Jeanne shouldered the sack she had used as a pillow. Then, holding onto her son’s hand, she followed the queue of passengers up to the main deck, where they were met by the soft, golden light of early morning.
Even the nauseating stench of river sludge and city offal did not quell Jeanne’s amazement at finding herself suddenly in the middle of a great sprawling metropolis. Awestruck, she stood with Paul at the starboard balustrade. Her gaze passed along the north bank, where tall, shabby timber-framed dwellings and riverside warehouses touched shoulders with palatial buildings in the shimmering light of morning. ‘That’s the Tower of London,’ said Paul, pointing to the white tower on their right. ‘It’s where they keep traitors before they are executed,’ he continued, proud to impart knowledge recently acquired from a rigger as they had sailed up the Thames at dawn.
Jeanne slowly scanned the riverbank from the Tower, past Custom House to Billingsgate wharf, wondering how on earth they could fit into such a jungle of stone, bricks, and mortar.
‘And that,’ said the boy, motioning to his left as though he were announcing a theatre act at a fair, ‘that is London Bridge!’
It was an extraordinary sight for a provincial lady to behold. What a pageant of light and fantasy, she thought, facing what seemed like a thousand windows reflecting the first rays of the sun. ‘Why, it’s a whole village on a bridge!’ she said as her eyes followed the roofline. She marvelled at the hotchpotch of gables, turrets, and cupolas atop houses, many of whose first floors extended thrillingly over the water.
The boy pointed towards the south bank gatehouse. ‘That end is where Papa said he saw heads on spikes when he came here with Grandpa,’ he said, amused at the look of disgust on his mother’s face. But thinking about it, she remembered that Jacob had indeed stayed in London as a young man, and probably could still speak the language. Her heart pulsated with a new ray of hope. Could this truly be the land of opportunity Jacob had spoken of?
The Dutch merchantman lay at anchor amid a flotilla of tall ships and small craft, waiting for a landing dock to be able to unload. Meanwhile, the refugees were brought by wherry to the north bank by the dozen. Jeanne and her son descended unsteadily into one such rowboat—used ordinarily to ferry Londoners the length and breadth of the Thames—and were soon being given a hand up the slippery stone steps before Custom House. It was August 14th.
Some of the passengers were met in an effusion of joy by friends or relations, who stepped out from the crowd waiting twenty paces back from the steps. They had been tipped off as to the arrival of the long-awaited ship by a church messenger, who had received the news that the vessel had entered the Thames estuary. Jeanne and Paul scanned the dock in the hope that their eyes would meet those of their husband and father.
A welcome committee of ladies and gentlemen stood to one side, ready to direct those without relations to temporary accommodation. Behind them, Jeanne recognised the faces of passengers who had been ferried ashore in a previous wherry. However, she was about to find out that she would not be joining them, that she would not need to count on the kindness of yet another stranger.
A white-haired pastor with a Genevan accent, holding a notebook and a graphite stick, opened his arms in welcome. He gave instructions in French that those without prior arrangements would be catered for and should wait with their fellow passengers until the wherries had transported everyone from the ship.
‘But before you do,’ said Pastor Daniel, ‘please step forward if your name is on my list here.’ The little party stood in expectation, with their effects at their feet. Both Jeanne and Paul continued to scan the crowd for late arrivals. In fact, they had not stopped scouring the scene since they descended from the ship into the wherry. But their eyes had still not found what they were looking for as the pastor’s croaky voice read out his list of names.
‘Monsieur Brocard . . . Madame Cazenave . . . Monsieur Dalençon . . .’ he said, leaving a pause between each name for the owner to step forward. As of yet, no one had. He went on. ‘Madame Delpech de Castanet.’ Again he paused and looked up. But lost in the search for her husband, Jeanne was not sure she had heard right. Paul, who had not missed a syllable, tugged her hand, and they both stepped forward.
The priest gave a brief smile and motioned to them to stand next to him, then continued with his short list. After a few more names, it turned out that, of all the passengers, Jeanne’s name was the only one on it.
As she stood by the pastor, she dwelt on why her name had been singled out, why Jacob had not come to meet them. Was he ill, or worse? She turned to Paul, whom she sensed was trying to decipher the pleat in her brow. She touched his cheek in a gesture of mutual comfort.
‘Madame Delpech,’ said the pastor some minutes later in French, having introduced himself as the pastor of the French church on Threadneedle Street. ‘I have a letter for you from your husband.’
‘Oh?’ said Jeanne. ‘Is there anything wrong?’
‘Rest assured, Madame, nothing wrong, no.’
‘Then why could he not meet us himself?’
‘He had to depart, Madame. However, he has left you a key to your accommodation, which I will be only too glad to accompany you to, once you have registered and taken refreshment at the church.’ Jeanne thanked him and tried not to let her disappointment show. But the pastor nonetheless sensed her confusion. He said: ‘He was obliged to leave four days ago with his regiment, Madame.’
‘His regiment?’ said Jeanne, somewhat taken aback.
‘Yes, Madame, he is a lieutenant in King William’s army. I would not be surprised if he had already made landfall on Irish soil by now.’
FOURTEEN
Standing by the campfire with his bowl of beef-and-pea soup, Jacob contemplated the lough, its calm waters shimmering in the dawn.
The stench of mudflats—populated with wading fowl—mingled with a hint of heather that wafted down from the emerald hills. And the acrid tang of black powder floated over the port town of Carrickfergus.
Jacob, like ten thousand other Huguenots would do, had answered the call to join King William’s army. It gave the Huguenots honourable employment and allowed them to potentially cross swords with their persecutors. For word had got out that James II’s army in Ireland was to be supplemented by Louis XIV’s soldiers. The first challenge was to oust the deposed Catholic king’s forces from the Protestant towns captured in the north. As the Jacobites retreated, they plundered settlements and villages, burning everything they could not take with them. It was the same scorched earth policy Louis of France had resorted to in the Palatinate.
It was August 28th. Jacob and Philippe were among the two-hundred-strong cavalry regiment that had disembarked six days earlier at White House, located between Belfast and Carrickfergus. The former had been relieved of Jacobites, who had retreated southward upon the arrival of Marshall Schomberg’s main army. The latter was still occupied by a pro-Catholic Irish garrison composed of one battalion and nine companies. Their mission was to slow the English army under Schomberg as much as possible to allow James time to rebuild his depleted army after his failed attempt to take Derry. Before retreating within the town walls, they had put flame to any building that might serve the Williamites.
Jacob took another sip of his savoury soup. Then he turned his gaze to the web of masts that stood like a hundred Protestant steeples upon the smooth and peaceful lough. Peaceful, that is, since Schomberg had ordered the royal ships to menacingly train their guns on the besieged castle, and since the Jacobites had raised the white flag.
But despite the surrender, it was clear to Jacob that the Catholic commanders had accomplished their mission. Not only had they delayed Schomberg’s march south, they had managed to negotiate favourable conditions of surrender. The terms allowed the defeated garrison to “march out with flying Colours, Arms, lighted Matches, and their own Baggage . . .” What was more, the Jacobite invaders were to “be conducted by a Squadron of Horse to the nearest Garrison of the Enemy
.” In other words, until they were out of harm’s reach of the Protestant inhabitants who might not like to see the instigators of their recent torment get away scot-free.
Jacob was among the horsemen selected to accompany the Jacobites the first few miles out of town. He gulped down the last dregs of his broth, then lit a pipe, thinking how odd it was that he missed his awful bowl of coffee at the coffeehouse in London. He was soon puffing away in protection against the smell of the last cartload of bodies that had rolled by. The last count was over one hundred and fifty men killed on each side, plus a handful of cows.
Around him, tents were being dismantled by gentlemen’s valets. Through the gaping hole in the north wall, he could see the devastated town, strewn with debris and rubble, the tops of buildings blown off, and smoke still coiling into the balmy sky. He now gazed at the cloud of flies above the festering carcasses of the lead-peppered cows. They had been herded atop the rubble of the breach by the besieged soldiers in a desperate bid to prevent the besiegers from entering the town.
‘Damn waste of good meat,’ said Philippe, holding the reins of two horses as he came strolling up. He handed the reins of one to Jacob, who, not in the mood for banter, gave a thick grunt. It occurred to him that the same could be said of the cartload of dead men, who looked no less morbid and spiritless than the dead bovines. It was frightening.
Two hours later, Jacob and Philippe were waiting in their saddles outside the east gate with their cavalry squadron. Three hundred and fifty battle-worn Jacobites were marching from the castle with their wives, children, and camp followers in tow. To the beat of their drum, they marched up the ravaged street that was flanked by Schomberg’s foot soldiers. Jacob saw haggard-looking townsfolk watching in dismay and anger. After sizing up the instigators of their living nightmare, many of them now hurled insults between the shoulders of Schomberg’s troopers, who were letting the invaders get away with their flags flying.
At last, the dishevelled column of Irish Catholic soldiers approached the gate where the Williamite cavalry squadron were to take up their escort mission. Jacob looked around dubiously at his English captain, Sir William Russel.
Having delayed their departure from London in the hope of seeing Jeanne before leaving for Ireland, Jacob and de Sève had embarked from Highlake with an English cavalry regiment. It had been agreed that the two French lieutenants would join their Huguenot regiment in Belfast once the siege of Carrickfergus was over.
The captain gave orders for the detachment to split into two so that twenty-five horsemen rode on either flank of the Irish garrison. It all suddenly seemed to Jacob like a very tall order. Not the task of keeping the garrison in line, but the more delicate challenge of keeping the townsfolk from taking their revenge. It quickly became clear the population would carry their verbal attacks much further than the city gate.
‘They should expect a rough quarter of an hour,’ called Jacob in French to de Sève.
Philippe, a few lengths in front, turned in his saddle. ‘Aye, they say you only reap what you sow, my friend! And I’d rather be up here than down there right now!’
The swelling crowd was clearly curious to find out what was going to happen to their former captors.
No sooner had they left the gate than the most vocal womenfolk marched up to the Jacobite column with verbal digs and hard pokes to provoke a reaction, until a horseman closed the gap and established order.
‘Cavaliers, keep tight!’ ordered the captain, cantering up and down the file of enemy soldiers. But gaps were inevitable along the line of horses, and the forays of verbal aggression continued.
The file continued their march to the beat of their drum past the first houses, charred and gutted, that lined the road south outside the town wall.
Old Mrs O’Leary in a grey peasant’s bodice and skirt, hair bound in cloth, was collecting her thoughts inside her roofless, burnt-out home where she had raised her sons. Gareth had died from the fever, and Edward was killed as he strove to protect their hometown from the invading Jacobite force. She was not prone to tears, old Mrs O’Leary. She was hard as toenails and not one to make waves either; ripples, rather, was the philosophy handed down to her from her French grandfather. Little by little the bird builds his nest, she used to say to her boys, who were hampered with the impetuosity of youth and lacking the guiding hand of their father, missing at sea.
In the void of her loss, she was thankful that Gareth had fathered a son. The toddler had been taken north with his mother to their Scottish cousin’s in Ballymena. She was thinking that she might join them; the child looked so much like her Gareth. But her ears pricked on hearing the march of boots. And the accompanying outbursts suddenly pierced the bubble of her grief.
She turned from the blackened room where her kitchen had been, and looked through the burnt-out window. She then scurried to the threshold, where the wooden door was still half-hinged and open.
There she stood, hawkeyed, as though picking out her prey. A minute later, eyes all aglare, Mrs O’Leary stomped across the dozen or so yards that separated her from the passing Jacobite file. Mad-eyed and with a primal rage, she let out a visceral cry that made even the townsfolk start with horror. It did not form decipherable words, though the appalling sound was eloquent in itself. It expressed all the grief, pain, and anger of a mother who had lost her babies and the home she had brought them up in. It was a cry that needed no words, a cry that many understood, including Delpech and de Sève, between whose horses she had lunged towards the Jacobite column. They both searched in alarm for the source of such soul-wrenching sorrow.
Fingers curled into rigid dart-like claws, she charged at the soldier who had flamed her house. She reached for his face but only managed to scratch his neck and latch hold of his long hair. Turning sharply, he shook her off, clamped her upper arms and then flung her to the ground like a bundle of sticks. Two women came to her aid as, on her knees, she belched out her pain in a woeful wail, holding her belly like she was giving birth.
An eruption of voices and indignation rose up as a group of womenfolk broke into the file in a single body. They swooped upon the soldier like vultures, tore at his face, pulled him down. They then dragged him from the rank and covered him in blows from pounding knuckles and rough brogues on feet.
Philippe and Jacob managed to coordinate their mounts to push back the assailants. Meanwhile, the soldier was pulled back from the ground into the Jacobite line by his brothers in arms, visibly none too keen for a fight.
But the soldier made a sign that did nothing to lessen the tension. Instead, it spread the feeling of indignation as fast as the flames that had ravaged Mrs O’Leary’s house. The crowd called for justice to be done, that the Jacobites be led away to be massacred, each and every one of them. But they were not. It soon became clear to them that their enemies were merely being conducted away from the scene of their crimes, as if they were on a church parade.
By the time they had marched a mile out of the township, the townsfolk had measured the cavaliers’ willingness to intervene. It was clearly less fervent than the crowd’s visceral desire for bloody justice. Justice for their destroyed homes, their dead husbands and sons, their diminished health through privation of food, and the disease-ridden tots that might not see the end of day.
Wild kicks began to hit home and isolated punches to fly. Jacob sensed as well as the Jacobite officers that just one spark of fury from the column would ignite an explosive reaction. Captain Russel sent one of the French cavaliers for reinforcements, telling him to leave discreetly and then fly like the wind.
The inevitable happened soon after Philippe’s departure.
A soldier’s wife reacted viciously as a Protestant fishwife stepped up and tugged her chignon from behind. Had the soldier’s wife let herself suffer the dishonour and let the woman have her moment of satisfaction, then maybe she would have lost nothing more than a bit of face. But ferocious as a wildcat, she turned: ‘Get off me, ya filthy faggot!’ she screamed
, twisting and clawing the air as her assailant went on pulling the chignon back, forcing the soldier’s wife to her knees.
‘Let her go or I’ll let fly!’ shouted her husband, holding his musket by the barrel as if he was about to use it as a bat.
But the fishwife sneered and pulled the woman’s bun harder, making wide circles which made her scream louder and the onlookers laugh harder. The husband swung back his musket, but a burly Protestant stepped forward and snatched it from the soldier’s grasp. The Jacobite let loose a punch. The Protestant whacked the butt of the musket handsomely round the soldier’s ear. The Jacobite tumbled, a corpus of townsfolk surged forward as if on cue, and the fighting began.
The soldiers were better equipped to fight, but the townsfolk were angrier, their raw fury quadrupling their strength and desire for instant, bloody justice. They easily wrested the firearms from their former captors’ hands. The Catholic commanders ordered their men not to draw their sabres, knowing that if they did, their own massacre would be inevitable.
The soldier’s wife was now a plaything. Townsfolk of both sexes clawed voraciously at her shawl, bodice, and skirt, tearing them to shreds. Within minutes, she was on her hands and knees in the mud in nothing but her shift, trembling like a frightened bitch. Then her face was pushed down into the mud and the rest of her clothing ripped off in seconds, her body groped, her blood-stained bloomers held high.
The women went on the rampage against their adversaries of the same sex, to tear off their clothes, and give them back some of the medicine that the Catholic wives had dealt them in their own homes.
Sporadic fighting erupted all along the file. Even high-grade officers were set upon. The horsemen, unable to intervene with their arms, could only endeavour to separate the brawlers with their mounts. After another intervention, Delpech saw a soldier step out from the column and start making for the woods across the bog.
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