Prince Across the Water (18 page)

The MacDonald front line let out a cheer.

“What is it?” I cried, for we couldn't see anything but towering men in front of us.

Sandy smiled back at me. “First shot to us!” he called. “See how the smoke curls.” He raised a filthy hand and pointed.

The cheer washed over us, and Ewan and I joined in as well, shouting at the top of our lungs.

As our yells died away we heard something new. It was a muted “Hurrah!” from the scarlet ranks on the other side of the moor, the first sound they'd made.

Something sour spurted up suddenly from my throat into my mouth. I wondered what the redcoats had to cheer about since I couldn't see more than the backs of the men in front of me.

And then it came. The English cannon belched out a billow of flame and smoke in one mighty roll and the sound was like a pair of huge church bells being slammed together. The air around us shook with the din and an iron ball arced overhead.

“Missed,” came a voice. “They've not sighted well.”

“Och, ye nearsighted bullies,” cried another.

The men laughed, a rippling sound like the River Roy in full flood.

Then another clanging rang out, and a shot plowed into the lines to our right.

Again, I couldn't see what had happened but this time I heard the cries of injured men and the startled curses of those about them.

“Damned ball got Lewis!”

“Bloody redcoats.”

“Look out! Look out!”

Is it bad?
I wondered. And then:
Does it get worse?

“Hold steady, lads!” called the chiefs and their captains. “Hold steady!”

Time seemed to slow down. Our own gunners returned fire, and the small cannon burped out a few balls. But the English were so skilled at their brutal craft, they reloaded swiftly, answering every musket shot of ours with twenty of their own.

Then the cries around us began to multiply. Names were called out like a devil's roll call.

“William's hit!”

“It's Johnnie. Johnnie.”

“Ronald Mackie, where are ye?”

“To me, lads, to me! Captain Andrews has had it. To me.”

The crash of Cumberland's cannon—so many to our few—was like an iron door slamming shut over and over again.

Back and forth through the slow time. Yet my heart was hammering to a faster pace.

Ewan placed his sword point-first on the ground and leaned on it to brace himself. “It sounds like the gates of Hell crashing shut!”

Just then, past his shoulder I saw a cannonball smash a man into the ground, bounce up, and flatten two others. It was the first I'd actually seen such a thing, and everything suddenly began moving fast again. The clang of cannon, then the crack of bone. Blood spraying everywhere.

“My arm, they got my bloody arm …” the man on the ground cried. Someone else knelt by him, holding a cloth to the spurting wound.

My stomach heaved mightily at the sight and I had to turn away or throw up.

“Why dinna we charge?” I heard a voice beside me grumble. “Let us loose, man.”

Ewan shuffled his feet and poked at the ground with his sword. “This is nae sort of a battle,” he said loudly, “to stand here and be shot at, like grouse on a moor. Without doing something back. We canna even see the redcoats from here.”

“Aye,” said a boy about Ewan's age, his blue eyes squinting. “How can ye fight someone if ye canna even see him face-to-face?”

“Let us go, forward or back,” came from someone behind me. I turned to look. There were at least thirty humblies it could have been.

“My bloody arm,” the man on the ground called again, but his voice was beginning to fade. “My arm … oh God, oh God, oh God.”

“The prince is biding his time,” Sandy told us.

“The prince knows what he's doing,” I added.

Sandy nodded. “That he does,” he said, raising his voice. “As he proved at Edinburgh and Falkirk and Carlisle. Take it easy, lads. He wants the redcoats to come closer before we charge.”

“We'll be dead long before that,” the grumbler said.

Suddenly, I realized I agreed with him. It shamed me to think so, but I couldn't help it.
Why should Cumberland's troops come any closer
, I thought,
when they can kill us from the safety of the other side of the moor?

“I have to get to the Keppoch!” I cried. “I have to tell him …”

But before I could take a step forward, before I could dodge blind-eyed Sandy, and push through the boil of men, there was another cannon blast from the redcoats.

And another.

And another.

And I found I couldn't move at all.

The blasts of the English cannon kept hammering at us and men kept falling—in front of us and then well to the right of us, and to the left, while our own guns fired fewer and fewer shots in return.

I felt the whole body of MacDonalds around me shiver every time a cannonball ripped a bloody path through our ranks. That shiver was like the moment before I fall into one of my fits. I had to bite my lower lip hard to keep from crying out.

“Close up!” the captains shouted after each round.

Close up?
I thought.
And make a better target for the cannon? Surely that is madness
. Besides, my feet didn't want to move.

“Close up, damn ye,” the captains cried, “and hold yer ground!”

The ranks in front of us had been thinned out like barley at harvest. Now I could see across the rain-drenched moor to the other side; could see the British guns, with grey smoke curling above them like the wings of the angel of death.

“Close up yer bloody ranks or I'll shoot ye myself,” our captain called.

“Listen to the man,” Sandy ordered, and grabbed at two boys with his enormous hands, moving them closer together.

So we closed up ranks, stepping over the maimed, the whimpering, the dead. I forced myself to move. I had no choice. I closed my eyes against the sleet.

And then we waited some more.

Time once again dragged on painfully, measured by the ceaseless booming of artillery, punctuated by the cries of the wounded. Granda had been right. Dying men called for their mothers. Their mothers and God.

I kept opening my eyes wide as if I could pull myself out of this particular nightmare. Then the sleet and the sound of the guns made me squint again.

And still we stood, not charging, not running, just standing, like men in a bare-knuckle fight terribly outfought, but still unwilling to fall.

A dark-haired lad next to me glanced back over his shoulder, as if checking for a clear route of escape. I longed to look back as well.

But Ewan grabbed me by the arm, whispering, “Let's get on with it.” As if there were something he and I could do.

“Let loose, damn ye,” I said to him and he looked at me, startled, and let go.

Sandy suddenly muttered, “It's no like the Keppoch to stand still for a bloody nose. What's holding him?”

“I thought ye said the prince—” I began.

And next to him a red-bearded man added, “Bloody nose or bloody head, give us the bloody signal, man. Let us charge!”

Then a cannonball ripped through a line only ten yards from where I stood. A shattered leg spun through the air toward me in a shower of blood, landing at Ewan's feet.

I couldn't look; but, glancing away, I saw Ewan's face. It was as grey as a dead man's, and spattered with red. Where he gripped his sword, his knuckles showed white.

“Ewan, are ye hurt?” I cried.

He looked down at the severed leg and then suddenly leaned over and spewed his last meal onto the ground. Wiping his mouth hastily with the back of his hand, he croaked, “Not I.”

“Close ranks, ye slackers,” the captain called.

I stepped over the severed leg, moving up into the next line of men, on the end, Ewan beside me. The ranks ahead of us were thin and, for a moment, I could see the whole muddy field. It stretched like a black sea before us. Humped with bodies, trampled heather, broken patches of gorse, it looked like a road to Hell.

Then the ranks closed together again and all I had before me were the backs of MacDonald men.

I thought about telling Ewan that we could leave now, that honor had been served. But suddenly there was a fresh skirl of pipes from the center of the Highland army. The drums started a new beat and the Mackintoshes of Clan Chattan moved across the field. And it was too late to say anything at all.

“The charge!” Sandy cried behind me. “The Mackintoshes have gone!”

Beside me everyone tensed like dogs held on a leash, ready to leap at the throat of a bear.

“Do we go?” Ewan asked. “Is it time?”

“Almost, lad, almost,” Sandy told him.

Yet still we were held.

Then a minute or two later, another cry came rolling down the line of men in front of us.

“Atholl! Atholl!”

The Atholl Highlanders were the ones at the far end of the field—our place of honor, and much too far for me to see. But I could tell by the cries that they must have surged forward.

“The charge! The charge!” called someone behind me. And we were all shouting, a hearty cheer that—for an instant—drowned out the thunder of Cumberland's guns.

25 THE CHARGE

“Now we'll have them!” Ewan shouted, his voice shrill.

I tried to cheer with him, but my throat was suddenly parched and nothing came out but a croak. It took a while before I could even work up some spit.

“What about us?” a red-bearded man cried out. He was standing ahead of us. “Are we to charge or no? Has nae order come?”

To our right, the Camerons suddenly broke into a run toward the English, shouting their battle cry: “Sons of the hounds, come here and get flesh!”

By leaning sideways, I could see part of their charge. They went flat out, their swords above their heads, their targets before them, screaming at the redcoats. Suddenly there was a round of English fire, simultaneous stabs of light that brought a dozen men tumbling to the ground.

“Will nobody help them?” I cried out loud, but who could hear me in all that noise? Not the Camerons, surely. Those who were still alive kept up the charge, screaming wildly at the redcoats, knees pumping as they raced forward. It was glorious and awful at the same time.

“The Stuarts and the Gordons are away, too!” came a cry ahead of me. Now I could see those clans charging across the soggy moor toward the English guns.

But for some reason, we MacDonalds were still leashed.

“Let's go! Let's go!” The mutter was all around me now, and then the mutter turned to a shout. I found myself shouting along with them, my heart beating so loudly, I feared it would burst through my sark. Raising my dirk above my head, I cried out, “Let's go! Let's go!”

There was a great crash, like trees falling, as the English musketeers fired off yet another volley. A second followed close on the first, the wind carrying plumes of smoke across the sodden field. I took in a big breath of it and started to cough.

Ewan clapped me on the back. “Ye'll need breath for our charge, Duncan.”

I nodded, and ran my tongue over parched lips. “I'll … have … it”—cough—“when … I … need …”

But Ewan had already started edging his way forward, ahead of me, displaying his sword as if it entitled him to a place on the front line. I moved to catch up with him, though carefully, in case his blade came too close to my head. Men pressed against us from behind, until the ranks were so tightly packed, we couldn't advance any further.

“We're in the thick of it now,” Ewan said, a feverish gleam in his eyes.

“Aye,” I agreed, my heart now beating like one of the drums.

“Claymore!” came a yell from the front, our ancient MacDonald call for attack.

I tucked up my kilts as the men around me did, and pulled my bonnet down tight over my brow. Some of the brawnier men even cast aside their heavy plaids entirely, leaving themselves only in their sarks, but freer to wield their weapons. I couldn't bring myself to do that.

Then the pipers filled their bags with air and started to play a rousing march. The drummers set up a rapid beat. Our front line fired off their muskets and pistols, a noise so close, I thought the English were upon us until I realized it was a ragged sound, and not the measured volley of the redcoats.

“Now, we're away!” cried someone a row ahead of me and then we were finally moving forward, six ranks deep, across the muddy moor. Not a charge but a muddle.

“MacDonald! MacDonald!”

“Och, give me room,” I implored, elbowing the dark-haired boy who'd somehow slipped over to my right. He elbowed me back in the ribs, hard enough to raise a bruise. We jostled this way for a half-dozen steps, though we'd barely space to move, much less fight.

I wondered, as we pushed at each other, where Angus Ban might be. And the Keppoch. Right in the front, I supposed, and exposed to the English guns. And where were John the Miller and Jock and the rest of the Glenroy men? Somewhere close, I knew. There were only a few lines ahead of me now. But so tightly packed, all I could see was Ewan to my left, the boy to my right, and the backs of a hundred or so MacDonald men.

If this is a charge
, I thought dismally …

“MacDonald!” someone called again, as we waded shoulder to shoulder across the moor. My feet kept making sucking noises in the boggy ground, and the springy heather made walking even harder.
The Keppoch was right
, I thought.
And Granda, too. This ground is a poor choice for us
.

“Shift!” Ewan said suddenly to me. “Duncan, move to my left so ye dinna block my sword arm.” Though we both knew he needed two hands to wield the bloody thing.

Nevertheless, I let him shove me over to his left, and was glad of it, for there was more room on that side and I could leave the jostling lad behind.

I raised my dirk. Only yesterday it had seemed such a grown-up weapon, yet now, after a morning of muskets and cannon, I knew it wasn't much. But if I could be Ewan's wasp …
Well
, I thought,
my dirk might do some duty yet
.