Kitabı oku: «Maurice Tiernay, Soldier of Fortune», sayfa 15
CHAPTER XIX. A RECONNAISSANCE
From the little creek where we landed, a small zigzag path led up the sides of the cliff, the track by which the peasants carried the sea-weed which they gathered for manure, and up this we now slowly wended our way.
Stopping for some time to gaze at the ample bay beneath us, the tall-masted frigates floating so majestically on its glassy surface – it was a scene of tranquil and picturesque beauty with which it would have been almost impossible to associate the idea of war and invasion. In the lazy bunting that hung listlessly from peak and mast-head – in the cheerful voices of the sailors, heard afar off in the stillness – in the measured plash of the sea itself, and the fearless daring of the sea-gulls, as they soared slowly above our heads – there seemed something so suggestive of peace and tranquillity, that it struck us as profanation to disturb it.
As we gained the top and looked around us, our astonishment became even greater. A long succession of low hills, covered with tall ferns or heath, stretched away on every side; not a house, nor a hovel, nor a living thing to be seen. Had the country been one uninhabited since the Creation, it could not have presented an aspect of more thorough desolation! No road-track, nor even a footpath, led through the dreary waste before us, on which, to all seeming, the foot of man had never fallen. And as we stood for some moments, uncertain which way to turn, a sense of the ridiculous suddenly burst upon the party, and we all broke into a hearty roar of laughter.
‘I little thought,’ cried Charost, ‘that I should ever emulate “La Perouse,” but it strikes me that I am destined to become a great discoverer.’
‘How so, colonel?’ asked his aide-de-camp.
‘Why, it is quite clear that this same island is uninhabited; and if it be all like this, I own I’m scarcely surprised at it.’
‘Still, there must be a town not far off, and the residence of that bishop we heard of this morning.’
A half-incredulous shrug of the shoulders was all his reply, as he sauntered along with his hands behind his back, apparently lost in thought; while we, as if instinctively partaking of his gloom, followed him in total silence.
‘Do you know, gentlemen, what I’m thinking?’ said he, stopping suddenly and facing about. ‘My notion is, that the best thing to do here would be to plant our tricolour, proclaim the land a colony of France, and take to our boats again.’
This speech, delivered with an air of great gravity, imposed upon us for an instant; but the moment after, the speaker breaking into a hearty laugh, we all joined him, as much amused by the strangeness of our situation, as by anything in his remark.
‘We never could bring our guns through a soil like this, colonel,’ said the aide-de-camp, as he struck his heel into the soft and clayey surface.
‘If we could ever land them at all!’ muttered he, half aloud; then added, ‘But for what object should we? Believe me, gentlemen, if we are to have a campaign here, bows and arrows are the true weapons.’
‘Ah! what do I see yonder?’ cried the aide-de-camp; ‘are not those sheep feeding in that little glen?’
‘Yes,’ cried I, ‘and a man herding them, too. See, the fellow has caught sight of us, and he’s off as fast as his legs can carry him.’ And so was it: the man had no sooner seen us than he sprang to his feet and hurried down the mountain at full speed.
Our first impulse was to follow and give him chase, and even without a word we all started off in pursuit; but we soon saw how fruitless would be the attempt, for, even independent of the start he had got of us, the peasant’s speed was more than the double of our own.
‘No matter,’ said the colonel, ‘if we have lost the shepherd we have at least gained the sheep, and so I recommend you to secure mutton for dinner to-morrow.’
With this piece of advice, down the hill he darted as hard as he could; Briolle, the aide-de-camp, and myself following at our best pace. We were reckoning without our host, however, for the animals, after one stupid stare at us, set off in a scamper that soon showed their mountain breeding, keeping all together like a pack of hounds, and really not very inferior in the speed they displayed.
A little gorge led between the hills, and through this they rushed madly, and with a clatter like a charge of cavalry. Excited by the chase, and emulous each to outrun the other, the colonel threw off his shako, and Briolle his sword, in the ardour of pursuit. We now gained on them rapidly, and though, from a winding in the glen, they had momentarily got out of sight, we knew that we were close upon them. I was about thirty paces in advance of my comrades, when, on turning an angle of the gorge, I found myself directly in front of a group of mud hovels, near which were standing about a dozen ragged, miserable-looking men, armed with pitchforks and scythes, while in the rear stood the sheep, blowing and panting from the chase.
I came to a dead stop; and although I would have given worlds to have had my comrades at my side, I never once looked back to see if they were coming; but, putting a bold face on the matter, called out the only few words I knew of Irish, ‘Go de-mat ha tu.’
The peasants looked at each other; and whether it was my accent, my impudence, or my strange dress and appearance, or altogether, I cannot say, but after a few seconds’ pause they burst out into a roar of laughter, in the midst of which my two comrades came up.
‘We saw the sheep feeding on the hills yonder,’ said I, recovering self-possession, ‘and guessed that by giving them chase they’d lead us to some inhabited spot. What is this place called?’
‘Shindrennin,’ said a man who seemed to be the chief of the party; ‘and, if I might make so bould, who are you, yourselves?’
‘French officers; this is my colonel,’ said I, pointing to Charost, who was wiping his forehead and face after his late exertion.
The information, far from producing the electric effect of pleasure I had anticipated, was received with a coldness almost amounting to fear, and they spoke eagerly together for some minutes in Irish.
‘Our allies evidently don’t like the look of us,’ said Charost, laughing;’ and if the truth must be told, I own the disappointment is mutual.’
‘Tis too late you come, sir,’ said the peasant, addressing the colonel, while he removed his hat, and assumed an air of respectful deference. ‘‘Tis all over with poor Ireland this time.’
‘Tell him,’ said Charost, to whom I translated the speech, ‘that it’s never too late to assert a good cause; that we have got arms for twenty thousand, if they have but hands and hearts to use them. Tell him that a French army is now lying in that bay yonder, ready and able to accomplish the independence of Ireland.’
I delivered my speech as pompously as it was briefed to me; and although I was listened to in silence, and respectfully, it was plain my words carried little or no conviction with them. Not caring to waste more of our time in such discourse, I now inquired about the country – in what directions lay the highroads, and the relative situations of the towns of Killala, Gastlebar, and Ballina, the only places of comparative importance in the neighbourhood. I next asked about the landing-places, and learned that a small fishing-harbour existed, not more than half a mile from the spot where we had landed, from which a little country road lay to the village of Palmerstown. As to the means of transporting baggage, guns, and ammunition, there were few horses to be had, but with money we might get all we wanted; indeed, the peasants constantly referred to this means of success, even to asking ‘What the French would give a man that was to join them?’ If I did not translate the demand with fidelity to my colonel, it was really that a sense of shame prevented me. My whole heart was in the cause; and I could not endure the thought of its being degraded in this way. It was growing duskish, and the colonel proposed that the peasant should show us the way to the fishing-harbour he spoke of, while some other of the party might go round to our boat, and direct them to follow us thither. The arrangement was soon made, and we all sauntered down towards the shore, chatting over the state of the country, and the chances of a successful rising. From the specimen before me, I was not disposed to be over sanguine about the peasantry. The man was evidently disaffected towards England. He bore her neither good-will nor love, but his fears were greater than all else. He had never heard of anything but failure in all attempts against her, and he could not believe in any other result. Even the aid and alliance of France inspired no other feeling than distrust, for he said more than once, ‘Sure what can harm yez? Haven’t ye yer ships beyant, to take yez away, if things goes bad?’
I was heartily glad that Colonel Charost knew so little English, that the greater part of the peasant’s conversation was unintelligible to him, since, from the first, he had always spoken of the expedition in terms of disparagement; and certainly what we were now to hear was not of a nature to controvert the prediction.
In our ignorance as to the habits and modes of thought of the people, we were much surprised at the greater interest the peasant betrayed when asking us about France and her prospects, than when the conversation concerned his own country. It appeared as though, in the one case, distance gave grandeur and dimensions to all his conceptions, while familiarity with home scenes and native politics had robbed them of all their illusions. He knew well that there were plenty of hardships, abundance of evils, to deplore in Ireland: rents were high, taxes and tithes oppressive, agents were severe, bailiffs were cruel Social wrongs he could discuss for hours, but of political woes, the only ones we could be expected to relieve or care for, he really knew nothing. ‘‘Tis true,’ he repeated, ‘that what my honour said was all right, Ireland was badly treated,’ and so on; ‘liberty was an elegant thing if a body had it,’ and such like; but there ended his patriotism.
Accustomed for many a day to the habits of a people where all were politicians, where the rights of man and the grand principles of equality and self-government were everlastingly under discussion, I was, I confess it, sorely disappointed at this worse than apathy.
‘Will they fight? – ask him that,’ said Gharost, to whom I had been conveying a rather rose-coloured version of my friend’s talk.
‘Oh, begorra! we ‘ll fight sure enough!’ said he, with a half-dogged scowl beneath his brows.
‘What number of them may we reckon on in the neighbourhood?’ repeated the colonel.
‘‘Tis mighty hard to say; many of the boys were gone over to England for the harvest; some were away to the counties inland, others were working on the roads; but if they knew, sure they ‘d be soon back again.’
‘Might they calculate on a thousand stout, effective men?’ asked Charost.
‘Ay, twenty, if they were at home,’ said the peasant, less a liar by intention than from the vague and careless disregard of truth so common in all their own intercourse with each other.
I must own that the degree of credit we reposed in the worthy man’s information was considerably influenced by the state of facts before us, inasmuch as that the ‘elegant, fine harbour’ he had so gloriously described – ‘the beautiful road’ – ‘the neat little quay’ to land upon, and the other advantages of the spot, all turned out to be most grievous disappointments. That the people were not of our own mind on these matters, was plain enough from the looks of astonishment our discontent provoked; and now a lively discussion ensued on the relative merits of various bays, creeks, and inlets along the coast, each of which, with some unpronounceable name or other, was seen to have a special advocate in its favour, till at last the colonel lost all patience, and jumping into the boat, ordered the men to push off for the frigate.
Evidently out of temper at the non-success of his reconnaissance, and as little pleased with the country as the people, Gharost did not speak a word as we rowed back to the ship. Our failure, as it happened, was of little moment, for another party, under the guidance of Madgett, had already discovered a good landing-place at the bottom of the Bay of Rathfran, and arrangements were already in progress to disembark the troops at daybreak. We also found that, during our absence, some of the ‘chiefs’ had come off from shore, one of whom, named Neal Kerrigan, was destined to attain considerable celebrity in the rebel army. He was a talkative, vulgar, presumptuous fellow, who, without any knowledge or experience whatever, took upon him to discuss military measures and strategy with all the assurance of an old commander.
Singularly enough, Humbert suffered this man to influence him in a great degree, and yielded opinion to him on points even where his own judgment was directly opposed to the advice he gave.
If Kerrigan’s language and bearing were directly the reverse of soldierlike, his tawdry uniform of green and gold, with massive epaulettes and a profusion of lace, were no less absurd in our eyes, accustomed as we were to the almost puritan plainness of military costume. His rank, too, seemed as undefined as his information; for while he called himself ‘General,’ his companions as often addressed him by the title of ‘Captain.’ Upon some points his counsels, indeed, alarmed and astonished us.
‘It was of no use whatever,’ he said, ‘to attempt to discipline the peasantry, or reduce them to anything like habits of military obedience. Were the effort to be made, it would prove a total failure; for they would either grow disgusted with the restraint, and desert altogether, or so infect the other troops with their own habits of disorder, that the whole force would become a mere rabble. Arm them well, let them have plenty of ammunition, and free liberty to use it in their own way and their own time, and we should soon see that they would prove a greater terror to the English than double the number of trained and disciplined troops.’
In some respects this view was a correct one; but whether it was a wise counsel to have followed, subsequent events gave us ample cause to doubt.
Kerrigan, however, had a specious, reckless, go-a-head way with him that suited well the tone and temper of Humbert’s mind. He never looked too far into consequences, but trusted that the eventualities of the morrow would always suggest the best course for the day after; and this alone was so akin to our own general’s mode of proceeding, that he speedily won his confidence.
The last evening on board was spent merrily on all sides. In the general cabin, where the staff and all the chefs de brigade were assembled, gay songs, and toasts, and speeches succeeded each other till nigh morning. The printed proclamations, meant for circulation among the people, were read out, with droll commentaries; and all imaginable quizzing and jesting went on about the new government to be established in Ireland, and the various offices to be bestowed upon each. Had the whole expedition been a joke, the tone of levity could not have been greater. Not a thought was bestowed, not a word wasted, upon any of the graver incidents that might ensue. All were, if not hopeful and sanguine, utterly reckless, and thoroughly indifferent to the future.
CHAPTER XX. KILLALA
I will not weary my reader with an account of our debarkation, less remarkable as it was for the ‘pomp and circumstance of war’ than for incidents and accidents the most absurd and ridiculous – the miserable boats of the peasantry, the still more wretched cattle employed to drag our artillery and train-waggons, involving us in innumerable misfortunes and mischances. Never were the heroic illusions of war more thoroughly dissipated than by the scenes which accompanied our landing! Boats and baggage-waggons upset; here, a wild, half savage-looking fellow swimming after a cocked-hat – there, a group of ragged wretches scraping sea-weed from a dripping officer of the staff; noise, uproar, and confusion everywhere; smart aides-de-camp mounted on donkeys; trim field-pieces ‘horsed’ by a promiscuous assemblage of men, women, cows, ponies, and asses. Crowds of idle country-people thronged the little quay, and, obstructing the passages, gazed upon the whole with eyes of wonderment and surprise, but evidently enjoying all the drollery of the scene with higher relish than they felt interest in its object or success. This trait in them soon attracted all our notice, for they laughed at everything: not a caisson tumbled into the sea, not a donkey brought his rider to the ground, but one general shout shook the entire assemblage.
If want and privation had impressed themselves by every external sign on this singular people, they seemed to possess inexhaustible resources of good-humour and good spirits within. No impatience or rudeness on our part could irritate them; and even to the wildest and least civilised-looking fellow around, there was a kind of native courtesy and kindliness that could not fail to strike us.
A vague notion prevailed that we were their ‘friends’; and although many of them did not clearly comprehend why we had come, or what was the origin of the warm attachment between us, they were too lazy and too indifferent to trouble their heads about the matter. They were satisfied that there would be a ‘shindy’ somewhere, and somebody’s bones would get broken, and even that much was a pleasant and reassuring consideration; while others of keener mould revelled in plans of private vengeance against this landlord or that agent – small debts of hatred to be paid off in the day of general reckoning.
From the first moment nothing could exceed the tone of fraternal feeling between our soldiers and the people. Without any means of communicating their thoughts by speech, they seemed to acquire an instinctive knowledge of each other in an instant. If the peasant was poor, there was no limit to his liberality in the little he had. He dug up his half-ripe potatoes, he unroofed his cabin to furnish straw for litter, he gave up his only beast, and was ready to kill his cow, if asked, to welcome us. Much of this was from the native, warm, and impulsive generosity of their nature, and much, doubtless, had its origin in the bright hopes of future recompense inspired by the eloquent appeals of Neal Kerrigan, who, mounted on an old white mare, rode about on every side, addressing the people in Irish, and calling upon them to give all aid and assistance to ‘the expedition.’
The difficulty of the landing was much increased by the small space of level ground which intervened between the cliffs and the sea, and of which now the thickening crowd filled every spot. This and the miserable means of conveyance for our baggage delayed us greatly, so that, with a comparatively small force, it was late in the afternoon before we had all reached the shore.
We had none of us eaten since morning, and were not sorry, as we crowned the heights, to hear the drums beat for ‘cooking.’ In an inconceivably short, time fires blazed along the hills, around which, in motley groups, stood soldiers and peasantry mingled together, while the work of cooking and eating went briskly on, amid hearty laughter and all the merriment that mutual mistakes and misconceptions occasioned. It was a new thing for French soldiers to bivouac in a friendly country, and find themselves the welcome guests of a foreign people; and certainly, the honours of hospitality, however limited the means, could not have been performed with more of courtesy or good-will. Paddy gave his ‘all,’ with a generosity that might have shamed many a richer donor.
While the events I have mentioned were going forward, and a considerable crowd of fishermen and peasants had gathered about us, still it was remarkable that, except immediately on the coast itself, no suspicion of our arrival had gained currency, and even the country-people who lived a mile from the shore did not know who we were. The few who, from distant heights and headlands, had seen the ships, mistook them for English, and as all those who were out with fish or vegetables to sell were detained by the frigates, any direct information about us was impossible. So far, therefore, all might be said to have gone most favourably with us. We had safely escaped the often-menaced dangers of the Channel fleet; we had gained a secure and well-sheltered harbour; and we had landed our force not only without opposition, but in perfect secrecy. There were, I will not deny, certain little counterbalancing circumstances on the other side of the account not exactly so satisfactory. The patriot forces upon which we had calculated had no existence. There were neither money, nor stores, nor means of conveyance to be had; even accurate information as to the strength and position of the English was unattainable; and as to generals and leaders, the effective staff had but a most sorry representative in the person of Neal Kerrigan. This man’s influence over our general increased with every hour, and one of the first orders issued after our landing contained his appointment as an extra aide-de-camp on General Humbert’s staff.
In one capacity Neal was most useful. All the available sources of pillage for a wide circuit of country he knew by heart, and it was plain, from the accurate character of his information, varying, as it did, from the chattels of the rich landed proprietor to the cocks and hens of the cottier, that he had taken great pains to master his subject. At his suggestion it was decided that we should march that evening on Killala, where little or more likely no resistance would be met with, and General Humbert should take up his quarters in the ‘Castle,’ as the palace of the bishop was styled. There, he said, we should not only find ample accommodation for the staff, but good stabling, well filled, and plenty of forage, while the bishop himself might be a most useful hostage to have in our keeping. From thence, too, as a place of some note, general orders and proclamations would issue, with a kind of notoriety and importance necessary at the outset of an undertaking like ours; and truly never was an expedition more loaded with this species of missive than ours – whole cart-loads of printed papers, decrees, placards, and such like, followed us. If our object had been to drive out the English by big type and a flaming letterpress, we could not have gone more vigorously to work. Fifty thousand broadsheet announcements of Irish independence were backed by as many proud declarations of victory, some dated from Limerick, Cashel, or Dublin itself.
Here, a great placard gave the details of the new Provincial Government of Western Ireland, with the name of the ‘Prefect’ a blank. There was another, containing the police regulations for the ‘arrondissements’ of Connaught, ‘et ses dépendances.’ Every imaginable step of conquest and occupation was anticipated and provided for in these wise and considerate protocols, from the ‘enthusiastic welcome of the French on the western coast’ to the hour of ‘General Humbert’s triumphal entry into Dublin!’ Nor was it prose alone, but even poetry did service in our cause. Songs, not, I own, conspicuous for any great metrical beauty, commemorated our battles and our bravery; so that we entered upon the campaign as deeply pledged to victory as any force I ever heard or read of in history.
Neal, who was, I believe, originally a schoolmaster, had great confidence in this arsenal of ‘black and white,’ and soon persuaded General Humbert that a bold face and a loud tongue would do more in Ireland than in any country under heaven; and, indeed, if his own career might be called a success, the theory deserved some consideration. A great part of our afternoon was then spent in distributing these documents to the people, not one in a hundred of whom could read, but who treasured the placards with a reverence nothing diminished by their ignorance. Emissaries, too, were appointed to post them up in conspicuous places through the country, on the doors of the chapels, at the smiths’ forges, at cross-roads – everywhere, in short, where they might attract notice. The most important and business-like of all these, however, was one headed ‘Arms!’ – ‘Arms!’ and which went on to say that no man who wished to lift his hand for old Ireland need do so without a weapon, and that a general distribution of guns, swords, and bayonets would take place at noon the following day at the Palace of Killala.
Serasint and, I believe, Madgett, were strongly opposed to this indiscriminate arming of the people; but Neal’s counsels were now in the ascendant, and Humbert gave an implicit confidence to all he suggested.
It was four o’clock in the evening when the word to march was given, and our gallant little force began its advance movement. Still attached to Colonel Charost’s staff, and being, as chasseurs, in the advance, I had a good opportunity of seeing the line of march from an eminence about half a mile in front. Grander and more imposing displays I have indeed often witnessed. As a great military ‘spectacle’ it could not, of course, be compared with those mighty armies I had seen deploying through the defiles of the Black Forest, or spreading like a sea over the wide plain of Germany; but in purely picturesque effect, this scene surpassed all I had ever beheld at the time, nor do I think that, in after-life, I can recall one more striking.
The winding road, which led over hill and valley, now disappearing, now emerging, with the undulations of the soil, was covered by troops marching in a firm, compact order – the grenadiers in front, after which came the artillery, and then the regiments of the line. Watching the dark column, occasionally saluting it as it went with a cheer, stood thousands of country-people on every hill-top and eminence, while far away in the distance the frigates lay at anchor in the bay, the guns at intervals thundering out a solemn ‘boom’ of welcome and encouragement to their comrades.
There was something so heroic in the notion of that little band of warriors throwing themselves fearlessly into a strange land, to contest its claim for liberty with one of the most powerful nations of the world; there was a character of daring intrepidity in this bold advance, they knew not whither, nor against what force, that gave the whole an air of glorious chivalry.
I must own that distance lent its wonted illusion to the scene, and proximity, like its twin-brother familiarity, destroyed much of the prestige my fancy had conjured up. The line of march, so imposing when seen from afar, was neither regular nor well kept. The peasantry were permitted to mingle with the troops; ponies, mules, and asses, loaded with camp-kettles and cooking-vessels, were to be met with everywhere. The baggage-waggons were crowded with officers and sous-officiers who, disappointed in obtaining horses, were too indolent to walk. Even the gun-carriages, and the guns themselves, were similarly loaded, while, at the head of the infantry column, in an old rickety gig, the ancient mail conveyance between Ballina and the coast, came General Humbert, Neal Kerrigan capering at his side on the old grey, whose flanks were now tastefully covered by the tricolour ensign of one of the boats as a saddle-cloth.
This nearer and less enchanting prospect of my gallant comrades I was enabled to obtain on being despatched to the rear by Colonel Charost, to say that we were now within less than a mile of the town of Killala, its venerable steeple and the tall chimneys of the palace being easily seen above the low hills in front. Neal Kerrigan passed me as I rode back with my message, galloping to the front with all the speed he could muster; but while I was talking to the general he came back to say that the beating of drums could be heard from the town, and that by the rapid movements here and there of people, it was evident the defence was being prepared. There was a lookout, too, from the steeple, that showed our approach was already known. The general was not slow in adopting his measures, and the word was given for quick-march, the artillery to deploy right and left of the road, two companies of grenadiers forming on the flanks. ‘As for you, sir,’ said Humbert to me, ‘take that horse,’ pointing to a mountain pony, fastened behind the gig, ‘ride forward to the town, and make a reconnaissance. You are to report to me,’ cried he, as I rode away, and was soon out of hearing.
Quitting the road, I took a foot-track across the fields, and which the pony seemed to know well, and after a sharp canter reached a small, poor suburb of the town, if a few straggling wretched cabins can deserve the name. A group of countrymen stood in the middle of the road, about fifty yards in front of me; and while I was deliberating whether to advance or retire, a joyous cry of ‘Hurrah for the French!’ decided me, and I touched my cap in salute and rode forward.
Other groups saluted me with a similar cheer, as I went on; and now windows were flung open, and glad cries and shouts of welcome rang out from every side. These signs were too encouraging to turn my back upon, so I dashed forward through a narrow street in front, and soon found myself in a kind of square or ‘Place,’ the doors and windows of which were all closed, and not a human being to be seen anywhere. As I hesitated what next to do, I saw a soldier in a red coat rapidly turn the corner – ‘What do you want here, you spy?’ he cried out in a loud voice, and at the same instant his bullet rang past my ear with a whistle. I drove in the spurs at once, and just as he had gained a doorway, I clove his head open with my sabre – he fell dead on the spot before me. Wheeling my horse round, I now rode back, as I had come, at full speed, the same welcome cries accompanying me as before.
