Quickly realising what had happened, Jones ordered one platoon to make a frontal attack on the gunmen’s position, while he sent a second and third platoon to try to work round their flanks; the fourth platoon he kept with him under cover in the village. Then followed a very pretty fight for an hour, by which time the gunmen, like the Boers of old, thought it was time to move on and take up a position on the next ridge. Jones knew that if he could only keep in close touch with the flying column it was only a question of time before Blake, who would be guided by the heavy firing, would attack them in the rear, and that they would then stand a good chance of bagging the whole lot. The fight gradually worked across the mountains, the gunmen retreating from ridge to ridge, while the Cadets stuck to them like grim death, always striving to pin them down, and when they retreated to drive them in the direction from which Blake ought to appear. Late in the afternoon heavy shooting suddenly broke out behind the gunmen, and the Cadets redoubled their efforts to close with them. By this time the opposing forces had worked their way down the western slopes of the mountains almost as far as the high upland bogs, and directly the gunmen realised that they were likely to be surrounded, they broke and fled down a valley, closely pursued by police and Cadets. Unfortunately the light was getting bad, and the gunmen’s luck still held good. When they had gone about a mile, they came across a big party of country people with whom they mixed, and when the police came up with them it was impossible to tell gunmen from peasants—probably the former were busily engaged cutting turf while the latter looked on. Their arms were passed to the women, who hid the rifles in the heather and secreted the pistols and ammunition on their persons. During the whole long fight Father John attended to wounded Cadet and gunman alike, always to be seen where the fight was hottest; and though his calling was conspicuous from his clothes and white collar, yet on several occasions the gunmen deliberately fired on him when attending to a wounded Cadet. After the battle of Glenmuck the flying column was seen no more in that district, and for weeks the local Volunteers gave Jones no trouble. Time after time Jones had received information that certain young men in and about Annagh carried arms, but whenever they were surprised in a shop or pub no arms could be found on them, and it was noticed that they always moved about in the company of certain girls.