He didn’t scold, either; just laid a hand on my shoulder and drew me to lean against him for a moment. We shared what strength we had, unspeaking.
“I’ll stay with ye, then,” he said, drawing away at last. “I canna sleep before light, myself.”
“The other men from Lallybroch?”
He moved his head toward the fields near the town where the army was camped.
“Murtagh’s in charge.”
“Oh, well, then. Nothing to worry about,” I said, and saw him smile in the light from the window. There was a bench outside the cottage, where the goodwife would sit on sunny days to clean fish or mend clothes. I drew him down to sit beside me, and he sagged back against the wall of the house with a sigh. His patent exhaustion reminded me of Fergus, and the boy’s expression of confused bewilderment after the battle.
I reached to caress the back of Jamie’s neck, and he turned his head blindly toward me, resting his brow against my own.
“How was it, Jamie?” I asked softly, fingers rubbing hard and slow over the tight-ridged muscles of his neck and shoulders. “What was it like? Tell me.”
There was a short silence, then he sighed, and began to talk, haltingly at first, and then faster, as if wanting to get it out.
“We had no fire, for Lord George thought we must move off the ridge before daylight, and wanted no hint of movement to be seen below. We sat in the dark for a time. Couldna even talk, for the sound would carry to the plain. So we sat.
“Then I felt something grab my thigh in the dark, and near jumped out of my skin.” He inserted a finger in his mouth and rubbed gingerly. “Nearly bit my tongue off.” I felt the shift of his muscles as he smiled, though his face was hidden.
“Fergus?”
The ghost of a laugh floated through the dark.
“Aye, Fergus. Crawled through the grass on his belly, the little bastard, and I thought he was a snake, at that. He whispered to me about Anderson, and I crawled off after him and took Anderson to see Lord George.”
His voice was slow and dreamy, talking under the spell of my touch.
“And then the order came that we’d move, following Anderson’s trail. And the whole of the army got to its feet, and set off in the dark.”
* * *
The night was clear black and moonless, without the usual cover of cloud that trapped starlight and diffused it toward the earth. As the Highland army made its way in silence down the narrow path behind Richard Anderson, each man could see no farther than the shuffling heels of the man before him, each step widening the trodden path through wet grass.
The army moved almost without noise. Orders were relayed in murmurs from man to man, not shouted. Broadswords and axes were muffled in the folds of their plaids, powder flasks tucked inside shirts against fast-beating hearts.
Once on sound footing, still in total silence, the Highlanders sat down, made themselves as comfortable as was possible without fire, ate what cold rations there were, and composed themselves to rest, wrapped in their plaids, in sight of the enemy’s campfires.
“We could hear them talking,” Jamie said. His eyes were closed, hands clasped behind his head, as he leaned against the cottage wall. “Odd, to hear men laughing over a jest, or asking for a pinch of salt or a turn at the wineskin—and know that in a few hours, ye may kill them—or them you. Ye can’t help wondering, ye ken; what does the face behind that voice look like? Will you know the fellow if ye meet him in the morning?”
Still, the tremors of anticipated battle were no match for sheer fatigue, and the “Black Frasers”—so called for the traces of charcoal that still adorned their features—and their chief had been awake for more than thirty-six hours by then. He had picked a sheaf of marrow-grass for a pillow, tucked the plaid around his shoulders, and lain down in the waving grass beside his men.
During his time with the French army, years before, one of the sergeants had explained to the younger mercenaries the trick of falling asleep the night before a battle.
“Make yourself comfortable, examine your conscience, and make a good Act of Contrition. Father Hugo says that in time of war, even if there is no priest to shrive you, your sins can be forgiven this way. Since you cannot commit sins while asleep—not even you, Simenon!—you will awake in a state of grace, ready to fall on the bastards. And with nothing to look forward to but victory or heaven—how can you be afraid?”
While privately noting a few flaws in this argument, Jamie had found it still good advice; freeing the conscience eased the soul, and the comforting repetition of prayer distracted the mind from fearful imaginings and lulled it toward sleep.
He gazed upward into the black vault of the sky, and willed the tightness of neck and shoulders to relax into the ground’s hard embrace. The stars were faint and hazy tonight, no match for the nearby glow of the English fires.
His mind reached out to the men around him, resting briefly on each, one by one. The stain of sin was small weight on his conscience, compared with these. Ross, McMurdo, Kincaid, Kent, McClure … he paused to give brief thanks that his wife and the boy Fergus at least were safe. His mind lingered on his wife, wanting to bask in the memory of her reassuring smile, the solid, wonderful warmth of her in his arms, pressed tight against him as he had kissed her goodbye that afternoon. Despite his own weariness and the waiting presence of Lord George outside, he had wanted to tumble her onto the waiting mattress right then and take her quickly, at once, without undressing. Strange how the imminence of fighting made him so ready, always. Even now …
But he hadn’t yet finished his mental roster, and he felt his eyelids closing already, as tiredness sought to pull him under. He dismissed the faint tightening of his testicles that came at thought of her, and resumed his roll call, a shepherd treacherously lulled to sleep by counting the sheep he was leading to slaughter.
But it wouldn’t be a slaughter, he tried to reassure himself. Light casualties for the Jacobite side. Thirty men killed. Out of two thousand, only a slim chance that some of the Lallybroch men would be among that number, surely? If she was right.
He shuddered faintly under the plaid, and fought down the momentary doubt that wrenched his bowels. If. God, if. Still he had trouble believing it, though he had seen her by that cursed rock, face dissolving in terror around the panic-wide gold eyes, the very outlines of her body blurring as he, panicked also, had clutched at her, pulling her back, feeling little more than the frail double bone of her forearm under his hand. Perhaps he should have let her go, back to her own place. No, no perhaps. He knew that he should. But he had pulled her back. Given her the choice, but kept her with him by the sheer force of his wanting her. And so she had stayed. And given him the choice—to believe her, or not. To act, or to run. And the choice was made now, and no power on earth could stop the dawn from coming.
His heart beat heavily, pulse echoing in wrists and groin and the pit of his stomach. He sought to calm it, resuming his count, one name to each heartbeat. Willie McNab, Bobby McNab, Geordie McNab … thank God, young Rabbie McNab was safe, left at home … Will Fraser, Ewan Fraser, Geoffrey McClure … McClure … had he touched on both George and Sorley? Shifted slightly, smiling faintly, feeling for the soreness left along his ribs. Murtagh. Aye, Murtagh, tough old boot … my mind is no troubled on your account, at least. William Murray, Rufus Murray, Geordie, Wallace, Simon …
And at last, had closed his eyes, commended all of them to the care of the black sky above, and lost himself in the murmured words that came to him still most naturally in French—“Mon Dieu, je regrette …”
* * *
I made my rounds inside the cottage, changing a blood-soaked dressing on one man’s leg. The bleeding should have stopped by now, but it hadn’t. Poor nutrition and brittle bones. If the bleeding hadn’t stopped before cockcrow, I would have to fetch Archie Cameron or one of the farrier-surgeons to amputate the leg, and cauterize the stump.
I hated the thought of it. Life was sufficiently hard for a man with a
ll his limbs in good working order. Hoping for the best, I coated the new dressing with a light sprinkling of alum and sulfur. If it didn’t help, it wouldn’t hinder. Likely it would hurt, but that couldn’t be helped.
“It will burn a bit,” I murmured to the man, as I wrapped his leg in the layers of cloth.
“Dinna worry yourself, Mistress,” he whispered. He smiled at me, in spite of the sweat that ran down his cheeks, shiny in the light of my candle. “I’ll stand it.”
“Good.” I patted his shoulder, smoothed the hair off his brow, and gave him a drink of water. “I’ll check again in an hour, if you can bear it that long.”
“I’ll stand it,” he said again.
* * *
Outside once more, I thought Jamie had fallen asleep. His face rested on his folded forearms, crossed on his knees. But he looked up at the sound of my step, and took my hand as I sat beside him.
“I heard the cannon at dawn,” I said, thinking of the man inside, leg broken by a cannonball. “I was afraid for you.”
He laughed softly. “So was I, Sassenach. So were we all.”
Quiet as wisps of mist, the Highlanders advanced through the sea grass, one foot at a time. There was no sense of darkness lessening, but the feel of the night had changed. The wind had changed, that was it; it blew from the sea over the cold dawning land, and the faint thunder of waves on distant sand could be heard.
Despite his impression of continued dark, the light was coming. He saw the man at his feet just in time; one more step and he would have been headlong across the man’s curled body.
Heart pounding from the shock of the near-meeting, he dropped to his haunches to get a better look. A Redcoat, and sleeping, not dead or wounded. He squinted hard into the darkness around them, willing his ears to listen for the breathing of other sleeping men. Nothing but sea sounds, grass and wind sounds, the tiny swish of stealthy feet almost hidden in their muted roar.
He glanced hastily back, licking lips gone dry despite the moist air. There were men close behind him; he dared not hesitate long. The next man might not be so careful where he stepped, and they could risk no outcry.
He set hand to his dirk, but hesitated. War was war, but it went against the grain to slay a sleeping enemy. The man seemed to be alone, some distance from his companions. Not a sentinel; not even the slackest of guards would sleep, knowing the Highlanders to be camped on the ridge above. Perhaps the soldier had gotten up to relieve himself, thoughtfully come some distance from his fellows to do it, then, losing his direction in the dark, lain down to sleep where he was.
The metal of his musket was slick from his sweating palm. He rubbed his hand on his plaid, then stood, grasped the barrel of the musket, and swung the butt in a vicious arc, down and around. The shock of impact jolted him to the shoulder blades; an immobile head is solid. The man’s arms had flown out with the force of the impact, but beyond an explosion of breath, he had made no noise, and now lay sprawled on his face, limp as a clout.
Palms tingling, he stooped again and groped beneath the man’s jaw, looking for a pulse. He found one, and reassured, stood up. There was a muffled cry of startlement from behind, and he swung around, musket already at his shoulder, to find its barrel poking into the face of one of Keppoch’s MacDonald clansmen.
“Mon Dieu!” the man whispered, crossing himself, and Jamie clenched his teeth with aggravation. It was Keppoch’s bloody French priest, dressed, at O’Sullivan’s suggestion, in shirt and plaid like the fighting men.
“The man insisted that it was his duty to bring the sacraments to the wounded and dying on the field,” Jamie explained to me, hitching his stained plaid higher on his shoulder. The night was growing colder. “O’Sullivan’s idea was that if the English caught him on the battlefield in his cassock, they’d tear him to pieces. As to that, maybe so, maybe no. But he looked a right fool in a plaid,” he added censoriously.
Nor had the priest’s behavior done anything to ameliorate the impression caused by his attire. Realizing belatedly that his assailant was a Scot, he had sighed in relief, and then opened his mouth. Moving quickly, Jamie had clapped a hand over it before any ill-advised questions could emerge.
“What are ye doing here, Father?” he growled, mouth pressed to the priest’s ear. “You’re meant to be behind the lines.”
A widening of the priest’s eyes at this told Jamie the truth—the man of God, lost in the darkness, had thought he was behind the lines, and the belated realization that he was, in fact, in the vanguard of the advancing Highlanders, made him buckle slightly at the knees.
Jamie glanced backward; he didn’t dare send the priest back through the lines. In the misty dark, he could easily stumble into an advancing Highlander, be mistaken for an enemy, and be killed on the spot. Gripping the smaller man by the back of the neck, he pushed him to his knees.
“Lie flat and stay that way until the firing stops,” he hissed into the man’s ear. The priest nodded frantically, then suddenly saw the body of the English soldier, lying on the ground a few feet away. He glanced up at Jamie in awed horror, and reached for the bottles of chrism and holy water that he wore at his belt in lieu of a dirk.
Rolling his eyes in exasperation, Jamie made a series of violent motions, meant to indicate that the man was not dead, and thus in no need of the priest’s services. These failing to make their point, he bent, seized the priest’s hand, and pressed the fingers on the Englishman’s neck, as the simplest method of illustrating that the man was not in fact the first victim of the battle. Caught in this ludicrous position, he froze as a voice cut through the mist behind him.
“Halt!” it said. “Who goes there?”
* * *
“Have ye got a bit of water, Sassenach?” asked Jamie. “I’m gettin’ a bit dry with the talking.”
“Bastard!” I said. “You can’t stop there! What happened?”
“Water,” he said, grinning, “and I’ll tell ye.”
“All right,” I said, handing him a water bottle and watching as he tilted it into his mouth. “What happened then?”
“Nothing,” he said, lowering the bottle and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “What did ye think, I was going to answer him?” He grinned impudently at me and ducked as I aimed a slap at his ear.
“Now, now,” he reproved. “No way to treat a man wounded in the service of his King, now is it?”
“Wounded, are you?” I said. “Believe me, Jamie Fraser, a mere saber slash is as nothing compared to what I will do to you if …”
“Oh, threats, too, is it? What was that poem ye told me about, ‘When pain and anguish wring the brow, a ministering angel’ … ow!”
“Next time, I twist it right off at the roots,” I said, releasing the ear. “Get on with it, I have to go back in a minute.”
He rubbed the ear gingerly, but leaned back against the wall and resumed his story.
“Well, we just sat there on our haunches, the padre and I, staring at each other and listening to the sentries six feet away. “What’s that?” says the one, and me thinking can I get up in time to take him with my dirk before he shoots me in the back, and what about his friend? For I canna expect help from the priest, unless maybe it’s a last prayer over my body.”
There was a long, nerve-racking silence, as the two Jacobites squatted in the grass, hands still clasped, afraid to move enough even to let go.
“Ahhh, yer seein’ things,” came from the other sentry at last, and Jamie felt the shudder of relief run through the priest, as his damp fingers slid free. “Nothin’ up there but furze bushes. Never mind, lad,” the sentry said reassuringly, and Jamie heard the clap of a hand on a shoulder and the stamp of booted feet, trying to keep warm. “There’s the damn lot of ’em, sure, and in this dark, they could be the whole bloody Highland army, for all you can see.” Jamie thought he heard the breath of a smothered laugh from one of the “furze bushes,” on the hillside within hearing.
He glanced at the crest of the hill, where the st
ars were beginning to dim. Less than ten minutes to first light, he judged. At which point, Johnnie Cope’s troops would swiftly realize that the Highland army was not, as they thought, an hour’s march away in the opposite direction, but already face-to-face with their front lines.
There was a noise to the left, in the direction of the sea. It was faint, and indistinct, but the note of alarm was clear to battle-trained ears. Someone, he supposed, had tripped over a furze bush.
“Hey?” The note of alarm was taken up by one of the sentries nearby. “What’s happening?”
The priest would have to take care of himself, he thought. Jamie drew the broadsword as he rose, and with one long step, was within reach. The man was no more than a shape in the darkness, but distinct enough. The merciless blade smashed down with all his strength, and split the man’s skull where he stood.
“Highlanders!” The shriek broke from the man’s companion, and the second sentry sprang out like a rabbit flushed from a copse, bounding away into the fading dark before Jamie could free his weapon from its gory cleft. He put a foot on the fallen man’s back and jerked, gritting his teeth against the unpleasant sensation of slack flesh and grating bone.
Alarm was spreading up and down the English lines; he could feel as much as hear it—an agitation of men rudely wakened, groping blindly for weapons, searching in all directions for the unseen threat.
Clanranald’s pipers were behind to the right, but no signal as yet came for the charge. Continue the advance, then, heart pounding and left arm tingling from the death blow, belly muscles clenched and eyes straining through the waning dark, the spray of warm blood across his face going cold and sticky in the chill.
“I could hear them first,” he said, staring off into the night as though still searching for the English soldiers. He bent forward, hugging his knees. “Then I could see, too. The English, wriggling over the ground like maggots in meat, and the men behind me. George McClure came up with me, and Wallace and Ross on the other side, and we were walkin’ still, one pace at a time, but faster and faster, seein’ the sassenaches breaking before us.”
The Outlander Series 7-Book Bundle Page 166
