The Last Horseman

by David Gilman

  THE LAST HORSEMAN

  David Gilman

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  About this Book

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

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  About The Last Horseman

  Dublin 1899. Lawyer Joseph Radcliffe and his black American comrade Benjamin Pierce were ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ in the Civil War and the Indian Wars; now Radcliffe defends the toughest cases in a troubled city. But in South Africa a war rages between the British and the Boers and, after an argument with his father, Joseph’s son Edward runs away to join the Irish forces there.

  When Edward is captured and held as a spy, Radcliffe and Pierce – a black man in a white man’s war – set off to find him and bring him home. In the harsh South African terrain, the old soldiers find their survival skills tested to the hilt in this epic tale of heroism and treachery, love and loyalty.

  For Suzy,

  as always

  And in memory of my friend James Ambrose Brown,

  journalist, author and playwright

  A war in South Africa would be one of the most serious wars that could possibly be waged... it would leave behind it the embers of a strife which, I believe, generations would hardly be long enough to extinguish.

  Joseph Chamberlain,

  British Colonial Secretary in 1896

  England must not fall. It would mean an inundation of Russian and German political degradations... a sort of Middle-Age night and slavery which would last until Christ comes again... Even wrong – and she is wrong – England must be upheld.

  Mark Twain,

  writing in 1900

  Contents

  Cover

  Welcome Page

  About The Last Horseman

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Map

  Part 1: Dublin, Ireland

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Part 2: South Africa

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Epilogue

  Historical Notes

  Further Sources

  Glossary

  Acknowledgements

  Preview

  About David Gilman

  About the Master of War series

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Copyright

  Map

  DUBLIN, IRELAND

  DECEMBER 1899–JANUARY 1900

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was a foul night to hang a man. The rain swept across the Irish Sea, throwing itself against the grey stone walls of Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison. Behind its unyielding façade two prison guards stood outside the condemned man’s cell. The number was imprinted on a small metal plaque: D1. It was barely a dozen shuffling steps from the cell across the passage and through the door to the execution chamber. Dermot McCann was twenty-seven years old. He was a thug and a killer, and refused to show these bastard guards his fear. The priest’s incantation barely entered his mind, the words pluming in the cold air of the prison’s walls as the guards fastened manacles on his wrists. His body stiffened, a moment of resistance, his arm muscles straining. One of the guards, the older man, one of the few who hadn’t cursed him for being a Fenian bastard, spoke quietly, his hand squeezing McCann’s shoulder. ‘Steady, lad. This isn’t the time.’

  With barely a moment’s hesitation they had stepped through the cell door, across the landing, followed by the priest and the small entourage of officials required by law to witness his death. Voices echoed from some of the half-dozen men incarcerated in other cells.

  ‘You took more than they can take from you, Dermot!’

  ‘You’re a martyr to the cause, Dermot McCann!’

  ‘It’s an Englishman that’s hanging ya, my lad! No Irishman would do it!’

  But in one of the cells a young man shivered with fear, knees hugged to his chest, back against the cold stone wall. Danny O’Hagan had yet to see his seventeenth birthday, and it would not be long before they moved him into D1. He had neither the courage nor the bravado to face such a cold-blooded death, and every shuffling scuff that echoed from the condemned man’s final steps squeezed his heart to near suffocation.

  The door to the execution chamber closed behind McCann. Eyes wide, he gazed at the wooden platform, painted black, and the whitewashed stone walls. They called the place of execution the ‘hang house’ – a narrow covered yard where parallel beams ran along the underside of the roof into the gable walls. The hanging rope was attached to chains affixed to these beams. Below the scaffold, in the flickering half-light of the gas lamps, witnesses to his execution gazed up, eyes shadowed beneath their hat brims. They were all men, a mixture of police officers, lawyers and prison guards joined by other civilians who were there to witness his death. His escort had eased him, almost without him realizing it, to the noose that hung immobile in the dank air. A snare drum’s death roll echoed across the yard. He looked up in the direction of the sound, but it was just the rain beating on to the pitched glass roof.

  His body trembled as the black-suited executioner stepped forward.

  ‘It’s the cold. Nothing more,’ McCann said.

  There was one man among the witnesses who had already respectfully removed his hat, and who gazed directly at the condemned man. Joseph Radcliffe was a big man with a broken nose. His eyes always gleamed brightly, and his big hands were wrinkled and tough from years on the open plains. He wore his hair short and kept his face clean-shaven. McCann locked on to his eyes, desperately drawing courage from Radcliffe, who had defended him in court but who had failed to save his life.

  McCann’s mind found a second of clarity, but the words that formed – God bless Ireland! – never reached his lips. The black hood was pulled down across his face, and the words swallowed as he gasped in fear. His panic ended a moment later. The lever was pulled. The trapdoor crashed open. And his final gasp of life went unheard beneath the clattering of the rain.

  *

  The Mountjoy Prison bell rang, signalling the successful completion of the execution.

  *

  At a first-floor window of a townhouse across the city, a frock-coated man stood looking out at the swirling storm. Broad-shouldered, thickset, hair sprinkled with grey above his dark forehead, Benjamin Pierce had known much hardship and trouble across two continents during his forty-nine years. He half turned as a lanky sixteen-year-old boy entered the room and walked across to stand before the radiant warmth of the fireplace.

  ‘Is my father not back yet?’ Edward Radcliffe asked.

  Pierce fished the gold hunter watch from his waistcoat pocket, checked it and clicked the cover closed. ‘No. It’ll be a while.’ Pierce knew Radcliffe’s son felt the same unease as he did. When a man died at the end of a rope, the spectre of death shadowed Joseph Radcliffe. He would slip into the house quietly, r
etiring to his study for a brandy that Pierce would have waiting for his friend, along with a made-up fire to ease the chill of death from his bones. Delaying his homecoming allowed the ghosts to stay in the Mountjoy execution yard a little longer.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The clear dawn brought a crisp bite to the air that now echoed with the bellowing roar of a regimental sergeant major. The Dublin garrison at Royal Barracks was the heart of the British Army in Ireland. A company of infantry marched to the cadence of the RSM’s commands. The rhythm of his voice was punctuated by the click of his brass-tipped pace stick, set to the exact marching stride demanded.

  ‘You-are-soldiers of the Royal Irish Regiment of Foot! Not ladies of the night squeezing your arses to stop your drawers falling down! About turn! Lef’, lef’, lef’ right lef’. Thirty inches, ladies! Thirty inches per stride – if-you-please!’

  The men were shadowed by their company sergeant as their punishment drill went on unabated. A less than satisfactory kit and weapons inspection had resulted in their having to face the fearsome RSM Herbert Thornton on the parade ground. His reputation was formidable, but, even worse, he was an Englishman. A good proportion of the regiment was made up of English, Welsh and Irish soldiers.

  ‘You’re going to South Africa to fight God-fearing Dutchmen in their own back yard and you will die like soldiers not the pox-ridden scum you are!’ Mr Thornton’s voice boomed.

  In the heaving ranks a private soldier whispered to his mate. ‘Give me the pox any day, at least I’d have some pleasure gettin’ it.’

  Nothing in God’s creation escaped the attention of a regimental sergeant major.

  ‘That man! Mulraney!’ The pace stick pointed unerringly at the marching mass of men. ‘Sergeant McCory!’

  The company sergeant followed the direction indicated by the most feared man in the regiment. ‘Company! Halt!’ he commanded.

  Hobnailed boots smashed into the ground. Mulraney stood rigid: sweat dripped from his nose, the rough cloth uniform chafed, and he wished to God he had never been tempted to take up the Queen’s shilling.

  *

  Inside the Dublin garrison stables, a soldier, stripped to his undershirt, had been watching the rigid discipline imposed on those outside. He turned away, hawked and spat into the steaming straw. Mulraney would never learn, the daft peasant. Sweet Jesus, who’d be idiotic enough to tug the corner of his mouth down and make any kind of utterance when the RSM took the parade? Thornton had a Friday-face on him that’d stop a tram in its tracks. And the man could see a fly twitch its arse at a thousand yards.

  He forked away soiled straw from the horse’s stall. ‘I’m an infantryman, in an infantry regiment, and I’m here cleaning out your shit and piss,’ he said to the bay mare as he nudged her with his shoulder so he could clear the soggy mess. ‘The colonel gets to ride you and I get to follow in the ranks looking at your tail-swishing rump. Now, is there any justice in the world? Move yourself, girl, or there’s no apple for you t’day.’

  The mare snickered and nuzzled his pocket.

  Further back in the darkened area of another stall, Edward Radcliffe waited as a groom saddled a chestnut gelding for him. As the lad tightened the girth, Edward looked across the horse’s withers to his friend. Older by several years, Lawrence Baxter waited patiently for the horses to be readied.

  ‘You steal apples from the kitchen do you, Flynn?’ said Baxter.

  The stall cleaner never broke the rhythm of his task, the pronged fork swishing and gathering. ‘That I do, lieutenant. She’s a demanding mare, is she not? Like all beautiful women.’

  ‘And my father condones such thievery? It’s a disciplinary offence.’

  ‘Aye, that it is, sir. But I think the colonel has a bit of a problem with his left eye. Doesn’t focus too well since he took that knock to his noggin in India.’

  The groom led Edward’s horse along the cobbled passage.

  ‘There’s a wager to be had today is there, lieutenant?’ Flynn dared to ask.

  ‘You’re a cheeky blighter, Flynn. I don’t know how you’ve kept the colonel’s favour over these years. It’s against Queen’s Regs for officers to gamble with other ranks. You know that.’

  Flynn bowed his head in acknowledgement. ‘But you’re off duty, sir, not so?’

  Baxter smiled at Edward. ‘You’d care for a sixpenny bet?’

  ‘I would, sir,’ Flynn answered. ‘The colonel grants me the privilege of looking after his horse because he knows there’s no one in the regiment who loves her more dearly than his good self. I’ll take sixpence on Mr Radcliffe, thank you kindly, lieutenant.’

  Edward couldn’t help the guffaw that escaped from his lips but quickly set his jaw to a more serious expression when Lawrence Baxter glared at him in mock severity.

  ‘You believe Master Radcliffe has the better horse today, Flynn?’ Baxter asked.

  Flynn ceased his efforts and kicked the congealed horse shit from his boots. ‘It’s not the horse, Mr Baxter, sir.’ His smile pushed the boundary of what, in the British Army, could be considered dumb insolence. Another offence and one that could have sentenced him to full pack drill at 160 paces a minute on the parade square that was still echoing with the RSM’s booming commands. But not with young Mr Baxter. He wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill junior officer. He was strict, there was no doubt about that, but the colonel’s son hadn’t yet been blooded. He was new to the regiment, still finding his way, and the colonel was a wise old bastard, as far as Private Gerald Flynn was concerned. The Old Man must have taken the lad aside, told him to learn the ways of the scum that would be at his side with a twelve-inch shaft of wicked steel on the end of their rifles. And that learning was still going on. Lieutenant Lawrence Baxter was still wet behind the ears. And that gave Flynn some leeway until the day came when he overstepped the mark and took the punishment that would surely be deserved.

  Baxter took the reins of his horse from the groom. ‘I shall have the pleasure of seeing you forfeit your wager, Flynn. Sixpence will deprive you of ale and a whore from Harcourt Street, and give me the pleasure of knowing it.’

  The sergeant’s voice carried from the square. ‘Mulraney! Your mother must have been standing on Ha’penny Bridge when she dropped you out of her belly on to your numbskull! Extra guard duty over Christmas, you bloody heathen.’

  Flynn eased back into the stall. Out of sight was out of mind if extra duties were being handed out, and those with stripes on their arms knew Flynn to be a malingerer. Baxter and Edward eased the horses down the cobbled passage. They waited as the company was turned and marched to the far side of the square. To Edward’s eye their steady pace and perfect turns made them look to be the best soldiers in the world.

  ‘I wish I was going with you to South Africa,’ he said.

  ‘To fight a bunch of farmers?’ Baxter replied, his hand fussing his horse’s bridle.

  Any thoughts of heroic deeds were deflated by his friend’s unenthusiastic response. ‘There are more than fifty thousand of them, Lawrence. They slaughtered five hundred of Hart’s Brigade at Colenso last week!’

  ‘And that was the only black week we shall have. Hart’s a courageous man but he was a fool, he committed his men badly. Trust me, Edward, the country’s so vast it’ll swallow those fifty thousand like ants in a desert. It’s a fool’s war, and I fear we will be too late to see any action at all.’

  ‘Still... it’s an adventure,’ Edward said hopefully.

  Baxter gathered the reins. ‘There’ll be greater battles than this. Give it another couple of years, finish your schooling and then ask your father to use his influence to get you into the Royal Irish.’

  ‘My father would never use his influence.’

  ‘Then when the time comes I will ask mine to use his. We’ll serve together. Brothers in arms. How about that?’

  *

  Outside the gates two soldiers stood on guard duty, their eyes glancing back and forth across the busy street traders and beggars. Swa
rms of children worked the streets, selling whatever they could. Orphans mostly, or children whose parents were serving time in prison. Dishevelled and malnourished, they’d take whatever they could get to survive another day in the fetid tenements. The sentries knew that Fenian terrorists could infiltrate street crowds like these with ease. A muzzled black bear reared on to its hind legs as a street entertainer tapped it with his cane – a flicking, stinging hit, a foretaste of the bear’s usual beating back in its cage. The man held the chain that ran through the ring in the creature’s nose while a ragamuffin boy went among the crowd collecting whatever donation could be prised from the gawping onlookers. The entertainer flicked his cane, and the bear danced awkwardly as it tried to stay balanced on its rear legs. Failing to do so would bring another painful blow. A ripple of applause and gasps of appreciation loosened the onlookers’ purse strings. At each tortured trick the crowd clapped and cheered until the sound of their enthusiasm was drowned out by the clattering rhythm of iron-shod horses.

  The cavalry troop yielded for no one, forcing the crowd and the dancing bear to move aside. The officer who led them, Captain Claude Belmont, looked neither right nor left as he ploughed his horse through the protesting crowd without breaking formation, leading two columns of men abreast behind him. By the time they had passed the sentries and ridden into the garrison, and the great doors had swung closed behind them, the civilians had filtered away, spitting out a curse here and there for the arrogant Englishmen.

  The showman tugged and tormented the abused beast to another, more profitable location.

  *

  The sudden flurry of the cavalrymen’s arrival stopped Edward and Lawrence from leaving the stables. As Belmont and his troops dismounted Edward held his breath. The jangle of bridles and the creaking of leather mingled with the rattle of sabres and scabbards seemed to make the men bristle with menace. Belmont dismounted lithely, his muscled body showing no sign of fatigue from what must have been a long ride. His weather-beaten face sported a moustache in compliance with army regulations for all officers these past three years, but unlike the majority who prided themselves on trimmed whiskers, Belmont let his grow thick, a confident rejection of the more effete look of some junior officers. He brushed off any gibes about it by saying that he followed the sentiments of the chief of staff, Lord Kitchener, in both facial hair and robust use of force against an enemy.