McFeeley's Rebellion

by Theresa Murphy

  Taking a look at him, Jack turned to McFeeley, one eyebrow raised in question, which McFeeley answered. ‘Private Jonathan Piper of the Queen Dowager’s Regiment of Foot.’

  ‘That was a Biblical quotation, Sergeant,’ Piper said blandly.

  ‘The Bible don’t answer my question, soldier,’ Jack replied. ‘What do we do, sir?’

  ‘Where is our army now, Jack?’

  ‘If they’ve called a halt they’ll be at Shepton Mallet, sir.’

  There was a lot of distance to cover and there was every chance that along the way they would encounter more of Monmouth’s soldiers. A lack of time and the fact that they didn’t have one shovel between them ruled out burying their men here. Yet each one of them was so deserving of a funeral with full military honours. McFeeley chose a compromise, a half-lie that would be a salve for his conscience and, hopefully, the consciences of his companions.

  ‘We’ll have a burial detail sent out as soon as we make contact with headquarters,’ he declared, seemingly satisfying the others, with Jack being the exception. He was looking worriedly at the body of the lieutenant.

  Piper didn’t bother with tact when putting the situation into perspective for Jack. ‘There isn’t anything that’ll gnaw at them above ground that won’t do just as much chewing on them under it, Sergeant.’

  Ignoring this, Jack made a request. ‘I’d like permission to bury Lieutenant Tonge, Sir.’

  ‘What would you use to dig a grave?’ McFeeley questioned the idea.

  ‘My hands, if necessary, sir,’ Jack replied resolutely. ‘If you move out I’ll catch up with you.’

  Granting permission, McFeeley then led Lady Sarah and Rachel away, with the men of Jack’s squad next, and a watchful Jonathan Piper bringing up the rear. They made good time through what was left of the afternoon, wading across the River Brue while the sun was still high, and climbing into the Mendips, where they made camp as twilight dimmed the world.

  Jack rejoined them by the time McFeeley had chosen a wide plateau as their resting place for the night on which there would be a moon making it possible for a single sentry to see any Monmouth men trying to come up the wide, treeless slopes. The meal they ate was an austere one. What rations Sergeant Jack and his men had brought out with them had long been exhausted, and the supper consisted of fruit picked along the way. McFeeley had Jack post two guards, then he sat, relaxing as best he could.

  He heard Rachel questioning Piper about the theatre. ‘You spoke earlier of The Mulberry Garden, Jonathan, so I assume that you are an admirer of Sir Charles Sedley. I admire the way in which he maintains a boundary between the just bawdy and the blatantly indecent.’

  ‘As I writer I believe that he has no equal, but as a man it is to be regretted that he does not recognize in his private life the boundary you refer to,’ Piper replied, causing McFeeley puzzlement and consternation as to how so erudite a man came to be serving in the army as a private soldier.

  The topic of their conversation had Rachel and Piper straddling two worlds which distanced them from the others. Lady Sarah sat quietly, lost in her own thoughts. Jack sat alone staring, as he always did when at rest, at a scene that wasn’t visible to the others.

  ‘What if I inquired as to your favourite, Miss Rachel?’ Piper said.

  ‘Then my answer would come without the slightest hesitation,’ Rachel trilled. ‘My favourite character has to be Wycherly’s Lady Flippanta.’

  ‘Indeed you do surprise me, Miss Rachel,’ Piper exclaimed.

  ‘That is because you don’t know me, Jonathan,’ Rachel said.

  Aware that Jack had selected Piper for the second watch on the wooded slope, McFeeley was determined to stay alert. Yet he had made no allowance for how tired he was. No sooner had all of them, with the exception of the two soldiers on guard, bedded down for the night than he had drifted into a deep and restoring sleep.

  He was awoken, coming fully alert but lying perfectly still, by the feeling of something tickling over his hand. At first he suspected an insect at best, an adder at worst, but then slim fingers entwined with his. His hand was being tugged at tenderly, and then Rachel’s voice came to him, her words enticing: ‘Please come with me, Colm.’

  Partially refreshed by sleep, unable to resist an invitation made to the only weakness in his character, McFeeley let her guide him up onto his feet. He tensed as a dark figure loomed up at them in the night, musket projecting aggressively towards them. It was Piper.

  McFeeley ordered. ‘Stand steady, soldier. It’s me, McFeeley.’

  Without a word, Piper did a silent quarter turn on the grass and walked tactfully away. With his arm round Rachel his intention was to go some way into the trees. But Rachel had different ideas. As lithe and ferocious as a tigress, she leapt at McFeeley gasping. ‘I can’t wait!’

  It was an hour later that they came back up to the level area of the camp. Jonathan Piper was still on guard but he didn’t approach them. Remaining in the shadows, he softly quoted: ‘Unfortunate lady that I am. I have left the herd on purpose to be chased—’

  ‘Lady Flippanta!’ a giggling Rachel whispered close to McFeeley’s ear.

  Then she was gone, half tip-toeing across the grass to where she had left a space beside Lady Sarah. McFeeley was stabbed by an unrelenting guilt when noticing Sarah’s open eyes sparkling in the moonlight.

  Even so, the fact that Sarah was now definitely aware that Rachel and he had been intimate weighed heavily on his mind. For a long time it prevented a return to sleep for him when he lay down. He had at last managed to slumber when someone shook him awake by the shoulder. For a moment he feared the insatiable Rachel, but it was a grave-faced Jack.

  ‘There’s something happening, sir.’

  ‘What is it, Jack?’ McFeeley inquired.

  Jack’s care to be quiet would seem to have been wasted. Something had disturbed the two women, who were walking to where McFeeley had got to his feet to stand beside the sergeant.

  ‘This way, sir,’ Jack said.

  McFeeley walked with Jack to the crest over which Rachel and he had recently gone. The two women both followed nervously close behind them. Initially McFeeley could see nothing when Jack pointed down below and out past the woods. Then he saw a deep, glowing red that occasionally altered hue as yellow flames flickered. It was a fairly large fire for an ordinary camp-fire.

  ‘The sentry heard a shot, and then voices down there,’ the sergeant reported.

  Turning his head, McFeeley saw that Piper had been relieved by one of the mullato’s party. He was a clumsy fellow who would have fitted better behind a plough than he did a musket, and his round rustic face registered apprehension over what he had observed down below.

  ‘We’ll be going that way in the morning,’ McFeeley said, ‘so we can discover what it is then.’

  Barely had he finished speaking when an unearthly and protracted scream came to them. Distorted by the distance it had travelled, clearly having come from the area of the fire, the scream had lost none of its terrifying content when it reached them. Another shriek joined the first one before it had died away.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ Lady Sarah exclaimed, aghast.

  ‘Those poor women,’ Rachel moaned.

  ‘Those are not the screams of women,’ Jack said curtly.

  ‘Are you saying…?’ Lady Sarah began.

  Having half come to the conclusion before Jack put it into words, McFeeley answered Sarah, knowing that Jack wouldn’t do so. ‘It’s men screaming down there, Lady Sarah.’

  ‘But what…?’ Rachel began, to fall silent as the screams were replaced by a howling.

  The screaming went on and on, so eerie that even the hair on the back of the neck of the tough McFeeley started to prickle. McFeeley ordered everyone but the sentry back into camp. Once there, although they took a memory of the screaming with them, they had distanced themselves so that it was impossible to tell whether a faint howling was real or imagined.

  Yet there was no fur
ther sleep for any of them that night. They were heading out of camp before the sun had chance to even slightly lighten the eastern sky. McFeeley was aware of Lady Sarah studying him when she felt he wouldn’t notice. He wondered what was on her mind. She had not expressed disapproval of Rachel and him that morning either verbally or in any other way.

  They went down the hill through trees and started out along flat ground beside the river. It was an idyllic morning that was warmed comfortably by a sun not yet at full power. As they forked left away from the river to cross a lush meadow they seemed to be in a golden land in which the terrible sounds of the previous night could not possible have taken place.

  There was a hint of burning on the unmoving air as they rounded a hill and started across undulating grassland, its troughs and peaks so deep and high that it was impossible for them to see very far ahead. But the unmistakably pungent smell of a dead fire was stronger now. A feast must have been held close by for there was also an aroma of cooking meat. McFeeley tried, and failed, to equate a feast with the ghoulish screaming they had heard.

  Ahead of the others, he topped yet another corrugation to find that it was the last. An expanse of flatland stretched ahead of McFeeley, and what he saw had him turn to signal for the two women to stay where they were. For an agonizingly long moment, McFeeley looked at a makeshift gibbet that had been erected some fifty yards in front of where he stood. That the gallows had been extensively used in the night was evident in the broken bodies lying around. They weren’t bodies but what was left of soldiers who had been hanged, drawn and quartered. Only a few green patches showed through over a wide area. The grass looked as if a lunatic artist had painted it red. Controlling a gagging urge to vomit, he turned and went back down the slope to where the two women and the men were clustered together, waiting.

  ‘What is it, Lieutenant?’ Lady Sarah asked tentatively, as if she was aware that she wouldn’t welcome the answer.

  But McFeeley was unable to reply. It would have been cruel to tell her and Rachel the truth. So he said gruffly, ‘I will explain later, Lady Sarah. I want you and Miss Rachel to remain here. Sergeant Jack and Private Piper will go with me, but the soldiers will stay to protect you.’

  Studying the soldiers, McFeeley selected a sandy-haired man who looked to be the eldest and most responsible of them. He told the man, ‘You, soldier. I am putting you in charge until we return. You’re in a small world here, the boundary being that crest behind us. See that you keep a close watch on that ridge at all times.’

  McFeeley left then, flanked by Jack on one side and the mysterious Jonathan Piper on the other. The latter ripped out a curse as they went over the ridge and he saw the scene of butchery in front of them.

  ‘This explains the screaming in the night, sir,’ Jack said.

  ‘And the fire that we saw,’ Piper nodded to a charred area at the far side of the gallows. ‘They tried to burn some of the bodies.’

  ‘To hide the evidence,’ McFeeley nodded.

  Having moved a little way from the other two, Piper looked down at a mutilated body. Whoever it was had been disembowelled. Face twisting in revulsion he forced himself to take another look. Lying close to the grisly remains was part of a torn uniform. Identifying the clothing, Piper called to McFeeley. ‘These are the Monmouth chaps we fought with yesterday, sir. Who could do something like this?’

  ‘Only one man,’ McFeeley muttered.

  ‘Colonel Kirke,’ Jack filled in, ‘and his “Lambs”.’

  ‘Ah!’ Piper’s memory worked well. ‘I’ve heard of him. He’s best known for what he did in Tangier, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’s best known for being a brutal bastard,’ McFeeley said. ‘Kirke must have taken these poor fellows as prisoners. We’d best get back. To avoid the ladies seeing this means making a wide swing that is going to cost us a lot in time.’

  Keen to get moving, and eager to get away from the macabre slaughter, they hurried over the ridge – only to stop and stare in shock at the sight before them. Lady Sarah, Rachel, and the soldiers McFeeley had left to guard them, were standing among a large party of troopers. These were men of the king’s army but, nevertheless, the menace in the air was a tangible thing. McFeeley was able to identify its source then. Sitting in the saddle of a white stallion, staring stonily at McFeeley and the others, was Colonel Percy Kirke. Beside him, mounted on a far less impressive horse, was a young lieutenant who spurred into action when Kirke bellowed an order.

  ‘A man of Monmouth, by God! Complete with uniform. Take that man and hold him, Lieutenant.’

  It was a farce, a charade put on by Kirke, McFeeley knew, because hatred for him had the colonel recognize him immediately. Even so, he was seized and bound. Separated from the others, the anxious eyes of Jack and Jonathan Piper on him, both Lady Sarah and Rachel looking totally bemused, he was at the rear of the troop when it moved out, being pulled along by a rope tied to the saddle of the young lieutenant.

  McFeeley had hoped that Captain Allenby would be present. Had he been so there would have been hope, for the quick-minded adjutant was an oasis of sound sense in the huge desert of insanity that was Kirke.

  They journeyed for what McFeeley estimated to be two hours. It was a tough time for him. Not only had the burning sun reached its zenith, but the lieutenant, either under orders from Kirke or because of his own cruelly vicious nature, would at short intervals pull on the rope so that McFeeley sprawled headlong into the dust. With his wrists bound behind his back he would find himself dragged along the rough ground each time before he was able, with great difficulty, to regain his feet.

  Colonel Kirke’s camp, just outside Wells, was a hive of activity when they reached it. His ‘lambs’ were cleaning muskets, loading ammunition onto carriages, grooming horses. Everything was taking place with the disciplined efficiency that can be achieved only by a totally sensitive commander.

  Kept separate from his earlier companions, not even getting a glimpse of them, McFeeley was taken to and confined in a small tent on the perimeter of the camp. His arms remained bound and the length of rope attached to him was tied to an iron stake that a soldier drove into the ground just outside of the tent. When the lieutenant was satisfied that McFeeley was securely held, he walked off, leaving two sentries posted each side of the entrance to the tent.

  Throughout that afternoon the heat built up intolerably inside the canvas. Wet through with sweat, McFeeley soon found that he was parched, his tongue adhering to the roof of his mouth. But he was brought neither water nor food. As evening eased in, bringing a modest but very welcome drop in temperature, the lieutenant returned. McFeeley had his first real opportunity to look at the officer. He was chubby of body and face. A turned-up nose and a puffy-lipped mouth that was pulled down at each corner imparted a pugnacity that related more to that of a lap dog than a bull terrier.

  Accompanied by an armed escort he introduced himself. ‘I am Lieutenant Riglar and I am here to take you before Colonel Kirke.’

  With one member of the escort of four holding the rope that was McFeeley’s leash, and the remaining three keeping him covered with their muskets at all times, he was taken through the camp to a large tent in which Kirke sat alone. Along the way McFeeley looked unsuccessfully for Lady Sarah, Rachel, Jack and Piper.

  Riglar entered the tent with McFeeley while the escort was left outside but far enough away to guarantee that they wouldn’t overhear what was to be said in the tent. Colonel Kirke stood and paced up and down. In addition to his bald pate he was a man who was ageing long before his time. Wizened by his own toxic bitterness, Kirke could only look another man in the eye when he was bullying him into abject terror. Aware that he would never succeed in intimidating McFeeley, he kept his eyes away from him as he began to speak.

  ‘You are an officer, and as such, even though you serve James Scott, I would treat you with due respect had we met under battle conditions and you had become my prisoner,’ Kirke said in his piping voice. ‘But you are a spy, Lieuten
ant, a disgrace to the uniform that you wear or, indeed, army uniform.’

  Riglar addressed McFeeley then, after receiving a signal from Kirke to do so. His pouting lips gave him the peevish look of a baby as he asked. ‘Do you have anything to say?’

  ‘I am a lieutenant with the Kildare military.’

  ‘Indeed!’ the colonel stopped his pacing and mockingly held out a hand to McFeeley. ‘Your papers, please, Lieutenant. Your identification.’

  McFeeley, aware that he was being baited, replied. ‘I carry no papers with me.’

  ‘How unusual and, indeed, unfortunate,’ Kirke permitted himself a humourless smile.

  ‘Lady Sarah will vouch for me,’ McFeeley said with confidence.

  Shaking his head, Riglar replied. ‘We have spoken to Lady Churchill, who admitted that you were wearing a Monmouth uniform when she first became acquainted with you, and that you have worn the same uniform ever since.’

  ‘Then ask Sergeant Jack; he has served with me in the king’s army.’

  ‘Sergeant Jack and the other soldiers you brought with you are at this very moment on their way to Lord Churchill at Shepton Mallet, together with the two ladies,’ Riglar informed him.

  ‘Bring the sergeant back and he will confirm who I am,’ McFeeley protested.

  Kirke snorted angrily. ‘Disrupt the king’s army in the hope that a sergeant will tell lies to save your valueless skin?’

  ‘You know who I am!’ McFeeley hissed angrily, leaping towards the colonel but being stopped by Riglar who rammed the muzzle of a pistol into his throat, forcing his chin up, his head back. Hampered by this, McFeeley still managed to speak. ‘You want to punish me because your spineless brother in-law blew his brains out because he couldn’t face becoming a soldier!’

  Although Riglar’s face registered consternation when he heard this, he kept the pistol against McFeeley’s throat. Kirke pushed on past McFeeley’s provable statement by thrusting his face close to grind out, ‘You deserve nothing, you cur, but, above all else I am a fair man, so I will give you a choice. Do you wish to die now with a bullet in your head, or would you prefer the gallows at dawn?’