Liberty

by McWatters, Nikki;

  ‘No! Absolutely not!’ General Munro argued forcefully. ‘We would dishonour ourselves by taking advantage of the cover of darkness and their inebriation. No. We will meet them in daylight on the morrow and fight them like men, not alley cats.’

  The argument escalated with more and more men taking one side or the other. It seemed to me that most of the men were for doing night raids. It made sense to me too. The local men knew the layout of the town and while the King’s men were making merry and had their wits dulled we could strike fast and hard. I had already killed three and I was surprised to feel the urge to take down more of them. As I had pulled the trigger, each time, I had thought of poor Annie O’Neal, taken by the likes of those men who saw us Irish as foxes in blood sport, not worthy of respect or equal standing. It felt good to turn the tables on them. But Henry Munro was resolute and adamant. We would not take them down in darkness and drunkenness. As soldiers we had to obey our captain. That was the first and most important rule of combat.

  Later, as the moon reached high like a skull in the night sky, I tried to catch up on some sleep, with George and Will on either side of me, all of us lying in a state of discomfort upon the cool grass. I saw many shadows slipping away from the hill. Men, and lots of them, were deserting us. I had not slept well for many days and I felt sick with tiredness but my mind would not calm enough for slumber. George and Will had predicted that Henry Munro’s stubbornness in refusing to take advantage of the cover of darkness and the King’s men’s inebriation would result in many desertions. I couldn’t believe that Munro had not jumped at the plan. It did seem foolish and yet he had been elected leader for a reason. Many said he had an unsurpassed tactical intelligence.

  I rested my burning eyes by pressing my face into Will’s shoulder. He rolled over and kissed me. I wanted to cry but I was too tired to weep as he rocked me in his arms, squeezing me so tightly that I thought my ribs and spine would crack.

  ‘They are skulking away, deserting us,’ I moaned as I saw over his shoulder another small huddle of shadows seeping away down the hill.

  ‘We still outnumber the British, my love,’ Will whispered. ‘But when the sun comes up you must ride away from here and take cover far from the town. There will be a good deal of hand-to-hand combat.’

  ‘I will stay and hang back as a marksman!’ I told him.

  ‘Well, markswoman.’ He laughed.

  ‘The bullet shot that hits isn’t any weaker for it having been shot by a woman’s arm,’ I chided him. ‘Don’t worry, Will, I’ll have your back.’

  ‘Shut up and let me sleep,’ George groaned, rolling.

  I nestled beneath Will’s arm, and the rise and fall of his chest, his warm breath on my face, lulled me into a light but fitful sleep. I dreamed of blood and carnage and the roar of men’s voices.

  Morning brought with it another day of brilliant sunshine and a sore back. My eyes were caked with crusted sleep and I had to stretch myself to iron out the kinks. Henry Munro was already darting around the men, shouting orders and slapping backs, giving encouragement but we could all see that our numbers had dwindled. Corporal McCance came over to us as we were sheltering under the shade of the oak, readying our horses, and told us that an early headcount had put the deserters at about seven hundred. It was a shocking loss of manpower.

  ‘That still leaves over six thousand of us and more than enough to resist and repel the redcoats,’ Will said breezily. ‘More than enough to secure Ballynahinch and then on to Lisburn. The battle in County Down will go down in history as the one that took back Ireland for the Irish!’

  Oh, how I wanted to believe him. All the men around me and the few women who had stayed to support their men were all glowing with smiles and whistling patriotic ditties as if they were off to an enormous grand fair. But I had been persecuted all night with thoughts of the men I had shot. They must have had families and women who loved them. I had shot at the redcoats as if they were simply targets, symbols of my discontent, and had thought little of the flesh and blood of which they were made. I’d asked God to forgive me in the depths of the night. Will often told me that the rules were always different during war, particularly wars when someone was fighting for freedom because God was all for freedom.

  We readied ourselves for battle on the steep slopes of Edenvady. Before us was spread a valley several miles wide, made up of gently rising hills and further away a ridge of slate grey mountains. The broad bowl of the valley was covered with fields and crops and although the sea was still some way away, we were high enough that I imagined I could smell her salty breath. A mild haze lay like a glass bell over the lowest paddocks. We set off and my heart was equal parts on fire with the passion of what we were about to do, and terror, also for what we were about to do.

  The British troops were ready on Windmill Hill, the same place where I had hidden behind fences to take my aim the previous day. I was frightened because I knew that the forces of the King were trained in the ways of warfare while we amounted to thousands of poorly armed and untrained men. But we had patriotic men and a small smattering of women who were prepared to do battle unto the death for the land and the people that they loved. Below us, in the valley, slumbered the pretty little town of Ballynahinch, deserted of her inhabitants but suffering a hangover from her unwelcome guests, I warranted.

  ‘Musketeers will stay high and back,’ Munro shouted as we assembled, a motley crew of Irish all dressed in our Sunday best with dyed green feathers in our hats and green ties about our necks. I wore my best green velvet dress, even though the day was far too hot for it. I had been wearing the same outfit for three days. My dress was sweat stained under my arms, had dirt about the hem, and my boots were scuffed. But from a distance it still looked grand. I tied my hair into a plait and secured a matching green velvet ribbon about it. The front of our cavalry had four men carrying our United Irishmen flag, with the yellow harp and our beloved green. Behind them were the battle drummers and a row of rolling cannons on carts. I counted eight.

  ‘Let’s march for Ireland,’ General Henry Munro shouted and I fancied I could hear a quiver in his voice and I looked at his open, handsome face and wondered if the linen merchant from Lisburn, a good Catholic man with a family and a grand sense of humour, had ever thought he would lead an army against the Crown? He was our own great Finn McCool, small in stature but a giant character in our cause, who would no doubt go down in Irish history as a true hero. Munro led a column of men down the hill and I steadied myself on my horse with the other musketeers beside me.

  ‘You’re not letting your sister come along, are you, George Gray?’ one surly middle-aged man armed with a pitchfork called up at us, spitting on the ground.

  ‘She’s the best shot I know, Seamus, and took out a handful of English dogs yesterday! I’d sooner let her have my back than you!’ Will retorted, giving me a wink.

  The drums beat and rolled, and the men marched in time with the thumping cadence. We rode our horses far behind the sweeping sea of footmen as we descended toward the township. We stopped when we reached a point with a wide, open view of Windmill Hill, where the slick and uniformed wash of redcoats waited for us. For some tense minutes we waited in the sunlight and squinted in the glare as both sides prepared themselves for battle. The British troops were drawn up in a solid square. Munro gave the first order and our cannons fired, hitting the front row of redcoats in a wave of destruction. The noise was deafening and I felt my ears ring as if there were bells in them. The main officer commanding the British Army in the frontline was down, clearly dead, and this threw his troop into a panic. They dispersed, running in confusion, some of them injured. Two more shudders of cannon fire and the King’s men were making a hasty retreat back into the cover of the town of Ballynahinch. A cheer went up among us, rolling into one enormous voice of victory. The Irish had taken the first approach and had driven back the foe. I could see that it encouraged the men who all see
med more fired up and ready for battle with an early win under their belts.

  At the call from Munro, we began to spill down the hill. Our men marched and chanted as the drums gathered momentum and I felt the noise rumble through my bones. We forced entry into the town with our advance guard raising their pikes, dragging soldiers from their horses and finishing them brutally. The sound of clashing metal and screams of pain filled the air.

  Cannons smashed into the sides of houses, as men went flying and cottages began to blaze so fiercely that soon the air became thick with smoke. I coughed and blustered and felt my throat tighten, but hung back watching the spectacle unfold as if it wasn’t real but some dream. I saw a number of our men stagger and fall under a sweep of grapeshot but they were quickly replaced by another wave of Irishmen storming the redcoats as they hurried to reload. Injured men were picked up and hurried out of town, dragged and carried back toward the open fields where some of the women had come to tend to them. I had seen both Sarah and Eilish among them with water flasks, salves, bandages, and twine for suturing wounds.

  Our pikemen charged to the very muzzle of the guns, the sheer overwhelming numbers quickly overcoming the enemy and making away with a good, heavy piece of artillery. It might have been a cannon. Munro led them all boldly and Will motioned for me to take to an alley where we could see a group of redcoats pushing a cart full of swords.

  ‘Take them, Betsy,’ he shouted, pointing and then nodded a head to George. ‘You, George, round out about the square and cut them off at the other end.’

  I led Finn McCool to the corner and readied my musket, took aim around the edge of a whitewashed cottage, then fired. I hit the cart but scattered the soldiers, who turned and began running angrily at me.

  ‘A woman!’ one yelled. ‘Take her down.’

  They laughed and I felt my blood boil and bubble. I did not have time to reload and they were bearing down on me, jeering. There was no sign of George at the other end of the street.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ I muttered, and with some measure of trepidation I took the musket in my hands, ready to bring it down on the men.

  As the men neared, a sound exploded near me and I saw one man fall, an enormous gaping black hole appearing in his chest that began to pump out dark blood as he hit the stones on the road. Over my shoulder I saw Will on his black horse, with a musket to his shoulder. The other soldiers were in a panic and immediately raced off, swords drawn, into abandoned cottages, each to a different one, their purpose surely to lure us into hand-to-hand combat.

  ‘Leave them,’ Will said as he pulled up beside me. ‘But we’ll take as many of those swords as we can carry because Munro’s ammunition is being fast exhausted. He’s gained the centre of town though!’

  We clattered down the road and Will dismounted and passed up a medium-sized thin sword to me. I brandished it high and it glinted in the sunlight. The din of musket fire, and the clashing, clinking of steel against steel filled the streets alongside guttural moans and blood-curdling screams of panic.

  George cantered up to us, breathless.

  ‘Munro’s pushing into the redcoats with bayonets and pikes but he’s being badly raked by their artillery,’ he said. ‘How much ammunition do you have, Bet? Will?’

  I checked and shook my head.

  ‘Not much,’ I said.

  ‘Come on!’ Will cried as another loud cannon burst through the town, shaking the eaves of the cottages in the narrow street. ‘Let’s charge them! For the honour of County Down!’ He leapt onto the back of his gelding.

  Turning our horses, we galloped toward the main body of our army. I threw down my musket to one of our men who ran by, along with a bag of shot. He was headed straight for a wild throng where men were wrestling and stabbing, blood spilling down the streets, English and Irish mixing together. A man in uniform began tugging at my leg, trying to dismount me, but I kicked at him, getting him hard in the head with my boot, which saw him reeling until he shook his head and came back again. This time I took the sword and sliced, making a nasty gash across his cheek, his hand went up and the blood oozed out between his fingers. It was enough to frighten him and he ran back into the scrum of men.

  A loud bugle sounded and it startled many into a sudden moment of stillness, a pause in the fighting. It came again. A clear call. Corporal McCance looked back at us, his face covered in blood and his eyes wide; he had a pike in one hand that still had flesh hanging from it.

  ‘Retreat!’ he yelled. ‘It’s the call to retreat. To the hills again. Away we go! To Edenvady. Retreat. Retreat!’

  I watched, amazed as he dropped his pike and began running like an injured rabbit back up the street, his shirt torn and flapping behind him as he screamed like a madman from the public house of the insane: ‘Retreat! Retreat!’

  The crowd began to disperse, dazed and disoriented. I saw Munro at the other end of the street waving his two arms in huge sweeping motions. I could just make him out through the clouds of smoke that hung in the town like choking fog.

  ‘Munro is calling us to retreat!’ I shouted across to Will and George who were looking confounded.

  ‘But we are winning.’ Will shook his head in disbelief. ‘We’ve all but taken Ballynahinch for ourselves. Look at the mess.’

  In the street lay tens, maybe even hundreds of dead soldiers, the red of their coats matching the blood that pooled in the puddles between the stone and dusty pebbles on the road.

  ‘Look!’ I pointed. ‘The King’s men are retreating. See?’

  The British were marching, broken and injured, many leaving their horses behind. And they were heading out of town. The King’s men were retreating. Again the bugled call went up but through the dense veil of smoke we could not see who was playing it.

  ‘It’s definitely a retreat,’ George said, and pulled his reins and turned, calling over his shoulder. ‘Come on, Betsy. Will. I for one have had enough for now! We are alive. Let’s regroup and see what Munro’s plan is from here.’

  Along with many men on foot, tired but marching, running and tripping out of town, and some few others still on horseback, we moved like a muddy river through the streets and out onto the open roads.

  Tired and drenched in sweat, we began to climb our horses up Windmill Hill. As we made the rise, we heard a shout and suddenly our men on foot began to stop and turn and run back toward us like salmon swimming against the tide, falling over one another.

  ‘Ambush!’ they screamed.

  Up ahead, with a sense of dread and a sickening terror, I saw that a whole battalion of light dragoons was charging our fleeing troops. This new outfit must have been marching into town from another direction to offer reinforcements. I recognised some of the men as being from Downpatrick and they appeared refreshed and armed with a full artillery. With vigorous shouts, they were cutting down our men like wheat chaff as we began pressing back toward Ballynahinch.

  General Henry Munro came riding up behind us, shouting and waving his arm. ‘God save our souls!’ he thundered. ‘It was the redcoats call to retreat! Not ours! We had the town but we are lost! It’s all lost.’

  I felt my face go numb and for a moment all the noise, the noise of death and horror and pain and bloodshed, evaporated. Everything began to move slowly. And then the sound of my own heartbeat returned and my breath came like rushing water in my ears. I heard Munro shouting at us. His eyes were ablaze and I looked into them and I saw everything. I saw what was happening. The Irish had given it their all but we had failed. We had lost this battle and every last one of us would be cut down.

  ‘To the hills, to anywhere!’ Munro screamed at us! ‘Go. Hide! Save yourselves. Scatter. It’s every man for himself!’

  I looked to Will and George.

  ‘Ride!’ Will shouted frantically as the sea of men around us churned and bubbled. ‘Ride. Head north for Ballycreen Road and we’ll meet at the intersec
tion, then we’ll try to take the fields up to Bangor and jump a ferry! Ride, Betsy!’

  In the swirling chaos, I nodded, stabbed the sword into its sheath to secure it and pressed Finn McCool out from the crush. It felt like I was forcing the poor beast through thick human mud. I could feel his panic between my thighs as we watched a swarm of my beloved countrymen being butchered further along on the road, their desperate, pleading screams coming like the lashes of a belt over my heart. I reined my horse away, alongside my lover and brother, and I galloped like the wind to escape.

  Behind me the town of Ballynahinch burned, and with it, all our hopes of a free Ireland.

  ‘Thank you so much for coming,’ Mrs Leary said, dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. ‘It means so much to our family, Fiona.’

  I nodded and shook her husband’s hand, walking out into the churchyard and the brightness of the morning sun. It had taken weeks for the government to release Walter’s body after the autopsy and inquest. In the end, it was ruled to be an accident but talk about town was that Walter might have taken his own life. I was glad for his parents’ sake that they’d ruled it an accident otherwise the priest might not have given him a church funeral.

  I walked over to Laura and stood there waiting for her to look up at me. She kept looking at her shoes. I looked down at mine. The black patent leather shoes I’d bought for my first day of university.

  ‘Laura? Hey, I’m so sorry,’ I said gently.

  She had a small black pillbox hat with a net hanging over her face.

  ‘Fiona,’ she whispered, and reached out a hand and held mine. ‘Walk with me.’

  The two of us walked past the open hearse, past the shiny cedar coffin, which was covered in flowers and draped with the Australian flag, sitting on a silver trolley ready to be wheeled over to the cemetery. Laura stifled a sharp noise from the back of her throat. She sounded like she was choking with grief.