Land of Hope

by Paul C R Monk

  . . . spinning wheel,’ she said more loudly while drawing a wheel in the air.

  ‘Ah,’ said Jeanne. ‘Ze spinning veel.’ She could hardly pretend she did not have one. And she saw her hopes suddenly evaporating. No matter, she thought; she would use the money she had set aside for the loom to find other lodgings where she could keep her wheel and retain her meagre independence until Jacob returned. ‘And . . . vat . . . ze spinning wheel?’ she continued, failing miserably to make a proper sentence. She could not help feeling a fool, unable as she was to construct the simplest of questions. So she rinsed her mouth with a spluttering of French in an attempt to recover some form of dignity.

  ‘No, dear, in England we speak English!’ said Mrs Smythe.

  Jeanne put down her pail and crossed her arms. She was not going to be bullied by a lowly English matron. ‘Vat you want? Madame?’ she said curtly.

  But Mrs Smythe cracked another smile, wider this time so that it frankly pleated the corners of her mouth. Then more gently, she said: ‘Come, Madame. Please, come with me.’ She closed her door behind her and stepped across the landing. I’m not gonna blimmin’ eat you, my dear, she thought to herself on seeing the French lady’s eye of defiance. ‘Come, Madame, have no fear, leave the water here. No one will take it.’

  Jeanne wondered what on earth she wanted. The landlady beckoned her to follow her down the rickety staircase. She was evidently making an attempt to be civil, so Jeanne followed on down to the ground floor, where Mrs Smythe showed her into a weaver’s workshop. It was full of labelled shelves of reels of yarn, patterned fabric draped along the back wall, a great loom that took up a quarter of the space, and a dressmaker’s workspace with bowls of buttons and reels of ribbon arranged by colour. The landlady pointed next to the loom. ‘Spinning wheel,’ she said.

  Jeanne nodded. She wasn’t stupid; she understood the first time. But she was nonetheless surprised to see the set-up and could now understand why the woman might be concerned about the potential competition. Too bad, thought Jeanne; she would find new lodgings. ‘Yes, and loom!’ she said, pointing to the large machine.

  ‘Do you know how to work it?’ said the landlady, forgetting her gesturing. Then she raised her voice while doing invisible actions with her hands. ‘Can. You. Work. Loom?’

  ‘Me work loom?’ said Jeanne, cottoning on at last. ‘Yes. I do loom and . . . er . . .’ Jeanne stopped short of saying she would move on because she did not know how to say it. But then, Mrs Smythe’s mouth broadened into an uncommon smile as she clapped her hands together under her chin.

  ‘Good. Madame Delpech, you work here on this loom? For me, yes?’ Was the woman offering her a job? ‘You work your spinning wheel afternoons. And here in mornings, you work the loom, yes?’ said the landlady, gesturing to the loom, then to the ceiling as she spoke.

  With further insistence from Mrs Smythe, Jeanne at last gathered the deal. She would be able to keep her spinning wheel to spin yarn in the afternoons and work mornings on the loom at the workshop. At least it would keep her within the bounds of legality while she learnt the language, and she would not have to pay for a loom which might end up smashed anyway.

  To Mrs Smythe’s joy and relief, the French lady gave a short, definite nod of acceptance.

  Mrs Smythe had her French fineries. The Smythe workshop was back in business!

  Jeanne had only been in England over a week, and already she had a job. But how much would she be paid? She would ask Marie-Anne the going rates. But more worryingly, what would it be like to work under her landlady?

  SEVENTEEN

  It soon became clear to Jacob that the army would not be pushing directly to Dublin as Isaac de Bostaquet had first suggested.

  ‘Apparently, the supply ships that were supposed to put in at Carlingford Lough are encountering contrary winds,’ said Isaac to Jacob and Philippe the morning after their arrival. He had just walked back up to camp from the town where the old marshal had set up his headquarters. The three Huguenot cavaliers were standing outside their mess tent, where de Bostaquet’s valet was hammering home pegs. Jacob had advised that the tent stand in the sea breeze to chase away bad air whenever the sky hung low.

  ‘I only hope we don’t dig in for long here,’ said Jacob, scanning the marshland to the east and the swollen river to the west. ‘We might be well-protected from enemy attack, but there is little defence against the bane of bad air!’

  Not only lack of provisions plagued the Williamite army. The outbreak of disease en route was growing worse, and already, numerous deaths had been registered.

  The next day, parties of cavaliers were sent to scour the countryside for food. Jacob rode with Philippe and de Bostaquet to Carlingford, an hour away in the saddle at a good pace, in search of reserves and for news of the supply vessels from Belfast. The morning was clement, the tide was out, and the bay lay placid as they set out along the damp track that ran through heathland, gorse, and heather. ‘I had no idea there were so many,’ said de Sève as they cantered along half a dozen flatbed carts carrying the deceased and the sick. The sick carts were also headed for Carlingford, where a hospital had been set up inside the stone castle by the lough.

  Once in open country, they could have been anywhere, far away from disease and conflict, thought Jacob as they cantered on at an even pace. ‘Don’t know about you, Delpech, my good fellow, but the less time I spend in camp, the better,’ said Philippe, letting out a chuckle. His spirits had lifted now that they had removed themselves from the dingy scenes of camp squalor and strife.

  As Jacob nodded in agreement, his eye caught a puff of smoke in the distant foliage past Philippe’s right ear. It was instantly followed by a crackle of shot. Philippe’s mount let out a horrific squeal of agony as its legs gave way in full canter. ‘Enemy attack!’ roared Jacob, shortening the reins to regain control of his frightened steed.

  ‘Over there!’ trumpeted Isaac up ahead. He pointed to the higher ground to the left, where a flash of Jacobite redcoats had launched their mounts into full gallop. ‘After them, gents!’ hollered Isaac. ‘We have the advantage of loaded pistols!’

  ‘Philippe’s down!’ shouted Jacob, but Isaac had pushed his horse into a thundering gallop in the direction of the fleeing Jacobite vedette of three dragoons. Now riding close to his horse’s mane, a primal instinct suddenly took hold of Delpech, overwhelming his initial desire to ride back to his fallen friend.

  Pistol in hand, Delpech charged ahead like the wind, pushing his horse in the mud-splattered tracks of de Bostaquet’s mount. But the enemy had a head start. And visibly more familiar with the mountain terrain, they knew where exactly to pass through the boggy patches and increased the distance that separated them from their pursuers.

  Isaac led the chase for a minute more. But after losing eye contact, he then raised a hand, and with the other pulled on his reins to halt.

  They gave a mutual nod, and then swiftly doubled back to the ambush point, where they found de Sève’s horse lying panting, frightened, and helplessly in pain on the ground. Philippe was sitting, one leg stretched out, by the animal’s head. He lowered his pistol on the party’s approach and placed his hand on the horse’s neck, now uttering sounds of comfort in an effort to calm the horse down.

  Jacob dismounted and handed his reins to Isaac, who remained in his saddle to keep a lookout.

  A cavalier’s horse is more than a steed. It is an ally, a loyal friend that will run through hell, carry you despite hunger and fatigue until it drops. Philippe’s feeling for his mare was no different. She had carried him when he was fatigued, had taken him through the mountains, across rivers, through mud and rain. He continued to speak to her, calming her nerves, until she laid her head flat on the ground, blood streaming from her eye, her leg clearly fractured. He passed his loaded pistol to Jacob. Jacob knew it would take a hard heart to kill one’s own horse. Delpech returned a solemn nod. He took position near the mare’s head, Philippe’s pistol in one hand, his own in the o
ther. ‘All right, Rosy, girl, all right,’ said Philippe, then gave Jacob the nod. Jacob fired twice into her skull.

  ‘Better make tracks out of here!’ said Isaac, breaking the short silence after the birds had flown and the horrible echo had died down. Struggling with his leg, Philippe managed to climb behind Jacob to finish the run around the mountain to Carlingford Town.

  *

  The seaside market town had suffered the same fate as Newry. Sacked, torched, and deserted, it provided no sustenance except for some oatcakes that they took from a few breadless inhabitants. In return, Jacob gave them the whereabouts of Philippe’s dead horse, which they could cart back to Dundalk camp for a handsome reward and food.

  ‘We will catch up with you on the road to Dundalk, once we have taken our fellow to the castle hospital,’ said Jacob, translating for Isaac.

  The three Huguenots proceeded to the waterfront where there was still no sign of supply ships. Philippe by now was unable to walk on his swollen ankle, which Delpech, after a brief diagnosis, suspected to be fractured. So the next stop was Carlingford Castle, where they could leave Philippe in the qualified hands of the medical staff.

  The great room where medieval banquets were once held by day and where castle dwellers used to sleep by night was now occupied by the battle-wounded from Carrickfergus and, since yesterday, by the first casualties of the fever from Dundalk.

  ‘Straw, blankets, and two bowls of gruel a day,’ said Jacob, once Philippe had been given a spot among other French patients.

  ‘Wonderful, I shall be living it up!’ quipped Philippe, who spluttered into a cough.

  Isaac stood shuffling from foot to foot, impatient to hit the road. For one, he detested hospitals; it was after all where most men died. Secondly, he was anxious to return to camp to warn the approaching sick convoy of roaming enemy vedettes. Although now with hindsight, he suspected the musket attack to be an opportunist strike by a straggling patrol.

  ‘Cheer up. This could mean the end of the war for you, my dear fellow,’ said Jacob to Philippe. ‘There’s a good chance they will send you back to England!’

  ‘What for?’ said Philippe. ‘No one awaits me in England, except Mrs Smythe for her rent,’ he joked. ‘I shall stay here until I can walk. Then I shall hitch a ride back to Dundalk on a cart.’

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ said Isaac. ‘I will send you some moor rabbit. The soldiers eat them; not much meat but tasty all the same.’ Then he stepped forward with bonhomie and gave Philippe a farewell pat on the arm to prompt their departure. They were yet to catch up with the local folk sent to recover Philippe’s horse before the bloat set in.

  *

  Over the next couple of weeks, Jacob took part with Isaac and other officers in foraging missions, escorting dragoons into the surrounding fields to harvest hay and corn, which they rolled up and tied to their mounts. There had been brief visual encounters with Jacobite vedettes who, though they sometimes harried them in their toil, as yet had not ventured into armed conflict.

  Every day Jacob returned from the field, he noticed a new development in the construction of the camp. Still unsure of his officers’ true alliances and of the ill-trained Williamite army, Schomberg had decided not to advance on Dublin straight away but to dig in at Dundalk until his supply chain was secured and his army better trained. Earthworks were built, entrenchments dug, and batteries established at strategical points from the southern tip of the main street to the northern encampment on the other side of the Kilcurry River. Tents were gradually replaced by huts and barracks built from felled trees. And on each return, Jacob noticed the fever spreading with increasing ferocity.

  One day, having harvested as much as their allotted field had to yield, they rode back into camp earlier than usual. Jacob was struck by the sight of tens of carts heading out on the road to Belfast, each transporting a grim load of dead soldiers. He cast a look of incomprehension to Isaac, who looked equally dumbfounded and sickened. Surely, had there been an assault, they would have heard the cannon fire that sounded the alert and bade their urgent return. But Jacob concluded that the guns had remained silent, for there was no hint of the acrid smell of gunpowder in the air. The entrenchments presented no damage, men around the camp yonder were being drilled as usual in the techniques of battle, and most of the horses were still in pasture, some sheltered in their newly made huts.

  ‘What has happened here?’ called out Jacob on approaching a cart driver.

  ‘Camp fever, Sir,’ replied the Irishman glumly. ‘Dropping like sheep, they are. At this rate, ol’ James won’t even need to attack.’

  The unhealthy spot, the atrocious weather conditions, and weeks of undernourishment had leagued in a tripartite force to assail the Williamite army, bringing not the bane of war’s hellfire, but the scourge of disease. Soon, hundreds of men were dying weekly, hundreds more falling ill, while every day, Schomberg said his prayers in the local church. And in his indecision, he delayed any move forward. Needless to say, Jacob was glad to be in the saddle, and glad too that he had left Philippe in the healthier sea air of the castle by the lough.

  *

  The camp was divided by regiment and nationality. But old animosities rankled and tensions still grew, exacerbated by the rumour of a Catholic conspiracy within the ranks. And what put more oil on the fire was James Stewart’s offer of a pardon to Williamites willing to defect to the Jacobite army—an army well fed, paid in real money, and provided with bedding and shelter from the oncoming sickly season.

  Damon Laverty had grown ill. Even so, if there was a way to get back to his regiment and then be sent home without the risk of execution, he would have jumped at the chance. But Schomberg gave the order for no unauthorized soldier to venture out of camp upon pain of death. And he rewarded with money for every deserter or spy apprehended dead or alive.

  One afternoon, Sergeant Tatlock came to Laverty’s tent and ordered the private to get his carcass down to the bridge, where carts would be waiting to take the sick out of the godforsaken camp. Damon wondered if he could make it without shitting himself again as he laboriously pulled on his knapsack. Off he trudged with a horde of walking sick, withered and sallow. ‘Jesus,’ he thought, ‘if the boys attacked now, we’d be done for!’ But lacking the energy to carry the thought any further, he plunged his hand into his pocket and fingered his rosary beads.

  *

  The late September sky had opened up, offering a respite from the previous weeks of dismal weather. Jacob had been in the saddle since daybreak. His foraging party had been sent into the Carlingford-Newry mountains, the land south of Dundalk being now out of bounds, with the Jacobite army having seized the bridge over the Fane.

  Delpech was standing in a field where his party of twelve were harvesting corn. He had advised that they cut from the top of the slope, the dominant side, where it was drier and easier to hack the stalks that grew in little mounds in sets of three or four. But even in the rare sunshine, it was still a hard graft. The razor-edged leaves could slice bare skin, so it was wise to keep covered all over, right up to the chin. But no one complained, really; at least they were being useful, and were out of the cursed camp. And there were perks to the job too. They had just had lunch, a proper lunch of cooked corn on the cob and fresh rabbit roasted on the spit, dowsed with a skinful of ale.

  The men had risen from their meal and, under Isaac’s command, had scattered across the field to their allotted patch. Jacob could now hear the rhythmic sound of the chopping of corn stems that punctuated the song of swallows, catching insects fleeing the massacre.

  ‘Another hour, lads!’ Jacob heard Isaac call out.

  He continued to cast his eyes over the valley from the south-facing mountainside while peeing against a tree, one of a cluster that flanked the cornfield. From here, he had a clearer view over the valley and distant hills, not unlike the view from the Quercy ridge of his homeland, where the great plain stretched to the foothills of the Pyrenees. These Irish folk certainly knew
how to work their land, he mused as he contemplated the patchwork of fields, some divided by low stone walls. It was all predominantly of deep greens, beautiful under the patchy blue sky, which made it all the more difficult to believe how men could confine themselves to the squalor and damp of an unhealthy encampment. But such was the madness of man in his folly for war. Jacob’s horse nickered as if to agree with his wandering thoughts.

  During his lunch break, Delpech had read the letter again from Jeanne asking him to return to England. It had put the spring back into his step and restored his hope, knowing she had made it to London. According to Isaac, there would likely be nothing more than a standoff between the two armies before the bad season prevented military manoeuvres. The ground between them offered no firm battlefield, only marshland which would bog down man and horse.

  ‘If we go into winter quarters, you might get winter leave,’ Isaac had said.

  Jacob finished peeing while his horse, holding its head high, snorted its unrest more loudly. ‘Easy, boy,’ said Jacob, patting him on the neck. ‘What’s the matter . . .’

  Then the source of his steed’s fright came into earshot. A dull drumming quickly grew into a thunderous rumbling of hooves.

  ‘Enemy attaaack!’ he heard someone cry out from across the field.

  Jacob’s foot was in the stirrup when the first shots were fired, closely followed by more musket shots and the cries of men.

  Now in his saddle, Jacob could see a dozen Jacobite attackers bearing down onto the harvested part of the cornfield. Their brandished sabres now shimmered like scythes in the late-summer sun. They had already emptied their pistols into the furthermost foragers caught by surprise.

  With his loaded pistol at the ready, Delpech quickly pushed on to the field where his fellow cavaliers were mustering. Some were only just mounting, having run to their horses tethered in the shade of the trees.