by CL Skelton
Beauly Priory, founded in 1230 by Sir John Bisset of the Aird to house a community of the Valliscaulian monks, and destroyed just over four hundred years later by Cromwell in order to provide stone for his fort at Inverness, stood on the north corner of the market square in Beauly. Outside the grey stone walls, which surrounded the still beautiful remnants of the Priory, even though it was but an empty, roofless shell, stood the Priory Inn. It had once been the guest house but was now fully secularized.
Ian had never been inside the building before, which was surprising, as the inn was used by most of the big houses in the area for overflow guests. It would be crowded during such times as the opening of the shooting season on the ‘glorious’ twelfth of August, when the first of the season’s grouse fell to the guns, and in the autumn, when large stalking parties came up from the south for the annual cull of red deer.
He arrived just before two-thirty and went in through the arched stone doorway and turned to his left. He found himself in a large, well furnished lounge, amply supplied with leather armchairs and a large wood fire burning in a massive grate at the far end.
It was a room in which middle-class matrons from the surrounding area would gather for afternoon tea and gossip and ensure that their figures were a threat to no one by consuming vast quantities of the delicious cream cakes for which the inn was justly famous. Over the fireplace hung a burnished post horn, a recent relic, for the Priory had been a coaching inn until the coming of the railways. That trade having all but vanished, the proprietors had refurbished the whole building to a much higher standard of comfort and succeeded where so many had failed, in attracting a new clientele from the middle and upper classes. Ian was struck by the sameness of all institutionalized buildings as he walked into the lounge. This might have been the anteroom of the mess except for the fact that, unlike that all-male establishment, this was populated almost exclusively by females. They all had leather armchairs and sofas, they all had large log fires, they all had half-panelled walls, and they all had heavy velvet curtains hanging from brass curtain poles.
Ian made his way among the small tables and the large ladies and the hunting prints with their unnatural horses frozen into immobility and found himself a recently vacated place near the fire where someone had left a copy of the Inverness Courier. He sat down and picked up the paper and pretended to read.
His mind was a mass of conflicting thoughts as he stared unseeing at the print in front of him. He was not thinking about the battalion, nor indeed about the wrath which would await him should his absence be noted. He was thinking only of her, the woman he was supposed to be meeting.
Supposing she did not come? Not a word had passed between them since she had pressed that note into his hand. Supposing circumstances had changed and she could not come? Why did she choose this day and this time and this place? What could it be that had made her act in so unladylike a fashion as to instigate their meeting? Perhaps she did not mean it at all. Perhaps she wanted merely to make a fool of him. No, he could not believe that, not of her. For if she did that, he would never be able to approach her again; but then, that might be what she wanted.
So Ian sat and worried away his half hour until the clock in the market square chimed three, and just on the third stroke Naomi came into the lounge.
He saw her before she saw him. She was standing framed in the stone arch of the doorway. She wore a gown of orange silk scattered with black polka dots. Her skirt fell straight down in front of her in horizontal folds, emphasizing the smallness of her waist. Her bodice covered the entire top of her body, ending in a tight little ruffle around her neck tied with a single piece of narrow, black velvet ribbon, which accentuated her creamy skin. She was wearing a bustle, still considered rather shocking in the Highlands, but all the rage in the more fashionable society of Edinburgh and London. The silk of her gown fell down over the bustle to form a tiny train which just swept the floor behind her.
Ian was surprised to see that she was wearing neither cape nor gloves nor hat. She caught his eye as he rose from his chair and smiled a greeting as she came towards him with her hand extended. He took her hand and brushed the tips of her fingers with his lips, astonished as ever at how tiny she was; she to whom he had always to look up to see her face in his dreams.
‘I’m so glad that you were able to come,’ she said in her low, soft voice.
‘There is no power in this world which would have kept me away from here this afternoon,’ he replied gravely, releasing her hand.
She looked hard at him, for she knew that what he had said was true. ‘Yes, Ian, but first let us have tea and then we can talk. If you will ring that little bell there, someone will come and serve us.’
She sat down and Ian seated himself opposite her, gazing at her across the table in dumb admiration while she ordered tea and hot scones from the waitress. A thousand phrases flooded his mind, phrases of endearment and longing and worship. But when he finally found his tongue and broke the silence, it was only to say, ‘Thank you, no sugar.’
‘I didn’t see you arrive,’ he said at length, watching her as she sat calmly sipping her tea and nibbling at a scone.
‘No, I arrived this morning,’ she replied.
‘This morning? But how did you do that?’
‘It’s quite simple. Mummy’s down in Edinburgh on a shopping expedition, and Papa has decided to stay in his quarters in camp for the next few days. It seems that they have so much on, I was quite surprised that you managed to get away. Anyhow, rather than be left in the house alone with only the servants for company, I’ve taken rooms here.’
‘Oh,’ replied Ian, ‘I see. So you’re ‒’ He stopped abruptly.
‘Very vulnerable?’ she said. ‘Yes, I am.’ She looked him straight in the eye.
‘I didn’t mean that,’ he protested.
‘Yes you did,’ she replied. ‘But before we talk about me, why don’t we talk about you. I am sure that you must have a great deal to say and that it must be most important.’
‘It is important, but there’s not very much to say, not really. It’s very simple, only it’s not easy to say. The words, I mean. Do you understand?’
‘I know exactly what you mean, Ian,’ replied Naomi, and she looked a little sad.
‘Would you rather I didn’t say them, then?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think it matters since we both know. Perhaps it would be easier if I were to say them for you. Shall I?’
Slowly he ran the tip of his tongue around his dry lips and looked down into his teacup, avoiding her steady gaze. ‘It’s not easy,’ he said at length.
‘You think you have fallen in love with me, Ian, is that not what you wanted to say?’
He looked up at her. ‘I don’t think,’ he said quickly, ‘I know.’
‘Have you stopped to consider that I am five years older than you are?’
‘What does that matter?’
‘Doesn’t it? Then let me put it this way. Most women are married long before they reach my age. Do you think that your family would approve? Of me, I mean?’ She waited for his answer.
‘Why shouldn’t they approve? Five years is not all that much.’
‘Ian,’ she spoke very deliberately, ‘I want you to understand this, and it has nothing to do with age. Your father would never, under any circumstances, approve of me.’
‘My father? But that’s ridiculous. He and Colonel Bruce are the greatest of friends. I should think he would be delighted.’
‘I am quite sure that he would be delighted,’ said Naomi, ‘if I were Colonel Bruce’s daughter.’
‘Naomi! What are you saying? I don’t understand. If you were Colonel Bruce’s daughter? Who else’s daughter could you be?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I only know that Willie Bruce is not my father and that I was born before he married my mother. None of us knows who my father was. We know that he was not British, not even European. He was someone over there in India, a sepoy. He ‒
raped my mother ‒ your father knows this. Can you imagine Sir Andrew approving of his son marrying a half-caste? A bastard?’
Ian’s world disintegrated. His shoulders sagged as it collapsed around him with her words. He was only too aware of the social implications of what she said and he knew full well that she spoke the truth. You only had to look at her to see that. However, he was not willing to give her up. He said, ‘Why should it make any difference who your father was?’
‘Probably it shouldn’t, but it does.’
‘Anyhow, what’s it got to do with my father? If your fa ‒ if Colonel Bruce was to give his permission, I could marry you tomorrow. I would marry you tomorrow. My father would have no say in the matter.’
‘Oh, Ian, my dear, dear Ian, you know that that is not true.’ She paused. ‘Well, don’t you?’ she said softly.
Gazing at this beautiful creature, Ian had never felt so miserable in his life. ‘But I want you so much. I just don’t want to go on without you. I love you, Naomi.’
‘Yes, my dear. I know that you love me. I know that you want me, and that at least I shall not deny to you.’
He looked up at her solemn face, not able for a moment to fully realize what it was that she was saying to him.
‘I mean,’ she replied, ‘that I cannot be your wife, but no power on earth will stop me from fulfilling my heart’s desire and becoming your lover.’
‘But how …?’ he asked.
‘If you wish it, my darling, it is very simple,’ she replied. ‘There is only one condition.’ Her voice was low and her smile was gentle.
‘Anything.’
‘There must be no more talk of marriage. I, too, for a little while dreamed dreams, but I know that it cannot be. Do I have your word?’
‘You have my word in so far as I am able to give it.’
‘You will be gentle with me?’
‘I swear it,’ said Ian.
‘Come then,’ she whispered. And led him up the stairs.
Chapter Four
Willie Bruce was not a man given to hating, but if he had been he would have hated his lords and masters at the War Office. He had been there only twice in his life and what he had seen had confirmed his contempt for the establishment. Smooth-cheeked young cavalry officers, whose regiments had never heard of them, in tight-fitting strapped trousers with tiny silver spins that had never been thrust into a horse’s side in a charge. They walked around carrying pieces of paper in hands that had never carried a rifle and smiling benignly at each other with eyes that had never seen a shot fired in anger. They were gorgeous and useless, almost as useless as the generals who inhabited palatial offices and sat over their port after dinner and said it would be a ‘jolly good idea’ to send such-and-such a regiment to such-and-such a place. Not because they were needed there but because, somehow, these old men had to justify their existence. They justified it by using the Empire like a giant chessboard and the regiments which fell under their command were the pawns in their game to be moved about at will.
Willie remembered, with bitterness, how the Maclarens (they had been the 148th Foot then and he a senior N.C.O.) had been shunted about the oceans. To China and then to New Zealand and then away from New Zealand and then back to New Zealand. And all because somebody in Whitehall was trying to hang on to his job.
It was two weeks since Ian had gone up the stairs of the Priory Inn with Naomi and they had just had the first light snowfall of the winter. A package had arrived on Willie’s desk bearing the War Office seal. It contained orders for the embarkation of the Maclaren Highlanders. At least, thought Willie, they had got it to the right address.
Willie sat in his office glaring at the documents in front of him, surprised at the unusual amount of information that they contained and furious that they were daring to send his regiment overseas without himself. God, he hoped that this did not mean a staff appointment. He knew that if it did, he would have to accept. Willie was not a rich man. He lived on his pay and the three hundred pounds a year that had been bequeathed him by Sir Henry Maclaren, Andrew’s father, and his own father for that matter.
He thought of the men who would be leaving. They would not all come back, they never did. He thought of the rank and file first because he had been one of them and because so many of them had spent their childhood on the estate in the glen and been brought up in a little but-and-ben just as he had been. He saw them all as individuals like Frankie Gibson. There was the best soldier in the battalion. If Britain had had an army of Frankie Gibsons a hundred years ago they would not have lost the American colonies. But they hadn’t, the Frankies had all been on the other side. And MacTavish, the backbone of the army, his type, a good soldier, not very bright but solid and reliable. He really ought to see about promoting MacTavish. The MacTavishes were so often ignored. Of course they were not all good; there were men like Anderson, mind he was not a Highlander, but he was another Grigor, dangerous. Willie would like to find an excuse to discharge that one. But all of this reminiscing was not getting the job done. He looked back at his orders.
He was to bring three companies up to full establishment and dispatch them, under the command of an officer of field rank, to Liverpool. There they would embark on Her Majesty’s Troopship Avonside for active service in the Middle East. They were to sail December 20, 1883; their port of arrival would be announced to them later, but it would be somewhere to the south of the Suez Canal.
They had had a busy couple of weeks and by now the men were becoming quite proficient with their new Martini-Henry rifles. A, B, and C Companies had been made up to establishment at the expense of H.Q. Company, and Willie had no doubt that they would acquit themselves well and in the best traditions of a Highland Regiment.
The question of an officer of field rank was one to which he had given much thought. He had two majors, Macadam and Scott. Macadam was the adjutant ‒ he did not want to lose him as there would be a great deal of administration here especially when the replacement companies arrived from the second battalion. Besides, Major Macadam was a very efficient administrator. He came from a comparatively well-to-do family that had a small estate a little north of Strathglass. He had spent his years at school studying, rather than enjoying himself and playing games. He was a man who was happier with a pen than a sword. It was highly unlikely that he had the dash which was needed for a command in the field.
Then there was Major Scott. He commanded Headquarters Company. H.Q. Company would be staying of course, not that that would be any barrier; Scotty was about the same age as Willie but he acted ten years older. He was a heavy man ‒ he must have been sixteen stone ‒ and he tired easily. Willie doubted that Scotty could stand the rigours of another campaign. He would never rise beyond his present rank; he was aware of this and was content in that knowledge and moreover he had recently been giving out broad hints that he was contemplating an early retirement. It was the best thing for him, Willie realized that. He lacked either the drive or the family background that would have taken him beyond his present position. Middle-class generals were very rare. No, Scott was not the right man either.
This meant that the obvious thing Willie would have to do was to promote his senior company commander. Unfortunately he did not have a senior company commander apart from Scotty. His three captains, Grant, Farquhar, and Murray, who commanded A, C, and B Companies respectively, had all joined the regiment on the same day. They were all first-class line officers. None of them lacked courage, though this issue alone helped him in his decision, for Hugh Grant was a man who carried courage to the point of foolhardiness. Tall and dark with a moustache which he tended with loving care, he was a Highlander whose family had probably inhabited these parts since the mountains which surrounded them were formed. The Grants were one of the major clans of the area and Hugh came from one of the minor establishment families which they had spawned. He was made of the stuff that in times gone by had necessitated the building of the forts and fortified houses in which less daring and a
ggressive mortals could barricade themselves. Hugh would enjoy action just for the fun of it. He would always make a wonderful number two, but command? Perhaps he needed a few more years.
Willie’s first reaction was that the job should go to Farquhar, but Alex’s inability to take anything seriously forced him to consider Murray. Murray, Willie considered, was a reflection of the changing army. He was not a spectacular man, not in the mould of either Grant or Farquhar. Quiet and unassuming, he was the son of an Edinburgh doctor. He had done well at Sandhurst and from the moment of his arrival at Strathglass had taken a professional interest in all that pertained to his duties as a regimental officer. He was the thing that Willie admired most, a true professional, like himself. He was of average height, dark, and with a beard that needed shaving twice a day. His eyes were blue and intense and he would listen solemnly to anything that even the lowest private in his company had to say. On top of all of that he was almost fanatically honest, never ran up the enormous mess bills which were so much a part of his two contemporaries’ lives, and his men gave him that highest of all soldiers’ accolades, ‘You ken where you stand wi’ Captain Murray.’ Dour, in true Scots fashion, perfectly disciplined, as he expected every one of his men to be, he would, though possessed of plenty of physical courage, never take an unnecessary risk. Yes, Murray was really the obvious choice.
Willie looked back at his orders, trying to picture the situation. Egypt did not seem to be so bad. The trouble now lay in the Sudan, and as their port of disembarkation was ‘somewhere south of Suez’, it seemed obvious that the Sudan was where the Maclarens were headed.