Tom Keogh had now got back to cover. I looked around to see where were my chances of escape. There seemed none. The blood is streaming from my wounded leg and the enemy’s fire is fierce and rapid whilst ours has eased off, because our grenades are gone, many of our revolvers are empty and one of our men is dead. Amidst a hail of bullets I dashed for shelter of Kelly’s house round the corner and got there in safety. My gun speaks again. The enemy is silent. The khaki warriors have suddenly fled for the safety of the Park, followed by the whole Viceregal party. We were now left in possession of the field of battle and with us were the wreck of the second car, its driver McEvoy whom we had wounded and captured in the fray, the wounded D.M.P. man, Constable O’Loughlin, and the dead body of our gallant comrade Martin Savage. We released our prisoner McEvoy. By a strange irony of fate his path crossed mine three years later, in April, 1923. I was then a prisoner in the hands of the Free State troops in Limerick Jail. McEvoy was there, an officer in the prison. That December day in 1919, as we hurriedly surveyed the ground at Ashtown we were convinced we had achieved our purpose and had shot Lord French. Now our next and most urgent concern was to return to the city, for we knew that within half an hour Ashtown and the country for miles around it would be swarming with British troops. CHAPTER XVI. OUR ESCAPE FROM ASHTOWN. The ten of us now held a hurried Council of War at the cross-road of Ashtown. Nine of our party had escaped without a scratch: Martin Savage was dead and I was wounded and bleeding profusely. We had routed the whole body of British soldiers with their rifles, their machine gun, and their armour-plated car, and we had killed the Lord Lieutenant. We carried poor Martin’s body into Kelly’s shop. It was all we could do. We knew the enemy would soon return with reinforcements and take possession of all that was left of that gallant soldier, but it would be suicidal to attempt to remove it to the city. The terror-stricken occupants of the Half-way House looked on in amazement and in silence.