"And that’s my opinion tool" [32] Despite the anger I felt mounting inside me, I tried to keep my voice calm and low, "Look fellows", I said, "you know we don't have a chance of ever seeing a solicitor. Now, that all of us are sentenced we simply must all stick to what we agreed on." Of course, the Senior Warder had heard our heated exchange and immediately he yelled at Eamonn and myself, "You there, shut your talk, this is no ‘otel!" "We know only too well that this is not a hotel, anyone can see that", I couldn't help replying and, right away, Eamonn and I were hustled out and placed in solitary confinement cells in the prison. I saw or heard nothing until morning when I was given a can of tea and some stale bread. A short time later I was taken out of the cell and ordered to take a bath. When I saw my clothes disappear, I realised that we had all been tricked. Refusing to wear the convict clothes that I was given, I was pushed into a small, low cell where I had to crouch down on a cold seat. The convict clothes were thrown down in front of me and the heavy door clanked shut. There I sat for hours. I started knocking on the walls, and soon there came faint knocks in reply. To my delight I found that there were about six of us in that section. As hour after hour passed each one seemed like so many days. It got so freezing cold in the cell that I was not shivering but literally shaking from head to toe, and I did not know how much longer I would be able to hold out. Then one of the boys started shouting on the top of his voice that the cold simply forced him to put on the convict clothes and that he just could not stand it any longer. Frankly, by that time I felt nothing but utter relief and deep pleasure that one of us had given in and that the torture was over. Soon after a Warder came and took me to a wing attached to the Prison proper. Most of our lads were lodged in that same section but on different floors. That day, I did not succeed in making any contact with them. But a day later I saw Larry Breen, brother of Dan Breen at his cell door and, in passing, he whispered that we should all go on hunger strike. Immediately I reminded him of GHQ's specific order that there were NO hunger strikes; although I had told him in a whisper the Warder had heard something and yelled at me, "Keep moving, and shut your mouth" [33] Then, out of the clear and to my greatest surprise, I was offered the job of helping to deliver the food. Of course, I jumped at this since it meant contact with my companions regularly three times a day. Our goal was to organise a general protest visit to the Prison Governor's office there to demand to be given treatment for political prisoners. A difficult undertaking, indeed, and our first effort met with complete failure. Two days later, however, we were successful, and we appeared in full strength at the Governor's office. Ahead of me was Sunny Burke (Co. Clare) a tall, handsome six footer and I still remember well, when he crashed his huge fist right on the Governor's desk to emphasise our rightful demand. He was taken out by another door, the same that had happened to all the others before him. Then I was called in, and before I had even a chance to say a single word, I suddenly felt a hand clamped over my mouth and I was heaved bodily out another door! All I could do was burst out laughing when I realised the way we had been outsmarted and when I noticed Sunny Burke holding his fiery-red, swollen fist. For a few days following this incident I regularly saw Sunny Burke but then, we were separated. (I never saw him again after that, the poor lad died some months later in prison.) One of the Warders on my Wing was a fat, jovial fellow. Of course, he knew all about our attempted protest in the Governor's office and, shaking his head and blinking his eyes like a wise owl, he told me, "Look Paddy let me tell you something: They would tame a lion in this place. If you beat two of them, they'll bring in four; if, by any chance, you beat four, they'll bring in eight and, if by sheer miracle you manage to beat the eight then, they would bring in sixteen. I tell ye, tame a LION, they would!!' I only thought by myself How very true". Another day that same warder asked me if I knew a fellow named Kelly and then described him to me in detail. Immediately I knew that it was, of course, Thady Kelly who had told me all about his sojourn in Wormwood Scrubbs, so, I asked the warder about him. With a big grin he started to tell me that Thady used to wait until the Governor and his staff came along for
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