Blood's Campaign

by Angus Donald

  Jacob Richards, at least, was an Englishman. Sitting beside him, the lean Ordnance officer seemed eager, coiled, almost straining like a dog at the leash. Holcroft tried to concentrate as the Duke of Schomberg took a step towards the centre of the room and began to outline his strategic vision for the coming fight.

  ‘I am told by my scouts that there is an old bridge at the village of Slane, a few miles to the west, and also a passable ford at a place called Rosnaree, between here and the bridge. Based on that intelligence, I suggest we make a grand flanking march, with say, two thirds of our forces – say, twenty-five thousand men – leaving one third here to hold them, and the bulk of our forces heading west, crossing at Slane or Rosnaree and coming in round behind the enemy. We would have him trapped between two armies. Then we crush him!’

  Meinhardt Schomberg loudly agreed with his father.

  ‘My son would be the perfect commander to lead this grand flanking march,’ the Duke continued. ‘I would do it myself but this crucial and difficult manoeuvre needs a commander of sufficient youth and vigour.’

  ‘Nonsense – divide our forces in the face of the enemy? That would be sheer folly.’ Count Solms’s words were filled with derision. Holcroft had heard that he and Schomberg were bitter rivals for the King’s favour. ‘These Irish troops are undisciplined, they are weak, ill-trained. I say we go straight at ’em. Downhill and over the water in one huge determined push. They won’t stand.’

  ‘You gravely misjudge our enemies, my dear Count,’ said Schomberg. ‘They are not the raw, easily frightened troops of last summer. They have had a year to recruit and train their men, to put some fire and steel into them. It would be far better to try a more subtle approach. Meinhardt will lead two-thirds of the army around their left flank, crossing the river at—’

  ‘Poppycock!’ said Count Solms, and there was a general intake of breath at his crude language. ‘My Blue Guards are the finest troops in Europe. They will slice through these ragtag Irish like a swung sabre through soft cheese.’

  ‘I do not think you quite grasp, sir—’

  ‘What don’t I grasp, you old fool? I’ll have you know that I—’

  ‘Gentlemen, calm yourselves; gentlemen, if you please . . .’ William was making placatory gestures with his hands. Holcroft could see that any movement of his wounded left shoulder was causing him a great deal of pain.

  ‘I thank you both for your expert advice but I shall make the final decision. So, yes, flank attack or straight at them? Hmm – yes, this is what we shall do,’ said the King. ‘We shall indeed send a force, under Count Meinhardt von Schomberg, on a flanking march. That will distract our enemies. But we shall not be dispatching such huge numbers as you suggest, my dear duke, that would be a grave mistake, I feel. So, Meinhardt, dear boy, you may take only the right-wing of our cavalry and Trelawny’s Brigade of Foot with you – that will be about, um, seven thousand men, I believe, and you will seek a crossing where ever you can find one in the area of Slane or Rosnaree and once across you will menace the enemy’s open left flank. With the Blessing, it should draw off a portion of Jacobite forces from the centre. Is that clear? I shall have your specific orders written out for you later this evening.’

  Meinhardt Schomberg nodded obediently.

  ‘However, our main effort must be here, betwixt Oldbridge and Drogheda. The enemy are to our front and we outnumber them. This is where we shall beat them. I feel it in my bones: God will give us victory! General Schomberg, you will command the centre. I shall command the left wing myself. The plan is simple – the Blue Guards will attack the enemy centre and push across the Boyne. Meanwhile, I shall be advancing on our left and will hook round and attack their flank once they are engaged with the Blue Guards at Oldbridge.

  ‘The key to victory, gentlemen, will be timing. I require a full artillery barrage on the positions at Oldbridge to begin at 9 a.m. precisely – do you hear me, Major Richards? Your big guns will open fire at nine, and will continue to bombard the enemy in the centre at Oldbridge for exactly one hour. Destroy their defences, such as they are. At 10 a.m., the artillery bombardment must cease, not another shot, sir, if you please, and the Blue Guards will then make their advance across the Boyne. I do not wish my finest troops to be endangered by wild, ill-aimed cannon fire from our own side.’

  Holcroft sat up straight. Did the King truly think the Ordnance were so stupid as to fire on their own attacking men? He felt more than a little insulted.

  William was oblivious to his indignation. ‘I shall, of course, already be in position by the Yellow Island, ready to cross and flank the Jacobites when they are fully engaged in the centre. Ginkel’s cavalry brigade will be on my extreme left, attempting a crossing nearer Drogheda, which will allow them to swing round behind them and cut off their retreat. But all this depends on timing, gentlemen. At about ten of the clock, I am reliably informed, the river will be at its lowest ebb. Easily passable. That is when we attack. God willing, we have a great victory in our grasp – but timings, gentlemen, must be observed.’

  Holcroft was still hearing the phrase ‘wild, ill-aimed cannon fire’ echoing in his mind. He stood up and, raising his hand like a schoolboy, he said: ‘Am I right to suppose, sire, that the artillery will fire only between nine and ten?’

  ‘Yes, ah, that’s correct,’ the King peered at him, ‘Captain Blood, isn’t it?’

  ‘I mean, sire, what should we do after that? Sit on our backsides? Merely observe? Should we not harness up our light pieces and follow the advance?’

  ‘You will do as you are damn well told, Captain Blood.’ The Duke of Schomberg clearly had not forgotten Holcroft’s misbehaviour at Carrickfergus. ‘The King has given you his orders. You will rain fire on the enemy between the hours of nine and ten; that is all that your King requires of you.’

  ‘With the greatest respect, sire, is that not a waste of our superior artillery power? We have forty guns to their – what is it, five, or maybe six pieces?’

  Jacob Richards was tugging urgently at his sleeve, and hissing in his ear for him to be silent and sit down. Holcroft ignored his friend.

  ‘If, after ten o’clock, sire, we were to harness some of our light guns to their horse-teams, the Falcons, perhaps, or maybe a six-pounder Saker, we could follow in behind the advancing troops and give them the support of our guns. We could bombard any defensive positions that the enemy might seek to hold as they retreat, or simply attack their infantry and cavalry rearguard formations. We might be able to make any victory you win, sire, more complete. If you recollect, it was the enemy’s ability to move their guns quickly, sire, that gave you such discomfort this morning.’

  There was a shocked silence at Holcroft’s effrontery. It was tantamount to lèse majesté. Was this fellow mocking the King’s honourable wound?

  Jacobs gave a low groan of despair.

  King William looked hard at Holcroft but said nothing. He was thinking.

  ‘Captain Blood, this is no time for you to be advancing your peculiar notions about gunnery,’ said the Duke of Schomberg. ‘The position of the guns has been set out clearly. The best position. You are not to shift them during the battle. This is not Carrickfergus and the Train is not an eight-inch mortar.’

  ‘No, Your Grace, with the greatest respect, this is not Carrickfergus. This is not a siege. This is a battle. Sieges are static – a fortress does not move about during the course of the day; on the battlefield movement is key for the infantry, and the cavalry – so why not for the artillery too?’

  ‘Silence! You will be silent, sir! The King has given his orders. He does not wish for you to quibble and argue, question his royal commands . . .’

  ‘One moment, my dear General Schomberg,’ said the King. ‘I like the idea of a mobile artillery force. It is novel. Revolutionary, you might even say. It could be useful being able to bring up the guns to where they are needed. But tell me, young man – Captain Blood – if you were to move the light cannon – the Falcons, yo
u called them – if you were to take them down into the thick of battle, what would prevent enemy cavalry from overrunning your guns and capturing them, killing you and your men and bearing the guns away as a battle trophy?’

  ‘Until quite recently, sire, we had a battalion of infantry that was raised specifically to guard the guns. The Royal Fusiliers, sire. That was their task. However, they were sent as line infantry to the Low Countries, to fight under Lord Marlborough’s command. The artillery is bereft of them.’

  ‘Do you criticise the King’s decisions?’ Schomberg had by now worked himself up into a rage, under his huge wig his face was a rich purple colour.

  ‘I merely request that a small force of infantry be assigned to protect the guns. A well-trained company, armed with the latest flintlocks would be best.’

  ‘You have a particular unit in mind, Captain Blood?’ said the King.

  ‘As a matter of fact, sire, I do.’

  *

  Holcroft’s horse Chestnut picked his way through the dark village of Tullyallen, and, as he approached the inn on the left where many of the officers of William’s army were quartered, the door swung open and a man, a major, very drunk, stumbled out. He squinted up at Holcroft, a tall shadow on his big horse in the dancing orange light of the inn’s wall torch, and said ‘No popery?’ as if it were an important question requiring a serious answer.

  Holcroft touched his hat politely, said ‘No, sir. None at all,’ then kicked Nut into a gentle trot that bore him away from the drunken fellow. There would be many men this night who would drink their fill before they slept, knowing as they did that tomorrow might be their last on this good green Earth. Holcroft did not despise them for their weakness. He had seen the carnage of battle several times and its horrors never became acceptable to his mind. He had seen brave veterans torn and bloody, screaming for their mothers’ succour; and the cavalry horses with their bellies ripped open, still standing, shocked, stunned by the agony, uncomprehending, with their intestines dumped in a steaming pile by their hooves. He’d seen a drummer boy dying slowly, moaning over his folded arms with a musket ball in his groin. Holcroft would have a tot before he slept tonight too. But not yet. He had work to do before he retired to his tent.

  To his right, he passed the black bulk of the church on the skyline. Candle light gleamed from the windows and he caught the faint sound of singing. A service in progress. Religion was the other great comfort that many fighting men sought on the edge of the abyss. Others would be rutting with their wives or lovers this night – finding their solace there and obeying the eternal urge to procreate in the face of Death. He wondered what Caroline was doing now.

  A few days after the battle and she would have her hands full. The wounded officers of William’s army would begin coming up to Belfast within days; by ship, if they were lucky, by road on a rumbling, juddering ox cart, if they were not. His time in her care in the castle now seemed to be a distant dream, the pain and fever forgotten; her presence a light in the darkest night.

  He felt a shaft of guilt then. He had thought of Caroline first, not of his wife Elizabeth. Why was that? He had not so much as kissed Caroline, he still had no idea if her feelings for him went beyond friendliness – and he was married to Elizabeth, and had lain with her in their conjugal bed on countless times, making love, trying unsuccessfully to make a baby inside her. Why did Elizabeth not spring first to his mind in this time of great peril? He knew the answer, of course, in his secret heart – but he did not want to own it.

  He saw the lane ahead, and the gate with a pair of sentries, where he had been told it would be. He reined in Nut and peered through the gloom of night at the two men in grey uniforms with dark turn-backs standing with their muskets across their chests. The man on the right was a huge hulking shape.

  ‘That you, Joe Cully? Standing stag on the eve of battle, when every man in the company is drunk or asleep.’ The proximity of Death made Holcroft loquacious. ‘Good fellow. Unless it’s a punishment. You’ve annoyed Sergeant Hawkins, haven’t you? What d’you do, Joe? Drunk and disorderly. Brawling?’

  *

  As he stepped off his horse and handed the reins to a familiar grey-coated Inniskillinger, the sense of homecoming was, for Holcroft, quite overwhelming. Seeing the same old faces for the first time in months: there was Sergeant Hawkins, standing in the fire-glow with a ladle in his hand over a cauldron of gin punch, with Francis Waters, seeming somehow older and longer, lounging on a pile of straw, and the others too, McNally and Burns with sprigs of green tucked in their hatbands. And a few new faces as well. Good men. His men.

  He accepted a mug of punch and gave them the news: that the fourth company of Tiffin’s Regiment would be detached from the battalion to guard his guns in the coming battle.

  ‘Does that mean, sir, that we won’t be fighting tomorrow?’ said McNally, a cheerful rogue, red of head but black of heart.

  ‘You won’t be part of the main assault. But I do have permission to move the light guns forward, if the frontal attacks are successful and the enemy is pushed back. And if the guns go into the field you lot will be given the task of protecting them – and me and the other gunners.’

  ‘Be a shame to miss all the action,’ said Sergeant Hawkins, his face red as a cherry from the punch. ‘I’ll enjoy giving yon Papists a good thumping.’

  Despite his words there was relief in his tone. ‘You may well get that chance, Sergeant,’ said Holcroft. ‘We’ll be in the thick of it, I’d say.’

  ‘So you are taking over command of the company,’ said Lieutenant Waters. Holcroft knew that Francis had been put in temporary charge of the fourth till a new captain was procured from somewhere, but Colonel Tiffin had either forgotten that they lacked a company commander or did not much care.

  ‘You will be in charge, Francis,’ he said, ‘but you’ll report to me. I won’t bother you, though. I’ll be busy with the guns. The men are still in your hands.’

  Holcroft saw the happiness on Francis’s smooth face. He knew that for decency’s sake the young man could not be raised up to captain so soon after his elevation from ensign, but he also knew that it was unfair to ask a lieutenant to permanently shoulder the company commander’s job.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to give you something, sir,’ said Francis. ‘Something you lost at Cavan.’

  The lieutenant disappeared into the darkness and Sergeant Hawkins began to regale Holcroft with his version of events after he had been laid low on the battlefield at Cavan, some of which he already knew. The Williamite infantry assault had utterly smashed the enemy line on the ridge, with the Duke of Berwich’s men fleeing back into the town and some taking cover up into the ancient fort of Tullymongen on the heights. Cavan had then been sacked, with the Inniskilling men running wild, a disgraceful display of indiscipline.

  The redcoats and the Inniskillingers – those who had survived the brutal assault – had released their terror in an orgy of wanton destruction. They had looted and raped with abandon, drunk anything and everything they could get their hands on and finally set light to some of the town buildings – and then they had nearly been annihilated when the Irish had summoned their courage and counterattacked in force streaming down the hill from the old fort.

  It had been touch and go for a while – but the Inniskillinger companies had somehow re-formed, drunk as they were, and eventually fought off the resurgent enemy with their well-drilled volleys. Fortunately, most of the Jacobite cavalry was already fleeing south to safety, and when Brigadier Wolseley had finally brought up his own horse and re-established control of the town, the battle was over. It had been a victory of a kind that bloody day but, by the time order was established, the town was merrily aflame and Cavan had to be swiftly abandoned, with all the troops pulling back to the safety of Belturbet that night.

  ‘Here you are, sir.’ Lieutenant Waters was back in the circle of firelight. Some of the men found this on the ridge after the fight and I kept it for you.’

 
He handed Holcroft the Lorenzoni repeating pistol, which had been cleaned and polished to a high shine. ‘I had a gunsmith look at it in Belfast, sir – he was amazed, sir, quite amazed by the mechanism – but he fixed it up and now it’s nearly good as new.’

  Holcroft was touched by this kind gesture. He held the unusual pistol in his two hands, his fingers stroking the octagonal barrel, his head bowed over it almost as if at prayer – and felt for the first time in an age the prick of hot tears. He fought them back, blew his nose on a dirty kerchief, and muttered thanks. But that piece of intricate steel and wood in his fingers suddenly brought all the emotions of that terrifying day at Cavan roaring back – the sight of Narrey in his black cloak and hat galloping away as Holcroft stood impotently among the corpses of the enemy line; Major du Clos turning his horse, charging at him. The awful moment when the Lorenzoni had seized, the lever jammed, and he had looked into the orange blossom of flame; into the eyes of Death.

  Narrey. The murderer. Holcroft’s hatred, long held in abeyance during his recovery in Belfast came creeping over him like the soft hand of a lover, seizing his insides in a cold black loathing. Where was the bloody Frenchman? Was he, even now, down there on the far side of the Boyne with the Irish troops preparing for battle? Would he see him tomorrow? Perhaps within pistol shot? Perhaps, if God was good, there’d be a reckoning between them. Tomorrow.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Tuesday, July 1, 1690: 8 a.m.

  Henri d’Erloncourt, relaxed in the saddle, toyed with one of his leather gloves and watched King James out of the corner of his eye. The monarch was seated at a folding table at his breakfast outside his travelling house, a wooden box on wheels, in which he had passed some of the night in a comfortable bed. Behind the King loomed the old church of Donore on the summit of the hill. It was a quarter past eight of the clock yet already the morning mists were lifting to reveal the promise of a bright, hot and beautiful day.