by Angus Donald
They heard him, turned and galloped into the gloom, reckless of the low branches and the closeness of the trees, plunging into sudden darkness, out of sight from the road and their yelling grey-coated pursuers. Out of the corner of his eye, as he dived into the gloom, Hogan saw old Crookback Keegan away to his left smash his knee into a thick bole as his horse charged between two scabrous silver birches. The old man bawled out a filthy curse, his leg smeared and bleeding, jiggling loose and clearly badly broken. But they were deep in the trees and – Thank Mary, Mother of God – the dragoons were reining in, reluctant to charge after them into the tangled depths of the wood with the same reckless abandon as the fleeing raparees.
‘On, lads,’ Hogan shouted. ‘On and on. We must get distance ’tween us and those mad grey bastards.’
The fugitives needed little encouragement. They forged onwards into the stygian woods, at only a slightly lesser pace than before. The dragoons were out of sight by now, hidden by the trees behind, but Hogan had no doubt they would be following. His greatest fear was that they had been herded into this wood by design. Had the tall infantry officer planned all this? Would they emerge from the trees into the sudden roar of enemy musket fire?
‘West, boys, we must head west. That way,’ Hogan shouted, pointing to a deer track through the thick foliage, and at least some of the men heeded him. They’d go out of their way, sure, but not too far, the Protestants had occupied Belturbet in early December, which was a small town five miles in that direction, and he had no intention of running into one of their patrols in the state his men were in. But they could risk a little westering. Just a little. There were marshes and bogs and pools and ponds that would swallow any horsemen who did not know the country, and the River Finn as well to negotiate. They would head west. There was more danger in doing the obvious thing and heading due south on the main road to Cavan.
*
Informers. There could be no other explanation. Red-handed, Goddamned, Hell-bound informers. Somebody was peaching on them to the bloody English. Otherwise how could they know what road they would be on and when? Michael Hogan was determined that he would find out who and give them what they deserved for their treachery. The dusk was falling, and a thin cold rain, and Hogan could see the welcoming lights of Cavan up ahead. They were coming up to a small ridge on the Monaghan Road, and through the drizzle he could see the earthworks and ancient rotten timbers of old Tullymongan Castle up on his left on higher ground overlooking the town. They passed by the guard house, a tiny wooden hut staffed by a sergeant and two private soldiers, with a striped pole across the road. The pole was lifted. Nobody saluted.
Along the street, folk were poking their heads out of their front doors and windows, silently observing the soaking, dejected horsemen, noting their depleted numbers. Hogan did not bother to acknowledge the few souls brave enough to call out and ask for news. A rider in emerald velvet, one of Brigadier Wauchope’s officers, came cantering up the main street towards them, splashing through the puddles. He reined in by Hogan, and looked over the thin column of wet, wounded, exhausted men, sneering down his long Leinster nose, or so it seemed to Hogan. There was no love lost in Cavan between the raparees and the regular Jacobite troops commanded by John Wauchope, the town governor, a gruff Scotsman fanatically loyal to King James. Hogan decided that if the long-nosed officer made a single disparaging comment about his poor men he would pull out his boot-knife and stab him straight through the heart – to the Devil with the consequences.
But the man in green merely sniffed and said: ‘A visitor to see you, Hogan. A fancy little Frenchman from headquarters. He’s waiting in the Town Hall. Says it’s urgent. Arrogant sod but there is a smell of money on him, for sure.’
Hogan dismissed the officer with a wave of his hand. He turned his horse in the street and halted the bedraggled column. He waited till all the men were looking at him through the thickening veil of rain and spoke out bold and loud, so that all could hear: ‘We had some bad luck, today, boys. Terrible bad luck. We took some cruel knocks. But you’ve all played your part like men, like true Irishmen. No one could have asked more of you. And I’m proud of you all. Away to your hearths now, get dry and get some rest. Tomorrow is tomorrow and then we’ll see what’s what. Bless you all, lads, God bless you all.’
*
‘God bless you, Brevet Major Blood, that was fine work. Absolutely first class,’ said Brigadier Wolseley, shaking Holcroft briskly by the hand. ‘I understand that there were more than sixteen of these bandits killed outright by your men and we have another thirteen fellows in the cells down below, some who were wounded in the ambush and left for dead by their so-called comrades and some who were captured trying to flee cross-country by the dragoons. First-class work, sir. I take my hat off to you.’
Holcroft and Wolseley were in a corner of the great hall of Inniskilling Castle, enjoying a glass of claret before sitting down to supper. Outside the rain was lashing down, fit to frighten Noah himself, as Wolseley had put it.
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Holcroft. ‘You are most generous. If I may ask, what will you do with the prisoners?’
‘I shall hang them all in the morning and good riddance to them.’
‘Is it absolutely necessary to hang them, sir? They are, after all, enemy combatants, prisoners of war, and by all the usual rules, they should be—’
‘It is absolutely necessary to hang them, Brevet Major Blood. They are murderers and thieves who make war without uniform and with irregular, and I daresay, highly illegal methods. They rape and kill indiscriminately and are therefore no more than common criminals. Hanging is what they deserve and hanging is what they shall receive. I admire your tender heart, Blood, but I am somewhat surprised at your attitude. You have a reputation as something of a firebrand. I understand you were kicked out . . . that is, you were relieved of your position in the Ordnance, for personally attacking Jacobite prisoners of war after they had been granted parole. Is that not so?’
Holcroft sighed. He’d no wish to revisit what had occurred at Carrick.
‘That is so, sir. But with respect to these prisoners, sir, I should like to request a stay of execution. I wish to interrogate them personally over the next few days and weeks to discover what they know about the raparees of Cavan. About their operations, strengths, weaknesses . . .’
Holcroft, in truth, cared little for the fate of the thirteen men who had been captured – they were the enemy and they were, in truth, bandits, just as Wolseley had said – but he hated men to be unnecessarily killed when they were no longer a threat and he did in fact hope to gain intelligence from them.
Brigadier Wolseley grumpily agreed to delay their fates for a week or so until Holcroft had interrogated them all. The Ordnance officer thanked him distractedly – he had something far more important on his mind this evening. Indeed, the news Holcroft had recently received from Lieutenant Francis Waters had filled him with a sense of dizzying excitement.
‘Is there any news from Belfast, sir, about the matter I suggested to you?’ said Holcroft. Please let the answer be yes, please God. He struggled to keep his face calm and relaxed. The answer to this request was of vital importance.
Two days ago, Francis Waters had woken him before dawn and told him that their man in County Cavan – an innkeeper called James Mulligan who had a profound love of money and an illogical hatred of his jolly, raucous customers – had some intelligence for them. Jim Mulligan ran a modest establishment outside Cavan, in a one-horse hamlet called Drumalee Cross, and many of his patrons were drawn from the few hundred Jacobite officers and men stationed in and around Cavan. Mulligan supplied ale, wine and brandy, and powerful home-made poteen, too, if required, along with simple meals, bread and cheese, bacon and cabbage, stews, soups and so on. He listened all day to the bored soldiers as they ate and drank, boasted and bickered with each other and passed on what snippets of gossip he had picked up to Lieutenant Waters’ man, a Protestant baker from Fairtown who visited Mu
lligan’s every morning to supply him with fresh loaves of bread.
The gossip that morning was this: a very rich, red-haired Frenchman had come to Cavan. He had taken rooms in Brigadier Wauchope’s big house next to the Town Hall and looked set to stay put for a while. They said he had brought firearms and money for the godless raparees – although why that rabble should be so honoured was a mystery. An important fellow, this Frenchman, with a fine carriage, which sported the gentleman’s coat of arms: a pair of red foxes on a blue background . . .
It was Narrey. Henri d’Erloncourt was in Cavan. No more than thirty miles away. Holcroft was sure of it. And he looked set to remain there.
‘So have you, sir, have you had a reply yet from Belfast?’ Holcroft could not stop himself repeating the question. ‘Have they said we may attack Cavan? It is the surest way to wipe out this scourge once and for all. I’m sure you agree, sir. We must burn the raparees out of their nest as soon as possible.’
‘Oh, I quite agree with you, Brevet Major. Take them where they roost, while they sleep. I completely agree. And so, as it happens, does headquarters. General Schomberg has embarrassed himself mightily at Dundalk. He’s got nowhere and his poor men have been dying like flies all winter from the bloody flux. He badly needs a victory or King William will surely replace him with someone more competent: so he has, in fact, given his permission for this Cavan attack of yours. But it’d damn well better be a great success or else.’
Holcroft let out a heavy breath. ‘Thank you, sir. You’ve no idea how . . .’
‘Wait a moment, Brevet Major Blood. Not so fast. We’ll move on Cavan, as General Schomberg desires, the moment the weather begins to improve – but we are not going off half-cock. I want you to plan this properly. We will use Belturbet as our forward base and I want to know everything there is to know about the strength of the enemy before we commit ourselves . . .’
But Holcroft, filled with a glorious, up-bubbling of joy, was no longer listening to his superior. At long last, revenge was almost in his grasp.
Chapter Ten
Tuesday, February 11, 1690
Something was wrong. Badly wrong. Holcroft’s intelligence had been clear, and had been confirmed by various sources, including several of the raparees still held in the dungeons of Inniskilling Castle: the Jacobite garrison at Cavan had no more than seven or eight hundred effectives, mostly raw, barely trained, ill-equipped infantry drawn from all over Ireland. But the fat columns of men now pouring out of Cavan – to form up in their companies and regiments north of the town on a slight ridge that crossed the Monaghan Road – contained many more than seven hundred men.
And they kept on coming.
Holcroft watched them with his brass spy-glass take their places on the ridge from three quarters of a mile away, sitting on the back of Nut as his own men of the second, fourth and eleventh companies of Tiffin’s Regiment of Foot marched past. Had he been tricked? Had Narrey deceived him again? Had Henri d’Erloncourt somehow persuaded all his informants to give Holcroft the same false information – to lure him and Wolseley to their doom? It was just not possible. Narrey might have got to one agent, perhaps even two. But there was no way he could have unmasked and turned half a dozen of Holcroft’s informants without his knowledge. No, this was something else.
The force commanded by Brigadier Wolseley, which had marched out of Belturbet the evening before, had seemed formidable: a thousand infantry drawn from the Inniskillingers and Kirke’s Lambs, as well as other English regiments, strengthened by two hundred Dutchmen, a double company of the Blue Guards, King William’s elite shock troops. This infantry column had been screened by three hundred cavalry, two troops of Inniskillinger dragoons and three of crack Danish heavy cavalry. Hoping to surprise the garrison at Cavan – which they believed they easily outnumbered – instead of coming directly south-east on the main road, they had taken a long and tiring detour east, crossed the River Annalee at Bellanacargy and come in towards Cavan from the north-east. At a little after dawn, they were marching up the Monaghan Road only a mile or so out from the town and it seemed that their precautions had all been for nothing. The garrison was apparently well aware of their advance and it seemed it had also been forewarned of their attack and massively reinforced.
Brigadier Wolseley came clattering up and reined in beside Holcroft. Without a word, Holcroft handed him his brass telescope and the commander inspected the ridge before them. ‘Bit of a cock-up, Blood, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Holcroft was aware of a sinking sensation in his belly. He knew that Wolseley might decide that the odds against them were too great and choose to withdraw without a shot being fired. Indeed, were it not for the fact that he was almost certain of the presence of Narrey in Cavan, Holcroft would have been tempted to do the same.
‘Where did they find so many men?’ Wolseley asked.
‘My guess, sir, would be that the Duke of Berwick marched north and joined them with at least two regiments, maybe three, and a sizeable force of cavalry. There are nearly two thousand men on that ridge. And I think, sir, that you might be able to make out Berwick’s standard in the centre.’
‘Yes, I see it. Royal arms as befits the bastard son of James, red, blue and gold.’ A moment later Wolseley took the glass from his eye and said: ‘They are well prepared for us. Were we betrayed, Brevet Major?’ He looked at Holcroft.
‘I don’t believe so, sir. Although we may have been spotted on the march. You can’t move a thousand men even on the back roads without making some clamour. I believe the Duke of Berwick’s appearance here at this time is just bad luck. Mind you, our attack would have been fairly simple to anticipate.’
What Holcroft refrained from saying was that he should have anticipated the reinforcement by Berwick’s men himself. If Narrey had taken up residence at Cavan, it was for a good reason – probably because he was planning larger, more damaging raiding expeditions into the soft underbelly of Ulster. And if that were so, he would probably have demanded additional troops for the task.
‘Well, we’re here now, Brevet Major. The question is: can we beat them?’
Holcroft took back his glass and looked up at the thick ranks of men on the ridge. Their lines were shaky, their formations blurred, crowd-like. There were dozens of men wandering in between the regiments looking for their place. They possessed no artillery, not one single gun – which was good. But then neither did Wolseley.
‘Yes, sir. We can beat them,’ Holcroft said, with a confidence he did not feel. He asked himself if he was doing this because Narrey was here. Because if they fought and won, Narrey would be in his sights. No, they could win the day.
‘Do you truly believe so, Brevet Major Blood? They outnumber us at least two to one and they have the higher ground in their favour.’
‘That is so, sir. But if we retreat now, we shall all feel defeated. The men will be ashamed. Morale will plummet and they may never find the courage to fight well again. I say we attack today. And I should like, sir, to lead the infantry assault personally. If I may. If you will permit me that honour, sir.’
Holcroft felt better after making this offer. If he were planning to risk the lives of so many good men because of his selfish desire to get into Cavan town, the least he could do was to risk his own life alongside theirs.
‘I believe you’re right. We must attack. And I shall take you up on that gallant offer, Brevet Major Blood. You will command the centre: your Inniskillingers and two companies of Kirke’s Lambs and I’ll give you all the Dutch Blue Guards, too. On my signal, march your men up there on to the ridge and punch a hole through the middle. I shall follow you with the rest of the assault force and we’ll sweep ’em all away like cobwebs before a good-wife’s broom. You will do that for me, Brevet Major Blood, will you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good man. We’ll make our dispositions here, all along this hedge line. I believe I’ll soften them up with our cavalry. Let the dragoons and the Dan
ish knock some of the impudence out of them first. Right, get it done then, Brevet Major. I shall be observing from that hill. And don’t make a mess of this.’
*
Michael ‘Galloping’ Hogan looked down at the lines of enemy infantry in the road below the ridge, now making their dispositions along a thick hawthorn hedge that marked the boundary of a muddy cow pasture. A much smaller force, by the looks of it. Any commander in their right mind should beat a hasty retreat when faced with such an imbalance. But these men it seemed were determined to fight. Were they confident in their superiority, man for man? Or were they arrogant idiots, who did not understand that they were overmatched?
Hogan had been ordered this day to take his place on the extreme right of the Jacobite line, in command of the whole cavalry contingent: his own fifty-strong band of mounted raparees, whose numbers had recently been reinforced by a score of new recruits from his old haunts around Tipperary and Limerick, as well as a full regiment of the Duke of Berwick’s Horse – a grand title for a ramshackle force of two hundred mounted Catholic gentlemen, proud owners of small parcels of land mostly around Dublin with a sprinkling of well-to-do merchants and lawyers from the capital city itself. Each gentleman trooper was able to supply his own horse and two remounts, and possessed a servant and at least a sword and a pistol or two with which to defend himself. They came to the battlefield dressed in all their finery, velvet and silk surcoats, topped by long, flowing, leather-and-wool rain-proof cloaks, and broad-brimmed felt hats with extravagant ostrich plumes dyed all the colours of the rainbow. Some wore bits and pieces of mail or plate armour, some ancient, some even medieval – pauldrons, vambraces and the like – as well as more modern steel lobster-pot cavalry helmets, leather gauntlets, long black riding boots. These gently born horsemen were eager for a fight, eager to prove their manhood, and that eagerness allowed them to swallow their resentment at being commanded by such a low-born bumpkin as Mick Hogan.