“Now my men and I are going to show you bitches what you’re good for. There isn’t enough for one apiece, lads,” he called back over his shoulder, “but I’m sure you won’t mind sharing.”
There was a shout of laughter, and the men surged forward. The sergeant held his hand up, and they stopped.
“As the officer here, I think I should get first choice,” he said, smiling. “Which of you will be the lucky one?” His eyes roamed across the silent women before resting on one young girl with long dark hair. He stepped forward into the open to seize her arm and Beth took her opportunity.
“You look…” he began, but whatever he’d been about to say was suddenly cut off in a choked gurgle. He let go of the girl’s arm, clutching at his neck, and at first his men and some of the women thought he was having a seizure of some sort, until he turned and they saw the blood and the handle of the knife protruding from his throat.
One of the soldiers had seen Beth’s arm move and hadn’t realised what she was doing, but now his eyes turned to her and in that moment she broke from the group and ran. She knew she could not escape them, and that they would kill her when they caught her, but hoped that while their attention was on her some of the other women would take the chance to slip round the back of the hut and melt away into the trees.
She tore past the stunned men, her head jerking back as one of them made a grab for her, his hand seizing the scarf that covered her head. She pulled hard and then the scarf tore loose and she was free, running as fast as she could down the slope in the direction of the moor.
The young fat man sat on his horse, surveying the battlefield below him. He wore a scarlet frock coat with blue lapels, heavily trimmed with gold lace. His tricorne hat was set low on his brow, and beneath it he wore an elaborately curled wig and an expression of the utmost satisfaction. The horse sidled slightly to the side, causing his servants to take a step back, and he brought it expertly under control before continuing with his perusal of what a few hours ago had been a peaceful moor, but had now taken on a distinct resemblance to an abattoir.
In the distance scarlet-coated figures moved among the heaps of dead and wounded, kicking and stabbing at anything that moved, splashing each other playfully with the blood of their victims. Some of them had even attacked the civilians who had come to watch the battle and the people living in the little farms nearby. The soldiers were certainly somewhat out of control, but then, after all the months of marching in appalling weather through the most desolate, inhospitable wilderness in the world, it was only to be expected that they would lose their heads a little. It was regrettable about the civilians, but they were certainly Scots, and probably Jacobites, and so a few less didn’t really matter much. He intended to ensure that as few rebels as possible escaped the battle alive, and to that end had detailed groups of soldiers to search all the bothies, cottages and farmsteads within a mile or so of the moor, and to kill any rebels found hiding in them.
It had been a damn good idea as well to spread the lie that Lord George Murray had said there would be no quarter for any redcoats taken today. The leniency of the rebels towards their prisoners was well known and the lie that there would be no quarter given had stopped any of the soldiers surrendering, believing that if they did they’d be killed anyway. It also meant there wouldn’t be so many rebel prisoners to deal with. The men were finishing the wounded off with remarkable efficiency, both on and off the field. Even so, there were an awful lot of them…
“Swinton,” he said to one of the men standing near him. “Remind me to post a guard on the field later.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” said Captain Swinton, bowing.
That would stop the women coming tonight and carrying off their dead, or trying to help any wounded men that the soldiers might have missed. Mind you, any women the soldiers found at the moment would have more to think about than their husbands’ welfare. Take that company at the top of the slope, for example, who had flushed out a nest of the rebel bitches. It was clear from the laughter that the men were going to have a little fun with them.
The duke smiled. They deserved a little fun. They had fought well today, putting the new bayonet techniques he had taught them into practice with deadly effect. It took courage to bayonet the man to the left of you, trusting to your neighbour to deal with the one ahead who was actually attacking you. But the technique had worked well, negating the Highlanders’ deadly charge.
He turned to look up the slope at the crowd of men and ragged huddle of women. They seemed to be taking their time about choosing which bitch they were going to rut with. He started to turn back, then stopped as he saw a woman suddenly break from the group and come racing down the hill in his direction. He saw the bright silver flag of her hair streaming out behind her, and as his mind registered where he had seen that hair before, his eye caught the arm motion of the soldier above as he raised his musket and took aim.
The Duke of Cumberland lifted his arm and shouted for the man not to fire, but his cry and the sound of the gunshot coincided, and Cumberland watched helplessly as the ball exploded from the barrel of the gun.
The young woman staggered suddenly, dropping to her hands and knees in the heather. She shook her head as though dazed, scattering droplets of blood in all directions, then amazingly, considering that the bullet had obviously found its mark, she stood and stumbled forward for another two or three steps before falling heavily to the ground.
This time she did not get up, the only movement now that of her lovely silver-blonde hair, stirred gently by the breeze, and the steady stream of blood pouring from the wound in her head and soaking into the mud beneath her.
* * *
It took Angus a lot longer than he expected to circle Drumossie Moor. He had thought the soldiers would confine their brutality to the battlefield itself, or that they would be heading for Inverness in search of food and drink. But instead they were everywhere, chasing after anything that moved, and in the end he had to make a long detour, going up the hill and coming back down to the bothy through the trees behind it. It was almost sunset and he had already determined to stay with the women in the hut until it was dark before attempting to move, although how he would go another night without sleep he had no idea.
He was still in the wood, the bothy obscured by the trees, when he realised something was wrong. It was not the silence; he had expected the women to stay quiet. But some sixth sense raised the hairs on the back of his neck and he froze mid-step, his nostrils flaring like a forest animal as he tried to ascertain where the danger lay.
Then the smell hit him; the unmistakable stench of burnt thatch and beneath that a far worse smell that made his stomach heave and his heart stop beating for a moment. He made his way through the wood faster now, but still silently and warily, and then the trees thinned and he saw the bothy, and his legs suddenly buckled under him so that he landed heavily on his knees in the grass.
The redcoats had been here, but were gone; he realised that almost immediately. Redcoats were never quiet. They could be heard a mile away when they were on the move, and even when they were trying to move quietly they announced their presence audibly long before they came in sight.
Angus braced himself and stood, then slipped round to the front of the bothy. The stone walls were still standing, but the roof had been set on fire and had burnt fiercely before collapsing on to the people trapped within. Smoke rose lazily from inside. The door had been barricaded shut, and Angus had to move several boulders and a couple of thick blackened branches wedged in the doorway before he could push the remnants of the door aside. He forced himself to go in, to see if there were any survivors.
There were no survivors. He managed to identify the bodies of the children by their size, but the women were all burnt too badly for him to identify them, or even to ascertain for sure how many of them there were. One thing was certain; from the way the bodies were heaped around the door, most of them had been alive when the hut had been fired and had tried de
sperately to get out.
Angus stumbled back out through the door, coughing and sobbing, and sank to the ground, inhaling huge lungsful of fresh air. Then he sat for a while, staring forward down the slope while the enormity of what he had lived through this day began to break through his carefully erected shields, threatening to sweep away what remnants of sanity he possessed. He could not take any more. No one could expect him to endure this. Even Alex would not be able to endure this. Black despair hit him like a tidal wave and he doubled up, feeling it as a physical blow.
“Angus.”
The voice was low-pitched but clear, and cut through his despair like a knife. He rocketed to his feet and crossed himself, backing away blindly.
“Angus.” The voice came again, louder this time, tinged with desperation and pain, and he pulled himself together and moved forward, but slowly, still uncertain as to whether it was a living voice or a ghostly one that had called him. Then he saw the splash of bright hair half obscured by a clump of ragged gorse growing against the bothy and he ran, kneeling down beside the figure who was most definitely not a ghost.
A cry of joy burst from him and he went to take her in his arms, but the look on her face stopped him. Then he saw the blood, and how much of it there was, and instead he took her small icy hand in his huge warm one and squeezed it gently.
“Maggie,” he said fervently, “it’s all right. I’m here now. I’ll find someone to help ye.”
He would, even if it meant fighting the whole redcoat army single handedly and abducting their physician.
She smiled, looking up into his earnest blue eyes. A small trickle of blood ran from the side of her mouth, and he wiped it tenderly away with a corner of his plaid.
“Iain,” she said.
“He’s alive, Maggie, he got shot in the arm, but he’s fine, truly he is. He wanted to come wi’ me, but I wouldna let him.”
“I waited for ye,” she said. “I wanted to tell ye…” her voice trailed off for a moment, then she continued, her voice clear, although it obviously caused her pain to speak.
“They’re all dead, Angus,” she said.
“Aye, I ken,” he answered. “But you’re alive, and that’s what matters now. I’ll get ye to a doctor.”
“No.” She shook her head and winced. “If ye move me I’ll die. I need to tell ye what happened, please, dinna try to move me, ye canna help me now, I’m dying.”
He wanted to deny it, to tell her she’d live to be eighty, because he couldn’t bear it if she died now. Then he looked into her calm green eyes and the panic faded, and he was a man again.
“Aye,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”
She told him. She told him about the redcoats coming, about what the sergeant had done to the baby and her, and how Beth had thrown the knife, then run. Her breathing grew more laboured as she spoke, but her voice was strong and laced with hatred.
“They shot her, Angus, in the head. She’s dead,” Maggie said. “But ye must tell Alex that at least she didna suffer. While they were going after her, I managed to crawl here, then I passed out, I think. When I came round the bastards were… they were…” A tear ran down the side of her face and she swallowed hard. A spasm of pain passed over her, and she gritted her teeth.
“I’ll away and get ye some water,” Angus said, starting to get to his feet, but she squeezed his hand with all her meagre strength, and he subsided back next to her.
“No time,” she said, her voice wavering now. “They raped all the women, and then they killed some of them and threw the bodies in the bothy. Then they pushed the others in and set light to the roof. They were screaming, Angus, and begging to be let out, and they just laughed at them. They laughed at them, can ye imagine that?” Her voice rose hysterically then faded away to a whisper, and she raised her free arm, clutching at Angus’s plaid and pulling him down to her.
“Avenge us, Angus,” she said fiercely. “Dinna let the redcoats do this tae us and go unpunished. Ye must…”
He gently detached her hand and raised it to his lips. This he could do. This he understood. It was the Highlander’s code. If someone wronged you or those you loved, then you avenged that wrong. If you didn’t, then the spirits of those killed would not rest, and you would not be able to call yourself a man.
“I’ll avenge ye, I swear it, Maggie,” he said. “D’ye ken their names, or their regiment?”
Her eyes dulled.
“No,” she whispered. Her lips were tinged with blue.
“Then I swear to ye, I’ll kill ten of the bastards for every one of you. I swear it, Maggie.”
He released her hand and took out his dirk, and kissed the hilt to seal his oath as a Highlander. It was enough. He felt her relax, and in relaxing she started to leave him. He saw her eyes mist over and realised that if she died he would be alone, with a loneliness that would be unbearable.
“Maggie!” he cried, and the panic in his voice brought her back for a minute, her eyes focussing clearly on his.
“Tell Iain,” she said, and her voice was so soft now that he had to crouch low over her to hear. “Tell him I love him, and I’m sorry to leave him. I’m so afeart, Angus,” she admitted. “I’m so afeart tae die.”
And then he did take her in his arms and crushed her to him, because it didn’t matter any more, and if she had to die she would die in the arms of someone who loved her. He could give her that, at least.
He sat there for a long time, while the sun went down and night fell on the moor and on the terrible carnage; and still he sat, until the moon rose over the hill, bathing him and the woman he still held in its cold silver light. Only then did he lay her down gently on the ground, arranging her limbs gracefully and combing her hair carefully with his fingers. Then he took out his dirk and cut off one of the long russet tresses, placing it carefully in his sporran.
It took him a long time to dig the grave, having only his dirk as a tool, and it was very shallow, but there were plenty of stones that he could pile over her to ensure she would not be disturbed by animals. He laid her in it, and said the prayers he could remember for the eternal repose of her soul. And then he prayed for himself, that he would somehow be given the strength to get to Ruthven and to tell Iain and Alex that their wives were dead. Then he prayed some more, that he would live long enough to fulfil his oath of vengeance.
After that he filled in the grave, raising a mound of stones over it. He could do nothing for the others except say a prayer for them, so he did, and then, turning his back on the distant red glow of the sentinels’ fires on the battlefield, he slipped silently into the trees and was gone.
* * *
The last thing Angus wanted to do on reaching Ruthven barracks late on the evening of the following day, was to immediately have to tell Iain what had happened to his wife. He had walked for five miles before collapsing in a ditch and sleeping for six hours. Then he had continued to plod his way south in a state of near delirium brought on by hunger, exhaustion and shock. He was not alone; many of the other clansmen were in a similar state as they made their way to the rendezvous. They had seen hundreds of their kinsmen massacred and mutilated, and they had not slept or eaten properly for three days. Their spirits would revive; but now they were crushed. Consequently Angus had no difficulty spending time alone with his thoughts.
Most of his thoughts revolved around how he would tell Iain and Alex what had befallen their wives. But there was no good way to tell such news, and as luck would have it, although there were over three thousand men at Ruthven when he arrived, one of the first people Angus encountered when he stumbled into the half-ruined barracks was Iain, his arm in a sling, his face expectant as his eyes roamed the space behind Angus in search of Maggie’s bright red hair.
Iain had obviously been looking out for Angus and his female entourage all day, and Angus was painfully aware that he could not put off telling the news. Neither Maggie nor Beth were the sort of women to delay a reunion with their loved ones whilst they made
themselves presentable. Iain was already realising that something was amiss, his look of eager anticipation turning to puzzlement.
“How’s Alex?” asked Angus immediately.
“Still unconscious,” said Iain. “The doctors have reset his leg, and they dinna think they’ll need tae amputate unless the wound goes bad, but he hasna woken at all.”
It had never occurred to Angus that they might have to amputate his brother’s leg, and this revelation, along with the immense relief that Alex still lived, and the disturbing news that he had not regained his senses, was enough to cause him to collapse to his knees on the ground. He had not realised how fragile he was until then. It was almost as though he’d had just enough resources to reach sanctuary, and no more.
Iain bent over him, trying to help him to his feet one-handed, and Angus realised that whether he had the resources or not he had to manufacture some, right now.
“Come on, man,” Iain was saying, “there’s food inside, and the others’ll be happy to see ye. They’ve been awfu’ fashed, what wi’…”
“No. No’ yet,” said Angus, struggling to his feet. “I must talk to ye, Iain, alone.”
Iain looked at Angus.
“Where is she?” he said. “Is she injured? Did ye take her tae the doctor?” But that would not explain why Angus had no women at all with him, and Iain knew that. He backed away, one step, then another.
“Iain, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I…” There was no nice way to say this. “She’s dead, Iain. They all are. The redcoats found them and…”
The Storm Breaks (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 4) Page 36