the dead--some of them mere
boys of thirteen--and laid them out in dread rows like a Raemaeker
cartoon.

One lad of twelve whom I carried in I afterwards interrogated as to why
he was out in such an exposed position. He wanted to give a poor Tommy a
drink, and got sniped as he was preparing to get down to the water of
the canal.

The Dardanelles had been forced, however, and the highway into Dublin
secured.

All Wednesday night the whole town was kept awake by the snipers, who
now became one of the main features of the turmoil; they seemed to be
everywhere, but it was almost impossible to locate them.

Troops lined the streets in the direction of Merrion and Fitzwilliam
Squares, and were picked off from windows and roofs all night in the
most bewildering fashion, while the slum courts in the centre of the
large blocks of buildings re-echoed with the sharp click of the old
rebel mausers, till the military were tempted to fire on any strange
figure looming up in the distance.

During the night several transports had arrived, we now heard, and the
troops soon began to land in force.

All Thursday I spent with the Red Cross at Sir Patrick Dun's, which was
crowded with casualties, poor fellows! one raving and asking "Is the
school taken?--is the school taken?": for this point had been the
strategic point in the Battle of Mount Street Bridge. It was pathetic.

All day long the troops arrived, but whenever crossing the side streets,
which were slums honeycombed with snipers, they would have to "double"
and rush across in single file; but each time one or two were picked off
by the deadly snipers, all firing from cover, with thick lead bullets
that spread and made dreadful wounds--some, inches wide. In the yard the
Raemaeker picture of the dead soldiers--Sinn Feiners--was broader by
some half-dozen: for several had died of wounds during the night. The
small boy who had been sniped while trying to get the soldiers a drink
lay stiff now, and my mind went back to the scene of the night before as
I made a little space of a couple of yards in the corner of the crowded
ward, with everyone lying on the floor, while the good priest anointed
him just before he died.

All day long and all around there was a perfect hail of bullets from the
snipers, some going right through the hospital grounds from Boland's
bakery, which, sandbagged and loopholed, was filled with Sinn Feiners.
It was a terrible fight, for of course it was next