British Voices (18 page)

Yours ever,
B.L. Montgomery.

Details

This is from an account held in the private papers of Lt Col Lindsay Young in the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives in King's College London. Lindsay Young was educated at Trinity College Dublin, and began his military career in the Dublin University Officer Training Corps. He was commissioned into the Regular Army in 1913. He was a temporary Lieutenant with the 8th Battalion Gordon Highlanders from 1914 to 1915. He was promoted to Lieutenant in 1915, and served with the 1st and 2nd Battalions, the 19th Punjabi Regiment, Indian Army from 1915 to 1920. He saw action in the Mahsud rising of 1917, in the Marris rising of 1918, and in the 3rd Afghan War on the North West Frontier in 1919. He was an acting Lieutenant Colonel in the Indian Army in 1920, before transferring to the Connaught Rangers. He served in Ireland from 1920 to 1922. On the disbandment of the Connaught Rangers, he transferred to the Leicestershire Regiment in 1922. He served in the Sudan in 1924 during the mutiny of Egyptian troops. Lindsay Young again served in India from 1932 to 1941, and saw action in Waziristan on the North West Frontier in 1939. He was the commanding officer of 1st Battalion Leicestershire Regiment from 1939 to 1942. During the Second World War, he served in Malaya and from 1944 with the British Army in north west Europe. He retired from the Army in 1947.

Under the Shadow of Darkness – Ireland, 1920

I
STEPPED DOWN
from the gangplank, gave Davy Roberts a half-crown, accepted a daily paper in return; and ‘Davy' gave me his smile and ‘th' top o' the morning' instead of the change. Davy beamed upon me – my return to Ireland was propitious.

Half and hour afterwards I was at Broadstone, where I ate a breakfast of smutty eggs and bacon and missed the train. On sauntering into the city the old streets seemed just the same, the wreak of the ‘rebellion' had left little mark; Sackville Street a little batted, Trinity still flourishing, Grafton Street not quite so gay – the ‘Grafton Street Brigade' did not seem so active, thinned off by the war perhaps. The need of fodder set me wandering off for an early lunch at my old grazing ground the Dolphin: even here the same old spirit prevailed, and – joyful moment – some of the old hands recognised me; old Billy was there, hair as white as ever, but doing still slower motion studies than ever before – to cross the spacious floor was quite a route march for his old legs; but he gave me a fine lunch of his own choice, beef – fresh Kildare beef- and butter galore ... this way back in '20; and old Billy assured me that they'd had Kildare beef during the whole war. It was almost worth returning to Ireland to be shot at if one could fill one's belly with this fettle instead of the anaemic fare of Angleterre.

Two hours later I was been whisked westward in the western mail. As we reached Mullingar some fat priests boarded the train; ‘Don't look at them for pity's sake!' said the nervous subaltern's wife in the carriage, ‘they may shoot you' – such is war! Soon as we arrived at our destination and slipping my traps on a car, I missed the lorry which had come for me and drove up the three miles of road to the old barracks on the bay which was to be my home for a year or more.

Days rolled on peacefully. Soon one began to believe that there could be no such thing as a hidden gun or gunmen. Life was glorious in that late September and the mackerel fishing in the bay was a quick death exhibition; boating on the river or a sail or motor-boat expedition on the lakes revived old memories of the joy of life in Ireland. But one dirty night the paradise on earth was swept way. Just when the midnight mail was rushed by, as I lay in bed, I heard the Poop! Poop! Poop! of shots in the town. Soon the barracks were astir, down went the troops to the town in the only lorry followed by the old tank spitting fire into the midnight air like a dragon.

An RIC driver had been shot – but the penalty was to be paid. Somehow or other Britishers seem to let sleeping dogs lie till they want them! The information seemed good then for the intelligence service had not been started. Cork gun-men and others, priding themselves on concealment, were dragged from their beds; and their end was not less swift than that of the policemen. An eye for an eye! and half a dozen of yours lucky enough – that was the word for that night ... but the station door bears the bullet marks still, and perhaps there's one lad in Ireland who is still grateful to one who found him wounded and left him for ‘dead'.

Coroners inquests had ceased to be in Ireland so the night's work was brought to a military inquiry instead. It was difficult to get witnesses as they were either intimidated or mysteriously disappeared. The court carried on with a fine audience filled with spies; and a general creepy feeling throughout the proceeding that the court itself might at any instant become the subject of another enquiry into shooting. Little evidence was adduced as to the killing of the RIC driver. The junior members asked somewhat pointed questions feeling somewhat hot about the matter it was even adduced that the victim had not been hit in a necessarily vital spot, but had succumbed on reaching the hospital – half a mile away – to which he had been sent by a doctor without the bleeding even having been arrested. Curiously enough the same medico left the country very quickly having been embarked for the east as a ship's surgeon. Fate, perhaps retribution, acted curiously and rapidly – the self same doctor when he had been at sea but three weeks, died of a tropical disease.

The civilian hotheads decided to hold another court of enquiry on their own, and with this object sent registered letters to the Chief of the RIC demanding his attendance. The ‘court' was suppressed. Constantly starved for news the local Yellow Express found in the recent happenings a fountain of copy – gorged with the unexpected feast and exasperated by the suppression of the local civilians'‘enquiry', the editor's pen crossed into the paths of indiscretion ... ‘the dead policeman was a public danger – the young men had only rushed to disarm him – it was the duty of everyone there, if he could, to shoot him as he would a mad dog' ... ‘the military court had unscrupulously endeavoured to twist the enquiry in one direction for the sake of saving the “police” and the English government' ... ‘the chief of the RIC was branded as a public liar'…. ‘the police were sweating with panic'… and so on. Finally the editor finished with a polite remark regarding the spies ‘as pimps in petticoats' and informed his readers that there would be more in the next edition. Unfortunately for him, there was no next edition – for the next morning the street outside the Yellow Express office was a mass of coloured papers, inside the printing and linotype machines were wreaked, the safe ‘cracked' and all was a shambles.

For some weeks the military and police had been congratulating themselves on the comparative peace which had reigned since the Yellow Express had succumbed. In the mess, after dinner, we were just settling in for a quiet evening when in rushed the intelligence officer brandishing some large printed sheets.

‘It's started again, Sir: The Yellow Express,' he said to the general. That superior officer seized a copy and the others present crowded around the remaining copies. Everyone looked tense and serious. Yes! It was the real thing. The same heading in Gaelic characters. On the bottom was a large inscription, also in Gaelic, which one versed in Irish translated as ‘God save Ireland'.

Expressions of disgust, annoyance, wonder were evoked as the paper was read. If the Yellow Express had been hot before – this time it was white hot ... A long harangue from the editor – news of ‘Another victory for Ireland' – a description of ‘A night of horror in “c” accompanied by Revolting Scenes of Slaughter, Sacrilege, and Systematic Sabotage' – ‘Military assist RIC in Assassination, Looting and Arson' – Thus ran the headings. The body of this edition was hotter still. Citizens were called upon to ‘hurl back into the raging sea of nations the tattered mangled remnants of savagery which, in the shape of England, sought to retain their octupean grip' ... to gird themselves around the loins, and keep ever watching ever waiting, for the SIGNAL, then! set about the work prepared for them and shake off the loathsome pestilence rotting the flesh from off their frames ... the chief of the RIC (not now ignominiously branded as a public liar) was described as follows:

He who has won for himself position, power and preposterous pay, by betraying his country and his religion to the Sassenach! He who sits at home and shuffles his pack whilst his green coated minions go out and commit the atrocities which he has planned! Who has surrounded himself with heartless adulterers and bloodthirsty assassins, and has appointed them officers of the law.

The General turned an inquiring eye on the Intelligence Officer. ‘Do the police know of this?' he asked.

‘They captured several copies in the mail last night, Sir.'
‘Come to my room X!' said our superior officer, leading the way and looking very serious.

Now as it happened that the chief of the RIC was very pleased with his own capabilities and his own importance – so much so that he was somewhat blasphemously known amongst the troops as ‘Creeping Jesus' or ‘Crawling Christ'! Therefore on reading the pungent statements about himself he took the paper as being a personal assault upon his exalted position, and his desire to capture the Yellow Express was insuperable. He decided to take action. And to take it without the knowledge of the troops, thus gaining a coup on his own, and avenging his adversary. Soon the wires hummed. Out went the police cars to make a lengthy search in likely places. The rank and file were filled with ardour to capture the horrible Yellow Press. The police scoured the country for several days without effect. The military took no action.

A few days later an irate police officer appeared in barracks, and made valiant efforts to get ‘disciplinary action' taken against two officers. He had not, however, warned the military of his intended action – and thus could not be warned in return. The latest and fiery edition of the Yellow Press had been printed in barracks by the two officers into whose hands the title plates had fallen.

The military organisation grew, transport expanded, brass-hats increased, our little barracks was invaded; a brigade was born, with an intelligence service – marvellous and efficient in its own opinion, so Christmas drew nigh. While the fodder was good; and the funds lasted; we believed in filling the men with it – there must be many an outcast soldier, Irish or Sassenach, who remembers in his hunger a good Xmas dinner – poor fellows! What a lot has been done for them?

We had a fine dinner arranged for our lads: pigs and almost a bird for every two men; with a special fellow toiled off to fatten them up. He took a great interest in his new profession as a bird fattener and had a name for almost every bird. One day, talking to him, I asked him the name of his largest bird, which was so fat and big and regal that his knees seemed to bend together under him; ‘Thart one Sor,' he replied, ‘Him's King Garge.' Just before the feast, a couple of destroyers came beating up the bay and settled down at the anchorage. Soon we had the welcome company of some of the Sister Service in our mess. The Navy were in trouble. Soon the be-whiskered commander broached his innermost secrets to us – he could get no birds for the Navy's Christmas dinner. Quickly we put his troubles to rest. ‘Stay to dinner with us and we'll fix you up.'The meal finished the guests were led away to dress their part. Decked in mufti with muffler and face blackened even the most senior member of the Senior Service was unrecognisable. Bungled into cars, off sped the party into the blackness of the night to a suitable distance where sins were untraceable and the forfeit taken would in some way balance taxes unpaid.