were wrecked and so many lives and stores lost, that he was obliged to desist and convey everything by road and lane as it would have been in old times. But this did not mend matters much: wherever trees grew across his route, they fell with a crash and blocked the way; very few of the scouts he sent forward on horse or bicycle came back; ammunition waggons blew up unaccountably, for no man was detected tampering with them; after dark, sudden volleys were fired into the troops passing narrow places, by bands of marauders who knew the country well and easily escaped; in short, the march was more or less of a fight and loss all the way. Eventually Midleton was reached, and the general position of the invader was ascertained. The wires of the south-western main line had not been destroyed, and the British commander sent a small body, escorting telegraph clerks, to hold Mallow Junction, that this means of rapid communication with England might remain intact. Meanwhile, on the night of the 11th, a boat had been got out with despatches to the Admiral, instructing him to force entrance to the harbour on the morning of the 13th, by which time the army should be ready to co-operate with the fleet.
As remarked before, these tactics were very rash. With an inferior force in an unfriendly country, defensive operations only should have been undertaken until the invader had been placed in straits. But that sort of thing was not to the taste of Redhill nor of hismen. Audacious foreigners were profaning the sacred soil of the kingdom, and they must be driven into the sea without ceremony; so caution was thrown to the winds, and glory was the order of the day.
Deploying from Midleton toward Roche’s Point, so as to rest his left upon the cliff south of and contiguous to Trabolgan wood, and his right upon the slanting, copse-sprinkled ground which descends irregularly from the S.E. to White-
