1798

by Joe Murphy

  So filled was he by the momentous nature of this vision that Tom’s next words almost passed him by.

  ‘The camp is restless, though,’ Tom was saying. ‘The men are anxious to be off. They are filled with a high confidence that must be merited considering the successes of the past day or two.

  ‘What troubles me is that the late arrivals seem to be striving to make up for their tardiness through unwarranted zeal. They are demanding revenge against phantom Orangemen and scouring the country for any poor soul hiding in the fields who could not keep up with the general exodus out of Enniscorthy.

  ‘To make matters worse some of our veterans from Oulart and Enniscorthy think that we have the country won already or that our leaders cannot make up their minds what to do next. There’s been people leaving already, heading back to their homes, the fools, thinking the job is done. Roche must do something soon or we risk losing a number of good, experienced men from the ranks.’

  He looked at Dan in exasperation, ‘Are you even listening?’

  Dan nodded distractedly, ‘So what are you saying, Tom?’

  Tom shook his head, ‘I’m saying, you day-dreaming idiot, that things are not as rosy as they appear. If we do not regain momentum, and soon, our army is in danger of coming apart at the seams. Dixon’s followers will find more innocents to sacrifice and a counter-attack from Wexford or New Ross will disperse us like quail.’

  At this Dan nodded gravely, his attention finally coming back to considerations of the practical, the here and now of the sun-honeyed slopes of Vinegar Hill. ‘Roche will move,’ he said confidently. ‘He knows what is at stake.’

  ‘Your belief in Roche is admirable, Dan,’ said Tom. ‘But neither himself nor the priest has done anything to halt the execution of loyalist prisoners. Another one was hacked to death not an hour ago. Rumour has it that they are going to shoot the next one. The pike as an instrument of justice is too sanguinary even for Dixon’s bloody lot.’

  Dan’s face drained of colour at this and a light seemed to be extinguished in his eyes.

  ‘Ho, the camp!’

  The sudden voice, filled with enthusiasm and bubbling good humour, caught the two brother’s attention and, as one, they turned their heads to see who had hailed them.

  Stepping between lean-tos and tents made from blankets and tree branches, Miles Byrne waved in greeting. The young captain was dressed in an emerald coat with yellow cuffs and collar and a broad-brimmed hat sat jauntily on his head. Its green cockade fluttered as he approached. Altogether he cut quite a dash against the dull tones of his surroundings and a wide smile cut a gleaming segment in his face.

  He stood before them and, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, said slightly breathlessly, ‘I’ve been looking for you for an age. Roche has sent word for captains and officers to assemble at his tent. Something is afoot. I would guess that our next course of action is to be revealed to us, and not a moment too soon.’

  Dan looked confused and answered, ‘But nobody here is an officer, Miles.’

  ‘Ah,’ chuckled Byrne. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. Since poor William Sinnott fell so gloriously in battle, Anthony Perry, on Roche’s advice, has elected you as Captain of the Castletown men. Provisionally, of course.’

  Tom blinked and began to laugh but Dan’s expression soured and he said, ‘Tell Mr Perry that I do not deserve such elevation and neither do I desire it. I will fight amongst the men as best as I am able but I cannot lead them.’

  Byrne was smiling wolfishly, ‘You can tell him yourself, Captain. You must accompany me to the council of war forthwith or we shall be accused of dawdling.’

  Grumbling and doing his best to ignore his brother’s derisive sniggering, Dan muttered, ‘Look after Elizabeth, Tom. She’s still sleeping.’

  Tom saluted roguishly, ‘Aye, aye, Captain.’

  Scowling back over his shoulder at Tom, Dan followed Byrne as he made off hurriedly through the maze of cooking fires and blankets. Things could hardly get any worse, he thought.

  The tent that Roche shared with Fr John, Fr Michael and George Sparks was a vast, buff-coloured rectangle of canvas, having all the appearance of a military mess-tent. Its peaked roof was stained in a wide sweep, where the fires from which it had been rescued down in Enniscorthy had tongued the material in dark streaks, and its guy ropes had mostly been replaced by pilfered hawsers from the sand cots below on the Slaney. Around the open flaps of the tent a large group of rebel officers in a motley variety of uniforms had gathered. The common and uniting factor amongst the men was the vivid presence of the colour green. On arms, around waists and in the bands of hats, emerald scarves and sashes, cockades of deepest bottle-green to brilliant lime all glowed in the sunlight. And in the midst of it all, Edward Roche, in a jacket the colour of summer foliage, held court.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he was declaring, ‘This will be a bit of a squeeze but we shall endeavour to fit us all into the tent for a council of war. We are a brotherhood of affection and as such we shall make this decision together or not at all.’

  With that, the mass of men crowded forward through the tent’s open flaps. Men doffed their caps and mopped sweating brows as they entered the cool shade of the interior.

  Byrne was regarding the men as they filed through the opening with a frown that reminded Dan, startlingly, of Tom.

  ‘I’m not sure that I agree with this,’ the young captain muttered darkly. ‘Leadership by committee in a time of war is a preposterous notion. Roche and Fr Murphy should make a decision and have done with it.’

  Inside the tent, Roche had placed a round table, obviously plundered from some well-appointed townhouse down in the valley. Its heavy frame was carved and polished and its lines curved in elegant sweeps, lending grace to what might otherwise be a clumsy vastness of dead wood. The overall effect, however, was spoiled somewhat by the absence of one of its legs, its place taken by a pile of books, their gilt titles winking out from the leather-bound spines.

  About the table sat a group of prominent United Irishmen, not all of them colonels but all of them highly esteemed amongst the men. Amidst them sat Fr John Murphy, looking slightly bewildered by the faces around him, many of whom he had never met before. A graze marred his forehead where a musket ball had zipped past and a violet swelling was bloating beneath one eye. For their part, the newly arrived men regarded the priest in mingled awe and distrust. For some, the memory of him demanding the surrender of arms from the pulpit was still very fresh in their minds. For others the tales of him leading the men at the Harrow and his bravery at Oulart and Enniscorthy were marvels worthy of respect and emulation. Anthony Perry, too, sat amongst the leaders, his eyes downcast and his bandages beginning to discolour from the grotesque weeping of his wounds. To the back of the tent Dan could see the tall form of the blond captain from Killann towering over all those around him, his face a lantern of good cheer and self-assurance. Dan judged that, all told, there were perhaps thirty people packed into a space that could comfortably accommodate twenty. A drone of conversation permeated the air and the heat and reek of unwashed bodies was immense.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ began Roche and all others fell silent. ‘We are gathered here to decide what steps our gallant army is to take next in the great enterprise we have embarked upon.’

  A general murmuring began with voice overlapping voice and opinion drowning out opinion, so that a tidal wave of noise began to mount within the hot cavern of the tent.

  Miles Byrne shook his head and leaned close to Dan. ‘I knew that this would happen,’ he sighed. ‘Too many cooks.’

  Roche was now banging his fist on the table, at the violence of which Anthony Perry flinched. Gradually a buzzing silence fell upon the gathering and Roche admonished, ‘If you cannot comport yourselves like officers then go back to the cooking fires.’

  The silence deepened as men looked abashedly about them.

  ‘Now,’ said Roche. ‘Our next course of action has been complicated by the utter triump
h of our successes thus far. There are differences of opinion as to what to do next and without Edward Fitzgerald or Bagenal Harvey to give us leadership we must decide what to do ourselves.’

  He paused for a moment in thought. The curled index finger of his right hand pressed to his lips as his mind sought words in which to voice his considerations.

  At last he continued, ‘We have three broad courses of action open to us. We can take the fight beyond our county and hope to rise Munster and the midlands by taking New Ross and Newtownbarry. Secondly, we might advance on Wexford Town and drive the remnants of our enemies like rats into the sea. Thirdly, we might consolidate our position and await word from Dublin, for the army and yeomanry are in full flight all about us and Mr Perry has informed us that Gorey has been abandoned. We have taken our county, gentlemen, and the King’s forces cannot hope to relieve Dublin from where they are beleaguered in the south.

  ‘That is our current position.’

  ‘What would you have us do?’ asked an anonymous voice from amongst the gathered throng.

  ‘I would favour taking Wexford Town and liberating our comrades who are held in gaol there.’

  A rising surge of gabbled noise began to swell again from the gathered officers.

  Fr Murphy rose to his feet, his broad face and fierce eyes glowing with anger. ‘Silence!’ he roared. ‘You are not children. Speak in turn or not at all.’

  ‘What is your opinion, Father?’ asked Miles Byrne.

  Startled by the question but revealing no embarrassment at being the centre of so much attention, Fr Murphy stated confidently, ‘I would favour taking the fight outside of our borders. I would advocate the taking of New Ross and Newtownbarry, with our enemies corralled and terrified in Wexford Town and all the armies of the land in flight from us, we should have the whole country risen within days.’

  Edward Roche was nodding thoughtfully and said, ‘That is also the opinion of these two gentlemen. Mr John Hay, Mr William Barker, if you would step forward.’

  From behind his chair, two men moved forward hesitantly. They seemed wary and their faces were lined with worry and streaked with the soot of the town below.

  ‘Mr Barker fought with the French army and Mr Hay was a captain in the Irish Brigade. They both advise the taking of New Ross.’

  John Hay nodded, cleared his throat and regarded the men gathered about with cautious scrutiny. ‘I am an Enniscorthy man,’ he pronounced slowly. ‘I was not with you at Oulart and I was not fighting with you when you took the town so whatever weight my words might carry, they will not be looked upon with any great affection on your part. However, I will say that I am a military man and that I know military matters. My advice to all here is that you ignore the town of Wexford and that you give up your missing leaders for dead. The town itself is of no strategic importance and its garrison is outnumbered and in no position to offer you battle. You have no stores, no depot for the supply of arms, no way of making ammunition, which is in very short supply after the battle down in the town. The heads of your military and political leadership are locked away behind bars. The only hope is to keep the Crown forces on the back foot. To become embroiled in a war of attrition is to invite calamity, for your men cannot stand against line regiments. Any soldiery knowing their duty will cut them to pieces.’

  The man beside Hay, slightly older with a dusting of ash in his hair and sideburns, nodded in agreement. ‘I too am from Enniscorthy,’ he said. I am a latecomer to your ranks, as are most of the men here and on the slopes outside, but heed me well. The most unfortunate thing that could be done at this moment is to become mired within our own borders. Without the French, Wexford will be our graveyard. We must strike out hard and fast through New Ross.’

  ‘What, and leave the yeos behind us to burn our homes and crops?’ came an outraged voice.

  This was followed immediately by another shout from across the room, ‘Will you ever be quiet, Kavanagh? Your home was burnt the minute you marched off with pike in hand. These men know what they’re talking about. Listen to them and shut your gob.’

  ‘I won’t stand here and take talk the like of that from you!’ the first voice bellowed and with that the entire tent seemed to erupt in cries and shouts. Men quarrelled and flung accusations and the semblance of order collapsed into a bedlam of rancour and conflicting arguments.

  Dan and Miles Byrne cast about them in despair as men were shouted down and Roche and Fr Murphy tried to reassert some authority on proceedings. Behind the two leaders, John Hay and William Barker looked at the assembly in glum resignation. At the table, Anthony Perry cradled his wounded head in his hands and said nothing, staring at the lacquered wood between his elbows as though the answers to life’s mysteries might be found in the depthless dark of the grain.

  As that day’s pearly dawn broke over Wexford Town it found Lieutenant Colonel Foote standing, wrapped about in a military greatcoat, in the middle of the Bullring. Before him Captain James Boyd and the Wexford Yeoman Cavalry had formed up to welcome Colonel Maxwell and the Donegal Militia into the ranks of the town’s defenders. The Donegals had marched all night from the fort at Duncannon and each man was exhausted, muskets slipping from their shoulders and boots dragging through the mist-thickened dust. Every eye was set into a nest of purple rings and was laced with a tracery of red.

  Colonel Foote could empathise with them.

  Along with Jonas Watson he had remained awake for most of the night, only snatching an hour of anxious sleep just before dawn. The thousand men of his command had remained at their posts for the entire night as well. Each man had nervously stared out into the black dark of the countryside as the fog rose up like the ghost of a dying man. Each soldier was filled with the bleak expectation that at any moment the flare of torches in the night and the noise of marching feet would presage the arrival of his doom.

  Instead, just as dawn was breaking cold and colourless in the fog, the Donegals had come marching and a ragged, threadbare cheer sounded from the walls and barricades of Wexford Town.

  Sitting his horse just to one side of Foote, Colonel Maxwell regarded his men with a critical eye. His moustache was impeccably waxed and his sideburns, swept down from below his cocked hat, neatly trimmed and groomed, but the same weariness that lay heavy on Foote also weighed on the Donegal officer, blanching his face and dulling the blade of his gaze.

  ‘They look tired, don’t you think?’ said Maxwell.

  ‘One cannot blame them, sir,’ replied Foote. ‘They have made good time and a night march is trying under the best conditions.’

  Maxwell was now the superior officer in the town and Foote was careful in how he addressed him. ‘There was no sign of the rebels, Colonel Maxwell?’ he asked.

  Maxwell yawned in spite of his best efforts and said, ‘I do apologise, Colonel Foote. I find myself quite wearied, it must be said. To answer your question, I must reply in the negative. There was no sign of any insurgency around Taghmon or in the neighbourhood of Ross. Perhaps this is a local matter that the garrison at Gorey has dealt with.’

  Foote snorted, ‘Colonel, we have not heard from Hawtrey White in Gorey since his men induced a confession from one of the rebel leaders. That was two days ago. I fear the lines of communication between ourselves and the north of the county have been severed.’

  ‘We can send no word to Dublin?’ asked Maxwell.

  ‘No sir,’ replied Foote. ‘Not by road at any rate.’

  ‘That complicates matters,’ sighed Maxwell, as the last of his men filed past and he slumped forward onto his saddlebow.

  ‘Have my men placed at free quarters in the town,’ he instructed then. ‘They need some rest. In two hours we can start relieving your men who have been on guard all night. It is difficult to admit but should the rebels advance on us now we are in no position to offer any kind of determined defence.’

  ‘Pray God they don’t, sir,’ said Foote earnestly.

  Two hours later and the first detachments of the
Donegal Militia were manning the barricades at John Street and taking up position on the old tumbledown walls surrounding the town. Their Cork comrades slapped them on the backs and offered them hearty well-wishes as they sloped off to the welcome haven of barrack and bedroom. Still aching and weary from their night’s march, the Donegals blinked stinging eyes as the sun cast aside the shrouding cloak of fog. This close to the sea, a perpetual breeze fanned the cockades of their bicorns and set the forest of spars and crow’s nests to dancing above the harbour roofs.

  The first of Wexford’s civilian inhabitants began to stir and make their way through streets thick with soldiers and yeomanry and all at once it was as though the life had been sucked from the place. The bustle of a busy port town was frighteningly absent and people walked hurriedly, gaze focused on the rutted earth or dimpled cobbles beneath their feet. Only in John Street was there an old familiarity. The steady ring of blacksmiths’ hammers chimed like warning bells.

  Colonel Maxwell stood shoulder to shoulder with Colonel Foote and stared out the second-storey window of the market house overlooking the Corn Market and Bullring. Behind them an elaborately carved table was strewn with maps and scrawled reports, the paper making dry, rustling drifts where they had been pushed to one side, piling each upon the other.

  ‘What do you council, Colonel Maxwell?’ asked Foote.

  Without looking at his subordinate, Maxwell stated wearily, ‘I council caution and patience. Have the men stand at arms, I don’t care if they are falling down with tiredness, and continue the mounted patrols out into the countryside. General Fawcett should be arriving from Duncannon shortly. He assured me that he would be following close on my heels.’