The Year of the French

by Thomas Flanagan

  Crauford, with his light dragoons, was sent to scout the defences outside the town, and we followed with the infantry and the heavy cavalry. We halted about two miles from the town, having encountered neither resistance nor evidence of fixed positions, and, despite the misty rain, we had a clear view, across the plain, of Crauford advancing almost to the bridge. There were two low explosions, and cannon shot fell among his men. A horse stumbled. He moved his troopers out of range. We expected to see him move back towards our lines, but instead he drew his men into formation. For a time nothing happened. There was a second salvo, but it fell short of the dragoons. After that the field was silent.

  Presently we could see one of his riders coming towards us. When he reached Cornwallis, he saluted.

  “Colonel Crauford requests permission to enter Castlebar.”

  Cornwallis shifted in the chair which had been placed for him, beneath canvas stretched across tentpoles to shelter him from the fine rain. He pursed his lips in thought, and then nodded.

  “Is Colonel Crauford quite certain?”

  The lieutenant resembled Crauford in appearance, but was much younger. Like Crauford, he was lean but heavy-shouldered, a cavalryman; they had the same high, thick cheekbones.

  He shrugged. “Oh, yes. A few cannon, perhaps two or three. Some of their people in the town. Not many. A scattering.”

  Cornwallis looked towards Lord Roden, who was staring at him, puzzled, and then turned back to the lieutenant.

  “Very well, then. If he is certain. If he is not, I will send forward the heavies.”

  While we waited, he said to me, using a pet name which he employed only when he was feeling pleased, “Well now, Prince Hal. The Frenchman has cheated you of your battle. You have yet to be blooded. Never mind. Another day.”

  Lord Roden shifted from one foot to the other, and Cornwallis said to him, in the tones of a schoolmaster, “The Frenchman has scampered off. Taken French leave. Good for him, and better for us.”

  At the end of a long period of waiting, Crauford rode back to us across the bridge, at the head of one troop of cavalry. He looked splendid, a tall cavalryman, wearing a long blue cape against the rain, which was falling more heavily now. Castlebar was once again in British hands.

  During the night, as we were drawing up our plans for the battle, and assigning positions to our regiments, Humbert and his entire force had stolen from the town, leaving behind three cannon and their gunners to put up a show of resistance, and two companies of rebels and one of French. If it be accounted a victory to take possession of a few streets of mud and grimy stone, of a handful of gabbling peasants, then we had achieved a victory.

  “The disgrace of Castlebar has been expunged,” Cornwallis said, as he climbed painfully into the saddle of his placid mount. He put one foot into its stirrup, but let his gouty leg hang free. “How pleased General Lake will be!” But his merry mood was not shared by his staff, and I must confess that I myself felt baffled and cheated.

  “By the way, Crauford,” he said, calling Crauford to him in his easy, negligent manner. “That was nicely executed. Nicely executed indeed.”

  A smile slashed Crauford’s narrow jaw, a Highland face. “To take an empty town, sir?” He rode close to us. “No great problem there. A brisk canter for those lads over there, and damned little work done to earn their keep.”

  “But done with grace, Crauford,” Cornwallis said. “Done with a bit of flair.” He ran his hand slowly along the neck of his horse. “You have the right of it, though. Dragoons are active lads, lively lads. They will lack occupation here.”

  Crauford’s smile broadened, but he said nothing.

  “I think you should take your lads out of here. Take them out of here, and place yourself under General Lake’s command for the next week or so.”

  “Under his command, sir,” Crauford repeated, but with the shadow of a question in his words.”

  “You know my instructions to him. You heard me give them. I want the Frenchman harried but not attacked. I want him punished, and I want him kept on the move. Lake will need dragoons for that.”

  “He has dragoons,” Crauford said. “Dragoons and cavalry.”

  “I intend that he should have you and those lads of yours. You will place yourself under General Lake’s command, with my instructions that he is to use you as a forward column, maintaining contact with the Frenchman but not engaging him. Can you remember that, or shall I have Wyndham scribble out an order for you?”

  “I can remember that well enough,” Crauford said, “but I doubt it will be a source of great pleasure to General Lake. He has a great fondness for using his own troops.”

  “I did not haul my poor afflicted leg onto this bog in order to give pleasure to General Lake. I came here to bag the Frenchman, and I will do it in my own way. You have no objections, I take it?”

  “None, sir,” Crauford said. “None whatever. But a bit of clarification might not go amiss. I will be operating forward of General Lake but under his command. Will I move at my own discretion? Sending a trooper back to Lake every hour or two might be a damned nuisance.”

  “I am certain that General Lake shares my own confidence in your discretion and your ability, Colonel Crauford. I anticipate no problems of that sort, and neither should you. Problems of that sort are tiresome. You had best get started, and we shall see if your lads are as active as you claim.”

  Crauford grinned again, and then saluted Cornwallis. Within the hour, his dragoons had left the field, and were riding eastwards, towards Lake’s columns, where they were to earn for their colonel a reputation for enterprise and vigour, although not, alas, for humanity or clemency.

  It is to the sheer physical insignificance of Castlebar that I attribute my difficulty in remembering in any detail our entrance into the town. I do remember that we were compelled to ride past bodies which had been pushed aside in haste: Crauford’s cavalry, in breaking free of the bridge, had found it necessary to cut down the defenders almost to a man. The “capital” of the republic was a sorry spectacle indeed, and for some a dangerous one, for a few of the rebels, casting aside their pikes and badges of office, sought to mingle with the townspeople, but they were hunted out most diligently by our lads. More sabres than one were bloodied in the streets of Castlebar before order was imposed. I have found, throughout all my years of campaigning, that the very butt end of an action is the bitterest. That tigerlike rage which courses through the blood of a common soldier when he is in the thick of the melee must somehow spend itself, and at times he is guilty of deeds for which later he is most heartily ashamed. Our lads were in particular enraged by the strips of green bunting with which many of the lintels were draped and by the so-called “trees of liberty.” Shops or dwellings which flaunted these were made to feel their impropriety.

  These final sputterings of violence died at once when Cornwallis entered the town, as dust-whirls vanish when the wind falls. There was neither dust nor wind that morning, however, but only a steady, dispiriting rain. When at this moment I think of Ireland, it is not the splendid weather which I recall but the rain of Castlebar. Few natural scenes are more desolating than those offered by the rain-shrouded west, and the towns are grimmer yet. Those visitors to Ireland who have been enraptured by a summer week in Killarney, following the course of those soft, feminine lakes and hills, lulled by the blarneying voices of boatmen and guides, know nothing of this other Ireland, dank, cold, and secretive, in which crime and worse than crime fester beneath the sodden thatch. Ireland loses all definition beneath the rains of autumn—towns, hamlets, bogs, muddy road all blur together, and memory recalls but a vast grey porridge.

  On that September morning, we were at the season’s turn, in a rainy town which the enemy had abandoned to us, and many more experienced than myself shared my mood, a grey, damp mood, rather like the appearance of the town. Neither the loyalists nor those rebels whom we questioned could tell us with certainty of the direction which the rebels had taken, wheth
er towards Foxford or towards Swinford. There was great need now for haste, if Humbert was to be sealed between our army and Lake’s, for Humbert, as Cornwallis acknowledged with ungrudging admiration, was capable of moving with a rapidity which was the more astonishing when the composition of his force was taken into consideration. It was not until the afternoon that Crauford returned with word that Humbert had taken the Swinford road. And, as we were later to learn, he had sent instructions to the rebel garrisons in Ballina and other towns, ordering them to move eastwards, over the Ox Mountains, where with luck they might join him.

  I have said that few prisoners were taken, but one of these must be considered a prize “catch,” being no less a personage than the “President” of the “Republic of Connaught.” This civic dignitary, but a few years older than I was myself, was brought to bay outside the courthouse, and most certainly would have been cut down had not notice been taken of his clothing and his genteel appearance. Cornwallis, who spoke briefly with him, was considerateness itself, and yet I doubt whether the poor wretch was aware of this, for his mood seemed to move from resignation to despair and then back to resignation. He had been ill used by the dragoons. His left arm was shattered above the elbow, and a heavy, swollen bruise disfigured one side of his face. Yet he retained the marks and accent of gentility, speaking in low and cultivated tones. Nor did we find this surprising, when his identity was disclosed to us as that of John Moore, younger brother of George Moore of Moore Hall, who had lived in London on terms of friendship with Burke, Fox, and others of the Whig party.

  It had been intended that he should accompany the rebels on their march, but some impulse, not entirely dishonourable, had prompted him to remain in the town with the forlorn rear guard. Now, faithful to companions who had abandoned him to his fate, he professed ignorance as to their movements or plans. Cornwallis pressed him to discuss the character of Humbert, but his responses were guarded and laconic. Castlebar boasted a gaol, a gaunt, sombre building, and into this he was placed, together with other miscreants. I can recall him now in his cell, his face the white of chalk where it was not livid with bruise, his eyes expressionless and staring straight into mine. I fancied that I looked into the face of a Perkin or a Simnel, a youth taken up by cynical conspirators and given a brief, derisory authority. But the face belied my fancy, so like was it to my own. What folly or what vanity had led him into the company of his King’s enemy, forsaking his country and his loyalty? But then, he was Irish. I do not recall whether or not he suffered the fate which he had earned, but which I, for one, would have spared him.

  By five that afternoon we were again upon the move: it was to be the first of our night marches. We were launched now upon a long campaign, which was to take us better than a hundred miles, when all its twists and winding returns are taken into account.

  I have seen it asserted that our progress could be followed, weeks later, by the hanged men and burned cabins along our line of march. The facts themselves give the lie to this: we were pressing forward as rapidly as possible against an enemy who, save for his stragglers and deserters, remained tantalisingly out of sight. And, again, there were frequent rains; a bundle of straw would not have caught fire, much less a cabin roof. I will not gloss over that regrettable, even terrible events took place during the week that was to come. Crauford in particular was a stern soldier, as Highlanders often are, and Lake had carried with him from Wexford a reputation for brutality. What I do say is that such events took place beyond the eyes of Lord Cornwallis, my beloved old commander, in whom wisdom and mercy were blended in equal parts. True it is that when word came to us that the long-dreaded second rising had broken out in the midlands, even Cornwallis accepted the painful necessity of driving home to the natives the folly and the wickedness of rebellion. He did so, however, with the utmost reluctance, and the rules of honourable warfare, with respect to our French enemies, were never breached. Rebellion against lawful authority is in all societies regarded as the most heinous offence.

  13

  FROM THE DIARY OF SEAN MACKENNA

  September, 1798. One of the armies left Castlebar by night, and the next morning the other one entered. I stood by the window in the front room over the shop and watched the English ride in, large reckless men they were on their heavy horses. They rode down the street at the full gallop, with their long sabres held level with their heads, ready to swing downwards. And on our street there was still enough to claim their blades. Most of the killing had been done at the bridge and in the streets leading to the green. But I saw them smashing down doors and dragging men out, and why they did not smash down this door I cannot imagine, nor why I was not hauled away to be thrashed or made a show of, as others were, though guiltless of wrongdoing.

  It was but a fulfillment of what I had known would happen as I watched the Frenchmen and our own fellows move out the night before. The poor fellows had a stricken look, many of them, and who is to blame them, carried off at night, with rain beginning to fall, and no word given as to their destination. There are some of those fellows who don’t know that the world is round, and for all they knew, they were being marched off to the edge of it. The degree of ignorance in which the men of Nephin live their sunless lives is not to be believed.

  And yet they were off for a morning saunter when measured against the distance which the Frenchmen had travelled. We never knew them, for none could speak English. When I saw them mustered and ready to march out of Castlebar, they might have been creatures carried here from the moon. They had not our look at all, with their sallow faces and dark, liquid eyes. But they joked together, as our fellows did, and scuffled, and they had the same look of fear behind the joking. No doubt they too had come from farms, and once were more at home with spades than with bayonets. What France is like I cannot imagine, although I have read a few of the French tales and romances that have been put into English. But it cannot be like Ireland. All of the countries of the world are different from each other. It would be interesting to know what they think of Ireland. They can have formed no high opinion of it, poor creatures—dragged from bog to bog to grey wet town, with the country people staring at them as though they were freaks on exhibition.

  But they are soldiers now, whatever they were once. They have been trained to bellow and gore like bulls, and to walk docile as cows to their own slaughter. A most curious way to live, and it is frightening to reflect how easily men can be schooled to accept it. But the songs all have it that such a life is easy and free. Foolish indeed are those who believe the words of poetry and song, as was proclaimed long before me by the lofty-minded sages of Greece. And what of our own poor fellows, lined up behind the Frenchmen, but with a few files of Frenchmen placed behind them, to prod at them with bayonets should they think of slipping off? And all this in the name of liberty and equality and this nonsense of the rights of man, which I must put down in English because there is no Irish for it. You could tramp the slopes of Nephin for months and before you encountered the rights of man you would encounter a unicorn. Of what use to them are the ideas of that misfortunate John Moore, a well-intentioned creature but fanciful and moonstruck?

  My neighbour Jeremiah Dunphy saw Mr. Moore run to earth outside the courthouse, three troopers crowded around him, their pointed blades pressed against his chest. But there was something worse than fear in his eyes, Jeremiah says: they were lifeless and despairing. And indeed he is as good as lifeless, unless good birth be a sufficient safe-conduct through all the vicissitudes of existence. He cannot be altogether right in his head, but he always seemed healthy enough to me, the times I have seen him in happier months, handsomely dressed and always laughing, a most comely youth.

  I can understand the deviltry that dances in men like Randall MacDonnell and Corny O’Dowd, who are the giddy scapegraces of which this country has always had an abundant supply, and I can well see them in earlier days as bold rapparees or as men riding with Sarsfield to Ballyneety. It is that sort which stakes a horse or an estate or per
haps even a woman on the turn of a card, and is forever out upon what they call their field of honour, blazing away at each other with pistols. Small loss to the world is my uncharitable opinion. The brains of children they have, rattling around in their huge skulls. And what care they how many they drag off with them to sink within the bog’s brown water? There they were the other night, prancing about on their horses—chargers, perhaps I should call them—some in fine uniforms the French had brought and some in fine suits made in Galway, with silly plumes bedraggled and limp, like a man’s member who has spent the night with a randy slut.

  One of the last things done before they all set off was the taking down from the courthouse of the flag of green silk with the gilt harp on it. And nothing would do but that it must be carried off by one of the Wexford men who had been in all the fighting and misfortune there. It is by such seductive colours and banners that men’s eyes are bedazzled and they are led off the paths of good sense and into the black bog. But are not the others worse still, with their uniforms the colour of bloody death itself?

  They left in silence, but an army makes a fearful noise even when it moves in silence—the sound of feet upon the road, the creaking of harness leather, the rumbling of cartwheels. I looked through the darkness for Owen, but I could not make out faces, and there were many of the fellows had his shape, clumsy, heavy-shouldered cowherds, tall and ungainly. I ask again what business my Owen has with such men?

  After they had gone, I stood by the window, as I am certain many others did in that street, for we were all thinking, When will the English come and what will they do? There remained but the few Frenchmen and rebels who had been left to hold the bridge for a bit, and to prevent the loyalists from leaving the town to warn the English. They patrolled until it was light. Two of them I saw across the road from my shop in the flat, damp dawn, country lads with faces like platters. One had a firelock and the other a pike, and they were standing against the poor shelter of a gable end. After a bit they left, and walked down the road. More likely than not, their bodies lay later in the morning on the footpath near the bridge.