‘I hope that he stays there,’ Piper said earnestly.
The possibility of the colonel changing positions was in McFeeley’s mind, too. As he and Piper groped their way to the door in the poor light of the barn interior, and he gestured with his head for the soldier to quietly lift the latch, McFeeley called yet again.
‘Colonel Penruddock!’
‘What is it?’ the colonel’s voice came from his original position.
‘Now!’ McFeeley hissed at Piper.
Kicking the door open as Piper cleared the latch; they both took one rapid step outside of the door and opened fire, taking their aim from where they had heard Penruddock’s voice. After the two closely sounding explosions of their muskets there came a disappointing silence. They were back inside, each standing on opposite sides of the still open door, backs against the wall, bent to the task of reloading their muskets, when they were rewarded with the thump of a heavy body falling outside.
‘They’ve shot the colonel!’ a male voice, raised an octave by panic, called.
‘Is he hurted?’
‘He’s dead,’ the first voice squealed back in what had become terror.
Piper hardly needed McFeeley’s signal to act; both stepped outside and discharged their muskets in the direction from which the voices had come.
There was a cry of pain followed by a groan. Then came the pounding of running feet heading away from the barn. They had achieved what McFeeley had intended, much more easily than expected. He went back into the barn, reloaded his musket beside Piper, who was doing the same, then put a hand under Henrietta’s arm to help her to her feet.
‘I’m sorry, Henrietta,’ he told her, ‘There can be no rest for us tonight.’
‘If there’s more militia close by, and they learn about the colonel, then they’ll be down on us real quick, sir,’ Piper said, unnecessarily but feeling better having heard the likelihood put into words.
‘It will be tough going, but we can cover most of the ground before dawn,’ McFeeley said as he helped Henrietta out of the barn. ‘But we can’t afford to make another stop before we get to London.’
Feeling Henrietta’s momentary resistance, he peered at her through the darkness, concerned that she might be feeling too ill to walk. She was moving again, but her voice sounded strange as she told him, ‘I have one of those feelings again, Colm. You know, the way I was before Lucy….’
‘Who does it concern this time?’
‘I wish that I knew,’ she replied as they set off down the heath. It was afternoon when they reached London, which seemed to the three of them individually no different than when they had last seen it.
As they passed St Paul’s Cathedral, which now had only a tenuous link with the sacred, it was busy with the tricksters and traders who operated in the middle aisle, while the smart and flashy folk promenaded. They paused, welcoming an excuse to ease their tired limbs, to watch a Punch and Judy show in the street, which was an innovation for all three of them.
‘I doubt if anyone here really knows that the Monmouth rebellion took place,’ Piper commented, causing them to compare this pointless, hedonistic way of life they were witnessing with the hardships and trauma they had endured in recent weeks.
They moved on through the chomping donkeys of tradesmen and the poignant cries for alms from the penniless. A swarthy man passed them with a dancing bear on a chain. The huge animal took short staggering steps on its hind legs, its forelegs held high above its chest, eyes rolling and big head swinging from side to side. This example of pseudo-entertainment seemed to mark a border between the frivolous and the sombre. Faces were sad as they went by them, and when they came upon a small group of weeping women, McFeeley stopped to make an inquiry.
‘Has something happened?’ he asked, prepared for any kind of answer. In these unsettled times it was possible that even the reign of King James II may have been cut short.
‘Oh, it’s terrible, sir, it’s real terrible!’ an old woman replied displaying a toothless top gum as she wailed.
‘Our faith has been taken from us,’ a younger woman said, dabbing at her running eyes with a kerchief.
The sorrow was evident but its cause remained a mystery as all of the women shrieked their grief in concert. Children stood and watched them curiously from what they believed to be a safe distance. Frustrated at receiving no real answer, McFeeley grabbed an arm, his fingers sinking through clothing to come to what was no more than bone.
‘Tell me what has happened?’ he demanded.
‘Oh, sir!’ The old woman with no upper teeth cried. ‘That monster Jack Ketch has done for our dear Duke of Monmouth!’
‘What are you saying, woman?’ McFeeley asked, still gripping her arm.
‘The dear man died a terrible death,’ a younger woman moaned.
‘At the Tower, sir,’ the old hag said in her screeching voice. ‘They executed His Grace, sir. We are doomed, sir. Our saviour has been put to death and the Protestant religion died with him!’
Anticipating that she would need support, McFeeley swiftly put an arm round Henrietta. His heart went out to her as she looked up at him, a courageous smile on her lovely mouth, tears sparkling in her expressive eyes.
She said very quietly, ‘Another of my premonitions come true, Colm!’
‘This James Scott business has been a lesson for me, my Lord Churchill,’ King James said in what was, for him, a spirited manner. ‘It does not gall me to say that I am grateful to my treacherous nephew, as the service he did me was unintentional. He taught me, my Lord Churchill, that I cannot put dependence in an army formed by disseminated units throughout the land. I plan a standing army, and will look to you for to provide at least the initiative.’
Claude Critchell cleared his throat to draw Brigadier Churchill’s attention. Seeking the king, they had found him at Westminster Hall inspecting his law courts. They had thrashed between them what had to be said, but one had to be prudent when putting suggestions to his majesty. If James suspected that one of his subjects was waving a flag to promote someone, then he was apt to do the opposite of what had been hoped for.
‘There will be promotion for you, of course, Brigadier,’ James went on.
‘On the subject of promotion …’ Churchill began.
‘Do I detect the preliminaries of a request concerning this protégé of yours, John? Lieutenant McKinley, isn’t it?’ the king said rather sharply.
‘McFeeley, Your Majesty,’ Captain Critchell made the correction.
‘McFeeley returned to London this very day, Your Majesty,’ Lord Churchill said. ‘He is a remarkable soldier, and both Lady Sarah, who also came back to the city today, and I have personal reasons to thank him.’
‘Then I, too, shall show my gratitude for his service to me against James Scott. Whatever you recommend for the fellow, then I will give it my blessing,’ King James assured Churchill.
‘You are most gracious, Your Majesty,’ Churchill said.
‘Most gracious,’ Captain Critchell added in support.
‘Now, to other matters,’ the king said. ‘I am told that I must make haste to establish myself as a caring and merciful monarch down in the West Country, my Lord Churchill?’
‘With the utmost respect to you and your administration, Your Majesty,’ a careful Churchill replied, ‘It would seem that there is much bad feeling in the aftermath of the Assizes presided over by Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys.’
‘My Lord Jeffreys is thorough but does tend to be somewhat overzealous.’ The king gave a smile that evinced his liking for Jeffreys. ‘But he has done much to right the balance on his way back to London. In Hampshire he reduced the sentence on a woman found guilty of high treason. It would appear that this woman, a Mrs Olaf, gave succour and shelter to some absconding members of James Scott’s rebel rabble of an army. Because of her advanced age, Jeffreys would not allow the woman to be burned. He had her beheaded instead. That is the kind of leniency I believe the people are looking for, gentleme
n.’
Neither Churchill nor Critchell could credit what the king had said, and they were still recovering from the shock of it when they were walking down the steps outside. There was greyness to the day that matched their mood. Across the street from them McFeeley and Piper, in their ill-fitting civilian clothes, the muskets that they carried looking out of place, waited as Captain Critchell had requested them to. An approaching carriage was well timed, bringing Lady Sarah and Rachel along with the horses held at a gait that would bring the carriage up beside the two officers when they reached the kerb.
Without looking across the road, Critchell said, ‘I took the liberty of asking Lieutenant McFeeley to wait until our audience with the king had ended, Brigadier. Do you wish to discuss his military future with him now?’
‘No, not now. Probably not for some time, Claude,’ Lord Churchill said, wearing an unhappy expression. ‘Everything is so unsettled! How could I possibly offer McFeeley anything, Claude, when I am not sure what my own position will be in a week, a month, six months from now?’
‘It would be profoundly sad if he should be forgotten, Brigadier,’ a worried Captain Critchell observed.
‘I give you my oath, Captain Critchell, that Lieutenant McFeeley will not be overlooked. Whatever shape or form the army may take, he will have an important place in it,’ Churchill said.
‘My faith in you will remain inviolate into eternity, my lord,’ Critchell said.
‘That’s a rather long term commitment, Claude,’ Churchill smiled. ‘Come, the carriage is here. The ladies will be impatient for dinner.’
Watching Captain Critchell come out of Westminster Hall with Lord Churchill, McFeeley straightened up from where he had been lounging against a stone balustrade. Piper came up to attention beside him. Critchell had already used his limited power to grant McFeeley’s request that Private Jonathan Piper be permanently assigned to him, and had then asked McFeeley to wait because he, Captain Critchell, believed that Brigadier-General Churchill was to bring McFeeley’s name to the King. But when the captain deliberately didn’t look across at him, McFeeley accepted that he had waited for nothing. He clapped Piper on the back.
‘Come along, Piper, it is time we returned to some proper soldiering,’ McFeeley said as a carriage went slowly by.
First recognizing Rachel inside the carriage, and anticipating that she would avert her face when she saw him, McFeeley was right. But then he found himself looking into the beautiful face of Lady Sarah. Her eyes held his steady; messages passed rapidly between them. These were messages in some kind of mental code that their minds would decipher for them when the time was right.
Neither she nor he wanted the magically compelling exchange to end, but then the carriage rolled on rumblingly, taking her from him and to her waiting husband. The world that had been rent asunder by the Monmouth invasion was going back to rights. Lord and Lady Sarah were now reunited, and Lady Henrietta, whose grieving over the Duke of Monmouth had been short in duration but would linger in some form or other throughout her life, had gone back to Lord Grey.
As they walked away, Piper looked back over his shoulder at the carriage as it moved away, muttering a quotation. ‘Against the ground we stand and knock our heels, Whilst all our profit runs away on wheels.’
‘Lady Flippanta?’ a sarcastic McFeeley asked.
‘No, sir. That is by John Taylor, the Water Poet,’ Piper replied. Then he put his usually well hidden sensitivity on show to say, ‘This parting must leave an aching void inside of you, sir, as there is scant chance of you ever seeing the lady again!’
‘One never knows, Jonathan,’ McFeeley replied with a philosophy his head readily produced but his heart refused to support. ‘There are no meetings without consequence.’
Epilogue
SUMMER HAD MANAGED to dry the mud of Slap Arse Lane, but a damp late autumn in Ireland had brought back bad conditions underfoot. To Colour Sergeant Gray the dampness had a second disadvantage in that it coaxed out the vile smell of the place. His dislike of making his way through a Sodom and Gomorrah that some dark force had transported from Biblical times to dump it in this cesspit area of Kildare, was as keen as ever. He was near enough now to see the smoke from the hovels. Soon he would be able to hear the trollops calling to one another; using language that he would die to shield from the ears of Mrs Gray. Gray’s already flaring anger at this mission had been fanned by Private Jonathan Piper’s slightly mocking attitude. Too clever by half, that one, Piper was a newcomer who didn’t know the wiles of Colour Sergeant Gray, a patient man who knew how and when to pounce like a thief in the night to smash insubordination.
Gray was planning his vengeance on two assumptions. One was that Piper would not always have the protection of an officer, and two that Colm McFeeley would not remain an officer for much longer. Since coming back to Ireland, McFeeley had broken every rule in the book, and was now in the process of working his way through the pages a second time. Piper, an over-educated, sneering fellow, had used his flowery language just now when Gray had inquired as to the whereabouts of Lieutenant McFeeley.
Recognizing the expression of hate for McFeeley on the colour sergeant’s face, Piper had answered with some stupid kind of quotation, saying, ‘Deal with the faults of others as gently as you would with your own, Colour Sergeant!’
Gray had promised himself right then that once he had located McFeeley, he would return to camp and deal with Piper’s faults: and he wouldn’t do it gently.
‘Would you want to spend a short time with me in the bushes, sergeant darlin’?’ A young whore dressed in muddy rags stepped out of furze to accost him.
‘Away with you, girl,’ Gray roared angrily at the girl, sending her racing off until she slipped and fell into the mire on her face. He walked on, shouting back, ‘If you ever come at me again I’ll have you slapped in irons.’
Almost slipping over as he hurried on, the colour sergeant uttered a curse that Iris Gray had heard before, and objected strongly to. He saw two hazy figures standing close to each other up ahead. McFeeley’s back was too him, but Gray knew every detail of the lieutenant’s shape and found it easy to identify the man whom he disliked so intensely. As he had anticipated, the girl was unknown to him – they always were where McFeeley was concerned! With a delicately pretty face as yet untouched by the whoring profession she was entering into, she looked at Gray with large, slightly luminous eyes. McFeeley turned just his head.
‘What is it, Colour Sergeant?’
‘Compliments of Captain Critchell, sir,’ Gray answered, almost choking on the title of ‘sir’ when applying it to McFeeley, particularly when the lieutenant was holding a whore in one of his arms. ‘The captain requests your presence in the town, sir.’
‘Very good, Colour Sergeant. I will find my own way there.’
‘Captain Critchell asked that I emphasize that he wants you there immediately, sir!’ Gray insisted.
‘I would imagine that my idea of immediately and the captain’s differ, Colour Sergeant,’ McFeeley said as he walked away, an arm round the waist of the girl.
Filled with rage, the colour sergeant glared after McFeeley and the girl. Then he spun on his heel in the mud and went back up Slap Arse Lane, slipping and sliding as he went, irate enough to kill a whore with a single blow if one should be unfortunate enough to step out and offer him her wares.
Having got his amusement out of the colour sergeant, McFeeley
left the girl with a kiss and a promise that he would return within the hour. As he hurried towards the town he thought how history was repeating itself. If Gray had been at his side now it would be identical to the time he had walked this route and had ended up involved with the Duke of Monmouth.
This notion of the past being run again persisted right up to when he entered the hotel, as untidy and ruffled as he had been previously. Meeting Claude Critchell, whose welcoming handshake was firm, McFeeley told himself that the feeling of familiarity had to end there; otherwise a re
surrection of the Duke of Monmouth would be necessary.
But when he was taken in to Lord Churchill he was praying for at least one piece of history to recur so that he could be with Sarah again. He wished it were possible for him to inquire whether she was here in Ireland. Wisely, he remained silent.
‘Well, Captain McFeeley…!’ Churchill said from behind his desk. McFeeley missed the significance of the rank because he was thinking how the brigadier had aged in a short time.
McFeeley grasped that he had been promoted when he saw Critchell smiling happily at him. He knew that the captain was expecting to see a reaction in him, so he deliberately refrained from obliging him.
‘We have another rather unusual duty for you, Captain,’ Churchill said, apparently as disappointed as Critchell over McFeeley having shown no response to the indirect announcement of his promotion. Churchill suddenly let a smile ease the habitual sternness of his face. He stood and came round the desk, still smiling, although it had become more of a grin. ‘Before we go into matters military, Captain, you’d probably like to know that you have become something of a celebrity in court circles back in London.’
‘I don’t understand, my lord,’ McFeeley said uncertainly, perturbed to see how uncomfortable Claude Critchell had become.
‘Of course you don’t,’ Churchill said patronizingly. ‘You see, Lady Henrietta Grey has given birth, and His Majesty King James II is highly amused by her having produced a little McFeeley.’
A great elation surged through McFeeley. Never a man to accept authority or show any respect to the upper classes, he knew that he was about to enjoy himself immensely. This moment was well worth the trials and tribulations he had suffered in the campaign against Monmouth.
‘Then you had better stop His Majesty from laughing as soon as possible, sir,’ he advised Lord Churchill, ‘for the heir to his throne is not a McFeeley. Henrietta has produced a little Monmouth!’
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