Part 24 (1/2)
”No, you are not a child, and I believe you could raise Father's sword like a man. I will not stop you if your heart tells you to go, but I would ask that you think of Mother, of Gwen and Maggie.”
”You can care for them.”
”Aye, I would try, but every day the child within me grows.” She took his hand in hers. It was stiff and cold and surprisingly strong. ”And I'm afraid. I can't tell Mother or the others, but I'm afraid. When I grow as big as Maggie, how will I be able to keep them safe if the English come? I don't ask you not to fight, Malcolm, nor do I tell you you're a child. But I will ask you to be a man and fight here.”
Torn, he turned back to stare down at her father's grave. The snow lay over it in a soft white blanket. ”Father would have wanted me to stay.”
Relief coursed through her, but she only touched his shoulder. ”Aye.
There is no disgrace in staying behind, not when it's the right thing.”
”It's hard.”
”I know.” Now she slipped her arm around him. ”Believe me, Malcolm, I know. There are things we can do,” she murmured, thinking aloud.
”When the snow stops. If the Prince's troops are as close as Inverness, the English will not be far behind. We cannot fight in Glenroe, there are too few of us, and almost all women and children.”
”You think the English will come here?” he demanded, half eager, half terrified.
”I begin to believe it. Did word not come to us that there was a battle at Moy Hall?”
”And the English were routed,” Malcolm reminded her.
”But it is too close. If we cannot defend, then we protect. You and I will find a place in the hills and prepare it. Food, supplies, blankets, weapons.” She thought of the strongbox. ”We will plan, Malcolm, as warriors plan.”
”I know a place, a cave.”
”You will take me there tomorrow.”
Brigham rode hard. Though it was nearly April, the weather remained cold, with snow often whipped up by the hateful wind. He commanded a handful of weary, hungry men. This foraging party, like others that had been sent out from Inverness, went in search of much-needed food and supplies. One of their greatest hopes, a captured government sloop renamed Prince Charles, had been retaken by the enemy off the Kyle of Tongue, and her desperately looked-for funds were now in the hands of the enemy.
Brigham's party had found more than oats and venison. They had discovered news. The duke of c.u.mberland, the elector's second son, lay in Aberdeen with a well-armed, well-fed army of twice their strength.
He had received a powerful reinforcement of five thousand German soldiers, who remained in Dornoch, blocking the route south. The word came that c.u.mberland was beginning his advance on Inverness.
Hooves thudded on the layer of snow still covering the road. The men rode mostly in silence, edgy with hunger and fatigue. They wanted a meal and the cold comfort of sleep.
Redcoats were spotted to the west. With a quick signal, Brigham hal ted his troops and scanned the distance. They were outnumbered nearly two to one, and the dragoons looked fresh. He had a choice. They could run, or they could fight. Turning his horse, he took a hard look at his men.
”We can make the hills and lose them, or we can meet them here on the road, with the rocks to their backs.”
”We fight.” One man fingered his sword. Then another and another added his voice. The dragoons had already spurred into a gallop.
Brigham flashed a grin. It was the answer he'd wanted.
”Then let's show them the faces of king's men.” Wheeling his horse, he led the charge.
There was something fierce and chilling about a Highland charge. They rode as if they rode into h.e.l.l, screaming in Gaelic and brandis.h.i.+ng blades. Wall met wall, and the lonely hills echoed with the fury. Around Brigham men fought like demons and fell dying from the slice and hack of steel. Snow ran red.
It was unlike him to allow his emotions to surface in battle. Here, after weeks of frustration and anger, he let himself go, cutting through the line of oncoming dragoons like a man gone mad. He saw no faces, only that nameless ent.i.ty known as the enemy. His sword whipped out severing flesh as he dragged his horse right, then left, then right again.
They drove the dragoons onto the rocks, pursuing them mercilessly.
Weeks of waiting had worked like a cancer that came rising to the surface to eat away at the civilized veneer.
When they were done five Jacobites lay dead or dying alongside a dozen dragoons. The rest of the government troop had fled over the rocks like rabbits.
”After them, lads,” one of the Highlanders shouted. Brigham swung his horse to block the next charge.
”For what purpose?” He dismounted to clean his blade in the snow.
”We've done what we've done. Now we tend to our own.” A foot away, a man moaned. Sheathing his weapon, Brigham went to him. ”The English dead will be buried. Our own dead and wounded will be taken back to Inverness.”
”Leave the English for the kites.”
Brigham's head whipped around. His eyes had lost their fever and were cold again as they studied the blood-spattered face of the hefty Scot who had spoken. ”We are not animals. We bury the dead, friend or enemy.”
In the end, the English dead were given cairns. The ground was too hard for graves.
The men were still weary, still hungry, when they turned their mounts toward Inverness. They rode slowly, burdened by their wounded. With each long mile, Brigham thought of how close the dragoons had been to Glenroe.
Chapter Fourteen
In the chill of April, the drums sounded and the pipes were played. In Inverness, the army readied for battle. Only twelve miles away, c.u.mberland had pitched camp.
”I do not like the ground.” Once more, Murray stood as Charles's adviser, but the rift between them that the retreat had caused had never fully healed. ”Drumossie Moor is well suited to the tactics of the English army, but not to ours. Your Highness...” Perhaps because he knew Charles had yet to forgive him for the retreat north, Murray chose his words with care. ”This wide, bare moor might as well have been designed for the maneuvers of c.u.mberland's infantry, and I tell you there could never be a more improper ground for Highlanders.”
”Do we withdraw again?” O'Sullivan put in. He was as loyal as Murray, as brave a soldier, but he lacked the hard-headed military sense of the Englishman. ”Your Highness, have not the Highlanders proved themselves fierce and fearsome warriors, as you have proven a canny general? Again and again you have beaten back the English.”
”Here we are not simply outnumbered.” Murray turned his back on O'Sullivan and appealed to the prince. ”The ground itself is the most terrible weapon. If we withdraw north again, across Nairn Water-”
”We shall stand to meet c.u.mberland.” Charles, his eyes cool, his hands neatly folded, watched his most trusted men. ”We shall not run again.
Through the winter we have waited.” And the wait, he knew, had disillusioned and disgruntled his men. It might have been that more than O'Sullivan's flattery or his own impatience that swayed him. ”We wait no longer. Quartermaster-General O'Sullivan has chosen the ground, and we shall fight.”
Murray's eyes met Brigham's briefly. They had already discussed the Prince's decision. ”Your Highness, if your mind is made up, may I propose a maneuver that may strengthen our advantage?”
”If it does not include a retreat, my lord.” Color stained Murray's cheeks, but he continued. ”Today is the duke's birthday, and his men will celebrate it. They will be drunk as beggars. A surprise night attack could turn the tide.”
The Prince considered. ”I find this interesting. Continue.”
”Two columns of men,” Murray began, using candlesticks to ill.u.s.trate.
”They would close in in a pincer movement, coming into camp from both sides and cutting down the size of c.u.mberland's army while they sleep off the effects of the birthday brandy.”