David Cook's Blog, page 3
October 11, 2014
Win a paperback copy
Enter the Goodreads giveaways for HEART OF OAK and BLOOD ON THE SNOW for a chance to win a signed paperback copy - GB only this time though :)
October 6, 2014
HEART OF OAK 3RD EDITION
The 3rd edition of HEART OF OAK is now available to download from Amazon worldwide and Smashwords for all the ereaders out there.
If you have previously downloaded it, please update your devices to this latest edition.
http://goo.gl/Zo0hQo
If you have previously downloaded it, please update your devices to this latest edition.
http://goo.gl/Zo0hQo
October 5, 2014
Blood on the Snow paperback version
Blood on the Snow is now available from CreateSpace as a paperback version!
Now you can hold it in your hands. Go on, you know you want to!
http://fb.me/75Jua3I7Q
Now you can hold it in your hands. Go on, you know you want to!
http://fb.me/75Jua3I7Q
September 19, 2014
A request
Please could you click on the link below and choose to support me via twitter, facebook or tumblr. If I reach 100 people in the next couple of weeks then Thunderclap will promote BLOOD ON THE SNOW to hundreds of thousands of people worldwide for free! THANK YOU!
https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/1...
https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/1...
September 17, 2014
The Flanders Campaign: Myths and Baptisms of Fire
‘‘The hardest thing of all for a soldier is to retreat’’ - Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington.
The Flanders Campaign of 1793-1795 was conducted during the first years of the French Revolutionary War by the allied states of the First Coalition and the French First Republic. Europe was a patchwork of kingdoms, principalities and provinces and France wanted to spread its ideals of liberty and equality. The allied aim was to invade France by mobilising its armies along the French frontiers to bully the new republic into submission.
In the north, the allies’ immediate aim was to expel the French from the Dutch Republic and the Austrian Netherlands, then march directly to Paris. Britain invested a million pounds to finance the Austrians and Prussians. Twenty thousand British troops under George III’s younger son, Prince Frederick, the Duke of York, were eventually tied up in the campaign.
Austrian Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg was in overall command, but answered directly to Emperor Francis II, while the Duke of York was given objectives set by William Pitt the Younger’s War Secretary, Sir Henry Dundas. Thus, from the outset, mixed political machinations and ignorance hindered the operation.
The French armies on the other-hand also suffered. Many from the old royalist officer class had emigrated following the revolution, which left the cavalry severely undermanned and those officers that remained were fearful of being watched by the representatives. The price of failure or disloyalty was the guillotine. After the Battle of Hondshoote, September 1793, the British and Hanoverians under the Duke of York were defeated by General Houchard and General Jourdan. Houchard was arrested for treason for failing to organise a pursuit and guillotined.
By the spring of 1793, the French had virtually marched into the Dutch Republic and Austrian Netherlands unopposed. In May, the British won a victory at Famars and then followed up the success for the siege of Valenciennes. However, instead of concentrating their forces, the allies dispersed in an attempt to mop up the scattered French outposts. The French re-organised and combined their troops into larger corps. Dundas requested the Duke of York to lay siege to Dunkirk who had to abandon it after a severe mauling at Hondshoote.
By the end of the year the allied forces were now thinly stretched. The Duke of York, unable to offer support the Austrians and Prussians, because the army was suffering from supply problems, and by Dundas who was withdrawing regiments in order to re-assign them to the West Indies.
The French counter-offensive in the spring of the following year smashed apart the fragile allied lines. The Austrian command broke down as Francis II called for an immediate withdrawal. After the Battle of Fleurus, the defeated Austrians abandoned their century long hold of the Netherlands to retreat north towards Brussels. The loss of the Austrian support and the Prussians (who had also fallen back) led to the campaign’s collapse.
The Battle of Boxtel in September was a minor incident during the Allied retreat and is chiefly remembered for being the first time Arthur Wesley, (before changing his surname to Wellesley), saw action.
In the aftermath of Fleurus, the Austrians had begun to pull back east towards the line of the Rhine, abandoning any hope of recovering the Netherlands. This forced the British, German and Dutch troops to also retreat, where they destroyed bridges, redoubts and places where the French might use for their advantage. General Jean-Charles Pichegru, with the French Army of the North, advanced towards the British outpost at Boxtel, a town near the River Dommel, which had the only unspoiled bridge in the area. On the 14th the French captured the town after three hours of musket fire with Hessian troops with the aid of Dutch sympathisers. The Duke of York decided to send General Ralph Abercromby to retrieve the situation and protect the British rear-guard. Abercromby was given ten infantry battalions and ten cavalry squadrons, with the infantry made up of the Guards Brigade and the 3rd Brigade. This second brigade contained four infantry battalions; amongst them was Wesley’s own 33rd Foot. As the senior colonel present, he was given command of the brigade, while Lieutenant-Colonel John Sherbrooke, had command of the regiment.
At seven o’clock on the morning of the 15th, as veils of silver mist hung over the damp fields and dykes, the British force hurried to retake the town. It soon became abundantly clear that they were in danger of running into Pichegru’s main force and would be overwhelmed and outflanked by superior numbers. Abercromby ordered a withdrawal. When French infantry and cavalry charged the British, the retreat threatened to turn into a rout. The situation was saved by the iron resolve of the 33rd Foot’s commander – Sir John Sherbrooke. The battalion formed up into line and fired a series of disciplined volleys that shattered the French – so devastating was the fire that they were forced to retreat. Wesley was not directly responsible for their good behaviour, it was Sherbrooke, but he was overlooked and Wesley was given much of the credit that continues (in error)to this day.
The origins of the term ‘Tommy Atkins’ as a nickname for the British soldier is said to have originated during this fight. It is a name, perhaps today, that conjures in the mind images of the British soldier during the First World War, certainly not from an obscure clash in 1794. It is said that Wesley spotted amongst the wounded a soldier of the 33rd with a long service history. He was dying of three wounds; a sabre slash to his head, a bayonet thrust in his chest, and a bullet in a lung. The wounded private looked up at the colonel and said ‘‘It’s alright sir. It’s all in a day’s work’’. He then died. His name was Thomas Atkins, and his valour is said to have left an impression on the future Duke of Wellington. This may explain why the War Office chose the name ‘Tommy Atkins’ as a representative name in 1815. The Soldier’s Hand Book issued that year for both the cavalry and infantry uses the name as a generic soldier and Wellington certainly gave his concurrence, and quite possibly chose the name.
The term was used quite widely though, and indeed rather contemptuously, in the mid-19th century. Rudyard Kipling sums this up in his poem ‘Tommy’, one of his Barrack-Room Ballards (1892) in which he contrasts the unkind way in which the common soldier was treated in peace time, with the way he was praised as soon as he was needed to defend or fight for his country. ‘Tommy’, written from the soldier’s point of view, raised the public’s awareness of the need for a change of attitude towards the common soldier.
A much earlier origin can be traced back to as early as 1745 when a letter was sent from Jamaica concerning a mutiny and when it was put down it was mentioned that ‘‘Tommy Atkins behaved splendidly’’.
By the autumn, The Duke of York had been replaced by Sir William Harcourt, but with rumoured peace talks, the British position looked increasingly vulnerable. The only allied success of that year was that of the ‘Glorious First of June’, when Britain’s Lord Howe defeated a French naval squadron in the Atlantic, sinking one and capturing six French ships.
The winter of 1794 was one of the worst any one had ever imagined. Rivers froze, men died in the sleep, disease was rampant, and the soldier’s uniforms fell apart. It was an extremely harsh winter, mainly because the army was starving due to the collapsed commissariat. Troops started to steal from the local inhabitants. The officers were too lazy or indifferent to control them, and discipline amongst some units broke down completely.
By the spring of 1795, the British reached the allied Hanoverian port of Bremen and arrived home, weak, ill and emaciated. Some never fully recovered.
The Flanders Campaign demonstrated a series of weaknesses within the British Army. The Duke of York was given the role as Commander-in-Chief and brought forth a programme of reform and it created the professional army that was to fight with much success in the coming years.
The allies abandoned the Low Countries. Britain did attempt to undertake a second invasion of the newly proclaimed Batavian Republic until 1799 under The Duke of York, but it faltered and proved disastrous.
Notoriously, a children’s rhyme about the Holland campaign mocked the leadership of the Duke of York:
Oh, The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,
They were neither up nor down
However, there is another satirical verse attributed to Richard Tarlton, and so was adapted where possible, the latest ‘victim’ being The Duke of York. The oldest version of the song dates from 1642:
The King of France with forty thousand men,
came up the hill and so came downe againe
Many officers who would continue to serve their countries received their baptism of fire on the fields of Flanders. The Austrian Archduke Charles fought in Flanders, as did several of Napoleon’s marshals: Jourdan, Ney, Murat, Mortier and Bernadotte. The Prussian General Sharnhorst, another great reformer of the Napoleonic Wars, saw battle under the Duke of York.
Britain’s professional army was to fight with much success throughout the Peninsular War, into France and which ultimately, ‘Tommy Atkins’, played a significant part in defeating Napoleon at Waterloo.
The Flanders Campaign of 1793-1795 was conducted during the first years of the French Revolutionary War by the allied states of the First Coalition and the French First Republic. Europe was a patchwork of kingdoms, principalities and provinces and France wanted to spread its ideals of liberty and equality. The allied aim was to invade France by mobilising its armies along the French frontiers to bully the new republic into submission.
In the north, the allies’ immediate aim was to expel the French from the Dutch Republic and the Austrian Netherlands, then march directly to Paris. Britain invested a million pounds to finance the Austrians and Prussians. Twenty thousand British troops under George III’s younger son, Prince Frederick, the Duke of York, were eventually tied up in the campaign.
Austrian Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg was in overall command, but answered directly to Emperor Francis II, while the Duke of York was given objectives set by William Pitt the Younger’s War Secretary, Sir Henry Dundas. Thus, from the outset, mixed political machinations and ignorance hindered the operation.
The French armies on the other-hand also suffered. Many from the old royalist officer class had emigrated following the revolution, which left the cavalry severely undermanned and those officers that remained were fearful of being watched by the representatives. The price of failure or disloyalty was the guillotine. After the Battle of Hondshoote, September 1793, the British and Hanoverians under the Duke of York were defeated by General Houchard and General Jourdan. Houchard was arrested for treason for failing to organise a pursuit and guillotined.
By the spring of 1793, the French had virtually marched into the Dutch Republic and Austrian Netherlands unopposed. In May, the British won a victory at Famars and then followed up the success for the siege of Valenciennes. However, instead of concentrating their forces, the allies dispersed in an attempt to mop up the scattered French outposts. The French re-organised and combined their troops into larger corps. Dundas requested the Duke of York to lay siege to Dunkirk who had to abandon it after a severe mauling at Hondshoote.
By the end of the year the allied forces were now thinly stretched. The Duke of York, unable to offer support the Austrians and Prussians, because the army was suffering from supply problems, and by Dundas who was withdrawing regiments in order to re-assign them to the West Indies.
The French counter-offensive in the spring of the following year smashed apart the fragile allied lines. The Austrian command broke down as Francis II called for an immediate withdrawal. After the Battle of Fleurus, the defeated Austrians abandoned their century long hold of the Netherlands to retreat north towards Brussels. The loss of the Austrian support and the Prussians (who had also fallen back) led to the campaign’s collapse.
The Battle of Boxtel in September was a minor incident during the Allied retreat and is chiefly remembered for being the first time Arthur Wesley, (before changing his surname to Wellesley), saw action.
In the aftermath of Fleurus, the Austrians had begun to pull back east towards the line of the Rhine, abandoning any hope of recovering the Netherlands. This forced the British, German and Dutch troops to also retreat, where they destroyed bridges, redoubts and places where the French might use for their advantage. General Jean-Charles Pichegru, with the French Army of the North, advanced towards the British outpost at Boxtel, a town near the River Dommel, which had the only unspoiled bridge in the area. On the 14th the French captured the town after three hours of musket fire with Hessian troops with the aid of Dutch sympathisers. The Duke of York decided to send General Ralph Abercromby to retrieve the situation and protect the British rear-guard. Abercromby was given ten infantry battalions and ten cavalry squadrons, with the infantry made up of the Guards Brigade and the 3rd Brigade. This second brigade contained four infantry battalions; amongst them was Wesley’s own 33rd Foot. As the senior colonel present, he was given command of the brigade, while Lieutenant-Colonel John Sherbrooke, had command of the regiment.
At seven o’clock on the morning of the 15th, as veils of silver mist hung over the damp fields and dykes, the British force hurried to retake the town. It soon became abundantly clear that they were in danger of running into Pichegru’s main force and would be overwhelmed and outflanked by superior numbers. Abercromby ordered a withdrawal. When French infantry and cavalry charged the British, the retreat threatened to turn into a rout. The situation was saved by the iron resolve of the 33rd Foot’s commander – Sir John Sherbrooke. The battalion formed up into line and fired a series of disciplined volleys that shattered the French – so devastating was the fire that they were forced to retreat. Wesley was not directly responsible for their good behaviour, it was Sherbrooke, but he was overlooked and Wesley was given much of the credit that continues (in error)to this day.
The origins of the term ‘Tommy Atkins’ as a nickname for the British soldier is said to have originated during this fight. It is a name, perhaps today, that conjures in the mind images of the British soldier during the First World War, certainly not from an obscure clash in 1794. It is said that Wesley spotted amongst the wounded a soldier of the 33rd with a long service history. He was dying of three wounds; a sabre slash to his head, a bayonet thrust in his chest, and a bullet in a lung. The wounded private looked up at the colonel and said ‘‘It’s alright sir. It’s all in a day’s work’’. He then died. His name was Thomas Atkins, and his valour is said to have left an impression on the future Duke of Wellington. This may explain why the War Office chose the name ‘Tommy Atkins’ as a representative name in 1815. The Soldier’s Hand Book issued that year for both the cavalry and infantry uses the name as a generic soldier and Wellington certainly gave his concurrence, and quite possibly chose the name.
The term was used quite widely though, and indeed rather contemptuously, in the mid-19th century. Rudyard Kipling sums this up in his poem ‘Tommy’, one of his Barrack-Room Ballards (1892) in which he contrasts the unkind way in which the common soldier was treated in peace time, with the way he was praised as soon as he was needed to defend or fight for his country. ‘Tommy’, written from the soldier’s point of view, raised the public’s awareness of the need for a change of attitude towards the common soldier.
A much earlier origin can be traced back to as early as 1745 when a letter was sent from Jamaica concerning a mutiny and when it was put down it was mentioned that ‘‘Tommy Atkins behaved splendidly’’.
By the autumn, The Duke of York had been replaced by Sir William Harcourt, but with rumoured peace talks, the British position looked increasingly vulnerable. The only allied success of that year was that of the ‘Glorious First of June’, when Britain’s Lord Howe defeated a French naval squadron in the Atlantic, sinking one and capturing six French ships.
The winter of 1794 was one of the worst any one had ever imagined. Rivers froze, men died in the sleep, disease was rampant, and the soldier’s uniforms fell apart. It was an extremely harsh winter, mainly because the army was starving due to the collapsed commissariat. Troops started to steal from the local inhabitants. The officers were too lazy or indifferent to control them, and discipline amongst some units broke down completely.
By the spring of 1795, the British reached the allied Hanoverian port of Bremen and arrived home, weak, ill and emaciated. Some never fully recovered.
The Flanders Campaign demonstrated a series of weaknesses within the British Army. The Duke of York was given the role as Commander-in-Chief and brought forth a programme of reform and it created the professional army that was to fight with much success in the coming years.
The allies abandoned the Low Countries. Britain did attempt to undertake a second invasion of the newly proclaimed Batavian Republic until 1799 under The Duke of York, but it faltered and proved disastrous.
Notoriously, a children’s rhyme about the Holland campaign mocked the leadership of the Duke of York:
Oh, The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,
They were neither up nor down
However, there is another satirical verse attributed to Richard Tarlton, and so was adapted where possible, the latest ‘victim’ being The Duke of York. The oldest version of the song dates from 1642:
The King of France with forty thousand men,
came up the hill and so came downe againe
Many officers who would continue to serve their countries received their baptism of fire on the fields of Flanders. The Austrian Archduke Charles fought in Flanders, as did several of Napoleon’s marshals: Jourdan, Ney, Murat, Mortier and Bernadotte. The Prussian General Sharnhorst, another great reformer of the Napoleonic Wars, saw battle under the Duke of York.
Britain’s professional army was to fight with much success throughout the Peninsular War, into France and which ultimately, ‘Tommy Atkins’, played a significant part in defeating Napoleon at Waterloo.
September 10, 2014
Blood on the Snow ebook cover
I've four covers which i'm looking at - choosing can be as difficult as writing the story at times.
Head over to my face book Liberty or Death page to have a view yourself
https://www.facebook.com/#!/davidcook...
Head over to my face book Liberty or Death page to have a view yourself
https://www.facebook.com/#!/davidcook...
September 2, 2014
Liberty or Death 4th Edition
Well, the 4th edition is now live at Amazon and at Smashwords for all platforms.
I used Catherine Lenderi to give the novella a good going over and the result is the definitive version.
What's changed?
Well, whatever mistakes got passed my eyes in the previous proof-reads. Nothing major to the storyline.
But the biggest change has to be the addition of THE EMERALD GRAVES 2nd edition at the back of the paperback LIBERTY OR DEATH version at CreateSpace. I decided to add this to this version only due to the giveaways and, although doesn't alter the ending, it gives an insight to the Battle of Vinegar Hill and Mullone's desperation to apprehend the French spy, De Marin.
I hope you enjoy it.
I used Catherine Lenderi to give the novella a good going over and the result is the definitive version.
What's changed?
Well, whatever mistakes got passed my eyes in the previous proof-reads. Nothing major to the storyline.
But the biggest change has to be the addition of THE EMERALD GRAVES 2nd edition at the back of the paperback LIBERTY OR DEATH version at CreateSpace. I decided to add this to this version only due to the giveaways and, although doesn't alter the ending, it gives an insight to the Battle of Vinegar Hill and Mullone's desperation to apprehend the French spy, De Marin.
I hope you enjoy it.
August 22, 2014
The Emerald Graves
The officer curbed his horse in one of the many fields below Vinegar Hill, a large pudding-shaped mound outside the town of Enniscorthy.
The sun had burned as fiercely as the rebellion these last few weeks and the night-air had been cool to the touch. There was a thin veil of mist that pooled around the grassy slopes of the hill. It was just after dawn and the sun was already rising above the valley floor, promising another kiln-hot day to come in County Wexford.
The officer brought up an expensive eyeglass and traversed it past the silvery mist and up to where fires burned a dull red. His green eyes saw figures move up there. Only a score, but he knew there were thousands upon that emerald crown.
‘Are you sure that bastard is up there, sir?’ A voice rasped from the officer’s left.
‘Aye. He’s up there. I know he is.’
Sergeant Seán Cahill put a dirty finger to one nostril and blew a string of snot into a patch of nettles. ‘Then, the bastard knows we’re coming for him.’
‘I’m counting on it.’
‘Why’s that, sir?’
Major Lorn Mullone turned to his friend, studying the hollowness and extra lines in his face caused by a recent injury. ‘Because that way he’s scared and men that are close to losing their wits make mistakes.’
Cahill nodded and looked solemnly up at the great mound. He rubbed his leg that was still bandaged from the desperate fight at New Ross two weeks ago. Thousands of United Irishmen had stormed the walled town and succeeded in beating back British troops under General Henry Johnson across the River Barrow. But the rebels had tired after the long assault and without firearms needed to hold back the redcoats, Johnson and his men had returned, brushed aside the fatigued rebels and retaken the town. It had been a bitter and bloody engagement, and the survivors along with many leaders of the rebellion, were now up on the hilltop.
‘One mistake, Seán,’ Mullone continued, ‘and I’ll have him. For all the blood that he’s spilt, I’ll have him.’
Mullone was currently employed by the War Office to spy on Theobald Wolf Tone, a leader of the United Irish, and his acquaintance of a wily French agent called De Marin. So far the Frenchman had eluded capture having recently dressed as a priest and preached lies and rumour to the Irish people that instilled fear and anger. He had been chiefly responsible for the French landings, particularly at Bantry Bay, and for the heavy attack on New Ross.
‘Let’s hope these buggers don’t put a shell up his arse first then,’ Cahill said, jutting his unshaven chin at the battery of howitzers nearby.
The British troops had arrived in the early hours. Their final pre-dawn flanking march had taken several hours, far longer than their commander, Lieutenant-General Gerard Lake, could have anticipated. There were ten thousand men with twenty cannon and over four hundred carriages and wagons loaded with ammunition and equipment. The columns of redcoats were now beginning to make ready for assault. Their objective was simple: encircle the rebels and destroy them. There were four great columns designed to win the battle. Lake commanded the central force, Generals’ Duff and Loftus were waiting to strike from the side of the River Slaney, Dundas waited on the east and Johnson was ready to attack Enniscorthy. Only General Needham to the south had not reached position yet, but he had assured Lake that he would be there by dawn.
Mullone’s gaze wandered to Lake and his countenance soured. The commander had no empathy with the Irish people and there was a rumour spoken that he would not let any man, woman or child live if he found them alive up on the hill. He was a cruel man with eyes like two shards of pale ice set with the expression of constant indifference. Mullone had asked to see him this morning to discuss his apprehension of De Marin, but the general had almost angrily rebuffed him. Mullone considered that the attack would turn into a massacre. There might be a small chance to apprehend De Marin, but it would be difficult.
Lake was on horseback with several officers and aides, staring up at the rebel lines. The redcoats, a mixture of Regular, Militia and Yeomanry troops, eagerly waited for the signal. Officers shared jokes and laughed. Some men were smoking tobacco pipes and chatting to the men in their files and one or two were honing their bayonets with sharpening stones. A tall officer wearing a white-faced coat of the Dublin County Militia slashed at tall weeds with his sword. Mullone feared for the bloodshed about to be spilled more than whether he could capture the Frenchmen.
At seven o’clock, it was given and the cold iron throats of the guns were blasted free. The noise was terrifying and ear-splitting. Swift fan-shaped patterns rippled the long grass under the long barrels. Banks of foul-smelling smoke drifted like low cloud. Birds scared from their nests flew from trees. Tintreach, Mullone’s horse, stamped its feet and whickered. Mullone patted his grey muscled neck to soothe it.
‘It won’t be long until our boys are up there,’ Cahill said, at the long column of Lake’s infantry began the advance. ‘Skulls are going to be broken, that’s for sure.’ Mullone pursed his lips, but didn’t reply. ‘Are we joining them, sir?’ he said at the major’s taciturnity.
‘You can stay here,’ Mullone replied.
‘What?’ Cahill looked astonished.
The major turned to him. ‘You’re injured and supposed to be resting. What am I to tell your wife if anything happens to you? I left you at New Ross so that you could mend.’
Cahill spat onto to the ground. ‘And you think by leaving me with her I would be safe?’ The sergeant laughed
sardonically. ‘Jesus and all the saints. Once she got wind that the Croppies were going to attack the town, she sold a silver ring to buy a musket. A musket for God’s sake! The woman is madder than a bishop without his whiskey.’
‘I thought you’d be safe. I promised her to keep you out of harm’s way.’
‘You have done,’ Cahill grinned. ‘I’m about to ride to battle and she’s twenty miles away. I’m safe.’
Mullone chortled. He was glad of his friend’s company having no other person who he would have fight alongside him. They wore the uniform of Lord Maxwell Lovell’s Irish Dragoons, a design based on the British Light Dragoons. Their scarlet coats had green facings, the colour of the rich fields beneath them. Mullone wore buff breeches that were patched and heavily stitched, and was bareheaded having lost his Tarleton helmet. One hundred men had once ridden in the ranks, but after skirmishes and battles, there were less than ten. Mullone had left the remainder of his troopers under Corporal O’Shea with General Johnson’s force whilst he and Cahill scouted for De Marin. He had been certain that the Frenchman was at Enniscorthy, until a blacksmith, caught making pike heads had revealed otherwise. Mullone had questioned the man himself rather than let him be taken into custody and the smith had seen the compassion in the major’s eyes and had talked. He said a bearded priest with a half-dozen United Irishmen, had asked him to increase the thirty pike heads he could turn out to fifty a day. That priest had been De Marin and had joined a rebel leader called John Fitzstephen up on the hill. Mullone had guessed that the twenty thousand rebels planned to burn Enniscorthy to the ground and march on Wexford.
The batteries opened up again, pumping clouds of jaundice-coloured smoke into the air, and bombarding the hill’s crown with lethal iron shot. Mullone thought he saw great clods of earth flick up into the sky denoting a ball’s strike. The redcoat column, supported by cavalry, was making the steep climb up the hill. So far they were marching in good order and with no rebel counterattacks. They hadn’t even sent out their Light Companies and Mullone guessed that the threat of the cavalry was enough to hold back the few musket armed insurgents.
‘I think it’s time we join them,’ Mullone said and clicked Tintreach forward.
‘About bloody time,’ Cahill said, following close behind.
‘But stay out of harm’s way.’
‘You’ve not to worry about me, sir,’ Cahill gave a look of innocence as he patted the carbine in its holster.
As they reached the ascending column, musket shots rang out and as they kicked their mounts further up the hill, volley-fire was splitting the air raw. Aides galloped between the regiments that formed and wheeled from column into line. Mullone saw a host of red coats with yellow, green and blue facings and banners of matching colours. The nearest battalion was the 89th, a regiment with black facings raised in Dublin at the start of the war with France. Its commander, Lord Blayney, was a young aristocrat who despised the United Irishmen and, with a history of an untiring perseverance in capturing the rebels, the regiment had been given its nickname of ‘Blayney’s Bloodhounds’.
Through the drifting dirty clouds of smoke, Mullone could see groups of rebels firing down from the summit. Their fire was sporadic and ragged, but the first redcoats were falling. A line of pikemen appeared. There were scores of them. Green banners fluttered in the wind. Whistles blew and more skirmishers ran out to meet the rebels. The Light Bobs in skirmish chain were winning the battle against the musket-armed rebels because they were loading and firing quicker. Men and boys tumbled to the ground in gouts of blood. A leader wearing a short brown coat and hat wound with green ribbon was yelling orders and the rebels retreated. He turned in his saddle, aimed his pistol, fired into the mass of redcoats and then kicked his horse up the hill.
‘Here they come,’ Cahill said as hundreds of pike heads appeared and bobbed with the march of the men above the peak. First was the long staves, then arms then the mass of men came into view.
The pikemen marched down the lip of the hill to the beat of drums and fifes. The Light Companies returned to their parent units after a flurry of blown whistles. Mullone could see the rebels mouths open and close as though they were shouting or singing to a tune. The iron tips in each rank caught the sun, gleaming with orange light and with each step towards their enemy.
‘Brave,’ Mullone uttered. ‘Foolish, but damned brave all the same.’
‘Aye, sir,’ Cahill agreed. ‘There are women and children up there with their fathers and brothers. Jesus, but these bastards will not care who they kill.’ He said the last sentence loud enough for the 89th to hear. The sergeant didn’t care who heard him.
An officer, not yet thirty years old with dark curls and brown eyes, trotted his horse in front of the regiment, a thin smile on his face. ‘89th!’ Lord Blayney, pistol in his hand, commanded. ‘Make ready! Let’s spill some Croppie blood! Present!’ Four hundred muskets went to shoulders. ‘I want these bastards dead! Aim at their black hearts, boys! Send them to hell!’
Mullone watched the rebels close the gap. They broke from their ranks to charge the redcoats. A boy of twelve hefted a green flag showing the harp. He stared wide-eyed at the bayonet-tipped muskets and then closed his eyes. At thirty yards the musket was deadly in concentrated volleys.
‘Fire!’ Blayney shouted.
Four hundred muskets exploded, flames jetted from muzzles and the balls punched into the rebel ranks. The fusillade was like the crack of doom, a death knell wrought to this green place. Scores fell and the green slope was suddenly slick with blood. The attack faltered and Mullone watched the survivors clamber away.
‘Reload,’ the sergeants shouted.
‘Jesus,’ Cahill said in the tone that could either have meant with awe or horror.
An aide galloped past, the beast’s hooves scattering clods of earth behind it, and saluted Blayney before giving orders. The man then saluted and kicked his horse towards a Militia regiment from Sligo on the 89th’s right. A troop of Midlothian Fencible Cavalry guarded the flank, trotting with their sabres sheathed for now.
‘89th advance!’ Blayney rode forward and picked his way through the wounded. A man wearing a white shirt was coughing up blood. A man staggered with an arm hanging useless by his side. Mullone saw that the boy was still alive. His legs were trying to move his body away, heels digging into the grass, but he faltered, chest expanding. Blood dribbled from his slack mouth. Blayney watched the boy. ‘’Tis a shame you fell in with the mob,’ he said, stopping above him. ‘But the shame will soon be over.’ He brought the pistol around and shot the boy through the forehead.
The redcoats confidently resumed their march as though they had encountered no resistance. There had been a rumour that the rebels had built a series of defence works and Mullone twisted in his saddle to see the lighter field guns were being pulled and dragged up the slopes by the blue-coated horse artillery in case that proved true. The cannon could destroy and fortifications that had been thrown up, and fire grapeshot into the packed ranks of pikemen. The howitzers were still lobbing shells overhead that fizzed and screamed like banshees before exploding above the packed ranks of the rebels. Every so often he heard a voice cry out, before it was snatched by the wind or from the sporadic musket-fire. Some shells, fired too high, crashed over the summit amongst the rocks. The rebels came down the hill again. This time they appeared in one contemptible line instead of a rabble. Muskets went to shoulders and the redcoats walked into a hail of lead. A few men went down, including a couple of officers ahead of their companies, but the range was too great. An officer of the Longford Militia to Mullone’s left was trying to control his rearing mount that was screaming from a bullet to its neck. The horse tossed its head. A sergeant ran forward to help and received a kick for his trouble. The NCO was thrown backwards, gasping and clawing at his chest.
‘Stupid bastard ought to know better than to run behind a nag,’ Cahill said carelessly. ‘Probably got a rib or two broken. Serves him right.’
Mullone heard a rebel shout commands to load. A roundshot slammed into the slope and bounced high up into the air. Both sides watched the dull iron ball spin, and hit the ground with a terrific thud again to roll back down the hill going past the cavalry on the flank.
‘They’re loading too slowly,’ Cahill remarked as though he was disappointed with the enemy's progress.
‘They’re not trained, Seán.’
The redcoats halted perhaps forty yards from the rebel line and brought levelled their muskets. The quick-witted ones turned and took flight, just before the red lines sent another crashing volley into them. More men fell and the line crumbled.
‘Here we go again,’ Cahill said as a line of pikemen appeared.
They descended steadily over the crest and Mullone saw three groups behind the fifth ranks moving or steadying something. A glint of light flashed.
‘They’ve got cannon,’ he said.
Cahill chuckled. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere, sir.’
The pikemen did not wait for any orders and suddenly broke cohesion to charge the redcoats. Again the musket line exploded and the balls twitched the mass crimson. A rebel picked up a fallen banner and waved his men on. Mullone watched a pike thrown like a spear just miss a Longford Militiaman in the front rank.
The redcoats were advanced through the whirling powder smoke and those wounded as the soldiers marched through them were bayonetted.
Two of the cannon were small and Mullone considered them to be one pounder’s, but the piece facing the men from Sligo was a six pounder. The left gun fired a one pound ball down the slope. It hit a bump in the grass and bounced harmlessly over the attackers. The other gun fired by farmers and labourers slammed straight into the 89th, decapitating a sergeant and disembowelling an officer’s chestnut horse. The beast shrieked and collapsed before the man could climb out of the saddle. The horse fell and the man, trapped by the weight, gasped as his leg broke.
The redcoats were thirty yards from the crest and the rebel gunners were waiting until the very last minute before allowing the glowing slow-matches of the portfires to touch the quills. The gunners still waited. The redcoats collectively took an intake of breath at the cold muzzles in front. Then a howitzer shell fired from the British lines, screeched and flashed before exploding directly above the six pounder, killing all of the crew. The remaining gunners fled and disappeared out of view.
A deep throated cheer went up from the redcoats and the ensign’s hoisted their flags higher. Victory was certain and the rebels would be defeated. On all sides of the hill, they came and the rebels had nowhere to go.
Then, a man appeared on the crest. He wore a long green coat and wore a black hat with a green cockade. He stared with dark eyes and from a hundred yards away, Mullone recognised him. Fitzstephen was one of the United leaders who he had met following the slaughter at New Ross. If he was here, then so was De Marin. Fitzstephen gave an ironic salute with his sword and then brought the slow-match to the quill. The six pounder crashed back on its long trail as the grapeshot burst from the blackened muzzle. The shot jerked back a dozen screaming Sligo men, tearing bloody holes in the ranks and sheeting the grass with blood, bone and gobbets of gore. The wounded stumbled away and the battalion appeared stunned, but the attack did not falter.
The first redcoats over the summit could see the entire plain was packed with thousands of rebels. The pikes bristled with defiance. Horseman galloped along the lines shouting commands, whilst others were trying to push men into formation.
Mullone and Cahill trotted in between the mauled Sligo men and the 89th, making way for three guns brought up to be quickly unlimbered.
‘They’ve had it now,’ Cahill said, plugging his mouth with chewing tobacco. ‘There’s nowhere else to run to.’
The redcoats advanced and the great rebel lines seemed to contract. Among the pikes and banners, wooden crosses were held up. Mullone saw a priest riding a horse up and down the lines. He was shouting with great fervour. Mullone looked for Fitzstephen and De Marin but could not see them. Drummers were still beating the attack onward and the redcoats were cheering as they advanced, their voices enthusiastic and almost light-hearted, as though this was a game. More and more redcoats climbed the crest and the situation for the rebels looked dire. The east side of Vinegar Hill offered no protection. There were no rocky outcrops, ridges and pockets here where the musket-armed rebels had offered insolence. British cavalry, sensing ease, trotted up the grassy bank unopposed and wheeled into line. As Mullone neared the enemy, he could see that the ranks were not formed as one giant hollow square, but fragmented into numerous formations. That being so, the horsemen could not charge for the pike was a cavalryman’s worst nightmare. The long blades would stab and pierce them in the saddles, unhorse them and the horses were frightened of the iron-tipped rows.
God, but we could die here today, Mullone considered. To be buried in mass pits. He imagined a series of emerald graves upon the summit that would be the only mark of the battle.
The forward Crown battalions halted fifty yards from the rebels who spat curses and jeered them. Mullone curbed his horse. He brought out his telescope and scanned the faces for De Marin and Fitzstephen. Bearded, dirty and bold unknown faces blurred as the glass traversed the ranks. Mullone grimaced for he could not see either of them. Then he heard a deep voice emanating from the ranks and then Fitzstephen stepped forth.
‘Don’t fear them. They have one shot. You have your pikes,’ he said. ‘The blade is as sharp as your wits, broad as your pride and deadly as your courage. Stand tall. Stand strong. For Ireland. Erin go Bragh!’
A crescendo of voices rose up to repeat the declaration and the hairs on the back of Mullone’s neck stood up.
‘Words spoken by a brave man,’ Mullone said to Cahill. The rebel had captured him after New Ross, but had let him live rather than turn him over to De Marin.
‘The mutterings of a mad man,’ Blayney shouted as the noise died down.
The redcoats brought their heavy muskets to their shoulders and Regular, Fencible and Militia regiments disappeared in white smoke and the air rippled with leaping flames like hell’s horror’s as the volley fire thundered into the rebels. Scores, perhaps hundreds fell to the turf. A man holding a black banner with God Damn The King stitched in white stumbled, dropped the flag and fell to his knees. A man ran forward to haul another away, who had a small crimson stain on his white shirt. Perhaps he was a friend, or a brother. All the curses and threats have come to end on this grassy mound. Such a waste of life, Mullone sighed. Such a waste of good lives from men he could have called friends or drank with in happier times. A riderless horse, sheeted with blood, cantered across the lines. Someone began laughing, a hysterical mad laugh.
‘Load!’
‘Send the Croppies to hell, boys!’ Shouted an officer of the Longford Militia.
Mullone couldn’t see Fitzstephen or much of anything as the smoke clogged the air.
The British loaded again and fired another volley into the shapes beyond the smoke. Then, when a battery of six pounders were brought up, the infantry was ordered forward with bayonets fixed.
‘That’s the way!’ A colonel of the Sligo Militia yelled. ‘Take no prisoners! Do you hear? Let not one of them live! That’s an order now! Today is the Day of Judgement.’
Cahill spat tobacco juice onto the grass. ‘The Croppies have no place to hide. This is the end.’
‘I’m not so sure of that.’ Mullone had been staring at the press of rebels to the south and they were disappearing. He quickly surmised that General Needham’s force had not yet reached the hill and Lake in his rashness had left a gap in the attacking lines, which the rebels were taking advantage of.
The redcoats marched and the drummers’ rhythm was more ragged, as they had to step over the dead and dying enemy. Wounded men begged for water, or for their mothers, or for sweethearts. Long bayonets found those unfortunate to be alive. A great bear of a man from the Sligo Militia cackled and pounced on a writhing body.
‘Look what I’ve found!’ he said, clasping long hair in his paw-like hands. It was a girl, perhaps sixteen years of age, pretty with hair the colour of peat, and the big redcoat struck her across the face to quieten her screams. She fell back onto the blood slick grass. ‘Let’s have a look at you, my pretty.’ He ripped open her dress to expose small breasts. ‘Oh yes, they’ll do.’ He fingered one of her nipples and bent down to suckle when a boot caught him in the side of the neck. He rolled over to see a sergeant pulling the girl to her feet.
‘You get up again and I’ll spit you with this,’ Cahill patted his sword.
The private cast sullen eyes and wiped his mouth. ‘You want her for yourself, Sergeant?’ he said, voice raspy from the kick.
‘No,’ he said and pushed the frightened girl up into the saddle. ‘I’ll return her to her family.’ The man laughed sourly. ‘What’s funny, you ugly bastard?’
‘Her family are here,’ the private said, still laughing. ‘Dead like the rest of them. Soon to be crow food.’
The girl whimpered and Cahill hauled himself up, wincing because of his injured leg. He spat a jet of tobacco that hit the wretch in the face, and clicked the horse on.
Mullone was studying the bodies. ‘I can’t see Fitzstephen.’
Musket fire crackled from the rebels and a handful of horsemen who were circling the moving horde tumbled to the ground. Mullone watched a ramrod wheel through the air. A knot of pikemen led by a sword-armed man charged into the 89th. The blades looked wickedly long in the smoke-torn sunlight. They slashed at faces, cut arms and tried to disembowel, but a blast of grapeshot threw reinforcements behind them down in a welter of blood, and the experienced redcoats killed the others with bayonet thrusts. An officer shot a woman who was pushing children away. Another cannon brought to face the slope to the south slapped horribly through the retreating rebel files to slash quick bloody swathes on the grass. Men, women and children were dying from canister. Canister was a cylindrical tin crammed with musket balls which burst open at the cannon’s muzzle to hurl a spreading cone of bullets at the enemy. Mullone could see the effect of the grape shot and canister from the mounds of dead and horribly wounded groups of rebels snatched backwards from the attacks.
‘Sir!’ Cahill called urgently and Mullone twisted back in his saddle. The sergeant was pointing at a body.
Mullone dismounted and knelt down by the rebel leader. His face was pallid, grey almost like it had been rinsed of colour. He had been shot twice; a bullet to his shoulder and another had pierced a lung. Pink bubbles frothed at the corners of his mouth.
‘Where is he?’ Mullone asked him.
Fitzstephen coughed and blood seeped from his purple lips. He recognised the major and knew who he was enquiring about. ‘Why should I tell you?’ he croaked.
Mullone gazed at the dying man. There wasn’t much time. ‘You asked me once whether I was a patriot and I told you I was,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘I love Ireland as much as any man here. But I will not be a slave to the French. De Marin does not care for your ideals more anymore than the rest of them.’
Fitzstephen coughed again and a hand fluttered over his ruined chest. The light in his eyes were getting dimmer. Mullone shook him and he regained consciousness. ‘If I tell you, will you help a dying man on his last journey?’
Mullone nodded, knowing what he was asking. ‘Yes.’
Fitzstephen grinned. ‘He left for Enniscorthy.’
‘Thank you.’
A bloodied hand gripped the major’s arm.
‘You promised me,’ Fitzstephen looked pained.
Mullone got to his feet. ‘I did,’ he said. Fitzstephen’s once green coat faced red, and decorated in gold lace and epaulettes, was ragged and grimy. His uniform had once dazzled but now looked like a veteran’s cast-offs. Mullone hazarded a guess that the last few weeks had been grim. ‘Seán.’ he uttered. He could not do the deed himself. The sergeant pulled out his carbine, cocked it and put it to his shoulder. Mullone looked down at the rebel. ‘Erin go Bragh,’ he said softly.
Fitzstephen smiled back. ‘Erin go Bragh.
’
Mullone climbed into the saddle as the shot rang out. ‘We go to Enniscorthy. And find that Crapaud bastard.’ He remembered the girl was still with them and coughed to cover his embarrassment. ‘We’ll leave you safe, girl, at the town,’ he said and the frightened girl nodded.
They were about to move when an artillery officer rode up to them, the bay horse slick with sweat.
‘Captain Bloomfield, sir,’ he said, saluting.
‘Major Lorn Mullone and this is my sergeant,’
Bloomfield shot Cahill and friendly glance, saw the girl and frowned.
‘What do you want, Captain? We have important business to attend to,’ Mullone said coldly.
‘Apologies, sir,’ Bloomfield closed his lolling jaw. ‘I was going to ask if you knew who that man was?’ The gun captain jutted his chin at Fitzstephen’s body. ‘Forgive me, sir, but I’ve heard there’s a bounty on a man named John Fitzstephen. One of the Wexford leaders.’
Mullone shook his head and stared at a patch of dry grass smouldering from the burning wads jettisoned from the musket barrels. ‘He asked for water and so I gave it to him.’
Bloomfield looked crestfallen. ‘I see, sir.’
‘In any case I’ve seen Fitzstephen and that is certainly not him. Good day to you, Captain.’
Mullone saluted, made sure the officer had left, and the three of them climbed down the slope to cross a ford two miles north of the River Slaney. The cold water reached their knees, but they had crossed the high grass-strewn banks and any confrontation with the pockets of armed and bitter rebels. Scores were streaming across the seventeenth century stone bridge from Enniscorthy where shouting and heavy musketry echoed. The Norman castle dominated the town which was garrisoned with redcoats. The Union Flag flew from the battlements.
Mullone found General Henry Johnson directing two companies of green-coated riflemen into the narrow cobbled streets. They were Germans from the 5th Battalion, 60th Rifles, and they darted forward in skirmish order. Beyond the roof tops a thick plume of smoke carried from two burning buildings obscured the grisly aftermath taking place on Vinegar Hill. A volley of musket fire hammered at a group of Light Bobs from the Dumbarton Fencibles, a Scottish regiment who wore bonnets and kilts. The Scotsmen were crouched behind walls, gardens, and houses. One fell and another staggered away, clutching his side.
‘Major Mullone,’ Johnson greeted him warmly, despite the obvious fierce resistance his force had encountered. A steady stream of wounded were making their way to a barn where a surgeon was plying his trade. There appeared to be a lot of them.
‘Morning, sir,’ Mullone wiped the sweat on his face with a sleeve. Cahill hung back with the girl.
‘Has General Lake sent you down here?’ Johnson’s tone rankled with hate for the man.
‘No, sir. I came here of my own accord.’
Johnson looked sideways at him. ‘More government work, eh? What the hell brings you here? You men are helping to guard the baggage. Have you come for them?’
‘No, sir. I need to ask you something. When I first met you at New Ross I told you I was looking for a French spy. A man by the name of De Marin. He masquerades as a priest; a Father Keay.’
‘Yes, I remember. And?’
Mullone stared at the houses. ‘He’s in the town, sir.’
Johnson watched the Germans clear the houses, darting forward like professional soldiers, watching, aiming and covering each step. One pair spotted an enemy marksmen firing from a rooftop and put a bullet in him. The body slid down the slate tiles, leaving a trace of blood. One of the Germans whooped with glee.
‘Enniscorthy is thick with the mob, Major. I fear you’ll never catch him.’
‘The bridge, sir. If your men can reach it, then perhaps my chances will increase.’
The general blew out a lungful of breath. ‘I fear that will be impossible.’
Mullone stared. ‘Sir?’
‘The rebels have already thrown my lads out once.’
Mullone could see the men’s lips were stained by black powder from biting cartridges and desperately thirsty from the saltpetre in the gunpowder. There were red bodies lining the road and slumped against houses. It must have been a tough fight.
Mullone’s anger and anguish broke. ‘I have to find him! I can’t let that bastard escape!’ Johnson looked shocked at the outburst and Mullone shook his head. ‘My sincerest apologies, sir. De Marin is a slippery fellow and I’ve spent months trying to apprehend him.’
Johnson pursed his lips. ‘No regret needed, Major. I understand your position. I had hoped to have taken the town by now, but I take my hat off to the Croppies. Their pikemen are made of stronger stuff. They’ve blocked the roads and the bridge and my lads have not been able to push them back. I’ve asked for reinforcements, but as every minute passes by, they slip away.’
Mullone clicked Tintreach forward and gazed at the bridge. He turned to Cahill. ‘Tether Tintri to the post over there,’ he said, pointing to a broken gate. ‘I’m going into the town.'
‘Let me come with you, sir,’ Cahill pleaded. The girl still had not left his side.
‘Stay here, Seán,’ Mullone was severe. ‘That’s an order. Look after the girl.’
The sergeant reluctantly obeyed. ‘Be careful, sir. And if you see the bastard; break his skull.’
Mullone grinned and picked his way down through the road to the heart of the town. Green banners, ribbons and boughs hung from most windows. Musket shots echoed not far from him. His nose wrinkled at the roiling gun smoke and from the burning buildings. A ball smacked into a house’s wall not far from him, making a buzzing sound as it spun away. He followed the road to where redcoats were firing sporadically at barricades. He went over to an officer on horseback.
‘Colonel Vesey, Dublin County Militia,’ the officer said, mouth clenching a cigar.
‘Major Mullone, sir.’
‘What brings you here, Mullone?’
‘I’m tasked by the Castle to find a French spy by the name of De Marin, sir.’
Vesey chortled as though that had amused him. He took out the cigar and a plume of blue smoke erupted from his mouth. ‘I haven’t seen any Crapauds. Lots of Croppies shouting ‘death to the king’ and ‘liberty and equality’ and such like, but no Frenchie bastards. What does this villain look like?’
‘He’s known to dress in priests’ attire, sir,’ Mullone said, staring at the bullet-marked barricades and houses. He could see scores of pikemen and musket-armed rebels, but no priest. ‘He may have abandoned the guise though,’ he added, knowing that was a possibility. He would have done the same in the Frenchman’s situation.
Vesey paused for a moment, then shook his head. ‘It’ll be like trying to find a musket ball at the bottom of an ocean. Impossible. I wish I could help you, and I’ll put the word out.’
‘Thank you, sir. I knew your predecessor. He died bravely.’
When the attackers had breached one of the town’s gates Lord Mountjoy had tried to reason with them, but his words fell on deaf ears. He was pulled from his horse and piked to death.
A look of sorrow etched Vesey’s face, but not for long as he had achieved command of the regiment, which was something he had yearned for. ‘Yes. A God-faring man to the end.’
But Mullone wasn’t listening. He was staring at a man wearing a long brown coat with a green sash and top hat. The rebel leader was standing on the bridge’s stonework as a mass of fugitives were crossing the Slaney to where the survivors of Vinegar Hill were fleeing.
‘De Marin!’ Mullone ran to an upturned cart and stood up on it, shouting, furiously. ‘De Marin!’
The Frenchman looked round and smiled. He had shaved off his beard and now dressed as a civilian, but at his hip hung his expensive sword. De Marin waved once and disappeared in the seething horde, was swallowed up and was gone.
Mullone had failed and he knew it. He thumped a hand down on one of the iron-rimmed wheels and cursed.
From the slaughter of New Ross, to the blood-soaked battle on the hill and here at Enniscorthy today, De Marin had escaped yet again. The Frenchman had boasted after New Ross that their paths would cross again.
Mullone knew that to be true, but when that time came, he would be ready. He vowed it.
The sun had burned as fiercely as the rebellion these last few weeks and the night-air had been cool to the touch. There was a thin veil of mist that pooled around the grassy slopes of the hill. It was just after dawn and the sun was already rising above the valley floor, promising another kiln-hot day to come in County Wexford.
The officer brought up an expensive eyeglass and traversed it past the silvery mist and up to where fires burned a dull red. His green eyes saw figures move up there. Only a score, but he knew there were thousands upon that emerald crown.
‘Are you sure that bastard is up there, sir?’ A voice rasped from the officer’s left.
‘Aye. He’s up there. I know he is.’
Sergeant Seán Cahill put a dirty finger to one nostril and blew a string of snot into a patch of nettles. ‘Then, the bastard knows we’re coming for him.’
‘I’m counting on it.’
‘Why’s that, sir?’
Major Lorn Mullone turned to his friend, studying the hollowness and extra lines in his face caused by a recent injury. ‘Because that way he’s scared and men that are close to losing their wits make mistakes.’
Cahill nodded and looked solemnly up at the great mound. He rubbed his leg that was still bandaged from the desperate fight at New Ross two weeks ago. Thousands of United Irishmen had stormed the walled town and succeeded in beating back British troops under General Henry Johnson across the River Barrow. But the rebels had tired after the long assault and without firearms needed to hold back the redcoats, Johnson and his men had returned, brushed aside the fatigued rebels and retaken the town. It had been a bitter and bloody engagement, and the survivors along with many leaders of the rebellion, were now up on the hilltop.
‘One mistake, Seán,’ Mullone continued, ‘and I’ll have him. For all the blood that he’s spilt, I’ll have him.’
Mullone was currently employed by the War Office to spy on Theobald Wolf Tone, a leader of the United Irish, and his acquaintance of a wily French agent called De Marin. So far the Frenchman had eluded capture having recently dressed as a priest and preached lies and rumour to the Irish people that instilled fear and anger. He had been chiefly responsible for the French landings, particularly at Bantry Bay, and for the heavy attack on New Ross.
‘Let’s hope these buggers don’t put a shell up his arse first then,’ Cahill said, jutting his unshaven chin at the battery of howitzers nearby.
The British troops had arrived in the early hours. Their final pre-dawn flanking march had taken several hours, far longer than their commander, Lieutenant-General Gerard Lake, could have anticipated. There were ten thousand men with twenty cannon and over four hundred carriages and wagons loaded with ammunition and equipment. The columns of redcoats were now beginning to make ready for assault. Their objective was simple: encircle the rebels and destroy them. There were four great columns designed to win the battle. Lake commanded the central force, Generals’ Duff and Loftus were waiting to strike from the side of the River Slaney, Dundas waited on the east and Johnson was ready to attack Enniscorthy. Only General Needham to the south had not reached position yet, but he had assured Lake that he would be there by dawn.
Mullone’s gaze wandered to Lake and his countenance soured. The commander had no empathy with the Irish people and there was a rumour spoken that he would not let any man, woman or child live if he found them alive up on the hill. He was a cruel man with eyes like two shards of pale ice set with the expression of constant indifference. Mullone had asked to see him this morning to discuss his apprehension of De Marin, but the general had almost angrily rebuffed him. Mullone considered that the attack would turn into a massacre. There might be a small chance to apprehend De Marin, but it would be difficult.
Lake was on horseback with several officers and aides, staring up at the rebel lines. The redcoats, a mixture of Regular, Militia and Yeomanry troops, eagerly waited for the signal. Officers shared jokes and laughed. Some men were smoking tobacco pipes and chatting to the men in their files and one or two were honing their bayonets with sharpening stones. A tall officer wearing a white-faced coat of the Dublin County Militia slashed at tall weeds with his sword. Mullone feared for the bloodshed about to be spilled more than whether he could capture the Frenchmen.
At seven o’clock, it was given and the cold iron throats of the guns were blasted free. The noise was terrifying and ear-splitting. Swift fan-shaped patterns rippled the long grass under the long barrels. Banks of foul-smelling smoke drifted like low cloud. Birds scared from their nests flew from trees. Tintreach, Mullone’s horse, stamped its feet and whickered. Mullone patted his grey muscled neck to soothe it.
‘It won’t be long until our boys are up there,’ Cahill said, at the long column of Lake’s infantry began the advance. ‘Skulls are going to be broken, that’s for sure.’ Mullone pursed his lips, but didn’t reply. ‘Are we joining them, sir?’ he said at the major’s taciturnity.
‘You can stay here,’ Mullone replied.
‘What?’ Cahill looked astonished.
The major turned to him. ‘You’re injured and supposed to be resting. What am I to tell your wife if anything happens to you? I left you at New Ross so that you could mend.’
Cahill spat onto to the ground. ‘And you think by leaving me with her I would be safe?’ The sergeant laughed
sardonically. ‘Jesus and all the saints. Once she got wind that the Croppies were going to attack the town, she sold a silver ring to buy a musket. A musket for God’s sake! The woman is madder than a bishop without his whiskey.’
‘I thought you’d be safe. I promised her to keep you out of harm’s way.’
‘You have done,’ Cahill grinned. ‘I’m about to ride to battle and she’s twenty miles away. I’m safe.’
Mullone chortled. He was glad of his friend’s company having no other person who he would have fight alongside him. They wore the uniform of Lord Maxwell Lovell’s Irish Dragoons, a design based on the British Light Dragoons. Their scarlet coats had green facings, the colour of the rich fields beneath them. Mullone wore buff breeches that were patched and heavily stitched, and was bareheaded having lost his Tarleton helmet. One hundred men had once ridden in the ranks, but after skirmishes and battles, there were less than ten. Mullone had left the remainder of his troopers under Corporal O’Shea with General Johnson’s force whilst he and Cahill scouted for De Marin. He had been certain that the Frenchman was at Enniscorthy, until a blacksmith, caught making pike heads had revealed otherwise. Mullone had questioned the man himself rather than let him be taken into custody and the smith had seen the compassion in the major’s eyes and had talked. He said a bearded priest with a half-dozen United Irishmen, had asked him to increase the thirty pike heads he could turn out to fifty a day. That priest had been De Marin and had joined a rebel leader called John Fitzstephen up on the hill. Mullone had guessed that the twenty thousand rebels planned to burn Enniscorthy to the ground and march on Wexford.
The batteries opened up again, pumping clouds of jaundice-coloured smoke into the air, and bombarding the hill’s crown with lethal iron shot. Mullone thought he saw great clods of earth flick up into the sky denoting a ball’s strike. The redcoat column, supported by cavalry, was making the steep climb up the hill. So far they were marching in good order and with no rebel counterattacks. They hadn’t even sent out their Light Companies and Mullone guessed that the threat of the cavalry was enough to hold back the few musket armed insurgents.
‘I think it’s time we join them,’ Mullone said and clicked Tintreach forward.
‘About bloody time,’ Cahill said, following close behind.
‘But stay out of harm’s way.’
‘You’ve not to worry about me, sir,’ Cahill gave a look of innocence as he patted the carbine in its holster.
As they reached the ascending column, musket shots rang out and as they kicked their mounts further up the hill, volley-fire was splitting the air raw. Aides galloped between the regiments that formed and wheeled from column into line. Mullone saw a host of red coats with yellow, green and blue facings and banners of matching colours. The nearest battalion was the 89th, a regiment with black facings raised in Dublin at the start of the war with France. Its commander, Lord Blayney, was a young aristocrat who despised the United Irishmen and, with a history of an untiring perseverance in capturing the rebels, the regiment had been given its nickname of ‘Blayney’s Bloodhounds’.
Through the drifting dirty clouds of smoke, Mullone could see groups of rebels firing down from the summit. Their fire was sporadic and ragged, but the first redcoats were falling. A line of pikemen appeared. There were scores of them. Green banners fluttered in the wind. Whistles blew and more skirmishers ran out to meet the rebels. The Light Bobs in skirmish chain were winning the battle against the musket-armed rebels because they were loading and firing quicker. Men and boys tumbled to the ground in gouts of blood. A leader wearing a short brown coat and hat wound with green ribbon was yelling orders and the rebels retreated. He turned in his saddle, aimed his pistol, fired into the mass of redcoats and then kicked his horse up the hill.
‘Here they come,’ Cahill said as hundreds of pike heads appeared and bobbed with the march of the men above the peak. First was the long staves, then arms then the mass of men came into view.
The pikemen marched down the lip of the hill to the beat of drums and fifes. The Light Companies returned to their parent units after a flurry of blown whistles. Mullone could see the rebels mouths open and close as though they were shouting or singing to a tune. The iron tips in each rank caught the sun, gleaming with orange light and with each step towards their enemy.
‘Brave,’ Mullone uttered. ‘Foolish, but damned brave all the same.’
‘Aye, sir,’ Cahill agreed. ‘There are women and children up there with their fathers and brothers. Jesus, but these bastards will not care who they kill.’ He said the last sentence loud enough for the 89th to hear. The sergeant didn’t care who heard him.
An officer, not yet thirty years old with dark curls and brown eyes, trotted his horse in front of the regiment, a thin smile on his face. ‘89th!’ Lord Blayney, pistol in his hand, commanded. ‘Make ready! Let’s spill some Croppie blood! Present!’ Four hundred muskets went to shoulders. ‘I want these bastards dead! Aim at their black hearts, boys! Send them to hell!’
Mullone watched the rebels close the gap. They broke from their ranks to charge the redcoats. A boy of twelve hefted a green flag showing the harp. He stared wide-eyed at the bayonet-tipped muskets and then closed his eyes. At thirty yards the musket was deadly in concentrated volleys.
‘Fire!’ Blayney shouted.
Four hundred muskets exploded, flames jetted from muzzles and the balls punched into the rebel ranks. The fusillade was like the crack of doom, a death knell wrought to this green place. Scores fell and the green slope was suddenly slick with blood. The attack faltered and Mullone watched the survivors clamber away.
‘Reload,’ the sergeants shouted.
‘Jesus,’ Cahill said in the tone that could either have meant with awe or horror.
An aide galloped past, the beast’s hooves scattering clods of earth behind it, and saluted Blayney before giving orders. The man then saluted and kicked his horse towards a Militia regiment from Sligo on the 89th’s right. A troop of Midlothian Fencible Cavalry guarded the flank, trotting with their sabres sheathed for now.
‘89th advance!’ Blayney rode forward and picked his way through the wounded. A man wearing a white shirt was coughing up blood. A man staggered with an arm hanging useless by his side. Mullone saw that the boy was still alive. His legs were trying to move his body away, heels digging into the grass, but he faltered, chest expanding. Blood dribbled from his slack mouth. Blayney watched the boy. ‘’Tis a shame you fell in with the mob,’ he said, stopping above him. ‘But the shame will soon be over.’ He brought the pistol around and shot the boy through the forehead.
The redcoats confidently resumed their march as though they had encountered no resistance. There had been a rumour that the rebels had built a series of defence works and Mullone twisted in his saddle to see the lighter field guns were being pulled and dragged up the slopes by the blue-coated horse artillery in case that proved true. The cannon could destroy and fortifications that had been thrown up, and fire grapeshot into the packed ranks of pikemen. The howitzers were still lobbing shells overhead that fizzed and screamed like banshees before exploding above the packed ranks of the rebels. Every so often he heard a voice cry out, before it was snatched by the wind or from the sporadic musket-fire. Some shells, fired too high, crashed over the summit amongst the rocks. The rebels came down the hill again. This time they appeared in one contemptible line instead of a rabble. Muskets went to shoulders and the redcoats walked into a hail of lead. A few men went down, including a couple of officers ahead of their companies, but the range was too great. An officer of the Longford Militia to Mullone’s left was trying to control his rearing mount that was screaming from a bullet to its neck. The horse tossed its head. A sergeant ran forward to help and received a kick for his trouble. The NCO was thrown backwards, gasping and clawing at his chest.
‘Stupid bastard ought to know better than to run behind a nag,’ Cahill said carelessly. ‘Probably got a rib or two broken. Serves him right.’
Mullone heard a rebel shout commands to load. A roundshot slammed into the slope and bounced high up into the air. Both sides watched the dull iron ball spin, and hit the ground with a terrific thud again to roll back down the hill going past the cavalry on the flank.
‘They’re loading too slowly,’ Cahill remarked as though he was disappointed with the enemy's progress.
‘They’re not trained, Seán.’
The redcoats halted perhaps forty yards from the rebel line and brought levelled their muskets. The quick-witted ones turned and took flight, just before the red lines sent another crashing volley into them. More men fell and the line crumbled.
‘Here we go again,’ Cahill said as a line of pikemen appeared.
They descended steadily over the crest and Mullone saw three groups behind the fifth ranks moving or steadying something. A glint of light flashed.
‘They’ve got cannon,’ he said.
Cahill chuckled. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere, sir.’
The pikemen did not wait for any orders and suddenly broke cohesion to charge the redcoats. Again the musket line exploded and the balls twitched the mass crimson. A rebel picked up a fallen banner and waved his men on. Mullone watched a pike thrown like a spear just miss a Longford Militiaman in the front rank.
The redcoats were advanced through the whirling powder smoke and those wounded as the soldiers marched through them were bayonetted.
Two of the cannon were small and Mullone considered them to be one pounder’s, but the piece facing the men from Sligo was a six pounder. The left gun fired a one pound ball down the slope. It hit a bump in the grass and bounced harmlessly over the attackers. The other gun fired by farmers and labourers slammed straight into the 89th, decapitating a sergeant and disembowelling an officer’s chestnut horse. The beast shrieked and collapsed before the man could climb out of the saddle. The horse fell and the man, trapped by the weight, gasped as his leg broke.
The redcoats were thirty yards from the crest and the rebel gunners were waiting until the very last minute before allowing the glowing slow-matches of the portfires to touch the quills. The gunners still waited. The redcoats collectively took an intake of breath at the cold muzzles in front. Then a howitzer shell fired from the British lines, screeched and flashed before exploding directly above the six pounder, killing all of the crew. The remaining gunners fled and disappeared out of view.
A deep throated cheer went up from the redcoats and the ensign’s hoisted their flags higher. Victory was certain and the rebels would be defeated. On all sides of the hill, they came and the rebels had nowhere to go.
Then, a man appeared on the crest. He wore a long green coat and wore a black hat with a green cockade. He stared with dark eyes and from a hundred yards away, Mullone recognised him. Fitzstephen was one of the United leaders who he had met following the slaughter at New Ross. If he was here, then so was De Marin. Fitzstephen gave an ironic salute with his sword and then brought the slow-match to the quill. The six pounder crashed back on its long trail as the grapeshot burst from the blackened muzzle. The shot jerked back a dozen screaming Sligo men, tearing bloody holes in the ranks and sheeting the grass with blood, bone and gobbets of gore. The wounded stumbled away and the battalion appeared stunned, but the attack did not falter.
The first redcoats over the summit could see the entire plain was packed with thousands of rebels. The pikes bristled with defiance. Horseman galloped along the lines shouting commands, whilst others were trying to push men into formation.
Mullone and Cahill trotted in between the mauled Sligo men and the 89th, making way for three guns brought up to be quickly unlimbered.
‘They’ve had it now,’ Cahill said, plugging his mouth with chewing tobacco. ‘There’s nowhere else to run to.’
The redcoats advanced and the great rebel lines seemed to contract. Among the pikes and banners, wooden crosses were held up. Mullone saw a priest riding a horse up and down the lines. He was shouting with great fervour. Mullone looked for Fitzstephen and De Marin but could not see them. Drummers were still beating the attack onward and the redcoats were cheering as they advanced, their voices enthusiastic and almost light-hearted, as though this was a game. More and more redcoats climbed the crest and the situation for the rebels looked dire. The east side of Vinegar Hill offered no protection. There were no rocky outcrops, ridges and pockets here where the musket-armed rebels had offered insolence. British cavalry, sensing ease, trotted up the grassy bank unopposed and wheeled into line. As Mullone neared the enemy, he could see that the ranks were not formed as one giant hollow square, but fragmented into numerous formations. That being so, the horsemen could not charge for the pike was a cavalryman’s worst nightmare. The long blades would stab and pierce them in the saddles, unhorse them and the horses were frightened of the iron-tipped rows.
God, but we could die here today, Mullone considered. To be buried in mass pits. He imagined a series of emerald graves upon the summit that would be the only mark of the battle.
The forward Crown battalions halted fifty yards from the rebels who spat curses and jeered them. Mullone curbed his horse. He brought out his telescope and scanned the faces for De Marin and Fitzstephen. Bearded, dirty and bold unknown faces blurred as the glass traversed the ranks. Mullone grimaced for he could not see either of them. Then he heard a deep voice emanating from the ranks and then Fitzstephen stepped forth.
‘Don’t fear them. They have one shot. You have your pikes,’ he said. ‘The blade is as sharp as your wits, broad as your pride and deadly as your courage. Stand tall. Stand strong. For Ireland. Erin go Bragh!’
A crescendo of voices rose up to repeat the declaration and the hairs on the back of Mullone’s neck stood up.
‘Words spoken by a brave man,’ Mullone said to Cahill. The rebel had captured him after New Ross, but had let him live rather than turn him over to De Marin.
‘The mutterings of a mad man,’ Blayney shouted as the noise died down.
The redcoats brought their heavy muskets to their shoulders and Regular, Fencible and Militia regiments disappeared in white smoke and the air rippled with leaping flames like hell’s horror’s as the volley fire thundered into the rebels. Scores, perhaps hundreds fell to the turf. A man holding a black banner with God Damn The King stitched in white stumbled, dropped the flag and fell to his knees. A man ran forward to haul another away, who had a small crimson stain on his white shirt. Perhaps he was a friend, or a brother. All the curses and threats have come to end on this grassy mound. Such a waste of life, Mullone sighed. Such a waste of good lives from men he could have called friends or drank with in happier times. A riderless horse, sheeted with blood, cantered across the lines. Someone began laughing, a hysterical mad laugh.
‘Load!’
‘Send the Croppies to hell, boys!’ Shouted an officer of the Longford Militia.
Mullone couldn’t see Fitzstephen or much of anything as the smoke clogged the air.
The British loaded again and fired another volley into the shapes beyond the smoke. Then, when a battery of six pounders were brought up, the infantry was ordered forward with bayonets fixed.
‘That’s the way!’ A colonel of the Sligo Militia yelled. ‘Take no prisoners! Do you hear? Let not one of them live! That’s an order now! Today is the Day of Judgement.’
Cahill spat tobacco juice onto the grass. ‘The Croppies have no place to hide. This is the end.’
‘I’m not so sure of that.’ Mullone had been staring at the press of rebels to the south and they were disappearing. He quickly surmised that General Needham’s force had not yet reached the hill and Lake in his rashness had left a gap in the attacking lines, which the rebels were taking advantage of.
The redcoats marched and the drummers’ rhythm was more ragged, as they had to step over the dead and dying enemy. Wounded men begged for water, or for their mothers, or for sweethearts. Long bayonets found those unfortunate to be alive. A great bear of a man from the Sligo Militia cackled and pounced on a writhing body.
‘Look what I’ve found!’ he said, clasping long hair in his paw-like hands. It was a girl, perhaps sixteen years of age, pretty with hair the colour of peat, and the big redcoat struck her across the face to quieten her screams. She fell back onto the blood slick grass. ‘Let’s have a look at you, my pretty.’ He ripped open her dress to expose small breasts. ‘Oh yes, they’ll do.’ He fingered one of her nipples and bent down to suckle when a boot caught him in the side of the neck. He rolled over to see a sergeant pulling the girl to her feet.
‘You get up again and I’ll spit you with this,’ Cahill patted his sword.
The private cast sullen eyes and wiped his mouth. ‘You want her for yourself, Sergeant?’ he said, voice raspy from the kick.
‘No,’ he said and pushed the frightened girl up into the saddle. ‘I’ll return her to her family.’ The man laughed sourly. ‘What’s funny, you ugly bastard?’
‘Her family are here,’ the private said, still laughing. ‘Dead like the rest of them. Soon to be crow food.’
The girl whimpered and Cahill hauled himself up, wincing because of his injured leg. He spat a jet of tobacco that hit the wretch in the face, and clicked the horse on.
Mullone was studying the bodies. ‘I can’t see Fitzstephen.’
Musket fire crackled from the rebels and a handful of horsemen who were circling the moving horde tumbled to the ground. Mullone watched a ramrod wheel through the air. A knot of pikemen led by a sword-armed man charged into the 89th. The blades looked wickedly long in the smoke-torn sunlight. They slashed at faces, cut arms and tried to disembowel, but a blast of grapeshot threw reinforcements behind them down in a welter of blood, and the experienced redcoats killed the others with bayonet thrusts. An officer shot a woman who was pushing children away. Another cannon brought to face the slope to the south slapped horribly through the retreating rebel files to slash quick bloody swathes on the grass. Men, women and children were dying from canister. Canister was a cylindrical tin crammed with musket balls which burst open at the cannon’s muzzle to hurl a spreading cone of bullets at the enemy. Mullone could see the effect of the grape shot and canister from the mounds of dead and horribly wounded groups of rebels snatched backwards from the attacks.
‘Sir!’ Cahill called urgently and Mullone twisted back in his saddle. The sergeant was pointing at a body.
Mullone dismounted and knelt down by the rebel leader. His face was pallid, grey almost like it had been rinsed of colour. He had been shot twice; a bullet to his shoulder and another had pierced a lung. Pink bubbles frothed at the corners of his mouth.
‘Where is he?’ Mullone asked him.
Fitzstephen coughed and blood seeped from his purple lips. He recognised the major and knew who he was enquiring about. ‘Why should I tell you?’ he croaked.
Mullone gazed at the dying man. There wasn’t much time. ‘You asked me once whether I was a patriot and I told you I was,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘I love Ireland as much as any man here. But I will not be a slave to the French. De Marin does not care for your ideals more anymore than the rest of them.’
Fitzstephen coughed again and a hand fluttered over his ruined chest. The light in his eyes were getting dimmer. Mullone shook him and he regained consciousness. ‘If I tell you, will you help a dying man on his last journey?’
Mullone nodded, knowing what he was asking. ‘Yes.’
Fitzstephen grinned. ‘He left for Enniscorthy.’
‘Thank you.’
A bloodied hand gripped the major’s arm.
‘You promised me,’ Fitzstephen looked pained.
Mullone got to his feet. ‘I did,’ he said. Fitzstephen’s once green coat faced red, and decorated in gold lace and epaulettes, was ragged and grimy. His uniform had once dazzled but now looked like a veteran’s cast-offs. Mullone hazarded a guess that the last few weeks had been grim. ‘Seán.’ he uttered. He could not do the deed himself. The sergeant pulled out his carbine, cocked it and put it to his shoulder. Mullone looked down at the rebel. ‘Erin go Bragh,’ he said softly.
Fitzstephen smiled back. ‘Erin go Bragh.
’
Mullone climbed into the saddle as the shot rang out. ‘We go to Enniscorthy. And find that Crapaud bastard.’ He remembered the girl was still with them and coughed to cover his embarrassment. ‘We’ll leave you safe, girl, at the town,’ he said and the frightened girl nodded.
They were about to move when an artillery officer rode up to them, the bay horse slick with sweat.
‘Captain Bloomfield, sir,’ he said, saluting.
‘Major Lorn Mullone and this is my sergeant,’
Bloomfield shot Cahill and friendly glance, saw the girl and frowned.
‘What do you want, Captain? We have important business to attend to,’ Mullone said coldly.
‘Apologies, sir,’ Bloomfield closed his lolling jaw. ‘I was going to ask if you knew who that man was?’ The gun captain jutted his chin at Fitzstephen’s body. ‘Forgive me, sir, but I’ve heard there’s a bounty on a man named John Fitzstephen. One of the Wexford leaders.’
Mullone shook his head and stared at a patch of dry grass smouldering from the burning wads jettisoned from the musket barrels. ‘He asked for water and so I gave it to him.’
Bloomfield looked crestfallen. ‘I see, sir.’
‘In any case I’ve seen Fitzstephen and that is certainly not him. Good day to you, Captain.’
Mullone saluted, made sure the officer had left, and the three of them climbed down the slope to cross a ford two miles north of the River Slaney. The cold water reached their knees, but they had crossed the high grass-strewn banks and any confrontation with the pockets of armed and bitter rebels. Scores were streaming across the seventeenth century stone bridge from Enniscorthy where shouting and heavy musketry echoed. The Norman castle dominated the town which was garrisoned with redcoats. The Union Flag flew from the battlements.
Mullone found General Henry Johnson directing two companies of green-coated riflemen into the narrow cobbled streets. They were Germans from the 5th Battalion, 60th Rifles, and they darted forward in skirmish order. Beyond the roof tops a thick plume of smoke carried from two burning buildings obscured the grisly aftermath taking place on Vinegar Hill. A volley of musket fire hammered at a group of Light Bobs from the Dumbarton Fencibles, a Scottish regiment who wore bonnets and kilts. The Scotsmen were crouched behind walls, gardens, and houses. One fell and another staggered away, clutching his side.
‘Major Mullone,’ Johnson greeted him warmly, despite the obvious fierce resistance his force had encountered. A steady stream of wounded were making their way to a barn where a surgeon was plying his trade. There appeared to be a lot of them.
‘Morning, sir,’ Mullone wiped the sweat on his face with a sleeve. Cahill hung back with the girl.
‘Has General Lake sent you down here?’ Johnson’s tone rankled with hate for the man.
‘No, sir. I came here of my own accord.’
Johnson looked sideways at him. ‘More government work, eh? What the hell brings you here? You men are helping to guard the baggage. Have you come for them?’
‘No, sir. I need to ask you something. When I first met you at New Ross I told you I was looking for a French spy. A man by the name of De Marin. He masquerades as a priest; a Father Keay.’
‘Yes, I remember. And?’
Mullone stared at the houses. ‘He’s in the town, sir.’
Johnson watched the Germans clear the houses, darting forward like professional soldiers, watching, aiming and covering each step. One pair spotted an enemy marksmen firing from a rooftop and put a bullet in him. The body slid down the slate tiles, leaving a trace of blood. One of the Germans whooped with glee.
‘Enniscorthy is thick with the mob, Major. I fear you’ll never catch him.’
‘The bridge, sir. If your men can reach it, then perhaps my chances will increase.’
The general blew out a lungful of breath. ‘I fear that will be impossible.’
Mullone stared. ‘Sir?’
‘The rebels have already thrown my lads out once.’
Mullone could see the men’s lips were stained by black powder from biting cartridges and desperately thirsty from the saltpetre in the gunpowder. There were red bodies lining the road and slumped against houses. It must have been a tough fight.
Mullone’s anger and anguish broke. ‘I have to find him! I can’t let that bastard escape!’ Johnson looked shocked at the outburst and Mullone shook his head. ‘My sincerest apologies, sir. De Marin is a slippery fellow and I’ve spent months trying to apprehend him.’
Johnson pursed his lips. ‘No regret needed, Major. I understand your position. I had hoped to have taken the town by now, but I take my hat off to the Croppies. Their pikemen are made of stronger stuff. They’ve blocked the roads and the bridge and my lads have not been able to push them back. I’ve asked for reinforcements, but as every minute passes by, they slip away.’
Mullone clicked Tintreach forward and gazed at the bridge. He turned to Cahill. ‘Tether Tintri to the post over there,’ he said, pointing to a broken gate. ‘I’m going into the town.'
‘Let me come with you, sir,’ Cahill pleaded. The girl still had not left his side.
‘Stay here, Seán,’ Mullone was severe. ‘That’s an order. Look after the girl.’
The sergeant reluctantly obeyed. ‘Be careful, sir. And if you see the bastard; break his skull.’
Mullone grinned and picked his way down through the road to the heart of the town. Green banners, ribbons and boughs hung from most windows. Musket shots echoed not far from him. His nose wrinkled at the roiling gun smoke and from the burning buildings. A ball smacked into a house’s wall not far from him, making a buzzing sound as it spun away. He followed the road to where redcoats were firing sporadically at barricades. He went over to an officer on horseback.
‘Colonel Vesey, Dublin County Militia,’ the officer said, mouth clenching a cigar.
‘Major Mullone, sir.’
‘What brings you here, Mullone?’
‘I’m tasked by the Castle to find a French spy by the name of De Marin, sir.’
Vesey chortled as though that had amused him. He took out the cigar and a plume of blue smoke erupted from his mouth. ‘I haven’t seen any Crapauds. Lots of Croppies shouting ‘death to the king’ and ‘liberty and equality’ and such like, but no Frenchie bastards. What does this villain look like?’
‘He’s known to dress in priests’ attire, sir,’ Mullone said, staring at the bullet-marked barricades and houses. He could see scores of pikemen and musket-armed rebels, but no priest. ‘He may have abandoned the guise though,’ he added, knowing that was a possibility. He would have done the same in the Frenchman’s situation.
Vesey paused for a moment, then shook his head. ‘It’ll be like trying to find a musket ball at the bottom of an ocean. Impossible. I wish I could help you, and I’ll put the word out.’
‘Thank you, sir. I knew your predecessor. He died bravely.’
When the attackers had breached one of the town’s gates Lord Mountjoy had tried to reason with them, but his words fell on deaf ears. He was pulled from his horse and piked to death.
A look of sorrow etched Vesey’s face, but not for long as he had achieved command of the regiment, which was something he had yearned for. ‘Yes. A God-faring man to the end.’
But Mullone wasn’t listening. He was staring at a man wearing a long brown coat with a green sash and top hat. The rebel leader was standing on the bridge’s stonework as a mass of fugitives were crossing the Slaney to where the survivors of Vinegar Hill were fleeing.
‘De Marin!’ Mullone ran to an upturned cart and stood up on it, shouting, furiously. ‘De Marin!’
The Frenchman looked round and smiled. He had shaved off his beard and now dressed as a civilian, but at his hip hung his expensive sword. De Marin waved once and disappeared in the seething horde, was swallowed up and was gone.
Mullone had failed and he knew it. He thumped a hand down on one of the iron-rimmed wheels and cursed.
From the slaughter of New Ross, to the blood-soaked battle on the hill and here at Enniscorthy today, De Marin had escaped yet again. The Frenchman had boasted after New Ross that their paths would cross again.
Mullone knew that to be true, but when that time came, he would be ready. He vowed it.
July 23, 2014
Paget meets the future Duke of Wellington
This piece is from BLOOD ON THE SNOW, which is to be released in September:
It was Christmas Eve.
Icicles hung from branches and redcoats broke through the ice with bayonets to get water from the streams for the cooking pots. Breakfast for some consisted of flour dust cooked into little dumplings, stale bread, or acorns and old berries found beneath the oaks and bushes. Several officers shot at a plump of ducks passing over, the musket bangs echoed as men looked up in anticipation, but none of the birds fell from the sky and they cursed poor their luck rather than their marksmanship. The vast majority of men had nothing to eat. Bellies were painful and swollen from cramps. Some had to run into the hedgerows to void their bowels. Dysentery and fever were rife.
Grave was a small impoverished town about nine miles southwest of Nijmegan on the left bank of the River Maas. It had been heavily fortified over the centuries, often billeting military troops from Austria, Spain and France who of late had added embankments, ditches and gun emplacements to the ancient walls that surrounded the town. The large castle was rebuilt and it was here that the Dutch had surrendered to the French just days ago after a brief siege, but it was a poor place filled with memories of destruction, sieges, starvation and misery.
‘You see, they can’t even bloody well hold onto one of their own towns,’ Major Osborne grumpily gave his opinion of the Dutch as he and Colonel Paget espied Grave from a thicket of pine trees less than a mile to the south. He had spent his night in a grotty little farmstead and awoke covered in flea bites. Rain showed above the far hills as a dark stain. ‘That’s what happens when you arm shit-stinking, clog-wearing peasants with firelocks. They’re not an army, they’re a goddamn rabble.’
Paget did not reply, he was still smarting Osborne’s impertinence and ill-advice from the conversation at the bridge. Instead, he looked to where General Sir David Dundas, commander of the British right, and his staff were talking, making notes and giving orders just ahead of the tree line. Paget had grown to dislike Osborne’s company and so he clicked his tongue and trotted over towards the group of officers without saying a word to the major.
This wasn’t to be Paget’s first battle, but he was nevertheless anxious to make a name for himself and not to let the regiment down. It was a fine battalion and men like Captain Vivian Richard Hussey Vivian had paid good money to get transferred here. Vivian had made a name for himself in the last few years and now wanted to transfer to a cavalry regiment, but it was a damned good regiment with a proud history and Paget hoped to continue with its legend.
‘Should be a decent day’s fighting,’ said a voice over to his left.
Paget turned to see an unknown officer trotting along a muddied track and who was also heading towards Dundas.
‘So I hear,’ Paget replied genially. ‘Edward Paget, 28th,’ he said and outstretched his hand when he was close enough.
‘Arthur Wesley, 33rd,’ said the officer. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance.’
‘Likewise,’ Paget said. ‘33rd, eh?’ he said staring at Wesley’s red facings. ‘I heard about Boxtel.’
Wesley grunted slightly from the mention of the name. The regiment had been part of the British and Hanoverian force that had launched a counter-attack after the French had pushed the Dutch from the town. But the manoeuvre had failed despite the regiment’s superb volley fire which had shattered the French attack.
‘I overheard that Sir David reckons the French at Grave will try to keep us pinned back whilst Pichegru marches his army to trap us like fish caught in the nets,’ Wesley said. ‘There can’t be more than a four thousand of the Jacobins here. One whiff of a volley and they’ll retreat behind the towns walls and we’ll have to endure another siege,’ he added bitterly. ‘What this army needs to do is consolidate. We’re scattered to the winds and all that’s left for us to do is drift away like autumn leaves caught in a breeze.’
Wesley was in his twenties, slim, straight-backed and Paget noted he had piercing eyes and a sharp, hooked nose. There was something strange in his manner, impressive in his tone and utterly decisive in his manner.
Paget gave a firm nod of agreement. The trick was to win this small victory, and still bring the British Army to safety in one piece. That would not be easy, and it was all down to other men’s decisions.
‘We can’t endure a winter siege,’ he said. ‘We have to hope the locals lock the gates behind the French and then they’ll be forced to simply surrender.’
Wesley brayed with laughter which caused a few of the older officers around Sir David to scowl at him. He turned to see a sullen company of redcoats march past.
‘Driving rain and snow makes men careless, for they are too consumed with their own misery to care,’ Wesley commented. ‘Or perhaps they are wretched because of their own officers?’
Paget grunted. ‘I agree, Wesley. But what to do, eh?’
Wesley pursed his thin lips and stared across at the flat landscape, almost as though he was mesmerised by the bleak beauty of it. ‘Have you heard that Robespierre’s been toppled?’
‘The Directory,’ Paget said with disgust. ‘One dictator ruling the country is removed so that a whole group of dictators can do the same job. We’re fighting a mob, Wesley.’
‘Agreed, but the damned mob has beaten us at nearly every turn,’ Wesley replied with a wry smile. ‘They’ve seen off the Austrians who have scuttled back across the Rhine and they’ve taken Antwerp, Brussels, and their armies are chasing us every day away from the sea. We’re to help the eastern defences, but we’re done here, Paget. We’re heavily outnumbered, but still there’s nothing right now to cause us undue concern,’ he said calmly. ‘I heard that the government wants to recall some of our regiments for the Sugar Islands.’
Paget stared. ‘Good God,’ he uttered, thinking of the West Indies. ‘That will leave us with even less manpower.’
‘True, Paget, true,’ Wesley replied. He brought out an expensive telescope and trained it at the walls where the Tricolour of France flew high from the castle’s main tower instead of the Dutch Tricolour. Tall pine trees hid the outlying land and the River Maas. Then he traversed it across the fields to the west to a tiny village called Escharen. He watched dark streaks of smoke that betrayed home cooking fires.
‘Grave should give the men spirit, Wesley,’ Paget considered, ‘but I hear that Pichegru is less than two days away. There will be no time to lay a siege, any blockhead can tell you that, so we’ve got to beat them with volleys and finish them off with the cold steel.’
The trick was to win this small victory, and still bring the British Army to safety in one piece, Paget considered. That would not be easy, and it was all down to other men’s decisions. Men of higher rank, but not notably men of sound leadership.
Wesley smiled, liking Paget’s comments. ‘The French haven't tasted defeat yet. But we shall see, Paget, we shall see,’ he said smiling and closed his eyepiece. ‘I don’t know where we’re heading, but I do hope our paths will cross again.’ He touched his bicorn hat and clicked his heels to spur his horse forward away from the group of officers.
Paget watched him leave and turned to greet a couple of the officers he knew from his Westminster days. It was good to catch up with friends before battle.
It was Christmas Eve.
Icicles hung from branches and redcoats broke through the ice with bayonets to get water from the streams for the cooking pots. Breakfast for some consisted of flour dust cooked into little dumplings, stale bread, or acorns and old berries found beneath the oaks and bushes. Several officers shot at a plump of ducks passing over, the musket bangs echoed as men looked up in anticipation, but none of the birds fell from the sky and they cursed poor their luck rather than their marksmanship. The vast majority of men had nothing to eat. Bellies were painful and swollen from cramps. Some had to run into the hedgerows to void their bowels. Dysentery and fever were rife.
Grave was a small impoverished town about nine miles southwest of Nijmegan on the left bank of the River Maas. It had been heavily fortified over the centuries, often billeting military troops from Austria, Spain and France who of late had added embankments, ditches and gun emplacements to the ancient walls that surrounded the town. The large castle was rebuilt and it was here that the Dutch had surrendered to the French just days ago after a brief siege, but it was a poor place filled with memories of destruction, sieges, starvation and misery.
‘You see, they can’t even bloody well hold onto one of their own towns,’ Major Osborne grumpily gave his opinion of the Dutch as he and Colonel Paget espied Grave from a thicket of pine trees less than a mile to the south. He had spent his night in a grotty little farmstead and awoke covered in flea bites. Rain showed above the far hills as a dark stain. ‘That’s what happens when you arm shit-stinking, clog-wearing peasants with firelocks. They’re not an army, they’re a goddamn rabble.’
Paget did not reply, he was still smarting Osborne’s impertinence and ill-advice from the conversation at the bridge. Instead, he looked to where General Sir David Dundas, commander of the British right, and his staff were talking, making notes and giving orders just ahead of the tree line. Paget had grown to dislike Osborne’s company and so he clicked his tongue and trotted over towards the group of officers without saying a word to the major.
This wasn’t to be Paget’s first battle, but he was nevertheless anxious to make a name for himself and not to let the regiment down. It was a fine battalion and men like Captain Vivian Richard Hussey Vivian had paid good money to get transferred here. Vivian had made a name for himself in the last few years and now wanted to transfer to a cavalry regiment, but it was a damned good regiment with a proud history and Paget hoped to continue with its legend.
‘Should be a decent day’s fighting,’ said a voice over to his left.
Paget turned to see an unknown officer trotting along a muddied track and who was also heading towards Dundas.
‘So I hear,’ Paget replied genially. ‘Edward Paget, 28th,’ he said and outstretched his hand when he was close enough.
‘Arthur Wesley, 33rd,’ said the officer. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance.’
‘Likewise,’ Paget said. ‘33rd, eh?’ he said staring at Wesley’s red facings. ‘I heard about Boxtel.’
Wesley grunted slightly from the mention of the name. The regiment had been part of the British and Hanoverian force that had launched a counter-attack after the French had pushed the Dutch from the town. But the manoeuvre had failed despite the regiment’s superb volley fire which had shattered the French attack.
‘I overheard that Sir David reckons the French at Grave will try to keep us pinned back whilst Pichegru marches his army to trap us like fish caught in the nets,’ Wesley said. ‘There can’t be more than a four thousand of the Jacobins here. One whiff of a volley and they’ll retreat behind the towns walls and we’ll have to endure another siege,’ he added bitterly. ‘What this army needs to do is consolidate. We’re scattered to the winds and all that’s left for us to do is drift away like autumn leaves caught in a breeze.’
Wesley was in his twenties, slim, straight-backed and Paget noted he had piercing eyes and a sharp, hooked nose. There was something strange in his manner, impressive in his tone and utterly decisive in his manner.
Paget gave a firm nod of agreement. The trick was to win this small victory, and still bring the British Army to safety in one piece. That would not be easy, and it was all down to other men’s decisions.
‘We can’t endure a winter siege,’ he said. ‘We have to hope the locals lock the gates behind the French and then they’ll be forced to simply surrender.’
Wesley brayed with laughter which caused a few of the older officers around Sir David to scowl at him. He turned to see a sullen company of redcoats march past.
‘Driving rain and snow makes men careless, for they are too consumed with their own misery to care,’ Wesley commented. ‘Or perhaps they are wretched because of their own officers?’
Paget grunted. ‘I agree, Wesley. But what to do, eh?’
Wesley pursed his thin lips and stared across at the flat landscape, almost as though he was mesmerised by the bleak beauty of it. ‘Have you heard that Robespierre’s been toppled?’
‘The Directory,’ Paget said with disgust. ‘One dictator ruling the country is removed so that a whole group of dictators can do the same job. We’re fighting a mob, Wesley.’
‘Agreed, but the damned mob has beaten us at nearly every turn,’ Wesley replied with a wry smile. ‘They’ve seen off the Austrians who have scuttled back across the Rhine and they’ve taken Antwerp, Brussels, and their armies are chasing us every day away from the sea. We’re to help the eastern defences, but we’re done here, Paget. We’re heavily outnumbered, but still there’s nothing right now to cause us undue concern,’ he said calmly. ‘I heard that the government wants to recall some of our regiments for the Sugar Islands.’
Paget stared. ‘Good God,’ he uttered, thinking of the West Indies. ‘That will leave us with even less manpower.’
‘True, Paget, true,’ Wesley replied. He brought out an expensive telescope and trained it at the walls where the Tricolour of France flew high from the castle’s main tower instead of the Dutch Tricolour. Tall pine trees hid the outlying land and the River Maas. Then he traversed it across the fields to the west to a tiny village called Escharen. He watched dark streaks of smoke that betrayed home cooking fires.
‘Grave should give the men spirit, Wesley,’ Paget considered, ‘but I hear that Pichegru is less than two days away. There will be no time to lay a siege, any blockhead can tell you that, so we’ve got to beat them with volleys and finish them off with the cold steel.’
The trick was to win this small victory, and still bring the British Army to safety in one piece, Paget considered. That would not be easy, and it was all down to other men’s decisions. Men of higher rank, but not notably men of sound leadership.
Wesley smiled, liking Paget’s comments. ‘The French haven't tasted defeat yet. But we shall see, Paget, we shall see,’ he said smiling and closed his eyepiece. ‘I don’t know where we’re heading, but I do hope our paths will cross again.’ He touched his bicorn hat and clicked his heels to spur his horse forward away from the group of officers.
Paget watched him leave and turned to greet a couple of the officers he knew from his Westminster days. It was good to catch up with friends before battle.
June 25, 2014
Blood On The Snow (The Soldier Chronicles 3)
The 28th left Rotheheim in a terrible snowstorm.
They were the last regiment to leave the town. Two troops of cavalry: a Light Dragoon and a French émigré protected the rear-guard, but in the driving snow it was hard to see the man in the next file let alone if the enemy were close, or who was who.
The wind brought snow and ice into the men’s eyes causing them to curse and stumble. One man who had lost his boots a month before, and whose toes had all turned black, collapsed from exhaustion. His body instantly spotted white and as the wind howled across the fields the British cavalry passed him unnoticed and forgotten. Men sobbed and shuffled in the storm. They were benumbed with cold and bitterly hungry as no food or wine had been left for them at the town.
They passed frozen corpses lining the road, like markers showing the way to hell. They were humped grotesque shapes, like snow-covered barrows. Hallam stared at one. The man had been a redcoat and had been there for many days. His face was blackened by wind and half-buried in snow so that his grotesque face seemed to watch the men who passed him by. They passed the bloated corpses of horses then Hallam saw another body and almost wept.
In his long service career he had seen some terrible things. He’d seen men shredded into ribboned meat by canister, a friend decapitated by a roundshot and another die of a horrible wasting disease, but nothing had prepared him for this. The body was a young woman. Late teens. Her hair was copper-coloured and she resembled Isabel for she had been strikingly good looking in life. Her eyes were blessedly shut and her thin mouth closed. Her bodice was open, her breasts were exposed and the lower half of her was hidden under snow. Hallam bent over, not to gaze at her body, but because he couldn’t make out what was lying next to her. He had to hold a hand to his eyes to shield them from the weather. Beside her, in a tight bundle and as though it had been tossed aside, was her child. Its little face was blue and its eyes were open. Hallam struggled to keep what little food he had in his stomach down.
‘Nice tits,’ said one of the redcoats who saw woman.
‘Eyes front!’ Hallam turned on the man with a sudden fury. He stood and spoke to the rest of the company. ‘If I so much as catch one of you bastards looking at her, you will be put on a charge!’
‘Is that a..?’ Stubbington started, but blanched.
‘Yes,’ Hallam said solemnly.
Stubbington stood aghast. ‘How did this happen? How?’ he appealed.
Hallam could offer no reason. ‘You best return to your post,’ he could only think to say.
When the ensign had gone, Hallam wrenched a frozen saddlecloth from one of the horses to cover her waxen body. He tucked the baby underneath it and said a brief prayer and, because he was not a God-faring man, he couldn’t recite much. When he finished he stood for a while in solace. He shivered and pulled his scarf closer to his neck and mouth. Then with nothing more to say, he glanced back into the pale sour light behind where nothing moved and walked on.
They were the last regiment to leave the town. Two troops of cavalry: a Light Dragoon and a French émigré protected the rear-guard, but in the driving snow it was hard to see the man in the next file let alone if the enemy were close, or who was who.
The wind brought snow and ice into the men’s eyes causing them to curse and stumble. One man who had lost his boots a month before, and whose toes had all turned black, collapsed from exhaustion. His body instantly spotted white and as the wind howled across the fields the British cavalry passed him unnoticed and forgotten. Men sobbed and shuffled in the storm. They were benumbed with cold and bitterly hungry as no food or wine had been left for them at the town.
They passed frozen corpses lining the road, like markers showing the way to hell. They were humped grotesque shapes, like snow-covered barrows. Hallam stared at one. The man had been a redcoat and had been there for many days. His face was blackened by wind and half-buried in snow so that his grotesque face seemed to watch the men who passed him by. They passed the bloated corpses of horses then Hallam saw another body and almost wept.
In his long service career he had seen some terrible things. He’d seen men shredded into ribboned meat by canister, a friend decapitated by a roundshot and another die of a horrible wasting disease, but nothing had prepared him for this. The body was a young woman. Late teens. Her hair was copper-coloured and she resembled Isabel for she had been strikingly good looking in life. Her eyes were blessedly shut and her thin mouth closed. Her bodice was open, her breasts were exposed and the lower half of her was hidden under snow. Hallam bent over, not to gaze at her body, but because he couldn’t make out what was lying next to her. He had to hold a hand to his eyes to shield them from the weather. Beside her, in a tight bundle and as though it had been tossed aside, was her child. Its little face was blue and its eyes were open. Hallam struggled to keep what little food he had in his stomach down.
‘Nice tits,’ said one of the redcoats who saw woman.
‘Eyes front!’ Hallam turned on the man with a sudden fury. He stood and spoke to the rest of the company. ‘If I so much as catch one of you bastards looking at her, you will be put on a charge!’
‘Is that a..?’ Stubbington started, but blanched.
‘Yes,’ Hallam said solemnly.
Stubbington stood aghast. ‘How did this happen? How?’ he appealed.
Hallam could offer no reason. ‘You best return to your post,’ he could only think to say.
When the ensign had gone, Hallam wrenched a frozen saddlecloth from one of the horses to cover her waxen body. He tucked the baby underneath it and said a brief prayer and, because he was not a God-faring man, he couldn’t recite much. When he finished he stood for a while in solace. He shivered and pulled his scarf closer to his neck and mouth. Then with nothing more to say, he glanced back into the pale sour light behind where nothing moved and walked on.
