Gresham had asked to keep his men hidden in the centre of the column until their dash out. He had no desire for the Irish to guess his intentions, or see what some of his horsemen carried on their saddles, nor did he want his men picked off by Irish marksmen before the battle itself. He, Mannion, George and the three sergeants rode to the front of the column, still quite a long way from the start of the pass, but with much of its length visible.
'Round that bend, there,' said Gresham, pointing, 'that's where they'll drop the barricade. Trees, I guess, probably lashed together lengthwise so the whole thing can only move as one. Right. We know what we've got to do.'
It was uncanny, the way the same feeling always came over him before battle. It started with him seeming to go cold, yet not with a cold that would ever provoke a shiver. His sight became. sharper, his senses peaked so he could smell every nuance on the wind, hear every twig crack. Doubts, fears, uncertainties — all started to erode, until all that was left was a single-minded, ruthless vision.
There was a shouted order, and trumpets blared. The column staggered to a halt, just as it would if a commander had suddenly sensed the chance of an ambush ahead of him and needed to take time to assess the situation. The road itself was firm enough, but Essex's Irish horseboys had told him the truth. On either side of the pass was a boggy, rough terrain, bordered by thick woodland that could conceal a whole army. The woodland was in musket range, just, or the range of a man throwing the short spears or 'darts' favoured by the Irish.
Suddenly Gresham's seventy foot soldiers emerged from the middle of the column. They had taken off their heavy coats, were in their shirts, to the amusement and laughter of the rest of the army. Forty of them had muskets in their hands, the other thirty swords and bucklers, with muskets slung securely over their shoulders. They were jogging, moving surprisingly fast over the stony ground of the road, faces set in fierce determination, breath starting to come hard. The men looked lean, wiry. Gresham had trained them well.
'There!' said Gresham, at the head of the column. Shadowy figures had risen up from the very edge of the woodland, sunk down again quickly as if to a warning order. But it had been enough. Gresham looked at Mannion.
'Good fifty or so on each side. Mebbe more.'
Gresham nodded. The timing was crucial. The rebels would have their musketeers close by the trees. The heavy weapons would slow them down, make it harder for them to melt back into the trees unless they were close. The advance party would turn the corner, meet the barricade, stop in some confusion, probably detach some men to try and shift it. The Irish would choose their moment to fire on them, perhaps only a third of them, to give the impression they were a smaller force. They would hope to knock out five or six men, no more at that range. The English would falter, then form up to return fire. A few Irish would show themselves, at extreme range, invite fire. The Irish would wait until the first volley, then their sword and spear men would rise up from the ditches in which they had been hiding, closer than the musketeers, hurl their darts and rush in while the men were fumbling with the clumsy muskets, reloading.
Fire. Ground the musket. Ram a charge of powder down the muzzle, hoping there was no smouldering powder left in the barrel, in which case the new charge would ignite and blow your face off. Ram a piece of wadding down on top of the powder. Take out the ball, ram that down hard. Raise the musket. Pour the priming charge, check the firing mechanism. Fire. It took an agonising time, with wild, mud-coated and half naked savages leaping down the hillside towards you.
With any luck, it would seem to the Irish as if they were about to overwhelm the advance guard. The rest of the English column would be drawn in, ordered on. The Pass was the only way forward. To encourage the English to advance into the Pass, men would suddenly appear from the rear of the column, and on either side, opening fire or hurling their darts before vanishing into the turf. There would be some panic and confusion, no room to spread out on the treacherous ground, the army being pushed forward into the defile, still blocked by the trees lain over it and cunningly tied together. It was a technique the Irish were very fond of using.
Well, thought Gresham grimly, let's see if we can rewrite the script.
His men were about to round the corner, where he had gambled they would meet the barricade of trees. There! Two pistol shots in quick succession, followed by two more. Blanks, double-loaded with powder but with no ball in the barrel. A louder noise than a simple pistol shot. Unmistakable. It was the pre-arranged signal. The barrier was there, as predicted.
A trumpet blared, and Gresham and his twenty-five horse rode out at the gallop, scattering stones and earth as they went. It was a warm, muggy day, a thin layer of cloud or mist over the sun, no wind to move anything. The clattering of the hooves seemed to hang in the air, motionless. Ahead of them rode six Irish horseboys, local recruits whose loyalty had been shown in previous encounters. Great, unwieldy bundles were strapped to their horses' sides; bundles of faggots. Like those used to burn heretics. Gresham, George, Mannion and his three sergeants held smaller bundles tied by a single rope to their saddles. And on the other side, smouldering slow fuses.
As if on cue, a number of Irish emerged from the edge of the wood, advanced a few paces and either knelt to rest their muskets on top of a convenient mound, or drove sticks into the soft earth with a Y-fork at the top on which to rest the heavy barrel. The trumpet blast caught them unawares, the sight of the horsemen giving most of them cause for pause. By the time the Irish realised that the ground was too rough for the cavalry to attack them, Gresham's foot soldiers had jumped into the ditches, largely dry now, that ran along each side of the road. Resting their muskets on the front edge of the ditch, twenty men lined each ditch.
The Irish muskets were confused. They had expected to see the advance party milling around in the middle of the roadway, firing off at a virtually unseen enemy almost at random. Forty men dropping in disciplined style into the ditch, half hidden with not a shot yet fired, was not part of the plan, any more than thirty swordsmen dropping in behind them. There were a few, desultory shots from the edge of the woodland, no more. The English were hardly visible. Puffs of smoke hung motionless for a moment on the edge of the woods.
Gresham and his horsemen had only their speed as their protection. They rode pell-mell at the barricade. Every shock as his horse's hooves hit the ground was transmitted into Gresham's body. A wild, heady excitement took him over, the cold of combat being replaced by a fierce fire that seemed to rise from his stomach. He had seen men hit who were in this state, men who had ridden on unaware of the blood streaming from them. He was yelling now, screaming, as were his other horsemen, the dust and the noise incredible. Some of the Irish chose them as the better target. Every time a plume of smoke showed the whereabouts of an Irish marksman, at least two of the English muskets would crack out, aiming at the source of the shot. One of the horses faltered, but picked up and rode on. It had been nicked, no more. At that range a serious hit, particularly when the ball was losing momentum, would be more luck than judgement. Gresham felt his own horse stagger, tensed himself for the fall, but it top picked up and drove on, every sinew and muscle straining. There were one, two shots from the English side.
The horseboys stuck their slow fuses into the heart of the pile of faggots roped to each horse, and with a wild cry stood up in their stirrups, cut through the rope with a wild slash of the knife and hurled the faggots over the heads of the men in the ditch into the woods. For a few seconds, the piles hung in the air, and then with a whoosh of flame they ignited. Oil-soaked in the middle, the outer layers were damp and thick smoke started to pour from them. One horseboy suddenly crumpled like a shot bird, caught by a lucky musket ball. His horse panicked, reared up, dragging the dead body of its rider along the ground, the man's head bouncing obscenely up and down on the stones, a mass of blood and torn skin. The horse crashed into the barrier of trees, swung round and galloped back up the pass, leaving its rider draped across the dead branches like an offering at a sylvan altar. A thick pall of smoke hung now over the barricade, robbing Irish and English alike of their targets. There was just enough visibility to see the English horsemen arrive at the barricade, two or three tree trunks lashed together and laid right across the road. It was too high to leap, the great branches sticking up like the masts of a ship; the greenery of the leaves telling how recently the trees had been felled.