The arguments the Republicans put forward for this step were sufficiently sound in their way. They declared the enemy used the streets on their work of raid and arrest, and obtained special protection. Where the Republican policy was most open to criticism was in the fact that the Volunteers made flagrant use of the protection afforded by the crowd. The Volunteers could have operated in deserted places, the outlying streets and so on; but such a course increased personal risks. There was greater likelihood of discovery from loitering, there was more chance of coming under the return fire from police lorries, and the neighbouring getaways would not be good. When a busy street was decided on, it was chosen for its escapes, for the opportunities afforded the ambushers of mingling with the crowd until the chosen moment, and thirdly, because, after the attack, the Volunteers could become the crowd again, and the ambushed troops would not know where to shoot. In nine cases out of ten it was the inoffensive citizen who paid the penalty of other people’s political views. In the exchange of fire some harassed bystander was generally brought to the ground. Finally, public nerves were so stretched that sudden explosions brought about stampedes, and it is on record that the backfire of a motorcycle caused women near at hand to faint. The climax was the Grafton Street ambush, when sixteen passers were wounded by bomb splinters. There were no casualties among the police, and the ambushers got away unscathed. It is possible in the beginning there were more casualties among the Crown Forces than were acknowledged; but casualties on either side were few. On the heels of the weapon of offence follows always the defensive weapon. It was not long before stout wire netting, sloped at such an angle that bombs aimed at the lorries rolled off on to the ground, was stretched over the tops of the lorries. “Chook, chook, chook!” cried the rebel children as the police flew by, and the following mot went the rounds of Dublin, “The Boers put them in khaki, the Germans put the tin hats on them; but it took the Sinn Feiners to put them into cages.” “Four years, five years,” Mrs. Erskine Childers said to me one day, “our people can carry on like this, and by that time England will have experienced a social upheaval and Ireland will have come into her own.” In truth, the Irish people would never be overcome by this glorified police hunt. Though the leaders might be netted one by one, others would spring up like wheat in their places. Where one man went down another would rise up. Old women of seventy carried the guns to the Volunteers in the fields. Children as high as one’s hip acted as spies and messengers. The nation was in travail, but the nation was exalted. The military force which the British Government saw fit to use could only bleed, it could not kill. CHAPTER XIX MRS. O’GRADY’S FOREBODINGS