Читать книгу Ireland in Travail онлайн

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In the disturbed areas the life of the Crown forces was unbearable. Not a man, woman, or child but had been taught to look on them with contempt and hatred. They found themselves picked off as opportunity availed, and they were powerless to say whose hand had pulled the trigger, though probably every villager knew, and knew the road the gunman had taken.

They were out in all weathers patrolling the roads and scouring the country for the phantom army, which never materialised, though it left frequent marks of its presence in trenches dug at the turn of roads, in trees felled across the path, and in walls torn down for an obstruction. Indeed, at any hour, at any favourable spot, it might materialise, round a sudden corner, over the shoulder of a hill, from some wooded height above the road. A volley of shots would pour down, and the gunmen would make away across country, of which they knew every inch of ground. The nerves of the police must have been stretched to the breaking point during those patrols, so that hate was breeding in them like maggots in meat.