1798

by Joe Murphy

  Tom nodded, ‘It’s the accent. I hear a lot of the North Corks are even speaking Gaelic.’

  Proctor stared at him in disbelief. ‘Don’t talk nonsense, Tom. Nobody but the people of the blackest bog speak Gaelic anymore.’

  Tom shook his head. ‘They still speak it across in Bantry, Richard, and around the Blackstairs. Not everyone is as English as you.’

  Laurence Doyle shushed him into silence and flung him a look with blades in it. ‘Thank you, Tom. I was trying to eavesdrop and now I’ve missed what they were saying. That Cork Lieutenant said something about Papists. If he offers any one of us insult I believe we would be quite within our rights to call the blackguard out.’

  ‘I’ll second you,’ came a voice from Doyle’s left.

  Tom and Proctor exchanged glances and Tom pinched the bridge of his nose between his gloved fingers. ‘God give me strength,’ he breathed into his cupped palm.

  Proctor touched Tom on the shoulder and gestured towards the blacksmith who stood at the open door to his forge. He was a bald man and his head and bare arms were streaked with the grime of his trade. Facing the two ranks of soldiers, he wore an expression of naked and derisive defiance.

  Tom regarded the man and a trill of unease sounded at the back of his mind; here was a man confronted by a strong detachment from an infamous regiment and he faced them as if they were boys. His demeanour was an unspoken challenge, an assertion of his own authority – he was lord of his surroundings.

  Tom knew it was only a matter of time before one of the bored soldiery took his haughty attitude as an insult.

  ‘I think he’s looking for trouble,’ muttered Proctor.

  Tom nodded in agreement. ‘And I think those Cork boys are the ones to give it to him.’

  It was then that Tom remembered the brief tatter of conversation he had heard at the inn in Gorey.

  Sure, every blacksmith in the county’s a United man.

  Perhaps fortunately for the blacksmith, Esmonde and Musgrave decided to get their troops moving. The officers wheeled away from each other and went to the heads of their respective columns.

  Esmonde turned in his saddle and called over his shoulder, ‘We’ll go ahead of the North Corks and provide a vedette for their march. I would ask one or two of you good fellows to also advance as best you can through the fields on either side of the road and so guard our flanks.’

  As Esmonde addressed his men, Musgrave’s instructions to his own echoed and struck unpleasant harmonies in the quiet gathering evening.

  ‘We shall march in good order and I shall not countenance any man falling out of the ranks for private gain or plunder! Now, by the left!’

  And with that the militia detachment followed their mounted lieutenant out of the little hamlet of Castletown. The infantry marched in two disciplined lines, the left-right of their tread metronomic in the dusk.

  ‘Come on then lads,’ urged Esmonde, and he spurred his horse forward. Immediately the boot-fall of the soldiers was buried under the rolling thunder of thirteen heavy fox-hunters. The cavalry surged past the marching infantry in a torrent of flesh and muscle and jangling tack.

  Behind them, unnoticed by all, the blacksmith cursed the name of Loyalist and Orangeman and spat a viscous mouthful of phlegm into the dust.

  Sir Thomas Esmonde led the Castletown Corps of Yeoman Cavalry roughly west and north out of Castletown village. Behind them, Lieutenant Musgrave had given his North Corks the order to march at ease, and they now walked behind their lieutenant, their muskets dangling from shoulder straps or trailing in one hand. The yeomen, however, were a furlong or so in front and were peering into the gloaming with anxious concentration.

  Marking this, Tom turned to Proctor and asked, ‘Why is it that the boys are all so nervous?’

  Proctor was following the progress of one of the corps making his way through the cornfields to their left. His answer was slow in coming but when it came it made Tom’s heart sink a little.

  ‘No rebel would ever stand against a uniformed soldier in open battle, but recently the Shelmaliers and some of the Enniscorthy lads have been shot at by men hiding in the fields.’

  Tom studied Proctor as his eyes flicked to and fro over the countryside, glittering like a hunted animal’s.

  ‘Rebels? Proctor, do you not think people would shoot at anyone who came to ransack their homes? I do not think the colour of the jacket one wears is much of an influence. A man will shoot a croppy come to steal as quick as a yeo come to search.’

  Keeping his eyes on the fields, Proctor answered, ‘Any man who bears arms against agents of the crown is a rebel, Tom. Keep a sharp eye out.’

  Tom gazed at his friend’s intense profile and sighed long and deeply. He had heard the stories – the indiscriminate retaliation for a blind shot taken at a mounted patrol – but until now he had not believed them. Now, looking at the tension, the fear like a cowl darkening Proctor’s features, he realised that these men were no longer seeking to keep the peace. In spite of Esmonde’s arguments to the contrary, they were already at war.

  The cavalry trotted along, each man preoccupied with his own scrutiny of the veiling twilight. Every man, that is, except Tom Banville.

  Tom sat his saddle as his horse’s rolling gait bore him further into a private limbo. He was numb inside. Still possessed of all physical sensation, he could feel the chinstrap of his helmet dig into the line of his jaw, he could hear the thud of hooves and to each side the rustle of leaves, but within him emotions had been doused. His mind was heavy and slow.

  Esmonde led them sharply west, and after a mile or two they halted at Inch to allow the infantry to catch up. A handful of the yeomen dismounted and stretched their legs but Tom remained where he was, sitting his saddle and staring off into the dark.

  Richard Proctor strolled over to him, unbuckled his helmet and turned his round face up to his sombre friend. ‘You’re beginning to worry me, Tom. Have I offended you in some way?’

  Tom smiled down at Proctor, but the warmth in his expression was belied by the lead in his voice. ‘No Proctor, you’ve not offended me. My mind is given over to some rather melancholy thoughts at present.’

  Proctor nodded. ‘These are melancholy times. Have no fear though, we shall all see the other side of them, God willing.’

  ‘God willing,’ Tom repeated mechanically.

  Proctor cast Tom a final, concerned look, patted his horse’s neck and strode over to where two yeomen were smoking their pipes. The young yeoman listened as his companions conversed in barely audible whispers, their words guarded, their eyes ever-roving. Strangers in a strange land.

  Tom could not prevent himself wondering whether Proctor now saw croppies and Papist plotters in every ditch and behind every tree. He could not prevent himself wondering whether he had shot any livestock or burned any houses.

  It was dark by the time the North Corks arrived. The lights of the tiny village of Inch began to gild the windows of its cabins and cottages. Yet not a soul stirred abroad as the soldiers and cavalry passed briskly through, making for the empty countryside beyond. Dogs barked and howled from hidden kennels and to Tom it seemed as though the night was teeming with ghosts of his own creation.

  As they marched through the village one of the North Corks fell out of the column and crept up to a loosely-fastened cabin door, around which a narrow shaft of light fell out into the street. Holding his musket in one hand, he pushed his bicorn back on his head and leaned his weight against the rough gap between door and jamb. The door creaked but held and a woman’s voice rose from within, ‘Get away ya rascal or I’ll set the dog on ya!’

  This shout brought the column to a ragged halt, some men even reaching for their powder belts in expectation of an ambush.

  The soldier stood frozen in an expression of shocked idiocy, like a child caught raiding the kitchen cupboard, suddenly the focus of forty-three pairs of eyes.

  ‘You there!’ roared Musgrave. ‘What do you think you are doing?
’

  The militiaman came to ramrod attention and struggled for words. Finally he said, ‘I thought I saw something suspicious, Mr Musgrave, and I was just taking a look for myself.’

  Musgrave trotted down the line while the man spoke and reined in his horse before the frightened soldier.

  ‘Who gave you permission to fall out of column?’ he asked.

  ‘Nobody, Mr Musgrave,’ said the soldier.

  Regarding the man with contempt, Musgrave lifted his riding crop and held it before the red-coated figure below him. ‘I should have you flogged. Do you realise that?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Musgrave.’

  ‘But I shall not. This time. However, if you or any of your fellows should attempt to disobey an order in the future, then that man shall receive fifty lashes. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Musgrave,’ answered the soldier, visibly relieved.

  As the man rejoined the ranks, Musgrave tapped him lightly on the back of the head with his riding crop, which had the effect of resettling his hat. The lieutenant trotted back to the head of his men, calling out as he did, ‘I am a fair and compassionate man. I wish for no blood but that of Popish plotters to stain my hands.’

  ‘Stay where you are, Doyle,’ growled Tom without looking around.

  Behind him, Laurence Doyle released his grip on the handle of his sword.

  The countryside north of Kilanerin was dappled by the same small farms and cabins that characterised the rest of County Wexford. And like the rest of the county the thick gorse and briar of ditch and hedge made a checkerboard of the fields and woods and made a mockery of cavalry, both heavy and light.

  Tom spurred his horse forward until he was beside Lieutenant Esmonde.

  ‘Mr Esmonde, is there a particular homestead we shall be calling on?’

  Esmonde observed him from under the peak of his helmet. ‘There are several,’ he answered. ‘George Gormley’s is the most important, however. He has been labelled United Irish by one whom the North Corks induced to inform. Do you know him?’

  ‘George Gormley,’ muttered Tom. ‘No, I’ve never heard of him.’

  Esmonde fixed him with a shark grin that glowed like bone in the blackness. ‘As well for you that you haven’t.’

  About midway between the villages of Inch and Kilanerin the little column of troops began to come across closely scattered clumps of cottages and farms, almost a townland in itself. It was here that Esmonde and Musgrave halted their men and held a brief whispered conference, their gestures urgent, their heads bent close together.

  Around them, eight cottages clustered at the base of a low hill, all their windows dark, their walls cold and lifeless. It was not this, however, that so perturbed the officers and set the men to scanning the fields with even more than their usual fervour.

  What so set the troops’, and even Tom’s, nerves on edge was that as they moved in a long line through the dark, a blaze had suddenly erupted from a gnarled promontory of stone off to their southwest.

  A bonfire of heather and bracken had leapt, roaring into the night, whipping orange tongues and burning sparks upwards in whirling conflagration. Briefly, for the merest splinter of a second, two figures were silhouetted in featureless ebony against the flames, and then were gone.

  With their disappearance, however, came a heavy sensation of paranoia amongst the yeomen and militia.

  The fire was a warning. The peasantry knew they were there.

  And now they halted in the black of a darkened townland and waited while their officers debated in hushed, animated tones.

  ‘It’s the big one.’

  Proctor’s voice came so suddenly that Tom jumped with fright.

  ‘What did you say?’ he asked.

  ‘George Gormley’s house,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s that big one over there. See how it has the three rooms with the glazed windows and the bit of a cowshed? I recognise it from when I was a boy.’

  Tom frowned at his friend. ‘How do you recognise it?’

  Proctor leaned on his saddle horn, ‘Old Gormley used to help on father’s land when I was young. He was a fine tinker as well. He could mend anything at all that you put in front of him. Sometimes father would drive over here in the cart to have something patched or a ploughshare beaten into shape and I often accompanied him for the jaunt.’

  Proctor’s hand came up and the stubble of his jaw made a rough rasping against the leather of his gauntlet. ‘Different times,’ he concluded.

  Musgrave and Esmonde ended their brief discussion and turned around to face their men. In the light of the moon, Esmonde’s face beneath his helmet was pallid.

  ‘North Corks,’ began Musgrave. ‘We find ourselves in a nest of United Irish. Every cabin in this place may be presumed to harbour enemies of the Crown.

  ‘The source of this filth can be found in that hovel, yonder.’ At this he pointed towards George Gormley’s well-ordered cottage and continued, ‘We shall cut off the head of the serpent and so the body will perish.’

  He paused for a moment then drew his sword. ‘North Corks, fix bayonets and surround that house!’

  The infantry scrambled to fix sixteen inches of triangular steel to the muzzle of each musket so that when fully assembled, the entire weapon was as tall as they were. Each bayonet gleamed like a wet fang as the North Corks fanned out around the darkened homestead in a razor-fringed circle.

  The yeomen were strung along and across the road in loose skirmish order. As they watched their comrades take up their positions, Esmonde addressed them.

  ‘Castletown Corps, we are to wait in reserve and provide relief should Lieutenant Musgrave meet with violent opposition. We will also prevent any suspect personages from escaping.

  ‘I would remind you that the magistrates and Dublin Castle have a pressing need for informants and intelligence and as such I must insist that you lay hands on before you lay steel on.’

  There was a general murmur of assent from the horsemen.

  Most of the infantry had by now formed a rough arc around the front of the Gormley cottage and another group were creeping around the side of the cowshed so as to cordon off the rear of the building. One luckless soldier failed to spot a weather-rotted old fence post propped against the cowshed wall and with a curse and flailing rattle he clattered over it. One of his companions hauled him to his feet by his crossbelts and planted his bicorn back onto his embarrassed head.

  Even at the awkward, foul-mouthed tumble of the soldier not a stir came from the house. Only a dog barked in the distance, lonely and mindless.

  The night was too empty, too lifeless. Tom found himself becoming gradually aware of the growing trepidation. At any moment he expected the flat boom and phoenix tail of musket-fire. His horse whickered to itself, a soft noise that shattered the stillness like a stone shattering a mirror. Every breath he took surged in his ears and every clank and shuffle of infantry or yeo scuttled into the night on a thousand pin-prick legs.

  At last Lieutenant Musgrave seemed satisfied with his troops’ deployment. He rose up in his stirrups and held his straight-blade sword high above his head.

  ‘Hello the bawn!’ he called, the switchbacks of his Munster accent echoing from field to yard and ditch to wall. ‘By order of His Majesty’s Government in Ireland, I call on you to admit the King’s troops to effect a search of your property.’

  No answer came from the silent cabin. No movement to signal anything but ghosts within.

  Musgrave settled back down upon his mount, which bobbed its chestnut head and snorted in protest. For a moment the officer look unsure what to do next, then he called to a stoop-shouldered soldier to his left, ‘Sergeant O’Sullivan, break down the door.’

  O’Sullivan saluted smartly and, in the grand tradition of non-commissioned officers, promptly collared two privates and marched with them up to the cottage’s heavy wooden door.

  ‘Right lads,’ he bellowed. ‘A h-aon, a dó, a trí!’

  And on the last syllable t
he two privates flung themselves against the portal’s planking.

  The combined weight and violence of the two soldiers hammered the door from both its lock and hinges. A spume of dust coughed out from the joins in the wood as the door fell suddenly into the dark of the cabin’s interior, where it smacked onto the straw-covered floor. One soldier had rebounded from the door but his comrade had vanished into the cabin behind it and now pawed his way to his knees, groping for his fallen hat.

  The crash resounded in the night and Tom twisted about in his saddle. He was certain he had glimpsed a dull sheen of gunmetal from the roadside ditch. His mind screamed at him that the stand of trees to his left was bristling with pikes. For the first time that evening, Tom realised what Proctor and his fellow yeomen must have been experiencing. The cold horror of knowing that you were hated for the coat you wore, for the laws you kept, the sickening appreciation of your own mortality. This is what spurred them, what drove them to excess.

  Tom sat his saddle in nauseated silence and knew, and was disgusted by his certainty that if some peasant did rise from the black of the ditch, he would be the first to cut the man down.

  At the cabin, the North Corks were slowly advancing. Their circle of steel contracting around the whitewashed walls. Suddenly, the soldier who had disappeared into the vacant doorway re-emerged, his musket slung over his shoulder, his hands batting dust from his black hat. His abrupt reappearance into an atmosphere of such tension almost had him killed. Several of his messmates cocked their muskets and took aim before they recognised the figure standing in the doorway. At the sound of the flints being drawn and at the sight of so many raised Brown Besses, the soldier froze. Gaping like a landed trout, he finally stammered, ‘There’s no one here.’

  The infantry lowered their weapons and Musgrave brusquely and with a certain petulance ordered a thorough search of the abandoned homestead.

  The yeomanry watched blandly as the North Corks set to ransacking the Gormley cottage. Tom turned to Proctor and with revulsion lacing his voice, he said, ‘It’s lucky Gormley isn’t here. God knows what they’d have done to him.’