She finally managed to speak, with her face away from him, her eyes absently going out to the Market Cross. ‘Although I am unsure as to why, Colm, before you leave I want you to know that I am carrying James’s child.’
The announcement stunned McFeeley for a moment. Then his mind was racing with the possibilities opened up by her statement. There was the time they had spent together in the garden of the manor at White Lackington. Then there was her husband, Lord Grey of Werke, who had to be a contender where fathering the baby was concerned.
‘Are you sure that Monmouth is the father?’ he asked, hoping that his question didn’t imply that he regarded her as a slut.
‘I am absolutely certain,’ she told him with a conviction that only a woman, who has more access to intuition than a man, can muster.
Before telling him that she was pregnant, Henrietta had confessed that she didn’t know why she was doing so. Now it was McFeeley’s turn to wonder why she had told him. He would rather that she hadn’t. Though it neither concerned nor affected him directly, having this knowledge strangely disturbed him.
‘Does your condition please or displease you?’ he asked, not sure what he should say, really wanting to get away, to take Jack and Piper with him to Bridgwater so that they could begin the work the army required them to do.
‘I am delighted,’ she replied, although McFeeley could see no real sign in her that could vouch for the truth of what she claimed.
‘I must go,’ he said, kissing her long and lingeringly, with Henrietta clinging to him unashamedly, despite the fact that they were on the street in full public view.
McFeeley had taken just a few paces from her when Henrietta called. He stopped and turned back to her.
‘Colm! Please don’t tell James about the baby,’ she said wistfully and pleadingly. ‘I want to tell him myself when he comes back to me.’
Her delusions, which would eventually fall away to leave her devastated, ravaged McFeeley there and then. It was a tragedy that he was leaving her behind at Taunton, and it was made a thousand times more distressing for him by the belief that he was on his way to a far greater disaster.
Nine
LARGE AND IMPRESSIVE but not of mansion dimensions, the house stood high on a hill with a sweep of superbly colourful countryside in front of it running down to Bradford on Avon. As the day drew to a close Lady Sarah and Rachel sat on a balcony. Brigadier-General John Churchill had just left to return to his army at Westonzoyland. The strain of the Monmouth campaign had begun to show on John Churchill. He had lost his temper that morning with Colonel Percy Kirke. Although unable to hear what was being said, Sarah had recognized the name ‘McFeeley’ that was spoken many times.
Rachel walked to stand with her hands placed wide on the horizontal rail that ran along the balcony. Her hair was pure glistening gold in the falling sun. With her back to Sarah, she said, ‘You probably are aware that I envy you, Sarah.’
‘Why on earth would a girl like you envy me?’ Sarah gave a genuine gasp of astonishment.
‘Lots of reasons,’ Rachel replied, turning to rest her back against the rail as she looked at Sarah. ‘You have John, a good, solid marriage, and a secure future to look forward to.’
Compared to her vivacious companion’s energetic, to say the least, social life, Sarah’s existence was a dreary one. For many years to come John Churchill would remain much more of a soldier than he was a husband. When the time did come for the roles to be reversed, then it would be too late, far too late.
‘Security could sometimes be interpreted as suffocation, Rachel.’
Sarah hadn’t really intended to say the last sentence. She certainly hadn’t wanted to say it with such feeling that Rachel immediately scrutinized her face. This was a disturbing experience because Rachel had a perception that could better be described as a sixth sense.
‘You know, don’t you, Sarah?’ Rachel made it more of a statement than a question.
Standing, Sarah went to the rail beside Rachel, looking out over the balcony so that they were facing in opposite directions. Rachel could read a face easier than other people could take in a page of a book.
‘What do you believe that I know, Rachel?’
‘You pretend not to know that I am talking of our bold Lieutenant McFeeley,’ Rachel chided.
‘The men you play your games with are so numerous, Rachel,’ Sarah smiled, completely devoid of acrimony and criticism, ‘that I cannot keep track.’
‘This is different,’ Rachel plucked a dandelion in seed and made a kissing ‘O’ with her lips to blow at it. ‘He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me not. This is different, dear Sarah, because in this instance you wished many times that you had been in my place.’
‘How can you say such a thing, Rachel?’
‘That’s irrelevant, Sarah. Nature does not recognize marriage, and I doubt that God does.’
‘That is a terrible thing to say, Rachel!’ an aghast Sarah objected.
‘The truth is often terrible,’ Rachel smiled. ‘We must assume that if the Creator had planned monogamy, he wouldn’t have it so that every male sword will fit into any female scabbard.’
‘You deliberately try to shock, Rachel,’ Sarah objected.
‘I deliberately try to be candid,’ Rachel corrected. ‘There was something between you and Colm McFeeley that a blind man in a dark alleyway could detect. Deny it at your peril.’
‘I can’t think what you mean, Rachel!’
‘You suppress what is natural in you,’ Rachel said firmly. ‘Just like those silly old spinsters who go to bed with two candles but only ever light one of them.’
‘You are simply disgusting, Rachel,’ Sarah protested, stifling a laugh.
‘Fine, fine!’ Rachel surrendered. ‘Accept that you and Colm were fashioned for each other.’
‘What would you have me do – abandon John?’ Sarah cried.
‘Good Lord, no,’ Rachel exclaimed. ‘You don’t jump in the river because you are thirsty!’
‘The whole idea is totally ridiculous, Rachel!’
Giving her a one-armed cuddle, Rachel at first chastised her gently. ‘You sweet little fibber! You deserve some fun, Sarah, so I will arrange for you to meet Colm McFeeley.’
Lowering the spyglass, a downcast Monmouth turned to McFeeley. They were standing in the squat tower of Bridgwater’s St Mary’s Church, the highest point for miles around. The rebel leader had been looking out across the King’s Sedgemoor Drain to where the little stationary white squares of tents and the moving red pinheads of soldiers could be seen. James Scott had welcomed him back effusively, but there was a reserve in him, nevertheless. McFeeley put this reserve down to suspicion, and both Jack and Piper had confirmed this by reporting to McFeeley that they were being watched at all times. This was bad news because it meant that when McFeeley had gathered intelligence of Monmouth’s movements he couldn’t use either of his two men to take it back to Captain Critchell.
‘They are out there, in force, as I suspected,’ Monmouth told McFeeley.
From outside there came to them a joyous chorus of a song soldiers were singing in praise of their rebel commander:
The Duke of Monmouth’s at Bridgwater town,
All a-fighting for the Crown,
Ho, boys – Ho!
McFeeley commented, ‘They are full of admiration for you, sir.’
‘Half full of admiration, the other half is local cider,’ a cynical Monmouth said. Then relenting, he added in a softer voice, his eyes misted, ‘No, that is unkind. They are loyal, Lieutenant, and loyalty has become a rare commodity. I was promised a club-army ten thousand strong. When they joined me, Colm, there were just one hundred and sixty of them. My uncle has issued a proclamation undertaking to pardon all, at this stage, other than those who sailed with me from Holland. As Uncle James had planned, this has led to mass desertions.’
Monmouth had painted a true but gloomy picture, and McFeeley felt that it would soon become worse. The fine
weather showed every sign of breaking, which would give the king’s men, all but a few of whom were tented, yet another advantage over Monmouth’s soldiers, who would be exposed to the rain. The rebel duke suddenly brightened.
‘Yet, nil desperandum, Lieutenant, if as a Protestant I may be permitted two Latin words,’ Monmouth said. ‘I have a surprise or two to spring on the enemy.’
‘I have never doubted you as a commander, sir,’ McFeeley said sincerely.
‘In all modesty, Colm, those who underestimate me do so at their folly. This very evening I am calling a council of war.’
Monmouth was as good as his word. The meeting with his senior officers was arranged to take place in an unoccupied farm labourer’s cottage not far from St Mary’s Church. Monmouth’s new mistrust of him was confirmed for McFeeley when he received no order to attend.
Yet it was vital for McFeeley to know the full details of what was decided at the rebel duke’s council of war. Timing it right, he set out in a dusk brought on early by heavy cloud and a drizzling of rain. Making his way through a series of meandering lanes, he paused a little way off from the building in which the rebel hierarchy was to assemble.
McFeeley made his way closer to the cottage. Just as he thought, the Duke of Monmouth had not considered it necessary to post sentries in this totally partisan town. Able to get to the back of the building, McFeeley pressed himself tightly to the wall as he slid along it until he reached the edge of a window.
‘This morning, gentlemen,’ Monmouth was saying, ‘I was informed that a Sedgemoor peasant by the name of Godfrey sought an interview with me. I granted the fellow time, and was highly rewarded for doing so. My observation of the Royalist lines led me to believe that Feversham’s horse are situated some considerable distance from his foot, and this fellow Godfrey says that this is so.
‘It is possible for us to pass through their artillery unnoticed to make an incursion through enemy lines in strength by night. If we make two separate and simultaneous attacks on Feversham’s infantry and cavalry, we can hit the enemy severely before he can be reinforced.’
‘You are speaking of avoiding the Royalist guns on the Bridgwater road, Your Grace?’ a voice McFeeley couldn’t identify, asked.
‘Exactly, Colonel Wade. You have a question, Colonel Fowke?’
‘Not a question as such, Your Grace. I see that we would be presented with considerable difficulty at night in crossing Sedgemoor.’
‘Ordinarily I would share your perturbation, Colonel,’ Monmouth replied. The listening McFeeley noted how strong was his voice, and how buoyant he had become since they were earlier together in the church tower. ‘But this Godfrey knows Sedgemoor like the back of his hand, and has agreed to guide us. We will complete the surprise by making a detour north of Chedzoy.’
This information had to be relayed to Critchell at once, McFeeley knew, but if Jack, Piper or he tried to leave Bridgwater with it they wouldn’t get past the soldiers who would already have orders to shoot them down.
It was raining harder now as he heard Grey raise the question of a possible danger. ‘My only reservation is the possibility that the redcoats are entrenched.’
‘That likelihood occurred to me earlier,’ Monmouth replied, revealing what a reliable strategist he was. ‘I sent Godfrey back to Sedgemoor on reconnaissance. There are no trenches, no parapets. Feversham had posted neither guards nor piquets. What is more, gentlemen – many of Feversham’s men are drunk on cider or are sleeping. In recommending this plan, gentlemen, I want it to have the unanimous support of you, my regimental commanders. Now, those in favour!’
A chorus of ‘Aye’ boomed around inside of the small cottage, and when Monmouth offered. ‘Those against?’ there was total silence.
‘Thank you for that vote of confidence in me, gentlemen,’ the duke said. ‘I will ask you all now to come with me to St Mary’s tower, where you may all use my glass to determine the deployment of the enemy and to learn the route that I intend us to take.’
A sense of urgency hit McFeeley, only to be knocked back by his frustration. Monmouth would be moving out soon, perhaps within the hour. There wasn’t even time to seek out Captain Critchell. A direct message detailing the Duke of Monmouth’s intentions had to go immediately to Feversham! But how?
Moving away from the window, McFeeley heard a scampering just a yard or two from him. It came to him that he hadn’t been the only one spying on Monmouth. Some other person had been only feet from him, yet the two of them had been oblivious to each other.
Not prepared to leave any loose ends, McFeeley abandoned caution to spring through the darkness after whoever it was scurrying away at speed. Seeing the figure, small but speedy, was in his reach, McFeeley leapt to wrap both arms around it, slamming the light body against a dry stone wall and pinioning it there. It shook him to find that his captive was a young girl with an ashen but very pretty face. Made big by fear her eyes stared up at him.
‘No, please, don’t!’ she pleaded.
‘I intend you no harm, girl,’ he assured her. ‘What were you doing back there?’
‘I could ask you the same thing, sire,’ she retorted, having recovered her nerve now that she was free, and looked pointedly at his Monmouth uniform. ‘If you are with James Scott then why do you need to spy on him, sire?’
‘What has you say that I was spying, girl?’
‘Well,’ she looked at him defiantly. ‘I was, so you must have been doing the same thing.’
‘You have just made a dangerous admission,’ McFeeley warned the girl.
‘It don’t make much difference now, sire. I would do anything for the Catholic King James – even die with his name on my lips if you intend to kill me.’
Impressed by her courage he asked. ‘Do you have a name?’
‘Kathleen Nerney, if it’s anything to you.’
‘Would you believe me if I told you that I am really an officer with King James’s army, Kathleen?’
‘I’d say I believed anything to have you let me go,’ she replied frankly.
‘I don’t want to let you go. There is something you can do for the king, but it will put you at great risk.’
‘Whatever it is, I’ll do it,’ she said from self-assurance and not bragging.
‘How much did you hear back there?’ McFeeley jerked his head back towards the cottage.
‘Everything.’
‘But how much do you remember of it?’
‘Would you have me recite it word for word, sire?’ she offered confidently.
‘No.’ McFeeley was made hesitant by the enormity of what he was about to ask of her. ‘Tell me, do you think that you could find your way across Sedgemoor to the Royalist lines and back?’
‘With my eyes closed, sire,’ she said, again without a trace of boasting.
‘Would you go in all haste to ask for an officer and tell him everything that you heard planned back there?’
‘I will go, sire, with great speed, but they will not believe what a girl tells them, surely?’
This was a real possibility that he had overlooked, and McFeeley told her. ‘You have to tell them that Lieutenant McFeeley sent you, Kathleen.’
‘Is McFeeley your name?’ she said with a pleased smile, girlishly more interested in finding this out than she was in the danger she would soon be facing.
‘Yes. Now, tell them that I sent you, and that my credentials can be checked out with Captain Critchell at Brigadier Churchill’s headquarters.’ McFeeley said. ‘Do you think that you can remember that, Kathleen?’
‘My body is thin because we can’t afford to buy food, sire, but do not judge the size of my brain by it,’ Kathleen rebuked him.
McFeeley gave her bony shoulder an affectionate squeeze. ‘I could never misjudge you.’
‘Except for my father, Lieutenant McFeeley, you are the only man I’ve ever met and liked,’ she told him in her forthright way. ‘Where will I find you when I come back?’
Looking round him, Mc
Feeley pointed to the graveyard that was at the far side of the church. The now steadily falling rain blurred the night a little. ‘Do you see that bent tree at the corner of the graveyard? I will be waiting there for you.’
‘It’s a bit spooky!’ the girl giggled. Then she said. ‘My father told us that it’s the living we should be afraid of, not the dead. Is that what you think, Lieutenant McFeeley?’
‘These days I don’t know who or what to be frightened of, Kathleen,’ he replied, looking at her concernedly. ‘You are wet through, child.’
‘I’ll soon dry out when I start me running. I’d better be off. I’ll be back very soon.’
Reluctant to let her go, McFeeley watched her trot off as easily as a schoolgirl late for class. Calling her name guardedly, he stopped her.
‘Kathleen!’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m proud of you.’
‘I’ll make you more proud of me,’ she promised with one of her little giggles before the night swallowed her up.
Lieutenant Bryan Riglar sat on grass that was still soaking wet even though the rain had stopped. Swigging from a bottle of cider, he wasn’t even aware of the discomfort of the damp seeping through his clothing. This Somerset brew was powerful. It first hit the legs. That was a distressing experience. Paralysis set in and you first walked stiff-kneed and awkwardly before falling over. But when the cider spread up to your head it gave you back your legs while taking away your cares and your boredom. He lay back on the grass, spilling drink over his face and tunic, chuckling inanely as he heard Lieutenant Poore complaining.
‘Not one damned sentry, not one piquet,’ Poore moaned. ‘Every damned man either drunk or asleep. What game is Feversham playing with us, Riglar?’
It was true about no guards having been posted, but not every soldier was either asleep or drunk. Over from where they sat drinking, a battalion of Dumbarton’s regiment, strictly disciplined and distinctive with their white breeches and deep white cuffs, were going about their duties in the way that soldiers should.
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