1798

by Joe Murphy

  The morning had advanced with the wind tossing clouds across the sky like tattered bandages. Vast, unravelling skeins of cotton seemed to trail across the heavens. Now, at mid-morning, Elizabeth Blakely shivered and said, ‘I fear a change in the weather.’

  Tom glanced upward from where he sat beside her on the worn granite step and nodded slowly, his mind elsewhere.

  All through the morning the insurgents had filtered back into the town so that its narrow streets were now packed with thousands of men and women who, for the most part, seemed to be drifting aimlessly. They were atoms in a stream of humanity that slid sluggishly between whitewashed banks. The quays were also thronged as children who had never before seen a ship were hoisted up onto their fathers’ shoulders and stared with amazed eyes out across the foam-flecked width of Wexford Harbour. Infants and toddlers were wrapped against the cold and pushed their pudgy, pink fists into mouths running with drool, too young yet to comprehend the importance of events or the horrors through which they had lived.

  The Bullring chimed like a belfry. Edward Hay, John’s brother, had been greeted by the rebel leadership as a comrade in arms as soon as he had met them, a circumstance that would have provoked the righteous ire of Colonel Foote had he witnessed it. He had immediately been asked to turn the Bullring into a massive smithy; he was instantly become the master of armaments. Every blacksmith and farrier in the town had converged on the Bullring with apprentices and tools and good iron and steel and set to hammering out pike heads by the dozen. Swords and muskets were oiled and repaired. Wood turners were busy sanding and lacquering long straight lengths of ash to replace broken pikestaffs. The place was humming with the breathless industry of a hive.

  Then, above the ring and clatter of the blacksmiths, above the hustle and bustle of the thronging multitude, a hunting horn sounded shrill and piercing. The crowd stilled for a moment, silent and apprehensive and then a huge cheering mounted in volume from the direction of the quays. Dan, Elizabeth and Tom looked at each other quizzically and then wordlessly joined the flood of people slipping through streets and alleys toward the sea.

  The quays were already choked with onlookers by the time the three companions arrived. Everyone, country rebels and frock-coated townsfolk alike, all were waving a green branch or scrap of fabric. Tom and Elizabeth stood on tip-toe to catch a glimpse of what was provoking such a joyous outpouring. Dan, however, by virtue of his height, commanded a good view of events and his eyes widened in astonishment at what he saw.

  In from the Rosslare gate marched column after column of fresh pikemen. They carried themselves proudly although none had the lean, battered look of the men who had taken Enniscorthy and Wexford. Most were well-armed and some carried the long-barrelled guns so emblematic of the coastlines of Shelmalier and Forth.

  At their head rode an extraordinary figure on a massive white foxhunter. An old man with the air of royalty, he was dressed from neck to black riding boots in dark green, even the frothy billow at his throat and cuffs were of emerald lace. On his head sat a black broad-brimmed hat with a green cockade set into its golden band. He waved royally to the crowds as he passed, bestowing smiles and nods like favours at a party.

  ‘Who is it?’ asked Elizabeth, her lack of height meaning she had to grip Dan’s shoulders and bounce on her toes to even catch a glimpse of the unfolding scene. Irritated and sharply aware of the inelegance of her actions, she pressed, ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘It’s Cornelius Grogan of Johnstown Castle,’ breathed Dan incredulously. ‘I had no idea he was a United man.’

  Tom was grumbling under his breath, bobbing up and down and side to side like a prize fighter as he tried to snatch glances between people’s heads. ‘How many does he bring with him?’ he asked.

  Dan studied the long lines of rebels for a moment before replying, ‘Two thousand, at least. Those red-coated rascals who so lately burned and murdered all along the road to Duncannon have brought the whole south of the county into the field.’

  Tom had ceased his manic bobbing and whispered, ‘Two thousand? God almighty, every man in Wexford must be up in arms.’

  Just then a voice called out over the din, ‘Captain Banville?’ It was young Jim Kehoe and he was waving at them from the back of the crowd. ‘General Roche would like to talk with you in Mr Harvey’s lodgings. He’s calling a muster of the officers.’

  Dan frowned slightly and turned to Elizabeth, saying, ‘Does that relative of yours still reside on Chapel Lane at the junction with Back Street?’

  Elizabeth nodded cautiously, ‘My Great Aunt, yes, although I have never been held very high in her affections. I presume the old goat still lives there. All the demons with all the pitchforks in hell couldn’t strike fear into her withered heart.’

  Tom laughed at this, ‘You have been in the company of soldiers for too long.’

  Dan ignored him and continued, ‘Go to her now on the pretext of seeing to her comfort. Tell her you were worried for her safety. We must make haste, for Mr Harvey’s house lies at the far end of Main Street beyond the junction with George’s Street, and with every thoroughfare so crowded it may take us time to reach.’

  Tom’s laughing expression died on his face like something eviscerated. He regarded Dan with a look of suspicion. ‘“We”’? “Us”?’ he asked. ‘I am not an officer and have no intention of becoming one.’

  Dan slapped him on the shoulder and said curtly, ‘Miles Byrne and a few of the others think otherwise. You are coming.’ His voice was stern, as though he were chiding his little brother for a childish wrongdoing. In his tone the years rolled back and they were boys once again.

  Elizabeth was now opening her mouth in protest until Dan covered it with his own. He kissed her for a moment before she pushed him away in exasperation. ‘Daniel!’ she blustered, indignant.

  He seized her by the shoulders then and looked deep into the depthless black of her pupils. ‘Go to your aunt,’ he whispered fiercely. ‘And for God’s sake stay away from that monster Dixon and his wife.’

  With that, he flashed her a grin of boyish enthusiasm and spun away from her, blundering his way through the crowd. Tom shrugged his shoulders apologetically and then he too vanished into the mass of people. Alone, she stared after them, the hub of a whorl of empty space that slowly collapsed inward, gradually drawing tight about her.

  A broad wooden boardwalk ran along the quayside and as the two brothers made their way along it, Tom called out loud over the tonguing waves, ‘Hold on a second there, me bucko. What has you thinking that I might be willing to take on a position which no one but madmen and martyrs would want?’

  Dan looked back over his shoulder and grinned. ‘You have the trust of everyone in our corps and you have proven yourself to be as true a United Irishman as Wolfe Tone himself. Even Miles has set you on a pedestal, he considers you one of the most able and eminently sensible gentlemen he knows.’

  ‘I am an eminently sensible gentleman,’ agreed Tom, shoving his way past two hulking farmhands. ‘That is why I must view this as idiocy.’

  He hauled Dan by the collar of his jacket so that he spun around and stopped in his tracks. All about them the clamour of Grogan’s arrival still resounded but Tom faced his brother without any enthusiasm softening his features.

  Uncaring of who might be listening, Tom pointed back the way they had come and continued, ‘Do you think that peacock on his white foxhunter is a leader? That is the calibre of our officers. Where was the like of him at Enniscorthy and Oulart?’

  Ignoring the startled expressions on those faces near enough to have overheard, Dan smiled at his brother, ‘At what time did you become so blood and thunder a croppy, Tom?’

  Tom sighed then and his anger drained from him as he said, ‘Since the yeos came for my brother. I am not a croppy, Dan, but I am a pragmatist. Should our raggle-taggle army fail to carry the day, we are all dead men.’

  Dan nodded to where Grogan’s green-clad torso and the arctic slab of his
mount’s broad head were visible above the gawking assembly. His voice was low but earnest as he said, ‘Well then, Tom, it is to the like of that “peacock” that we must entrust all our hopes. The leaders are not dandies or fops, Tom. They are great men. Bagenal Harvey is one of the truest and most patriotic gentlemen on earth.’

  Tom gripped his brother by the shoulders then and shook him as one might shake a sleeping child who is tossing, lost, in the midst of nightmare. His eyes roved across Dan’s broad face, his bright sea-grey eyes, and he said, ‘Apart from Roche and John Hay not one of your “leaders” has even a feeble grasp of the most simple of military fundamentals. How many can instruct a column of men to form line and to fall from that into square, or to wheel and pivot in the field? None. They are politicians and romantics, Dan. They are not soldiers.’

  Tom felt Dan’s finger jab him hard, three times, in the breastbone. Once for every syllable: ‘But you are.’

  Tom blinked as Dan went on, ‘That is why you must accept a commission. Miles Byrne, John Kelly, Thomas Cloney; all are mere captains yet it is they who are most intrepid in the field. It is they who the men look to. It is they who will carry the day, Tom. Without them, without men like you, we are doomed.’

  Tom considered this for a moment. About them the excitement of Grogan’s passing had died away and now only the heavy tramp of his marching column sounded above the individual conversations as men and women, bored with the spectacle, began to drift away back to the Bullring or John Street. At length a wry smile tugged at the muscles of Tom’s mouth so that Dan was reminded of him as a ten-year-old, his face slathered in jam and brazenly unrepentant as Mrs Prendergast scolded him and threatened him with her mixing spoon.

  Tom spoke then, ‘You know, you left yourself out of that list of luminaries.’

  Dan grinned too and asked, ‘So, you’ll do it?’

  ‘I will, Dan,’ came the answer. ‘But only because you are my brother and you have invested yourself, heart and soul, in this madness.’

  ‘Good chap!’ exclaimed Dan. ‘Now, we may hurry. Roche must have something important to say.’

  Bagenal Harvey’s townhouse was situated at the north end of Main Street, just beyond the junction with Monk Street. Its facade was as grand and ostentatious as its owner. The brick walls were clad in neatly squared blocks of stone and the windows were wide and towering, reflecting back in pale and rippling counterfeit the ebb and flow of the street before them. The door to the house was a heavy, oaken chessboard of carved panels and the steps leading up to it from the dust of the road were hewn from Forth Mountain quartzite and glinted milkily in the sun. In front of this stately abode a large group of rebel leaders had congregated, puffing on pipes.

  At the two brothers’ approach Miles Byrne detached himself from the other officers of his Monaseed contingent and crossed the street to meet them. He paused in front of Dan and shook his hand warmly. Then he nodded to Tom asking, ‘Well, have we roped him into our tattered little brotherhood?’

  Dan grinned, ‘He says he will take a commission but is endeavouring to be as curmudgeonly as possible about it.’

  Tom rolled his eyes and said, ‘A child could not have been more insistent than your pleading.’

  Byrne laughed but immediately sobered, his face taking on a curious expression as he replied, ‘I am glad you have decided so, Tom. We all of a sudden have more regiments than we have men to lead them. We cannot have the likes of Dixon over there, or Luke Byrne up at Enniscorthy allowing our victories to descend into depravity.’

  He jerked his head to one side indicating where Thomas Dixon, his greyhound face warped into a perpetual sneer, was conversing with some of his aides. He leaned against the wall of Harvey’s house like a scarecrow in a field, all hard angles and cold button eyes.

  ‘How many men do we have now, anyway?’ asked Tom.

  Byrne smiled then and a suggestion of his eighteen years flickered once more in his eyes, a youth bloodily and prematurely birthed into adulthood, made sport for an instant across his face.

  ‘The country must be emptied,’ he said. ‘The entire county from Gorey to The Hook must be in the field for there are at least twenty thousand fighting men camped in and around this town.’

  Dan gaped incredulously, ‘Twenty thousand?’

  ‘At least,’ Byrne beamed. Tom nodded consideringly, ‘And what are we to do with so formidable a force?’

  Miles looked over his shoulder to where Harvey’s townhouse loomed over the bustling street, ‘We are waiting on Grogan to arrive and then we shall see. I just hope that this council is far more decisive than our last.’

  The three young men then crossed the street to where the officers from the northern part of the county, with whom they were most familiar, were clumped together in a swirling blue haze of pipe smoke. Within minutes a shout went up from down the street and every head was turned to see Cornelius Grogan striding through the throng toward them. Like the sea before the painted stern of a galleon, bystanders and United men were ploughed to one side by the flamboyant old man who, in spite of his white hair and furrowed visage, bore himself erect and proud as he walked.

  Nodding ‘good day’ to people as he approached, Grogan mounted the steps to Harvey’s house before pausing with his hand on the latch. He then turned and with bravado spoke over the heads of the assembly. ‘Gentlemen,’ he declaimed, ‘this is the beginning of the end of tyranny. Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!’

  This was greeted by a loud huzzah from the watching officers. Tom was disgusted to hear even Dan add his voice to the clamour, his face radiating optimism and zeal.

  Tom merely shook his head and curled his lip as Grogan whirled and disappeared into the silent house.

  Long minutes stretched out and men began to fidget and grumble before the door opened again. One of Harvey’s servants stood in the empty doorway and gazed out fearfully upon the crowd in the street. He was a young man, born and reared in Wexford Town and he was mightily afraid of this mass of country farmers who had butchered soldiers and carried all before them on a tide of steel and shot. His fear found expression in his voice as it wavered, caught in his throat and failed him again.

  ‘Would you speak if you’re going to say something,’ spat a voice from the street.

  The serving man swallowed and finally croaked, ‘Mr Harvey will see you all now in the drawing room.’

  Laughing gruffly, the mob of rebel officers tramped up the steps and past the bewildered servant, who had no choice but to step aside as they tracked dirt and the refuse of the street across the threshold. Once they had passed he sighed softly and bent to polish the scuff marks from the floorboards.

  Bagenal Harvey had set the scene for this latest council of war between the long expanse of his dining room and the comfortable surrounds of the drawing room. The double doors in between had been flung open and lamps and candles had been lit to provide more light. Both rooms were wallpapered in feathery designs and a hunting scene hung on the wall above the drawing room fireplace, its dark shades and sepia browns contrasting sharply with the pastel green of the walls. The two rooms formed one large space into which the officers of the various corps now piled, many of them casting wideeyed stares at the unimaginable luxury of the place. One or two ran trembling fingers across delft delicate as sea shells, or blinked at the extravagance of silver candelabra.

  Dan looked about as the men filed in and noticed that at the head of the heavy, darkly lacquered dinner table seven or eight chairs had been set and behind them the standard of the United Irishman, gold harp on green, hung leadenly from a pole hastily lashed to a coat stand. As Dan watched, Bagenal Harvey, Edward Roche and, surprisingly, Edward Fitzgerald walked through a side door and sat at the three top chairs. Behind them John Hay, George Sparks, Fr Michael Murphy, Anthony Perry, Cornelius Grogan and one or two others took up the other chairs. Lastly, Fr John Murphy walked into the room and stood confused, staring at his fellow leaders but without a seat at their table.

>   An agitated muttering began to swell amongst the gathered captains at this sight until Harvey himself arose and fetched a spare chair from another room. Fr Murphy’s face had become a shade of bruised purple and his nostrils flared in indignation but he accepted Harvey’s mumbled apology with a dignified silence and sat down.

  Byrne frowned at this dumbshow and whispered to the brothers, ‘That’s a disgraceful way to treat so brave a soul, unsworn United man or not.’

  The angry murmuring continued amongst the men until Harvey raised a hand and a gradual silence drifted down upon the gathering. He spoke slowly, rising to his feet as he did so, ‘We are here convened to formulate a plan of war and to discuss its execution for the betterment of our people and the spreading of liberty across the entire island of Ireland.

  ‘The people’s army has so far been triumphant and has caused the flight of the King’s forces from our little corner of the country. But this is not enough, I have been told. General Roche has assured me that we must continue apace or we risk losing the initiative.’

  He was interrupted at this point by a vigorous, ‘Hear, hear,’ from Miles Byrne.

  Harvey nodded and continued but Dan detected an almost mocking tone in his voice, as though he felt a slight disdain for the words he was forced to utter, ‘To this end the leadership of the United Irishmen, and of course the esteemed Fr John Murphy,’ he added hastily, and which Fr Murphy ignored completely, ‘have therefore designed a stratagem to further our goals.’

  A voice then rose from the midst of the congregation and a man stepped forth. He was a peasant farmer and almost a week’s growth of beard made a grey-flecked pelt of his face and neck. Dan thought he recognised the man from Oulart Hill and his words immediately confirmed this fact.

  ‘I’ve been with Fr John here since The Harrow,’ he drawled. ‘I don’t know why he was left standing when the likes of “Lord” Edward Fitzgerald there had a chair. I don’t see why we have to listen to any plans that Mr Fitzgerald has had a hand in. Where did he go yesterday? Let him answer that first if he’s not too afeared to be honest with us.’