by Angus Donald
At dawn’s first light, with Blood bound tightly to the back of a tethered horse and watching in angry silence, Sarsfield and Hogan had ordered their men to fill each of the big cannon’s barrels with gunpowder – right to the brim and packed down tight, for they had captured more than a hundred and twenty casks of the explosive – and they then rammed the gun barrels into the soft earth, and piled all the rest of the powder, match, broken wooden gun carriages, empty wagons and equipment over the top, creating a huge flammable hillock as big as a house. The draught horses and oxen had mostly fled during the battle; and it would have taken too long anyway to hitch up the gun carriages and bring the guns over the Silvermine Mountains and across the Shannon into County Clare.
They laid a forty-yard powder trail and hastily mounted up. Patrick Sarsfield’s men and the raparees galloped off, a great, dusty, thunderous cavalcade, leaving Hogan and his prisoner alone. As Hogan crouched by the small pile of black powder that marked the beginning of the trail, with a battered tinder box in his hands, he said: ‘You best get ready to ride hard, Major. This will make a din that will be heard by every living soul from here to Limerick. And your boys will be on us like a wasp swarm on a broken pot of honey.’
Holcroft said nothing in response. He stared hard at Hogan. His hands were tied and lashed to the pommel of his saddle. His legs were roped together under the horse’s belly. The horse, a dun mare, was tethered securely by its reins to a stout alder bush. If this Irishman expected him to ride hard, he was going to have to explain that to the horse.
A spark struck, flint on steel, and the pile of gunpowder burst into fizzing, smoking life. Hogan freed Holcroft’s horse, kept hold of the dun’s reins and swung up into his own saddle. ‘Be a good lad and keep your seat – and don’t give me any trouble, Major Blood, or I’ll happily put a pair of bullets through your kneecaps, and you’ll still have to ride. Now, let’s get going!’
Seeing the glow of fire running merrily along the train of powder towards the mound of cannon, wagons and equipment, Holcroft was content to put as much distance between himself and the coming holocaust as possible. He gripped the horse with his thighs and, at Hogan’s command, they set off at a fast canter.
They managed to put a good half mile between them and Ballyneety Castle before the explosion. But when it came the noise – a great, shattering whump – felt like the rending of the earth. Holcroft felt the force of the blast like a hard slap on his whole back, his ears rang like church bells, his vision swam sickeningly before him. The horses – his and Hogan’s – panicked, kicking out and snorting with fear, and then began galloping across the open fields, with Holcroft having to use all the strength in his legs to remain in the saddle. After two miles, Hogan mastered his mount and got Holcroft’s mare to finally cease her headlong flight. They paused by a thick hawthorn hedge; Hogan exultant: ‘Did you ever hear such a thing?’ he said. ‘I’ll warrant that there never was a louder bang in all recorded time. Never!’
Holcroft scowled at him: he could imagine the state of his eight big guns, their brass barrels splayed open like flowers by the force of the explosion, those beautiful machines rendered for ever useless. No more than scrap metal.
‘Don’t go all sad and sulky on me, Major. We’ve a long ride ahead of us and I can’t abide a companion who doesn’t provide some light diversion on the lonely road, a little amusing conversation to pass the time. A joke or two.’
Hogan was leading them to a gate in the field and, once through, they entered a muddy track through a dark and tangled wood. Holcroft was damned to Hell if he would provide amusing conversation – or, God forbid, jokes – but he did have a host of questions that he urgently wanted his captor to answer.
‘Where are you taking me?’ he said.
‘Over the hills and far away,’ said Hogan. ‘Isn’t that what you boys like to sing on the march – when you’re off to slaughter some poor bloody Irishmen?’
Holcroft knew the tune; he had heard it sung by the redcoats on the march to the Boyne. ‘You consider that an amusing topic of conversation?’ he said.
Hogan looked at him. ‘Granted, it’s not the wittiest jest I’ve ever made. Can you do better, sir?’
Holcroft could not. He looked at the rising sun to his left and said: ‘We are heading more or less due south. So . . . are we going to Mallow, or Fermoy, or somewhere else on the Blackwater River?’
‘Further than that. But, tell me, Major, if you don’t like my cracks about your butchering soldiers, would you like to hear a few choice jests about your sweet King Billy, the cheeky wee mouse who’s gobbled up all of the cheese?’
Holcroft said: ‘Mouse? Oh, yes, a cheese-eating Dutchman. I understand the joke. So witty. I collect then that you love King James, Major Hogan, is that so?’
‘Hmpff,’ said his captor.
‘I’ve heard your countrymen now call him Séamus an Chaca, after his performance at the Boyne – how would you put that into English, I wonder?’
‘That’s enough conversation,’ growled Hogan. ‘Now shut up and ride.’
*
The two men rode all day, stopping only once at noon for watered ale and bread and cheese from Hogan’s saddlebags. The ropes were badly chafing Holcroft’s wrists but he was too proud to mention his pains to the Irishman. They saw patrols of English cavalry in the distance – the noise of the explosion must have been heard far and wide, as Hogan had said – and the cavalry were out in force in the hunt for Sarsfield and his men. In the afternoon, they had to hide in a barn off the road, while a squadron of English redcoats trotted past, with Hogan holding his pistol to the back of Holcroft’s head and whispering dire threats of extinction if the Englishman made the smallest peep.
They swung west, almost as far as Killarney, to avoid the patrols, and dusk found them on the Blackwater River, making camp in a wood near the water’s edge. It was only then that Hogan noticed the fresh blood on Holcroft’s wrists.
‘You’re a damn fool. You should have said something,’ he muttered. In the dying light, filtered through the trees, he made Holcroft swear that he would not attack him or try to escape that night. ‘I want your true word of honour, Major Blood,’ Hogan said sternly. ‘Give it to me and I will tend your wounds.’
Holcroft was exhausted, weakened by blood loss, and hungry. He reluctantly gave his parole not to attempt violence against Hogan nor try to flee from his captor until dawn. Hogan dressed his wrists with a concoction of goose fat and herbs, bandaged them, and checked the bullet graze on his forearm, and bandaged that too. He gruffly said that Holcroft might remain untied till the morning. ‘Break your word and God will smite you – that is, if I don’t get ye first,’ Hogan said, before sending Holcroft off to gather firewood.
There was a moment, when Holcroft was out of sight of the camp with an armful of broken branches, when temptation seized him. What if he ran now? Hared away into the trees and kept on running? Hogan would be unlikely to find him . . . But Holcroft was essentially a man of rules, of laws, of order. He had given his word. He sighed, picked up a final branch and began to walk back to the camp. It was only then he saw Hogan, five yards away, half hidden by a thick trunk, watching him and holding a cocked pistol upright in his hand.
They ate a thin stew of boiled dried beef strips and spongy carrots and settled down on either side of the small fire. Hogan pulled out a bottle of some clear spirit from his pack, took a huge swig and offered it to Holcroft.
The Ordnance officer drank, coughed like a dying beggar, felt his eyes smart and stream with fiery tears and said, ‘What the Hell is that? Gin?’
‘Poteen,’ said Hogan with a wink. ‘Fine stuff. Put hairs on your arse.’
They sat in silence for a while, then Holcroft said, ‘We are going to Cork, aren’t we?’
‘That we are.’
‘But why? What’s in Cork? Why was I not taken to Limerick? To your main army? Are you worried you’ll lose me when the city falls?’
Hogan chuckle
d. ‘Limerick won’t fall,’ he said. ‘Not now. Not this year.’
‘You think you can win this war?’
‘It’s not impossible. And I – and many good men like me – will fight until we rid Ireland of the last Englishman. Your people have no business here.’
‘My father was an Irishman – he never claimed to be English.’
‘Is that so?’ said Hogan. ‘Blood, Blood . . . I knew some Bloods over in County Clare. A man called Neptune Blood. Some of your brood, perhaps?’
‘My father’s family came from there.’
‘They were double-damned Protestants, of course, godless heretics to a man, but not such bad people, down in the bone. Wild as devils when the drink was in them, and a little too proud, but not bad folk. I’ll admit that to you now.’
They sat in silence for a while, passing the liquor, watching the fire.
‘Cosy, isn’t it,’ said Hogan. ‘A fire and bottle at the end of a long day’s ride – what else does a man need, eh?’
Holcroft said nothing.
‘There are folk who say every man needs a woman and I can’t deny the pleasure of a good wench. But this is fine and dandy, too.’ Hogan drank again.
He passed the bottle to Holcroft. ‘So what do you say, Englishman?’
‘About what?’
‘You got yourself a woman? Or are you a fire-and-bottle man?’
Holcroft said nothing for a spell but it was clear that the man was attempting to be friendly and he could see no harm in being civil to his captor.
‘There is a woman in Dublin that I . . .’ He stopped. How could he tell this hairy bandit how he felt about Caroline? ‘There is a woman in Dublin who is under my protection. At least, she was, until . . .’ Holcroft trailed off.
‘Under your protection, eh? Is that what you lusty English fellows are calling it now? She got a name, this beautiful lady who needs protecting?’
‘Caroline Chichester.’
‘Jesus! Not her. Lady Caroline. Belfast girl, brother’s Lord Donegall?’
‘You know her?’
‘I don’t know her. But she does have something of a reputation.’
Holcroft was suddenly angry. ‘What the Devil d’you mean by that, sir?’
His unbound hands were clenched into large fists. And he saw that Hogan had his hand on his horse pistol.
‘Easy, now, Major Blood. No need to fly off the handle. Have yourself another drink and we’ll just let the subject drop. All right?’
Hogan passed the bottle left-handed, his right on the gun. Holcroft drank.
They sat quietly for a few moments then Holcroft said: ‘So, why Cork?’
‘There is a man there, a Frenchman, who says he wants to speak to you,’ said Hogan. ‘And he will pay handsomely for the privilege. That’s why.’
Despite the warm night, the heat of the fire and the poteen in his belly, Holcroft felt an uncomfortable chill run down his spine.
‘A Frenchman,’ he said. ‘Red hair, short stature, very fancy clothes, goes by the name of Narrey or the Comte d’Erloncourt? Yes?’
‘That’s the fella.’
‘You know that he’s likely to murder me, don’t you?’ said Holcroft.
‘Maybe,’ said Hogan. ‘That’s for him to decide. But I will promise you this: I’ll not harm you unless you try to run from me. Remember your parole.’
*
Despite his exhaustion, Holcroft slept badly that night. He thought once again about breaking his word and running from the Irishman but his honour kept him where he was – that, and the paradoxical thought that he was, in fact, being brought face to face at last with the man who had been responsible for the deaths of Aphra Behn and less directly Enoch Jackson. Perhaps there might be some way he could strike a lethal blow at the murderous spymaster, perhaps . . .
After a cold breakfast they crossed the Blackwater and rode south-east. Hogan insisted – at pistol point – that Holcroft allow his wrists to be bound again. ‘It never does to strain a man’s word of honour too far, Major Blood,’ he said jovially as he tied the rope. ‘We are all of us only human!’
When they stopped for a drink and to rest the horses a few miles north of Cork, Holcroft made a last attempt to persuade the Irishman to set him free.
‘Why are you doing this, man? You are taking me to my certain death.’
‘For the best reason there is, Major, for gold. Narrey has promised me a hundred pounds for your head. That is an offer I’d be foolish to turn down. You possess the most valuable poll in Ireland, Major. A fortune on your shoulders.’
‘If it’s just about the money, I’ll give you two hundred to set me free.’
‘Got all that coin in your pocket, have you?’
Holcroft sighed. ‘I’ll write you a promissory note. For three hundred.’
‘I’ll take Monsieur Narrey’s cash in hand, Major, if ye don’t mind.’
‘How can you serve this foreigner, this Frenchman, and do his bidding? You claim to be a patriot, you claim to want to rid the land of foreigners . . .’
‘The enemy of my enemy, Major.’ Hogan sounded irritated. ‘And who are you to accuse me of serving a foreigner. How English is your King Billy, eh?’
*
They entered Cork by the North Gate and clattered their horses down the main street. The Irish redcoats on the walls and the ordinary townsfolk in the main thoroughfare gawped at Holcroft, a big man, hatless, scarred shaven head with his tied hands before him, his horse being led by the Irishman. Holcroft racked his brains for a way to break free.
They stopped about halfway down the street and turned left into a wide open courtyard with several large brick buildings – soldiers’ barracks by the look of the flags on top and the redcoat sentries outside them – and a grim medieval-looking round stone tower in the north-east corner set into the city’s wall. They dismounted, with Hogan helping Holcroft to climb down from the saddle, and then the Irishman bundled him towards the ancient tower by the scruff of his coat and pushed in through the open iron-bound door.
‘I’m here to see the Frenchman,’ said Hogan to a bald clerk who sat at a lectern just inside the door. ‘Comte d’Erloncourt. They tell me this is his lair.’
‘On the first floor,’ said the clerk. ‘But I should warn you, sir . . .’
‘I’ll find it,’ said Hogan. He frogmarched Holcroft up a spiral stair that followed the tower’s curving wall, past several noisome cells populated by a half dozen malnourished prisoners, who stared at the two of them mutely from the bars as they passed by. Then Hogan crossed the landing, knocked briskly at a plain wooden door and, without waiting to be invited, pushed his way inside.
Holcroft, who had been bracing himself for another sight of his enemy, was surprised to find himself face to face with a powerfully built man in his early twenties, with cropped hair, a lumpy, badly scarred face under a shapeless cap of the kind worn by French fishermen or sailors.
He looked round the room. To the right of the door was a broad shelf on which Holcroft could see a jumble of ironmongery: chains, manacles, spare keys to the cells, a broad surgical knife, a pair of heavy pincers, what looked very much like a rusty thumbscrew. He looked away hastily and fixed his eyes on the scarred, tough-looking young man, who was leaning casually against a beautiful escritoire, a carved desk, painted and inlaid with polished ivory and walnut. He had a bottle tipped up to his lips. He ignored them till he had drunk his fill then:
‘What the fuck do you mean by bursting in here, you ill-mannered turds?’ he said in a gutter dialect of Parisian French. ‘The fuck you want here?’
‘I’m Mick Hogan. Where is Monsieur d’Erloncourt? I must see him now.’
The man put down his bottle on the top of the escritoire. Holcroft could not help but think of the ugly ring the wet bottle would make on the inlaid wood.
‘Ah, yes, of course,’ the French sailor said in English, wiping his mouth on his ragged sleeve, ‘you are Hogan, the one who gall
ops about. The monsieur has spoken often of you. It is a pleasure, sir, to make your acquaintance.’
‘Where’s your man?’
‘Not here,’ he replied. ‘My name is Matisse, I have the honour to serve monsieur le comte. He’s been summoned to Limerick by General Lauzun.’
‘Is that so?’ said Hogan, with a grim smile. ‘Well, I’m not lugging this awkward bastard all the way back up there. So I will put him in your charge, Matisse. Take very good care of him or you will pay for it with your life. You hear me? Monsieur d’Erloncourt has promised me a hundred pounds in gold for his head. And I shall claim it in due course. You can tell monsieur le comte that I shall require cash for the Englishman’s head. But that I’ll throw in the neck and the rest of his body absolutely free. Gratis. It is my gift to him.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
Saturday, August 23, 1690
The constant noise of the big English guns had given Henri d’Erloncourt a monstrous headache – and this was only the first day that they had come into action against the decrepit walls of the besieged city of Limerick. He sat at his desk in the side of the room at the top of King John’s Castle, and cradled his sore head in his hands. It did not help.
The Frenchman had been surprised by the speed with which the great guns that General Sarsfield boasted of utterly destroying had been replaced. The Duke of Tyrconnell said the replacement Ordnance had probably been brought across from the fortifications of the city of Waterford, which William’s men had captured shortly after the battle of the Boyne. But Henri suspected that not all of the big guns at Ballyneety had been completely destroyed, the astounding success that Sarsfield claimed for his daring raid notwithstanding.