Prince Across the Water (5 page)

“Granda,” I suddenly put in, “if ye had died in the '15, I wouldna have known ye.”

He laughed, but Da didn't. He turned away from us to glare into the fire some more.

“These are good men and brave, here to fight for their king,” Granda persisted. “Do ye deny it?”

“Good men, yes. Brave, yes,” Da said quietly, speaking more to the fire than to us. “But why they are here may no be why ye are here, old man. Yer still seeking some sort of glory in war. But dinna forget that if these brave men hadna come, the Keppoch would have burned them out of their homes.”

I think my jaw dropped then. I wanted to say something, anything. For surely my da was wrong about that. We men of Donald had come to fight for the prince because of courage alone, surely.

Granda looked grim. “And the Keppoch would be right to treat them so. We owe him our fighting arms in exchange for our cottages and land. There's no room for cravens in the Highlands.”

Da glared. “I'm no arguing with that, old man. I know full well what we owe the laird. But these men of Glenroy, we're farmers and millers and farriers and barrel makers. We can go on a raid against the Campbells. But we are no soldiers. We havena been paid to drill and parade and prance about in a single line like the redcoats. We marched here to give our time as pledged, but it's as much out of fear for homes and families as out of honor. Mark me, the time will come when the men of Glenroy will go back to their farms, whichever way the winds of war blow.”

“A diet of victories will keep them all marching,” said Granda, “more than shillings or the lash. That's what the English soldiers fight for—nae us.”

“Aye, but a Highlander willna fight on and on if he disna see the sense of it.” Standing, Da gathered up his plaid and moved a few paces away from us, as if to be alone again with his own brooding thoughts.

Granda and I sat for a while by Da's fading fire. He put his hand on my arm. “Duncan, lad, dinna let yer da's grim mood fash ye.” He shook his head. “Yer father's as bold a man as any. He'll fight right enough when it comes to that. But he's got into such a habit of worry through the years, he canna let off.”

I knew that much was true. My father worried about the health of our cattle, the state of our crops; he worried about Mairi with her fancies and me with my fits.
Maybe it was better to be a soldier
, I thought,
and only have to worry about yerself and the man in the line guarding yer side
. Maybe it
was
better to die gloriously in battle than to live on in a small village, worrying about too much rain or too little.

We wrapped our plaids around us and settled down for the night. The smoldering embers of the cook fires took the edge from the chill air, and soon, weary from the day's long march, I took off my plaid, rolled myself in it, and sank into a deep sleep.

7 REDCOATS

The Keppoch's piper roused me from my slumber with a high-pitched skirl. The smell of fresh-baked bannocks got me to my feet. Many of the men around me had been similarly awoken. But Granda was still dozing, probably because of all the whiskey he had drunk.

I shook him awake.

He sat up abruptly, groping about for a weapon. “What's the alarm?” he demanded. “Are we under attack?”

“No!” I laughed out loud. “Unless German Georgie's men are fetching us breakfast.”

For a moment he looked confused, then gave me a laugh back.

Our meal was rushed, for the Keppoch was determined we were to be off to Glenfinnan before the sun had cleared the hills. Glenfinnan—where the prince would meet us.

“He'll raise the Stuart standard there,” the Keppoch said, his voice clear in the morning's bright air. “And we'll show him the loyalty of the Highlanders, my lads.”

We cheered, a sound so loud, doves flew off their roosts with a great flapping of wings, which only made us cheer louder.

The Keppoch held up his hand. “Let us not be shamed by the McKinnons or by the MacGregors,” he said. “If they reach Glenfinnan before us, they will take pride of place and say that the MacDonald men are as slow as pigs in a bog.”

There was laughter all around then, but I turned to Granda, a bit puzzled. “Where is this Glenfinnan?”

“At the head of Loch Shiel,” he told me, as if that made things clearer. Then he knelt and smoothed a place in the dirt to draw a map with his finger. “We are here, at the Keppoch's,” he said, “at the foot of Glen Roy.” Then he drew a long line to the left. “We walk this way, to the west, crossing the River Lochy.” He drew a squiggle. “Then we turn south.” The line dropped toward his knees. “Then west again along Loch Eil.” He drew an eel-shape for the loch. I tried to envision it filled with dark, peaty water but my mind didn't stretch that far. “And here, where Loch Eil ends, is the tip of Loch Shiel.” The thing he drew was an even longer eel. “And where they meet”—his forefinger stabbed into the dirt—“is Glenfinnan.”

“Is it far?” I was thinking of his poor leg.

“A week, nae more,” he said. “If we move quickly.”

I gave him a hand up. “Then we better be started.”

He nodded. “Aye, lad.”

Da had come over to check on us and heard the last of this. “I didna know this was to be a race,” he grumbled.

“It's always a race when there are redcoats at our front door,” Granda said, and winked at me.

I winked back, a kind of promise between us that we would keep up with the others, whatever it cost us. Stay up with them till we'd both seen the prince, and I had touched his hand.

There were a dozen pipers in our band and they set the pace as we marched westward. The Keppoch's womenfolk cheered and waved and some of them even blew kisses as we marched past. Granda chortled as if all the kisses were meant for him and waved back, but I stared straight ahead, trying to look older than my thirteen years.
I am a man among men
, I reminded myself firmly.

“Come on, Granda,” I muttered to him. It was important not to fall behind at the start.

The Keppoch was out in front, riding on a glorious grey gelding. The braw, muscular chosen men who made up his personal guard walked beside him. Following close behind were the piper and the clan bard, whose job it was to turn the chief's brave deeds into song. The Keppoch's bonnet sat surely atop his white hair, sword and musket were shoved in his belt, knife in his stocking top; he looked the picture of a Highland chief. And though my best plaid was old and worn beside his, the Keppoch's grand bearing made me hold my own head higher. The MacDonalds were on the march.

Away to the south, beyond the Leanachan Forest, I could see the mountains rising up, the tallest with a cap of sparkling snow.

“Ben Nevis, lad,” Granda told me, pointing at the snowcapped mountain. “Now ye've seen the biggest and the best Scotland has to offer.”

“Och, Granda, I thought the MacDonalds were the biggest and the best.”

Next to me, Jock, who worked on my uncle's farm, laughed. Then he slapped me on the back. “Good one, lad.”

I beamed. Jock was no more than a humblie, like Granda and me. But his praise was worth a fortune. I grinned at him. Indeed, I grinned at the whole column of marching men. Here I was, far from home, seeing endless forests and mountains that nearly touched the sky. I was fairly bursting with pride.
What could be better
, I thought,
than marching with the men of my own name?
In the front or at the rear, I was a true MacDonald, the prince's man. I had the wind in my hair, the call of ravens from the trees, a belly full of bannocks, and a dirk in my belt.

At the start of the second day, though, things began to change. The Keppoch suddenly signaled his pipers to be silent. The word was passed back—no laughing, no singing, no talking.

“Granda,” I whispered, “what's happening?”

He whispered back, “The Keppoch's scouts must have spotted something.”

“What?” I asked quietly. “I thought we were still in MacDonald country.”

A man in front of us turned around and put a finger to his lips, hissing a caution.

Then suddenly, beyond a small hill where the Keppoch and his bodyguards, the
luchd-tagh'
, had already passed out of sight, there came a loud crack, as if a tree had snapped in two.

Then more cracks—clearly shots from muskets—followed in quick succession. My heart began to beat so loudly, I felt it might leap from my breast. I tried to calm myself, fearful of a fit, but my heart kept up its awful pounding.

Quietly, all our men drew their weapons, as word quickly passed back, even to us humblies in the rear,
“Saighdearan dearg.”
Redcoat soldiers. Government troops.

I drew my own blade, all at once aware of how small it was, how useless it would be against musket or sword. Yet I was swept up at the same moment by a hot passion. No longer worried about falling ill, I was a fighting man. We were on the high, solid ground Granda had spoken of. The wind was at our backs.

“MacDonald!” I whispered fervently, holding the dirk before me like a prayer.

The men in front of us began running and I followed, hurrying to catch up to the Keppoch, fearful that he might have fallen into an ambush. All those feet pounding on the ground made a rumble as great as any Highland waterfall and the rumble penetrated up through my
cuarans
, my shoes, all the way to my scalp. I felt strangely elated, as if I were running on air and not earth.

Cresting the hill, we were greeted by a great Highland cry, “MacDonald! MacDonald!” that bounced back and forth between the heathery hills.

Down below, we could see the Keppoch and his guards, less than a dozen in all. To my surprise they were rounding up at least two score of redcoats who had already tossed aside their muskets and had their arms raised in surrender. Two men lay dead, their red coats oozing dark blood that puddled around them. For a moment, I looked away. I'd never seen a man dead on the ground before.

And then I looked back, thinking:
A dozen against forty! That is how Highlanders fight!
I waved my dirk in the air and cried out, “MacDonald! MacDonald!” The men around me took up the call.

The Keppoch rode up to us, waving his pistol above his head. A thin ribbon of smoke still trailed from the barrel. His bonnet had fallen off and his white hair sprang about his head like a halo. He looked like a vengeful angel.

“They thought the dozen of us were an army,” he said, laughing. “We've won our first victory, my boys, and we've barely left home!”

Then there was a wild cheer and the Keppoch's name was chanted like a war cry.

“Keppoch! Keppoch! Keppoch!”

And then the men cried out our MacDonald battle cry: “For God and St. Andrew!”

I sang along with the rest, my thudding heart keeping time to the shouts.
Courage
, I thought,
is a wonderful thing
.

By the time we swarmed down the hillside, rushing through the browning bracken, the English soldiers had all been disarmed and were cowering together, like sheep before wolves. Whenever a Highlander got close, the redcoats shrank back. You'd have thought they were surrounded by ravenous beasts instead of men like themselves.

“What are they so afraid of?” I asked Granda, who had come limping and panting down the hill after the rest of us.

He gave me a gap-toothed grin, though when he spoke he did it haltingly, as if the run had exhausted him. “They think … we Highlanders … are savages, capable of … anything. Even of eating them … if we've a mind to.”

I laughed. “Maybe we are.” Then I took a good long look at the redcoats. I had never actually seen an Englishman before, and was surprised that they were so clean shaven, which made them look like tall women. Their red coats seemed a lot cleaner than our plaids, with brightly polished buttons. Suddenly I wanted one of those buttons to give to Mairi to string around her neck.

“I'm going to talk to one,” I said.

“To a redcoat?” He put a hand to his beard and scratched.

“Aye.”

“Happy eating then,” he said, and sat down on the ground.

When I got to the little band of soldiers, I saw that one was a lad, not that much older than me. He had cheeks as pink as roses. I opened my mouth to speak to him but nothing came out. Then I noticed that one of his buttons hung loose on his coat. I leaned forward, grabbed it, and pulled it off. Then, clutching it in my closed fist, I ran back to Granda, who was still sitting on the ground.

“Look!” I said, opening my hand to him.

“That's quite a prize,” he said. “For yer sweetheart?” Though he knew I had none. His eyes twinkled and I could see he was proud of me.

“For Mairi,” I said as I slipped the button through my plaid's pin to keep it safe.

“Aye, she'll like it. Probably think it's from her faerie prince, though.” He shook his head.

There was a strange grumble about us, and I could hear some of our men complaining.

“We dinna need to march them with us,” said redheaded Jock. He meant the soldiers. “They'll just slow us down.”

“Aye,” said another. “Let's just knock their heads in now.”

And suddenly there was a rumble of calls for the redcoats to be put to the sword.

Stepping over to a large grey rock, the Keppoch climbed up on it till he towered over us all. He held up his hand for silence and, in an instant, we were all still.

“These redcoats will make a fine present for the bonnie prince,” he declared. “I dinna want his gift spoiled by any of ye!”

This brought a roar of laughter from all of us, and then another cheer, but the English soldiers looked puzzled and unsettled, for they couldn't understand a word of our Gaelic speech.

“Go on, lad,” Granda urged. He struggled to his feet. “Tell them what the Keppoch said.” He knew Ma had taught me to speak the English tongue as it was spoken in the Lowlands. Her father had insisted she and her brothers learn it so they could never be swindled by a Lowlander.