There was a nasty sort of dark liquid, called “coffee” for courtesy’s sake, and made from boiling burned acorns. I rather dubiously poured him a cup, but he consumed it with every evidence of enjoyment, meanwhile recounting the results of his expeditions.
“They meant to circle round to the west, but Colonel Howe’s men got there first, and cut them off. So then they went across, meaning to take the ford—but Colonel Moore put his men to the quick-step and marched all night to forestall them.”
“They made no move to engage either Howe or Moore?” Jamie asked, frowning. Ian shook his head, and gulped the rest of his acorn coffee.
“Wouldna come close. Colonel Moore says they dinna mean to engage until they reach Wilmington—they’re expecting reinforcement there.”
I exchanged a glance with Jamie. The expected reinforcement was presumably the British regular troops, promised by General Gage. But a rider from Brunswick we had met the day before had told us that no ships had arrived when he left the coast, four days before. If there was reinforcement awaiting them, it would have to come from the local Loyalists—and from the various rumors and reports we’d heard so far, the local Loyalists were a weak reed on which to lean.
“Well, so. They’re cut off on either side, aye? Straight down the road is where they’re headed—they might reach the bridge late tomorrow.”
“How far is it, Ian?” Jamie asked, squinting through the vista of longleaf pines. The trees were very tall, and the grassland under them wide open—very reasonable for riding.
“Maybe half a day on horseback.”
“Aye, then.” Jamie relaxed a little, and reached for his own cup of the vile brew. “We’ve time to sleep first, then.”
WE REACHED the bridge at Moore’s Creek by midday the next day, and joined the company commanded by Richard Caswell, who greeted Jamie with pleasure.
The Highland regiment was nowhere in sight—but dispatch riders arrived regularly, reporting their steady movement down Negro Head Point Road—a wide wagon thoroughfare that led directly to the solid plank bridge that crossed the Widow Moore’s Creek.
Jamie, Caswell, and several of the other commanders were walking up and down the bank, pointing at the bridge and up and down the shore. The creek ran through a stretch of treacherous, swampy ground, with cypress trees stretching up from water and mud. The creek itself deepened as it narrowed, though—a plumb line that some curious soul dropped into the water off the bridge said it was fifteen feet deep at that point—and the bridge was the only feasible place for an army of any size to cross.
Which did a great deal to explain Jamie’s silence over supper. He had helped to throw up a small earthwork on the far side of the creek, and his hands were smeared with dirt—and grease.
“They’ve cannon,” he said quietly, seeing me eye the smudges on his hands. He wiped them absently on his breeks, much the worse for wear. “Two small guns from the town—but cannon, nonetheless.” He looked toward the bridge, and grimaced slightly.
I knew what he was thinking—and why.
Ye were behind the cannon at Culloden, Donald, he had said to the Major. I was in front of them. With a sword in my hand. Swords were the Highlanders’ natural weapons—and for most, likely their only weapons. From all we had heard, General MacDonald had managed to assemble only a small quantity of muskets and powder; most of his troops were armed with broadswords and targes. And they were marching straight into ambush.
“Oh, Christ,” Jamie said, so softly I could barely hear him. “The poor wee fools. The poor gallant wee fools.”
MATTERS BECAME still worse—or much better, depending on your viewpoint—as dusk fell. The temperature had risen since the ice storm, but the ground was sodden; moisture rose from it during the day, but then as night came on, condensed into a fog so thick that even the campfires were barely visible, each one glowing like a sullen coal in the mist.
Excitement was passing through the militia like a mosquito-borne fever, as the new conditions gave rise to new plans.
“Now,” Ian said softly, appearing like a ghost out of the fog beside Jamie. “Caswell’s ready.”
Such supplies as we had were already packed; carrying guns, powder, and food, eight hundred men, together with an uncounted quantity of camp-followers like myself, stole quietly through the mist toward the bridge, leaving the campfires burning behind us.
I wasn’t sure exactly where MacDonald’s troops were just now—they might be still on the wagon road, or might have cautiously detoured, coming down to the edge of the swamp to reconnoiter. Good luck to them in that case, I thought. My own insides were tight with tension as I stepped carefully across the bridge; it was silly to tiptoe, but I felt a reluctance to put my feet down firmly—the fog and silence compelled a sense of secrecy and furtiveness.
I stubbed a toe against an uneven plank and lurched forward, but Roger, walking beside me, caught me by the arm and set me upright. I squeezed his arm, and he smiled a little, his face barely visible through the mist, though he was no more than a foot away.
He knew quite as well as Jamie and the rest did what was coming. Nonetheless, I sensed a strong excitement in him, mingled with dread. It was, after all, to be his first battle.
On the other side, we dispersed to make fresh camps on the hill above the circular earthwork the men had thrown up a hundred yards from the creek. I passed close enough to the guns to see their elongated snouts, poking inquisitively through the mist: Mother Covington and her daughter, the men called the two cannon—I wondered idly which was which, and who the original Mother Covington might have been. A redoubtable lady, I assumed—or possibly the proprietor of the local brothel.
Firewood was easy to find; the ice storm had extended to the pines near the creek, too. It was, however, bloody damp, and damned if I was going to spend an hour on my knees with a tinderbox. Luckily, no one could see what I was doing in this pea-soup fog, and I stealthily removed a small tin of Brianna’s matches from my pocket.
As I was blowing on the kindling, I heard a series of odd, rending screeches from the direction of the bridge, and knelt upright, staring down the hill. I couldn’t see anything, of course, but realized almost at once that it was the sound of nails giving way as planks were pried up—they were dismantling the bridge.
It seemed a long time before Jamie came to find me. He refused food, but sat against a tree and beckoned to me. I sat down between his knees and leaned back against him, grateful for his warmth; the night was cold, with a damp that crept into every crevice and chilled the marrow.
“Surely they’ll see that the bridge is out?” I said, after a long silence filled with the myriad noises of the men working below.
“Not if the fog lasts ’til morning—and it will.” Jamie sounded resigned, but he seemed more peaceful than he had earlier. We sat quietly together for some time, watching the play of flames on the fog—an eerie sight, as the fire seemed to shimmer and merge with the mist, the flames stretching strangely up and up, disappearing into the swirl of white.
“D’ye believe in ghosts, Sassenach?” Jamie asked suddenly.
“Er . . . well, not to put too fine a point on it, yes,” I said. He knew I did, because I’d told him about my meeting with the Indian whose face was painted black. I knew he did, too—he was a Highlander. “Why, have you seen one?”
He shook his head, wrapping his arms more securely around me.
“Not to say ‘seen,’” he said, sounding thoughtful. “But I will be damned if he’s no there.”
“Who?” I said, rather startled at this.
“Murtagh,” he said, surprising me further. He shifted more comfortably, resettling me against him. “Ever since the fog came in, I’ve had the most peculiar sense of him, just by me.”
“Really?” This was fascinating, but made me thoroughly uneasy. Murtagh, Jamie’s godfather, had died at Culloden, and—so far as I knew—hadn’t been going about manifesting himself since. I didn’t doubt his presence; Murtagh’s had been an extremely strong—if dour—personality, and if Jamie said he was there, he very likely was. What made me uneasy was the contemplation of just why he might be there.
I concentrated for a time, but got no sense of the tough little Scotsman myself. Evidently, he was only interested in Jamie. That frightened me.
While the conclusion of the morrow’s battle was a foregone one, a battle was a battle, and men might be killed on the winning side, as well. Murtagh had been Jamie’s godfather, and took his duty to Jamie seriously. I sincerely hoped he hadn’t had word that Jamie was about to be killed, and shown up to conduct him to heaven—visions on the eve of battle were a fairly common occurrence in Highland lore, but Jamie did say he hadn’t seen Murtagh. That was something, I supposed.
“He, um, hasn’t said anything to you, has he?”
Jamie shook his head, seeming unfazed by this ghostly visitation.
“Nay, he’s just . . . there.” He seemed, in fact, to find this “thereness” a comfort, and so I didn’t voice my own doubts and fears. I had them, nonetheless, and spent the rest of the short night pressed close against my husband, as though daring Murtagh or anyone else to take him from me.
113
THE GHOSTS OF CULLODEN
COME DAWN, ROGER STOOD BEHIND the low earthwork by his father-in-law, musket in hand, straining his eyes to peer into the mist. The sounds of an army came to him clearly; sound carried through fog. The measured tramp of feet, though they were not marching in any sort of unison. The clank of metal and rustle of cloth. Voices—the shouts of officers, he thought, beginning to rally their troops.
They would by now have found the deserted campfires; they’d know that the enemy now lay across the creek.
The smell of tallow was strong in the air; Alexander Lillington’s men had greased the support timbers, after the planks had been removed. He’d been grasping his gun for hours, it seemed, and yet the metal was still cold in his hand—his fingers were stiff.
“D’ye hear the shouting?” Jamie nodded toward the mist that hid the far bank. The wind had changed; no more than disconnected Gaelic phrases came from beyond the ghostly cypress trunks, and I made no sense of them. Jamie did.
“Whoever’s leading them—I think it’s McLeod, by the voice—he means to charge the creek,” he said.
“But that’s suicide!” Roger blurted. “Surely they know—surely someone’s seen the bridge?”
“They are Highlanders,” Jamie said, still softly, eyes on the ramrod he pulled from its rest. “They will follow the man to whom they vow loyalty, even though he leads them to their death.”
Ian was nearby; he glanced quickly toward Roger, then over his shoulder, where Kenny and Murdo Lindsay stood with Ronnie Sinclair and the McGillivrays. They stood in a casual knot, but every hand touched a musket or rifle, and their eyes darted toward Jamie every few seconds.
They had joined Colonel Lillington’s men on this side of the creek; Lillington was passing to and fro through the men, eyes darting back and forth, assessing readiness.