The Last Horseman

by David Gilman

  Lawrence Baxter raised his hand, turned to Edward and whispered, ‘Wait a moment until they’ve all dismounted. I don’t want to be drawn into any explanations as to why I am out of uniform and with you.’

  Edward deferred to his friend’s request and waited quietly. Belmont was half in shadow and gazed down the length of the dimly lit stables. For a chilling moment Edward felt his eyes settle upon them, but then, as if their presence was of no importance, Belmont turned back and strode towards the officers’ mess. The cavalry sergeant shouted commands and troopers led in their mounts. Lawrence Baxter let out a sigh of relief. And for the first time Edward sensed his friend’s apprehension, his anxiety at the close proximity of the hardened soldiers. Edward, though, felt a ripple of excitement. He could imagine these men galloping knee to knee in extended formation against a formidable enemy and careering through their lines, sabres swishing and slashing. As he led his horse out on to the parade ground not one of the troopers gave the two young men a second glance. They didn’t have to. One dismissive look was enough to make Edward feel that he meant less to the cavalrymen than a fly swished by a horse’s tail. The vast parade ground had been suddenly vanquished by these bold men and he was glad to ride through the gates towards the open hills that lay beyond – as the mixture of trepidation and admiration mingled with an inexplicable fizz of excitement.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A few miles north of the city Joseph Radcliffe stood in front of a gravestone. By the time he had left the house to ride out to the small hillside country cemetery, Dermot McCann was already buried in an unmarked grave within the prison walls. But it did not take the execution of a man to remind Radcliffe of his own loss, and each week, at this time, he would make the journey to stand before this grave. The words he uttered were always inaudible, but the guilt he felt must, he thought, be apparent to all. There were few among his friends and associates who knew of his personal tragedy, and this weekly act of remembrance on the windswept hill allowed him sufficient privacy to shed his tears. It was an indulgence he always vowed to resist, but the loss he felt continued to torment him.

  A shout, a whoop, the sound of hooves broke into his reverie. The folding hills and scattered woodlands obscured the riders whose voices he heard in the distance. With a few strides he cleared the low overhang that sheltered the grave so he could look out over the stretch of valley below. Two riders came in at the gallop, young men hunched low across their horses, arms moving rhythmically, urging their lathered horses on, neither using a whip. Recognizing them he almost called out, an arm already raised, his hat gripped ready to signal his presence. But he faltered and stayed silent, watching Edward lead his friend by at least half a length. The joy of seeing his son ride so beautifully, in perfect harmony with the horse, made him wish his wife could share the moment. Regret squeezed his heart, and he kept silent and let the riders disappear from view. With a final glance at the grave he walked back to where his horse munched lazily on the sweet grass that grew free of the frost beneath the hedgerows where brambles and thorns encircled the field that held the dead. No harm could befall them ever again.

  *

  It was a day to rid himself of the stain of the previous night’s killing and he had agreed to ride out to meet his friend Lieutenant Colonel Alex Baxter. An hour later his horse clattered across the cobbled courtyard of an Irish landowner, Thomas Kingsley, a man whose roguish charm concealed secrets of value to both the British Army and the Irish Nationalists. But no one could determine on whose side his true allegiance lay. The horse-breeder could sell a donkey to a monkey and enter it as a three-year-old thoroughbred filly in the mile-long Irish Oaks race. And what’s more he could no doubt fix the race so the donkey and its chattering jockey would win.

  Radcliffe saw Kingsley and Baxter standing at the far side of the stable yard where a groom held an unsaddled horse’s halter. Baxter was a lean man, a regular army officer all his life, one of the few in the officer corps who was not from the aristocracy. He took a serious approach to his manner of command, and the discipline he embedded in his soldiers created loyalty that reflected a lifetime of fair treatment. His concern for his troops’ welfare had engendered respect in return, and a willingness to follow him into battle, often against savage odds. It was a foolish recruit who took the man’s slight physique as an indication of his character. Baxter would punish offenders as strictly as he would show compassion for genuine hardship, which is why Radcliffe and Baxter found common ground and shared their distaste for useless loss of life. Those who knew war despised it for what it was. But such sentiments could blight an officer’s career, which was, perhaps, why the forty-eight-year-old Baxter had remained a lieutenant colonel and had neither found favour from the general staff nor been invited to join them. Not, Radcliffe thought, that his friend would wish to do so. Field officers were a breed unto themselves.

  The two men were deep in conversation and their somewhat furtive glance towards him made Radcliffe wonder if he was intruding on a personal exchange. A stable lad ran forward and took Radcliffe’s reins. He slipped a coin into the boy’s grubby hand.

  ‘Mr Radcliffe, you’ll not be spoiling my lads again, I trust. They’ll be pressing me for higher wages,’ Kingsley said. What-ever they had been discussing had been quickly put aside on Radcliffe’s approach.

  Radcliffe shook Kingsley’s extended hand, and then took his friend’s. ‘Kingsley. Alex. I’m sorry I’m late.’

  Kingsley’s skin was as rough as a farrier’s file and a half-closed eye showed the scar from eyebrow to cheekbone that some said came from a knife fight in his youth. Others knew, or so they claimed, that it was the result of a drunken assault on a prostitute who broke a chamber pot across his head and laid him low, so that he dashed his head on the whore’s metal bed frame. Either way it gave the big man an appearance of someone who could cause violence – despite all his lilting charm.

  ‘We Irish landowners like to keep in step with our English cousins. Modest wages keep a man temperate in his desires.’

  ‘But intemperate in his despair,’ Radcliffe answered.

  ‘Quite so, quite so. Now, you’ll be staying and having a drink when the colonel here and I have completed the business at hand?’

  ‘No, thank you. I’ve work to do,’ replied Radcliffe.

  Kingsley grunted. ‘One of the Fenian bastards was hanged last night then? Did he squeal? Most of those murdering scum do when it comes to it. They shit their pants and cry for their mothers.’

  ‘You think there’s any dignity in dying like that?’ challenged Radcliffe.

  ‘Ah, come on now, you’ve been a soldier, we’re all meat on bone. No one dies with dignity. Better for us all if we rid society of murderous scum and be done with it.’

  Radcliffe and Baxter exchanged a brief glance. Was it worth engaging the bluff Irishman in argument?

  Kingsley hesitated a moment and then added thoughtfully, ‘And this other fella they’re hanging, O’Hagan, wouldn’t be much older than your own son, would he?’

  ‘I have made an appeal for clemency,’ Radcliffe told him.

  ‘There’s a chance the murdering little shite will get off?’

  ‘He’s a boy,’ said Radcliffe.

  ‘Didn’t a decent man die at their hands!’ Kingsley blustered; then he turned and spat on to the cobbles.

  ‘He’s a boy,’ Radcliffe repeated evenly.

  Baxter could see the rancour would soon escalate and interrupted. ‘Joseph, as you know I want to buy horses for the campaign. I’ve not yet made any decisions, but this one seems to be a beauty,’ he said, turning to the horse.

  Most of the British horses were supplied by the Irish and this gelding looked to be a fine example. Radcliffe nodded to the groom, who walked the horse around the yard. Radcliffe’s eyes studied the horse’s gait and watched as it shifted its weight.

  ‘He’s taken a fall at some time; he’ll weaken under you, Alex.’

  ‘And wasn’t I about to tell Colonel B
axter that myself,’ Kingsley said with a smile.

  Baxter extended his hand to Radcliffe. It was a gesture of silent thanks. ‘Then we’ll talk again, Kingsley, I’m sure I’ll find what I want in your stables,’ he said, and added, ‘with due care and consideration, when I have more time.’

  Kingsley gestured for a stable lad to bring Baxter’s horse across the yard.

  ‘And I’ll be sure to have your best interests at heart, colonel.’

  ‘And at a price that befits the quality of the horse,’ Baxter answered. He turned to Radcliffe. ‘You’ll ride back with me?’

  ‘Not today, Alex,’ Radcliffe answered without further explanation.

  Baxter eased into the saddle and gathered the reins. ‘You and Mr Pierce will be at the regimental dinner? I expect you.’

  Radcliffe didn’t answer. Baxter was aware of his reluctance. ‘No excuses, Joseph.’ He pressed his heels into the horse’s flanks and nodded his farewell.

  Kingsley walked across the yard with Radcliffe and held the bridle as Radcliffe pulled himself into the saddle. ‘You’re a strange fish, Radcliffe. A widow man from America with a black fella for a secretary and a son who rides like the devil’s burning his arse while his daddy defends murdering Fenians. We get some strange people in these parts. A man has to ask himself if much good would come from it.’ He released his grip. ‘Be careful how you go.’

  Radcliffe wondered if the benign comment was a threat. He eased the horse forward and knew, without looking back, that the man would watch him depart until he was out of sight.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Benjamin Pierce sat at a fine old oak desk mellowed to a warm honey patina from a hundred years of use. Radcliffe had bought it at some expense when they first arrived in Dublin. How long ago had that been? Damned near half his life if he remembered correctly. He and Radcliffe were still young men when they turned their backs on a war against the American Plains Indians and searched out a new life. A year in London had given Radcliffe the qualifications to practise law and they would have stayed in that cosmopolitan city had Radcliffe not met a woman there who seized his heart. Kathleen was beautiful, Pierce had to admit that. He had argued with his friend that London offered them more opportunity. That and more. It was the British who had abolished the slave trade and, being a black man, Pierce drew fewer stares in London than when they first arrived in Dublin. But Radcliffe followed his heart and Pierce, as always, followed his friend.

  The scratches and chipped corners devalued the oak desk in the eyes of the auctioneer but Radcliffe had bought it anyway, paying too much and ignoring Pierce’s admonishments that he was a damned fool. They had little money to set up the practice, let alone for squandering on a desk big enough to sleep on. But within a year that broad expanse of sawn, hand-polished oak was covered in documents tied with red ribbon. Injustice knew no boundaries and Radcliffe took the cases that were most pressing, and which usually offered little payment, if any at all. Landowners and shopkeepers were charged more to fund the truly needy. But, now that he had defended Fenians, clients had drifted away. It was only by good fortune that they had paid their rent on the townhouse six months in advance. Pierce and Radcliffe had once endured the harsh life of soldiering but the chill that hung forever in the Irish house, and the sky that seemed constantly grey and frequently deluged them, made the house unwelcoming and cold. As the months had gone by they determined to save money, and in order to pay the coal merchant’s account they burned only one fire in the drawing room, and the other in Radcliffe’s study.

  Pierce’s fingers protruded through woollen mittens as he held the document; it was Radcliffe’s appeal for clemency for the young Daniel Fitzpatrick O’Hagan. Its articulate request for mercy had to break through a judicial system renowned for its harsh penalties for crimes against the Crown.

  A door slammed below. There was no need for Pierce to move to the window, he knew it was their housekeeper punctuating her resignation with a bang. And who could blame her? The daubed front door bore a message of hate: Death to the Finians.

  Pierce understood hatred, but having been educated by a God-fearing Presbyterian abolitionist he did not appreciate an incorrectly spelled death threat.

  *

  Cell D1 was on the ground floor at the end of D wing; the hang house was immediately across the landing. So short a distance between life and death. The condemned cell had once been two cells until it was knocked into one but offered no comfort despite there being a fireplace at each end. Two guards sat at their posts, part of a rotating eight-hour shift, ever watchful so that the condemned could not commit suicide – and cheat society of its revenge. It was their duty to report anything said by the prisoner to the governor but Daniel O’Hagan had not spoken since they had moved him there. His mind had gone blank, lost in the silence of crippling fear. He could not even remember the Our Father. But the Catholic chaplain would come when it was time and confession would be heard, and then the two guards would move to the far side of the cell, and catch only the numb whispering of a boy unable to imagine his own death was now upon him.

  *

  The prison governor’s office had the same cream-painted bricks as the rest of the prison. The small ornate fireplace glowed with a meagre heap of coal and the sparseness of the room reflected the man’s austere attitude to personal comfort and anything not entirely essential. No feminine touches, no softening of the stark lines – no rug on the floor, no cushions on the two hard-seated chairs that visitors were obliged to use. The governor had no wish to encourage outsiders to stay long.

  Radcliffe could barely contain his anger. The frock-coated and bewhiskered Governor Havelock had barely responded to the American’s impassioned plea that O’Hagan be returned to the juvenile wing of the prison.

  ‘You have no right to place him in the condemned cell. His sentence is under appeal.’

  The governor was known to be a fair-minded but unyielding man. ‘He is under sentence of death.’

  ‘But the lad shouldn’t be put in there. It’s for those men who are to be hanged within days.’

  Havelock showed no sign of displeasure or irritation; Radcliffe’s well-intentioned plea was reasonable. ‘His stay of execution has already given him extra time. I will have the matter in hand; I will not allow any last-minute bundling with a condemned man. It’s a stay, Mr Radcliffe, not a reprieve. We’re not inhumane. Do I make myself clear?’ the governor said, not unkindly.

  Radcliffe’s sense of standing alone against the might of British bureaucracy had, he realized, allowed his emotions to get the better of him. He lowered his voice. It was important not to antagonize a man who could deny him access to the condemned boy.

  ‘I apologize, governor. I too seek only the best for O’Hagan’s welfare.’

  ‘I understand your concern, Mr Radcliffe, as I hope you will appreciate mine.’ He straightened a square nib pen, and tweaked the angle of his blotter pad. ‘Very well. You shall see the boy.’

  *

  Radcliffe was escorted through the prison, past the sweeping curved iron staircase that brought prisoners down from the three upper tiers of cells. Each cell had a bucket for a toilet which the prisoners would empty each day. This ‘slopping out’, as the prisoners called it, added to the ever-present stench of urine and excrement that mingled with the clinging odour of carbolic disinfectant. Radcliffe’s escort ushered him through the corridor of D Wing, opening the red door that led to the condemned cell.

  Daniel O’Hagan was not a bright lad and Radcliffe was under no illusion as to how easy it had been for Dermot McCann to dupe him into hiding their weapons.

  ‘I don’t think they can hang me for somethin’ I didn’ do,’ he said, hunching his body across the table, as close to Radcliffe as the guards would allow.

  ‘You were there when McCann killed the police officer. An Irishman like yourself,’ Radcliffe said.

  ‘I didn’ pull the trigger or nuthin’,’ the boy answered. ‘Honest to God, as He is my witness,
I didn’. McCann shot the poor fella and then put a bullet in his head for good measure. Take this, Daniel, he said, take this and hide it in your lodging. So I did. I took the revolver and hid it. That’s all I done, honest, Mr Radcliffe.’

  O’Hagan glanced over his shoulder at the door that led to the hangman’s rope. ‘I’m so scared, sir. I look at that door every minute of the day and I wish I were a blind beggar who could see nuthin’.’

  O’Hagan reached out for the tin cup of water that stood on the table between himself and Radcliffe. The boy glanced at one of his guards who nodded his permission. O’Hagan needed two hands to steady the cup to his lips. Water spilled. Radcliffe reached out without permission and steadied the lad’s trembling. He swallowed what water there was.

  ‘Jesus, I’ve a thirst on me,’ he muttered. He couldn’t keep the desperation from his voice. ‘They can’t do it, Mr Radcliffe... it’s not right.’

  Radcliffe would never give up hope, but truth could have a way of strangling a man’s faith. ‘You were an accomplice in a cold-blooded murder. Do you not understand that?’ he said quietly.

  For a moment it seemed a glimmer of reality had seeped into the boy’s dull mind. There was a jangle of keys and Radcliffe’s escort stood ready at the door. Radcliffe reached out and touched the boy’s shoulder. O’Hagan’s eyes stared down at the table, his hands palm down on the scrubbed surface.

  As Radcliffe stepped away the boy raised his head and said with genuine affection, ‘Mr Radcliffe, sir, happy Christmas to you and yours.’