Blood's Campaign

by Angus Donald

  On the way inside, at the doors of the ballroom, Caroline had been waylaid by Captain Waters, who had made an impertinent suggestion – one that she would not repeat – and having rebuffed him with a few choice phrases, she made her way, unescorted, out of the castle and down Dame Street to the Whale and Crow to wait for Holcroft’s return.

  ‘I will be no man’s whore,’ she told him, her face white with emotion, as they stood in the centre of the bedroom an arm’s length apart. Her brilliant blue eyes glistened with tears. ‘Neither will I be bullied into a grubby little marriage to some jumped-up powder monkey from the Ordnance – and a damned papist, to boot. I came to you, my dear Holcroft, to beg your protection. I know you are an honourable, decent man, a gentleman, and I place my person in your care.’

  Holcroft was battered by a gale of emotions. On the one hand, he was pleased and flattered that she should choose him for her protector in this unfamiliar city thronging with lonely lustful soldiers. On the other, his feelings towards her were far from being either decent or honourable: indeed, as he stared into her lovely, tear-stained face, he longed more than anything to clasp her in his arms and kiss her. That would not do. She would be no man’s whore.

  ‘You cannot stay in here with me but I shall speak to old Joe Murphy and arrange for you to take the room next to mine – you have a maid, yes?’

  Caroline admitted that she did and that she was lodged in an old house by the river with an ancient servant of her brother’s, a feeble old man, past seventy and nearly blind. ‘You shall all of you move into the Whale,’ Holcroft decreed. ‘Where I can keep an eye on you until I can arrange for you to travel safely back to Belfast. And I shall speak with both Francis Waters and Jacob Richards this day and make it plain that their advances are unwelcome and that you are not to be molested any further. Do not trouble yourself, my dear, I shall be firm and you will suffer no further affronts to your honour from either of these men.’

  Holcroft was as good as his word when it came to Colonel Richards. He sought out his superior officer in the Ordnance’s new headquarters in a set of cramped rooms in the west wing of Dublin Castle in the early afternoon. Jacobs was badly hungover and red-eyed from weeping, and before Holcroft had a chance to speak, Richards said: ‘I suppose you heard about it. Every awful detail. How I humiliated myself with Caroline. I suppose you have come to say: “I told you so”. Well, I can’t blame you. I’ve been a damn fool. No doubt all Dublin today is sniggering behind their hands at this love-struck buffoon . . .’

  Holcroft wisely said nothing.

  Richards snuffled a little, cleared his throat and blew his nose loudly: ‘You know the worst thing, Blood, the very worst thing about the whole horrible episode? She did not consider my proposal even for a moment. Not for a single instant did she think: shall I marry this gentleman? It was completely out of the question. It wasn’t even a question. And the look on her face, when I asked for her hand. It was a look of horror, as if I had suggested she lie down with a hog.’

  Richards, that controlled, taciturn man, went on in this sad vein for ten minutes or so, occasionally mopping his steaming eyes, before finally running dry of self-pity. He blew his nose one final time and straightened his spine.

  Then they spoke of Ordnance matters, of the complicated preparations for the transportation of part of the Train to Limerick under Blood’s command, and finally as he was about to take his leave, Holcroft said: ‘I must tell you this – you will hear it anyway, so it had better come from me: Caroline and her people are moving into the Whale and Crow, into the rooms next to mine.’

  Jacob Richards looked at him. His eyes narrowed briefly in puzzled anger and then his whole face fell apart. He looked defeated, utterly destroyed.

  ‘She is not my mistress, Richards,’ said Holcroft. ‘I swear to you. She asked for my protection, that is all. I’ll send her back to her family . . . intact.’

  Richards half smiled. ‘She is not your mistress,’ he said, ‘yet. But good luck to you, Blood. Seriously, I wish you joy. I shall never speak to her again.’

  Holcroft was unable to locate Francis Waters. When he called at the offices of the new intelligence department, he was told that Captain Waters was not in the castle that day. And when he pushed for more information, he was shown the door by a pair of burly Inniskillingers and told to take himself away.

  *

  It took a surprisingly long time for Holcroft to arrange passage back to Belfast for Caroline, her maid Henny and Stevens the old manservant. Raparee activity across the whole of Ireland had greatly increased since the battle at the Boyne, the numbers of these irregular soldiers swelled by desperate men from the Jacobite Army who had ignored the call to regroup at Limerick and who instead had taken to the bandit life.

  So, it was extremely risky to send Caroline home by land, unless Holcroft could drum up a sizeable armed escort, and the passage by sea between Dublin and Belfast – also not without risk from the French navy, which was resurgent in the Irish Sea after their great victory at Beachy Head – was booked for weeks in advance. The days passed, one after the other, after Caroline and her small entourage was ensconced in the Whale and Crow and every day, Holcroft’s efforts to arrange transport of whatever kind for the lady slackened a little more.

  In truth, he did not want her to leave. He was enjoying her company. She was subtle, graceful, soothing to be around. She did not intrude when he was working on his Ordnance papers, nor did she grow bored in her confinement and demand that he take her out to see plays or entertainments, to have dinner or to see the sights of Dublin. She was demure, humble, quiet – she was, in fact, Holcroft realised one fine morning, quite perfect.

  When he wished to speak about his Ordnance affairs or of his love for the great guns, she listened with fascinated attention; when he was busy, she kept her distance. She took over the role of supervising his wardrobe, sending his linen out to be cleaned and pressed, arranging meals to be delivered to his room when he was engaged in work, keeping visitors at bay, occasionally bringing him wine or some small treat when he had been too busy to eat all day. They had long conversations about her likes and dislikes: she revealed a deep love of Ireland, of its bogs and mountains, of the lush green pastures and bluebell-crowned woods. She loved its people, she told him, their humour and courage, their quiet enduring strength. She said that she could never live anywhere else.

  There were times when he was alone with her when he felt an almost overwhelming urge to embrace her, to kiss her and kiss her, and take her up and tumble her into his bed – but he found that the angry words she had spoken on the morning after the ball were somehow stuck in his head. I will be no man’s whore. Also, humming in the background was the ugly description she had used for Jacob Richards: some jumped-up powder monkey from the Ordnance. Was Holcroft, too, merely a jumped-up powder monkey in her lovely blue eyes?

  He made a few feeble efforts to secure her passage on a ship to Belfast, visiting the harbourmaster’s office every other day to make enquiries, but his heart was not in it. He could not help but compare Caroline with Elizabeth. He had loved Elizabeth, or so he had thought, but she had been a daily irritation to him. He was less troubled now with his decision to cast her off. Perhaps she would take up with the Dutchman, her lover Marcus van Dijk, and all would be well. He had received no reply to his letter.

  And so, with his own busy-ness preparing for the Train to march to Limerick, and Caroline’s quiet congeniality as his neighbour in the Whale, by the time he finally set off for Limerick, she was still firmly in residence in Joe Murphy’s establishment and likely to stay there till he returned from the siege. Surely that could not be too long. King William had sufficient men, he would shortly have the guns to breach the walls of Limerick, and with luck the whole business could be swiftly achieved and Holcroft could return to Caroline.

  In any case, since it was now nearly mid-August, the campaigning season would be over in a few short weeks whether Limerick was captured or not,
and the Williamite army would go into winter quarters. Holcroft allowed himself to contemplate the luxury of several months mewed up in the Whale with Caroline. There would be time enough then for plays, if she wished to see them, and fine dinners, and cosy evenings, just the two of them, by the fire . . .

  *

  Captain Thomas Pulteney cantered up to Holcroft’s position midway along the length of the lumbering Train. He was resplendent in a long scarlet velvet coat with golden buttons, a grey periwig and a hat with matching grey ostrich plume.

  ‘Major Blood, my scouts report that there is a ruined castle about a half a mile ahead, at a quiet, deserted place known locally as Ballyneety. I would suggest, sir, that we make camp there tonight. There is a spring and some shelter from the old tumbled-down castle walls, a few trees too for firewood. It is less than six miles from Limerick, or so they tell me, and if we bide there tonight we should be able to join the King and main force outside the city by noon tomorrow.’

  Holcroft looked at the sun, and to confirm, he pulled out his brass pocket watch. It was a little before six of the clock and darkness was about two hours away. Not enough time to reach Limerick – and they would need daylight to make their camp. ‘Very well, Pulteney, we shall make our camp at Ballyneety. You’ll oblige me by scouting the area thoroughly for enemy troops.’

  ‘Yes, sir. And the watchword, sir. What should it be tonight?’

  Holcroft considered for a moment or two. They had been using the names of Jacobite generals each evening as a password so that scouts and foragers could identify themselves when they returned to the camp. Last night’s had been Tyrconnell. The day before had been Berwick. It had been Lieutenant Claudius Barden’s idea – he was the second-in-command of the Train – to use the names of their enemies – probably a joke of some sort, which Holcroft did not truly understand. But one name was as good as another as a code word.

  ‘Let the word tonight be “Sarsfield”,’ he said. He remembered Caroline speaking of the dashing young Irish general in scathing terms on the night before he left her – a glory-hunting little popinjay, she had called him.

  *

  Holcroft lay in his blankets, half asleep, and looked at the bright scatter of stars overhead in the vast black sweep of sky. Nearly there, he thought, nearly at Limerick, and inside a week, or maybe ten days he would be riding back to Dublin, triumphant, the soldier returned from the war to his beautiful lady . . .

  It had taken the best part of two hours to get the Train encamped in the partial shelter of the old castle, in what would have been the main courtyard. But now, in the brief darkness of the summer night, the horses and oxen were tethered in the fields beyond the ruins, the tents were set up for the wagon crews, the campfires were lit, and Holcroft could hear the snores, and a few snatches of laughter and song as the men of the Train, the Ordnance gunners and the off-duty cavalrymen took their ease and smoked their pipes. There was a small, flat-topped mound of rock in the centre of the soft green turf of the camp, what would once, he assumed, have been the tower or keep of the fortress and to the west and north the crumbled remains of a low curtain wall, a few yards of tottering man-high stone here and there, with wide gaps in between. It must have been several hundreds of years since Ballyneety Castle had been capable of withstanding any kind of enemy attack.

  Holcroft had left the setting of sentries to Captain Pulteney, just this once, since they were so close to the main army at Limerick, and the cavalry officer had declared the area secure. And from time to time he saw a pacing musket-man at the fringes of the fire-lit camp. Lieutenant Barden had the first watch for the Ordnance and he had orders to wake Holcroft in three hours at midnight so he could take his turn on duty. Holcroft turned in his thick blankets to find a more comfortable spot on the spongy turf, closed his eyes, let out a long, long breath and went swiftly down into the deepest sleep.

  He awoke with the strongest feeling that something was wrong. He sat up, looked around. The camp was quiet, the fires had burnt low into grey embers. The men were fast asleep. He looked at the black sky and saw that the constellations had rotated halfway around the heavens. He had slept far too long. It was well past midnight. That lazy dog Barden had not awakened him. Probably sleeping himself. He sat up and pulled on his boots, struggled into his blue coat, buttoned it and tied the officer’s sash around his middle. He found the Lorenzoni and shoved it into his sash, slung his sword and muttered foul curses under his breath. This was too much – Barden must be disciplined for this egregious breach of military law. There was no excuse whatsoever . . .

  He jerked around at the sound of a sentry’s call. ‘Who goes there?’

  Holcroft saw a redcoat forty yards away, his broad back half turned to the camp, pointing his musket into the darkness. ‘Who goes there?’ he said again, an edge of panic in his voice. ‘Give the watchword or I shall fire on you!’

  Beyond the sentry, Holcroft could see shapes moving in the wall of grey. Horses, men on horseback, many men. He was immediately drenched in fear.

  A voice rang out, loud, Irish and proud: ‘Sarsfield’s the word . . . and Sarsfield’s the man.’ And there were suddenly scores of horsemen pouring into the encampment, halloo-ing, bright swords unsheathed. A wall of cavalry falling on them like a collapsing sea-cliff.

  Holcroft was shouting: ‘To arms, to arms, the enemy is upon us!’

  The Irish cavalry were in the rows of tents now, the horsemen slashing and stabbing at the befuddled wagoners and the half-dressed cavalry as they lurched awake. Many a sleep-drunk man stumbled to his feet only to be cut down an instant later. The horses trampled the tents, with men still inside them. The air was ripped with screams of terror and pain and the crack of horse pistols. There were hundreds of them, Holcroft saw, and more enemy horsemen coming in out of the darkness – the surprise was complete. He saw a rider coming for him, the man wielding a half-pike, tucked under his arm like a lance. Holcroft whipped out the Lorenzoni pistol, pulled back the cock, straightened his arm, aimed and shot the man through the centre of his chest. The horse thundered past, a foot from Holcroft’s shoulder, the rider stone dead and flopping in the saddle.

  Holcroft turned and ran for the stone mound in the centre of the courtyard, and scrambled to the summit. The horsemen could not easily follow him up there. He reloaded and cocked the Lorenzoni, and, holding the pistol in his left hand, drew his sword. He looked over the encampment and recognised that the battle was lost. The courtyard was filled with Irish cavalry, milling about, cutting down the men of the Train at will. His people were running, barelegged men in nightshirts, sprinting away from the horses, and into the darkness. Not all of them made it. Some were pistolled as they ran. Others were skewered on lunging sword-blades or trampled under the Irish chargers’ hooves. He saw Barden, dressed but coatless, running across a suddenly open stretch of turf, leaping a campfire. A horseman, a rascally fellow in a rusty coat and woollen workman’s cap, fired a pistol at Barden, and missed. The Ordnance officer ducked under a wagon, appeared on the other side and hared away into the night and disappeared. Holcroft breathed a sigh of relief.

  But not for long. A horseman was trying to coax his horse into climbing the rocky slope of the mound, ten yards from Holcroft. He shot the Irishman through the throat, and reloaded the Lorenzoni awkwardly with his sword hand. A simple twist of the lever. The mound was surrounded, with a dozen men all about, some trying to loose their pistols at him. One dismounted fellow in a grey coat, leather cross belts and red turn-backs was nearly up the side of the mound, a long sword in his hand. Holcroft coolly shot him in the mouth – the bullet smashing through his skull and spraying brains, teeth and gore out the other side. But Holcroft was taking fire too. A pistol cracked and he felt a tug as the bullet ripped through the flapping skirt of his coat. He felt the wind of another and a zip as it went past his ear. This is it, he thought. I’ll never see Caroline in this life again.

  Then a miracle.

  ‘You, sir, you on the
mound. Surrender, sir. I call on you to yield now. Drop your weapons immediately, sir, or I’ll shoot you down like a mad dog.’

  Holcroft stared at the speaker. He seemed somehow familiar. A broad suntanned face under a black tricorn hat with a pheasant’s feather, a green muddy coat, a horse pistol pointing at his head from a killing distance of fifteen feet.

  A pistol banged from behind Holcroft and he felt the punch of a bullet as it ripped though his wide yellow coat-cuff, just grazing the meat of his right arm, but knocking it hard enough so that the Lorenzoni flew out of his hand and clattered to the mound’s rocky floor.

  ‘Cease fire, you bloodthirsty bastards. Hold your fire, I say. This one is mine,’ the tanned fellow was yelling to the horsemen who encircled the mound. Then he said ‘Drop your sword, sir; surrender – or you will die this instant.’

  Holcroft looked at the encampment; he could see none of his Ordnance men, none of Captain Pulteney’s cavalry either. All were either dead or had fled.

  He opened his fingers and the small-sword clanged down on to the rock.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Tuesday, August 12, 1690

  Michael Hogan could see the pain in the face of the tall officer he had captured. Not that he cared a fig for the fellow’s discomfort. This Englishman – Major Holcroft Blood, he had confirmed as his identity – had killed at least three good men in the night-fight at Ballyneety, and had been responsible for dozens of the deaths of Hogan’s comrades at the ambush in County Cavan in the winter and at the bloody fight at the bridge of Duleek six weeks ago. But what intrigued Hogan about the fellow was that he seemed to feel more anguish at witnessing the desecration of the siege guns of the Train than he did at either his own wounded arm or at the sight of the scores of dead Englishmen, his own countrymen, who littered the torn turf of Ballyneety in the sunny morning.