o
covered with dust were they that he thought both were in khaki. One was
a military cadet who had been captured by the Sinn Feiners, the other
was the Sinn Fein leader De Valera. "Hullo!" cried De Valera. "Who are
you?" replied Dr. Keogh. The response was, "I am De Valera," from one,
and from the other it was: "I am a prisoner for the past five days. They
want to surrender." Dr. Keogh replied that Sir Arthur Ball, who was in
the hospital, would make arrangements. Then the military came up, and
after some preliminaries the Sinn Feiners were marched out of the
dispensary and conveyed to Lower Mount Street. The hopelessness of the
Sinn Feiners was exemplified in some remarks dropped by De Valera.
"Shoot me," he said, "if you will, but arrange for my men." Then he
added, walking up and down: "If only the people had come out with knives
and forks."

I saw Dr. Keogh immediately after this, and he told me that De Valera
had complained bitterly that the "English" had continuously violated the
white flag and Red Cross, but we could testify to the falsity of this by
our own experience, the whole staff having time after time complained
that shots appeared to go right across the hospital--and, in point of
fact, the right wing of "Elpis" Hospital is simply peppered with
bullets--in fact, the wounded Tommies "sunning" themselves on the
hospital roof of Dun's had been deliberately fired at till they went
down, though I must admit that in this case the Sinn Feiners could
hardly have been able to make the distinction required of them. A short
while later I saw the professor himself--a tall man, hatless and in the
green uniform of the Volunteers--pass along Mount Street with a lad with
a white flag, going to point out the positions of the snipers from the
factory.

For a moment the soldiers thought he was about to "betray" his pals to
save his own life, and, I was glad to notice, instinctively looked with
contempt upon him; but the truth of the general order having gone out to
surrender soon became known, and as the line of captives marched by the
soldiers for the first time got a real look at these men who had, so to
speak, staggered the Empire.

Weak, poor, ragged--some cripples; one, his whole face a mass of
bandages--I never saw a more reckless or determined body of men in my
life, and they contrasted strangely with the placid demeanour of their
conquerors. Each marched with a certain lightness of tread--greybeards
who no doubt