On the ground floor of the big building were lecture-rooms and a museum; up-stairs other class-rooms, laboratories, and the library. On the third floor were the caretaker's rooms and a kitchen where our first-aid and despatch-girls took possession and cooked for the others as long as anything remained to cook. Lastly came the garret up under the roof. To shoot from the roof itself quickly became impossible, since our men were easy targets for the gunners on the Shelbourne. As soon as one of our boys was wounded, we knew they had our range, and decided to cut holes through and directly under the sloping roof. Here we could shoot in perfect safety while remaining unseen.
On Wednesday there was little despatch-bearing to do, so I stood around watching the men up there at work. The countess realized my impatience to be doing my bit, also my hesitation at putting myself forward to ask for permission. Without saying anything to me, she went to Commandant Mallin and told him she thought I could be of use under the roof. He gave his permission at once, and she brought me the answer.
Madam had had a fine uniform of green moleskin made for me. With her usual generosity, she had mine made of better material than her own. It consisted of kneebreeches, belted coat, and puttees. I slipped into this uniform, climbed up astride the rafters, and was assigned a loophole through which to shoot. It was dark there, full of smoke and the din of firing, but it was good to be in action. I could look across the tops of trees and see the British soldiers on the roof of the Shelbourne. I could also hear their shot hailing against the roof and wall of our fortress, for in truth this building was just that. More than once I saw the man I aimed at fall.
[Illustration: STAMPS ISSUED BY THE IRISH REPUBLIC]
To those who have been following the Great War, reading of thousands and hundreds of thousands attacking one another in open battle or in mile-long trench-warfare, this exchange of shots between two buildings across a Dublin green may seem petty. But to us there could be nothing greater. Every shot we fired was a declaration to the world that Ireland, a small country but large in our hearts, was demanding her independence. We knew that all over Dublin, perhaps by this time all over Ireland, other groups like ours were filled with the same intensity, the same determination, to make the Irish Republic, no matter how short-lived, a reality of which history would have to take account. Besides, the longer we could keep our tricolor flying over the College of Surgeons, the greater the chance that Irish courage would respond and we should gain recruits.