1798

by Joe Murphy

  Harvey looked uncomfortable, his flabby face quivering as he raised a placating hand. ‘These are trying times for us all, my good fellow,’ he began but Edward Fitzgerald rose elegantly to his feet and stemmed his flow of words.

  ‘Don’t antagonise them, Edward,’ Harvey cautioned before sitting back down.

  Fitzgerald cleared his throat and faced the farmer with an air of nobility that seemed to outshine even the sunlight streaming through the high, leaded windows. He then glanced around the assembly saying, ‘I went home, gentlemen. I found Wexford abandoned by the military and I went home for the night.’

  A horrible noise slithered from the officers’ throats and Dan thought he heard the word ‘coward’ bleed forth into the air.

  Fitzgerald merely stood for a moment and then responded, ‘Call me “coward” if you will. Call a man “coward” for wishing to spend a last few hours with his wife and family. For make no mistake about it, gentlemen, we have reached the turning point. I do not expect to see my home again unless it is under the banner of Ireland free and the tyrant’s yoke removed forever. I have come here from my last night with my family sure in the knowledge that it is liberty or death for us all from now on. The government cannot allow us to humiliate them and the French must come to our aid. We are at war, total and utter and with all the horrors and brute necessities that that sorry circumstance carries with it.

  ‘Therefore I have returned, committed and four-square behind every man here, after one brief respite at my poor home. If any man should think me milk-livered or lukewarm for doing such, then let him speak and I shall remove myself from this entire enterprise.’

  A silence greeted his words and with a muttered, ‘Thank you,’ he sat down.

  Into the silence another voice intruded, this time anonymously from the rear of the crowd where it spilled through the open doors into the drawing room. ‘I thought the plan was to rid Wexford of soldiers. Surely we have accomplished all that our instructions set out. To go further without word from Dublin is to go beyond our remit.’

  Harvey again rose to his feet, a pontifical smile playing at his blubber lips, and replied, ‘My dear man, I have only, since my recent release from incarceration and from my Herculean efforts to ensure the liberty of our fellow patriots, been made aware of these militant manoeuvrings. I was committed to a course of political emancipation without any inkling of an armed insurrection. General Roche here informs me that the original aims of the United Irishmen for County Wexford have indeed been accomplished.’

  A murmur of agreement and wonder filtered through the assembled officers as Roche added, ‘We were to defeat and blockade the Crown forces within our county and so prevent reinforcements reaching Dublin. That we have done with an intrepidity and alacrity which must be considered miraculous. According to our original scheme we should now engage in restoring order and providing food and shelter for the dispossessed and those brutalised by the fighting, Catholic and Protestant both. Mr Harvey here was to be foremost in this process. If other counties have been as successful as we have been then word should be reaching us from the provisional government in Dublin soon.’

  The anonymous voice rose again, lifting above the heads of his companions, who shuffled to move out of his way, ‘Then why don’t we simply wait for word?’

  Again a buzz of agreement rattled around the room.

  Harvey answered him, still smiling condescendingly. ‘My dear fellow, I am of the same opinion as you are. I feel the time for bloodshed is over. Conciliation must begin at some point, must it not? However, our good friends who sit around me are not in so optimistic a frame of mind.’

  Roche nodded and growled, ‘I do not think we have taken Dublin. We would have had word from the surrounding counties by now.’

  It was then that Anthony Perry spoke, his voice low but mounting with every word like a gathering storm. ‘I also do not think Dublin has fallen. I believe we must carry the fight to them. We must rise the country or die in the attempt.’

  His hands then went to the bandages that turbaned his scalp and, snarling, he ripped them from him. Underneath, his head was hairless apart from at the nape of his neck and at his temples where a few desultory straggles hung limp and sweat-slicked. The bare surface of his scalp was a devil’s parody of human flesh. The entire dome of Perry’s skull was livid with fresh scars and oozing pustules were pale pouches of corruption bubbling across his head. As the bandages came away with a horrible rasping sound, thin trickles of blood began to seep from the myriad lacerations that wound between his sores.

  At the sight of his maimed skull many of the surrounding men averted their gaze and stared blankly at floor or ceiling. Dan however could not tear his appalled eyes from the marks of Perry’s torture.

  ‘Look at me!’ Perry snapped, his Ulster accent harsh and barking. ‘Look at me, damn you!’

  Every face reluctantly turned to regard him with mingled pity and horror.

  When he was sure of his audience Perry continued, ‘You who speak of rest, of conciliation, know nothing of what was done to me. What I endured. What I was forced to do. I will die and take every man here with me before I fall into their hands again. We must move and move quickly.’

  Harvey was scowling and began to speak in a mollifying tone, ‘My dear Mr Perry, we all sympathise—’

  Roche cut him off viciously, ‘Mr Harvey, sympathy will not carry the day. We must mount an offensive and strike out of the county before the government can gather its wits and before line regiments start arriving from England. If we can hold them until the French arrive then the country must surely be ours.’

  Harvey’s scowl deepened and he sat down into his chair with the air of a scolded schoolboy.

  ‘What should we do, General?’ asked a voice to the left of Dan.

  Roche cleared his throat and explained, ‘Our numbers are now very great and we have amassed a large store of firearms. Unfortunately our powder is in short supply and its manufacture is proving difficult. We do however have artillery and men who are trained in its use. We also have untold thousands of pikes and strong arms and stout hearts with which to wield them.’

  A small cheer greeted this comment but was immediately hushed into silence by the majority.

  ‘The plan is to divide our force into two. I will command one division while Mr Harvey will assume command of the other. Mr Fitzgerald, Mr Perry and I will march north with ten thousand men and move on Gorey and Newtownbarry, striving to break out into the midlands or across into Wicklow. Mr Harvey will lead the southern division of thirteen thousand to attack New Ross and move into Kilkenny, thence to Waterford and so rise the Munster counties.’

  Tom leaned into Dan and Miles and whispered hoarsely, ‘That’s what Hay and Barker suggested two days ago.’

  ‘I am aware of that, Mr Banville,’ growled Roche, overhearing. ‘Since I am reliably informed that you are taking provisional command of the Castletown Corps I shall tell you now that I expect any misgivings you may have on our march north to be directed solely to me.’

  Tom frowned in confusion and looked at Dan, who stared fixedly ahead whispering out of the side of his mouth, ‘Later.’

  The meeting continued for a few minutes more with Matthew Keogh being named provisional governor of Wexford Town with the liberal Ebenezer Jacob as chief medical officer. Provisions were made for law and order, for munitions manufacture, and, finally, it was agreed that a printing press was to be commandeered to be used for the printing of pamphlets.

  The council concluded with Fr Murphy leading the men in a short prayer while Harvey and the other Protestant members present blessed themselves and listened silently. Finally Roche ordered, ‘Everyone to their regiments. Await runners bearing orders. The Northern Division will march with me this very afternoon. Make ready.’

  The mass of rebel officers filed out of the rooms, passing the serving man as he scrubbed the floor by the front door. In the street Miles Byrne turned to Dan and asked, ‘What do you make
of that?’

  Dan nodded, ‘I feel that a firm course of action has at last been decided upon. The leaders lead and we follow. It is as it should be.’

  Tom spoke, his voice low, his expression dark, ‘What did Roche mean by saying I had command of the Castletown Corps?’

  Byrne looked uncomfortable, his youthful face twisting and his eyes finding unnatural interest in the flight of a swallow flitting over the slated roofs in this well-to-do part of town. Dan, however, faced his brother with all the frankness he could muster and said, ‘You are taking the corps and heading north with Roche. I have been asked to look after a new body of men come in from Mayglass. They have no captain and have no experience, yet they and their like will be sent to accompany Mr Harvey in his taking of New Ross.’

  Tom looked at him quizzically, ‘So you are to babysit novices?’

  ‘I am to lead men who were unfortunate enough to miss the victories thus far,’ Dan retorted.

  ‘Preposterous,’ snapped Tom. ‘You are coming north with me. I only became involved in this lunacy because you were. I will not allow you to get yourself killed for some far-fetched romantic notion.’

  ‘Liberty is hardly a romantic notion,’ said Dan somewhat stiffly.

  Tom pinched the bridge of his nose in that familiar gesture of exasperation, and said, ‘Do not sloganise me, big brother. I have never been the idealist that you are. I do not see why you just do not come north. Roche strikes me as a far better bet than this Mr Harvey.’

  He turned to Byrne then and asked, ‘What say you, Miles?’

  Miles Byrne shook his head, saying, ‘I do not wish to become involved, Tom. We are soldiers and so we may follow orders without question.’

  ‘And where do your orders take you, pray tell?’ wondered Tom.

  Byrne shrugged, relenting, ‘The Monaseed Corps are to go north with Roche and Fitzgerald.’

  Tom nodded bitterly, his lips twisting as though a hook had lodged in the soft flesh of his cheek, ‘So we are to abandon Dan to his fate, is that it? It will not stand. I will not leave my brother behind.’

  Dan smiled at Tom. His brother’s loyalty was touching, in spite of his stubborn refusal to accept the nobility he himself found in the United Irishmen.

  He patted Tom on the shoulder and said, ‘John Kelly and the boys from Killann are staying with the Southern Division as far as I know. As is Thomas Cloney. There is work to be done here, Tom. Experience and bravery to match Mr Harvey’s political guile. Should we break through at Ross, why the whole of Munster will rise with us.’

  ‘Then I shall stay with you,’ argued Tom a little petulantly. ‘I only accepted a commission because I thought you and I would be fighting together. I shall walk away from it before I leave you to fend for yourself.’

  ‘For shame, Tom,’ hissed Dan. ‘You cannot abandon the men like that. You bring dishonour down upon us both. Roche would be furious. He was most happy to have you numbered amongst his officers.’

  Tom astutely eyed the two men before him, ‘I have the distinct impression that the good General Roche was aware of my “decision” long before I was.’

  Byrne sighed then and pitching his voice low so as to avoid any would-be eavesdroppers, he said, ‘Tom, you know as well as I do that to sit and reflect on our victories thus far amounts to nothing. To break out into the provinces is what is required. We cannot do that without men of utmost capability. Both you and Dan are needed in different places, Tom. Either you seize this chance or you risk disaster for us all. Mr Harvey’s choice as commander-in-chief is a political one. Being a Protestant of the highest respectability and chosen thus by his Catholic countrymen should be sufficient proof that this is not a religious war. Yet it is not Mr Harvey, nor even General Roche who will win the day. That task falls to the fighting men, ably led by gentlemen the like of you.’

  Tom stared at the young captain intently before turning to Dan with a cold sort of anger blistering the well of his throat. His words came with all the spitting defiance of a cornered wildcat and in that instant Tom Banville was more his father’s son than Dan could ever hope to be.

  ‘I will take the Castletown Corps north,’ he hissed. ‘I will take them and I will fight the English to the very wharves of Dublin Port if needs be. But both of you mark my words, I do this not for the green-painted fantasies of the United Irishmen, I do this not for Harvey, nor for Roche nor for Fr Murphy, not even for you, Miles. I do this for my family and for my honour.’

  He stared at Dan then, his eyes brimming with fury and fierce affection, ‘I do this for my brother.’

  CHAPTER 16

  With Brave Harvey

  In Wexford Town, the early afternoon of the 31st of May was a shifting heave of bodies and material. The breeze had been constant all morning, whipping cloaks of spume to swish up off the waves of Wexford Harbour. Now though, as well as the waves and the slither-slap of ships’ sails, the breeze pawed at the banners of a hundred different parishes and townlands. The banners were mostly homespun and roughly stitched, the embroidery awkward or mawkish, shamrocks and crosses and lumpen slogans scrawled across their fields. Yet each and every one was green, green, green. The universal impression was of a great primeval host set to advance as though stepping from the pages of history or the wild terrain of myth.

  Rough cries mounted the heavens, competing with the splintered calls of the wheeling seagulls, ‘Oulart men, to your colours!’

  ‘Ballaghkeen, to your colours!’

  ‘Monaseed, to your colours!’

  Wexford Town was a hive of teeming forms as men and women streamed out through John Street, towards Windmill Hill and Ferrycarrig beyond. The Northern Division of the great rebel army was on the march, pike-heads scintillating in the sunlight.

  Behind them Wexford, although far from empty, had stilled. Like a vast animal of brick and mortar, slate and thatch, the town seemed to draw in its breath, its arteries less choked, its heart less fevered.

  Dan Banville stood upon the high stone wall surrounding St John’s Church and looked out over the departing ranks. Below him, amidst a throng of cheering onlookers, Elizabeth did not watch the marching insurgents but instead directed her anxious gaze upward, fearful for Dan ten feet above her and buffeted by the breeze. From her perspective his face was pale, his jaw set in a hard line that betrayed his loss, his pain, at his brother’s absence.

  ‘Come down, Daniel,’ she called.

  Dan glance downward and smiled at her in a manner which he thought might be reassuring but instead imbued his expression with a haunted sort of desperation. She had availed of her aunt’s hospitality to wash and change her dress and as her face tilted up to him, her beauty struck him with palpable force.

  ‘In a moment,’ he replied. ‘I want to see them gone.’

  Them, thought Elizabeth ruefully. Her beloved was a terrible liar and she had not been exaggerating when she had described him as glass to her. She saw to his very core, could plumb his depths as easily as if he were a bucket of water. Now he stood high up on a wall that he had clambered with the urgency of a man escaping gaol, clambered so that his knuckles were skinned and dripped blood in a soft pat-pat onto his boots; now he stood and looked out over the heads of ten thousand marching men but seeing just one.

  In that moment Elizabeth discerned truly, and perhaps for the first time, the love that Daniel bore his brother. That and the blazing pride that burned within his chest as he gazed to the point in the distance into which Tom had disappeared.

  ‘You can’t see him anymore, Daniel,’ shouted Elizabeth in a manner she found most unladylike. She craned her neck and held her worsted sun-bonnet onto the crown of her head. ‘Come down before you slip and break your leg. They’d likely put you down at this rate.’

  At last Dan turned his eyes to her and smiled a smile of genuine warmth. Stirring himself, he bent and lowered gradually down the face of the wall until he stood, breathless, before Elizabeth. He shook his bleeding knuckles distractedly and raised his
right hand to his lips to stem the flow of a particularly deep gouge.

  Elizabeth reached up and smoothed the lapels of a clean coat across his broad chest, saying, ‘We must be at my dear Aunt’s in Chapel Lane for tea at four o’clock. She is simply straining at the bit to catch a glimpse of you. She has even granted permission for you to use her bath should you so require! Imagine that. Hot water, Daniel!’

  He grinned and kissed her quickly. ‘And soap,’ he said. ‘Most importantly, soap.’

  She grinned back at him, tasting the slight metallic tang of his blood on her lips.

  They turned left and walked arm in arm down John Street as the last of the rebel detachments moved past. As they strolled, Dan noticed that several of the smithies and tanneries that lined John Street were closed. An unusual quiet swaddled the rough buildings and their empty windows nudged the mind into thoughts of ancient ruins and pagan tombs. Their proprietors had joined the United ranks almost as soon as the army had entered the town. The John Street Corps were now moving past Windmill Hill, eager for Bagenal Harvey or Edward Roche to signal the advance on New Ross and Arklow and the open tracts of Ireland beyond. On John Street no horses whinnied and kicked as they were shoed, no merchants argued with filth-streaked leather-makers. Even the stink of life was fading. It was as though the street had been gutted and now lay vacant and without a pulse upon some great cold slab.

  Elizabeth wound her grip tighter about Dan’s forearm and looked up at him, smiling in spite of the odd atmosphere. ‘Tom will be fine, you know. He is careful and daring in equal measure. I cannot see him doing anything rash that might endanger himself or the men around him.’

  Dan nodded silently. It was not Tom’s ability to look after himself that bothered him but a gnawing sense of guilt that he had somehow forced his brother into this course of action. It was as though he had preyed on Tom’s dedication to him, had used the knowledge of Tom’s loyalty to goad him down a path he hadn’t chosen.