The leader’s idea was to give his men much-needed rest and amusement for a few days, and then to try and ambush the Auxiliaries; and probably they could have spent quite a long time resting here without the Auxiliaries having the slightest suspicion of their near presence. But war seems to be made up so largely of “ifs,” and the “if” in this case proved to be Father John.
When out riding on his rounds one morning, the priest noticed that most of the young people of his parish appeared to be gravitating in their best clothes towards Glenmuck, and suspecting a poteen orgy, he sternly commanded a young damsel to tell him why she was going to Glenmuck, and the girl told him. Father John rode straight back to Annagh, to be just in time to stop Jones from starting off on a raid in the opposite direction.
Jones first sent off a Cadet on a motor bicycle to Blake at Ballybor, sending him a verbal outline of his plan of attack on Glenmuck, and asking him to co-operate with the Auxiliaries from the other side of the mountains. He then turned out every Cadet in the place, left M’Andrew’s house empty to take care of itself, and made off at full speed in the direction of Glenmuck with the priest acting as guide.
They reached the nearest point to Glenmuck on the road at noon, and after leaving a small guard over the Crossleys, the rest of the company set out in open order across the mountain for the flying column’s lair.
The gunmen had had great luck in the south for a long time, and their luck still held. A youth, making his way across country to get a sight of the wonderful gunmen, happened to look behind him when on top of a rise, and saw about a mile away the oncoming Auxiliaries. Being a sharp youth he realised who they were, and ran for the village as fast as his young legs would carry him, and by chance ran straight into the leader when he entered the outskirts of the place.
Reaching the hill above the village the Auxiliaries made a last desperate rush down the slope, in the hope of catching the gunmen scattered in the different cottages, and so mopping them up before they could get together; but by this time the flying column had taken up positions on the top of the far slope above the village, and as the Cadets reached the cottages they came under heavy machine-gun fire.
