1798

by Joe Murphy

  From the surrounding gloom grunts and gasps of men abruptly woken changed gradually into the hectic sounds of activity. The distinctive clatter of pike-shaft being separated from pike-shaft and ringing rattle of sword belts and baldrics rent the predawn quiet, submerging the first liquid notes of the dawn chorus beneath an avalanche of military bustle.

  Then the first cry went up, ‘Monaseed Corps, to your banner!’

  ‘Shelmalier men, to me!’

  The sun stood high above the horizon and the masses on Carrigrew Hill, who had been so befuddled and stymied for the past three days, their leaders trapped in a maze of the mind, now were determinedly arrayed in companies and battalions, ranks neat and banners lifting, snagged by gentle zephyrs. Pikes were slanted upon shoulders and every face was lifted to where Edward Roche stood upon a gnarled fist of granite, his voice booming out into the morning.

  ‘United Irishmen!’ he cried. ‘We are here gathered under the banner of liberty, a free people determined to spread that freedom beyond the safety of our own borders. We are Irishmen. Not Wexford men, not Wicklow men, not Protestant, not Catholic, but Irishmen, one and all. This morning a force moves out from Gorey to end our mission and put out our lives. We will not allow this.’

  A great roar greeted these words. Pikes were shaken, the mass rippling like a sea in storm.

  ‘We have beaten the soldiers at every turn and the cowardly yeomen we have put to flight,’ Roche continued. ‘So shall it be this morning.

  ‘Mr Fitzgerald, Fr John and Fr Michael, Mr Perry and Fr Philip Roche are the men to whom you should look to at this time. We have stood with you at Oulart, at Enniscorthy and at Wexford. We will stand with you here. We will destroy the forces moving against us and then the whole country must surely be open to our advance.’

  The host blanketing the slopes of Carrigrew Hill cheered again at this. Every face was suddenly ablaze and eyes glittered in anticipation of the coming violence. At the head of his corps, Tom cast his gaze across the myriad ranks that spread out around him. Thousands of tattered forms strained to hear Edward Roche, strained to catch a glimpse of the famed Fr Murphy. He was in an ocean of fervour. The bastardised conception of the Wexford Rising, the commingling of the political with the religious, had spawned something terrible and awesome. All around, the multitude of fighting men were possessed of a blazing zeal that yearned to be set free. They were hounds on a leash, rearing to be loosed.

  Tom wondered whether this was what Dan had envisaged when he thought of a United Irish uprising. Had he imagined an army of unwashed peasants shaking pikes at the sky like a heathen horde? Had he imagined the blood and gore, the atrocities? Had he imagined that black chasuble hanging like a smear of charcoal from its cruciform pole?

  Thinking of his brother, Tom once more hoped he was safe. That New Ross had fallen and the counties beyond were aflame with rebellion. If they were not, if New Ross held, then they were doomed.

  Roche was declaiming again, ‘We march, north. We march to take Gorey and to secure the release of the prisoners held there by the bigots and tyrants who oppose us.

  ‘We march now!’

  With that he bounded from his rocky platform, his stocky frame slightly heavy in its movements, depriving his actions of the dash and drama which he had sought to instil in them.

  Within minutes the vast column of rebel soldiery was on the move. A rising fog of dust crept into the air above Carrigrew Hill as countless feet ploughed the hard earth into powder. Miles Byrne and his Monaseed boys assumed their usual role as vanguard, followed by Roche’s own Shelmaliers with the main insurgent body snaking away behind, wending through the lanes and ditches that laced the countryside at the base of Carrigrew.

  At the head of his own corps, just behind the Shelmaliers, Tom Banville marched alone and watched the back of Anthony Perry as he rode a few yards in front. As Colonel of the Gorey Barony, he was held in high esteem by the other leaders. As a man who had been tortured by the yeos he was beloved by the rank and file, who saw him as the embodiment of vengeance. For them he was a walking, talking avatar of the degradation the peasantry had suffered at the hands of the North Corks. He was a symbol of the oldest arbitrament the world had ever known – blood for blood.

  Yet Tom sensed something else in the man. Perry could not meet the eyes of his men and in the presence of the other leaders his gaze remained fixed on the ground. Every so often he would fling Edward Fitzgerald a stricken look before hastily turning away again. Tom felt that something had passed between these two, some secret thing that weighed upon Perry like a yoke, stooping his shoulders and dragging his gaze into the dust.

  Tom felt something else, too. Something grim resided in the rebel colonel, something baleful and sour. To despise an enemy as an enemy, as someone to be overcome for the sake of a military goal, Tom could appreciate. But the wanton hate that radiated from Perry at the very mention of the Gorey Yeomanry or North Corks was frightening. Tom could not imagine what torment he had endured to fill him with such bile. It seemed to extend beyond his physical hurt, mere wounds could not bubble such venom through a person. Humiliation and shame were what fed Perry’s hate, of that Tom was certain.

  As he marched, Tom thought that twin demons must reside within Anthony Perry, one battening and growing fat on the putrid flesh of the other. Bitter hatred of the Crown flowed in his very veins and yet a contempt, just as bitter, for himself seemed to sour him further. Perry was a maelstrom of anger, a bedlam of despair.

  ‘Captain Banville, sir?’ came the voice of Jim Kehoe from over Tom’s shoulder.

  ‘Don’t you “Captain” me, Jim,’ Tom replied. ‘That nonsense may have worked on my brother but I can assure you I am a different prospect.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ answered Keogh. ‘I was wondering will there be many soldiers coming to meet us. The boys are anxious for the fight.’

  Tom turned so that he was marching backward and grinned rakishly at his banner man. ‘Jim,’ he said. ‘There’ll be more soldiers than we’ve seen so far. Roche has said they mean to destroy us. They won’t do that with the handful we saw at Enniscorthy.’

  Jim Kehoe’s young face blanched slightly and his knuckles whitened on the flagstaff held upright before him.

  Tom’s grin widened and he laughed, ‘Don’t be worrying, Jim. It’ll make a better story to tell the grandchildren.’

  Anthony Perry’s voice cut through his merriment like a saw through bone, ‘A rider approaches.’

  A murmur filtered through the ranks as the rider, one of Miles Byrne’s Monaseeds, reined in his mount, first to speak with Roche and Fr Murphy and then to converse with Perry before moving on to Fr Roche who had taken command of a detachment of Ballaghkeen men.

  Perry turned to Tom and said, ‘Have your men climb the ditch to our right and make their way along the inside of the field. Our vedette reports the approach of a column of redcoats. We are to flank them and catch them before they know we are even here. Be quick about it. They’re nearly upon us.’

  Ahead of the mass of rebels the ground rose steeply to the left and upon this slope Tom could discern the dark forms of rebel musketeers crouching down behind ditch and gorse. All along the road the advance guard of the rebel army was scattering into the surrounding fields, positioning themselves in ditches and hedgerows, moving forward slowly like wild things at hunt, cat-footed and wary.

  At a gesture, Tom led his men over the hedge to his right, a blackthorn drawing a shallow curve of red across the back of one hand as he did so. Wincing and muttering he watched as his corps filed through behind him, silent and watchful. Jim Keogh had furled his banner and stowed it in the undergrowth, now waiting for the order to advance, tense and stoic.

  Tom wondered at the change that had come over these men in the few short days they had been in the field. Peasants and labourers were now soldiers. Ragged and ill-equipped but determined nevertheless. Confident in their abilities and in the righteousness of their cause. He felt a flutter of pride within
his breast and fought to still it with a savage force of will.

  He was here for Dan and for his family, he reminded himself. He led these men for his future, not for Ireland or the cross.

  He waited until his corps had settled amongst the nettles and briars that thronged the base of the hedgerow, one company amongst fifty that crouched in ever-narrowing perspective until the ditch turned and blocked them from sight. When they were all assembled he nodded curtly and began a crouching run along the narrow defile that lay along the inside of the ditch. Briar and snarls of gorse clawed at them him as he darted along but he was oblivious to them. Behind him, the rustle of a thousand men moving sounded in the hot air like a whispered argument. Yet this was the only noise the men made. No conversations. No laughter. Only the panting of exertion and the snap and rattle of dried twigs and bracken gave notice of their advance.

  Ahead, through gaps in the undergrowth, Tom could see the rising ground rearing above the hard scar of the road, its ditches and fields packed with waiting rebel gunsmen. Then, along the road, the first ranks of the soldiers came marching. At their head rode a dapper colonel on a tall grey horse.

  Silence enfolded the insurgents as the red-coated mass moved closer. The storm-weight of anticipation settled down like a blanket of warm lead and under its smothering oppression Tom Banville held his breath.

  Then, as the soldiers passed beneath the looming shoulder of the rise, the entire countryside seemed to explode into barking spasms of musket smoke. The ditches to the right of the red-coated column spewed forth pikemen by the dozen.

  Caught off-guard, the soldiers began a panicked defence. Their colonel wheeled his mount yelling and waving a coutier’s small sword as though he were a conductor of an orchestra. About him his troops tried to form line and offer a volley in return. The pikemen that had sprang from the surrounding fields hammered into them and the line fell apart, soldiers firing in ones and twos, terror-stricken and dismayed.

  Gunsmoke, dense and choking, clogged the road between the ditches, moving lazily in great viscous swirls. Within its obscuring folds the battle became a hazy chaos of phantasmal forms. The infantry colonel, sawing desperately at his horse’s reins, was a towering figure in the fog until a musket ball caught him in the temple with the flat smack of breaking bone, spilling his brains onto the blood-soaked earth below. Like a falling statue the colonel crumbled from his saddle, toppling to lie in a shattered heap amongst the bodies of his men.

  Tom moved his little column along the ditch to outflank the soldiers and cut off their line of retreat. On the road brutal fighting was under way around the park of artillery. Anthony Perry was at the heart of it, his face a mask of fury and a hideous scream issuing from a mouth that opened like a tear.

  Tom appraised the situation as musket balls crackled through the undergrowth around him. Just a little away from the violence around the cannon, a company of redcoats had steadied themselves to loose a volley into the rebel ranks. Their muskets were levelled and each man sighted along the dark length of his barrel with a steadiness imbued through parade-ground discipline.

  Smiling, fatalistic and cold, Tom bellowed, ‘Castletown Corps, secure those guns!’

  With a roar his men surged forward and flung themselves upon the soldiers who had prepared to fire. A few had the wherewithal to discharge their weapons into the savage mass of men bearing down on them and then turn to flee. Others held their ground and sought to stand against the tempest of pikes by presenting their bayonets and frantically trying to form square.

  Tom’s men swept over them like a wave scouring a beach, leaving rent bodies and tattered uniforms as flotsam in their wake.

  By now the main body of the rebel division had entered the fray and soldiers were scattering through the fields and pastures. Red jackets were torn off and flung into the long grass where they lay like bloodied scabs in the afternoon light. The Gorey Cavalry had turned and fled at the first eruption of violence and now streams of terrified infantry followed them, sprinting away along the Gorey road, weapons and dignity abandoned.

  General William Loftus sat his horse on the coast road to Wexford Town and listened to the sounds of battle come heaving across the fields to his west. Behind him the Gorey Infantry and detachments of the Antrim Militia formed a dense column of red between the hedgerows.

  ‘What do you make of that?’ he asked

  Beside him Lieutenant Colonel Jones frowned slightly, ‘It would appear as though Colonel Walpole has engaged the rebels.’

  Loftus too was frowning, a harsher expression than his subordinate’s, his brows heavy above anxious eyes. ‘It appears as though the action is hot, does it not?’ he said.

  ‘It does, sir,’ acceded Jones in his distinctive sing-song. ‘I would expect as much though, for the enemy is numerous and they have proven themselves valiant. They might take time to break.’

  ‘I do not hear the cannon,’ Loftus muttered almost to himself, his lips pursing. ‘I hear cries and musketry but no cannon. Why not?’

  Jones regarded his commander with something approaching concern, ‘Perhaps he has no need. Perhaps the engagement is at such close quarters the artillery proves useless.’

  Loftus snorted disdainfully, ‘If that fool court dangler has allowed his men to engage at close quarters, then he deserves the whipping he shall undoubtedly receive.’

  Jones nodded, ‘The fighting seems to be dying away.’

  Loftus’s eyes took on an unfocused aspect and he stared into space as though attempting to see something beyond the mere physical. At length he said, ‘We shall take the column across to Walpole. Any rebels we encounter along the way are to be shot out of hand.’

  Jones wheeled his mount but before he could pass the orders on, Loftus continued, ‘I want the cavalry sent out well ahead. This country is a warren of ditches and laneways. I want long warning of anything that might be an ambuscade.’

  Jones saluted, ‘Yes, sir,’ then jogged his mount down the line, passing on Loftus’ directions.

  Loftus hoped that Walpole had been as cautious.

  Half an hour later General Loftus stood among the ruin of Walpole’s column. The bodies of men and horses strewed the area like some ghastly pestilence and blood congealed in sickening spatters upon the dust of the road. Flies buzzed in morbid excitement and crawled across sightless faces, tonguing the open red wet of wounds and gashes.

  Loftus shook his head in disbelief as his men picked through the corpses, salvaging what little weapons and ammunition the rebels had left behind. Here and there a wounded man was found groaning in a ditch or field but overall a horrible stillness had descended. Loftus’s men searched in silence, their movements grotesque and incongruous in this place of quiet death, this place stinking of gunpowder, blood and punctured innards.

  Jones voice came drifting over the field of bodies, ‘I have found Mr Walpole, sir.’

  Loftus made his way over to his subordinate, gingerly stepping over bloodied corpses as he went, determinedly avoiding looking at their twisted faces. As he drew beside Jones he saw that Colonel Walpole had been struck twice by musket balls, once in the thigh, once in the right temple. His handsome face was pale now, gore matting his hair and pooling horribly in the socket of one staring eye. He had died with a look of supreme horror racking his features.

  ‘The man was a fool,’ muttered Loftus. ‘But to die like a dog in the highway is a most cruel end. Most cruel, indeed.’

  Jones was praying silently but at Loftus’s words he roused himself and asked, ‘Do we follow them? Our scouts say the rebels have made for Gorey, hard on the heels of what is left of Walpole’s column.’

  Loftus lifted his gaze to squint at the sun and then checked his pocket watch before answering, ‘We cannot allow them to gain possession of another town. If they take Gorey they can advance on Arklow with impunity. After that, Wicklow and then Dublin. We must stop them before they spread this madness further.’

  He paused and breathed deeply before con
tinuing, ‘Gather the men. Organise a burial detail from amongst the yeomen and then pass the word that we march on Gorey. If we can catch the vagabonds before they have a chance to fortify the place or while they are still celebrating their victory we may be able to turn the tables on them.’

  Jones coughed delicately before replying, ‘The rebels have taken Mr Walpole’s artillery, sir. Esmond Kyan whom we have detained in Gorey is an artillery man, sir.’

  Loftus sighed, a long exhalation of doleful exasperation, ‘Then we must catch them before they have him set at liberty.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ answered Jones, dashing off to carry out his orders.

  In less than quarter of an hour Loftus’s column was on the march once more. They left behind them a grumbling squad of yeoman infantry who gazed about them with sour expressions and tapped the baked earth with the blades of trenching spades.

  Just short of Gorey Town, Loftus reined in his mount. The road here rose in a gradual climb toward the crest of Gorey hill just to the south of the town. It was down this gently sloping road that a cavalry man came careering, his helmet askew and his face and blue coat veined with dust.

  He halted in a tan cloud of scattered earth and saluted briskly. ‘We are too late, General,’ he panted. ‘They have taken the town and are stationed on Gorey Hill. They’re waiting for us, sir.’

  Loftus nodded slowly before asking, ‘In what numbers and how are they disposed?’

  The cavalry man gulped drily and ran a thirst-thickened tongue over cracked lips, ‘They have about two thousand on the hill itself and more in reserve in the town behind.’

  He paused slightly before adding, ‘They have cannon, sir.’

  Loftus turned to Jones who was sitting his horse impassively by his side. ‘Have the cavalry brought in and the men ready themselves,’ he said. ‘We advance on Gorey with all due caution.’

  Jones saluted and turned to ride down the line.

  From the Enniscorthy road Gorey Hill was hardly worthy of the name. It formed a low hump of scrub and gorse that the road wound around like a fallen length of buff ribbon before falling away into the market diamond of Gorey Town proper. However, to General Loftus’s eyes, it was an impenetrable rampart.