The Last Horseman (6 page)

‘Indians? What kind?’ asked Marsh.

‘Sioux, Kiowa, Comanche,’ said Pierce, sensing he was being drawn into a conversational alley where unseen danger lurked.

‘A worthy foe?’ said Marsh.

‘The best.’

Taylor scoffed. ‘Hardly.’

He and Marsh exchanged a knowing smile, but Radcliffe noticed that Belmont was watching them.

‘I had a bash at the fuzzy-wuzzies. In the Sudan. They’re not much good against cavalry,’ Taylor said.

‘Not when they’re lightly armed and on foot,’ suggested Radcliffe.

Belmont took another glass of whiskey from an orderly. ‘Still, good sport,’ he said.

‘You might feel different facing a Sioux brave at the charge. Best horse soldiers I ever saw. There are plenty of our cavalry lying dead on the plains because they thought they were fighting an ignorant savage,’ Radcliffe said.

‘But you beat them,’ said Belmont.

‘Eventually,’ Radcliffe admitted.

‘Well. There you are then. You were the better soldiers.’

Colonel Baxter’s expectation of cavalrymen sharing their experiences began to quickly fade and he regretted introducing them. The three English dragoons had been steadily drinking and now the conversation became more pointed.

‘Your government, sir, is neutral in the South African War yet they refuse to extradite Fenian dynamiters who have sought refuge in America,’ said Marsh, looking at Radcliffe.

‘Neutrality. The unmistakable stench of moral decay,’ Belmont added.

‘Watch your manners, sir,’ Baxter warned.

‘Colonel, I’m a field soldier; bantering with civilians is not my chosen profession,’ Belmont answered. ‘Even those in fancy dress.’

‘I won’t have my guests insulted, captain. Tread carefully. I shall only make a slender allowance for the occasion.’

‘Is it a coincidence I wonder, Radcliffe, that you defend Fenians?’ asked Belmont.

Baxter was about to object, but Radcliffe stopped him with a small gesture. ‘I defend anyone I am asked to defend as the law demands,’ Radcliffe said.

‘I thought you Americans had a different law than us. Seems you shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the murdering scum,’ said Marsh knowingly.

Radcliffe smiled and nodded. ‘It’s not my job to pass judgement, Captain Marsh, but our legal systems are very similar; in fact many jurisdictions in America maintain the use of English common law. I was admitted advocate there some years ago.’

‘And your late wife was Irish?’ Taylor queried, which sounded more of a taunt than a question.

‘Captain Taylor, that’s quite enough.’

Baxter’s voice was sufficiently raised to draw attention from other officers nearby. As tempted as they were to watch their colonel rip into the cavalry, they averted their gaze. The arrogant horsemen needed to be brought down a few pegs and Baxter was no soft touch of a commanding officer who could be intimidated by others of higher social rank.

But the younger men were running in a pack.

‘My question, Colonel Baxter, is why an American with such obvious republican sentiments, and I mean Irish Republican, is here at all,’ said Belmont. He placed his empty glass down. ‘My squadron serves within the same brigade as yours, sir, but until I am placed directly under your command I choose not to share my evening with a man of questionable loyalty. Goodnight, sir.’

Belmont nodded at the colonel and turned away, an act of gross bad manners but which fell marginally short of insubordination. Taylor and Marsh followed him.

Baxter took an involuntary step forward. Had he barked out the command that was on his lips the whole room would have fallen silent, but Radcliffe had moved between him and the retreating officers.

‘Alex. It doesn’t matter,’ he said quietly. ‘All cavalry officers think the sun shines out their backsides.’

‘Which is about the only time you see it around here,’ Pierce added. ‘Excuse me, colonel.’ He stepped away from Radcliffe, who was already being turned by his embarrassed and apologetic friend towards another group of officers and their wives.

Pierce made his way through the crowds, nodding occasionally and smiling at those who cast a curious glance his way. Belmont was drinking with his cronies near the fireplace. The black man’s approach stopped their conversation. Pierce made no apology for interrupting them.

‘Major Radcliffe is Anglo-American. His father was English, a lawyer and a great philanthropist. Built churches, houses for the poor. A good family. Better bred than most.’ He paused, the implication of the final words quite clear. ‘I suggest you owe him an apology. A public apology.’

‘I’ve served here before and rumour was that your friend sired a bastard son then married the Irish whore. Least, that’s how I heard it,’ Taylor said evenly.

One of the orderlies eased his way past Pierce, who reached out and took a glass of Irish whiskey. He swallowed it down.

‘Do you fight, Captain Taylor?’ he asked.

‘Fight?’ Taylor queried, but then quickly understood. ‘I’m a British officer, I don’t brawl like a common soldier.’ Without thinking he glanced at Belmont, foolishly letting his true feelings be seen.

Pierce peeled off his white dress gloves. ‘Well, I’m a retired captain in the United States Army and a common soldier taught me how to brawl.’

*

Private Flynn had won his sixpence when a mud-splattered Lieutenant Baxter had returned from his cross-country race with Edward. The illicitly distilled poteen he’d purchased could strip the polish from a saddle but gave Flynn a drunken slumber on this night of the officers’ party. He was off duty and the bottle and the warm straw bedding allowed him dreams of being someplace else. And then voices penetrated the joy of a life without orders, and brought him groggily back to reality. He rolled out of his blanket in one of the empty stalls. He grabbed the pitchfork, but soon realized when he blearily peeped through the cracks in the slatted wood that he wouldn’t need it. He saw three cavalry officers carrying lanterns, with a tall broad-shouldered black man who was pulling off his blue uniform coat. Within moments Captain Taylor and this man were stripped down to undershirt and braces. Flynn stayed silent. Officers measuring up against each other was a sight he’d never witnessed before, and he’d seen plenty of bar-room brawls in his time. Recounting this spectacle would be worth a few jars of ale in any public house or canteen.

Taylor would be no pushover but Pierce’s bulky frame helped absorb the quick blows that Taylor delivered. He jabbed like a boxer and swung low, head down, shoulders rounded, like a fairground pugilist. He felt his fists connect with an old man’s body that was still packed with layered muscle beneath his bulk. He was quicker on his feet and caught Pierce two stinging blows on the forehead, but the old man didn’t even flinch, simply ducked and weaved his shoulders and head, his eyes watching, anticipating Taylor’s style and attack.

‘I boxed for my house, old man,’ said Taylor, sensing he already had the better of Pierce.

It was only a brief moment of victory. Pierce snapped out a straight left. Short and sharp, the jab bloodied Taylor’s nose, who fell back into the arms of his cronies. There may have been a twenty years’ age disadvantage but Pierce had fought tougher men than him. Belmont, cheroot clamped between his teeth, heaved Taylor back into the fight. ‘Come on, Freddie, low and hard, man. He’ll go down. Come on now!’

Taylor ignored the pain and paced himself carefully, prowling around his opponent, throwing a punch, feeling it blocked and then the impact of Pierce’s fist slamming into his shoulder, a near miss from his jaw. His body crashed against the stable wall, dislodging bridles from their hooks. Pain streaked across his chest and into his shoulder and the horse snaffles he had slammed his head against stung him into an angry, ill-considered lunge. With two more blows Taylor was on one knee, spitting blood. Horses whinnied, Marsh stepped forward ready to strike Pierce but Belmont grabbed him and held him back. Taylor was back on his feet and landed two fast strikes; one breaking skin on Pierce’s cheek. Belmont and Marsh cried out encouragement, but the black man had barely registered the blow. Pierce recovered and slammed an uppercut into Taylor’s midriff. It was a hard punch into trained muscle, and Taylor took it well, but he faltered, his lungs gasping for air. Then Pierce put him down with a right cross.

‘The fuzzy-wuzzies send their regards,’ Pierce said as Taylor struggled to get to his knees.

*

The cold air chilled the sentries who stood at their posts, limbs stiff, wind stinging their eyes and muffling any sound made by the dozen or more men who had filtered from the night into the streets around the barracks. The anticipated fog had been blown away from the estuary by the onshore wind but the rain’s mist gave confidence to those who crept into the night to kill. One of the sentries stamped his feet, completed his turn at the corner of the wall and walked back along the perimeter of his assigned route. He’d be glad to get to the warmth of Africa. The garrison’s high walls offered little respite from the rain that swirled on the wind – if anything it seemed to funnel it more fiercely down the wheel-rutted street. He guessed he had less than an hour until he was relieved and then, while the officers supped their brandy and smoked their cigars, he would sip a beef broth and pack a welcome pipe with rough-cut tobacco that caught the throat and cleared the nostrils.

One of the streetlights at the end of his post flickered, then its rainbow glow in the mist snuffed out. That must be the storm. He hoped the duty sergeant had made sure they had enough oil for their lamps in the guardroom. He hunched his shoulders against the cold, soaked greatcoat and did not hear the footsteps approaching downwind. He blinked the rain from his eyes and sudden light shattered his vision: the last moment of his life as Pat Malone’s knife plunged into his neck. Now, as others scurried from the alleyways, they had gained another weapon. There was no need to move the dead soldier’s body; the attack would soon be launched. And they knew the guard relief was still an hour away.

*

Mulraney called across to the other sentry who shared his post at the main gate. ‘Jimmy, did you hear that? There’s someone out there scuttling around.’

The other man gazed into the half-light. He shook his head. ‘No, nothing.’

‘There’s someone out there, I’m telling you,’ Mulraney insisted, and edged away from his post, his rifle brought down to the ready.

‘Jesus, Mulraney! Get your arse back here!’ the other sentry hissed. But Mulraney was already ten paces from where he should have been.

And then the shadows moved.

Mulraney challenged the running figures but the only response was the rising clatter of boots running across cobbles. ‘Call out the guard!’ he cried to the other sentry. Pat Malone had brought a half-dozen men from the other side of the street and used the others to hold the sentries’ attention. Before the guard could do as Mulraney ordered one of Malone’s men clubbed him down with a pick handle as another levelled a pistol at Mulraney. But Mulraney smashed it from his hand, calling out for help. He rammed the rifle’s stock into one of his attackers and the metal-edged butt of his Lee–Enfield shattered bone. His fingers gripped the cocking lever, but before a cartridge could be loaded into the breech another man struck him from behind. Mulraney tumbled on to the cobbles.

Cavan Leahy placed the dynamite against the gates and as the other men turned to watch the burning fuse Mulraney scrambled to his feet, picked up his rifle, rammed the bolt action back and forth, then his finger found the trigger.

*

Belmont and Marsh had grabbed Pierce’s arms and were too strong for Pierce to throw off. They shouted at Taylor: ‘Get up! Come on, man!’

Taylor stood and looked at the helpless Pierce; then he landed two heavy blows into his stomach. Pierce collapsed on to his knees, doubled in pain. Marsh punched down into Pierce’s face, sending him sprawling, and then Taylor kicked hard as Pierce tried to protect himself from the flurry of blows.

‘Learn to know your place, nigger,’ Taylor spat at him. ‘Next time I’ll break your neck.’

Pierce couldn’t move. He was curled up, his brain trying to isolate the agony so he could get to his feet. But the strength was sapped from his muscles, the darkness sucking him under.

It was Belmont who dragged Taylor away from Pierce. ‘Leave him be!’ he demanded, with enough derision in his voice to insult Taylor. Before Taylor could land any more blows, gunshots echoed across the parade ground. Belmont turned and ran towards the sounds as an explosion flared into the night sky. Taylor and Marsh were at his heels.

The duty officer’s whistle shrilled briefly against the sounds of gunshots and men’s raised voices. Mulraney had shot at two men, not knowing if the bullets had found their target. He didn’t want to be caught outside the walls and ran into the garrison through the swirling smoke and flame of the shattered gates. More explosions followed and he saw soldiers taking up firing positions across the parade ground. Darkness shrouded men’s ghostly images; the rain squall and smoke mingled, swallowing friend and foe. Gusts of wind would clear fifty yards and then sweep the curtain of rain closed again.

It was the chaos the Fenians wanted.

That and the armoury.

*

Radcliffe and Baxter burst from the officers’ mess into the conflagration. Bullets ricocheted across the stone walls and Radcliffe saw Mulraney clipped by a bullet in his arm. As Baxter shouted commands to his men Radcliffe ran forward and helped the fallen soldier into the cover of the barracks’ archways. But Malone and Leahy with half a dozen others had escaped from the turmoil and were running into the heart of the barrack complex. Leahy carried the Webley in one hand and his satchel of dynamite in the other. As the attackers dashed towards the armoury they turned a corner and faced a squad of Fusiliers whose rifles were already at their shoulders. The attackers stumbled to a halt. They were boxed in, confined to the passageway between the buildings.

‘Sweet Christ. They’re waiting for us!’ Leahy cursed and threw himself aside as the detachment’s officer gave the order to fire. The deafening volley smashed into the Fenians. Breathless and terrified, Malone dragged Leahy back a dozen paces to the safety of another building as a second volley shattered the air in the killing ground. A bullet had ripped through the arm of Malone’s coat and snagged flesh, which bled. There was no time to be concerned about a flesh wound. The others were dead. It was a miracle he and the dynamiter weren’t lying in the passageway. The two men made another fifty yards, desperately seeking out the others, whom they found fighting a ramshackle pitched battle against the soldiers, who had quickly reorganized themselves. There was little doubt the attack had failed.