by Joe Murphy
At length, a Shelmalier yeoman accompanied by the magistrate Edward Turner came cantering down the road toward where Foote and Lombard rode ahead of their men. Saluting sharply, the yeo reported, ‘Sir, Captain Le Hunte wishes to inform you that rebel persons have been seen at the crossroads of Ballinamonabeg running in great consternation from our approach.’
‘How many?’ asked Foote.
‘Only a handful, sir. They seemed surprised to see us and fled northward. But the Captain said to stress that all around we found signs of a large encampment. We didn’t give pursuit, sir, as the Captain presumed a rebel trap or ambuscade.’
‘The Captain did well,’ said the Colonel. As he rode, he turned to Lombard and asked, ‘What lies to the north of Ballinamonabeg? What might tempt rebel forces to fly in that direction?’
Lombard considered for a moment, then reached up beneath his cocked hat to adjust the set of his wig before saying, ‘Island Demesne might make a good field in which to make camp but from a military perspective the Hill of Oulart is the only remotely defensible position I can think of.’
Foote nodded and then spoke to Turner, ‘Might a rebel band seek to make a stand at Oulart, do you think?’
Turner frowned slightly, ‘It is indeed the only real point of high ground in the vicinity, Colonel. If they do possess the gall to stand against the King’s forces they might very well choose that position.’
‘Very well, Mr Turner,’ replied Foote. ‘You shall stay close with the column and guide us to this place, Oulart.’ Then he addressed the yeoman, ‘Private, you shall return to Captain Le Hunte and advise him to fall back on the infantry. I do not wish the cavalry to be surprised in the field. You are in such small numbers that a few well-aimed stones could destroy you. We shall drive on towards this hill and see what we can do about these miscreants.’
The yeoman saluted and galloped away, his horse’s hooves scarring the earth as he drove the animal on.
Behind him, Foote regarded Major Lombard and raised a clenched right fist. Then he spoke in his lilting Cork singsong, ‘When we find these dogs, Lombard, I want every last one of them hunted down and shot. Do you understand? Not one is to be left alive after today.’
‘Understood, sir,’ responded Lombard. ‘Not one.’
Tom Banville stood on the southern slope of Oulart Hill and watched the cloud of dust and smoke rise up from the direction of Ballinamonabeg. As the cooling breeze kissed his cheeks, he sighed and then laughed bitterly, ‘I have no doubt that signifies the end of our easy successes.’
‘They’re burning Kavanagh’s,’ Dan replied leadenly.
Oulart Hill was a whale’s back of grass and heather heaving up like some verdant leviathan from the countryside between the sea and the River Slaney. Its uneven slopes were cross-hatched with ditches and narrow lanes, and cow paths traversed its flanks like scars. Upon the great bald crown of this unlikely salient, four thousand people thronged together, huddling in a mass of bodies. Of these four thousand, no more than a thousand men had armament of any kind. Fear bubbled and spewed forth as children wailed and women keened, begging their men to take their families home. Like a contagion, terror spread so that every face turned south and watched in pale horror as the dust of the King’s troops grew ever closer.
In the little village of Oulart, nestled at the foot of the hill, a lone dog began to howl.
‘We must do something,’ demanded Tom. ‘To wait here in such irresolute fashion is to invite calamity.’
Dan shook his head, ‘With White and two hundred cavalry God knows where to the north of us, our scope for action is limited.’
Then, as they stared into the distance anticipating the appearance of red-coated soldiery at any moment, a great voice rose behind them, haranguing and chiding.
‘Up, up!’ the voice commanded. ‘You haven’t fought all night to be cowed like this! Up, I say, and face the foe that has burned and butchered your people for so long! Up!’
Tom and Dan turned and gazed up the slope to the brow of the hill where Fr Murphy was storming up and down the line of peasants like a drill sergeant.
‘Have you no shame?’ he was saying. ‘Did you men not send Hawtrey White running like a slapped child not three hours ago? Did you not stand up to the tyrant and prevail? Now, after all that, your spines turn to water? I am not afraid. Though I should have my head cut from my shoulders, I shall die secure in the knowledge that I am a man and, like a man, I faced my end without fear.
‘Those of you who wish to may go and sit with the women and children and, maybe, the soldiers will spare you when it is your time; but those of you who wish to fight with me, stand up. Stand up and be counted! For here on this ground we fight or die!’
To the brothers’ surprise and awe, all along the brow of the hill men rose to their feet, pale hands gripping the shafts of pikes and farm implements, shaking them at the brown veil of dust drawing closer every moment. Men stepped forth and shook Fr Murphy’s hand, men kissed their wives and children and then herded them, gently but inexorably, over the brow of the hill and out of harm’s way. At last Fr Murphy was surrounded by a thousand men, all pale, all badly-armed but all willing.
Then a cry went up from one of them. Down in the valley the first of the redcoats appeared on the road and the hard crack and patter of the regimental drummer intruded upon the rebels’ hearing.
A hollow murmuring began amongst the rebel ranks, only stilled when Edward Roche spoke out above the drumbeat rattling up from below. ‘Calm, men, calm. Watch them. Watch what they do. They are not so numerous as us. This is our land. They are the intruders here.’
A little more than a mile away the column of infantry halted. The rebels could clearly perceive the officers leaning together, conferring and gesturing towards their position. Edward Roche laughed as his own Shelmalier Cavalry spread out along a low ridge bordering the road.
Gazing intently down at the North Corks, Tom asked, ‘What do you think, Dan?’
‘There’s over a hundred of them, anyway,’ said Dan. ‘No artillery though and no cavalry worth the name, in spite of that little group sitting prettily over to one side. That number of horse shouldn’t frighten anyone. You know, Tom, if these boys don’t break at the first volley of musketry, if they stand and fight, I think we could carry the day.’
‘It’ll be a damn close-run thing,’ answered Tom.
Meanwhile, Fr Murphy had taken the best of his pikemen and ordered them behind a thick hedgerow running across the hill just below its summit. Edward Roche and another man, Dan thought his name was George Sparks, had taken a number of gunmen and placed them behind another ditch to the pikemen’s right, this one slanting slightly downhill as it negotiated its way across the rocky contours. With pistols and swords Tom and Dan jogged over to join Roche where he crouched behind a gnarled blackthorn tree.
Fr Murphy was speaking again, striding with sulphurous purpose across the slope between the rebel lines. ‘They will wait to see us dispersed by the foot troops,’ he thundered, ‘so that they can fall on us and cut us to pieces. Remain firm together! We will surely defeat the infantry and then we will have nothing to fear from the cavalry.’
Tom looked at Dan, grinned and gestured toward the energetic priest. ‘Did you ever think of pressing him into the United Irish ranks?’ he asked.
Dan laughed, nodding in agreement, ‘He’s some man, of that there’s no denying.’
Down in the valley the column of troops and the small detachment of yeomen were moving again, marching down the road towards the village of Oulart itself. As they drew nearer, the rebels on the hill could discern the faces beneath the infantry bicorns lifting to sweep the hilltop with appraising eyes. Once the soldiers had gained the village they again halted and their officers huddled together in discussion. Then, as the rebels looked on, a man in civilian clothes detached himself from the conference and gathered the Shelmalier Cavalry to him. Then, with the yeomen in attendance, he rode first to one thatched building and
then to another.
‘That’s Edward Turner,’ said Roche. ‘I wonder what he’s doing.’
Within moments Turner’s purpose revealed itself for, from the eaves of the buildings, white cords of smoke began to curl like cats’ tails, drifting off on the breeze. At this sight, an outraged muttering slithered through the rebel ranks. The grumbling stilled, however, as George Sparks, a swarthy man with bright eyes and the rolling accent of Blackwater in his voice, rose to his feet from the middle of the line of gunsmen.
‘Stay where you are!’ he ordered. ‘They want us to come down off our height and play with them down below. They can all go hang if they think we’re going to be shot for a few burned sheds!’
A wash of confidence flowed through the rebel bands at his words. The men remained fixed where they were, hatred for the soldiers boiling off them in waves. Hands tightened on gun and pole-arm and a deathly quiet blanketed them. The crown of Oulart Hill became still and silent.
The officers in the valley, seeing that their clumsily baited trap had failed to drag the rebels from their lofty position, now marched their men directly along the road to where it rounded the base of the hill. There they halted while the sixteen yeoman cavalry continued to jog along the road in a wide arc, making for the western slope of the hill. The infantry formed a long red line in the glorious sunshine, their brass buckles and white straps glowing in the light. The North Corks looked resplendent as they fixed their bayonets and prepared to rout the ragged, unwashed horde above them.
At this sight one or two pikemen let drop their weapons and made to run back up the slope to where the women sheltered amongst the hedgerows beyond the hill’s brow. Dan and Tom flinched as Morgan Byrne’s giant fox-hunter cleared the gorse above them in a surge of muscle and sinew.
‘Hold!’ Byrne roared. ‘Hold, damn you!’
The men froze, stricken and shamed as every pair of eyes turned on them. There they stood on open ground with their backs to the North Corks, with their backs to their fellow countymen who crouched in terror amidst the razor spines of the gorse. Men who crouched and stayed, prepared to fight even whilst their minds teetered on the brink of panic.
Byrne now rode back and forth, driving his mount through the furze so that he could fix each man with a flaring glare. Blood ran down his knees and stained the sides of his great horse in red. He bellowed at them in the tones of a ploughman at market, in the language of fair and field.
‘Shame on you!’ he cried. ‘Are you afraid of redcoats? They’re only men like you and not half as good!’ He pounded one fist against his chest, yelling, ‘They’re like me and you inside! If you met them in a fair, man to man, would red coats frighten you? Not at all!’
Gazing up at the former yeo as he harangued and lent spirit, Dan found himself murmuring, ‘I believe we are going to win this.’
At his shoulder, Tom nodded, ‘You know, I believe we might.’
Major Lombard snorted, ‘They think they’re going to win this.’ He sat his saddle beside Colonel Foote and gazed up the slope at the rebel lines. Before the two officers, the North Corks had drawn up in readiness for battle, elbow to elbow and muskets held upright but loose in their right hands. Each man had affixed his bayonet and a spiked fringe of steel now jabbed skyward from their lines. Lombard was eager for the fray, inexperienced but confident, straining like a dog on the leash.
‘Well they might entertain such hopes,’ interjected Foote, seeking to curb his subordinate’s burgeoning enthusiasm. ‘They hold the high ground, have advantage in numbers and know the land better than we.’
Lombard reached up distractedly to adjust the powdered wig beneath his cocked hat, an affectation that intensely annoyed his commanding officer, and sneered, ‘They are peasants, Colonel.’
‘They are a lot of peasants, Major,’ came the retort. ‘They are a lot of peasants with pikes. I do not wish to come to blows with them until I am sure of crushing them completely.’
‘Colonel,’ protested Lombard, ‘no ragamuffin band of local brigands has ever stood in defiance of a uniformed military. They will turn tail at the first volley of our muskets.’
Foote nodded slowly, ‘That is true, Major.’ Then, resolved, he addressed Lombard again, ‘Would you care to lead the assault? It will be your first action I believe?’
‘Thank you, Colonel,’ gushed Lombard. ‘I am eternally grateful.’
Foote merely gestured curtly towards the two companies of North Corks, ‘The command is yours, Major.’
With that, Foote wheeled his mount to the rear and he and Edward Turner watched as Lombard took his place at the far right of the red-coated line. At various points along it, the companies’ other officers walked or rode. Foote scanned them all, listing the good ones in his mind, Captain De Courcy, Lieutenants Williams, Ware and Barry and, in the middle, hefting the regimental standard, young Ensign Keogh. Steady boys, Foote thought to himself, steady and careful and the job is done.
The Banville brothers watched the militia as they slowly began to advance up the slope below them. Each soldier marched with discipline, his officers barking orders and the sergeants straightening the line with smart blows from their halfpikes. On they marched, and Tom felt the first tickle of a vinegar tingle deep in his chest, the first stir of mounting excitement at the prospect of violence. His breath came quicker and quicker and he rubbed his hands on the tails of his coat to rid them of a sudden, slippery film of sweat.
Dan meanwhile felt everything fall away from him. The same old sensation of aloneness enveloped him. He was at the centre of a frigid sphere in which any impulse could be achieved, any target hit. He had already chosen the soldiers that he would fell first.
Oblivious, the North Corks came on, until, at a word from the mounted officer on their right, they paused and shouldered their muskets.
Too far, Dan thought, as the soldiers, in perfect unison, loosed a volley toward the hedgerow just below the crest of the hill. Every musket flared and boomed, coughing forth an explosion of smoke and flame. The base of the hill was suddenly wreathed in a blue-black haze of burnt powder and the stink of gunsmoke poisoned the air. To the rebels’ delight, not a single musket ball struck home and a chorus of jeers rang out from the behind the ditches. Edward Roche and George Sparks, however, shushed the gunsmen under their command into immediate silence. Into this silence, incredulity fluttering in his voice, Tom whispered, ‘They don’t know we’re here. They haven’t seen us.’
Dan nodded dumbly as the North Corks reloaded and again advanced. They were close enough now so that the voices of the sergeants and officers were clearly audible, their see-saw Munster accents sounding alien and somehow wrong in the bright afternoon. Every stubbled face was discernible, every line and wrinkle could be picked out as they moved forward, step by disciplined step. Dan and Tom watched and waited, fingers on triggers and thumbs resting on flintlocks.
The North Corks had stopped again and at a strident command they lifted their weapons and paused, motionless. This time, Dan thought, they were close enough to do real damage. Amongst the gorse and briar, rebels clutched their makeshift weapons and groaned in pained expectation. At any moment their scant protection of earth and bough would surely be ripped away by searing lead. Low to the ground and staring at each other with wide, brimming eyes, each man expected his end to come, tearing and hot, from the mouths of those hundred-odd guns.
‘Fire!’ howled the officer.
Concurrently with the hissing blast of the guns, this time shrieks rang out from the ditch running in front of the soldiers. Dan and Tom could see figures writhing in pain or crawling frantically away through the undergrowth, desperate to find more substantial cover.
As Dan watched, the mounted officer on the right flank of the infantry, a major if his epaulettes and cocked hat were any indication, shouted in encouragement, ‘That’s the stuff, my brave boys! They’re running, can’t you see? Another volley and then a charge and we shall have them beaten!’
The N
orth Corks reloaded and continued their advance, right into the teeth of the rebel line. Another volley, thought Dan, and it would be a massacre. It was at this moment, as the North Corks marched forward in triumph, that Edward Roche growled, soft but menacing, ‘Ready your weapons lads. Let’s give them a hundred times what they’ve given us.’
Dan and Tom grinned, vulpine and predatory, as they cocked their pistols.
Out on the slope, still ignorant of the rebel gunsmen’s presence, the North Corks had come to a final halt some twenty yards short of the rebel position. Before the major could issue his command, a rebel with a pair of fist-sized rocks clenched in his hands stepped free of the gorse. With an oath, he lashed both stones toward the North Cork line. One stone, a blur as it hammered through the air, smashed into a Corkman’s musket, tearing it from his grasp. The entire regiment stood for a moment staring, bemused, at the fallen weapon. Then the major, drawing a deep breath, stood high in his stirrups, his arm raised to give the final, fatal order.
It was then that Edward Roche’s gun line belched forth fire and lead into the red-coated ranks.
Caught completely by surprise, his face a welter of consternation, Major Lombard spun his horse around and around, questing for his sudden assailants. His men, terrified, milled in line, turning this way and that, stumbling over suddenly prone comrades, their eyes sweeping the entire hill top, hands suddenly frozen to their muskets’ walnut stocks. Blood and gore spattered some of their faces and a few were desperately trying to scrape the stuff off. With their amazed sight they saw their messmates lying dead on the grass.
The gorse in front of the soldiers then erupted in an animal howl of rage. Men dressed in the muddy shades of tenant farmers stormed through the thorns, faces wild and savage, mouths leering like gargoyles. Before the infantry could react, the rebels were upon them, hacking and stabbing, kicking and tearing with tempest fury. Lombard was borne from his horse, his screams brutally cut short as a pitchfork was slid into his neck.