The Year of the French (55 page)

His
people and
mine. Our
men. I look upon these quarrelling words as they are set down in the ledger which contains this narrative. It is within my mind that this quarrel rages, an untidy battle whose frontiers I cannot measure. For in the heel of the hunt, all plans, hopes, conspiracies, ideals blown sky-high, what have I become but a turncoat settler, in arms against my own people? The man in that house was no English general or statesman, no Cornwallis or Pitt. Neither was he a Dublin Castle hack, busy upon England’s work. He was, as I have since learned, a mere Mr. Oliver Adams, a simple man as blind and deaf to all politics as my father had been. At my trial I propose, if this is permitted, to make a simple and honest declaration of the principles which led me to join the Society of United Irishman and of the motives which prompted me to take up arms. Doubtless it will be accepted as either noble or impudent, in accordance with the sympathies of each auditor. But such a statement will have scant relation to my complexity of feelings that morning, on Mr. Adams’s land. May not political passion be a net which holds the heart distant from all that has nourished it?

I do freely own, however, that my animal nature was happily nourished that morning by one of poor Mr. Adams’s hens, and for all that it was charred and undercooked, it was more delicious than any feast. Indeed, I drew a saturnine satisfaction from the reflexion that I had declined by insensible degrees from patriot to chicken thief. Not even my dear Judith’s romantic enthusiasm could touch with grandeur such a progress. I stood somewhat apart from the other officers, who were attended by two French privates, a consequence of revolution which Judith’s Rousseau had not anticipated, and at a considerable distance from the French and the Irish troops, who from the beginning of the campaign to its close remained separate from each other for reasons which extended well beyond language. Not that I attach blame to either party. Until a few years before, the Frenchmen had doubtless been peasants or artisans, but the machinery of warfare had transformed them into soldiers, and they wore their uniforms as though they had never had other garments upon their backs. The Irish seemed to them clumsy and ignorant barbarians, as indeed they were.

It was while we were taking our ease at Mr. Adams’s expense that a small farmer rode into our encampment with word that a considerable body of British troops had advanced upon us from a northerly direction. His name, as he announced to us with a flourish, was Michael Mor Gildea, but the epithet
mor
must have been given to him in jest, for he was a diminutive creature, bald now and of middle years. His horse was a sorry creature, fitted out, after the fashion of the peasantry, with a saddle of straw, although Gildea himself seemed a cut or two above the peasant, with a fair command of English. He was puffing with excitement, and spoke first to Randall MacDonnell, perhaps attracted by MacDonnell’s theatrical plume, but soon was led to Humbert and Teeling, and the rest of us drew close about them.

From the slopes of his farm, he had watched troops moving from the direction of Sligo through Carriganat, which is a half-mile distant from Collooney. They were by now in possession of that town, which lay astride our march. He was a poor hand at estimating numbers, saying first that there were “thousands upon thousands,” and then “hundreds upon hundreds,” although he was most specific that they had dragged with them “a great, death-dealing cannon.” “Are these the soldiers who have been holding Sligo for the English King?” Teeling asked. He had to put the question a second time, for Gildea was staring with open amazement and curiosity at our encampment. And well he might, for our men had risen to their feet and were staring at him. They knew only that he had brought us information of some kind, but must have sensed from his manner that it was unpleasant. “ ’Tis from Sligo they are,” Gildea said; “I have told you that.” Teeling nodded, and said to Humbert, “From Sligo, through Ballisodare.” “Yes,” Sarrizen said, thin-lipped, addressing his words to Humbert, “from Sligo. And we are caught between the two of them now, like a walnut in a nutcracker.” “It is my impression, Colonel Sarrizen,” Teeling said, “that a French picket was posted on the Sligo road.” Humbert held out his arm, and then stood looking at Gildea without seeing him. “It is a fierce and savage army of heretics,” Gildea said. “In blood-red uniforms.” “Larger than this army?” Teeling asked. Gildea looked about him, baffled by the question. “He has moved out then from Sligo to meet us,” Humbert said. “He feels confident.” With Humbert, the enemy was always “he,” never, “they.” We imagined a dark mass of men, noise, violence, but he saw a commander, a man like himself but with luck less clever, less resourceful. “No doubt he has reason for confidence,” Sarrizen said.

“Perhaps,” Humbert said. “Perhaps he has. I think that we will fight this fellow.” He drew out a pocket handkerchief and wiped his large, pale hands.

But at that moment, the air was split in two by the explosion of a cannon, whose shot came crashing down into the leafy shelter of the orchard.

Collooney, September 5

After the rains, as clear and warm a day as you could hope to find in September. Jacket off, he sat perched on the orchard wall like a schoolboy, his feet touching the tips of the tall grasses, dark green and light. The apple balanced on his palm was the globe, ripened by sun and dark earth. Quiet of orchards.
Poma
. Virgil, Horace, Ovid himself, greater than either of them. Never too busy to take time off for a few lines about apples. Devil the apple they’d ever needed to steal, swaggering around the city of Rome. Just send the bill to my patrons. They all had patrons. And why not? O’Rahilly had them, gentry stranded by the receding waters of Boyne and Shannon. I have mine: silver coins and a glass of brandy.

Warm sun of early September bathed the orchard. Beneath the trees, the men in their coarse shirts might have been labourers, resting from the work. Wall, leaf, rounded fruit glistened. No wind, the wall containing them. A boy in Kerry, he had gone with his father to hiring fairs. Men put up for auction like heifers or bullocks: strong legs and back, sound of wind. Landless men, no hope of land, they worked for food and shillings. Landless, they walked the harvest roads—Tralee, Killorglin, Kenmare. They stood silent for hire as farmers and graziers walked past them, boisterous in their prosperity, breath heavy with bacon and whiskey, minds clear and calculating. But at work the hired men were like these, in the orchard here, lazy and slow-moving, throats full of gossip and banter. Gallon jugs of porter passed round at midday, porter and the sun’s heat working together like yeast through the afternoon’s work and long into evening. Until dark; nine O’clock or ten in full summer. The cries of nesting birds attended them, corncrake and coot. Free as a bird.

Images caught by lime, by nets, as birds are caught, winging in from God knew where. Unbidden, they could not be summoned. From old books, from manuscripts of O’Rahilly and O’Sullivan, smeared at the edges for all the care you took of them. Not always. A girl’s sturdy leg, rounded bosom. Harvesting images as the corn is harvested, or birds. Or the wind. In cold winter, Atlantic winds battering the wall, a room foetid with sleeping beasts, the fields of summer, flowers in full blossom. Held in the eye of memory, a flowering branch.

Geraghty put two hands upon the wall, vaulted upwards to sit beside him. MacCarthy shook flowering branch and Atlantic wind from his mind.

“ ’Tis well for you that you can sit on a wall eating apples and the King’s dragoons riding down the road after you in full pursuit.”

MacCarthy bit into the apple. The juices of summer flooded his mouth.

“Your friend Ferdy O’Donnell has the better part of it,” Geraghty said. “Chieftain of all the fellows back in Killala. ’Tis what I was about myself in Ballina until the word came for me. The back room in Brennan’s I had for myself. I ate bacon every day, while it lasted.”

“All good things come to an end,” MacCarthy said.

“Marching along like geese to the black, empty hills of Donegal, with the English soldiers behind us. I have a great mind to get out of all this at night and see can I get back to Ballina on my own.”

“Why do you not, so?”

“Ach, did I not bring the Ballina men here? They have great trust in me. Malcolm Elliott thinks that he brought out the Ballina men, but ’twas myself. I was the first there to take the United oath, and the others followed after. There is no good going back to Ballina. The loyalists have it by now.”

“Then you might as well take your ease on a sunny wall, as I am doing.”

“I made my confession to Father Murphy, and he says that we are doing the work of Christ, fighting the heretics. He would say the same to you.”

“I doubt if he has time for the list of sins I would reel out to him. I wouldn’t know where to begin.” Judy Conlon standing in the cabin door; through the shift, her legs sketched by the sun of evening. Kate Cooper leaning over him, her dark hair upon his chest. The red-haired gunner in Castlebar High Street, dead eyes staring into his.

“No, no, Owen. You know yourself that it is a great comfort to be without the stain of sin on your soul.” A great peace, the communion wafer dissolving upon the tongue, the juice of innocence. Lighted tapers in the Tralee chapel, flames upright in the breathless air. Ovid’s language.
Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam
.

“Had you confessed to Mr. Hussey in Killala,” he said, “or to your own priest in Ballina, you would have been given no absolution at all but the wrath of God. They would have told you that we are doing the devil’s work for him.”

“It was to Father Murphy I went, and he is much a priest as they are. Sure isn’t one absolution as good as another?”

MacCarthy threw away the apple’s core. Apples and Eves in plenty, but no serpents: a fortunate isle. “It is,” he said. “Your theology is sound.”

“What counts is the intention,” Geraghty said. “If you have it in mind to marry Judy—”

“Intentions,” MacCarthy said. “If intentions counted, I would be a second Saint Kieran.”

“You are a queer man, Owen,” Geraghty said, sliding down from the wall. “But they say that much is forgiven to poets.”

“I hope they are right,” MacCarthy said.

Geraghty had left a warm bed in Ballina, snug farm beside the Moy. No absolution would bring those back to him, no haranguing sermons from Murphy. He walked solidly, strong-farmer’s walk, his legs were pillars. Much is forgiven to strong-farmers. Not this time.

Kneel to confess, head bent. Beneath the sky, as men had knelt by Mass rocks in the penal days. Scarcely a village had not its Mass rock to be pointed out, in shame and shy pride. Small wonder the land had bred priests like Murphy, love of Christ and hatred of the Protestant landlords burning together, flames reaching towards each other. He bellows at us, spalpeens who drift upon his words. The tapers in the Tralee chapel were far different, white and virginal. A church for helots, despised by our masters. In secret, through a secret century, we hugged its secret power, dark mysteries brighter than the sun. Whose sins Thou shalt forgive, they are forgiven him. Even Murphy. A mystery of faith.

Down the road, beyond the orchard wall, a bald-headed man came riding a heavy workhorse. MacCarthy watched him talk first to MacDonnell, plumed, vainglorious fox hunter, then dismount and walk towards Humbert and the other officers. He passed from sight, hidden by broad branches, globed fruit, clusters of leaves. Things are looking up when middle-aged farmers ride in on their own horses. Solid stock of Sligo, ready to fight for God and Ireland. Sunlight dazzled the topmost branches. No wind. A boy in Kerry, he had poached the lord’s apples, climbing walls with spikes set atop them. Saint Augustine had done it. And never stopped talking about it. Without grace, the mind is bent towards sinful deeds. Sure how was poor little Augustine to know about sin, an African, ignorant, skin and mind darkened by fierce suns.

From somewhere off to the left, a cannon exploded. Its charge ripped through sunny leaves. Kerry faded. The leaves of Augustine’s book drifted away. The boy who had stolen apples in Tralee shrivelled, drew back within the big-boned man atop the wall. The orchard had become another trap.

FROM
THE MEMOIR OF EVENTS
,
WRITTEN BY MALCOLM ELLIOTT
 IN OCTOBER, 1798

Because Collooney was the last battle in which I took part, aside of course from the shapeless catastrophe of Ballinamuck, I shall attempt to describe it with care.

The force which had marched to engage us was under the command of a pugnacious and resolute officer named Vereker. The cavalry whom we had encountered in Tobercurry had brought to him the news of our continued advance, and he well knew that his was the only garrison which stood between ourselves and Ulster. He was determined to deny us such access, and to check us before we reached the town of Sligo, which was crowded with loyalists who had fled before us. The decision speaks well both for his enterprise and for his promptitude. I speak here, albeit bitterly, with a certain national pride, for Vereker was Irish, a Limerick man, and most of those whom he commanded were members of his own regiment of yeomen.

He planted himself athwart the road, his left being shielded by the Owenmore River, beside which, at the point which he had chosen, ran a high wall. His right flank reached to the foot of a steep and rocky hill. This placed him in a basin, with his cavalry to the rear, and, in front of his infantry, the field gun which had announced his presence to us. Warfare to Cornwallis and Humbert was a form of chess which they played with bloody fingers, but to Vereker it was a simple game of draughts. We were advancing, and he proposed to stop us in our tracks. And had he only simple citizens like myself to deal with, he might well have done so, for that calling card of his, hurled into the orchard, threw us into a panic. I remember Randall MacDonnell, a man of considerable physical bravery, in a shouting match with twenty or so of the Irish troops, his hat pulled low upon his head and his face red with rage.

We lay stretched out for a half mile from the orchard, down the road beside a pasture to the outskirts of the village. Bartholemew Teeling, on his handsome bay mare, his sabre drawn from its scabbard, and a squad of mounted French soldiers behind him, rode to rally the Irish troops and bring them forward. Why I speak of them always as troops, I cannot say. Ploughboys led by faction fighters and a few fox hunters would be a more accurate description, but if there is a word which encompasses this, it does not lie within my vocabulary. Indeed, I have a most clear recollection of Owen MacCarthy perched on the wall of the orchard, his long legs dangling, the very type of those yokels who may be found attached like gargoyles to every village bridge. When Teeling rode back, he was alone, having left the French horsemen to deal with the Irish and pummel them forward, should this be necessary.