War between England and Germany. That war
we had all heard of and knew was inevitable. The war of the ages was
imminent.
I had been free-lancing in Fleet Street for the past three months. Left
_The Daily Chronicle_ over the Home Rule questions, as well as other
things.
I was in Ireland for the Ulster gun-running. Ireland was a seething mass of
German-inspired sedition south of the Boyne. The authorities apparently
would not listen to the warnings of Ulster. But Ulster was ready for
anything. There were hospitals, clearing stations, bases. There were
despatch riders, signalers, transport men, all in readiness, besides the
ordinary infantry volunteers, who were pledged by all means in their power
to keep Ireland under the flag of the Union.
I was in a little country church one Sunday morning. A roll of a drum and
the skirl of a fife came wafting across the valley on the April breeze. The
minister paused a moment in his sermon. Two, three, half a dozen men rose
and softly left. They were going to the rendezvous in case of alarm. No one
knew what might happen. A conflagration might flare out at a moment's
notice.
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