The Rebels of Ireland (90 page)

He had no doubt that the new Ireland was coming. Not because of the present rebellion, whose issue was still in doubt, but because, before long, the thing was inevitable. All over the world, the old tyrannies were being set aside: the tyrannies of outworn authorities over the body and the mind. In America, in France, men would be free to choose their governments, make their own laws, and worship, or not worship, as they pleased. The reign of oppressor and oppressed, of Catholic and Protestant, would pass away at last. The age of reason had arrived, and surely now, all that was needed was a kick or two, and the rotten old structures of the past would collapse of their own accord. He was grateful that he should have had the chance to be a part of the dawning of this new and better world.

A better world for his children. He thought of them with affection. It was almost a month since he had seen them last. How he wished it were possible for him to take wing, to fly through the night and spend an hour or two with them, to comfort them. He thought of Brigid also. When all this was over, the world would be changed. And once again, but with more insistence, he would ask her to marry him, and perhaps now she would agree.

How strange it all felt, he thought, up here. It was as if, when the evening had thrown its noose of orange light over the hill, it had magically drawn it away to some place beyond time; and that this huge crowd of thousands had been transformed into some ancient Irish gathering, waiting to welcome the rising in the east of the midsummer sun.

General Lake did not wait until dawn. He was a brutal man. He had hanged and flogged his way through Ulster in the spring to break the spirit of the rebels there. But he was a competent general. And faced with an army which outnumbered his own, defending a round hill, he did what any good general would do. He took advantage of his strengths.

Placing his cannon carefully, as close to the hill as he could, he did not wait for the dawn, nor even the first hint of light in the eastern sky. The number of defenders on the hill actually worked against them, for they were so thick on the ground he did not need to be particularly accurate. He filled his cannon with balls and with grapeshot, and then, with a flash and a crash, he let rip in the night.

“I'll blast them to pieces in the dark,” he declared.

At his side, Kelly was as startled by the bombardment as Patrick was. As the cannonballs hissed overhead, and dark splutterings of detritus burst up from the ground into the night sky, they heard screams from all around.

“Does he really mean to charge up the hill in the dark?” he wondered.

But General Lake had no such intention. He didn't move an inch, but let his beasts, the cannon, do his work for him. They pounded the hill in the dark; they pounded it during first light; they roared at the rising sun; and their rough logic, which knew nothing of freedom, of ages ancient or to come, chopped, and carved, and
dissected Vinegar Hill until its green sides were splattered and running with blood.

The English artillery had another trick, too. Patrick witnessed it when a shell landed about fifty yards away, bounced, and came to rest by a group of pikemen, who looked at it with distaste. Then, suddenly, they were no more, but transformed into a flash and a bursting of bodies as the shell, with its new delayed fuse, exploded. The Irishmen had not seen the delayed-fuse shells before. Soon, there were eddies of panic all over the hillside as men tried to fling themselves pell-mell away from the shells when they landed.

There was only one thing to do. A huge charge was begun, to sweep the English from their positions. The sheer weight of their numbers should have done it. Patrick and Kelly were towards the rear of the charge, both with pistols and drawn swords, behind a line of pikemen. But they never got to the base of the hill. So devastating was the enemy fire that the charge was brought to its knees and recoiled up the slopes. As they drew back, Patrick saw to his horror that the English were using the confusion to move their cannon forward. He discharged his pistol towards them, but he did not see anyone fall.

Soon afterwards, they tried another charge, but with the same result.

Down in Enniscorthy, English troops were trying to seize the bridge that led into the town, by which they supposed the Irishmen might try to escape. But down in the town at least, the United men were having better luck, and it looked as if the British were beaten back.

Time passed. And still the bombardment went on. The heat was terrible. It was only now that Patrick realised that, while the cannon continued to roar, he scarcely heard them anymore. A strange kind of silence and unreality seemed to have settled upon the day. Glancing around, he wondered how many of the army on the hill were left. Half of them? He supposed so. Everybody seemed to be moving more slowly, though, as if there were all the time in the world.
Come to that, what time was it? He didn't know that either. The sun was high.

Something new was happening now. Kelly was shouting something at him. He was priming his pistol. The English were coming. They were coming up the other side of the hill. He'd be ready for them. He nodded and held his pistol firmly, pointing it up the hill. He'd be ready for them, sure enough.

He heard a hiss and a cry. He felt Kelly's hand grabbing him unceremoniously by the collar, trying to haul him off away somewhere. He stumbled, then saw a flash, and found himself lying on the ground. He blinked. On his left, a couple of men were writhing on the ground. Kelly was on the other side of him. He sat propped oddly, as if he were trying to read a book just to the side of his chest. But there was a gaping, bloody mess where one side of his head was supposed to be. He stared. Kelly was dead. He didn't feel too bad himself. But when he started to get up, his left leg didn't seem to be moving properly. That was odd. He put his hand down, and frowned. It felt wet. He looked down and saw there was a great gash down one side of his leg, with blood seeping from it and a piece of metal sticking out. He didn't feel much pain. He'd have to attend to that shortly, he supposed, but there were other things to do first.

He looked up the hill, and there, silhouetted against the skyline, was the line of English troops advancing. In front of them, some brave fellows were standing their ground, others fleeing. He pushed his pistol forward and tried to keep it steady. Now he was going to get a shot at them. This time he'd bring a man down.

Jonah Budge hadn't wanted to miss this battle. He and a dozen of his Yeomen had attached themselves to Lake's forces as they came south. The rest of his men he'd left under his second in command, a solid merchant from Wicklow who could be relied upon.

He'd learned a valuable lesson today, and he was the first to admit it. When he'd scoured the hamlets on the Wicklow Mountains
after the affair at Rathconan, he'd earned a reputation for swiftness of which he was rather proud. If he saw a group of men preparing to give him a fight, or a barn burning—and there had been a few of those—he had always dashed straight for the object in question. His speed and aggression had always carried the day, and twice he had certainly saved some unfortunate Protestants from being murdered or burned alive.

“These papists will usually scatter if you go at them quickly,” he told his men. For whatever other people might say, it was clear enough to him what this business was about. The papists were trying to rise and up to all their old tricks. “Give them half a chance, and they'll repeat the massacres of 1641 all over again,” he would say. It was up to decent Protestants like themselves to crush them. “Crush the croppies,” he'd cry. And though he used the abusive term for the modern revolutionaries, what he actually meant, and what his men clearly understood, was: “Crush the papists.” Speed was the thing. Treat them like animals.

But Lake, tough though he was, had been more circumspect. Where Jonah Budge would have been up the hill and at them by dawn, Lake had held back, and held back again, battering and wearing them down with his artillery, as though they were a walled fortification to be reduced to rubble.

“They are an army, and they will fight like an army,” he had cautioned. “Attack too soon, and I'll lose half my men.” And, it had to be said, the croppies in the town had done well and given the trained troops a bloody nose. Lake knew what he was doing, therefore, and you had to respect him for it. While the poor devil on the hill had been blown to bits, Lake had hardly lost any men at all.

But now at last, Budge thought, I can do things my way. As he marched up the hill, the exhausted croppies put up a stiff fight. Some of the fresh government troops were falling. But the croppies could hold them. They were pulling back.

As he came over the crest of the hill, he saw to his irritation that there was one flaw in Lake's battle plan. There was a gap in the Eng
lish lines at the base, where one of the commanders had failed to reach his station. The croppies knew it, too. There was a stiff fight up at the top, but once the English troops could gather to move down the slope in formation, the croppies had started to scatter and flee. They were making for the gap. Some squadrons of cavalry were aiming to cut them off, but it looked to Budge as if some of them would get away. His job was simple, though. Deal with those on the hill. Finish them off.

He was descending with his men down the slope when he saw the fellow lying on the ground twenty yards ahead to his left. He had a pistol. He was pointing it, with painful slowness, towards him. Evidently, the croppy was wounded. He was going to take a final shot. Budge didn't hesitate. He kept walking straight towards him. He had fought a duel once, some years ago, and this reminded him of it. As he came closer, he was not afraid—not because of bravery, but because, having a very good eye, he could see that the fellow was going to miss. The pistol went off with a puff of smoke. The ball hissed by, above and to the right. He kept walking. The man was looking at him, slightly surprised. A gentlemanlike face, it had to be said. When Budge was a few paces away, he took out his own pistol, paused, and aimed carefully. The man didn't flinch.

“Croppy, lie down,” Budge said quietly, and fired, and Patrick Walsh was no more. Then he moved on.