These police patrols never had a dog’s chance, and should have been discontinued long before they actually were.
At first the murderers did not trouble to make sure that they had a perfectly safe line of retreat behind them when the location of these cowardly ambushes was chosen, but after a few failures they made no mistake in future, the line of retreat, either through a thick wood or down the reverse slope of a hill, being always the first consideration.
Married police living in houses or rooms in the town of their station afforded an easy and safe target for the venom of these hooligan shop-boys and farmers’ sons. At first the police used to go home unarmed, and used to be shot down in the back while passing along an ill-lighted street or lane, or the assassins would knock at the door of the policeman’s home, and if he came to the door would fire at him and then run away.
Occasionally, in districts where the standard of bravery was very high, all the Volunteers would collect in a small town after dark—always after dark—and carry out an attack on the local police barracks. They knew perfectly well that it was impossible for the police to leave their barracks owing to the smallness of their numbers, and that as long as they kept well under cover (which they did) they were just as safe as they would be in their own beds at home.
These so-called attacks on police barracks simply consisted in gangs of hooligans first taking careful cover in houses adjacent to the barracks, and then firing off as many rounds as they possessed. They always ceased fire long before daybreak, in order that they might be home in good time before it was possible for the police to leave barracks or a relief party to arrive on the scene.
At this period of the war, raiding the houses of the Loyalists for arms, and incidentally for money and valuables, not forgetting drink, was a much safer and more remunerative night’s amusement than shooting policemen or attacking barracks, though the price then was £60 for every policeman murdered.
A party of twenty to thirty Volunteers, usually boys from fifteen to twenty years of age, would meet at a fixed rendezvous some time after dark with all the arms they could raise. They would then don black cloth masks, turn up their coat collars, pull their hats down, and sally forth to spend the night robbing, murdering, and terrorising the unfortunate Loyalists of the district.