consisted of fifty men, and the story said that fifty men were killed.




CHAPTER III

WEDNESDAY


It was three o'clock before I got to sleep last night, and during the
hours machine guns and rifle firing had been continuous.

This morning the sun is shining brilliantly, and the movement in the
streets possesses more of animation than it has done. The movement ends
always in a knot of people, and folk go from group to group vainly
seeking information, and quite content if the rumour they presently
gather differs even a little from the one they have just communicated.

The first statement I heard was that the Green had been taken by the
military; the second that it had been re-taken; the third that it had
not been taken at all. The facts at last emerged that the Green had not
been occupied by the soldiers, but that the Volunteers had retreated
from it into a house which commanded it. This was found to be the
College of Surgeons, and from the windows and roof of this College they
were sniping. A machine gun was mounted on the roof; other machine guns,
however, opposed them from the roofs of the Shelbourne Hotel, the United
Service Club, and the Alexandra Club. Thus a triangular duel opened
between these positions across the trees of the Park.