The Year of the French (50 page)

After a time his words came more slowly, and at last he was gently snoring. I took the pen from his hand, and, leaving the room, summoned his servant.

Lake moved out early the next morning, and Cornwallis accompanied him to the Claremorris road, laughing and passing pleasantries, as though harsh words had never passed between them. They might have been two squires riding off to the hunt. It was an overcast day, in disappointing contrast to the fine weather we had been enjoying, a leaden sky stretched low across the flat countryside.

“Now mind,” Cornwallis said, “should the enemy choose to surrender, as any sensible man would, you need not wait upon me, but may of course accept the surrender, granting to his officers and men the full courtesies of war. They have conducted themselves well.”

“Not all of the men, surely?” Lake asked. “You are speaking only of the French soldiers, I take it.”

Cornwallis gave him a puzzled look. “The only soldiers under Humbert’s command are French.”

“There are the rebels,” Lake said. “The Irish.”

“Yes, to be sure.”

I wish most heartily that I had paid a more strict attention to the words which passed between them on this score, for consequences issued from them which would later bring our arms into disrepute, in the eyes of some, soiling the reputation of an otherwise splendid campaign. “Yes, to be sure,” Lord Cornwallis said. “But they are not soldiers, poor devils. They are a half-armed rabble.”

“Rebels in arms,” Lake said.

“So they must be termed. You saw the wretches that Crauford brought in, wild, half-human creatures. I pity them. I do indeed.”

“The honours of war were never meant for rebels,” Lake said. “Not here, not anywhere.”

“They are misfortunate creatures,” Cornwallis said. “This place needs peace, an end to all this.” He gestured towards the long columns which Lake would be leading eastwards.

“It does indeed,” Lake said grimly.

I am certain that I cannot be remembering their words with entire accuracy, although I have the general sense of them, and the offhand manner in which they were spoken. Lord Cornwallis’s habit of responding to questions in a casual and unbuttoned style was an endearing one, but at times it made his wishes a matter for interpretation. And so it may have proved upon this occasion, for the fate of the rebels was not otherwise discussed until after the final engagement at Ballinamuck. For myself, knowing him as I did, and knowing well his genuine kindliness, the general drift of his remarks is quite clear. General Lake, however, may be pardoned for drawing a different conclusion.

Cornwallis watched him march off, drums beating and fifes shrilling, and then turned back to Hollymount. We heard many fifes in the course of that day, and by nightfall our complement was complete, and our plan for battle had been established. The day continued overcast, and a chill in the air told us that summer was nearing its end. By the next morning, as we moved out towards Castlebar, a light drizzle had begun to fall.

Crauford, with his light dragoons, was sent to scout the defences outside the town, and we followed with the infantry and the heavy cavalry. We halted about two miles from the town, having encountered neither resistance nor evidence of fixed positions, and, despite the misty rain, we had a clear view, across the plain, of Crauford advancing almost to the bridge. There were two low explosions, and cannon shot fell among his men. A horse stumbled. He moved his troopers out of range. We expected to see him move back towards our lines, but instead he drew his men into formation. For a time nothing happened. There was a second salvo, but it fell short of the dragoons. After that the field was silent.

Presently we could see one of his riders coming towards us. When he reached Cornwallis, he saluted.

“Colonel Crauford requests permission to enter Castlebar.”

Cornwallis shifted in the chair which had been placed for him, beneath canvas stretched across tentpoles to shelter him from the fine rain. He pursed his lips in thought, and then nodded.

“Is Colonel Crauford quite certain?”

The lieutenant resembled Crauford in appearance, but was much younger. Like Crauford, he was lean but heavy-shouldered, a cavalryman; they had the same high, thick cheekbones.

He shrugged. “Oh, yes. A few cannon, perhaps two or three. Some of their people in the town. Not many. A scattering.”

Cornwallis looked towards Lord Roden, who was staring at him, puzzled, and then turned back to the lieutenant.

“Very well, then. If he is certain. If he is not, I will send forward the heavies.”

While we waited, he said to me, using a pet name which he employed only when he was feeling pleased, “Well now, Prince Hal. The Frenchman has cheated you of your battle. You have yet to be blooded. Never mind. Another day.”

Lord Roden shifted from one foot to the other, and Cornwallis said to him, in the tones of a schoolmaster, “The Frenchman has scampered off. Taken French leave. Good for him, and better for us.”

At the end of a long period of waiting, Crauford rode back to us across the bridge, at the head of one troop of cavalry. He looked splendid, a tall cavalryman, wearing a long blue cape against the rain, which was falling more heavily now. Castlebar was once again in British hands.

During the night, as we were drawing up our plans for the battle, and assigning positions to our regiments, Humbert and his entire force had stolen from the town, leaving behind three cannon and their gunners to put up a show of resistance, and two companies of rebels and one of French. If it be accounted a victory to take possession of a few streets of mud and grimy stone, of a handful of gabbling peasants, then we had achieved a victory.

“The disgrace of Castlebar has been expunged,” Cornwallis said, as he climbed painfully into the saddle of his placid mount. He put one foot into its stirrup, but let his gouty leg hang free. “How pleased General Lake will be!” But his merry mood was not shared by his staff, and I must confess that I myself felt baffled and cheated.

“By the way, Crauford,” he said, calling Crauford to him in his easy, negligent manner. “That was nicely executed. Nicely executed indeed.”

A smile slashed Crauford’s narrow jaw, a Highland face. “To take an empty town, sir?” He rode close to us. “No great problem there. A brisk canter for those lads over there, and damned little work done to earn their keep.”

“But done with grace, Crauford,” Cornwallis said. “Done with a bit of flair.” He ran his hand slowly along the neck of his horse. “You have the right of it, though. Dragoons are active lads, lively lads. They will lack occupation here.”

Crauford’s smile broadened, but he said nothing.

“I think you should take your lads out of here. Take them out of here, and place yourself under General Lake’s command for the next week or so.”

“Under his command, sir,” Crauford repeated, but with the shadow of a question in his words.”

“You know my instructions to him. You heard me give them. I want the Frenchman harried but not attacked. I want him punished, and I want him kept on the move. Lake will need dragoons for that.”

“He has dragoons,” Crauford said. “Dragoons and cavalry.”

“I intend that he should have you and those lads of yours. You will place yourself under General Lake’s command, with my instructions that he is to use you as a forward column, maintaining contact with the Frenchman but not engaging him. Can you remember that, or shall I have Wyndham scribble out an order for you?”

“I can remember that well enough,” Crauford said, “but I doubt it will be a source of great pleasure to General Lake. He has a great fondness for using his own troops.”

“I did not haul my poor afflicted leg onto this bog in order to give pleasure to General Lake. I came here to bag the Frenchman, and I will do it in my own way. You have no objections, I take it?”

“None, sir,” Crauford said. “None whatever. But a bit of clarification might not go amiss. I will be operating forward of General Lake but under his command. Will I move at my own discretion? Sending a trooper back to Lake every hour or two might be a damned nuisance.”

“I am certain that General Lake shares my own confidence in your discretion and your ability, Colonel Crauford. I anticipate no problems of that sort, and neither should you. Problems of that sort are tiresome. You had best get started, and we shall see if your lads are as active as you claim.”

Crauford grinned again, and then saluted Cornwallis. Within the hour, his dragoons had left the field, and were riding eastwards, towards Lake’s columns, where they were to earn for their colonel a reputation for enterprise and vigour, although not, alas, for humanity or clemency.

It is to the sheer physical insignificance of Castlebar that I attribute my difficulty in remembering in any detail our entrance into the town. I do remember that we were compelled to ride past bodies which had been pushed aside in haste: Crauford’s cavalry, in breaking free of the bridge, had found it necessary to cut down the defenders almost to a man. The “capital” of the republic was a sorry spectacle indeed, and for some a dangerous one, for a few of the rebels, casting aside their pikes and badges of office, sought to mingle with the townspeople, but they were hunted out most diligently by our lads. More sabres than one were bloodied in the streets of Castlebar before order was imposed. I have found, throughout all my years of campaigning, that the very butt end of an action is the bitterest. That tigerlike rage which courses through the blood of a common soldier when he is in the thick of the melee must somehow spend itself, and at times he is guilty of deeds for which later he is most heartily ashamed. Our lads were in particular enraged by the strips of green bunting with which many of the lintels were draped and by the so-called “trees of liberty.” Shops or dwellings which flaunted these were made to feel their impropriety.

These final sputterings of violence died at once when Cornwallis entered the town, as dust-whirls vanish when the wind falls. There was neither dust nor wind that morning, however, but only a steady, dispiriting rain. When at this moment I think of Ireland, it is not the splendid weather which I recall but the rain of Castlebar. Few natural scenes are more desolating than those offered by the rain-shrouded west, and the towns are grimmer yet. Those visitors to Ireland who have been enraptured by a summer week in Killarney, following the course of those soft, feminine lakes and hills, lulled by the blarneying voices of boatmen and guides, know nothing of this other Ireland, dank, cold, and secretive, in which crime and worse than crime fester beneath the sodden thatch. Ireland loses all definition beneath the rains of autumn—towns, hamlets, bogs, muddy road all blur together, and memory recalls but a vast grey porridge.

On that September morning, we were at the season’s turn, in a rainy town which the enemy had abandoned to us, and many more experienced than myself shared my mood, a grey, damp mood, rather like the appearance of the town. Neither the loyalists nor those rebels whom we questioned could tell us with certainty of the direction which the rebels had taken, whether towards Foxford or towards Swinford. There was great need now for haste, if Humbert was to be sealed between our army and Lake’s, for Humbert, as Cornwallis acknowledged with ungrudging admiration, was capable of moving with a rapidity which was the more astonishing when the composition of his force was taken into consideration. It was not until the afternoon that Crauford returned with word that Humbert had taken the Swinford road. And, as we were later to learn, he had sent instructions to the rebel garrisons in Ballina and other towns, ordering them to move eastwards, over the Ox Mountains, where with luck they might join him.

I have said that few prisoners were taken, but one of these must be considered a prize “catch,” being no less a personage than the “President” of the “Republic of Connaught.” This civic dignitary, but a few years older than I was myself, was brought to bay outside the courthouse, and most certainly would have been cut down had not notice been taken of his clothing and his genteel appearance. Cornwallis, who spoke briefly with him, was considerateness itself, and yet I doubt whether the poor wretch was aware of this, for his mood seemed to move from resignation to despair and then back to resignation. He had been ill used by the dragoons. His left arm was shattered above the elbow, and a heavy, swollen bruise disfigured one side of his face. Yet he retained the marks and accent of gentility, speaking in low and cultivated tones. Nor did we find this surprising, when his identity was disclosed to us as that of John Moore, younger brother of George Moore of Moore Hall, who had lived in London on terms of friendship with Burke, Fox, and others of the Whig party.

It had been intended that he should accompany the rebels on their march, but some impulse, not entirely dishonourable, had prompted him to remain in the town with the forlorn rear guard. Now, faithful to companions who had abandoned him to his fate, he professed ignorance as to their movements or plans. Cornwallis pressed him to discuss the character of Humbert, but his responses were guarded and laconic. Castlebar boasted a gaol, a gaunt, sombre building, and into this he was placed, together with other miscreants. I can recall him now in his cell, his face the white of chalk where it was not livid with bruise, his eyes expressionless and staring straight into mine. I fancied that I looked into the face of a Perkin or a Simnel, a youth taken up by cynical conspirators and given a brief, derisory authority. But the face belied my fancy, so like was it to my own. What folly or what vanity had led him into the company of his King’s enemy, forsaking his country and his loyalty? But then, he was Irish. I do not recall whether or not he suffered the fate which he had earned, but which I, for one, would have spared him.

By five that afternoon we were again upon the move: it was to be the first of our night marches. We were launched now upon a long campaign, which was to take us better than a hundred miles, when all its twists and winding returns are taken into account.

I have seen it asserted that our progress could be followed, weeks later, by the hanged men and burned cabins along our line of march. The facts themselves give the lie to this: we were pressing forward as rapidly as possible against an enemy who, save for his stragglers and deserters, remained tantalisingly out of sight. And, again, there were frequent rains; a bundle of straw would not have caught fire, much less a cabin roof. I will not gloss over that regrettable, even terrible events took place during the week that was to come. Crauford in particular was a stern soldier, as Highlanders often are, and Lake had carried with him from Wexford a reputation for brutality. What I do say is that such events took place beyond the eyes of Lord Cornwallis, my beloved old commander, in whom wisdom and mercy were blended in equal parts. True it is that when word came to us that the long-dreaded second rising had broken out in the midlands, even Cornwallis accepted the painful necessity of driving home to the natives the folly and the wickedness of rebellion. He did so, however, with the utmost reluctance, and the rules of honourable warfare,
with respect to our French enemies
, were never breached. Rebellion against lawful authority is in all societies regarded as the most heinous offence.