The Last Sunset (10 page)

There was a whispered conference between the
sisters before Shona silently scuttled off. While he waited Macmillan listened
intently for any warning of the soldier’s approach. He could see Ishbel doing
likewise.

He stole a glance at the girl. Like her mother
she wasn’t delicately featured in the classical sense, but her face was strong
and well formed, her figure shapely and attractive. Like her mother, too, she
was intensely feminine in a way that was natural and untamed.

He felt a rush of air behind him as Shona
returned. Cradled in her arms, minus its ammunition belt, was the G.P.M.G.
Without ammo it was as much use as a club. He smiled and nodded his head. Where
the hell was Macsorley? He considered leaving the girls on their own to search
for the ammo pouches, but decided it wasn’t worth the risk.

There was little he could do but settle down by
the window and wait, the sisters crouched beside him like adopted waifs. He
wondered about the inhabitants of the neighbouring cottages. None of the houses
showed any sign of life. Even the livestock they’d seen earlier had vanished,
dissolved in the mist.

Mhairi had given up trying to rouse her husband
and was now slumped on the floor beside him. Only the shallow breathing of
Ishbel and Shona disturbed the heavy silence.

Macmillan settled the cold, reassuring shape of
the self-loading rifle. against the junction of his chest and arm. With the
blanket of mist concealing all signs of life, and the air heavy with menace, he
decided he could just as easily be occupying an observation post in Belfast.

The irony of this he would ponder another day.

Ishbel held up her hand. She turned her head to
one side, trying to penetrate the blanket of mist. It was a while before
Macmillan heard it too; the sound of faint cries and yells; the distant shouts
of men caught up in the sudden excitement of the chase. With a shock he
realised the sounds were coming from the west. If the attack had been launched
from the east then the soldiers must have passed Achnacon’s clachan already!
Dear God, no wonder the girls had been so afraid. The sounds died away as
quickly as they’d arisen.

Ishbel took her young sisters hand. “Sholdiers,”
she told Macmillan softly.

He nodded, aware of a sense of shame, feeling
damned by association. He decided if they survived this day he would have
Macsorley teach him the rudiments of Gaelic. He wanted to learn more about the
world of Achnacon… and of Ishbel… especially of Ishbel.

She let out a little hiss of alarm. This time
Macmillan heard it too; the murmur of voices coming from the far side of the
hamlet, no more than a hundred yards away. The voices faded towards the west,
and other voices took their place, until a line of invisible figures could be
heard moving past. Macmillan guessed the shouting they’d heard earlier was the
vanguard making contact with the next clachan.

Whether the mist began to thin, or whether the
column drifted closer to the cottage, Macmillan couldn’t tell. But gradually
some of the figures began to emerge from the mist. Hardly daring to breathe he
watched as the dreaded red-coated soldiers of King George of Hanover
materialised before them. He could see individual infantrymen, their scarlet
uniforms turned to sepia by the mist, their muskets barely visible in the
gloom.

Macmillan was no stranger to active service and
was familiar with that terrible fear that sends adrenalin surging through a
man’s veins, powering the urge to run or fight. He knew the most difficult
thing of all was to do nothing. He pulled the S.L.R. into the crook of his
shoulder and tried to keep his breathing as calm and regular as possible.

Neither of the girls had uttered a sound since
the redcoats came into view. Ishbel had wrapped her arms around her sister, and
was rocking her from side to side.

As the column of infantry trudged by, Macmillan
realised the mist was indeed beginning to thin. He could clearly make out each
individual infantryman. He could also see two motionless figures lying between
the dry-stone buildings. They must have been taken so completely by surprise
they barely made it beyond their front door. Achnacon’s cottage lay apart from
the rest, and was evidently overlooked in that first attack. Now that the mist
was lifting they wouldn’t remain overlooked for long.

Suddenly it dawned on Macmillan. These were the
images the firing party had witnessed as that first terrible mist had descended
upon them. He knew exactly what was about to happen, even before the group of
soldiers caught sight of Achnacon’s cottage, and began to move towards it.

Noiselessly Shona ran into the arms of her
mother, while Ishbel remained beside Macmillan. Only then did he understand the
origin of those final images they’d witnessed; the shapes that had sprung from
nowhere and darted into the mist, to be pursued by the soldiers.

The Hanoverians were less than thirty yards away
now. The corporal could make out the red stain on the bayonet of the lead
figure. By Macmillan’s simple criteria this signed his death warrant. With
practised ease he cocked his rifle, allowed the scarlet tunic to fill his
sights and squeezed the trigger. The single 7.62mm round lifted the soldier off
his feet, spattering his comrades with bloody fragments of lung and bone.

Macmillan could have done the same to the
others, but he held his fire. The soldiers returned a scattered volley before
withdrawing to the nearest cottage, leaving a pall of grey smoke hanging in the
air. Behind them he could hear a familiar cacophony of yells and screams as
officers and N.C.O.s responded to this sudden resistance.

He knew it wouldn’t be long before a second
group was sent forward against him. Ishbel was tugging at his sleeve, trying to
bring his attention to… what? She pointed to the barrel of his rifle. Of
course; she was reminding him to reload with ball and powder. He shook his head
and winked knowingly, hoping this meant the same to an eighteenth-century Gael
as it did to a twentieth-century squaddie.

He saw only fear and despair in her eyes.

There was no time to explain. Already a force of
nine or ten men had appeared around the side of the nearest cottage. As soon as
they had formed up they began to trot clumsily forward. Macmillan could see the
determination and apprehension on their faces. He blotted out any sense of
kinship one soldier might feel for another, and aligned his sights on the three
lead uniforms. One after another they were hurled back into their comrades as
the rounds smashed through their chests.

The momentum of the charge was instantly lost.
Two of the survivors turned and fled; the remaining five brought their muskets
to their shoulders. Macmillan ducked down, but Ishbel remained at the window,
her eyes wide with amazement. He hauled her out of the way as the little volley
of musket balls peppered the stone blocks around the window.

“Stay down,” he hissed. “D’ye understand? Down!”

She seemed oblivious to the danger. Her eyes
remained fixed on Macmillan as if he was the great Ossian, come to save his
people.

Outside, to his horror, the remaining soldiers
were advancing once more. They were barely twenty yards from the door of the
cottage, bayonets at the ready. Macmillan loosed off two rounds at the bobbing
figures before they’d advanced beyond his line of fire. As he swung round to
cover the entrance, the soldiers smashed through the door and spilled into the
house. Macmillan stood before them like a psychopath, firing round after round
into the screaming mob as they tried to fan out beyond the bottleneck of the
doorway. Almost deafened by the crack of the S.L.R., half-crazed by the
slaughter before him, he continued to jerk at the trigger long after the
magazine was empty, and long after the only screams to be heard were those of
Shona behind him.

At last even her screams fell away, until only
the rhythmical creaking of Achnacon’s ruined door disturbed the silence. Like
the sole survivor of some terrible disaster Macmillan alone remained on his
feet, facing a tangled mound of dead and dying men. The rifle slipped through
his hands. He stood in the deafening silence, unable to tear his eyes away from
the carnage before him.

“Aw man, whassgoin’ on here, eh?”

Macmillan turned, as if in a dream, to find
Macsorley at his side.

“Ah thought Ah heard a lottae shooting and
stuff. Whass happening?” He still wore Achnacon’s tartan plaid and looked, and
smelt, as though he’d been sleeping in the cowshed. His voice was slurred, his
eyes glazed from the effects of Achnacon’s
uisge beatha
.

“Yer rifle,” the corporal mumbled. “Where’s yer
rifle?”

Macsorley gaped stupidly at his N.C.O. for a
moment, before his right arm appeared from beneath his plaid incongruously clutching
his S.L.R. Macmillan’s trembling hands took possession of the weapon. Its
familiar, solid shape helped to calm him. He indicated the window, where Ishbel
was kneeling, her hands still over her ears.

“Get her… get her tae find the rest of the ammo…
mags, webbing… the ammo box for the jimpy.”

Macsorley tried to focus on the strange mess at
the doorway. “The lassies… did something with all that stuff earlier, so they
did.”

Macmillan was beginning to regain control of
himself. He picked up his empty rifle and thrust it at Macsorley.

“Get her tae bring that stuff here.
Now
!”

For a moment Macmillan thought the young soldier
was going to throw up over him. He belched noisily, and stood swaying for a
moment before making his way unsteadily over to Ishbel.

Macmillan turned to the gaping doorway and the
butchery that surrounded it. Four redcoats had made it into the house, and all
had been shot down before they’d taken two steps beyond the door. They now lay
tangled in a little lochan of blood, out of which a red burn trickled in bitter
retreat.

Beyond the open doorway Macmillan could see the
mist withdrawing up the hillside. He could make out fresh movements amongst the
red uniforms on the other side of the cottages. The troops who’d trudged past
them would have been recalled by now, but he was confident they would risk no
more frontal assaults.

At the window Macsorley’s slurred ramblings were
drawing little response from Ishbel. She seemed unable to tear her eyes away
from the entrance to her
tigh dubh
. Macmillan pulled the straw-filled
mattress from beneath the unconscious shapes of Ferguson and Rae and threw it
over the four corpses at the doorway. This seemed to break the spell under
which Ishbel had fallen. The corporal could hear the soft lilt of her voice as
she tried to respond to Macsorley’s maunderings.

At last the young soldier reported back. “That
is one… extremely nice wee bit of stuff… Ah reckon Ah’m in with a shout there…”

“Aw for God’s sake!” Macmillan snarled. “Did ye
find out where they stashed the webbing and the ammo?”

Macsorley smiled knowingly and tapped his nose,
then pointed dramatically at the recess where they’d first encountered Achnacon
and his family. Hidden beneath layers of plaid lay their magazines, pouches and
khaki-coloured ammunition box for the G.P.M.G.

Macsorley leaned against the wall, grinning with
idiotic pride, as Macmillan gathered up the hoard and carried it over to the
window. By now Ishbel had joined her mother and sister near the hearth.

Outside everything remained quiet, but he knew
it wouldn’t be long before they made their next move. Macmillan discovered what
had become of the fifth soldier who’d charged the cottage. Caught in his final
fusillade before the doorway was stormed, the redcoat lay twenty feet from the
window, bleeding heavily from a chest wound, but clearly still alive. Macmillan
could see bubbles of pink froth rising and falling around the man’s mouth as he
clung stubbornly to life.

He forced himself to concentrate on the nearby
cottages, lying deceptively at peace in the gathering twilight. As he waited he
fastened his combat webbing around his waist, and checked the magazines in the
front pouches.

Macsorley decided the corporal could use some
company and flopped down beside him. He caught sight of the dying redcoat.
“Hell’s teeth, what happened tae him?”

Macmillan gave him a withering look, which
failed to penetrate Macsorley’s addled brain.

Macsorley decided things needed lightening up.

“Too much… tae drink, eh pal? You look like… like…”
Slowly he became aware of Macmillan’s other victims, lying spread-eagled in
their own gore thirty yards from the cottage. He swallowed horribly a couple of
times. “Aw Gawd… Gonnae be sick…”

He made it as far as the doorway, before
emptying the contents of his stomach over the mattress. His moans of self-pity
turned to horrified groans as he realised what lay beneath. Eventually he
reappeared, looking grey and ill. He gaped at the corporal.

“Hell, Corp, if this is you trying tae avoid a
massacre, Ah wouldn’t like tae see you take the hump…”

“They didn’t give me any choice,” growled
Macmillan. “It’s all dead romantic, isn’t it, but? Volunteering tae fight for
the good guys, like you’re one of the Magnificent Seven. See, next time you
volunteer tae fight, try tae stay sober long enough tae actually do some
fighting...”