Blood's Campaign

by Angus Donald

  ‘You must allow me to pay you for your trouble,’ Holcroft said when he’d donned the wonderfully familiar coat and could finally work his tongue again.

  ‘Now, Major Blood, it wouldn’t be a gift then, would it?’

  ‘I have so much kindness to repay you, Mack,’ he said. ‘I have been your guest for so long. If there is ever anything I can do, you must let me know.’

  ‘Well, since you are kind enough to offer . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The English soldiers are now in the city, Major Blood. They are looting, stealing whatever they can. They broke through this morning, with heavy casualties – they say the Duke of Grafton, the son of old King Charles, was killed before the walls. There is a lot of anger – well, I don’t have to tell you about the passions of war. There are Danes and Dutchmen running riot and—’

  ‘You wish me to arrange protection for your people and your goods?’

  ‘That would be most kind, Major. And thereafter we would consider any obligation you might feel towards us fully repaid.’

  ‘Consider it done, sir,’ said Holcroft. He slung his stolen sword over his shoulders and began to button up the front of his blue coat – a beautiful, warm, homecoming feeling, like a mother’s embrace. ‘Can you tell me where the English have made their headquarters, Mack? I’ll go to them straightaway.’

  ‘Why, sir, they are just where you would expect – in the Governor’s House, the big white building on the main street, up towards the North Gate.’

  *

  Cork was receiving its punishment for resisting the foe. As Holcroft walked briskly up the main thoroughfare that led from the South Gate to the North, he saw the full chaos of a city in the throes of a sack.

  Drunken redcoats stumbled about, their arms full of stolen merchandise; out of the corner of his eye Holcroft thought he saw a couple rutting shamelessly in a graveyard, with other men standing around and cheering them on. There were bodies lying here and there, some dead, some just dead drunk.

  One bald man had swathed himself in long bolts of purple and white silk, like a Roman senator, and was capering on top of a carriage while one friend played a fife and a skinny, tear-stained drummer boy rapped out a dancing beat on his skin. Men fired off their muskets into the air in celebration, sang wild tuneless snatches of their marching songs. One house had been ransacked, doors and windows hanging open, another next to it was filled with laughing redcoats gleefully carrying out furniture and piling it in the street to make a celebratory bonfire. Someone had rolled a barrel of ale out of a ruined tavern across the street and was hacking at it with an axe. A gang of men around the barrel – some still bleeding from minor wounds taken in the assault – were waiting eagerly to dip their mess tankards into the smashed open top.

  A lurching Dutch sergeant, his blue coat open to the waist, approached Holcroft and asked his business, then asked if he were a God-damned Papist. Holcroft brushed him aside and when the man seized his elbow, Holcroft turned and knocked him down with a fine right to the side of the jaw.

  When he reached the Governor’s House, he saw a formed company of redcoats guarding the door, sober and under strict discipline. He gave his name and rank and was ushered into the building.

  Once through the doors, he was waved by a redcoat towards a huge reception room, where a servant in immaculate forest green livery offered him a brimming glass of Champagne – which took him rather aback, although he accepted the fizzy wine gratefully. Such gentility after the chaos in the teeming streets of Cork. He recognised that a sort of informal party was in progress with more than a hundred officers from dozens of different units celebrating the victory in their own way. A string quartet was playing too loudly in the corner of the long room. Knots of men were talking and laughing together, the Champagne was flowing with dozens of servants circulating with full trays.

  His eye was drawn to the blue coats and yellow turn-backs of the Ordnance, his comrades: there was Jacob Richards with roly-poly Claudius Barden, who seemed to be telling some sort of joke. Richards was laughing uproariously anyway. And there was Francis Waters, now wearing the sash of a captain, and engaged in a serious discussion with the Duke of Würtemberg-Neuenstadt and Meinhard Schomberg, son of the dead Master-General of the Ordnance, and an older Danish commander whom Holcroft did not recognise.

  He spied the Quartermaster Edmund Vallance, that damned thief, who seemed to have collared a bottle of Champagne to himself; he was taking animatedly to a guards lieutenant, wagging his finger like a conductor’s baton.

  Paul Smithson, the Protestant merchant who had been imprisoned in the cell beside him in the Old Tower, was collapsed in a large chair, unconscious.

  There were so many other faces he recognised: Sir William Russell, Colonel Harry Fenton, Brigadier-General William Wolseley, who gave him a cheery wave from across the room. Yet Holcroft suddenly felt stricken with a paralysing shyness – these were his people but he felt he did not know them. He did not know who to speak to first; he felt excluded from their merry ranks because of his weeks’ long absence from the war. How could he join in their celebrations when he had not fought at Cork, nor captured it?

  ‘Good day, Hol,’ said a voice behind him. He turned and there was Jack Churchill, the Earl of Marlborough himself, the victor of the hour, grinning at him from a yard away with a half-empty glass of Champagne in his hand.

  ‘Oh, Jack,’ said Holcroft. And at the sight of his old, dear friend all his silly qualms seemed to fade away. ‘I am so very glad to see you.’

  ‘And I you. I heard you were dead,’ said Jack, frowning at his friend. ‘I saw your name on the missing list after the affair at Ballyneety and my heart almost stopped. You look thin and pale. You’ve been a prisoner, I take it?’

  ‘Yes, but more recently I’ve been in hiding in the cellar of a tavern called the Dolphin. Which reminds me: can you arrange for a squad – a half company, say – to guard it? The people there were very kind to me and I am beholden.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Jack. He beckoned a red-coated junior officer, an aide of some kind, and gave him his instructions.

  As he was talking to the aide, Holcroft saw a vision of beauty in clinging blue silk approaching him. Diamonds at her slim white neck and glinting in her night-dark hair, which was swept up and piled on top of her head. It was Caroline, his Caroline, and her grace quite took his breath away. The sudden urge to kiss her struck him like a blow – he’d never felt it more strongly. He felt dizzy from the mere sight of her lovely face.

  ‘Darling Holcroft! I’ve been worried sick – I heard you were dead, and then captured, and imprisoned. I cannot tell you how happy I am to see you returned to us unscathed. I have missed you so much, my dearest friend!’

  She put a cool hand on his, and squeezed. He felt the jolt go up his arm.

  ‘You must tell me all about your adventures, I cannot wait to hear them. But first, my brave protector, I need you to do one tiny thing for me. You see the young man over there: Lieutenant Barden is his name, one of yours, isn’t he?’

  Holcroft nodded.

  ‘Well, I regret to tell you that he is no gentleman. He seized me the other day, quite roughly by the shoulders, and tried to kiss me, while we were resting on a blanket after riding in the woods together up by White’s Cross. Dear Holcroft, would you be kind enough to tell him that he must behave himself. Admonish him. I know he would listen to you. Talk to him sternly; tell him that he must curb his foolish notions.’

  ‘You went riding in the woods with Lieutenant Barden? Is that correct? Alone? And during this jaunt, while you lay down together on a blanket, he tried – unsuccessfully – to kiss you?’

  ‘Yes, he suggested that we go on a picnic, and it seemed such a jolly idea while the sun was shining, that I said yes. And then, well, as you said . . .’

  ‘And it did not occur to you that young Claudius Barden might take your easy acceptance to mean something more was on offer than a jolly excursion?’

/>   ‘Why no, I expected him to behave like a gentleman. What are you saying, Holcroft? If you’re going to be difficult about this, I shall ask someone else.’

  ‘I’m saying, Lady Caroline, that I am sick and tired of your manipulations. You are a beautiful woman – you know that. You must also recognise that you flirt and tease men shamelessly; you give them false encouragement. Naturally, they fall in love with you; they seek more than your friendship. I do not condone Lieutenant Barden’s actions. But I understand them and believe that you, yourself are at least partly to blame. So, no, Lady Caroline, I will not admonish Lieutenant Barden for you. I will not tell him to curb his foolish notions. Furthermore, I must tell you, Caroline, and make you comprehend it fully, that from now on you may no longer consider your person under my protection.’

  ‘Holcroft, how can you be so beastly? I thought we were friends.’

  ‘Madam, you will bring disaster down upon yourself if you continue to behave towards men in this fashion. And you will bring death to any man who tries to be your champion. Either he will kill or he will die as a result of your games. Why on earth do you not pick out one man from among your admirers – and marry the poor fellow?’

  ‘Where would be the fun in that?’ said Caroline, her cold blue eyes like drawn daggers. And without another word, she turned and swept away.

  Holcroft found that his heart was beating like a kettledrum, the blood pumping hot in his veins. He felt breathless, clammy – also strangely, joyously victorious. He was aware that Jack was standing silently at his shoulder.

  ‘Dangerous woman, that,’ Jack said. ‘She only arrived in the camp a week ago and already half my junior officers are in love with her.’

  ‘Tell them to steer well clear of her. She is poison,’ said Holcroft.

  ‘They won’t listen.’

  ‘No,’ said Holcroft. ‘I don’t suppose they will. Tell me, Jack, who is that tall, blond, one-legged man over there by the orchestra? He seems to be staring at me, and only at me. But I do not think I have yet made his acquaintance.’

  Jack looked at Holcroft. ‘You do not know him?’ he said.

  ‘Never set eyes on him before.’

  ‘He is a distinguished Dutch officer. He lost his leg at the siege of Phillipsburg in Germany in ’88. A grenade exploded under his feet. He serves King William as a military adviser now and has been has moved to London with the court. But he asked to accompany me to Ireland. And I could not refuse.’

  The one-legged man, seeing that Holcroft was looking back at him, advanced towards them, stumping along quite nimbly on his wooden leg.

  Jack said quietly: ‘The leg was not the only wound he took. The French grenade also blew away his manhood. All his private parts are gone.’

  Holcroft looked at his friend. They both winced at the same time.

  Jack said: ‘Major Holcroft Blood, may I have the honour of naming Jongheer Markus van Dijk, lately of King William’s famous Third Guards.’

  Holcroft looked at the tall, thin man, saw the pain etched into his features.

  ‘Your servant, sir,’ he said.

  ‘And I am yours,’ said the Dutchman, in perfect English. ‘I also have the honour to have the acquaintance of your lady wife, Elizabeth. She has shown the utmost kindness to me as a stranger newly come to London.’

  Holcroft stared hard at the man. So this was the bastard who had been squiring Elizabeth around the city of London, taking her to racing meets, taking her to balls . . . Balls! Dear God, the poor fellow. Holcroft managed to smile at him.

  ‘It seems, Major Blood, that an unfortunate misunderstanding has arisen. I have been greatly favoured by the company of your wife, this is true. However I wish to assure you that our association has been entirely blameless, sans reproche. She has lately been most distressed by the fear, which I’m sure is groundless, that she has alienated your affections by her association with me.

  ‘I came to Ireland to reassure you that there is no cause for alarm. That Elizabeth and I are no more than friends. However, I know that as a gentleman, your good name must be dear to you, and so I am here to offer you satisfaction – a discreet meeting of blades – should you insist that your honour demands it.’

  Holcroft straightened his spine. He looked the Dutchman full in the face and said: ‘That will not be necessary, sir. I should like, instead, to offer you my gratitude for providing some pleasantly diverting company for my wife while she has been alone in London and I have been overseas. I thank you, sir, most sincerely and from the bottom of my heart.’

  And the two men bowed to each other.

  *

  Holcroft ran nimbly up the stairs of the Old Tower. The clerk had disappeared from his lectern on the ground floor and been replaced by a trio of redcoats, armed and awake but the worse for drink. Holcroft’s Ordnance coat, officer-like bearing and English accent were enough to gain him admittance.

  It had grown dark since he had left the celebration – which he had done immediately after his raprochement with the wounded Dutch officer. He had enquired of Jack where the prisoners of war were being held and quit the party. He fought the urge to run through the dark streets towards the Old Tower, such was his eagerness to return to the place of his own imprisonment. But he was to be disappointed when he reached the top of the stairs and searched the faces of the unhappy-looking men who were now occupying the cells.

  Henri d’Erloncourt’s face was not among them.

  There were about a dozen men, all apart from the Governor McElliot military men in uniforms of one kind or another. He looked at them and even insisted that one of the redcoat guards woke up a small thin man who was sleeping at the back of the cell. Narrey was not there.

  ‘I seek a Frenchman,’ he said, addressing Governor McElliot, and the trio of men standing at the bars around him. ‘His name is Henri d’Erloncourt. A count. But he also uses the code name Narrey. Can you tell me where he is?’

  ‘Do I look like an informer to you?’ said McElliot, drawing himself up to his full, though still sadly unimpressive, height.

  ‘He is an evil man. He is a spy and murderer and no friend to Ireland.’

  ‘We will not say a single word to you – Englishman,’ said the man next to the Governor, belying his own words. ‘We would die before we delivered up our comrade, our good friend Henri, to your cruel English justice! Die, I say!’

  Holcroft looked at the man who had spoken. He was young, red-faced, proud and clearly very stupid. ‘But you do know where he is,’ said Holcroft.

  ‘My lord does not know where the Frenchman is,’ said an older military type who stood by his side. ‘None of us do. It is not worth putting him – nor any of us – to the question. Your hot irons and devices will avail you nothing.’

  ‘Actually, I do have a pretty good idea where he is,’ said the third man.

  The other three men turned and stared at him. The young one said: ‘Lord Tyrone – keep your silence, sir. Tell the enemy nothing. What of your honour?’

  ‘What of it? D’Erloncourt did us no great service. He acted in all ways and at all times, so far as I could tell, only in the interests of his royal master Louis. He cared not a fig for Cork, nor for Ireland nor for Irish lives. Indeed, I believe he deliberately lied to us about the imminent approach of the Duke of Berwick, in order to force us to fight on here. Without his words in council, we would have surrendered a week ago and avoided many hundreds of deaths. We owe him nothing.’

  Holcroft grasped the bars of the cell. ‘So tell me, sir, where is he?’

  ‘He is, I imagine, in Kinsale.’

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘No, but I know he and his man slipped out of Cork the day before the city fell – probably over the wall in the dead of night and away by small boat on the river. I came looking for him yesterday morning and found him gone. The Protestant prisoners told me as much. They watched him clear his office, and two of them overheard talk of Kinsale, too, with his servant. I cannot be certain, of course,
but my guess is that you’ll find your man down there.’

  *

  The sack of Cork had ground, exhausted, to a halt. As Holcroft walked down the main street, heading south, he saw marching patrols of redcoats, disciplined squads of twenty men, arresting the most egregious looters, beating them into submission and leading them away. The worst fires had been put out, or had burnt out by now and order was returning to the streets. There was still the occasional musket shot or terrified scream from the darkness, but the Earl of Marlborough, having allowed his victorious men to run riot for a dozen hours, had by now re-established control over the bruised city.

  Holcroft pushed open the door of the Dolphin and walked slowly up to the wooden counter. Once again the place fell silent. Holcroft nodded to the few local drinkers, and noticed a young lieutenant of the First Foot Guards and an older man, a sergeant, sipping from pewter pots by the fire, and through a small, greasy window he glimpsed a dozen more redcoats armed with flintlocks, at their ease in the candle-lit courtyard at the side of the old building.

  He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a small, lumpy linen sack, and slapped it with a chinking noise on the counter.

  ‘I want supper and a room for the night, Seamus,’ he said to the red-bearded man. ‘The best you have. This should cover the expense and trouble.’

  Seamus grinned at him. ‘We do have a very comfortable cellar that I believe has just become available, if you don’t mind the damp and a few rats.’

  ‘No more cellars, Seamus. Something with a comfortable bed. I’d be obliged if you’d send up some bread and soup and a bottle of wine – no, make that two bottles.’

  *

  In a large, warm, oak-beamed room at the top of the Dolphin, Holcroft dipped his quill into the ink pot, gently shook off a drop of excess ink and, with his left hand he straightened the large sheet of paper in front of him so that its bottom edge was exactly in line with the edge of the table at which he sat. He composed his thoughts as best he could in his disordered state, then wrote: