Gresham and five others reached the barricade, took their packages and jammed them hard under one of the tree trunks. As they did so, the other horsemen flung the heavy canvas coverings off the grappling hooks they had been carrying, threw them over the bulk of the same tree, yanked them tight and then rode back paying out long lengths of rope as they did so. The twelve charges of powder Gresham and the others had laid under the great trunk went off almost together; the fuses had been kept deliberately short. The force of the explosion lifted the great lump of wood several feet into the air. When the smoke and dust settled, it had been split in two. The horses had reared and bucked savagely at the explosions, but the hours spent training them to cope with noise paid off and none bolted. Their riders took the strain on the ropes, and dug in their spurs. With a great, grinding roar the two pieces of the once-great tree separated even further, leaving a clear gap in the road. There was a two-foot crater where the powder had bitten most hard.
Forty or fifty Irish on either side of the road, confused by the roar of twelve almost simultaneous explosions, rose from the rough ground in front of the woodland where they had lain hidden armed with swords or short spears, one or two with bows. The wisdom of where the English had gone to ground now became clear. Far enough away from the explosions to be unharmed by them, they had also for the most part held their fire. A rattling volley crashed out from the men on either side. Five, six of the Irish were flung back by the impact of a musket ball on their bodies, human flesh punched into rag doll. Seemingly uncertain, the Irish began to edge forward to muster a charge when, in what seemed an incredibly short space of time, a second, ragged volley came from the English, equally accurate.
A trumpet blared from back up the road, and the English column started to advance on the now cleared road. The remaining Irish hesitated for a moment, then with more and more flitting round the edge of the woodland they began to fall back. It was clear that, though they knew the terrain, they were finding the boggy ground on either side of the road difficult. More and more left it to join the hard surface of the road fifty or so yards beyond the broken barricade. The advancing English army were round the corner now. The cheer that went up at the sight of the opened pass was replaced by a more bloody roar, as the men saw the Irish scuttling back along the road in retreat. Uncontrollably, a mass of horses leapt forward from the column, swept down the road in pursuit of the Irish. Many of them were the young bloods Essex had recruited, wearing outrageously plumed hats that were no match for a full gallop, and which caught the wind like sails. Gresham and his troops had reined in, were standing by the side of the road. They let the horsemen thunder by in their vain pursuit — the Irish would melt back into the surrounding terrain and leave the road the minute they realised they were being pursued, and the ground was too treacherous for the horses to follow. As the dust of their passage settled, and before the main body of foot drew up, Gresham looked down and saw three or four fine hats lying in the dust, their high plumes sadly bent and broken.
'The Pass of Plumes,' he muttered and felt the stinging pain behind his eyes that always came after action. Essex rode up to him, hard. Clearly he had wanted to ride off with his young men, chase and cut the Irish down. A lone musket shot from down the road and the agonised whinny of a horse showed the folly of what the young men had done. They would turn about soon enough, when the initial excitement wore off and they realised they could be picked off one by one by hidden marksmen.
'A victory!' said Essex. 'Revenge for the Yellow Ford!'
Two and a half thousand men had died on the English side at the massacre of Yellow Ford. Here there were fifteen, perhaps sixteen Irish corpses. The body of Essex's horseboy lay draped over what was left of the barricade. One of Gresham's men had caught a musket ball in the mouth but had had the decency to fall unconscious and would be dead within the half hour, his face smashed to a pulp. A victory.
'Is it a victory from which we can claim to have learnt a great deal, my Lord?' asked Gresham, trying to keep the irony out of his voice. The pain was tightening now, sending hot needles into his eyes and down the whole side of his face. He yearned for darkness and a cold compress on his head.
'We've learnt that the Irish will run if they meet a foe of sufficient determination. Your men did well.' Essex looked carefully at Gresham, perhaps disappointed by his flat response. 'I'm grateful. Truly grateful. More perhaps than you might realise. I'll go and tell your men what I've just told you.' With that, he hauled his horse round, and galloped off to where Gresham's men were climbing out of the ditches. Essex sat beautifully on a horse. The men gathered round him, and after a few words Gresham heard cheers and huz-zahs thinly on the air. The fools. Yet it was no more than he would have done, and his time to say well done to his men would come.
Mannion tapped him on the shoulder. Gresham turned and looked round. He was wearing a padded coat for riding, deliberately loose fitting, its tail flapping behind him on the saddle. A neat hole had cut through the cloth where the coat had ridden out behind him at full gallop. An inch further forward and it would have smashed into the small of Gresham's back, pulverising his spine. Mannion had not finished. He leant forward, started to yank the strap off the saddlebag on Gresham's horse. It sat just behind his kneecap. A ragged hole had been torn in the leather. Mannion withdrew something from the bag. A flattened lead ball lay snugly cut into the cover of a book, where it had come to rest. The Revenger's Tragedy. With both shots the marksmen had allowed just a little too much for Gresham's speed, placed the ball a few inches behind where it should have gone.
'I think what we might 'ave learnt,' said Mannion, tossing the book to Gresham, 'is that the Irish have some fuckin' good shots. It ain't bad to hit a horseman at full gallop from that range, not bad by 'alf. Can't 'ave bin more than a dozen shots fired at us. That's bloody good shootin'. And they knew enough to pick out the officer, too.'
Something in Mannion's tone cut through Gresham's tiredness. 'You telling me this isn't an Irish ball?'
'I'm telling you. And I saw who it was fired it at you. Two of 'em, I reckon. One fired at the Irish, took everyone's attention. Other bugger swung round at you. Bloody good shot, too.'
As the excitement drained from Gresham the double reaction — to action and to a separate attempt on his own life — set in. He pulled gently on the reins, and his horse, which had been vaguely poking at some grass, ambled off under his lethargic control to where his men stood, Essex just having ridden off to lead the main column through the broken barricade. They cheered as Gresham reached them, grinned at him, and he leant forward out of the saddle, slapping hands and occasionally grasping and shaking one. They had reloaded their muskets, he noted, before mounting their celebration, so if more Irish had risen up from the woods behind them they would have at least received one full volley before their charge. That was good. That was training.