The man walked directly towards the Volunteers, who, to the number of
about ten, were lining the railings. He walked slowly, bent a little
forward, with one hand raised and one finger up as though he were going
to make a speech. Ten guns were pointing at him, and a voice repeated
many times:
"Go and put back that lorry or you are a dead man. Go before I count
four. One, two, three, four--"
A rifle spat at him, and in two undulating movements the man sank on
himself and sagged to the ground.
I ran to him with some others, while a woman screamed unmeaningly, all
on one strident note. The man was picked up and carried to a hospital
beside the Arts Club. There was a hole in the top of his head, and one
does not know how ugly blood can look until it has been seen clotted in
hair. As the poor man was being carried in, a woman plumped to her knees
in the road and began not to scream but to screetch.
At that moment the Volunteers were hated. The men by whom I was and who
were lifting the body, roared into the railings:--
"We'll be coming back for you, damn you."
From the railings there came no reply, and in an instant the place was
again desert and silent, and the little green vistas were slumbering
among the trees.
No one seemed able to estimate the number of men inside the Green, and
through the day no considerable body of men had been seen, only those
who held the gates, and the small parties of threes and fours who
arrested motors and carts for their barricades. Among these were some
who were only infants--one boy seemed about twelve years of age. He was
strutting the centre of the road with a large revolver in his small
fist. A motor car came by him containing three men, and in the shortest
of time he had the car lodged in his barricade, and dismissed its
stupified occupants with a wave of his armed hand.
The knots were increasing about the streets, for now the Bank Holiday
people began to wander back from places that were not distant, and to
them it had all to be explained anew. Free movement was possible
everywhere in the City, but the constant crackle of rifles restricted
somewhat that freedom. Up to one o'clock at night belated travellers
were straggling into the City, and curious people were wandering from
group to group still trying to gather information.
I remained awake until four o'clock in the morning. Every five minutes
a rifle cracked somewhere, but about a quarter to twelve sharp volleying
came from the direction of Portobello Bridge, and died away after some
time. The windows of my flat listen out towards the Green, and obliquely
towards Sackville Street. In another quarter of an hour there were
volleys from Stephen's Green direction, and this continued with
intensity for about twenty-five minutes. Then it fell into a sputter of
fire and ceased.
I went to bed about four o'clock convinced that the Green had been
rushed by the military and captured, and that the rising was at an end.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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