gave me the white coat of an
ambulance worker, and within five minutes we were all on the bridge
together.

Anticipating us all, however, were two little girls of sixteen and
seventeen--Kathleen Pierce and Loo Nolan by name--who rushed out of the
throng with water in a jug for one of the wounded Tommies who was lying
across the bridge bleeding.

A great shout went up from the crowd as they saw this, and both
combatants ceased firing, and, after having given the soldiers a drink,
they came back amidst the cheers of soldiers, crowd, and Sinn Feiners
alike, and they are now known as the bravest colleens in Ireland--God
bless them! But little as they realized it, the danger was considerable,
and it must ever reflect to the credit of Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital,
that scene of the young nurses who flocked out in a body, in spite of
the hail of bullets which passed over them and around them on every
side. For, try as they would, the two sides could not completely cease
fire when every second and every yard was a question of life and death,
defeat or victory.

Never shall I forget the experience--the whole staff of doctors gave a
hand, together with a clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Hall, of St. John's
Voluntary Aid Detachment. I was with Councillor Keogh myself, and poor
Hylands, who was afterwards killed, with whom I bore a stretcher,
continually bringing in wounded between us. In little over an hour we
brought in about seventy poor fellows, who lay about all along the road
and canal banks, heavy packs upon their backs.

At last, however, when we had cleared the road of wounded, about dusk,
there came a shout from Captain Melleville: "Now, lads, up and all
together!" Immediately there was a simultaneous rush across the
bridge--a tactic which should have been adopted from the very first.
Some dropped, but the numbers were too many for the handful of snipers.

We moved aside to give them room, and the next moment the bombers were
in the garden of Clanwilliam House--one poor fellow falling and blowing
the top of his head off at the gate with his own grenade.

There was a "Crash! crash! crash!" as the windows burst with the
concussion, and within a few seconds the sky was lit up with the flare
of the burning houses and the air rent with the screams of the Sinn
Feiners as they faced cold steel. It was a ghastly scene!

The smell of roasting flesh was still around the blazing buildings at
ten o'clock, when we brought in the last of