British Voices (24 page)

One of the frequent jobs for the soldier was to be sent out at night with a raiding party to try and capture some wanted man. Some of the stories they told about the filth and squalor were very horrible – e.g., whole families in one bed, sleeping alternately head-feet-head and so on. Perhaps nine or ten in the bed, with rows of unemptied jerries under the bed. On one occasion the IO saw, in a mirror in the next room, a whole lot of papers being trust down the bosom of a woman. When he suddenly thrust his hand down and pulled them out there was a great to do! Rifles were hidden in peat stacks. We heard stories of arms being moved from A to B in coffins, hearses surrounded by ‘mourners'. In County Monaghan we heard of a cache of arms stored under the altar of their church!! Sometimes, when they had gone to great trouble and risk to apprehend some such wanted men (or women), the powers that were would let him (or her) out again as an act of clemency. They continually did that with people like de Valera and so on. Such an attitude got nowhere, and unsettled the Troops. Unluckily our – then – Battalion IO is dead and so is my old friend, who recently died in Kenya, who was Brigade IO. They knew far more than anybody like me could know. Loyalist farmers were continually having their cattle let out and driven miles in the night, often ham-strung and maimed. However, matters generally were not so bad as nowadays in Ulster. One could go to Race Meetings, and visit various studs, like the National Stud at Tullyho or Loder's stud, where the great Pretty Polly was still on view, in foal, as always to Lemberg. We could even go shooting. I was once on a shooting party in Queen's Company, with the Brigade IO, and several RIC police officers, when we had to withdraw, in fighting formation to our cars, driven off the bog by an armed party of locals! Matters did not always end so peacefully – viz – a tennis party at the home of the Bagot family, when Sinn Féiners opened fire from the surrounding shrubbery and killed a brother of Lord Cornwallis (17th Lancers. He had recently played cricket against us), and brother (also 17th Lancers) of McCreery (12th Lancers) later to become a famous General in North Africa, and also a young RIC officer (Blake). The daughter of the house, a teenage girl seized a horse and rode off across country for help (no good). Her brother was in the Connaught Rangers. Not many years ago I met him here (then an ex-Gloucester) and he told me the full story. It would be tedious to go on. So we transferred to Kilmainham Barracks, in Dublin. On one occasion our Divisional Commander ( Jeudwine) driving his wife and daughter to Dublin had been held up by a car-load of Sinn Feiners. They were left stranded, but not before the old lady had gone to war, thrashing right and left with her umbrella. (The daughter later told me the story!) I remember one visitor to the Battalion – A Colonel Montgomery, because he, with some thirteen other officers, was murdered in bed, in the Gresham Hotel, in Dublin on a Sunday morning on what was Bloody Sunday – the real ‘Bloody Sunday', not the modern one! A traitor on the staff of the hotel had let the murderers in and shown them the rooms. The hotel was used by officers at Dublin headquarters. They were all shot in bed in the early hours. I was reminded of this by reading
A Field Marshall in the Family
by Brian Montgomery (a Baluchi Colonel brother of ‘Monty' where he records their cousin being murdered. I'm glad to say I watched the last wall of that hotel being demolished – later on – when we were in Dublin. The so-called ‘Free State' came into being and we (the Army) reverted to the touchline as spectators, while the Free State and Republicans fought it out. I remember dining on the boat at the next table to Michael Collins (who had been so badly wanted!!) on his way to visit Churchill and/or Lloyd-George – a good looking man, with his sinister body guard round him. He was later killed by his own people in their quarrel for power. We had one subaltern (Storey) murdered in the street one night after dining in another Mess. His car was deliberately rammed by another filled with armed men, who just shot and left him lying there. His uncle lived in Merrion Square, which, I gather was excuse enough to shoot him. In this connection I met – only this week at a luncheon party a young ex ‘Sapper' officer, whose family home is in Southern Ireland. He had been posted to Ulster; and WO wouldn't change his posting; so he had no alternative but to resign his commission. Otherwise he risked his home being burnt down. Anybody who has visited parts of Eire like County Cork, County Kerry, etc., will know what I mean. Such abominable outrages have always been the accepted custom. – ( Just as an example: Castle Hackett in Galway – the home of General Bernard, who was Divisional Commander, 3rd Division in the late 1930s and later our Governor of Bermuda, was burnt down. So was the home of Colonel Head, RA, near Birr, who then bought Hinton in Salop, in the 1920s.) It was to prevent Hunston House being burnt down that we (2nd Battalion) had a Detachment there, refer to above. This detachment suffered a typical Irish ambush. They had a patrol out on bicycles, about half a dozen strong; as they cycled past a stone wall, the ambushers popped up from behind it. The patrol had no alternative but to surrender their rifles. Not a popular incident!! I could quote two other murders of female relatives of two of my former COs, who told me the stories, but perhaps I'd better not!

In Dublin we watched the burning of the Four Courts in the quarrel between Free State and Republicans. We were not participants, but we were told our Gunners had lent the Free Staters a gun to help them; one day I and another (H.P. Miles) were on our way to play cricket at Trinity College, when the traffic was held up and news ran back from 'bus to 'bus that some soldiers had been shot. When we finally reached our ‘stop' and were crossing the road, I said to the DM Policeman on point duty, as we passed him, ‘is it true that some soldiers have been shot?' He replied ‘It is, Sir, three of our men have been shot on the steps of the Post Office'. Foolishly, I said ‘Oh, they were Free Staters, were they?' With a blazing face he retorted ‘Sir, I said three of our men. I would have you know I was an Irish Guardsman'!! Of course we were in cricket clothes but he knew we were officers. Every Irishman (or girl) was a self-appointed spy. Did I feel ‘small'?! But it was a typical incident in that one never knew who was on what side. Another day, a magistrate travelling peaceably on a bus was just shot dead in his seat. The murderers merely walked away, as did those who shot the soldiers. Nobody ever dared to lift a finger. Another time, fire was opened from through the railings alongside Trinity College cricket ground, while a game was in progress against the garrison. A girl, daughter of a Dean, sitting with her fiancé was killed. The assassins just strolled away. The wicket-keeper was Colonel A.F. Spooner, Lancs Fusiliers. He knew he was too heavily equipped to run with any dignity. So he folded his arms and held his ground saying that the British Army would not be driven from the field by a set of gangsters. The other fielders, somewhat shame-facedly reappeared from behind cover and the game continued. Spooner was brother to the famous R.H. (Reggie) Spooner of England fame.

Eventually the 2nd Battalion found the last guard on Dublin Castle and handed over to the relieving guard of the Free State Army (a photo of this is in the Regimental Journal of that time, I think). We didn't suffer from the modern booby-trap and explosive cars, but nobody ever really knew who was who. One day I was on a 'bus filled with troops, on our way back to Kilmainham Barracks, with the Battalion IO. Suddenly I saw him sit up, and opposite to him was a man glaring into his face, with his hand on what was obviously the butt of a revolver in his hip pocket. We were just arriving at the Barrack Gate, and as we got off, I asked him who the man was. He gave me the name of a notorious thug (I think ‘Dan Breen') and said ‘I arrested him not long ago and he obviously recognised me'. The Free State had come in to being, and he had been let out. Just as well the 'bus was full of troops! It is a sad, sad story and they will (still no doubt) harp on the Battle of the Boyne, because they were defeated there. But read your history! Why was there a battle fought there (1689)? Who was rebelling against whom? Why did England already heavily engaged on the Continent, have to go to the trouble and expense of sending an army there? Ask King Louis XIV of France, and James II, who had been kicked off the English throne and been superceded by ‘Orange William' and Mary ( James' daughter) – and why?

Details

This is taken from a recording (Accession Number 006181/04) held in the Imperial War Museum's Deparment of Sound Archives. In it Major Graham gives an account on of his time as a boy soldier in the Devonshire Regiment during the War of Independence. He was based in Waterford. He was later commissioned as an officer and spent much of career in the Far East.

Interviewer
: Now, one of your early experiences was that you were posted to Ireland during the ‘Troubles' there. Can you tell me about your posting there?

RG
: Well, we were sent there in July 1920 from Devonport. Headquarters is at Waterford and detachments, companies, were sent out to Wexford, Clonmel, Kilkenny and various other places.

Interviewer
: Where did you go?

RG
: Waterford.

Interviewer
: Where were you accommodated there?

RG
: In the barracks.There were two barracks in Waterford: the artillery and the infantry barracks. But the infantry barracks was built to accommodate about 200 men but there was about 600 in them till we sent out the detachments. We were sleeping on floors or in tents, barrack room messing etc and so forth.

Interviewer
: Was it explained to you what your role was to be there?

RG
: Oh, no, no, no, no, you see as a boy I was supposed to be a non-combatant. But I was charged once with whilst on active service leaving my post without being properly relieved. And as the adjutant pointed out to me it carried the death sentence but it didn't worry me. But it happened because the unit had to round up about 200 Sinn Féiners and that called for every man Jack in the Barracks, including the cooks, signallers, they all had to go out and round up these people. And it was decided to put a boy in charge of the telephone exchange. I queried this because I said I knew nothing about telephones, so they said, ‘Well, no one will ring through, everyone will be out'. Anyhow, I hadn't sat by myself more than about ten minutes in the cubicle and the flap dropped and a torrent of Morse poured out: dot dot dash dash dash dash. Well, I tried ringing and in the end I left the place to look to see if someone could take down this Morse. Luckily during my absence a signaller from the Royal Corps of Signals who normally manned the wireless station in the barracks heard this tick tick, dot dot dash, went in and took it down. And it was a list of additional men to be rounded up.