by Clio Gray
Through the mist they could make out the dark outlines of heavy cannons upon their carts, heavy men upon their huge horses, and their hearts began to pound within their chests and throats, their skin begin to prickle, the women pushing their children further into the windmill, those children crying now and whimpering as the anxiety of their mothers passed through their young skins with the ease of water falling through a sieve.
The bells of the surrounding parishes began to sound, signalling first six o’clock, seven, and then eight, the tension on the Hill almost unbearable until Mogue Kearns got to his feet, as did John Murphy, Myles Byrne, Harry Doherty, Mick Malloy and the rest of their twelve-strong council, shifting themselves to their allotted strategic points, a rustling murmur following them as they arose and moved as men began to suck deep breaths into their lungs to calm themselves, steady themselves, ready themselves for whatever was about to come.
Strong hands tried not to shake upon their pikestaffs and the few guns they had at their disposal. The comrades looked to one another, nodding their heads in mutual encouragement and support, each hoping that the cousins, brothers, friends braced on either side of them felt stronger and more optimistic than they did themselves. They stood shoulder to shoulder, rank by rank, hardly able to bear the waiting now, all wanting to get on with the fighting, get it done, adrenalin burning in their veins. They all felt the need to get up and going before the exhilaration of expectation was overtaken by a fear so abject it would paralyse them all.
And then it began: all hoos and hoys from the horns of the massed ranks of loyalists below as they encircled the hill, their trumpet blasts and clarions ripping the morning up and down. Then they came: the enemy racing up towards the rebel stronghold in a simultaneous five-pronged attack, cannons at the fore, blasting out huge gobbets of earth that billowed black smoke and hid the lines of artillery surging on behind them like beetles from a woodpile.
They fired as they ran, the cavalry rearing up the gentle slopes on their heels, having the advantage of height, firing their volleys into the midst of the United Irish who had no cover, no armour, no answering Irish guns. They could do nothing but launch themselves into a mad attack, yelling and shouting as they ran blindly down their hill, everything suddenly an obscurity of men tumbling into other men, hand-to-hand combats lit up by the flashes of discharging weapons and the smack of shells dispelled from English canons that blew every fourth man from his breeks, separating him from his legs, holing out a cavity in his chest so he could not breathe, the mist disappearing of a sudden as if dismayed, giving every man a better view of what he had to face.
The hooves of the English horses slid and stumbled, their riders swinging and lunging from side to side to avoid the boulders and stones that were being rolled and thrown down on them from up above. They came on inexorably up the slopes with the horses’ legs buckling only a little now they’d found firmer ground, their hooves throwing up hard lumps of sun-dried earth to give the foot soldiers who came on behind some purchase for their boots. And down upon them came the United Irish, no match at all, stumbling beneath hooves and flanks, tripping over pikes, muskets firing randomly and without aim.
Within three quarters of an hour of the first assault three hundred men of the United Irish were already dead and another hundred soon followed. Barely two hours after it had begun this last-stand battle was done and dusted, only one tiny thread of escape left for the survivors who started running down its line fast as ever they could, women and children first, then those carrying the wounded with them, who screamed and cried out in pain as they were jolted down the slope, the able bodied men flanking them, still fighting to the last, all high-tailing it back for Wexford and the Wicklow hills.
Only one person of the rebel forces was running up and not down at that moment, and that person was Greta Finnerty. No weapons, no defence, no sleep, arriving a few minutes before the Crown Forces entirely encircled the Hill and attacked. She forgot everything in her life that had mattered up until now: the pain in her feet, the tiredness in her limbs and lungs and instead she ploughed up the side of the Hill to join her fellows as if it was the last thing she’d left to do in this world.
She grabbed a musket from a fallen comrade on her way up and held it clasped to her chest like other lasses her age might have clutched a child. She’d no idea how to fire it, had seen the man who’d been standing next to her a moment earlier holed out, exsanguinated, degutted by an enemy. Still she went on, screaming into the morning, unable to see what was only a few yards ahead of her, everything blotted out by the sulphurous black smoke coming up at her from the enemy lines. It burnt her eyes and was bitter in her throat, men’s blood splashing hot and thick upon her jerkin, upon her face, the taste of it like iron and saltpetre on her tongue.
Within several minutes of Greta’s charge her stolen musket was empty – not that she’d the faintest idea how she’d even fired it – each discharge flinging her back upon her haunches. But she got up again each time and went on, flinging the useless musket aside, attempting instead to raise up a pike that was lying beside yet another dead man’s body, but it was too heavy for her to even lift properly, let alone get it tucked into her armpit to give its blade any proper purpose and down it went to the ground.
Greta charged on regardless, stopping only when something caught at her ankle with such force she assumed she’d been caught by some unseen shot or shrapnel. Face down she tumbled into the mud, breath knocked out of her, body unable to scramble itself back up. And then she saw the hand that was wrapped about her ankle and the face of Mogue Kearns, terribly distorted by pain and dirt, but Greta knew it all the same.
‘Father!’ Greta gasped urgently. ‘Are you hurt?’
She moved her fingers clumsily, trying to find Mogue’s neck, feel for a pulse, rewarded by Mogue releasing the tight hold he had upon her ankle as he moved his hand and clasped at Greta’s own.
‘I am that, lass,’ Mogue Kearns gasped, ‘and Praise God, but you’re a sight to see.’
The words were fighting their way from the bloody spittle that was hardening at the corners of his mouth. Greta’s heart lurched to see her hero so fallen, the heat of battle slipping away as if the pendulum that had supplied its energy had been gripped and stopped. She was suddenly aware of the awfulness of what was happening that she’d previously ignored: the agonised calls of dying men, the terrified screaming of women and children fighting to escape the windmill that had gone up in flames a few hundred yards above. They ran like frightened hares now its protection had been half blown away, its bricks and blocks tumbling from its blackened sides as it was struck again and again by enemy shells.
Beneath her knees Greta felt the heat and burn of unspent gunpowder that had set the dry grass to smouldering, steam whispering from the spilled guts of the fallen man to her left, became aware of the arrhythmic blasts of the enemy shells that were landing far too close for comfort, the last only a few yards from where she was crouched.
‘But it’s a miracle you’re here, Greta, a miracle,’ Mogue Kearns croaked, his words as stuttered and staccatoed as the artillery that was blasting its way through their shared day. ‘You’ve got to go,’ he spluttered on. ‘This isn’t a battle to be won or lost today and there are more important things to think of now than you or I. You have to get out, and you have to take this with you.’
Greta looked down then and, without realising it, by doing so she turned Mogue Kearns a little to his side and was appalled at the undisguised cry of pain that came from him and saw the blood that was gurgling from Mogue Kearns’ belly, blood dark as tar.
‘We need help!’ Greta shouted out into the mayhem of legs and men that were tangled all around them, yelling out her words into smoke and maelstrom, unable to believe that a man like Mogue Kearns could die in such a way, couldn’t understand how anyone so strong, so fierce and loyal to their cause could perish in the mud and shit that Vinegar Hill had become. And then Greta felt that grip again, this time upon her ar
m, stronger than she’d thought possible from a dying man and heard Mogue’s quiet voice talking to her. Each word was slow and measured just as it was when Mogue talked to his troops, as he must have spoken to the congregation in his church before this war overtook him, before Mogue’s bishop kicked him out of the ranks, ripping away his dog collar, leaving Mogue to replace one faith with another.
‘I’m not going to die, Greta,’ Kearns was saying, ‘at least not yet. But neither must you because you’re Heaven sent. I’m passing back to you a duty only you know how to use to our advantage.’
Mogue fumbled at a pocket in his jerkin, finally bringing out a leather pouch that was slick with blood. Greta feared Mogue was about to quit this life but Mogue’s voice denied it, strong enough to swear Greta to an oath as he handed the pouch to her.
‘It belonged to the Scotsman Fergus,’ Mogue said quickly, ‘and I need you to figure it out, and I need you to be safe, so take it on the Road to Exile…’
‘But no, Father!’ Greta interrupted, aghast at the idea. She knew how long that road was, had set many men on its path and couldn’t understand why Mogue was sending her that way too.
‘This is no time for argument, Greta. You must do as I ask. You must be safe and so must the Scotsman’s Bauble. And there’s something else with it, a scrap of paper…it says Walcheren…’
Too much pain then. Mogue broke off and started to cough – a deep, chest-racking spasm he couldn’t stop – and saw Greta looking about her, saw the panic surging through her young body, that she couldn’t think properly, that she’d been too long on the road before she’d got here and thrown too quickly into battle. He thrust the pouch into her hand and closed her fingers about it.
‘Swear to me, Greta,’ Mogue murmured. ‘Swear you will do me this duty.’
Greta nodded, anchored back on Mogue’s eyes. ‘I swear.’
Mogue patted her hand.
‘Alright then, now away. Right now.’
And then the situation overtook them both as several men skidded to a stop beside them, settling about Mogue Kearns like flies to a wound, starting to drag their fallen leader back up the slope, his groans soon lost to Greta as they went, leaving her alone and stranded and utterly unsure what to do. She wanted to be with Mogue Kearns, stay with him until the end and for just a moment she remained kneeling in the blood-soaked mud until she heard another sound, one that rendered all others mute: the whistle of a canon-ball.
Down it came a second later and would have taken off her foot had she not had the wit to curl herself up and fling herself back down the slope of the hill like a hedgehog in free-fall. Her head and body banged against rocks and stones as she went on rolling down the scree, the Scotsman’s Bauble tight in her fist, Mogue’s words of exile and duty ringing in her head.
She came to a stop thirty yards below, lodged in a whin bush, sick and dizzy with her going, head bursting, feeling a pressure against her ribs she knew didn’t belong there. She wondered if she’d been hit before realising no, it was only her fist, the pouch, the Scotsman’s Bauble in it where it did not belong. Still she wavered, wanting to go back up to Mogue’s side, wanting to fight and fall with the rest and not slink away like the useless girl she was. But Mogue had sworn her to an oath and she had agreed to it and would not let Mogue down.
She began to slither her way down the remaining slope of the hill, snake-like upon her belly, keeping below the haze of dark smoke that took the place of the early morning sun. She sifted herself into the scrub, a band of panic tight across her chest when she realised she’d brought herself within a spit of the enemy, only a few yards between her and the English line.
She lay still then, hidden in the gorse with the fallen prickles hard against the soft arch of her belly, digging into hips and thighs. The pain of her blisters began to come back at her whilst the yellow scent of the gorse was incongruously sweet in the midst of the stink of the battle that was trammelling and roaring its way further back up the hill. The fever of fight had burned itself out, but not the need for escape. She raised herself up on her elbows. She couldn’t see much from her hidey-hole, peering through a tangle of twig and branch that served as untidy bars to her untidy cage, but she could make out the shapes of men and their horses stumbling back down the battle-worn slopes.
The irregular thumps of large hooves made the ground shudder beneath her, the horses’ hides slick and greasy with blood, sweat and spittle, their movements clipped and jerky with excitement. The returning men began patting down their steeds, strapping bags of oats about their necks, before sitting themselves down upon the ground where they started stripping and cleaning their muskets, rubbing the blood and fat of dead men from off the leather of their coats, coagulating into small groups as Greta watched.
They were quiet at first but soon beginning muted conversations, boasting out their near misses, counting out their kills. The volume of their voices rose with relief, some soon laughing, others smoking and drinking, a few standing up to piss into the bushes just above Greta’s head. Hundreds of men a few cubits from her hiding place, milling aimlessly around their makeshift camp, awaiting orders.
The fighting had lasted two hours only, enough to fulfil their objectives just as General Lake had predicted.
‘Hit ‘em fast and furious, hard as you like,’ he’d told them, and that was exactly what they’d done.
All over for Greta’s fellows on the Hill, and most likely for the whole of Wexford now the Hill had fallen. And no option for Greta other than to stay hidden for the while. She spied on the victors braying out their victory, gathering themselves together, clapping each other’s shoulders, throwing buckets of water over their heads and their horses, pouring out beakers of rum to toast their success.
And so she waited in her prickly bivouac until the last of the Loyalists were gone, taking their canons, their horses and their triumph with them. And only when the last had retreated to Enniscorthy did Greta uncurl her shivering body and look back up at the devastation on the Hill: deserted by the living, replaced instead by several hundred yards of burn and scorch and heaps of bodies. Some were whole, but many more were scattered limb from limb, all left to rot out the rest of the day they’d not had the luck to see the end of. Greta wanted to crawl her way back up to the windmill, wanted to march and stamp and scream her way right up to the summit of the Hill and shout out that at least they had defended their cause to the last.
The stub of the half-blown away windmill stood smoking like a pyre, a marker of a communal grave that would never be dug. Greta began to drag at some of the stones that lay about her on the grass and from underneath the whin and gorse. She pushed them altogether, scraping her hands, ripping her nails to jagged shreds. Only when the cairn was one foot round and one foot high did she stop, and then she carefully unclasped the small chain that hung about her neck, and with it the tiny silver cross that had been her mother’s, dropping it right into the centre of the cairn, topping off the hole with a few more rocks, a few more pebbles to fill up the gaps. She took her own oath on top of the one Mogue Kearns had given her, that one day – no matter how far away that day might be, no matter if she was an old woman by then with legs like sticks ready to be broken up for the fire and a back that groaned beneath the weight of its years – that one day she, Greta Finnerty, would come back to this very spot. She would find this cairn and from it she would take up the cross and the slope and the path, and walk her way to the summit of Vinegar Hill, a woman as free as the wind.
24
THE SMALL INIQUITIES OF THE SEWING CIRCLE
DEVENTER, HOLLAND
Louisa was so full of her astounding news about Caro that she couldn’t wait to say it out loud to anyone who would listen. That night she went to the first Thursday meeting of the Sewing Circle she had attended in weeks. She didn’t want to blurt it all out in a second and took her time to build the moment.
‘We’ve a couple of new lodgers,’ she told the other women of the group.
; Usually they weren’t particularly interested in the dry old men the Grimalkins frequently played host to, all come to visit the Athenaeum Library that was – not that they’d any inkling of it – one of the best of its kind in the world. But it hadn’t passed unnoticed that a rather dashing, raven haired young foreigner had recently taken up residence. His presence in the Grimalkin household had caused something of a stir, especially amongst the women who had daughters eager to be married off to someone of consequence.
‘Well, it’s about time you broke your silence, Louisa,’ chided Theresa, the matriarch of the group and in whose house they were now gathered. ‘My dear, we’ve all been simply gasping for news. How good of you to bring it to our door.’
Louisa ignored the slight, her cheeks pink from the attention and the audible cessation of work being put on pause while everyone waited for her speak. She wanted to get straight to the subject of Caro but recognised the order the story must be told in.
‘Well,’ she began. ‘The first is named Ruan Peat. He’s from Scotland. Shipwrecked off the Walcheren Peninsula. Everything lost but the clothes upon his back, including his master.’
‘He’s very handsome,’ offered one of the ladies, a couple of others giggling at the observation.
Louisa winced. She’d never really thought about it. As far as she was concerned a person as odious on the inside as Ruan Peat could never be considered in any other way than being ugly through and through. This description of him caught her off guard.
‘Well, I suppose some might…’
‘Is he single? Betrothed?’
Louisa was flustered by the interruption, making her tongue looser than it might otherwise have been.
‘I really have no idea. But I can tell you that he lost his guardian in the shipwreck and is of the bizarre belief that this guardian was murdered while the shipwreck was going on, if you can imagine anything so ludicrous.’