Kitabı oku: «Maurice Tiernay, Soldier of Fortune», sayfa 19
CHAPTER XXIV. THE MISSION TO THE NORTH
I have never yet been able to discover whether General Humbert really did feel the confidence that he assumed at this period, or that he merely affected it, the better to sustain the spirits of those around him. If our success at Castlebar was undeniable, our loss was also great, and far more than proportionate to all the advantages we had acquired. Six officers and two hundred and forty men were either killed or badly wounded, and as our small force had really acquired no reinforcement worth the name, it was evident that another such costly victory would be our ruin.
Not one gentleman of rank or influence had yet joined us; few of the priesthood; and, even among the farmers and peasantry, it was easy to see that our recruits comprised those whose accession could never have conferred honour or profit on any cause.
Our situation was anything but promising. The rumours that reached us (and we had no other or more accurate information than rumours) told that an army of thirty thousand men, under the command of Lord Cornwallis, was in march against us; that all the insurrectionary movements of the south were completely repressed; that the spirit of the Irish was crushed, and their confidence broken, either by defeat or internal treachery. In a word, that the expedition had already failed, and the sooner we had the means of leaving the land of our disasters the better.
Such were the universal feelings of all my comrades; but Humbert, who had often told us that we were only here to prepare the way for another and more formidable mission, now pretended to think that we were progressing most favourably towards a perfect success. Perhaps he firmly believed all this, or perhaps he thought that the pretence would give more dignity to the finale of an exploit which he already saw was nearly played out. I know not which is the true explanation, and am half disposed to think that he was actuated as much by one impulse as the other.
‘The Army of the North’ was the talisman, which we now heard of for the first time, to repair all our disasters, and ensure complete victory. ‘The Army of the North,’ whose strength varied from twenty to twenty-five, and sometimes reached even thirty thousand men, and was commanded by a distinguished Irish general, was now the centre to which all our hopes turned. Whether it had already landed, and where, of what it consisted, and how officered, not one of us knew anything; but by dint of daily repetition and discussion we had come to believe in its existence as certainly as though we had seen it under arms.
The credulous lent their convictions without any trouble to themselves whatever; the more sceptical studied the map, and fancied twenty different places in which they might have disembarked; and thus the Army of the North grew to be a substance and reality, as undoubted as the scenes before our eyes.
Never was such a ready solution of all difficulties discovered as this same Army of the North. Were we to be beaten by Cornwallis, it was only a momentary check, for the Army of the North would come up within a few days and turn the whole tide of war. If our Irish allies grew insubordinate or disorderly, a little patience and the Army of the North would settle all that. Every movement projected was fancied to be in concert with this redoubted corps, and at last every trooper that rode in from Killala or Ballina was questioned as to whether his despatches did not come from the Army of the North.
Frenchmen will believe anything you like for twenty-four hours. They can be flattered into a credulity of two days, and, by dint of great artifice and much persuasion, will occasionally reach a third; but there, faith has its limit; and if nothing palpable, tangible, and real, intervene, scepticism ensues; and what with native sarcasm, ridicule, and irony, they will demolish the card edifice of credit far more rapidly than ever they raised it. For two whole days the Army of the North occupied every man amongst us. We toasted it over our wine; we discussed it at our quarters; we debated upon its whereabouts, its strength, and its probable destination; but on the third morning a terrible shock was given to our feelings by a volatile young lieutenant of hussars exclaiming – ‘Ma foi! I wish I could see this same Army of the North!’
Now, although nothing was more reasonable than this wish, nor was there any one of us who had not felt a similar desire, this sudden expression of it struck us all most forcibly, and a shrinking sense of doubt spread over every face, and men looked at each other as though to say – ‘Is the fellow capable of supposing that such an army does not exist?’ It was a very dreadful moment – a terrible interval of struggle between the broad daylight of belief and the black darkness of incredulity; and we turned glances of actual dislike at the man who had so unwarrantably shaken our settled convictions.
‘I only said I should like to see them under arms,’ stammered he, in the confusion of one who saw himself exposed to public obloquy.
This half-apology came too late – the mischief was done! and we shunned each other like men who were afraid to read the accusation of even a shrewd glance. As for myself, I can compare my feelings only to those of the worthy alderman, who broke out into a paroxysm of grief on hearing that Robinson Crusoe was a fiction. I believe, on that sudden revulsion of feeling, I could have discredited any and everything. If there was no Army of the North, was I quite sure that there was any expedition at all? Were the generals mere freebooters, the chiefs of a marauding venture? Were the patriots anything but a disorderly rabble eager for robbery and bloodshed? Was Irish Independence a mere phantom? Such were among the shocking terrors that came across my mind as I sat in my quarters, far too dispirited and depressed to mix among my comrades.
It had been a day of fatiguing duty, and I was not sorry, as night fell, that I might betake myself to bed, to forget, if it might be, the torturing doubts that troubled me. Suddenly I heard a heavy foot upon the stair, and an orderly entered with a command for me to repair to the headquarters of the general at once. Never did the call of duty summon me less willing, never found me so totally disinclined to obey. I was weary and fatigued; but worse, than this, I was out of temper with myself, the service, and the whole world. Had I heard that the Royal forces were approaching, I was exactly in the humour to have dashed into the thick of them, and sold my life as dearly as I could, out of desperation.
Discipline is a powerful antagonist to a man’s caprices, for with all my irritability and discontent I arose, and resuming my uniform, set out for General Humbert’s quarters. I followed ‘the orderly,’ as he led the way through many a dark street and crooked alley till we reached the square. There, too, all was in darkness, save at the mainguard, where, as usual, the five windows of the first storey were a blaze of light, and the sounds of mirth and revelry, the nightly orgies of our officers, were ringing out in the stillness of the quiet hour. The wild chorus of a soldier-song, with its rataplan accompaniment of knuckles on the table, echoed through the square, and smote upon my ear with anything but a congenial sense of pleasure.
In my heart I thought them a senseless, soulless crew, that could give themselves to dissipation and excess on the very eve, as it were, of our defeat, and with hasty steps I turned away into the side-street, where a large lamp, the only light to be seen, proclaimed General Humbert’s quarters.
A bustle and stir, very unusual at this late hour, pervaded the passages and stairs, and it was some time before I could find one of the staff to announce my arrival, which at last was done somewhat unceremoniously, as an officer hurried me through a large chamber crowded with the staff into an inner room, where, on a small field-bed, lay General Humbert, without coat or boots, a much-worn scarlet cloak thrown half over him, and a black handkerchief tied round his head. I had scarcely seen him since our landing, and I could with difficulty recognise the burly, high-complexioned soldier of a few days back, in the worn and haggard features of the sick man before me. An attack of ague, which he had originally contracted in Holland, had relapsed upon him, and he was now suffering all the lassitude and sickness of that most depressing of all maladies.
Maps, books, plans, and sketches of various kinds scattered the bed, the table, and even the floor around him; but his attitude as I entered betrayed the exhaustion of one who could labour no longer, and whose worn-out faculties demanded rest. He lay flat on his back, his arms straight down beside him, and with half-closed eyes, seemed as though falling off to sleep.
His first aide-de-camp, Merochamp, was standing with his back to a small turf fire, and made a sign to us to be still, and make no noise as we came in.
‘He ‘s sleeping,’ said he; ‘it ‘s the first time he has closed his eyes for ten days.’
We stood for a moment uncertain, and were about to retrace our steps, when Humbert said, in a low, weak voice —
‘No! I’m not asleep, come in.’
The officer who presented me now retired, and I advanced towards the bedside.
‘This is Tiernay, general,’ said Merochamp, stooping down and speaking low; ‘you wished to see him.’
‘Yes, I wanted him. Ha! Tiernay, you see me a good deal altered since we parted last; however, I shall be all right in a day or two, it’s a mere attack of ague, and will leave when the good weather comes. I wished to ask you about your family, Tiernay; was not your father Irish?’
‘No, sir; we were Irish two or three generations back, but since that we have belonged either to Austria or to France.’
‘Then where were you born?’
‘In Paris, sir, I believe, but certainly in France.’
‘Then I said so, Merochamp; I knew that the boy was French.’
‘Still I don’t think the precaution worthless,’ replied Merochamp; ‘Teeling and the others advise it.’
‘I know they do,’ said Humbert peevishly, ‘and for themselves it may be needful; but this lad’s case will be injured, not bettered by it. He is not an Irishman; he never was at any time a British subject. Have you any certificate of birth or baptism, Tiernay?’
‘None, sir; but I have my ‘livret’ for the school of Saumur, which sets forth my being a Frenchman by birth.’
‘Quite sufficient, boy, let me have it.’
It was a document which I always carried about with me since I landed, to enable me any moment, if made prisoner, to prove myself an alien, and thus escape the inculpation of fighting against the flag of my country. Perhaps there was something of reluctance in my manner as I relinquished it, for the general said, ‘I’ll take good care of it, Tiernay; you shall not fare the worse because it is in my keeping. I may as well tell you that some of our Irish officers have received threatening letters. It is needless to say they are without name, stating that if matters go unfortunately with us in this campaign they will meet the fate of men taken in open treason; and that their condition of officers in our service will avail them nothing. I do not believe this. I cannot believe that they will be treated in any respect differently from the rest of us. However, it is only just that I should tell you that your name figures amongst those so denounced; for this reason I have sent for you now. You, at least, have nothing to apprehend on this score. You are as much a Frenchman as myself. I know Merochamp thinks differently from me, and that your Irish descent and name will be quite enough to involve you in the fate of others.’
A gesture, half of assent but half of impatience, from the aide-de-camp, here arrested the speaker.
‘Why not tell him frankly how he stands?’ said Humbert eagerly; ‘I see no advantage in any concealment.’
Then addressing me, he went on. ‘I purpose, Tiernay, to give you the same option I gave the others, but which they have declined to accept. It is this: we are daily expecting to hear of the arrival of a force in the north under the command of Generals Tandy and Rey.’
‘The Army of the North?’ asked I, in some anxiety. ‘Precisely; the Army of the North. Now I desire to open a communication with them, and at the same time to do so through the means of such officers as, in the event of any disaster here, may have the escape to France open to them; which this army will have, and which, I need not say, we have no longer. Our Irish friends have declined this mission as being more likely to compromise them if taken; and also as diminishing and not increasing their chance of escape. In my belief that you were placed similarly I have sent for you here this evening, and at the same time desire to impress upon you that your acceptance or refusal is purely a matter at your own volition.’
‘Am I to regard the matter simply as one of duty, sir? or as an opportunity of consulting my personal safety?’
‘What shall I say to this, Merochamp?’ asked Humbert bluntly.
‘That you are running to the full as many risks of being banged for going as by staying; such is my opinion,’ said the aide-de-camp. ‘Here as a rebel, there as a spy.’
‘I confess, then,’ said I, smiling at the cool brevity of the speech, ‘the choice is somewhat embarrassing! May I ask what you advise me to do, general?’
‘I should say go, Tiernay.’
‘Go, by all means, lad,’ broke in the aide-de-camp, who throughout assumed a tone of dictation and familiarity most remarkable. ‘If a stand is to be made in this miserable country it will be with Rey’s force; here the game will not last much longer. There lies the only man capable of conducting such an expedition, and his health cannot stand up against its trials!’
‘Not so, Merochamp; I ‘ll be on horseback to-morrow or the day after at furthest; and if I never were to take the field again, there are others, yourself amongst the number, well able to supply my place: but as to Tiernay – what says he?’
‘Make it duty, sir, and I shall go, or remain here with an easy conscience,’ said I.
‘Then duty be it, boy,’ said he; ‘and Merochamp will tell you everything, for all this discussion has wearied me much, and I cannot endure more talking.’
‘Sit down here,’ said the aide-de-camp, pointing to a seat at his side, ‘and five minutes will suffice.’
He opened a large map of Ireland before us on the table, and running his finger along the coast-line of the western side, stopped abruptly at the bay of Lough Swilly.
‘There,’ said he, ‘that is the spot. There, too, should have been our own landing! The whole population of the north will be with them – not such allies as these fellows, but men accustomed to the use of arms, able and willing to take the field. They say that five thousand men could hold the passes of those mountains against thirty.’
‘Who says this?’ said I, for I own it that I had grown marvellously sceptical as to testimony.
‘Napper Tandy, who is a general of division, and one of the leaders of this force’; and he went on: ‘The utmost we can do will be to hold these towns to the westward till they join us. We may stretch away thus far,’ and he moved his finger towards the direction of Leitrim, but no farther. ‘You will have to communicate with them; to explain what we have done, where we are, and how we are. Conceal nothing – let them hear fairly that this patriot force is worth nothing, and that even to garrison the towns we take they are useless. Tell them, too, the sad mistake we made by attempting to organise what never can be disciplined, and let them not arm a population, as we have done, to commit rapine and plunder.’
Two letters were already written – one addressed to Rey, the other to Napper Tandy. These I was ordered to destroy if I should happen to become a prisoner; and with the map of Ireland, pen-marked in various directions, by which I might trace my route, and a few lines to Colonel Charost, whom I was to see on passing at Killala, I was dismissed.’ When I approached the bedside to take leave of the general he was sound asleep. The excitement of talking having passed away, he was pale as death, and his lips totally colourless. Poor fellow, he was exhausted-looking and weary, and I could not help thinking, as I looked on him, that he was no bad emblem of the cause he had embarked in!
I was to take my troop-horse as far as Killala, after which I was to proceed either on foot, or by such modes of conveyance as I could find, keeping as nigh the coast as possible, and acquainting myself, so far as I might do, with the temper and disposition of the people as I went. It was a great aid to my sinking courage to know that there really was an Army of the North, and to feel myself accredited to hold intercourse with the generals commanding it.
Such was my exultation at this happy discovery, that I was dying to burst in amongst my comrades with the tidings, and proclaim, at the same time, my own high mission. Merochamp had strictly enjoined my speedy departure without the slightest intimation to any, whither I was going, or with what object.
A very small cloak-bag held all my effects, and with this slung at my saddle I rode out of the town just as the church clock was striking twelve. It was a calm, starlight night, and once a short distance from the town, as noiseless and still as possible; a gossoon, one of the numerous scouts we employed in conveying letters or bringing intelligence, trotted along on foot beside me to show the way, for there was a rumour that some of the Royalist cavalry still loitered about the passes to capture our despatch bearers, or make prisoners of any stragglers from the army.
These gossoons, picked up by chance, and selected for no other qualification than because they were keen-eyed and swift of foot, were the most faithful and most worthy creatures we met with. In no instance were they ever known to desert to the enemy, and, stranger still, they were never seen to mix in the debauchery and excesses so common to all the volunteers of the rebel camp. Their intelligence was considerable, and to such a pitch had emulation stimulated them in the service, that there was no danger they would not incur in their peculiar duties.
My companion on the present occasion was a little fellow of about thirteen years of age, and small and slight even for that; we knew him as ‘Peter,’ but whether he had any other name, or what, I was ignorant. He was wounded by a sabre-cut across the hand, which nearly severed the fingers from it, at the bridge of Castlebar, but, with a strip of linen bound round it, now he trotted along as happy and careless as if nothing ailed him.
I questioned him as we went, and learned that his father had been a herd in the service of a certain Sir Roger Palmer, and his mother a dairymaid in the same house, but as the patriots had sacked and burned the ‘Castle,’ of course they were now upon the world. He was a good deal shocked at my asking what part his father took on the occasion of the attack, but for a very different reason than that which I suspected.
‘For the cause, of course!’ replied he, almost indignantly; ‘why wouldn’t he stand up for ould Ireland!’
‘And your mother – what did she do?’
He hung down his head, and made no answer till I repeated the question.
‘Faix,’ said he slowly and sadly, ‘she went and towld the young ladies what was goin’ to be done, and if it hadn’t been that the “boys” caught Tim Haynes, the groom, going off to Foxford with a letter, we’d have had the dragoons down upon us in no time! They hanged Tim, but they let the young ladies away, and my mother with them, and off they all went to Dublin.’
‘And where’s your father now?’ I asked.
‘He was drowned in the bay of Killala four days ago. He went with a party of others to take oatmeal from a sloop that was wrecked in the bay, and an English cruiser came in at the time and fired on them; at the second discharge the wreck and all upon it went down!’
He told all these things without any touch of sorrow in voice or manner. They seemed to be the ordinary chances of war, and so he took them. He had three brothers and a sister; of the former, two were missing, the third was a scout; and the girl – she was but nine years old – was waiting on a canteen, and mighty handy, he said, for she knew a little French already, and understood the soldiers when they asked for a goutte, or wanted du feu for their pipes.
Such, then, was the credit side of the account with Fortune, and, strange enough, the boy seemed satisfied with it; and although a few days had made him an orphan and houseless, he appeared to feel that the great things in store for his country were an ample recompense for all. Was this, then, patriotism? Was it possible that one, untaught and unlettered as he was, could think national freedom cheap at such a cost? If I thought so for a moment, a very little further inquiry undeceived me. Religious rancour, party feuds, the hate of the Saxon – a blind, ill-directed, unthinking hate – were the motives which actuated him. A terrible retribution for something upon somebody, an awful wiping out of old scores, a reversal of the lot of rich and poor, were the main incentives to his actions, and he was satisfied to stand by at the drawing of this great lottery, even without holding a ticket in it!
It was almost the first moment of calm reflective thought I had enjoyed, as I rode along thus in the quiet stillness of the night, and I own that my heart began to misgive me as to the great benefits of our expedition. I will not conceal the fact, that I had been disappointed in every expectation I had formed of Ireland.
The bleak and barren hills of Mayo, the dreary tracts of mountain and morass, were about as unworthy representatives of the boasted beauty and fertility, as were the half-clad wretches who flocked around us of that warlike people of whom we had heard so much. Where were the chivalrous chieftains with their clans behind them? Where the thousands gathering around a national standard? Where that high-souled patriotism, content to risk fortune, station – all, in the conflict for national independence? A rabble led on by a few reckless debauchees, and two or three disreputable or degraded priests, were our only allies; and even these refused to be guided by our councils, or swayed by our authority. I half suspected Serasin was right when he said – ‘Let the Directory send thirty thousand men and make it a French province, but let us not fight an enemy to give the victory to the sans-culottes.’
As we neared the pass of Barnageeragh, I turned one last look on the town of Castlebar, around which, at little intervals of space, the watch-fires of our pickets were blazing; all the rest of the place was in darkness.
It was a strange and a thrilling thought to think that there, hundreds of miles from their home, without one link that could connect them to it, lay a little army in the midst of an enemy’s country, calm, self-possessed, and determined. How many, thought I, are destined to leave it? How many will bring back to our dear France the memory of this unhappy struggle?
