Enchanting Cold Blood

by Petya Lehmann

  By this time, the work of extermination seemed to be nearly over. The village was a mere red heap; its inhabitants were either dead or had run away. About half of the soldiers were being drawn together and marched off through the forest; the rest having collected some of the wood still unburnt and made up a fire, had settled themselves about it, a few being told off to guard the few prisoners or to keep together the cattle, of which a considerable number had been secured.

  Hugh lay upon the pile of dead, his head resting against the corpses. In the course of his not very long life he had been in a good many awkward straits, but never in one quite so bad as this. The suddenness too, with which it had come about, was stunning. Oddly enough, although weak, wounded, and prostrate with pain, his chief feeling was less despair, fear, or anything of that sort, than sheer overmastering rage. Rage burned in his breast to a degree that seemed to overpower every other feeling, rage and a desire for revenge. Wild schemes of impracticable revenge flew one after the other across his mind, to be accomplished he did not know how, but somehow. He would punish them, these wretches, these brutes of soldiers, worse than the worst of Sir John's desperadoes, worse even than the O'Flahertys themselves. They should suffer for ill-using him, him, an Englishman and a Gaynard! The next moment, he would remember that he was to all practical purposes neither an Englishman not yet a Gaynard; that visibly and outwardly he was only one of a crew of rebels and wood-kerns, individually as of little importance as so many foxes or wild cats. When daylight came, he would simply be finished off by the first soldier who happened to discover that he was still alive. Then, before the breath was fairly out of his body, his head would be hacked off and either tossed into the head bag or else stuck upon a pike or slung to a saddle-tree, as his uncle's men had slung the heads of the hill villagers they had killed. It seemed hardly worth while to have lived if this was to be the end of it! As well have been killed by Cormac Cas or Muredagh, as well have perished in any of the various adventures that had befallen him since his uncle's castle was burnt, if he were only reserved for this. To be killed as a wood-kern! The ignominy of the idea rankled. It was worse, unmistakably worse, than even the pang of death itself.

  Chapter XX.

  Day was whitening the tree trunks and gleaming coldly upon blackened walls and many corpses, when a fresh body of soldiers were seen marching down towards the clearing, whose business it was to relieve those left in charge, to count over the dead, to examine the prisoners if any, above all, to see that the cattle were forthwith driven into camp. They were a shabby-looking set, ill clothed and worse armed; many of them little more than raw recruits; all of them the worse for hard weather and much roughing. For all that, they looked gallant enough as they marched up, fresh from their night's sleep, their morions gleaming, their blue and red uniforms brightening the wood paths, brushing off the dew as they passed, startling the birds out of their coverts, finally drawing up with a cheerful clatter of swords and calivers in the middle of the little blood-stained clearing.

  At their head rode a young officer, Lieutenant Henry Fenwick by name. He had only arrived in Ireland a few weeks before, and this was his first campaign there. A rather noticeable young man was Lieutenant Henry Fenwick. If new to Ireland and Irish ways, he was far from being a raw or inexpert soldier. A few years' service, first in the Low Countries, then amongst the Berwick bands upon the Scotch border, had given him an insight into the art of soldiery which duller men are sometimes many times as long in acquiring. At the latter place, he had attracted the notice of Sir William Drury, the Governor of Berwick, since become Lord Justice of Ireland, and, in the absence of a Deputy, practically its head. Coming to Ireland at Drury's suggestion, Fenwick had found himself under the orders of Sir Nicholas Malby, the deservedly dreaded Governor, or “Colonel,” as it was then called, of Connacht. Like Drury, Malby was one of those commanders who know when good material comes in their way. In the young officer who had joined from Berwick, he found exactly the material, which he particularly appreciated. Slight, unnecessarily handsome, with fine, rather sparse auburn hair, of the shade then most admired, with the dawn of a moustache of the same or even a lighter hue and checks of a clear, porcelain-like pallor, Henry Fenwick looked at first sight absurdly fragile for such remarkably rough work as he was then engaged on. There was energy, however, behind that fragility, as those who were acquainted with him soon found; energy and a cold, keen tenacity of purpose which allowed nothing to turn or distract it. At the present moment, he was under the nominal command of a certain Captain Peters, a grizzled veteran, grown gruff with a sense of unrecognised merit. Military rank, however, was a much more fluctuating matter in the spacious days of Great Elizabeth than it is now. A brilliant youngster, endowed with just the right qualities for success, might speedily over-top and even come to command a nominal superior.

  Riding into the centre of the charred clearing, Lieutenant Fenwick dismounted, with a leisurely pat to his horse, glanced round him swiftly and gave his orders in a clear, rather peculiarly low-pitched voice. Any of the men of the doomed village that had crept away were to be looked for and killed, any of the houses not yet burned, to be pulled down and destroyed. The corpses were to be counted; the heads severed, collected and bagged, for Sir Nicholas was a man of method and liked that all things should be done properly and in order. These matters arranged for, the young officer addressed himself to the duty of examining such prisoners as might happen to have been made. The last was a simple enough proceeding, not quite so simple, perhaps, as if they had been killed in the first instance, but fully as effectual in the end. Glancing carefully round at the charred circle, the Lieutenant's eye was arrested by Hugh Gaynard, who had raised himself on to one elbow and was looking directly towards him. Something about him different from the rest seemed to strike his attention, for he beckoned to a sergeant who stood near.

  “Look to yonder tall kern, upon the top of yon heap of carrion. See if he has any information to give. He looks as if he might. If he speaks English, ask his name, and whose man he is. If he answers, report to me what he says; if not, hang him. No delay!”

  Lieutenant Fenwick turned away, yawning slightly as he did so, for this early morning duty was severe, particularly to a man who at all times was a light sleeper. Hugh Gaynard caught the words. He had resolved to die silently; these bloodhounds, he said to himself, should have no satisfaction out of him. As for death, the worst of it was over already surely! Now at the sound of that clear, incisive English voice, at the sight of that brilliant, authoritative youth — almost his own contemporary — something within him, something that was stronger than himself, that was stronger than apathy or even rage, awoke. Die! yes, he was ready to die, that was a matter of course, but he was not going to die like that, not as one of a hardly counted list of rebels. He was not going to be killed as a wood-kern. Without waiting for the sergeant's approach or for the arousing prick of his pike, he lifted himself a little higher and spoke out distinctly in English:

  “I am no kern. I am an Englishman. I only came here last night. My name is Gaynard.”

  An Englishman! It was as if he had announced that he was a seraph! There was a general pause of astonishment, almost of consternation. Even the common soldiers, stolid by habit and inured to slaughter as a matter of business, were startled, nay shocked. To kill an Englishman ignorantly, unwittingly, amongst a crowd of uncounted natives! It was a crime — worse than a crime, it was a profanation. Picture to yourself a group of American officers engaged upon frontier duty suddenly hearing an Indian in war paint and moccasins declare himself in good nasal English to be a citizen and a brother!

  The sergeant, who had advanced a few steps, stood and stared aghast, first at the audacious speaker, then back at his superior for orders. Lieutenant Fenwick alone appeared unimpressed. He glanced for an instant at the blackened bleeding figure upon the heap, then away again with an air of indifference.

  “An Englishman!” he said. “Pooh! Some runaway churl or farm-hilding
rather, who has picked up a few words of his master's talk. See if he have any information to give, Sergeant. If not, away with him with the rest!”

  But Sergeant Bunce was apparently not equally ready. He stood stock still, the picture of indecision, his round eyes wide open and fixed in astonishment upon the prisoner. A burly, good-natured man from the East Riding of Yorkshire, this name of Gaynard, as it happened, was as familiar to him as his own. Duty was duty, but still old associations were also old associations, and he shook his bullet head slowly, with an air of disapprobation.

  Oddly enough, the other men around seemed to have caught the same sentiment, though without the same reason. Had the mere spell of the word Englishman worked miracles, or had some unlooked-for wave of compunction really set in? Probably, the uncomfortable hour of the day had a good deal to say to the matter. Dawn is a moment when ugly deeds look their very ugliest. The square space, with its blackened beams and half-dried reddish pools, was not an agreeable sight just then for anybody.

  Glancing quickly around him, Lieutenant Fenwick read all this plainly; read distinct aversion in several eyes, and no very ardent willingness in any. The younger recruits especially wore a sullen, even a slightly shamefaced air. They were remarkably poor material — country yokels, the best of them — as often as not mere sweeping of the highways, “sturdy rogues and vagrants,” human rags, scorned immeasurably by all the older and more seasoned soldiers. Humanity lingered, however, in those rags and had an inconvenient way of now and then putting in an appearance. The young Lieutenant took in all this and was far too astute a man and too good an officer to force matters, especially at a moment when a little extra discontent might any day ripen into mutiny. The men had undergone not a little hardship in their late rapid marches. The “country's fever” had laid hands on a good many of them; rations were short; quarters uncomfortable; pay already overdue. After all, what did it signify? he reflected. One prisoner more or less was no great matter; might even prove useful; in any case, the fellow could as easily be disposed of in one place as another.

  “Take the rascal off that heap of carrion and tie him to one of yonder trees. We will see to his matter presently,” he said in his tone of low-voiced peremptoriness. “As for the rest, away with them. Despatch, men! Despatch! Sergeant Bunce, let the tucket be sounded in an hour from now.”

  This time the orders were carried out with praiseworthy celerity. The women and children, some of whom had strayed back to the spot, were hunted away like so many trespassing sheep and lambs. The corpses upon the ground were put beyond all doubt in this respect; the prisoners, with the exception of Hugh, were either hung or piked.

  Sergeant Bunce, who had been superintending the tying up of Hugh to one of the trees, lingered a little after that operation had been completed, perplexity still written out large upon his broad goggle-eyed face.

  “Listen, prisoner!” he said, coming back and speaking in a slow Yorkshire drawl. “Wha are ye? Spaak truth, mon, spaak truth, an' shame tha deil. Wha are ye, to talk o' English, an' Gaynard? Gaynard! the word is raank felony in t' mouth o' such as you, you bein', as may be seen by the cloathes o' yours, as roynish a faitor as any this laand has bred.”

  “I am an Englishman, and my name is Gaynard,” Hugh answered sullenly. Community of interest makes a man extraordinarily tender-hearted, and those shrieks, the echo of which still filled the air, seemed to ring in his ears and to curdle his very blood. He was horribly cold, sick, and miserable, and his wounds hurt atrociously. Moreover, the man's speech was nearly unintelligible to him. If they were going to hang him, let them hang him he thought and have done with it. He was not going to whine for mercy.

  Sergeant Bunce scratched his big bullet-head and continued to stare at him for a few minutes longer, then went off muttering to himself:

  Chapter XXI.

  He had walked on some little way while thus mattering to himself and had now come to a clearer piece of the wood, a few hundred yards beyond the village, where most of the soldiers who had been left on duty over night had by this time collected. Half of them were asleep upon the ground, others were preparing their breakfast or cleaning their weapons, while two or three had collected in a little knot and were listening to the observations of a tall man with a red face, a bald head, who was discoursing upon some subject with an immensity of gesture and in language which exhibited a remarkable wealth of words with which to clothe his ideas.

  “'May 't please your Lordship,' says I to him, capping him this way, becoming wise; 'may 't please your honourable Lordship to confine the matter to my hands extraditionally,' says I, ' I can promise your Lordship, I will not miscarry, I being, as your Lordship knows, a man besotted in Irish matters; no child or whiffler, or wide-chopped braggarter, but a plain man, a soluble man, a man used to affairs and trusted of those whom — Sir reverence for your honourable Lordship — are for the most part no better than so many blown blebbers in such matters.' 'Faith, that's true, Bots,' says his Lordship, all rough and affable like, as his manner is, 'faith, that's very true, my excellent Bots,' says he; 'I know your dutifulnesses and your diligences,' says he, 'I know your sufferings and your sufficiencies, Bots, and your sophistries and your sapiencies, Bots, I know them all,' says his Lordship, 'and will not be unmindful of them when the right time comes; you may take my fragility for that, Bots,' says he.”

  “What lord was yon?” interrupted a round-shouldered man, one of the new recruits, with whom it was easy to see that a pitchfork was a more familiar weapon than either sword or caliver.

  The oratorical person cast a glance of withering contempt in his direction.

  “You are an ignoramerist and a rustical no account, my man,” he said indignantly. “What lord should it be but the most noble the Earl of Ormond, Thomas, Lord Treasurer of this Kingdom, tenth of that illustrious name?”*

  (* Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormonde and 3rd Earl of Ossory /1531 - 1614/. He was Lord Treasurer of Ireland, cousin of Elizabeth I, and hereditary foe to the Earl of Desmond.)

  “Put an Oirishman all the same, friend Pots, an Oirishman all the same,” exclaimed another soldier, a wiry-looking little man from the Welsh borders, with a ferret-like face, small black eyes, a torn-up nose, and a crop of unusually thick black hair. An old soldier and a good one, he was a favourite with his commanders, but was a peppery little man, apt to fall foul of his brother-soldiers, by whom he was continually twitted with being a Welshman and therefore a remote cousin of these wretches, whom it was his business to hunt out and destroy.

  “It is a good shentleman, is my Lord of Ormond, and it is my ferry good lord it is,” he went on with a cock of his rusty morion. “And there is no man I wish petter to serve under. And for his plackness, so that men call him Plack Thomas, I like plack men myself, and it is not the plackness of a man's hair that will hinder him from peing a good soldier; and if any shentleman thinks that it is I shall be pleased to peat that shentleman into a petter opeenion and be tamned to him! Put for all that, he is an Oirishman, friend Pots, you will not get peyond that! an Oirishman porn and pred.”

  The man with the red nose struck a fresh attitude, holding up at the same time an extremely dirty hand, as if to enforce attention.

  “Touching the words Irish and Irishry, they be words that admit of no little variosity of expression, as I have before now exploded to you, friend Price,” he said pompously. “Argal, there is the Irishry which is the worst Irishry, which is the real Irishry, which is the damnable Irishry, which is the hell and devil-begotten Irishry, which is the Irishry that must be shot, hanged, burned, and otherwise obliterated and renovated till there be none of it left. And next, there is the less perditious Irishry, argal the harmless or noxious Irishry, argal the Irishry which by due disciplination may in time be corrupted out of its Irishry. And lastly, there is the Irishry that is accurately and tropically not Irishry, but plain Englishry, save for that accident of birth, which is primordinally a man's misfortune, one which might have befallen myself or any
other English gentleman, who by the co-ordination of the planets chanced to be born in this country, and of which the blame ought properly to be laid upon his parents, especially upon his mother, rather than upon himself. And of such a harmless and noxious Irishry, or rather no Irishry at all, is the Irishry of my Lord Ormond, seeing that in all his ways, plots, habits and the rest he has ever shown himself to be purely and pragmatically a right loyal God-fearing English gentleman.”

  “Now, by the pig pell of Cardiff,” broke in the Welshman — “By the pig pell of Cardiff, if he is such a right loyal English gentleman, it is a fine plack prood of Irish rebels he has got for his prethren! And I can prove to you, Peter Pots — and I will prove to you, and moreover pring witnesses to prove to you — that there has never been a Putler yet, save my Lord himself, and my Lord's father, and perchance my Lord's grandfather, that has not peen one pig plack rebel! And, what is more, it is the pig plack Papists they are, friend Pots, you cannot deny that, as plack Papists as the Pope of Rome himself, every pit as plack or placker.”

  “Spawn o' Satan! Spawn o' Satan! Where are they? Show 'em me! Show 'em me! Where are the mass mongers? and the whore-mongers? and the idolaters? and the devil worshippers? Show 'em me! Show 'em me!”

  A man who had apparently been fast asleep upon the ground suddenly sprang to his feet and stood looking about him, like a Jack-in-the-box whose spring had been inadvertently touched. It was the same man that Hugh Gaynard had noticed in the night, and whose activity had arrested his attention. Even now in broad daylight, he was a sufficiently formidable-looking object. An immensely broad man, evidently of great muscular strength, he possessed an unwholesome-looking, tallow-coloured face, with lank hair which fell in heavy black clots on either side of a pair of huge bat-like ears. A tinker by trade and by choice an itinerant preacher, he had been arrested as a schismatic, flogged and, as an alternative to gaol, sent to serve in the Irish wars. Thither he had carried his genius for preaching and his detestation of Papists. That madness of some sort gleamed in his eyes, no one could look at him at that moment and doubt. It was a madness which since his coming to Ireland had taken the form of a blood crusade, so that the task of exterminating Papists, to the other soldiers a mere matter of duty, in some cases even a distasteful one, was to him at once a religious obligation and a passionate enjoyment, one to which he gave himself up with all the single-hearted ecstasy of a devotee. Dan'l Drax, he called himself.