whistle to get the boys’ attention. When they look in his direction he gives a commanding wave. After a moment’s hesitation, they trot over to him and he ushers them into the hotel.

Captain Fitzsimons herds his flock into our room and closes the door firmly behind them. He looks as if he does not know whether to laugh or cry. I can
understand
his feelings.

‘You lads could have been killed,’ the captain says.

‘We know that, sir. But we weren’t.’

‘Why have you done such a foolish, foolish thing?’

The newcomers look at one another, and then at me. I guess it is because I am the tallest member of the Fianna in the room. ‘We belong here,’ one boy says simply.

Mid-morning we have a visitor. James Connolly, a stocky, sturdy man in Citizen Army uniform and leather leggings, is making the rounds of the sniper positions. When he enters the room on the top floor – which is
rather crowded by this time – he opens his eyes very wide indeed. ‘Captain,’ he asks Fitzsimons, ‘what is the meaning of this?’

‘You had best ask them, sir.’

‘I certainly shall,’ Connolly says gruffly. ‘Just what are you lads playing at?’

‘We’re auxiliaries, sir,’ I reply.

‘Nonsense.’

‘But we are. We’re members of the Fianna.’

‘Nonsense,’ Connolly says again. ‘You’re only
children
. Don’t you know there’s a war going on?’

I decide to brazen it out. ‘Boys our age have fought in wars since the beginning of history. Mr Pearse believes we are of strategic importance,’ I add recklessly.

James Connolly laughs, a great booming laugh. ‘Does he now? I’ll tell you what. You stay here while I go ask him what he wants done with you. Don’t go
outside
at all, do you understand? That’s an order!’

‘Yes sir.’

‘And keep your heads below the window sills!’ he adds as he strides away.

The gunfire is coming closer and closer. The crash of falling bricks and mortar from the areas around Sackville Street is almost constant. The centre of Dublin is being torn apart by British artillery. The captain and
his men stand well back from the windows now, though they have their rifles at the ready.

After fifteen or twenty minutes Connolly returns. ‘I suppose you lads will have to stay,’ he tells us. ‘Pearse agreed with me that it would be too dangerous to try to send you home.’ Connolly smiles. ‘Actually, what he said was, ‘I suggest you provide them with weapons. They may have to defend not only their ideals but
themselves
.’ So I’ve brought you three old pistols, all we could spare. Do you boys know how to shoot them? If not, I’m sure Captain Fitzsimons can show you.’

The pistols are given to Roger, Conor, and myself, together with a very few rounds of ammunition. The Volunteers take time to make sure we know how to use the weapons, then return to their posts.

The British are almost upon us now. Machine-gun fire constantly rakes the nearby streets.

A messenger arrives from Headquarters with the news that General Sir John Maxwell is on his way from England to take command of the British forces.
Maxwell
has a fearsome reputation. He is reported to have said he has no intention of sparing Dublin. He will not hesitate to destroy any buildings that may harbour what he calls ‘rebels’.

Us. The insurgents. The Irish who want their country back.

In the afternoon we receive bad news indeed. James Connolly has been shot twice in the leg. He was taken to Headquarters, where the women are nursing the wounded. Although his injuries are very serious he refuses to stay quiet, but insists on being wheeled about on his bed so he can supervise the defence of the GPO.

Stepping up beside the Volunteers, we boys aim our pistols down into the street. The rebels in the
Metropole
Hotel want to shoot the man who shot Connolly.

We can hardly tell day from night anymore, the air is so filled with smoke and dust. I have lost all sense of time. We are just here. The noise and the destruction are everywhere. I cannot remember when things were any different.

This must be what hell is like.

And it goes on and on.

There is no light in the room except for the lurid glow from the fires burning in the ruins of buildings.

Finally Captain Fitzsimons orders his men to lie down for a while and try to get some sleep. We boys do the same. The room is very cold and we do not have enough blankets and coats to keep us warm, but it hardly matters. We would shiver anyway. From
excitement
or fear or tension. They all feel the same now.

You would not think anyone could sleep under such
circumstances, but I am deep in a blurry dream about Emmet’s Fort and Roger’s dog when voices over my head wake me up again.

The messenger who has visited us before is saying, ‘There are twelve thousand British troops in Dublin now, and the centre of the city is cordoned off.’

Captain Fitzsimons asks, ‘What of the other
garrisons
?’

‘Since early this afternoon there has been no word from Daly at the Four Courts. MacDonagh and de Valera are holding firm so far, but Ceannt is taking heavy fire at the South Dublin Union. Cathal Brugha, his second-in-command, has been severely wounded.’

‘And James Connolly? How is he now?’

‘It does not look good for him, sir. His wounds are dreadfully inflamed and causing him a lot of pain.’

The captain says, ‘Thank you for coming to tell us. Please continue to keep us informed about the
situation
.’

‘I don’t know how much longer that will be possible, sir. A lot of our messengers have been trapped
elsewhere
, and we’re very short-handed at Headquarters. We don’t even have enough stretcher-bearers left.’

I am totally and completely awake.

Scrambling to my feet, I tell Captain Fitzsimons, ‘I’m big enough to be a stretcher-bearer. May I go to
Headquarters?’

‘What about me?’ wails Roger. ‘Don’t leave me, John Joe!’

‘Can you get these two boys safely back there with you?’ the captain asks the messenger.

‘I can try, sir.’

‘Very well, you may take them.’

And then, so swiftly we don’t have time to think, Roger and I are running down the hotel passageway behind the messenger from Headquarters. Running down the carpeted stairs which are gritty underfoot now, running across the lobby which is half-filled with debris, running out into the terrible street.

I
do not know what I expected, but the General Post Office is very changed. An Irish tricolour, blackened with smoke, droops from the flagpole that always held the Union Jack before. The flames of the burning city provide enough light to reveal the dreadful damage done by British artillery. I am almost surprised that anyone could still be alive inside.

But they are.

Roger and I follow the messenger under the portico and into the lobby on the ground floor. It is filled with men and rubble and sandbags and broken glass and
splintered timber. The smell is appalling. A mixture of smoke and sweat and blood and …

‘Over here,’ calls the messenger. He leads us to Joe Plunkett, the Chief-of-Staff, who is half-sitting,
half-lying
on a pile of debris draped with one of his great capes.

‘I’ve found two more stretcher-bearers, sir,’

Plunkett looks ghastly. His face is deathly pale and there is a bandage around his throat with blood
seeping
through. Roger asks, ‘Are you wounded yourself, sir?’

Plunkett gestures toward his throat with an elegant, long-fingered hand laden with heavy rings. ‘Don’t
concern
yourself, this is not a wound. I had an operation recently, that’s all.’

‘He has tuberculosis of the throat,’ I whisper to Roger. ‘Willie told me he was in Switzerland taking treatment, but he came back for this.’

I cannot tell if Joe Plunkett hears me. I cannot even tell if Roger hears me, for at that moment there is a dreadful crash overhead and ceiling debris cascades down upon us.

Why don’t they stop! It’s night-time, so why don’t they
stop
?!

But it is not night-time. It is Friday morning. A pale, sickly light is beginning to filter into the ruin that is the
Headquarters of the Provisional Irish Republic.

The devoted women and girls who have kept the defenders fed and bandaged look as exhausted as the men, but they provide us with some tea and soup. It is the first hot food we have had in a long time. While Roger is still devouring his I wander around the lobby.

When curiosity prompts me to peer behind a
hospital
screen, I find James Connolly lying on old iron
bedstead
and reading a book. The loss of blood has left him almost as pale as Joe Plunkett. When he sees me he raises himself onto one elbow. ‘There’s one of our snipers now!’ he says cheerfully. ‘How are you, boy?’

‘I’m well, sir. How are you?’

‘I would be a lot better if they were not keeping me out of the action! When you see Pearse tell him, will you?’

‘Where is Mr Pearse, sir? I have not yet seen him.’

‘He’s in that little makeshift office of his, writing something or other.’ Connolly sounds dismissive, as if every man should be busy shooting every moment.

When I return to Joe Plunkett for my assignment, he tells me, ‘You have not come a minute too soon. There is more work to be done than able-bodied men to do it.’

There is no mention of my age now.

My first job is to carry ammunition to the Volunteers
guarding the windows and doors. They are firing
sparingly
, trying to make every shot count. Their eyes are red with lack of sleep.

Tucked into my waistband is the pistol James
Connolly
gave me. Could I actually shoot someone with it? I don’t know. I don’t suppose anyone ever really knows until the moment comes.

After a while I go to the basement to see if there is any more ammunition. The two toilets down there, the only ones in the building, are blocked up and
overflowing
. The smell is terrible.

Shortly after I return, empty-handed, to the lobby, Mr Pearse emerges from a room at the back. He is carrying a handwritten sheet which he puts up on what remains of the post office bulletin board. It is a manifesto filled with praise for the brave men and women who have carried the fight this far. The only person he mentions by name is Mr Connolly, whom he calls ‘the guiding brain of our resistance’.

He has written, ‘If they do not win this fight, they will at least have deserved to win it. But win it they will, although they may win it in death. Already they have won a great thing. They have redeemed Dublin from many shames, and made her name splendid among the names of cities.’

The document continues, ‘I am satisfied that we have
saved Ireland’s honour. I am satisfied that we should have accomplished more had our arrangements for a simultaneous rising of the whole country been allowed to go through on Easter Sunday. Of the fatal
countermanding
order which prevented those plans from being carried out, I shall not speak further. Both Eoin MacNeill and we have acted in the best interests of Ireland.

‘For my part, as to anything I have done in this, I am not afraid to face either the judgment of God or the judgment of posterity.’

‘Signed P. H. Pearse, Commandant General, Commanding-in-Chief, the Army of the Irish Republic, and President of the Provisional Government’.

I wish he had added ‘Ardmháistir, Scoil Eanna’.

Mr Pearse summons all the women in the building and orders them to leave. A few nurses refuse, but most of the others reluctantly accept. He shakes hands with each of them as she departs.

If he is sending the women away that must mean it’s almost all over. I want to speak to him, but cannot bring myself to ask the question. Instead I just catch his eye and nod.

Padraic Pearse beckons me closer. ‘You were one of those boys at the Metropole Hotel,’ he says. It is not a question.

‘Yes sir. We wanted to be with you.’

‘God bless you,’ he says.

‘And you sir.’

He moves off to speak to some of the other men. I watch their eyes following him.

Then there is a terrible crash right above our heads. Black smoke comes billowing down the main staircase and we can hear the crackle of flames somewhere above. The GPO is built of stone but fitted with timber, and timber will burn.

Is burning.

We are fighting on two fronts now; fighting back the increasingly determined British assault and fighting back the flames. Unfortunately we are out of water. Roger runs past me carrying a bucket full of sand from one of the sandbags.

By later afternoon our battle with the fire is lost. But it is the good clean flame and not the unthinking
brutality
of the enemy that will drive us from the GPO. Mr Pearse has sent a man called The O’Rahilly to scout the area for the best route of evacuation. He has not returned. So we must make a run for it.

As dusk settles over the savaged city, the stretcher bearers are summoned to carry out the wounded. To my great pride I am assigned to help carry Connolly. He insists on being the last to leave – except for Mr
Pearse, who goes back into the flames one last time to make certain everyone is out of the GPO.

Then we set out for Moore Lane.

No sooner do we leave the protection of the post office doorway than British snipers open up on us. I hear the bullets spanging against the walls. Joe
Plunkett
, coughing, and Seán MacDermott, limping, urge us on. A bullet narrowly misses the stretcher we are
carrying
. In another moment the hidden sniper will have James Connolly in his sights.

I hurl myself across on the stretcher, shielding
Connolly’s
body with my own. I am so close to him I can see the pores on his nose.

I can see the pores on James Connolly’s nose.

Then we are running again. Running frantically through a hail of bullets. Mr Pearse stumbles once, right into the line of fire, but quickly regains his feet. I hear other men gasp and groan, yet somehow we stumble on.

At the corner of Moore Street we come to a grocery shop. A grey-haired woman has the door open. ‘This way!’ she calls. ‘Hurry!’

Crowded among stacks of tinned goods and bags of flour, we stand trying to catch our breath.

‘Set me down easy, lads,’ Connolly says. We set the stretcher on the floor. Only then do I realise that I never
felt his weight while we were carrying him, I never even felt the cobbles under my feet. The last few
minutes
have been a dream.

Or perhaps I should say a nightmare.

And it is not over yet.

We soon hear soldiers in the street outside,
searching
for us. The grey-haired woman has bolted the door and shuttered the windows so the grocery appears to be closed. We are probably safe enough for now, but we cannot get out the way we came in.

Miraculously, Mr Pearse seems to have got what remains of Headquarters staff out alive, though Joe Plunkett is in very bad shape. He totters on his feet and looks as if he is about to faint. Aside from my own mother I never saw anyone who is dying, but I think he is.

We have several badly wounded men with us, including a British soldier whom George Plunkett, Joe’s brother, found lying in the street and would not leave to die.

The kind woman who offered us sanctuary owns the grocery. She is a widow with several nearly-grown
children
, and they live over the shop. The family do what they can to make us comfortable. They put the most seriously wounded into their own beds, and empty the presses of blankets and quilts for the rest of us.

Joe Plunkett valiantly refuses the offer of a bed, as does Mr Pearse. James Connolly, who is growing
feverish
and does not seem to know where he is, makes no objections when we tuck him into the largest bed. His wounded leg is propped on pillows. Stores from the grocery provide the best meal any of us have enjoyed in a week, then Mr Pearse orders the Fianna boys and the wounded men to try to get some sleep.

The rest of the Volunteers set to work tunnelling into the rear of Hanlon’s Fishmongers, which is next door, hoping to escape unseen through that route.

In the crowded apartment above the grocery the air is stifling. Yet compared to the last hours in the GPO it is as sweet as roses.