The Last Horseman

by David Gilman

  *

  Radcliffe stood over his desk, searching the trial notes for anything he might have missed in his defence of the sixteen-year-old. It was a fruitless search and he knew it.

  Pierce folded a sheet of paper from the desk and wedged it between the sash and its frame to stop the window’s constant rattling. The wind had veered from the south-east; black clouds tumbled across Dublin roofs. Rain began to splatter against the glass.

  ‘We’ll need a bucket upstairs again for that damned roof,’ he said.

  Edward was slumped in a chair by the dull embers of the coal fire. There was a question he had to ask his father and Pierce had already given his own opinion on what the answer would be.

  ‘Mrs Dalton left. She didn’t even hand in her notice,’ Pierce said.

  ‘We’ll get another housekeeper,’ Radcliffe answered.

  ‘That’s three this year,’ Edward said.

  ‘Cook’s still here, so we won’t starve,’ Pierce said, ‘at least for another couple of days. Says she can’t take the unpleasantness any longer. Good news is I’m interviewing another woman tomorrow. She cooks and keeps house, so that will save on one salary. She’d heard we needed someone. Times are hard so these women don’t waste time. She banged so damned hard on the door I thought it was the bailiffs. Her name’s Mrs Lachlan and she has a face like a bulldog that’s just sat on a thorn bush.’

  ‘If she gets past you then that’s good enough,’ said Radcliffe.

  Pierce shrugged. ‘Said she thought I’d been touched by the sun. Don’t know whether she was referring to my state of mind or the colour of my skin. Either way she got it right, I reckon.’

  He fingered one sheet of paper from the many on the desk. He handed it to Radcliffe. ‘There is another letter from the Charteris woman at the South African Women and Children’s Distress Fund.’

  Radcliffe took it from him and glanced at it.

  ‘How are we to get anyone to work here when you defend the Fenians?’ Edward asked.

  ‘Due process of law takes precedence over bigoted housekeepers,’ Radcliffe answered, keeping his attention on the begging letter from an Englishwoman in South Africa who was asking for help in her ongoing endeavours to help Boer women and children during the conflict. ‘How do these people hear about me?’ Radcliffe asked Pierce, who plucked the letter from his hand.

  ‘Newspapers, where else?’ Pierce said.

  ‘The papers say you’re against this war,’ Edward said.

  ‘Some of the papers say I’m against it,’ Radcliffe told him, and gently pushed the boy’s legs from straddling the chair’s arms.’

  ‘But you support this distress fund,’ said Edward.

  ‘British women helping other women and their children in a war that shouldn’t be hurting them. You think that’s unpatriotic?’ Radcliffe said to his son. He gestured to the letter in Pierce’s hand. ‘Get it off to any newspaper who might print it.’

  ‘But still,’ said Edward, in a vain attempt to show his father that he was mature enough to take a keen interest in world affairs, ‘the Boers declared war on us.’

  Radcliffe poured himself a small glass of sherry, and offered the decanter to Pierce, who shook his head.

  ‘Not the brightest of moves I’ll grant you – not that I think they had much choice. Bankers, financiers and underhand politicians have caused this war. Best you remember that. This is how empires are made, son, and fortunes.’ He threw a few pieces of kindling on the embers and watched as their smouldering veil created less of a smokescreen than Edward’s seeming interest in politics. He pre-empted his son’s expected question. ‘And while I’m busy upsetting the world in general, I might as well tell you that you’re not riding in the race,’ he said.

  Pierce gave Edward a look that barely managed to conceal a smile of I told you so. ‘I got my own cross to bear,’ Pierce said and left the room before Edward could ask for his support.

  ‘It’s a hundred guineas prize money!’ Edward said, exasperated that the subject had ended before he had even asked the question.

  ‘And every man who thinks it easy money will be riding,’ Radcliffe answered.

  ‘Lawrence Baxter says I can have one of his horses.’

  ‘Son, you’re a good rider, in fact you’re one of the best –’

  ‘Then let me try,’ Edward interrupted.

  Radcliffe shook his head and sipped the sherry. ‘No. The race is brutal on man and horse. And you’re not riding. There’s the end to it: don’t ask me again.’

  Edward was on his feet. ‘You’ve done far more dangerous things,’ he pleaded.

  Radcliffe watched as the wood finally caught and flickered into flame. ‘And I promised your mother I’d see that you didn’t.’

  ‘I can do this!’

  ‘No you can’t! I’m not doubting you’re tough enough but these men have the taste for violence.’

  ‘I can hold my own,’ Edward said in a final attempt to convince his father.

  Radcliffe held his gaze, and said with quiet authority: ‘No.’

  It was an impasse. The raw energy of a boy colliding with the entrenched love and concern of a parent. Edward fought back the words that he knew could wound his father. Without any further attempt to persuade him, he left the room.

  Radcliffe knew only too well what drove the boy. Wearily he went back to his desk and began to look through the various letters and documents, laid out next to the accounts-to-be-paid, all neatly ordered from Pierce’s soldierly administration. Radcliffe was about to tease out one of the more interesting pieces of correspondence in a vain attempt to lift his sense of despair when he heard a crash from the room above.

  *

  He pushed open the attic door and saw Pierce picking himself up. A steamer trunk that used to be on top of the old wardrobe lay on the floor, its lid now open. To one side of the room an enamelled bucket caught an incessant drip.

  ‘This is a stupid idea,’ Pierce said.

  ‘You should have asked for help,’ Radcliffe told him as he dragged the heavy trunk into the middle of the room.

  ‘I don’t mean me busting a gut,’ Pierce said and pulled out two neatly folded Union Army uniforms. Pierce let the folds drop free and passed it to his friend.

  ‘I’ve had worse ideas, I guess,’ Radcliffe said, holding the uniform against his chest and trying to see how it looked in the mottled mirror of the wardrobe door.

  ‘Not in the damned near thirty years I’ve known you,’ Pierce answered.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’ve had a few.’

  ‘They were only stupid ideas ’cause you could’ve got us killed; this is a dumb idea ’cause you’re gonna make us look like idiots. I’m not a kid any more and neither are you.’ Pierce tried to button his uniform jacket, but too many years had passed since the last time they were worn. Radcliffe sucked in his midriff.

  ‘I reckon I could manage.’

  ‘Cinderella’s sisters had a better chance of squeezing their ass into the glass slipper,’ Pierce told him disdainfully and threw his jacket back into the trunk.

  ‘So we don’t go,’ Radcliffe said, surrendering to the inevitable.

  ‘And insult them? This invitation is a damn privilege and we have got to go now you’ve gone and gotten us all signed up for it! You’d better go and see O’Rourke.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The tailor. He owes you. Damn. Never could abide regimental shindigs in my own army let alone anyone else’s.’

  Radcliffe folded the jacket. ‘You know, you are becoming a cantankerous man of indeterminate age.’

  ‘If I saw the sun once in a blue moon I’d be happier.’ Pierce pulled a dusty old chamber pot from among the attic’s detritus and settled it beneath a new drip. ‘And another thing – let the boy ride.’

  ‘Don’t you two gang up on me,’ Radcliffe said.

  ‘You had him in the saddle before he could walk!’

  ‘And she gave me hell for it!’

  Pierce
took a deep breath. Their friendship had often led them into disagreement, and when it came to Radcliffe’s family Pierce was often the peacemaker. ‘He’s a young man – he wants to show you, for God’s sake. Don’t smother him, Joseph. Damned if the world won’t do that soon enough.’

  Radcliffe stubbornly refused to be drawn. ‘It’s not up for discussion, Ben.’

  Pierce fingered the gold braid on the dress uniform and then tossed it aside. ‘And how long do you think either of us can keep the lie going about his mother?’ he said carefully.

  It was a question that had been discussed on rare occasions, but one that would never be satisfactorily answered.

  ‘As long as it takes,’ Radcliffe acknowledged. ‘I don’t know is the answer. Maybe I’ll be dead when he eventually finds out the truth.’

  They fell silent. Pierce picked up the old blue uniform. It would be fruitless to keep worrying the emotional wound that Radcliffe bore. He sighed. ‘Maybe I’ll die of embarrassment at this damned ball and that’ll save me from ever explaining myself.’

  *

  Three nights later, as the light rain filtered through the gas lamps’ yellowing haze, a roughly dressed man made his way through the streets of tenements. He made no attempt to pull the collar of his near threadbare coat tighter. The dribble of rain would run down his neck no matter what he did. Being poor meant being hardy, but being poor and under the British heel was worse than being buried alive as far as Cavan Leahy was concerned.

  He took pains to evade the policemen who were obliged to patrol the streets, their lives as much at risk now as they ever had been over a hundred years of violence from cut-throats and those with a plain hatred for authority. Gas lamps gave poor illumination in the mist-laden thoroughfares where rain could obscure the feeble light from a policeman’s bull’s-eye lantern. They made the rounds of the main streets each night from nine o’clock. By eleven, when the public houses closed and the horse-drawn omnibuses no longer ran, the streets would usually fall into an eerie silence. As he skirted the streets where the policemen walked Leahy thankfully acknowledged that the Fenians knew where the police would be. Each constable carried a book that instructed him what route his particular beat should take. There were enough patriots in the force to pass on such information.

  Within the half-hour he was alone in a room in one of the slum houses. Each room he had passed along the corridor was no bigger than ten feet wide and twelve feet long yet gave shelter to half a dozen people, adults and children sharing the tenement in rank squalor. The sour stench of boiled cabbage and potatoes mingled with the sickening odour from the vacant room that everyone used as a toilet. Leahy sat at a ramshackle table dipping a crust of rock-hard bread into watery gruel. Within reach was a stolen British Army Webley .45 revolver. Despite the fact that the frugal meal was his only one that day he hurried it down and tossed the tin plate on to the floor. There were more pressing things to do than eat. Lying next to the revolver were half a dozen sticks of dynamite. Leahy retrieved the stub of a hand-rolled cigarette, lit it and let it smoulder in his lips. There was nothing else on the table except what dregs remained in the half-bottle of Irish whiskey.

  A footfall on the stairs made him snatch the revolver and thumb back its hammer. The door opened, and another man halted, a hand quickly raised to shield himself. ‘Jesus, Cavan!’ the man – Pat Malone – said. Heavy-set, he loomed over the frail-looking Leahy.

  Leahy lowered the gun as Malone thumped down a coil of detonation fuse.

  ‘Stupid bastard. Ya scared the shit outa me,’ said Malone. ‘I thought you wasn’t here till later. Is this the stuff you wanted?’

  The dynamiter grinned at Malone, snatching at the gift. He quickly cut a piece and touched the end of the damp cigarette to it, tossing the short piece of fuse on to the floor. It burned rapidly. He nodded in satisfaction. Fast-burning detonation fuse was exactly what he had asked for.

  Malone drained the bottle as Leahy watched him. He swallowed the liquor and dragged a cuff across his mouth. It would have made no difference had it been a full bottle; it would still not have been enough to quell his fear. There hadn’t been a serious and sustained attack by the Irish Republican Brotherhood for thirty years. Time to make amends. He lowered his voice. ‘Regimental officers and a company to guard the garrison. Replacement battalion’s not off the boats yet. The fog’s settling in and will stay for the next couple of days. We’ll have ’em like rats in a sack. It’s now or never. Tomorrow night. The others are ready.’

  ‘You’re certain we can reach the armoury? Your informer can be trusted?’ Leahy asked.

  ‘Aye. Like the Bank of England.’

  *

  The brothel consisted of the two floors above the small music hall. It was a place where the common soldier was banned. Men who traded on the black market and dealt with cash mingled with junior officers and those who aspired to positions of power in government. For many British rule was profitable and although their hearts were passionate for self-governance, business went on as normal and the music hall and whorehouse was a good place to conduct it. Thirty-odd years earlier Nellie Clifden had seduced the Prince of Wales when he served with the Grenadier Guards at Curragh Camp. Young officers and prostitutes. What was new in the world?

  To the muted thumping of girls stamping their boots on the small wooden stage, accompanied by a fiddle player and a piano, Sheenagh O’Connor clattered her way down the bare wooden stairs from her draughty attic room. Like many of the other prostitutes she had been a country girl who had fallen on hard times and was left with no choice but to strike out for Dublin and earn whatever she could by whatever means possible. Poverty tore away what decency had been beaten into her as a child. An illiterate but pretty eighteen-year-old, she soon learned that a smile and a willingness brought in more money than selling flowers on Sackville Street or at the gates of Phoenix Park. Local women set up brothels and enticed country girls like Sheenagh with a room and a meal; and Mrs Sullivan’s establishment, down here in the Monto district, Gloucester Road, was a favourite for those officers stationed in the various barracks around Dublin. For three years she had plied her trade under Mrs Sullivan’s roof and learned enough to make better use of what she saw and heard.

  Whores were as invisible as servants to most of these young smart officer fellows, and they assumed idle chat about who was doing what and where meant nothing to the girl they fondled while the music played and the sour whiskey loosened tongues into indiscretions. But information was worth something to the foolhardy and desperate men caught up in their own subversive plans for some kind of utopia. Let them have the gossip, let them be the fools they were; sooner or later enough of them would find that utopia lay at the end of a rope.

  Yet Sheenagh knew that she had strayed into dangerous territory and if anyone blabbed then she’d be the one facing the hangman’s noose or a Fenian’s knife. A man had paid her – a man who had been more than generous in the past – and whispered what it was he needed her to say to the ‘dynamiters and boys with the guns’. She’d gambled that those desperate men would never be caught when they attacked the garrison. More fool her. Sooner or later one side or the other would trace the information back to a common whore. Time to make a run for it, she had told herself after a cold night of regret counting her money, shoving as many clothes and shoes as she could into a carpet bag. The Royal Irish were shipping out, and so would she.

  ‘Sheenagh!’ one of the girls called down the stairs after her. ‘Where the devil d’ya think ya goin’? Get yourself back up here before Mrs Sullivan finds out. She’ll set her lads on ya.’

  Sheenagh turned to her friend. ‘No money to be made here, Kath. The soldiers is where it’s at and they’re all going far from home.’

  The girl looked nervously over her shoulder: the music and singing would only muffle their voices for a while longer. ‘You’re not goin’ to bloody Africa? Sheenagh, they’re feckin’ heathens out there.’

  But her friend was through
the back door and gone.

  ‘Sheenagh!’

  The music stopped; the applause and cheers rose up the staircase. Kathleen O’Riordan had a night’s work ahead of her, but in the instant of seeing her friend escape she wondered where she’d got the kind of money needed for a steamer ticket.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  In the officers’ quarters of the Royal Barracks the cavalry men’s rooms were spartan but comfortable enough. The wooden floors and panelled walls barely reflected the light from the oil lamp on the small table by the window that overlooked the parade ground. Beside the single cot where Claude Belmont’s mess dress of the 21st Dragoons was laid out, a pair of polished riding boots stood next to the wall hook from which a cavalry sabre hung in its scabbard. Upside down on the floor lay a gleaming saddle, its leather buffed to a rich sheen. Behind it, standing rigidly to attention, was an orderly, thumbs pressed down the seams of his trousers, chin slightly raised, ensuring his eyes did not fall on Belmont’s face. Belmont, half-dressed, braces over undershirt, sipped brandy from a silver hip flask. Moments earlier he had thrown the saddle to the floor. He looked at the orderly. Sweat stains marked his armpits; his hair spiked at the crown of his head from an army barber’s shears. There was no doubt in Belmont’s mind that the rank and file, with their lack of ambition or desire to improve their lot in life, were worth little more than peasant labour.

  ‘Not good enough. Clean it again,’ he said without looking at the wretched private soldier.

  For the third time that night the man bent and lugged the captain’s saddle away to be cleaned to a higher standard than previously offered. Though he did not know what more he could do. There was no doubt in his mind that officers like Belmont were belligerent simply to exert their status. God willing a Dutchy’s bullet, or a British one, would soon bring such arrogance to an end.

  Belmont took another pull on the flask. The room’s confinement weighed heavily on him. Cavalrymen were not like other soldiers. There was an innate elan that gave men like Belmont dash and daring, and he admitted to himself even his common troopers had it. Many of his men had signed on again after their term of service had ended. Signed on to ride down the enemy and use carbine and sabre to inflict terror upon them.