Any hopes he had that Kate didn’t perceive the gulf between them as being as wide as he did were dashed one night just before the wedding. He was staring into the fire when Kate, who’d been putting together a seating plan for the reception, suddenly broke into his reverie by saying, “Cameron, would you sit for me?”
At first he didn’t understand what she meant. But when she tore the seating plan from her clipboard to leave a blank sheet of paper, he realized she wanted to draw him. The troubled look slipped from his face and he smiled the quiet, boyish smile she loved so much.
Kate got out of the armchair, sat cross-legged opposite him, and began to draw. At first her hand moved quickly, and Cameron guessed she was roughing out general proportions and outlines.
But gradually her movements slowed, and as many involved a rubber as a pencil.
Finally she ripped the paper from the clipboard, her eyes filling with tears.
“Can I see it?” he asked.
She shook her head, screwing the paper up.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“It’s your face, Cameron. I couldn’t draw your face. It came out like my statues, like a stranger.”
He thought about telling Kate the things she needed to know to capture his true likeness. Then he thought about what the drawing would look like if she knew those things. He didn’t like what he saw, and didn’t think she would either, so he didn’t say anything.
The silence between them sounded very loud, and seemed to last forever.
Finally Kate said, “I feel like you’re rebuilding the cottage but not your life, Cameron. I thought I could help you, but you won’t let me in. It’s as though your life has rooms that you’re scared to go into and rooms you sometimes can’t get out of, and I can’t help you do either because you won’t give me the keys.”
Unable to meet her searching gaze, Cameron looked into the fire instead.
“As long as there are doors that are locked we can maybe share a house, Cameron, but we can’t make a home—and it’s a home that I long for, and to share it with you. Why won’t you let me in?”
“I can’t,” he said, still looking into the flames.
“Don’t you trust me?”
“I’d trust you with my life, you must know that.”
“That doesn’t add up,” she said, exasperated. “If you really trust someone you don’t have secrets from them, things you’re frightened to tell them.”
“What I’m most frightened of is losing you.”
“You’re saying you want us to be together, but by shutting me out you’re doing the one thing that’s certain to keep us apart. Have you any idea how much it hurts when the person you most want to be close to holds you tight for a few moments each night, and then the rest of the time keeps you at arm’s length? I want to share my life with you, Cameron, but I can’t share my life with someone who’s shutting me out of half of theirs.”
“I’d give you the keys to the locked doors if I could, you have to believe that.”
“What I believe is that if two people love each other then they’re much stronger together than apart. I believe that together there’s nothing they can’t face.”
“That’s how it would be in an ideal world, Kate, but I’ve spent the last year learning that the world is a lot less than perfect, and that I’m one of the far from perfect parts of it. I can’t forget that, and it gets harder to face you every time I remember it.”
“God, Cameron!” she said, infuriated. “Part of me is mad at you, and part of me is crazy about you, and I don’t know what to do.”
He didn’t know what to tell her.
For a few moments it seemed like Kate didn’t know what to say, either. Finally she told him, “I’m going to Edinburgh tomorrow to pick up some stuff for the wedding. I think I’ll stay overnight and hope that things make more sense when I get back, because they don’t make any sense at all right now.”
Cameron knew he was supposed to say something at this point, but didn’t know what it was.
Kate sighed, then said, “I feel like part of you is a part of me, Cameron, but there’s another part of you that’s a complete stranger. Maybe when I get back you can introduce me to him.”
Wanting hard work to occupy his mind while Kate was away, Cameron spent most of the next day on his hands and knees putting a new finish on the stone floor of the cottage. It was back-breaking work, and after it was done he collapsed into the rocking chair for a rest before the walk back to Greystane. Within moments he was asleep, and within minutes he was dreaming …
Hearing warlike whoops and taunts and ranting bagpipes all around, and the steady, disciplined beating of military snare drums in the distance.
Blackness gave way to misty grey, as if his eyes were adjusting to the lighting of the dream. Gradually the fog cleared to reveal rank upon rank of scarlet-clad troops barely a quarter of a mile away across a sleet-swept moor. Battle standards of crimson and mustard and green emblazoned with regimental badges fluttered above the lines of men, vivid against the leaden sky.
Without warning a thunderous series of booms from close by shook the ground beneath his feet and a sulphurous cloud engulfed him, stinging his eyes and burning his throat, leaving him blinking and blind, coughing and choking and deafened by a high-pitched ringing in his head.
A gust of wind blew the smoke away in time for him to see a salvo of round-shot arching towards the immaculately ordered scarlet ranks up ahead. Most of the cannonballs fell short but a few bounced and rolled far enough to topple some of the men like toy soldiers on a wargame board or pins in a bowling alley.
As if by magic the gaps were filled almost as soon as they appeared. Again as if by magic, grey puffs blossomed between the scarlet formations, followed by distant claps of thunder, as the Redcoat artillery opened up.
For a few moments nothing happened, and he thought their aim was badly off.
Then the sky was peppered with black dots that grew steadily larger and nearer, moving with deceptive slowness until they were overhead and then whistling past with an ear-splitting rush to land behind him. Each impact was marked by a dull thud that shook the earth beneath his feet, and followed by piercing screams of such agony that they sapped the strength from his legs and whatever courage had been in his heart.
A voice from near at hand shouted, “Stand fast!”
Another hoarsely commanded, “Fire!”
The guns around him roared out again, but there were fewer of them now. Even as the last one fired, the air to left and right was ripped asunder by another salvo of enemy roundshot.
A piper stopped in mid skirl, and there was another unconducted symphony of visceral screams.
There was no answer from the artillery around him now, just another barrage from the guns ahead. This time instead of the air being split above him it was shredded all around, as if by a swarm of angry bees. From the corner of his eye he saw men being knocked backwards, staggering forwards or sinking to their knees as if in slow motion, and as he turned to look he got a face full of someone else’s blood.
He blinked warm blood from his eyes and spat it from his mouth just as a man to his right broke ranks to walk with reckless defiance and awesome courage towards the Redcoat lines. He wore dark plaid and a blue bonnet with white cockade. In his left hand was a small round shield of wood and leather, in his right hand he held a yard-long basket-hilted broadsword. Raising the sword behind his head, he shouted, “Wait no more, men of Clan Chattan!” Slashing the broadsword forward with a cry of “Life or death! Claymore! Claymore!” he charged without waiting to see whether the men behind him followed, as if sure they would storm the very gates of Hell if he asked them to.
Cameron hesitated but those around him did not, surging around him with shouts of “Life or death!” and “Claymore! Claymore!” so that while Cameron had lined up in the front row, he was in the second or third row of the charge.
The charge seemed to go on forever. On either side he could h
ear wordless cries of pain and hate and fury; from up ahead the earth-shaking thunder of cannon; and, all around, the high-pitched whistling of lead balls and jagged pieces of iron that shredded the smoke and indiscriminately splintered the wood of targe and musket stock, pinged off the steel of sword blade and pistol barrel, ripped into flesh and shattered bone.
The mix of mist and smoke shrouding the moor was so thick that he could no longer see how far he was from the Redcoat lines, but he knew they must be close because the thunder from up ahead was almost deafening now and even the bagpipes were drowned out and only heard in memory, in the music of the blood that bound the charging men like brothers.
With each stumbling, staggering step the shrieking swarm of lead seemed to grow more intense, the screams around him louder, the battle cries fewer and hoarser.
When another gust of wind cleared the smoke away he saw three ranks of mitred Redcoats barely twenty paces ahead of him. The first rank dropped in unison to one knee. Butts of bayoneted muskets slammed into their shoulders with a meaty slap audible even above the sounds of battle. The commander of “Fire!” was followed by a ripple of innocuous little puffs blossomed along the line, stabbed through here and there with brilliant orange flashes. A heartbeat later came the noise that went with smoke and flame—a succession of pops that was ragged at the start and end but almost a solid sound in the middle.
The next thing he knew he was tripping over a body and the air above him was singing with the deadly song of another swarm of vengeful bees. Looking up from where he’d fallen on the cold, wet heather he saw that most of the charging men charged no more.
Up ahead came the command, “Second rank, present arms!
The next line of Redcoats shouldered their muskets.
“Fire!”
More puffs of smoke and spikes of flame …
Another Pop! Pop! BOOOOOOOOM!!! Pop! Pop!
More Highlanders falling as if they’d stumbled just like him, only never getting up again. There were so few clansmen left on their feet now that he had a clear view of the ranks of scarlet-clad soldiers they charged towards. He saw every detail vividly …
A Redcoat ramming a rod into the barrel of his musket, tall mitred hat on his head, white leather neck stock rising above his collar, broad belt and bandolier of buff leather over knee-length coat of scarlet with wide collar and cuffs of mustard yellow, mud-spattered grey gaiters cinched at the knee with black garters …
Another trooper next to him biting a cartridge open and spitting darkly to one side, his lips ringed with black powder …
A drummer beating time, chevrons sloping up his sleeve from wrist to shoulder, drum banded in red at top and bottom and criss-crossed with rope …
An officer with a black tricorn and silver wig, sabre in hand, looking down the line of his men and calling out, “Third rank, make ready … Present… Fire!”
More kilted men tumbling: one, barely more than a boy, hit by so much shot that he was lifted several feet of the ground and flung half a dozen yards backwards …
A young man caught in the shoulder by a musket ball and spun around, like a rag doll doing a grotesque parody of a pirouette, with an accompanying shower of crimson blood …
Another hit square in the forehead and stopped literally dead in his tracks.
The few remaining clansmen were almost at the first rank of kneeling soldiers now, flailing and hacking with boundless fury but falling victim to Redcoat bayonets before their unblooded claymores could land a telling blow.
A cry of “Dunmaghlas!” from close behind announced another charge, and moments later more kilted warriors were rushing past him. Unable to make himself get up off the heather to join them after witnessing the full horror of what had happened to the first wave, he just watched as the charging men stumbled over the bodies of fallen friends and kinsmen before being stopped in their tracks by another rolling volley. At least half of the Highlanders went down, and those who remained on their feet just stood there for a moment that for many was a lifetime, too proud to go back but unable to force themselves forward into such a ferocious weight of shot. Some shook their swords in desperate frustration or reached down to pick up stones to throw in helpless rage. Others raised their plaids over their heads and tried to shelter behind the tartan.
One held high the gold and scarlet colors of the clan, but the next volley turned him this way and that before driving him from his feet and dumping him halfway between Cameron and the Redcoat ranks. Cameron thought the clansman was dead, but then the standard shivered as the man tried to lift it. His body heaved and fell back with a shudder. Seeing Cameron out of glassy eyes, the standard-bearer said, “Jamie, the colors … Save the colors.”
Cameron just lay there, looking at him.
“The day’s lost,” the fallen Highlander croaked, “but at least save the col—”
The voice was drowned out by another volley.
Cameron jumped in the chair. He came half awake before falling back into the dream.
He was up and running now, but away from the gunfire, screams, and moaning rather than towards them. His right shoulder throbbed as if he’d been struck with a red-hot sledgehammer. Pain spread out from it in pounding waves that almost sickened him, each one blacking his vision with a pulsing darkness that he struggled to blink away.
The dream kaleidoscoped into a nightmare of pursuit and concealment:
Running through trees with the branches whipping his face; tripping over roots; hiding behind trunks.
Splashing through fast-flowing icy water, teeth chattering, shivering uncontrollably.
Struggling to get over waist-high dykes and then sheltering behind the drystane walls with heart in mouth as he listened to the hoofbeats of mounted men, the creaking wheels of gun carriage and baggage wagon, the regimented footfalls of marching men … Holding his breath or burying his head in his plaid and biting the folds of wet wool to stifle cries of pain until the only sounds were the light patter of raindrops, the heavy pounding of his heart and a moaning that he thought was the wind until he tried to move and the moan turned into a howl of agony that issued forth from his own wind-chapped lips.
Then there was blackness and silence, finally broken by a gentle but insistent sound: Tap …
Tap-tap …
Tap-tap-tap—
Cameron woke up and for a few moments could almost feel his eyes smarting and taste acrid smoke in his throat, feel his chest heaving and a strange numbness in his shoulder. There was a ringing in his ears, and another sound, too …
Tap…
Tap-tap …
Tap-tap-tap.
It came from the window. He turned to face it with dread, unsure of what he was about to see.
An owl was perched on the outside sill, pecking at the glass with its beak. As Cameron watched, the bird turned and spread its wings and was gone, leaving him to wonder if it had ever really been there at all.
By the time he got back to Greystane his eyes were no longer stinging and his throat was clear. The echoes had gone from his head, and the feeling had come back to his arm.
But the whole thing was still so vivid that it seemed much more like a memory than a dream.
KATE WAS ONLY GONE FOR ONE DAY, BUT CAMERON MISSED her more than he would have believed possible.
When she appeared in the doorway of the cottage the next afternoon he felt the same thing as the very first time he saw her, but even more strongly. Earlier that day he’d picked her some flowers and put them in a vase of lochan water, and after the hug he broke away to hand them to her.
She kissed him and said, “They’re lovely, Cameron.”
“They’re from the stranger you wanted to get to know.”
“Are you ready to tell me something about him?”
“I can tell you that he loves you very much.”
“I need to know more than that, Cameron. He’s tall, dark and handsome—but there are times when I feel like that’s all I know about him, and that’s just eno
ugh for a crush, not for lasting love.”
Cameron took a deep breath, hesitated, and said, “Have you ever heard of Srebrenica?”
The name was vaguely familiar to Kate from TV news programs. However they were the kind of reports she tended to quickly switch over because they were so grim. “I’ve heard of it,” she said, “but I’ve no idea what happened there.”
“Something terrible,” he told her. “Not unlike what happened here in Glen Cranoch all those years ago, I suppose—except that there were people in Srebrenica who could have tried to stop the terrible thing happening, who should have tried to help the people who couldn’t help themselves.”
“And they didn’t?”
“No. They didn’t fight the battle that needed to be fought because they were outnumbered and thought it was a battle they couldn’t win.”
“Was the stranger one of them?”
Cameron shook his head.
“Then I don’t understand.”
“The stranger had his own private Srebrenica, Kate.”
“I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”
“I’m afraid I’ll lose you for good if I try to explain.”
“The one thing that’s certain is that you’ll lose me for good if you don’t at least try.”
Still he hesitated, and Kate felt her heart breaking at the depth of his anguish and at the knowledge that she might be losing him forever.
Then he seemed to come to a decision. “Take a seat, Kate,” he told her.
“Because it’s a long story or because it’s one that’s going to shock me?”
“Both.”
Filled with dread, Kate sat in the old rocking chair beside the fireside.
Unable to look her in the eye, Cameron stared into the blackened hearth, hands resting on the slate mantelpiece. When he finally started speaking, Kate thought it was as though he was thinking aloud rather than talking to her. “I’d always been afraid of finding myself in a situation where I’d have to act like a soldier as well as just dress like one,” he said. “The uniform might have fitted me perfectly, but I wasn’t at all sure I measured up to it. My own little Srebrenica was the day I found out that I didn’t.”
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