by Joe Murphy
Dan beamed in satisfaction, ‘That was some victory.’
Tom was shaking his head in bafflement but nonetheless a smile made a broad curve of his lips. ‘I am amazed by our continuing success and good fortune. Our little army now has artillery. Who would ever have believed such a thing possible?’
The two brothers and Elizabeth were watching as the twin howitzers were wheeled forward through the ranks. The men of Bantry, who had won so valuable a prize and had been led so ably by John Kelly, were being feted throughout the camp as heroes and warriors on a par with the Fianna and Red Branch Knights. Songs and laughter rolled across the slopes of Forth Mountain as scouts came in from the countryside to the west reporting that Captain Adams and a few terrified survivors of the ambush at Three Rocks had continued their flight until they had run headlong into General Fawcett. At the news that the column had been annihilated and the cannon captured, Fawcett had immediately turned about and headed back to Duncannon. The general, it seemed, had decided to abandon the garrison at Wexford to its fate.
The rebels had now arranged themselves so that the bulk of the army was positioned on the eastern slope of Forth Mountain, overlooking the approaches to and from Wexford Town. A slight rise in the ground obscured the John Street gate which should have been clearly visible only two miles distant. John Hay had immediately taken charge of the newly acquired artillery and, using all the experience he had gained in service with the French, he now directed the placement of the guns so that their great maws overlooked this slight rise. Any sortie from the town or any force seeking to enter from Ferrycarrig must run the gauntlet of Hay’s well-directed shot and shell. The gunnery privates who had been taken prisoner were now pressed into operating the howitzers and keeping them supplied with ammunition. The men, beaten and bloodied, had no choice but to comply.
Debates now began amongst the rank and file as to what to do next. Most favoured advancing straightaway to Wexford Town whilst others, with Thomas Dixon and his wife most vocal among them, favoured scouring the surrounding countryside for known loyalists and yeomen. The very sight of Dixon and his wife was enough to send tremors crawling across Elizabeth’s skin and as the morning wore on she found herself drawing closer and closer to Dan as though to draw strength from his confidence and good humour. Dan was flushed with the success of the dawn victory and the capturing of the artillery but even for him the silence and aura of indecision emanating from the higher circles of leadership were becoming disturbing. As nine o’clock approached, Tom was spitting in frustration, ‘Why are we not doing something?’
Miles Byrne approached them, his raking stride carrying him easily up the slope away from the forward lines and the howitzers, now well dug-in behind a ditch. He swept his hat from his head and wiped a hand across his brow saying, ‘Good morning, Dan, Tom. Ms Elizabeth.’
‘Good morning, Miles,’ replied Dan. ‘Any word on what the plan is now that we find ourselves in such an advantageous position? What are the prospects of an attack on the town?’
Byrne’s young face soured at this and he sighed, ‘The leaders are debating what to do next. Every victory that we achieve in the field seems to stymie them rather than drive them on. Instead of greeting this morning’s work as the boon it is, they are intent on creating phantom problems for us to overcome.’
Tom kicked at the heather at his feet, growling, ‘A ridiculous waste of time. What could they be thinking?’
Just then a shout went up from the outer lines closest to Wexford Town. Over the rise in the distance, a large column of marching infantry and jogging cavalry were advancing. With colours flying and drum beating they came on with the cavalry swinging out to their left to prevent the rebels from flanking them on that side.
At the sight of the soldiers a sudden commotion seized the rebel ranks and men dashed hither and thither, snatching up pikes and muskets whilst women and children began to wail once again at the prospect of more death and violence.
Dan bent and kissed Elizabeth on the forehead. ‘Get beyond the brow of the hill,’ he instructed.
She smiled up at him, weary and resigned, and trailed her fingers along his jaw line. ‘Be careful, my love,’ she said.
He nodded and grinned coldly as she walked away before calling out in a belling voice, ‘Castletown Corps, to your colours!’
Alongside him, Miles Byrne was crying, ‘Monaseed men, to me!’
All about, the slopes of Forth Mountain had become a ringing anarchy of noise as orders were shouted and corps after corps assembled beneath their standards. The din was furious and in the middle of it all Edward Roche appeared beside Dan, Tom and Miles, his fleshy face intense and his eyes rapidly taking in the vista below.
‘Have your men move forward with me,’ he instructed Dan. To Byrne he ordered, ‘Have the Monaseed boys along with the Ballaghkeen contingents move around to our right. Should you get the chance I want you to fall on their cavalry with every ounce of your fury and strength, do you understand?’
‘I do, General,’ and then Byrne was off across the slope, calling men to him as he went.
‘Come along Mr Banville,’ said Roche. ‘Let us see what Mr Hay can do with our new toys.’
Colonel Maxwell surveyed the rebel position, now barely a mile in front of him. He had led the sizeable column of infantry and horse directly out of the John Street gate and had advanced purposefully and with good spirits into the countryside beyond. On his left Jonas Watson rode a stocky roan mare, on the old officer’s grizzled head a wide-brimmed hat cast his face entirely in shadow. Occasionally and with an automatic quality that suggested the absence of any real thought, Watson’s gauntleted hand would rise and he would smooth the long white moustache that drooped like willows on either side of his mouth. It comforted Maxwell to have Watson with him, for the old campaigner was glad to lend him the benefit of his experience in fighting irregulars across the Atlantic. It was reassuring that Watson considered the massive rabble blackening the slopes of Forth Mountain far less formidable than the rebels he had encountered in America. At his back marched Maxwell’s entire contingent of Donegal Militia. The North Corks, shaken and badly mauled, he had considered unsuitable for any further fighting.
As Maxwell rode along he nodded in satisfaction as the Taghmon Yeoman Cavalry swept out to his left, trotting in squadrons and sitting their saddles in as perfect a representation of martial discipline as one could imagine. The entire picture that the garrison wished to paint in the eyes of the watching rebels was one of military pomp and excellence. Maxwell could imagine the bitter waves of fear and intimidation that would surely flood through the insurgent ranks at the sight of their advance. At the column’s head, directly behind Maxwell and Watson, so that the snap and ripple was loud above their mounts’ hooves, the Union Flag and the yellow regimental colours of the Donegals were carried, biting and whipping in the gusting sea breeze. Maxwell turned in his saddle to admire the sight of his men stretched out on the road leading back to Wexford Town and his features filled with a fierce pride.
‘Your men look well enough,’ commented Watson without taking his eyes off the massed ranks of rebels on the hill before them. ‘They march in good order.’
‘Aye,’ agreed Maxwell. ‘I have never seen them so eager for the fray.’
‘I would hope,’ replied Watson, ‘that the necessity for a pitched battle might be avoided until we can link up with General Fawcett. These rebels of yours have substantial numbers.’
He pointed then, his hand lifting and index finger pointing inside the well-worn leather of his riding gloves. His liquid eyes were bright in the shade cast by his hat’s brim, as he said, ‘They have some men of ability with them too, it seems. See how they move to counter our cavalry.’
On the slope ahead of him, Maxwell could perceive a vast block of men moving through the fern and bracken, making towards the southeast face of the mountain, threatening the very cavalry that sought to pen them back. As he watched the rebels move, Maxwell was all at on
ce reminded of starlings, flocks of tiny bodies, numberless in multitude, all moving as though controlled by a single intellect.
‘Let them,’ he grunted. ‘Should they decide to separate further, Cox’s cavalry may actually have the chance to get amongst them.’
At about seven hundred yards from the first of the rebel lines, Watson and Maxwell slowed the column’s advance, preparing to wait for the first sign that Fawcett had reached his side of the great hulking hill before them.
Watson leaned forward in his saddle and his eyes, narrowed and sharp as pins, scanned the ditches ahead of him with all the wariness and circumspection that years in America had bred in him. He regarded the cavalry strung out to their left and he eyed the tightly packed lines of pikemen strung along the slopes of Forth Mountain and crouched behind its ditches and hedgerows. He spat distastefully into the dust at his horse’s side and commented wistfully, ‘If only we had a field gun or two.’
Concurrently, from out of the ditches sheltering the vanguard of the insurgent lines, a dragon’s belch of smoke and flame vomited out into the morning. Maxwell and Watson had time to frown before the roar of the discharge rolled over them and the ground just to the right of the column leapt upwards in a brown jet of pulverised soil.
The officers’ horses whickered and snorted, bucking like ships in a storm, whilst the ranks of the Donegal Milita took staggering steps backwards, shock and fear curdling the features of each and every man. Maxwell, struggling to control his panicked mount, yelled in fury, ‘Hold my brave boys! Hold or we shame ourselves beyond redemption!’
Watson, who had managed to settle his mare rather more swiftly, was staring in smiling admiration toward the rebel position. ‘By God,’ he said softly. ‘They have artillery and persons who know how to use it.’
‘Could they be Fawcett’s?’ asked Maxwell, the creaking note of hysteria which he heard in his own voice appalling him.
Before Watson could answer, a second report bellowed out from the rebel ranks and the ground directly to the left of the column’s front rank coughed skyward and spattered those soldiers closest to it with a dry rain of stones and soil. The Donegal men shuffled again, their colours dipping and wavering as the ensigns began to quail, their shoulders seeming to cave into their chests as though striving to make themselves as small a target as possible.
‘Hold, damn you!’ shouted Maxwell.
‘Let me take some men,’ said Watson, calmly. ‘I’ll take them forward and we shall see whether those guns are ours and how many these rebels might have.’
‘That is dangerous, Mr Watson,’ replied Maxwell.
Watson laughed with all the warmth of a funeral dirge. ‘Their gunners have rather bigger and better targets than a mere scouting party, Colonel. I shall be safe enough.’
Maxwell nodded, ‘Be quick about it, Mr Watson. The men cannot sit here all day and those shots are getting closer.’
Watson saluted, a little too sharply for Maxwell’s taste, and wheeling his horse he selected five privates from the front ranks to accompany him. He then jogged off to the right, pushing through the scant gorse that made up the hedgerow at this particular point along the road, and quickly made his way forward through the fields. He crouched low in his saddle and ushered the redcoats with him to dash along the ditches like foxes at hunt, his face urgent, his gestures quick and honed as knives.
Maxwell was quietly impressed by the old campaigner’s bravery and decisiveness and, in spite of his own trepidation at remaining exposed upon the road, he watched as Watson and his men gradually closed the distance to the rebel lines.
He could not know that in a hedgerow close to the base of Forth Mountain’s eastern slope, one of Edward Roche’s Shelmaliers was taking careful aim along the severe length of his long-barrelled strand gun. He could not know that the Shelmalier, who had grown up sniping at barnacle geese as they came whirring high in over the sloblands and marshes of the Slaney’s mouth, was tracking Jonas Watson’s every bob and motion.
In the distance, Jonas Watson was blown from his saddle, his body tumbling, limp and grotesque, through the bordering hedgerow to lie bleeding and lifeless in the dust of the road.
Maxwell blinked in horror as time itself seemed to stop. The sun became a static ball of fire in the sky and all the world contracted until it consisted solely of the pathetic, rumpled hummock of Watson’s shattered carcass.
The rebel cannon flamed again and this time Maxwell felt words bubble up from a venomous wellspring of fear and loathing, bubble up and spew from his lips.
‘Back to the town!’ he heard himself cry. ‘Back to the town or our lives are forfeit!’
The front ranks of the Donegals immediately began a slow wheel. This manoeuvre would, however, have resulted in dragging the rear ranks forward into range of the rebel’s smoking cannon. Instead, first one and then another and then a whole flood of red-coated soldiery simply turned on their heels and took flight. Maxwell watched as his column, which had marched forth so proudly only an hour before, now disintegrated and commenced an inelegant scramble for the safety of Wexford Town. Kicking his horse’s flanks, Colonel Maxwell joined them and within moments had overtaken even the speediest of his retreating men.
The Taghmon Cavalry, outnumbered, outmanoeuvred and now facing accurate cannon fire, all spun their mounts and joined the general rout. Behind them, dust and rebel cheers chased them home.
Upon the slopes of Forth Mountain Dan and Tom watched the sortie from Wexford Town turn tail and flee. Both men were smiling like proud fathers and before them, sweat trickling from their brows and coursing along the fringes of their sideburns, Edward Roche and John Hay were shaking hands.
Then, from behind them came a shout and Miles Byrne came leaping in boyish effusiveness through the bracken, holding his sword aloft so that it did not tangle in his stride.
‘General Roche, sir!’ he called. ‘We must make after them! We should have every chance of catching them before they reach Wexford. Pursued vigorously, we would surely enter the town with them pell-mell, without the least hindrance.’
Byrne came to a ragged stop before Roche, breathless and eager.
Roche regarded him for a moment before turning with a curious expression of longing toward where the last of Maxwell’s column was disappearing in the distance.
‘I should speak to Fr Murphy and the others before undertaking such drastic action.’
‘No you should not, Mr Roche,’ argued Byrne. ‘We have no time.’
Roche bridled at this and glaring at the young man before him, a stern echo of the yeomanry sergeant he once was entered his voice. ‘Do not contradict me, boy,’ he said. ‘Or you shall feel the back of my hand before you feel any other procedure of discipline.
‘We have time in abundance. The garrison is trapped within Wexford. They cannot hope to face us again and they cannot be relieved. They must sue for terms.’
Byrne looked about in dismay and Dan could perceive the same feeling of chagrin welling up inside John Hay as the old French officer shook his head forlornly and directed his gaze into the heather clumped about his ankles.
In the distance the pale dust cloud of Maxwell’s escape gradually faded against the blue of the sky like the gold of dawn fading in the brightness of its own birth. In the roadway, his jacket already crawling with flies, Jonas Watson lay staring at the doming heavens, his eyes wide and sightless. In the centre of his forehead a black hole was punched. He looked vaguely surprised in death and his wound gaped blankly from out of the smooth white of his forehead like the pitiless eye of hell itself, spilling congealing tears of red toward the gull-grey wings of his temples.
CHAPTER 14
Old Wexford is Won
On receiving Colonel Maxwell’s summons, Lieutenant-Colonel Foote raced with unseemly precipitation towards Wexford Gaol. News of the morning’s disaster had reached the town with the first of Maxwell’s terrified Donegals and from the first mouth to speak of it to the last ear which took it in, the
tale had grown horribly in the telling. Every loyalist citizen in the town was in a frenzy of utmost terror. Some had flung themselves into the sea in an attempt to swim out to the ships riding so mockingly at anchor out in the bay. To make matters worse for the garrison, the mob of countryfolk which had amassed at the northern end of Wexford Bridge had set the planking alight and cut off all hope of breaking out to Dublin. Even now, as Foote barrelled through frantic crowds of civilians and stunned, wan, knots of redcoats, the trickle of smoke from the bridge’s burning began to curl up into the cloudclotted blue.
To his consternation, the soldiery of the Wexford garrison seemed to be in as much alarm as the civilian population. Once or twice he had passed men whom he knew to be members of the yeomanry without their uniforms, endeavouring to avoid his eye as he hurried past.
When he entered the gaol he found Maxwell along with Henry Perceval and Wexford’s mayor, Ebenezer Jacob, gathered around the disgusting slab of the guardroom table. Maxwell looked as though he had been through hell, such was the jaundiced colour of his complexion. Every inch of his flesh seemed to be coated with sweat and the lines of his face seemed to have been ploughed deeper than before. He sat and stared at his hands lying heavy and motionless upon the table.
Henry Perceval was in a state of supreme agitation and was banging one clenched fist into an open palm whilst glaring at Jacob. ‘You simply must, Mr Jacob. There is no alternative.’
‘I will not,’ stated Jacob baldly, his narrow, ascetic head wagging from side to side like a ship’s rudder.
The cadaver that Colonel Maxwell had become then interrupted, speaking to Foote, ‘Welcome Mr Foote. I am glad to see you so promptly, please have a seat.’
‘There is not time, sir,’ said Foote. Then he swallowed and his expression betrayed the reluctance he felt at expressing his next words.