When I arrived at Shanahan’s my comrades had at once mobilised an armed guard under a chap named Clancy, of Cush, Knocklong. I was not to be permitted to fall into the hands of the British alive. Scouts were sent out to watch all the approaches to the house. We knew that the country would be swept with columns of troops and police. All through the night—as I learned later—reinforcements were rushed to the neighbourhood, and the police garrisons were strengthened at Doon, Oola, Galbally, and all the local villages and towns. For days afterwards a house to house search was made in that part of East Limerick and South Tipperary, and even the graveyards were inspected for fresh graves, as the newspapers reported that “two of the attackers were believed to have been mortally wounded.” Nor can I help recalling at this stage an incident that happened on that memorable evening. I was told afterwards on the best authority. Four policemen from Elton, a few miles from Knocklong, heard the firing at the station, and took to their heels back to their barracks. There they remained, and with the door locked, until County Inspector Egan arrived in a motor car and broke it in, shouting, “You cowards! Here you are hiding, while four of our men are shot, and the murderers at large!” But a few hours after my arrival at Shanahan’s, when the priest and doctor had attended me, our scouts rushed in with word that the enemy raiding parties were hot on our heels. A hurried council of war was held. My comrades procured a motor car and carried me off once more, without even taking time to say a prayer for the man who was to die next day. They drove me right through the town of Kilmallock, and I did not know till the next afternoon that we had actually passed the R.I.C. barracks where the dead Constable Enright and the dying sergeant had been removed from Knocklong. But there was no other means of escape—we had to get out of the net that was closing round Knocklong. We took our chance, and luck favoured us. My comrades fully realised the seriousness of the situation and the risks they were taking in motoring through the town of Kilmallock, but I was blissfully unconscious of everything save the fact that I was soon to “cross the Jordan.” Our boys always believed that he who puts his hand to the plough must not turn back. They never knew what “going back” meant. Their guiding spirit was “On, always on.” That was the spirit that carried them through the most glorious fight in Irish history. It is the spirit that will carry them to the end. When I woke up next day I was once more in West Limerick, under the care of Sean Finn.