Midnight Honor

by Marsha Canham

  Worsham's body had then become a major concern. It was still dark outside, but within minutes the streets would be filled with soldiers filing toward the central parade ground, there to fall in with their company and begin the march toward Culloden. There would be confusion, but not enough to distract from a man carrying a dead major over his back. Nor could he explain the death as an accident or even self-defense and leave the corpse where it was to be discovered after the battle.

  The dilemma of what to do was temporarily taken out of his hands when he peered through the canvas flap of the tent and saw another eyeball peering in.

  He jumped back, his heart lodged in his throat. A moment later his adjutant, Ewen MacCardle, ducked through the flap, bearing a small tray with some foodstuffs and a cup of steaming black tea.

  “Mornin', sar. The general has ordered no fires lit an' no meal f'ae the men. He thinks they'll fight better on an empty belly. I managed tae find ye some biscuit 'n' cheese, but.”

  Angus felt sweat gathering on his brow as he studied his aide. Had it been Robert Hardy attending him, he would have had no qualms bringing the man into his confidence. MacCardle was politely indifferent, however, and one never knew where one stood with him; if he approved, disapproved, resented, admired.

  “I have a small problem,” Angus said slowly. “I was hoping you could help me with it.”

  “Aye, sar, if I can.”

  Angus reached inside his tunic and withdrew the white ribbon cockade. If MacCardle recoiled or shouted an alarm, the game would be up then and there, and it would not matter if the body was discovered in his tent or not.

  MacCardle's eyes fixed on the cockade and remained there for almost a full minute before rising slowly to Angus's face. Once there, he seemed to notice the purpling lump over his temple and the lame attempt to conceal it beneath a wave of brown hair. The hazel eyes, which MacKintosh had considered to be rather dull up to now, flicked back down to the cockade and considered it another long moment before he pursed his lips and nodded.

  “You don't seem too surprised.”

  “That ye're a rebel playin' at bein' an officer o' His Majesty's Royal Scots?” He shrugged. “Half the men in the Highland brigades would be wearin' the Stuart colors if they didna have tae worry about their wives an' bairns bein' burned out o' their homes.”

  “What about you? Do you have a wife and bairns?”

  MacCardle grinned, showing a mouthful of rotten teeth. “In truth, I've two wives, one in Glasgy, an' one in Perth. The Glasgy one has a face like a cooked boar, but her faither is rich an' said as how I had tae jine up wi' the Campbells tae protect his land. The lass in Perth is rounder an' sweeter, an' her brithers are with Lord John Drummond. So if ye're after askin' me where I'd rather be right the now, I might tell ye Perth, but if ye're askin' me tae help ye drive a blade intae the belly o' fat Willie, I'd have tae tell ye Glasgy.”

  “The blade, I'm afraid, has already been driven.” Angus expelled a breath and crossed over to the cot. He lifted the edge of the blanket, watching the hazel eyes flick down and widen slightly when they saw the stiffened body.

  “Aye, sar,” MacCardle murmured. “Now that's what I would call a problem.”

  “I am due at the parade ground with my regiment. God only knows what will happen on the field today, but if Major Worsham's body is discovered here, I am a dead man regardless.”

  MacCardle's jaw twisted slightly as he weighed his choices. “Aye. Go on, then. Leave the bastard wi' me. I'll think on sum'mit tae do wi' him.”

  “You would be putting yourself at great risk to help me, Ewen.”

  “Then ye'd best get on about yer business afore I think on it too much an' change ma mind.”

  Angus tucked the white cockade back inside his tunic and snatched up his bonnet. After a parting glance at the cot, then at MacCardle, he ducked out into the freezing drizzle and joined the flow of men moving toward the parade ground. He found his own regiment and stood to attention in the miserable cold, guessing there were upward of nine thousand others standing and waiting for the order to march.

  At a signal from the drummers, they came to the ready, moving out right foot first, toe to the opposite heel of the man in front, the firelocks of their muskets tucked beneath their arms to keep the pans and chambers dry. They marched in columns six abreast, heading west along the valley of the Nairn, saluted by two heavy guns mounted on the slopes of Balblair House as they passed.

  His Grace, the Duke of Cumberland, sat on his horse watching the men strike past, admiring their precision and determination. He was not easy to mistake: His frock coat was scarlet, banded with thick gold braid. Wide, pointed lapels of royal blue framed a face that was as dark and ominous as the sky, for he had made the promise well known throughout the entire camp that he would hang every last one of them by his own hand if they even gave a thought to turning and running from the field this day. He had also heard that his cousin often inspired his troops by marching in their ranks, and so, when it came time for him to join his men, he dismounted and handed the reins to an aide, then fell into step beside a regiment of Foot that cheered loudly enough to drown out the timekeeping of the drums.

  Twelve miles later he mounted his horse again and assumed the higher ground on the southeast bank of Drummossie Moor for a vantage point. It was cold and the weather was abominable, but at least the sleet was driving at their backs and not into their faces, as it was for the Jacobites.

  Angus could not help but stare across the field at the howling wall of plaid and steel, wondering at the insanity of so few standing up against so many. Major Hamilton Garner rode past, distracting him momentarily by asking if he had seen Major Worsham that morning. Out of the corner of his eye, Angus saw Ewen MacCardle blow a puff of steam into the misty air, for he had caught up with his captain on the road and casually mentioned the “problem” had been disposed of in the huge pit where the cooks burned their garbage.

  And then there was nothing to distract him as he heard the officers passing up and down the lines, ordering the men to prepare their weapons.

  MacGillivray had ridden straight into a sodden gray curtain of driving rain and sleet that swept from one side of Drummossie Moor to the other and obscured what lay half a mile away on the other side of the field. When the squall passed, he was not the only one who drew back on the reins in shock.

  There were thousands. Eight, nine, maybe ten thousand scarlet-clad soldiers lined up in squared divisions, marching onto the field in perfect precision, like blocks of Roman centurions. Each wore the red tunic and white crossbelts, the knee-high spatterdash gaiters and stiff leather neck stocks. To the right, the first division extended so far it straddled the moor road. Far, far to the left, on an angle that seemed to jut away from the Jacobite front line, divisions of cavalry were standing patient, the animals trained to wait until the artillery did its terrible damage before they thundered out onto the field.

  The Jacobite army was half the size and spread half the length of the moor, even though the chiefs attempted to draw their companies out to give the impression of substance. Lord George was in command of the right wing, comprising Camerons, Stewarts, and his own Athollmen, the last with their collective shoulders butted up against a sod dike that had been extended over the years as the parklands of Culloden spread eastward. It had been another point of contention between the prince and his general that the edges of the field had too many dikes and low stone walls that could encumber the men. The prince argued they would afford some protection; Lord George worried they could become a trap.

  Lord John Drummond had command of the center, and it was here that MacGillivray rode to meet the cheers of the men from Clan Chattan, five hundred strong and near enough to their own lands and homes that they took comfort knowing if they fell on this field of honor, they would not lie alone and forgotten in some faraway unmarked ground.

  The Duke of Perth commanded the left, and had to deal with the thousand-strong MacDonalds of Keppoch, Glengarry,
and Clanranald, some of whom had only arrived at Culloden that morning, and were angered over being so far from their traditional place on the right. It was the crusty old Keppoch, swallowing his ire a moment to study the field, who also noticed the left wing was aligned at a skewed angle, making the distance between the two armies as little as five hundred yards at the one end and as much as eight hundred yards at the other. He sent a runner to Lord George to see if this should be corrected, but before he could receive any answer, the first of the prince's mismatched artillery guns was mistakenly fired by a half-asleep gunner.

  Anne had never liked storms; as a child she had thought the sky was cracking apart and would come crashing down over her head while she slept. When the cannonading began, it sounded and felt just like a cataclysmic thunderstorm, and fears she had not thought of for twenty years came back to haunt her. The ground shook and the planks of the barn trembled. Straw and dirt fell in gritty showers from the rafters. Ten minutes into the incessant pounding, a loose beam crashed to the floor, missing her by a few feet and hastening her decision to move out of doors.

  The wind caught her plaid, tearing it off her head. Freezing rain pelted down at a sharp slant, cutting into her face, making her gelding more skittish than the sound of the guns. She pulled him under the protection of an awning of trees and craned her neck to see through the mist and sleet, unsettled by the sight of huge gray plumes of smoke rising over the vicinity of Drummossie Moor. From half a mile away she could hear the sound of pipers and men screaming their cath-ghairms. She had seen them at Falkirk and she could envision them now, the clans stretched across the field in a swirling, turbulent mass of red and green and blue tartans, waiting for the signal from their general to unleash hell on the English lines.

  The prince would be on the high ground, cheering them on. His huge silk standard would be snapping in the wind, and he would be mounted on his white stallion, presenting a regal figure in royal blue and gold, his eyes possibly even streaming tears as they had at Falkirk to see his brave Highlanders charge into battle.

  Anne tilted her head and listened, still hearing the distant cacophony of screams and skirling, but now there was something else familiar. Above the roar of the heavy artillery, she could hear the crackling pop of musketfire. That, too, brought a vision into her mind, of the clans breaking out of their ranks and running forward. The chiefs and lairds would lead the bloodcurdling rush, for the hierarchy of the feudal system dictated the order of honor. They would be followed by landowners and anyone of ranked nobility, then their tenants, then the lower classes of common workers, shepherds, and humblies. The second Jacobite line consisted of the Irish, French, and Royal Foot guard. Here, too, were Lord Elcho's Royal Horse, the cavalry of gentlemen. Their animals had been sorely decimated by the harsh winter and lack of forage, but there were still about a hundred smartly suited officers who would be eager to enter the fray on a signal from their commander.

  Anne stroked The Bruce's neck, feeling the same impatience and excitement shiver through his muscles as she felt in her own. MacGillivray had said to stay away from the battlefield; he had not expressly forbidden her not to find a better vantage point. With that small qualification in mind, she swung herself up into the saddle and nudged the gray into a quick canter, heading for the higher ground beyond the moor road.

  The clans were stunned by the swift and savage damage wrought by Cumberland's artillery. This was the first time they had encountered English gunners, for they had caught their enemy by surprise at Prestonpans, and at Falkirk the cannon had been mired in mud and abandoned when Hawley's troops fled the field.

  At Culloden, they had been rolled onto the moor ahead of any men, and were manned by officers who knew their business. Round after round was loaded and fired with precision, first upon the cluster of mismatched Jacobite guns, unseating them and blowing them to hell within the first ten minutes. Next, the elevation was adjusted and the big black snouts were pointed into the Jacobite front line. The screaming Anne had heard was not so much from the taunts and war cries of the clansmen but from the men who were being torn apart where they stood. The prince, startled to find his own position under heavy bombardment, was forced to move back, but neglected to pass the order first for the chiefs to release their men. By the time he did so, the English gunners had changed to grapeshot—hundreds of tiny lethal balls packed into an exploding shell that sprayed the field like hail, against which there was no defense but the body of the man in front.

  Lord George, furious at the prince's incompetence, unleashed his men without waiting for the royal order. He was followed by Lochiel and Lord Drummond, and so on down the line like a staggered wave. Last to realize the charge had begun were the MacDonalds, who also had the farthest distance to cross, every step of it under the repeated volleys of musketfire exploding from the unmoving and as yet unscathed wall of scarlet-clad soldiers.

  The men of Clan Chattan charged headlong toward Cumberland's front ranks. With MacGillivray in the lead, they veered to avoid a sunken morass of mud near the center of the field, and found themselves running shoulder to shoulder with the Camerons. They were the first to reach the government line, scattering the terrified soldiers with the sheer impact of their fury. Lochiel went down, his ankles shattered by grapeshot, but his brothers Alexander and Archibald brought the full wrath of the clan forward, hacking and slashing their way through the infantry lines, carving such a deep and bloody swath through the government troops that they unwittingly opened their own flanks to fire from the divisions on either side. Caught in a deadly crossfire, they had no choice but to withdraw and wait for support from the other clans, but there were no other clans close enough to come to their aid.

  Lord George Murray struck the line on the right, where the fighting had become so intense his men had to climb over their own dead to reach the soldiers. Cumberland's troops kept up a steady, precise drill of fire, reload, fire, not even needing to aim in the closely packed mass of kilted Highlanders. Those who survived the grapeshot and synchronized fusillades were met with fifteen inches of serrated steel thrust at them from an unmoving wall of well-disciplined infantrymen.

  Frustrated by the redcoats' refusal to turn and run as they had before, appalled by the dead mounting before them, the Jacobites began to fall back. Cumberland observed this with a triumphant smile and gave the nod to the men of his second line, who moved forward, fresh and eager to relieve the battered front ranks.

  Lord George, seeing this new barrier of infantrymen six deep step up into firing position, realized the action was hopeless and screamed the order to retreat. That was when he saw, to his further horror, that the stone walls he had pleaded to have taken down were now lined with Cumberland's men, sharpshooters who propped their muskets on the topmost stones and took deadly aim at the unprotected backs of the retreating Highlanders.

  Blinded by the rain, the smoke, the confusion, the clansmen fought their way back over a field littered with their own dead and dying. MacGillivray had lost sight of Jamie and Robbie Farquharson in the frantic charge, but he saw them now, lying together in a tangle of bloodied arms and legs, the one shot while trying to pull the other to safety. Eneas was beside MacGillivray. At the sight of his slain brothers, he turned and raised his sword, screaming obscenities at the English. Two, three, five shots smacked into his chest, his belly, his shoulder and still he charged back toward the government line, hacking the hands and sword off the first man who stepped up to meet him, cleaving the skull of the next, and going down, finally, under the bayonets of a dozen infantrymen.

  Just when it seemed some of the clans might make a safe retreat, Cumberland unleashed his cavalry, five hundred strong. These were the dragoons who had run at Prestonpans and again at Falkirk, and now that they could see the Highlanders were crippled and helpless, they took special glee in running them down, killing even those who threw aside their weapons and raised their arms in surrender.

  The beating rain gave the smoke nowhere to rise, and the air
was choked with sulfur. Lord George, wounded in half a dozen places, his face awash with blood, saw there was only one escape open to them and shouted for the clans to stay together and retreat along the moor road. The prince's standard had already been taken down. There was no sight of the royal figure or his white charger, and for that they could be grateful, for within minutes of the cavalry being unleashed, the high ground was overrun.

  It fell to the Camerons and the MacKintoshs, both of whom had lost half their men in the slaughter, to protect the retreat. Alexander Cameron took the right, and on a waved acknowledgment from John MacGillivray, the MacKintoshes positioned themselves to protect the left flank. Throughout the charge and the terrible aftermath, MacBean and MacGillivray had managed to stay together, and they fought side by side now, rallying their men to hold off the assault of the soldiers who pressed toward them in an unrelenting sea of scarlet and white.

  “Moy Hall is it, then?” Gillies snarled, fixing his gaze on a pocket of soldiers who were advancing across the field and smirking along the lengths of their bayonets.

  “Aye, we'll meet there, brither,” John said, his attention drawn to a cluster of Foot converging on three wounded Athollmen.

  “Ye think we'll get some meat? An' a real bed tae lie on?”

  “I'm sure of it, lad. That an' a crock o' sweet ale to quench our thirst.”

  “Aye, well.” Gillies looked over his shoulder and grinned. “It might be worth the trouble, then.”

  John reached out and the two men, who had been friends since their reckless youth, exchanged a fierce handclasp, then parted. Gillies ran screaming toward the startled infantrymen, slashing his broadsword with such ferocious power that two of their number lost their heads and a third saw his entrails spilling onto the ground before the rest could form up and bring him down.