Blood Oath E-Book

Malcolm Archibald

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

After surviving the Battle of Culloden in 1746, young Hughie MacKim swears a Blood Oath to avenge the murder of his brother.

Trained as an infantryman in Fraser's Highlanders, Hugh joins the Army himself and follows the trail across the horror of war in North America, through to the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in September 1759.

But how can he trace the men in the anonymous ranks of the British Army?

Winner, SAHR Prize for Military Fiction, 2020-2021

Leseprobe

BLOOD OATH

Warrior's Path Book 1

MALCOLM ARCHIBALD

CONTENTS

I. Pledging

1. Drummossie Moor, Scotland, April 16th 1746

2. Glen Cailleach, Scottish Highlands, April 1746

II. Learning

3. Glen Cailleach, Scotland, 1757

4. Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1758

5. Louisbourg, 8th June 1758

6. Louisbourg, June 1758

7. Louisbourg, July 1758

8. Louisbourg, July 1758

9. Louisbourg, August 1758

10. Louisbourg, Autumn 1758

11. New England, Winter 1758-1759

12. Fort Stanwix, Winter 1758-1759

13. Fort Stanwix, Winter 1758-1759

III. Fighting

14. Louisbourg, June 1759

15. Canada, Summer 1759

16. Canada, Summer 1759

17. Outside Quebec, July 1759

18. French Canada, July 1759

19. French Canada, July 1759

20. French Canada, July 1759

21. French Canada, July 1759

22. French Canada, August 1759

23. French Canada, September 1759

24. Quebec, September 1759

25. Canada, Autumn 1759

26. Quebec, September 1759

Historical Note

Next in the series

About the Author

Copyright (C) 2020 Malcolm Archibald

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Edited by Lorna Read

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

For Cathy

I

PLEDGING

1

DRUMMOSSIE MOOR, SCOTLAND, APRIL 16TH 1746

Sleet slashed into the face of Hughie MacKim, stinging his eyes and forcing him to bow his head as he ran. Reared in the hills, he ignored the rough heather that scraped against his bare feet and calves, leapt across the overflowing burns and splashed through the patches of bog. High above, a pair of questing oystercatchers piped as they flew arrow-straight, beneath the ominous dark clouds.

“Ewan! Wait for me!” Hughie shouted as his brother stretched his lead.

“No!” Ewan, five years older and six inches taller, shook his head. “You heard the tacksman as well as I did. If I don’t join the clan today, he’ll evict our parents and burn the roof above their heads.”

“I can’t keep up.”

“You’re too young, Hughie. You should have stayed at home.”

“But I want to fight as well. I want to be a man.” Hughie lifted his head when he heard the deep rumble ahead. “Can you hear that noise?”

“Yes. I don’t know what it is. It’s not thunder,” Ewan said.

Hughie could see flashes reflected on the brooding clouds, followed by that heavy crashing and an acrid smell that he did not recognise. He shivered, feeling that something was very wrong, and ran on, trying to stretch his legs to match his brother’s stride.

“That’s gunfire.” Ewan’s Gaelic words seeming to echo in the damp air. “I know it is. They’ve started the battle without me. I have to go.” Ewan stopped and held Hughie by the shoulders. “You’re only ten years old. You’re too young to fight. Go home!” Ewan looked behind him as gunfire crashed out again. “I have to go.” Giving Hughie’s shoulders a final squeeze, Ewan turned, checked the dirk which was his only weapon, and ran toward the gunfire.

“Ewan!” Hughie raised his voice to a high-pitched scream, “Don’t leave me, Ewan!” But Ewan only ran faster. Nearly sobbing, Hughie followed towards the sound of the guns with Ewan fast disappearing across the damp brown heather. Cresting a small rise, Hughie stopped as the whole extent of Drummossie Moor unfolded before him.

“Ewan,” he said. “Oh, Ewan, where are you?”

Half a mile in front of Hughie, Prince Charles Edward Stuart had arrayed his Jacobite army in tartan-clad regiments, each under a flapping clan banner. Opposite, across a stretch of the sleet-swept moor and arrayed in disciplined blocks of scarlet and black, the Hanoverian army of King George II waited. Between the regimental blocks, black-snouted cannon spouted flame, smoke and hate toward the Jacobites, while on the flanks, Campbell militia and troops of cavalry waited to pounce. From where he stood, Hughie could see that the government army was much larger than the Jacobites’ force, whose few cannon soon gave up what was an unequal contest.

Undecided what to do, Jamie watched for a few moments as the Hanoverian cannon pounded the Jacobites, tearing great holes in the clan regiments who stood in growing frustration, swaying under the punishment. After a while, one section of the Jacobites streamed forward, covering the boggy moorland in great bounds. Even at that distance, Jamie could see that there were only a few hundred men in the attack, against eight or nine thousand disciplined professional soldiers.

The Hanoverians responded with volley after volley of musketry which ripped into the advancing Jacobites. Hughie saw men fall in droves, with the cannon altering from roundshot to grapeshot that scythed into the attackers, mowing them down.

“No!” Hughie shook his head, holding out a hand as if he could stop the slaughter. For an instant, powder-smoke obscured much of his view, but the swirling wind shifted away the white curtain, so Hughie saw hundreds of Jacobites lying still or writhing in agony on the bloody heather.

“Ewan! Ewan, take care,” Hughie said. “Please take care.”

Fascinated despite his anxiety, Hughie watched as the ragged remains of the Jacobite charge crashed into the Hanoverian ranks. Sunlight flashed on the steel blades of broadsword and bayonet as the two sides clashed, then the front ranks of the redcoats splintered and the Jacobites thrust through the gaps. For a moment, Jamie thought that the few hundred tartan-clad men could rout the entire Hanoverian force, but then the second redcoat line met the ragged charge with volleys of musketry.

Scores of Jacobites died there, with the remainder falling on the bayonets of the second Hanoverian line. With the attack failing in bloody slaughter, a battered Highland handful withdrew, and the Hanoverians marched forward.

“Ewan.” Hughie whispered the word. Amidst the confusion and powder smoke, he could not make out individuals. All he could see was a mess of tartan-clad bodies amidst swirls of grey-white smoke, and the advancing infantry butchering anyone they thought was still alive. In front of the redcoats, the Jacobites were in slow retreat, some firing muskets at the Hanoverian infantry and the cavalry that harassed their flanks, slashing at the writhing wounded.

“Ewan. I must find Ewan.” The defeat of the Jacobites meant nothing to Hughie; in common with the majority of men who wore the tartan, he did not care which king placed a crown on his head. Hughie only followed his brother, as Ewan had obeyed his chief on peril of eviction. One king was much like another and Hughie already knew that none would spare him as much as a glance, however wet the day or wild the weather.

As the armies passed, Hughie lay amidst the heather, too small to be noticed. He saw the remnants of the Fraser clan regiment run past him, but as Ewan was not there, Hughie knew that he must still be on the field. Hughie lay for what seemed a long time, listening to the moans from the wounded and high laughter from the victorious Hanoverians. Peering through the heather fronds, he saw red-coated soldiers moving among the Jacobite casualties, robbing the dead and bayonetting the wounded.

“Ewan,” Hughie said. “Please, God, don’t let the redcoats kill Ewan.”

Unable to lie still any longer, Hughie rose and, moving in a half-crouch, returned to the scene of the battle.

Trying to avert his eyes from the terrible sights of mutilated men, Hughie searched for the Fraser clan. They had been in the very centre of the front line, so would have been among the Jacobites who broke the Hanoverian ranks. Recognising some of the casualties, Hughie found a trail of twisted bodies leading towards the old Hanoverian front line. He shuddered at the sight of one of the wounded men who lay trying to hold his intestines in place. Unable to help, Hughie could not face the desperate plea in the man’s eyes.

“Ewan,” Hughie called softly, through the agonised moans of broken men. “Ewan.” He slipped in a pool of congealing blood, held back his nausea and continued to search. The dead lay thick in front of the Hanoverian cannon, men with heads or limbs missing, men with their insides torn out, men so disfigured that Hughie could barely recognise them as human. He paddled through the blood-polluted mud, not bothering to hide his tears as the sleet still sliced into his face.

Ewan lay in the middle of a pile of bodies, one hand outstretched, the other holding his dirk. He was moaning softly, fighting for every breath.

“Ewan!” Hughie bent over him, his heart racing. “I’ll help you.”

It took all Hughie’s strength and courage even to touch the bloodied bodies that partly concealed Ewan. One by one, he pushed or dragged them aside, men he had known as neighbours or friends, now shattered things with splintered bones and pain-ravaged features. At last, Hughie reached Ewan and felt a spark of hope as his brother looked up.

“Can you walk?” Hughie asked.

“I don’t know.” Ewan tried to rise, gasped and shook his head. “No! No! My leg’s hurt,” he said. “You’ll have to help me.”

Hughie looked at Ewan’s legs, shuddered and looked away. Either a musket ball or a piece of grapeshot had shattered Ewan’s left shin so the bone thrust through a mass of congealed blood and muscle. “We’ll get you home.” Hughie swallowed nausea that rose in his throat. “Mother will fix that.” Bending over, he placed a supporting arm around Ewan’s shoulder. “Come on, Ewan, you can’t stay here. The redcoats will find you.” Hughie knew what the redcoats were like; they were the demons that haunted nightmares, monsters that laughed as they spitted children on the points of bayonets and maltreated women of any age or condition.

Ewan screamed as Hughie tried to lift him, with his weight pulling both boys down to the heather. He yelled again as his shattered leg dragged on the ground.

“No, I can’t stand,” Ewan sobbed, shaking his head frantically. “Leave me here. Run home and get help.”

“But that will take hours.” Hughie fought his growing panic. “There must be somebody here.” He heard the drift of voices and looked up.

The men emerged from a bank of mist. Clad in Hanoverian scarlet, they were tall, with the mitre caps of grenadiers making them even taller. They spoke English, a language that neither Hughie nor Ewan understood.

“Keep quiet,” Ewan hissed. “Lie down and pretend you are dead.”

Raised on stories of the brutality of redcoats, Hughie slid to the ground, terribly aware of the thundering of his heart. He heard Ewan whimpering beside him, followed by footsteps thudding on the ground and closed his eyes tightly, feigning death.

The voices came closer, harsh, arrogant and unpleasantly guttural. Hughie could not restrain his gasp as a hard hand closed on his shoulder and hoisted him to his feet. He opened his eyes, staring into the bloodshot eyes of a Hanoverian soldier. The man’s breath stank of tobacco and alcohol.

Two other soldiers crowded around, laughing, poking at Hughie with calloused fingers, speaking about him with words he did not understand. A fourth man, even larger than the others, stood a little apart with his mitre hat pulled forward over his face, shadowing his features. Gunpowder had stained the buff facings of their scarlet coats; one had blood spattered over his face and hands; all were mud-stained.

“Leave me alone!” Hughie tried to push the soldiers away. They laughed all the harder, surrounded him and shoved him from one to the other, enjoying the fun of tormenting a child.

“Leave him!” Ewan shouted. “If I had both legs I would show you the way to Hell.” Lifting his dirk, he slashed sideways in impotent rage.

While the first soldier retained his hold on Hughie, the others retreated from Ewan’s desperate lunges until they realised he was too severely wounded to stand. After that, they returned to their jeers, taunting Ewan.

“Leave him! He’s hurt!” Hughie kicked out, catching the man who held him on the leg. Without hesitation, the soldier retaliated with a savage backhanded slap that stunned Hughie into silence.

Drawing their seventeen-inch long bayonets, the soldiers circled Ewan, stabbing at him. When one pinioned Ewan’s hand to the ground, another kicked away the dirk, laughing. Hughie could only watch as three soldiers surrounded Ewan and began to kick at his shattered leg. Ewan screamed, writhing.

“Leave him,” Hughie pleaded. “Please leave him alone. He’s hurt!”

Tiring of their sport, the Grenadier with the shaded face lit a length of fuse and held it high. He said something that made the other soldiers laugh, and pressed the spluttering fuse to the edge of Ewan’s philabeg, his short kilt. Stepping back, the Grenadier grunted as Ewan’s kilt began to smoulder. When he saw Hughie watching, he pushed his hat even lower over his face. His uniform was different from the others, with a white lace cord over his right shoulder marking him as a corporal. He laughed as the flames spread across Ewan’s kilt, causing the wounded boy to squirm and cry out.

“Ewan!” Yelling, Hughie began to struggle again, much to the delight of the soldiers. They held him tight as Ewan writhed, screaming when the flames took hold.

“Ewan! You’re burning him! Put the flames out. Please put the fire out!” Frantic in his agony for his brother, Hughie turned and twisted in the soldiers’ grasp, kicking out at them, trying to push them away. However, a ten-year-old boy cannot defeat three trained Grenadiers. The fourth thrust his halberd – a seven-foot-long pole surmounted by a bladed, spiked head – into the small of Ewan’s back, pinning him down as the flames spread over Ewan’s writhing body. Ewan’s skin blackened and blistered as Hughie recoiled from the nauseous smell.

Hughie never knew how long it took Ewan to die. He was sick long before the end, retching and gasping as his brother burned slowly in front of his eyes. When it was finally over, and the blackened, twisted, smoking thing that had been Ewan lay in peace on the damp heather, Hughie looked at the soldiers who held him. “I’m going to kill you,” he said through his tears. “I am going to kill all of you, somehow.”

The four soldiers laughed louder, unable to understand his Gaelic but recognising his words as a threat. Hughie looked at each face in turn, stamping them on his memory. As they were Grenadiers, they were the elite of the army, the tallest, broadest and most aggressive. The man who held him was dark-haired, with his nose broken and twisted to the side. The man who had thrust his bayonet through Ewan’s hand had a seemingly permanent sneer lifting the left corner of his mouth. His companion was gaunt-faced, with nervous eyes that darted from side to side and a quick, short laugh. The fourth, the corporal with the hidden face who had set fire to Ewan, was the largest, yet quietest of them all.

“What will we do with this?” Broken-nose lifted Hughie high, so the boy kicked and squirmed.

“Throw it on the fire,” the sneering man said.

“Cut its belly open, Hayes,” the nervous man suggested and laughed high-pitched. “Go on, gut him like a pig!”

Hayes. Hugh caught the name through the torrent of unfamiliar words. The man holding me is called Hayes.

“What do you say, corporal?” Broken-nose Hayes shook Hughie and lifted him even higher.

Already strained by his gyrations, Hughie’s shirt ripped further. Before the corporal could reply, Hughie slipped out of the remaining rags and fell to the ground. He landed with a soft thump, rolled and was on his feet and running before Hayes could react.

Hughie heard somebody call out, “After him, Ligonier’s!” and the sound of heavy feet behind him. Hayes and Ligonier’s. He repeated the names as he jinked through the dead bodies and clumps of heather. Hayes and Ligonier’s. One of the Grenadiers is called Hayes, and Ligonier’s must be the name of the regiment.

Light on his feet and running for his life, Hughie jumped from shrub to shrub across the boggy ground. Older, heavier and burdened with muskets, the Grenadiers blundered in Hughie’s wake. After a few moments, the footsteps following Hughie slowed to a halt, but he continued for another five minutes before he dared to stop. Resting against a tree, gasping, with the breath burning his throat and lungs, he looked fearfully behind him.

Hughie saw Hayes staring at him, eyes poisonous. When the Grenadier slowly lifted his musket to his shoulder, Hughie gave a little whimper and ran on, sobbing, with his feet blundering over the rough ground. His world had changed forever, and the images of his brother’s terrible death dominated his mind.

2

GLEN CAILLEACH, SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS, APRIL 1746

“I’m going to kill them, Mother,” Hughie said.

“Yes, you are,” Mary MacKim agreed. “You will kill them when you are ready. At present, you’re only ten years old, and they are full men and trained soldiers. I’ve lost one son. I don’t wish to lose another so soon.” She leaned closer to him. “You must avenge your brother, Hugh, but not until you are older.”

“I’ll join the army.” Hughie fought the tears that threatened to unman him once more. “I’ll be a trained soldier, too.”

“Not yet,” Mary MacKim said. “You’re far too young. By the time you are old enough, you’ll see that I am right. When the time is right, Hughie, you will learn how to fight the way the redcoats fight, and you will find the monsters who murdered Ewan.”

Hughie knew he could not argue with his mother. He shook his head. “I did not know what they were saying. I want to learn to speak English.”

“Then that is what you shall do, Hugh Beg MacKim. You will learn English and the ways of the red soldiers. I will find you a tutor who will teach you to read, write and even think in English as they do, and who will also teach you French, the language of the educated class. I put the duty of learning upon you, Hugh. To die in battle is honourable and proper. To be murdered when lying wounded is not. Your life must be to find these brutes of red soldiers, Hugh, and kill them.”

Shocked by the sights he had seen and the sounds he had heard, Hughie looked up into the unrelenting eyes of his mother. “Yes, Mother.”

“You must promise me, Hugh.” Mary MacKim produced a Bible. Ancient, leather- covered and brass-bound, it had been in the family for generations, with the names of two score MacKims neatly inscribed in the fly-leaf. “You must swear on the Holy Book that you will avenge your brother.”

For a moment, Hughie stared at his mother, and then he placed both hands on the Bible. “I promise you, Mother.” The leather was cool to his touch, worn smooth by the fingers of Hughie’s ancestors. “I swear on the Bible that I will avenge Ewan, my brother.”

As he spoke, Hughie felt a thrill run through him. His words were not merely rhetoric. He had sworn by the family Bible, so generations of his people were witnesses to his oath. In Hugh’s mind, his father and grandfather and all his relatives back through the centuries were watching him and would continue to watch him until he had fulfilled his oath. If he broke his word, they would know and disapprove.

Mary MacKim took the Bible from Hughie, opened the Book, placed her hand inside and said: “If you fail in your task, may your children and your children’s children, and their children’s children, follow your path until we have cleansed the debt.” She handed the Bible over. “Swear it, Hugh Beg MacKim. Swear your oath.”

Holding the Bible, Hugh said, “If I fail in my duty, I will pass over the task to my children, and their children, until the debt is cleansed.” But that will not happen, he told himself. I have sworn a blood oath.

“Good.” Mary MacKim closed the Book with a nod of satisfaction. “Now we can prepare you for the task ahead.”

Hughie lived in the clachan of Achtriachan, set apart from the main Glen Cailleach, with a small burn running a few paces below and the summer shielings high in the hills beyond. Above them, the guardian hill of An Cailleach, The Witch, brooded over Achtriachan. Hughie was beside the rowan tree at the door of his cottage as the soldiers came to the glen, and watched the smoke curl as they fired the clachans one by one.

“They’ll come here soon,” Hughie said.

“They will,” Mary agreed.

“Will we fight them?” Hughie lifted a flail, the only weapon Achtriachan had.

“We will not. We will not fight the soldiers their way.” Mary took the flail from him. “Fetch the Bible, Hughie. We’ll bury it deep.”

They dug a hole beneath the rowan tree, placed the Bible within a small oaken chest and patted the earth back down as the redcoats marched to Achtriachan. The few other inhabitants of the clachan had already run into the hills.

“Come, Hughie, into the heather.” Lifting her skirt, Mary strode away, not even deigning to look over her shoulder as the soldiers advanced to burn her home. “We’ll watch from Clach nan Bodach.”

Clach nan Bodach, the Rock of the Old Man, was a prominent Standing Stone that stood some two hundred feet above Achtriachan.

“Down there.” Mary indicated a slight hollow in front of the stone. “We can see them, and they can’t see us.”

Together with Mary, Hugh watched as the soldiers burned their clachan and stole their livestock. He saw the blue smoke coiling skywards as the soldiers set fire to their thatch, and heard the redcoats’ alien, guttural voices.

“Watch and learn.” Mary seemed unmoved by the destruction of all she owned.

“Watch how they move and listen to how they talk, watch how they hold their muskets and how they march. Learn, Hugh, for they are our enemies, the enemies of our blood and the more you learn about them, the better it will be.”

The rough laughter of the soldiers polluted the glen as they drove away the livestock and destroyed everything they could not steal, leaving behind smoking ruins, trampled crops and a naked woman swinging by her neck from a tree.

“Mhairi MacPherson,” Mary said. “Her tongue was always longer than her brain. She would tell the redcoats what she thought of them. Take heed, Hughie. Keep your council with the English-speakers. Tell them what they want to hear and hide your thoughts from them. Let them dwell in their simplicity.”

A small party of soldiers swaggered towards Mary MacKim and Hughie, led by a man wearing a philabeg below his scarlet tunic.

“That is a Campbell, one of Lord Loudon’s men.” Mary MacKim did not hide the contempt in her voice. “We can excuse the English-speakers, as they are brought up in ignorance, but when one of our own turns against us, they are worse than the devil.” She pushed Hughie away and stood up. “Run and hide, Hughie.”

“Hey, you!” Loudon’s Highlander addressed Mary. “What are you doing?”

“I am watching you.” Mary held the man’s gaze.

“Where is your home?” The man was about thirty, with an open, freckled face and blue eyes.

“Over there.” Mary indicated the burning clachan behind her. “You have seen fit to burn the home of a widow woman.”

“The home of a traitorous bitch,” the Loudon Highlander said. “Where are the rest of your cattle? I know this glen has more. Glen Cailleach always had cattle.”

Mary MacKim hesitated for a moment. “We have no more cattle.”

“I can hang you for a traitor,” the Loudon man ran his hand down Mary’s face, curling his fingers around her throat as the redcoats behind him watched, chewing tobacco and spitting into the heather. “Or use you. You are a handsome enough woman, except for the smell.” He said something in English that set his companions to laughter.

Hiding in the heather, Hughie fought the desire to rise and attack the Hanoverians. His mother had chosen to face them; she knew what she was doing. He saw the English-speaking soldiers crowd around his mother, still laughing loudly. Hating to see these arrogant strangers with their grasping ways in his glen, Hughie closed his eyes, trying to force the image of Ewan from his mind.

“We have cattle in the high shieling,” Mary MacKim said at last.

“Take us, woman,” the Loudon man said and spoke in English for the benefit of his companions.

Hughie shook his head, knowing there were no cattle at the high shielings, the summer pasture. He followed at a distance as his mother strode up the flank of An Cailleach with the Loudon man and his companions trailing behind her.

“How far are your shielings?” the Loudon man asked, after a quarter of an hour.

“A fair step.” Mary did not reduce her speed. She led them around the flank of An Cailleach and continued, threading through a patch of peat bog that had the English-speaking soldiers swearing as they floundered and sank knee-deep in mud. “Tell your soldiers to walk where I walk,” Mary said. “This bog is deep.”

Once over the bog, Mary increased her pace, winding her way across the shoulder of a scree-scarred mountain, past the tumbled ruins of a hill fort and onto a pass between two hills. By that time, only one of the English-speaking soldiers had kept pace with her. The other two lagged far behind, struggling over the unfamiliar terrain. To Mary’s right, the hills rose steeply into grey mist. To her left, the slope fell away, nearly perpendicular, towards a churning burn, before rising again.

“How much further?” the Loudon Highlander asked.

“Over the pass,” Mary said. Stooping, she lifted a fist-sized stone from the ground. “We always pick a stone here. It’s a tradition.” Without hesitation, she folded the stone in a handkerchief, poised, and swung it hard against the Loudon man’s forehead. Too surprised to retaliate, he fell at once, and Mary pushed him over the edge of the precipice. Gasping, the nearest soldier grabbed at Mary, missed by a yard and shouted something as she lifted her skirt and scrambled up the slope.

Astonished that his mother could act in such a manner, Hugh could only watch as the soldier clumsily swung his musket up to his shoulder to aim, but by that time Mary was sixty yards away and moving fast. The shot sounded flat, with the wind flicking away the smoke from the muzzle of the musket. Staring up into the mist-streaked hill, the soldier loaded his musket, muttering as he rammed home the ball, and began to climb after Mary.

Waiting on the skyline, Mary ensured the soldier could see her before running down the far side of the ridge and back toward Glen Cailleach. She whistled once, as she had when her boys were young.

“Mother!” Hughie ran to join her. “You killed that man.”

“Yes. Let’s get you back to the glen,” Mary said.

“How about the other soldiers? They saw what you did.”

“With the mist coming down, they’ll be lost in the hills. They won’t find their way back to the glen.” Mary showed no concern as she added, “They’ll probably die out here.”

Hughie shook his head, struggling to come to terms with his mother’s callous attitude. He stared down the slope where the Loudon Highlander had fallen. “You killed that man.”

“Men or women who turn against their own deserve nothing else,” Mary said. “Come on, Hughie. We’ve got a house to rebuild.” She faced Hughie. “That’s one for Ewan.”

II

LEARNING

3

GLEN CAILLEACH, SCOTLAND, 1757

Thirty-one-year-old Simon Fraser of Lovat, son of ‘the Old Fox’ and un-blooded veteran of the 1745 Rising, rode into Glen Cailleach with his back straight and his head held high, as befitted the chief of a clan, albeit one without a square inch of land to his name.

“Gather the men,” he said quietly to the tacksman who hurried to greet him. “I wish to speak to them.”

Fraser’s word was passed around from clachan to clachan and man to man until eventually, it reached Mary MacKim.

“Your time has come, Hugh,” Mary said.

“Yes, Mother.”

“Fraser himself has summonsed the men,” Mary said. “That can only mean one thing. He is leading the clan to war.”

Hugh nodded. There was no question of refusing the summons. He would follow the chief, as his brother had done, and his father, and his grandfather’s father’s father. He was a MacKim, a man of a sept of the Frasers; there was no more to be said. It did not matter who they were fighting; it only mattered that their chief required their broadswords.

The men of the glen hurried to the old gathering place at Clach Mor, the ancient Standing Stone that legend attributed to the druids but which had thrust toward the damp sky for aeons before any druid’s foot had trodden the land. From youths of fifteen to grey-bearded men who had faced Red John of the Battles on the field of Sheriffmuir, they gathered, fully aware that they may never return to their homes again.

“Men.” Fraser looked around at them without dismounting from his horse. “King George is engaged in a just war against the King of France. I am raising a regiment to support his cause and I expect all the young men aged between eighteen and thirty to join. You will accept the King’s Shilling at Inverness. God save the King.”

“God save the king,” a few of the men repeated. Lachlan MacPherson, a man of the same age as MacKim, pressed his mouth tightly shut.

“I’m not fighting for King George,” he whispered. “Not ever.”

“Three cheers for the king!” somebody else cried, and a handful of the men joined in.

Simon Fraser raised his hat in response. “I praise your loyalty,” he said, without a trace of irony. “Now, you have your opportunity to prove it.”

“Three cheers for the chief!” the same voice sounded, and the men cheered, louder than before.

Nodding once, Fraser wheeled his horse and rode away. He had said all that was necessary for him to say. Few of the men cared about King George or his quarrel with the King of France; they would join the regiment and follow their chief wherever he led, and whichever king he decided to support.

“Be a man, Hugh,” Mary MacKim said. “Remember you are a MacKim and remember the blood oath you have sworn.”

“Yes, Mother.” MacKim glanced at the Bible, which they had dug up as soon as the last redcoat retreated from the glen.

“You are bound by your word.” Mary MacKim had aged in the years since her older son had died. Her dark eyes, now deep-set between a network of furrows, seemed to bore into MacKim. “You have learned English, and you know how these people live, talk and think. Now you must hunt and kill the men who murdered your brother.”

“Yes, Mother.” Revenge had dominated MacKim’s life for the past eleven years and not a day had passed when his mother had not reminded him of the oath he had taken. At the age of twenty-one, MacKim was wiry rather than muscular, no taller than average height, but intense and better educated than most of his peers.

“Now go, Hugh.” Mary gave him a gentle push in the back. “Go and do your duty.”

Lifting his small bundle of belongings, MacKim stepped out of the cottage with its heather-thatched roof and the familiar scent of peat smoke. He did not know when, if ever, he would see it again. When he looked around, his mother stood at the door, with one hand lifted in farewell. She was alone now, yet MacKim knew she would never be lonely in the glen. The people would look after her, as they always looked after their own. Turning away, he began the trudge toward Inverness with his road and his destiny before him.

With his bright red sash over his left shoulder and the white lace cord on his right shoulder, it was evident that the tall sergeant was a soldier of distinction. Although he must have been approaching middle age, he walked with a youthful spring as he inspected the curious line of recruits, shaking his head as if unable to believe what he saw.

“I am Sergeant Dingwall.” He spoke in clipped Gaelic. “You will address me as Sergeant, or as Sergeant Dingwall.” He stopped directly in front of MacKim. “You may think of me as your father if you ever knew that unfortunate man, and you will treat me as God for I have the power to have you shot, to flog you to bloody ribbons or even to make your life pleasant.” Dingwall’s smile could have frightened the Brigade of Guards. “Welcome to the 63rd Foot, Fraser’s Highlanders.”

MacKim watched Sergeant Dingwall and listened to every word. He was determined to be the best soldier he could be.

As Dingwall hefted his halberd, MacKim shuddered, remembering the Grenadier corporal pinioning Ewan with a similar weapon. The sergeant stepped to the red-haired youth beside MacKim and thrust the halberd at his breast. “Stand straight, my fine fellow, or I will tie you to a tree until you learn how to stand.”

The man flushed scarlet and pulled himself erect.

“That’s better,” Dingwall said. “Now you look something like a man, if nothing like a soldier, even a first day, shambling recruit soldier. What’s your name?”

“Neil Cumming, sir.”

“Sergeant,” Dingwall said, softly.

“Sorry, Sergeant.” Cumming looked along the line of recruits for support. MacKim avoided his gaze.

Nodding slowly, Dingwall took hold of Cumming’s nose and pulled him forward. “I ordered you to call me Sergeant, Cumming, and you called me sir. You will say sir only to officers who have His Majesty’s commission. Now, as from this day, you are my eyes and ears in the company, Cumming. You will tell me what is happening and if anybody breaks the law, my law, you will inform me, or I will sit you astride the wooden horse and have you dragged over stony ground until you beg me to shoot you. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

Pushing Cumming back to his place, Sergeant Dingwall continued in a roar that MacKim thought people could hear twenty miles away in Glen Cailleach. “You are the most useless bunch of bare-arsed farmers I have ever seen in my life. My job,” he said, “is to turn you into soldiers somehow, although only the good Lord above knows how.” He shook his head again, sighing deeply at the burden that higher authority had passed down to him. “Your job,” Dingwall continued, “is to obey every order I utter, instantly and cheerfully.”

With the unfamiliar long red coat over his new waistcoat, and the kilt hugging his hips, MacKim was supremely uncomfortable, already hating the bonnet he had cocked above his left eye. The square-toed, iron-studded shoes pinched his toes, the straps of the knapsack cut into his shoulders, and the musket was long and cumbersome. Also, the broadsword was burdensome on his left hip and the bayonet awkward in front. Used to dressing lightly from spring to autumn, MacKim felt constrained by the unfamiliar layers of clothes and carrying such an array of weapons.

“This is your musket.” Sergeant Dingwall held the weapon up to ensure the recruits saw it. “We know it as Bess, or Brown Bess.”

MacKim nodded to show he was listening.

“Bess weighs fourteen pounds and fires a one-ounce leaden ball that can kill at fifty yards and wound at up to a hundred. It has a larger bore and is more reliable than the French equivalent and in the hands of a trained infantryman, can fire three times in a minute.”

MacKim remembered the sound of musketry at Drummossie Moor that men now called Culloden. He had already seen the result of three volleys a minute on a mass of advancing men. A thousand muskets in the hands of trained men would create devastation.

“Bess is a flintlock musket,” Dingwall continued, “so-called because she uses a flint to create a spark. The spark ignites gunpowder, which explodes inside your musket, propelling the lead ball in the direction of the enemy. Keep your flints sharp – the sharper the flint, the brighter the spark and so the less chance of a misfire.”

MacKim listened. He wanted to learn everything.

“To load Bess, you need this.” Dingwall held up a small, paper-wrapped packet. “This is a cartridge that contains a charge of powder and a lead ball. You will rip open the paper, either with your fingers or your teeth and pour some of the powder into the pan in the firing mechanism, here.” He indicated the position at the lock of the musket.

MacKim nodded.

“The rest of the powder goes down the barrel. Then you fold the paper and stuff it into the barrel, with the lead ball on top. Do you understand, MacKim?”

“Yes, Sergeant.” MacKim started when Dingwall shouted his name.

“Good man. Show me.” Dingwall indicated that MacKim should stand in front of the other recruits. “Here is a cartridge.” He passed over the paper package and stepped back.

Ignoring the bitter taste of the black powder, MacKim ripped the paper open with his teeth and followed the sergeant’s instructions.

“Good.” Dingwall nodded. “Now you use the ramrod, that’s the long metal rod under the barrel of your musket, to force the ball and wad down the barrel.”

Taking MacKim’s musket, Dingwall demonstrated slowly. “When that’s done, you aim at the advancing enemy and pull the trigger. You will notice the recoil as Bess ejects the ball to about a hundred yards on a good day and a lot less if it rains, which occasionally happens in Scotland.”

The recruits gave a nervous laugh at the sergeant’s attempt at humour.

“Now, you fire it, MacKim. Prove to me how clever you are.”

“Yes, Sergeant.” MacKim brought the musket to his shoulder. “What shall I fire at?”

They stood in the open countryside outside Inverness, with the grey-green hills of the Highlands in the distance and the river Ness surging blue at their backs, lapping at a group of small islands.

“You see that island?” Dingwall pointed to the nearest of the Ness Islands, from which trees grew to overhang the river.

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“Try to hit a tree.”

The musket was heavier than MacKim had expected. Lifting it to his shoulder, he closed his left eye, pointed the barrel at the nearest tree and pressed the trigger. From the corner of his eye, he saw the hammer come down. The resulting spurt of smoke in the pan took him by surprise and then musket seemed to leap back, hammering into his shoulder, so he staggered backwards.

Dingwall watched, smiling. “There. You see? It’s not quite as easy as you think. A good soldier can fire and load three times in a minute. A very good soldier can do it four times. You recruits…” Dingwall shook his head. “Well, we’ll see.” He peered closely at MacKim. “Most of you will likely fall before you fire your second shot.”

Some of the men laughed at that, as Dingwall had intended. He paced the line again, stopping at a tall man with a badly scarred face on MacKim’s immediate right. “God, but you’re ugly! I’ve never seen an uglier recruit, and I’ve seen plenty.”

The man stared ahead without responding to Dingwall’s jibe. The sergeant moved on, hectoring.

“We are Fraser’s Highlanders.” Dingwall paced the triple line, looking into every face. “We are a British infantry regiment; we fight for King George.”

The men in the ranks shifted slightly. They already knew who they were.

“In King George’s army, a battalion of infantry is divided into tactical units known as platoons. Whatever your previous allegiances, whoever your previous family might have been, in future, your platoon is your family. Each man will be closer than a brother. Depend on him, and he will depend on you. Let him down, and he may die, and so may you.”

Dingwall stopped six inches in front of MacKim. “Look around at your neighbours. Get to know their faces. You will live in their company, march in their company, fight in their company and probably die in their company.”

Red-haired Cumming on MacKim’s left glanced at him and away again. He was pale-faced and pale-eyed, with the hands and shoulders of a labourer. To MacKim’s right was the man with the disfigured face.

“Bid your neighbour good-day,” Dingwall ordered.

The scarred man favoured MacKim with a wink. “James Chisholm.”

“Hugh MacKim.”

The names seemed to hang in the air for a long time, and then Sergeant Dingwall shouted again.

“That’s enough! I told you to look around, not indulge in social tittle-tattle! Where do you think you are? The Duke of Gordon’s wedding? Good God! You’re meant to be soldiers, not women at a ball!”

MacKim faced his front immediately.

“We will drill until you hate me, we will drill until your feet bleed, we will drill until my voice fills your dreams, and we will drill until you obey the commands instinctively and without thought. You are soldiers. Soldiers do not need to think. Soldiers only need to obey orders, to march and to fight. To fight in battle depends on being able to form and manoeuvre in rigid, close-order lines and columns. You have to learn to obey orders, so you keep your place in the ranks whatever happens, even although your comrades are dead or dying.”

MacKim shifted his gaze to left and right, wondering how much trust he could put in his neighbours. Cumming on his left fidgeted, breathing hard as he strove to remain still. Chisholm on his right stood as if carved from the same granite as An Cailleach.

“At Fontenoy, each half-company and each platoon fired volley after volley at the French. The British regiments remained firm, but our allies were not as well disciplined and refused to advance into the French musketry. The French saw our army was vulnerable and sent forward their Irish brigade, six battalions of fine soldiers, who came in on our right flank with the bayonet.”

MacKim imagined the picture, transforming his memories of Culloden Moor to Europe and replacing the slaughter of the clans with two equally matched armies of professional soldiers.

“We drove them off,” Dingwall continued as if he had been there. ‘The Scottish regiments, the 43rd Highlanders, Royal Scots and Royal North British Fusiliers, marched with the rest of the British Army, equals in battle, and then we chased off the French cavalry as well. All because of disciplined firepower, good drill and guts. In a minute I’ll begin to teach you.”

Rain began, a slow, dreary drizzle that swept down from the hills to soak the recruits. Already they had been standing in ranks for hours, and MacKim guessed the day was far from over. He had not expected soldiering to be so monotonous.

“Some of you may wonder why we have bagpipers in this day of vast armies and artillery.” Dingwall took a step back. “We have pipers to let the enemy know that the Highlanders are coming… we have pipers to let them know how long they have to live.”

For the next few weeks, a procession of sergeants and officers hammered the recruits. As well as the complicated procedures for loading, presenting and firing the Brown Bess muskets, there was training with the 17-inch triangular bayonets. Remembering the bloody blades plunging into the helpless Highland wounded at Culloden, MacKim handled the weapon with some trepidation. They practised live firing until they became used to the vicious recoil that bruised shoulders and rattled teeth. As the government fixed the annual allowance of ball ammunition used in training to a meagre four balls per man per year, Colonel Fraser ordered the target butts to be placed against a grassy bank, so the regimental pioneers could dig out the lead and re-cast it into serviceable ammunition.

The recruits fired individually, with Sergeant Dingwall snarling at every fumbling mistake, then they fired by files of three, and finally by ranks and by platoons, with the recruits gradually getting used to the powder smoke that obscured their vision and stung their eyes every time they squeezed the trigger. They fired at a mark, trotted over to it to check their marksmanship, reported back to Dingwall and endured his verbal assault. Once they had mastered the most straightforward techniques, Dingwall had them firing obliquely, then uphill and downhill. MacKim found he was a moderate marksman, while the scarred Chisholm was good.

“You’ve fired a musket before, Ugly!” Dingwall said.

“Yes, Sergeant,” Chisholm agreed.

“I’ll wager you were a Jacobite rebel!” Dingwall pressed his face close to Chisholm. “Were you? Did you fire at King George’s army at Culloden? Is that where you got your scars, Ugly?”

“No, Sergeant.” Chisholm snapped to attention with his musket at his side and his ruined face expressionless.

“No?” Dingwall grunted. “I wonder, Ugly, I really wonder.” He took two steps back. “If you did, or if you did not, it does not matter now. You are a Fraser Highlander, and before I finish with you, you will all be the best marksmen in King George’s British Army!”

Always in the background, officers hovered, watching, occasionally giving comments or sharp orders. They lived in a different world from MacKim, a world of authority and privilege, of carriages and soft clothes. He watched them with interest, knowing he could never join their circle and having no aspirations to do so. Three thoughts dominated his mind; become a good soldier; learn the skills, find the men who murdered his brother. He repeated the name in his head, day after day, Hayes of Ligonier’s. He knew that Dingwall was watching him when he volunteered for every extra duty; he did not care.

“Be careful, MacKim,” Chisholm warned. “If you are too keen, they’ll make you a corporal.” His smile twisted his face into something even more hideous. “Keep your head down and become anonymous.”

MacKim grunted. “I want to learn all I can.”

“Soldiers that stand out from the rest become marked men,” Chisholm said. “Either by sergeants like Dingwall, or the enemy.” His grin only enhanced his scar. “Not that there’s much difference.”

“How do you know? You’re only a recruit like us. Or was Dingwall correct and were you in the Jacobite army?”

Chisholm hesitated a moment, touching his face with his eyes suddenly dark. “I was in the old 43rd, the Black Watch at Fontenoy.” When he relapsed into silence, MacKim left him to his memories.

The recruits learned how to march in column and deploy to fight in line. They learned how the front rank men knelt to fire and stood to load.

“This is a dangerous time,” Sergeant Dingwall told them as he marched along the length of the line. “I have seen careless rear-rank men shooting the front-rank men as they sprang up. That will not happen in Fraser’s Highlanders.” He fixed MacKim with a terrible glare. “Will it, MacKim?”

“No, Sergeant,” MacKim said.

“Why not, MacKim?”

“Because you will train us better, Sergeant.”

Dingwall grunted. “That’s correct, boy, that’s correct.” He moved on. “I have seen cartridge boxes blow up and burn careless soldiers. I’ve seen soldiers poke out their comrade’s eyes when fixing bayonets, I have seen soldiers firing off their ramrods because they forgot to remove the damned things when they loaded. None of these unfortunate events will occur in Fraser’s Highlanders.”

The recruits listened and slowly learned the manoeuvres that they would use on the battlefields of Europe, where discipline and order were everything and armies moved on the word of command, “like chessmen on a board controlled by the general in command,” as Chisholm said.

“We are not individuals,” Cumming said, as he lay exhausted in their tents at the end of another long day. “We are only things to be ordered about at the whim of the sergeant.”