They looked up as we stood just inside the door discovering what had happened to us, and beckoned us to the fire. We joined the sad circle.
“Have you got in here, too?” said a dark fellow like a Spaniard.
“It looks like it,” I answered, gaping at the desolate prospect.
“They found some ammunition under somebody else’s bed and said it was mine.”
My listener looked respectful. “Ammunition! That’s bad,” he said.
Everybody was smoking. The smoke curled up and made the thick air thicker. O’Grady pulled a pipe out of some part of him, and I found a cigarette.
“How long are we going to be here?” I said.
“Sure and it’s the same day sometimes, or it’s two days or three days.”
“Indade, and if you can explain things you can go. And if you can’t it’s to Ballykinler Internment Camp you go.”
“Sure, and I hear tell it’s not bad in summer. Plenty of sports and games, and a chap gets a rest; but it’s no place at all at all in winter, but wind and rain.”
“They got me on Monday. They had me up for interrogation two days ago and put me back. They put you back to find out more about you. One of them says to the other, reading it off a paper, this man’s a lieutenant in the I.R.A. Their intelligence men are very good.”
The man like a Spaniard spoke. “When they got hold of me one man said to the other, ‘Take care of this fellow, we want him. He’s a prominent Sinn Feiner.’”
I found everybody rather inclined to hint at his value as a Republican; but I had no intention of following the good example when I went up for interrogation. I found in these people the trait common to all men who come together in difficulties. They made a great show of cheerfulness and good humour, finding a joke in everything and laughing at nothing.
At long intervals a new prisoner came through the door, and eventually the number had grown to thirteen. The arrival of a new companion always wakened us up for a little, and then the spell of the place fell on us again. The atmosphere was too devastating to think in, to read in; we passed the time on our backs, pacing up and down in twos or singly, now and then wearily playing cards and sleeping. And everybody who was not asleep smoked until the air was like a fog.
Lunch time came. A couple of us went away under escort and returned with two tin dishes laden with food. There was food and to spare, and good food too; but strange are the ways of Dublin Castle, and there was nothing to eat it off or with. Among thirteen people there were three or four plates, a couple of knives, a couple of forks and a spoon. We had to eat in turn. I saw that my turn never came. If you keep a bird in a cage you should see that the cage is clean. These people, who were of inferior social position, two were railway porters, may not have been squeamish; but the conditions were unnecessary, and gave the Sinn Fein party a genuine handle for their propaganda. There was a gallon of tea for us, and not one cup, and an apologetic sergeant could only produce five jam jars of different sizes. Yet countless prisoners have lain in Dublin Castle.