"WILD IRISH BOY"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23339, 6 May 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

"WILD IRISH BOY"

Never Betrayed Though Price l Was Twice An Irish soldier of fortune, Mr. Terence McGovern, has twice had a price put on his head. The firstUP time was during the Civil War in Ireland, and the second § during a revolution in South America.

AFTER the storming of the Dub- /\ lin Four Courts, he tells us in JL JL "it Paid to be Tough," just published in London by John Long, he escaped from' the city. Later, however, he returned in disguise and got in touch with Michael Colwork, detail, and taking risks. Pay-Rolls Captured Working under Collins' orders, Mr. McGovern engaged in guerilla warfare in the west of Ireland. He sprang ambushes, blew up roads and railway bridges, and captured mail-vans I raided and cleaned out fourteen banks in the area of my operations, and captured the whole or the ! J Tans English soldiers and the Black and Jans in that district. , , No wonder a price of £IOOO was put on his head, and £IOO on that of each of his officers. But he was never betrayed, and carried on until he was badly wounded and smuggled on to a ship bound for America. Having drifted down to Paraguay, Mr. McGovern was mixed up in an abortive revolution—and again badly wounded. With about twenty others who had picked the wrong side, he was cut off in a house on a plantation. Eventually they made a dash for a place where an engine and a flat-car were waiting for them. This is how Mr. McGovern picturesquely describes it: We were desperate, frantic men. with a firing squad or "noose awaiting us if any or us were captured. We charged like madmen. Nothing except; death could stop »is. On we ran as guns sputtered and cracked at ; ns from front, rear, and both sides, illuminating the fast-failing darkness—all that saved us. They reached safety, however, although Mr. McGovern nearly died on the railway journey. When he carne to his senses ho was lucky enough to find himself in a hammock with a beautiful girl sitting beside him: —

Encarnacicn. Here you arc safe but <• - 5 go hack to Paraguay there is a .ITU your head of 1000 dollars." ar d o* But . nobody had a chance tn „t . ilie reward, although Mr. Mef • later fought in the Bolivian against Paraguay. Some of his exciting adventures occurred was flying over the forests of the G Clmco. Once he was uj) with a named Kojas when the engine~2p£ out as they were climbing stoepK 2^ r felt a hollow feeling in my The bus, deprived now of all DGw*? .|W f "-- back on her tail, trembling in everi an she did so. IJojas fought the gtirtr '? got the prop below the horizon. n»Li?like a diving Lawk, the bus' nose * direct for a wooded hill below. "This is the end," he he listened .to the wind through the wires and struts..,' Kojas drop the joy-stick, knowing tW the controls were useless, and then wrap hi? arms round ahm,i'.? head. I ducked in the cockpit nrtd dSt-ir same. Felt one wine-tip catch in some i* tops. There was tha sound of smashing (£•; and wings. I felt myself lifted as if by » gigantic hand, clean out of the cocknil. hurled through the air into the midrt & trees and vines. They were both alive, however #ll* were rescued next day by another plane which saw their signals. Vs^'i Jumping Trains Jn the more "down" parts of W up-and-down life -Mr. McGovern,*|iai jumped trains in Canada and the United States. This method of trav. elling, though free, needs plenty 0 f nerve. As the train overtakes joii it thirty or forty miles an hour, t o '„ have to spring up and grab oni? of iron bars:— Yonr arms are nearly yanked 'lrom<*i» shoulder, dust and cinders clog your ww You hang on like a leech, then slowly WS your w-iy ci> to the platform. ft and are now 0.K.. until the next ym Then there's the same thing to do alKor« again. Yoa have to risk your neck in tfS way about every four hours of the twenir four during the trip. Mr. McGovern once got shut in 4 refrigerator-car loaded with halibut—and was nearly frozen _to death. He must have remembered this when he nearly died later in the stifling heat of the Gran Chaeo. But he seems to hare survived all the extremes oMife, "In his case,, as a writer in Joha O'London's Weekly savs, it not ionlj paid to be tough—it was absolutely essential!

The senorita smiled at me, Raylmr: "Yon must be very quiet. You have been very ill. My father thought that you would die when he brought you here from the train vith my cousin.". I asked her where I .was. "At my father's hacienda in Posades, in Argentine. It is just across the river from