The Music Makers

by E. V. Thompson

  Eoin Feehan left the private room at the Drum Inn knowing that whatever happened in the Wicklow mountains he was going to be the loser. He contemplated disregarding the baronet’s warning and leaving Dublin. But, as Sir Richard Dudley had reminded him, he would not get far before the soldiers caught up with him.

  Not until later that night, in his straw bed above the stable, did Eoin Feehan remember the look on Kathie McCabe’s face as she put the musket-ball in his knee-cap. He wondered whether it might not be better to risk Sir Richard Dudley’s anger rather than chance meeting with her again.

  Eoin Feehan was called upon to accompany the soldiers in November. He protested that the decision to go into the Wicklow mountains now was madness. The weather had turned bitterly cold and it was beginning to snow intermittently, the small icy flakes blown in from the north-east by a moaning wind. A continuous frost had frozen the ground solid, and in the rough terrain of the Wicklow mountains a man was liable to slip and break his ankle if he took a single careless step.

  Brevet-Major Gordon of the 72nd Highlanders privately agreed with Eoin Feehan. He had been ordered to undertake the operation with one company of his own regiment and a company of militiamen brought south from County Armagh. It gave him two hundred and fifty men in all. This was a much smaller force than the one envisaged by Sir Richard Dudley but, as the Commander-in-Chief had maliciously pointed out, it was the baronet himself who had reduced military expenditure in Ireland. A large-scale operation against a handful of wanted men was difficult to justify. However, the Commander-in-Chief had recently received a plea through a family connection for Brevet-Major Gordon to be confirmed in his rank. Promotion was slow in any peace-time army, but a successful campaign in the Wicklow mountains would enable the promotion to be made without any undue comment.

  Because of his bad limp, Eoin Feehan was allowed to ride on one of the provision-wagons bringing up the rear of the small column. Huddled inside a borrowed army greatcoat, he cursed himself for a fool for ever discussing the McCabes with Jacob Burke.

  The Wicklow mountains began hardly more than an hour’s ride from Dublin, but it would be a full day before the column reached the area where Eoin Feehan believed they might find Dermot McCabe and the men from Kilmar.

  As the exposed road began to rise through the mountains, the weather deteriorated still further. The wind tore out the canvas flap on the wagon where Eoin sat, causing it to flap and crackle noisily. Ahead of the wagon the soldiers marched in increasingly ragged formation, those in the rear slipping and sliding in the snow pressed tight by the feet of their companions.

  The Armagh men, in particular, were resentful of being forced to come out on this ‘fool’s errand’, as they already referred to the expedition. When the column halted for a midday meal, Eoin Feehan learned, to his consternation, that the militiamen blamed him for the operation.

  It was useless for him to argue that he was an unwilling participant. He was an outsider, the odd man out in the column. Without him the militiamen knew they would not be here; therefore it must be his fault. Besides, he was a Catholic, and they were Protestant to a man.

  Eoin Feehan finished his meal alone, scorned by the professional soldiers and resented by the Irishmen from the north.

  Farther on in the mountains, the snow on the road had drifted to a depth of two feet in some places, but the military column succeeded in reaching Rathconard by nightfall on the second day. Here the regular soldiers were accommodated in the half-empty barracks, whilst the grumbling militamen made a cold and draughty camp under canvas at the edge of the town.

  To Eoin Feehan’s great relief, he was found lodgings at an inn. That night he stumbled to bed with his body warmed by whiskey and the tap-room fire, thoughts of the morrow driven from his mind by the heady fumes.

  Early the next morning the soldiers set off to climb the slopes behind Rathconard. It had stopped snowing but cloud clung to the mountains like a wet grey cloak and the wind buffeted the climbing soldiers, hurling tiny needles of frozen snow at their faces.

  It was difficult to recognise snow-covered landmarks in the mist, but Eoin Feehan was able to locate the camp used by the Kilmar men to ambush the soldiers who had tried to take them. From here he was able to lead Brevet-Major Gordon and his men to the first of the alternative camp-sites chosen by the Kilmar men during the time Eoin Feehan was with them.

  The way lay along the mountain ridge. The snow was deeper here, muffling the sound of the two hundred and fifty soldiers who floundered along with an icy wind in their faces.

  Eoin Feehan was limping along ahead of the column with Brevet-Major Gordon and one of his lieutenants, when a sound that might have been a voice was carried to them on the wind from the grey mist ahead. The commanding officer stopped and raised his hand high as a signal for his men to halt, and the lieutenant ran back among them, urging the men to silence.

  With so many men straggling along the length of the ridge it was some minutes before any order could be brought to the column. Then, in the silence, the sound they had heard before was repeated. It was a man’s voice, shouting.

  The captains of the two columns came forward and were given their orders. The soldiers were to load their weapons and advance, one company on either side of the ridge. Brevet-Major Gordon repeated the instructions he had been given when he was briefed for this command. They wanted prisoners. There was to be no shooting unless he gave the order.

  The captains hurried back to their men, weapons were cocked and primed, and Eoin Feehan was told to remain well to the rear of the two companies. There was no place for him in the forthcoming attack.

  Minutes later the soldiers and militia filed past on either side of Eoin Feehan, the experienced Highlanders quietly confident of their abilities, the Armagh militiamen nervously eager.

  Soon Eoin Feehan was standing alone and he shivered, more from apprehension than as a result of the cold. For long, long minutes there was only the booming voice of the wind across the mountains to listen to – then a wild hullabaloo broke loose somewhere in the mist. Eoin Feehan’s head came out of his overcoat much as though he were a tortoise emerging from its shell. The uproar continued and then he heard the flat crack of a musket-shot. After a long nerve-racking silence, the babble of voices swelled on the wind.

  Eoin Feehan suddenly felt alone and very vulnerable. Sliding down the slope to the tracks left by one of the companies of soldiers, he hurried toward the noise ahead.

  It was not long before the colour of uniforms showed through the blanket of cloud, and then Eoin Feehan was among the soldiers. He pushed his way through them until he reached a trampled clearing around which stood a few miserable sod huts with sagging roofs. Before the huts were two groups of ragged shivering cottiers. Women and wide-eyed frightened children in one group, men in the other.

  Between the two, Brevet-Major Gordon kneeled in the snow beside a cottier woman. She had been shot through the lungs. Her thin shawl-covered bosom rose and fell as though she were panting, but when she coughed noisily the snow about her became spattered with blood for a yard around.

  It would only be a matter of seconds before she died. Brevet-Major Gordon rose to his feet and turned angrily on a pale-faced young militiaman standing between two tall Highlanders.

  ‘You young fool! If you can’t handle a musket, you should not be in the militia. It might just as easily have been one of my soldiers you killed.

  ‘Keep him under guard until we return to Dublin,’ he said to the regular soldiers. ‘He will answer for this.’

  To Eoin Feehan, the officer waved an arm in the direction of the angrily sullen cottier men. ‘Do you recognise any of them?’

  ‘I have never seen any one of them before.’

  ‘That is what I thought. We have stumbled upon a group of peasants. Weren’t you aware they were living here?’

  ‘I doubt if they have been here for long. They were probably evicted and came here for shelter.’

  ‘Shelter? There is littl
e of that to be found up here.’ The Highland officer sniffed scornfully. ‘That trigger-happy young militiaman probably did the girl a favour. Another few days and she would have starved to death with the others. However, although that girl is too far gone to be helped, her death will give the others a chance to survive. We will have a cold camp before moving off and these people will be left with enough food to last them at least a week. It will be taken from the militiamen – is that understood, Lieutenant?’

  ‘Leave food for cottiers …?’ The lieutenant had been in Ireland for a long time and had nothing but scorn for these ignorant and dirty peasants.

  ‘That is what I said – and do not stint on the quantity. I will inspect it before we leave.’ To Eoin Feehan, the Brevet-Major said, ‘How far is it to the next camp-site?’

  ‘About two or three hours from here, but it should be easier walking. It lies in a valley, among trees.’

  Brevet-Major Gordon replied with a non-committal grunt. His expedition had got away to a bad start. The death of a cottier was not important, but it had shown up the lack of experience and discipline of the militiamen. This was no parade-ground, where discipline, at least, could be improved.

  Here in the Wicklow mountains, battling with a difficult terrain and atrocious weather, the militia would rapidly become increasingly disgruntled and unruly. He contemplated returning to Rathconard until the weather changed, but he would make no decision before the two companies arrived at the next place where the outlaws might be found.

  This time, fortune was with Brevet-Major Gordon. Following the course of a wide valley, he and his men came out of the cloud less than half a mile from their destination. It was more sheltered here, and from a small copse of trees ahead a thin plume of smoke rose a hundred feet toward the sky before being blasted away by the wind that hurtled across the higher slopes of the surrounding mountains.

  Gordon would not allow himself to become excited. In all probability this was no more than another group of homeless cottiers, but he took no chances and withdrew his command back to the shelter of the low-hanging cloud. Here he detached half his Highlanders and sent them to work their way through the broken rocks of the mountainside to take up a position behind the copse.

  The militiamen were also split and to them fell the task of preventing any escape on either side of the suspected outlaw camp.

  The half-company of the Highland Regiment disappeared in the mist and did not reappear until they made their way swiftly and silently into position across the far end of the valley. Not so the Armagh Militia. Straggling along the mountain slopes they were as often below the cloud as within it, and Brevet-Major Gordon fumed at their disregard for elementary caution. But they gained their positions with no sign of activity from the vicinity of the copse, and the Scots officer became more convinced than ever that it was occupied by cottiers.

  When his own half-company emerged in an extended line from the mist, it was the signal for the other soldiers to close in.

  They succeeded in completely surrounding the small copse before there was a splutter of shots from among the trees and two militiamen fell wounded. Without hesitation, the remainder of the militiamen threw up their muskets and returned the fire. Their musket-balls hummed angrily through the trees and sent leafless twigs spinning to the ground.

  Brevet-Major Gordon raged at the indiscipline of the men from Armagh and despatched a sergeant and half a dozen Highlanders to each half-company of the militia to hold them in check. His orders were to take prisoners, and only his own soldiers could be relied upon to achieve such an objective.

  Four more shots were fired at the soldiers as they advanced, then Brevet-Major Gordon drew his sword and ordered his soldiers to fix bayonets.

  A few minutes later four figures stumbled from the copse. Weaponless, they waved their arms to signify surrender.

  Brevet-Major Gordon’s luck was greater than he realised. The Kilmar men had moved to the valley only that morning, driven down by snow and gale-force winds from a mountain-top camp unknown to Eoin Feehan.

  But the soldiers had captured only half the band. The others had gone to purchase food from a remote farm-house farther down the valley. It was a departure from their usual practice of stealing what they wanted, but the outlaws were desperately short of ammunition. The defenders of the copse had been left with only eight musket-balls and a tiny amount of black powder between them. When these had been used they had little alternative but to surrender.

  The four men were secured and brought before Brevet-Major Gordon while his men searched the camp.

  ‘Are these some of the wanted men?’

  Eoin Feehan nodded, avoiding the eyes of the Kilmar men. He named Dermot McCabe and three former fishermen.

  The officer tried not to show his elation. The operation had been a success after all. He had captured the leader of the band, the man who had boasted he would lead a new Irish uprising. Seeing the frail young man clad in cheap and inadequate clothing standing before him proved something of an anti-climax.

  ‘So you are Dermot McCabe, the rebel? Forgive me if I say I find you less than formidable.’

  Dermot looked at the officer defiantly. ‘Tell that to the two men who lie bleeding.’

  Brevet-Major Gordon smiled. ‘They will be displaying their scars to friends long after your body is cut down from the gallows, McCabe. But what has happened to the remainder of your men? Not long ago rumour had it that your followers were numbered in hundreds.’

  Dermot bit back the retort that more men were coming and said, ‘It’s as well for you that there are only four of us here. Any more and you would have been obliged to go back to your barracks for a few hundred more soldiers.’

  ‘I admire your spirit, McCabe, but I regret it will not save your life. You will hang for sure.’ Turning away, he ordered the lieutenant to place a strong guard on the outlaws. He did not intend losing them now.

  Before the four men were taken away, the officer dismissed them from his mind and called to Eoin Feehan.

  ‘You have carried out your task well, Mr Feehan. As soon as we arrive in Rathconard I will arrange transport for your return to Dublin. You will be back in your nice warm potman’s job at the Drum Inn by this time tomorrow, I have no doubt.’

  As Dermot McCabe was led away by the none-too-gentle Highlanders, he committed the address uttered by the officer to memory. He was not a dead man yet, and Eoin Feehan had much for which he might one day have to answer.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  When the iron-studded door of the Rathconard lock-up slammed shut behind Dermot McCabe and the Kilmar exiles, their future looked both bleak and brief. But there was as little hope for many of their countrymen – and for them the winter of extermination had begun early.

  Those with determination – and the means – fled from Ireland, some crossing the Irish Channel to England to seek work – but there was no welcome for them there.

  The English workers bitterly resented the arrival of men willing to take work at near-starvation wages, undermining the efforts of the newly formed ‘workers’ unions’ to obtain better working conditions.

  Others emigrated even farther afield, to America, only to learn that here, too, they were unwanted. America was hungry for men with skills, to build up a fast-growing nation. The cottier knew only how to cultivate potatoes.

  In a firm bid to keep the unwanted immigrants out, the American Government raised the price of cross-Atlantic passages, but it made little difference. Unscrupulous captains and ship-owners crammed the cottiers together in unsuitable – and frequently unseaworthy – vessels, to land them at some remote cove on the extensive American coast.

  Meanwhile, those left behind managed as best they could.

  Liam’s constituency in County Kerry was one of the main potato-growing areas, and the people here suffered greatly. The two wooden fishing boats purchased by the All-Ireland Association put to sea from Castlemaine harbour in most weathers and worked on a non-profitmakin
g basis, but the catches the fishermen brought in were hopelessly inadequate for the needs of the cottiers.

  Liam wrote numerous letters and submitted tedious and repetitious reports to the Treasury concerning the consequences of their callous policy before he received a reply. A brief businesslike note from Charles Trevelyan informed Liam that Sir Richard Dudley had been instructed to open a depot in Castlemaine for the supply of corn and meal to the victims of the potato famine. It was a victory, but a hollow one. The depot was established, but no corn or meal was forthcoming to fill the empty building.

  During the early months of winter Liam managed to visit Kilmar and the great house at Inch on a couple of occasions, but it was difficult to be alone with Caroline. Kathie seemed to have no suspicion that he and the baronet’s wife were lovers and she stayed with them, telling Liam all the gossip from Kilmar and the latest rumours from the Wicklow mountains. She left them alone only when they began to talk ‘London business’ as she called any discussion about Parliament or about government aid for Ireland.

  Not until Liam arrived very late and unexpected on one occasion was he able to spend a night alone with Caroline.

  He rose before dawn and, as he dressed, Caroline stretched contentedly on the bed.

  ‘It has been far too long since you last stayed with me, Liam. I need you more often than for one single night every few months.’

  ‘I need you, too. Sometimes, after riding about the country surrounded by misery and despair, I feel I must get away from it all and come to you. Then I ride into another cottier settlement and know I must go on. For now we must both be content with occasional nights like this.’

  Caroline reached out and took his hand. She, too, was working desperately hard, and every day was becoming harder to face. But this morning her weariness was that of a woman who has been making love, and she was happy.

  She kissed Liam’s hand and held it to her face. ‘Oh, Liam, my love. What is to become of us?’