"Listen, he plays far too much hurling and football for that!" With the exception of giving an incorrect figure for my height, his description of my vital statistics was so completely accurate that I could have been traced through it anywhere and by almost anyone. When we arrived on the quay, chained together for our trip by boat, night had fallen and the City of Cork was under strict curfew. As soon as we were on deck two British officers, (one of them in a rather intoxicated state) ordered us to immediately "get down below". My protest that the hatch was too small for us to get down while still chained was answered by the roar, "Damn you, get down, or I'll throw you down!” I shot back, "None of us will be thrown down, and you can take that for a fact." At that moment the Colonel in command arrived puffing and panting, "What's all the fuss about", he asked. When I said, "Is there not something in the International Law that does not permit the chaining of prisoners at sea?", he immediately answered, "Quite so, quite so, where is that darn Warder?" And, ... along came the warder from Winchester looking sheepishly when the Colonel ordered, "Get the chains of those men right now" Just then one of our lads shouted, "We were threatened to be thrown down the hatch."' Immediately, the Colonel picked up that remark and wanted to know who had threatened us. Quickly I said, 'I did, I just did so in fun." The Colonel stepped up to me and asked if I [31] were telling the truth. I calmed him down, assuring him no one had threatened us, and that the so-called "threatening" had all been a joke on my part. So, off came the chains and down below we went. Some of the lads tried to find some sleep on the bare planks, while most of us were wide awake, staring into the dark, and thinking of home and how long it would be before we would see Ireland again, and what would happen to our Parents, our sweethearts, and especially to our friends and comrades whom we knew to be carrying on the fight for the freedom of our homeland while we were taken away and thrown in to prison. There was much sadness, and even despair, yet we tried our best to cheer up each other, telling the lads, and ourselves, that this time Ireland was definitely going to win her freedom. About a couple of hours later, along came the two British officers, one of whom had threatened to throw us down the hatch. The man stepped right up to me and said, "Say, I am sorry I made that bad blunder up there on deck. I want to thank you for not giving me away to the Colonel. That was very decent of you, and if there is anything I can do, I will be glad to help." As furious as I had been at him when the incident occurred, I truly appreciated his decency to come and apologise, definitely a display of moral courage as one did not often encounter in a British officer in these days and under those circumstances. So, I quickly replied, "That's alright. Thanks for your offer but, forget it, we understand." It was another dismal journey, on that sloop, over to Milford Haven, then by train to London and on to Wormwood Scrubbs Prison where we arrived late at night. We were placed on benches, all twenty-nine of us, and about seven to each bench. Two Warders were sitting at a table in front of us with a third, apparently a Senior Warder, standing up. Next to me, and the last man on the last bench, was Eamonn Roche. (He was married, one of the very few amongst us and, much later, Eamonn became Manager of the well-known Mitchelstown Creameries.) Suddenly, a verbal message was passed along to me, "Let's wear the convict clothes until we have a chance to see a Solicitor." I was simply furious and shot back, "You will NOT, you all agreed not to wear convict clothes" to which Eamonn Roche heatedly added his,
17
Powered by FlippingBook