The Last Sunset (18 page)

“I told y’we shoulda waited ’til Rhona wakes
up,” the female replied. “Besides, it’s not called Scotch, Sam, it’s called
Gaelic. These people spoke Gaelic.”

“Yeah, well, whatever. Can y’speak it?”

She shook her head. “My dad was fourth
generation; the language had died out in our family before he came along.”

Andy and the others found their attention
divided between the injuries on the man’s face, and the striking attractiveness
of the woman.

The man pointed to his companion, then to
himself. “She — is — Shawnee. I — am — Sam. You understand? Sam?”

“Bird-watchers from Cleethorpes, eh?” Andy
muttered at Jamie as he held out his hand.

A smile of relief appeared on the man’s battered
features. He pointed at the soldier’s tartan plaid. “Hell, man, I thought you
were, like, Scottish Highlanders, y’know?”

“That we are. Ah’m Corporal Andy Macmillan of
the Royal Highland Fusiliers. This is Private Jamie Macsorley. We lost our
uniforms in a fire yesterday. Another two of our lads are outside. This
gentleman here is Colin Cameron, and that’s his brother Alistair on the bed.”

“We were both shot by redcoat soldiers,” Colin
put in, pointing to his upraised leg.

Sam took the soldiers to one side. “Look, I just
wanna make sure of something. You guys are not, like, from these parts, are
yuh?”

“Ye mean, do we belong tae this time period?”

Relief appeared once again on the American’s
face. “I take it you’re in the same mess as me and Shawnee. We were told there
were others. Look, d’you guys know what the hell’s going on here? Is the
British military behind this, or what?”

The corporal shook his head. “As far as we can
make out we’ve all been slung intae this world as a result of some weird
accident.”

“One minute you’re watching this fire in the
sky, like it’s the end of the world, and then pow! You waken up in the middle
of this Hollywood epic?”

Andy nodded. He indicated the American’s bruised
features. “Ah see somebody took a dislike tae yer face…”

“Let’s just say I had a difference of opinion
with a British officer.”

“Bastards the whole lot of them,” said Jamie.

Alistair began to writhe in his bed once more,
as if he were being attacked by an invisible force. Shawnee helped Mary
restrain him.

“That guy needs a hospital,” said Sam. He shook
his head at the significance of these simple words.

“Aye, it hits ye at moments like this, doesn’t
it?” Andy remarked.

“Himself is a sergeant in the Cameron
Highlanders,” Colin declared. “It would take more than a single bullet to stop
Alistair. Besides, he has Mary now; she won’t let anything happen to him.”

“Sure, honey, he’s gonna be just fine,” Shawnee
murmured as she held his brother’s hand.

Mary had taken to humming a Gaelic melody as she
dampened her patient’s forehead with a cloth. Everyone fell silent as the
lovely air filled the cottage. The haunting strains seemed to overcome even
Alistair’s feverish struggles, and gradually he subsided into sleep.

The silence was broken by Colin, his eyes
sparkling in the half-light. “Mary won’t let anything happen to him.”

“Way t’go, kid,” Sam murmured. “Look, there’s
not a lot we can do here guys, whaddya say we get some fresh air? We gotta lot
to talk about.”

Outside, Rae and Ferguson were nowhere to be
seen. The remnants of cloud had all but disappeared, leaving the hills basking
in warm April sunshine. Sam’s face looked even worse than it did in the gloom
of the cottage.

“Might be an idea to have one of the lassies
take a look at yer face,” said Andy.

“Nah, it’s fine. I’ve had worse’n this surfing
back in L.A.”

“You’re a long way from home, aren’t ye? What
were the pair of ye doing in Glen Laragain, of all places?”

“Shawnee’s folks came from this place
originally. She wanted to visit the ancestral home.”

“Och, of course,” Colin interjected. “Did you
not see the resemblance between herself and Mary?”

“No, can’t really say I noticed. Now that I
think about it though, she could be Shawnee’s great, great, great, grandma, or
something.”

“Man, we should all have a great grannie that
looks like that.”

“How did yourselves manage to make it all the
way from America to Glen Laragain?” asked Colin.

“Well, once we landed in Scotland we hired an
automobile; drove up from Glasgow, stayed in one of the hotels in Fort William
overnight.”

“Och, man, you must have lots of money to afford
all that…”

Sam looked quizzically at Colin. “No, not
really,” he murmured. “Anyhow, first thing in the morning we drove here; left
the car where the road ends at the old ruined cottage.”

“Aye, that’s where we left the Land Rover and
the three-tonner.”

“Where the road ends?” said Colin sharply.
“There’s only one cottage where the road ends and that’s where Alistair and
myself live. I know it’s a wee bit tumbledown, but it’s hardly what you would
call a ruin.”

There was an awkward silence before Sam
retorted: “Sorry fella, didn’t mean to cause offence, y’know?” He turned
uncomfortably to the others: “So, uh… tell me, guys, what’s the, uh… what’s the
British Army doing up this neck of the woods, anyhow?”

“We were taking part in a live firing exercise.
Training for Northern Ireland. My squad was the firing party.”

“My God, has that all broken out in Ireland
again? There’s no mention of it in the news back home. Hardly surprising, I
guess, the state the whole freakin world’s in nowadays.”

“I didn’t know there was trouble in the north of
Ireland,” Colin mumbled unhappily.

“Maybe you’re a wee bit isolated up here, eh?”
said Jamie, glancing at the others.

The young man shook his head in bewilderment. “I
didn’t even know the British Army was training in Glen Laragain…” Like an
outcast he slumped against the wall of the cottage.

“So, ah, you guys are British soldiers, huh?”
Sam went on. “I take it from all that hullabaloo yesterday you brought some of
your hardware with yuh?”

Andy nodded. “We have an M.G. and two
self-loading rifles.”

“Okay. Good. I take it your weapons are laser-guided,
yeah?”

Macmillan and Macsorley looked blankly at each
other.

“It’s standard issue to all U.S. infantry
personnel. I thought the British Army would be much the same.”

“Sorry our gear’s not up tae the standard of the
U.S. Army,” Jamie grumbled.

“Serviceman yerself, are ye?” asked the N.C.O.
pleasantly.

The American flushed. “Easy, fellas, I’m just
trying to take stock. I mean, you remember that British officer I told
y’about?”

“The one that didn’t like yer face?”

“The very one. Well, it seems the orders for
this massacre of yours came from the Duke of, ah… Cumber…?”

“Cumberland. The Duke of Cumberland.”

“That’s the guy. Well, Shawnee and me — Shawnee
really — persuaded the guy to put a stop to that shit yesterday.”

“Oh aye? And how did she manage tae do that?”
Jamie asked sceptically.

A twisted grin appeared on Sam’s face. “That
little lady can be pretty persuasive when she puts her mind to something.”

“That might explain why the redcoats didn’t
reappear this morning.”

“Yeah. Only we might have a slight problem
here.”

“Oh aye?”

Sam nodded sombrely. “Last thing that officer
told us was to get away from this place, as far as we can go; that others are
gonna return to complete the job.”

“Did he say when?”

The American shook his head. “I reckon the time
it’s gonna take this Cumberland guy to kick a few asses, and send out the next
buncha soldiers, is gonna buy us a coupla days, anyhow.”

A long anguished sigh escaped Macmillan’s lips.

“Andy gave them a doing yesterday,” Jamie
explained. “Against modern weapons they didn’t stand a chance.”

Colin seemed about to make a contribution, but
then thought better of it.

“The only question now is what they’re gonnae be
more interested in,” Andy said heavily, “finishing the job here…”

“…Or getting their hands on those weapons of
yours,” added Sam.

“Hell,” said Jamie.

“Way I see it, fellas; either we take off, with
or without these people. Although I gotta say; on our own we’d stand more of a
chance…”

“Ah’m no’ leaving,” Jamie declared firmly. He
saw the uncertainty in his corporal’s eyes. “Ah can’t believe you’re even
thinking about it. What about Ishbel, and wee Shona, and all the others… how
can you even think about leaving them in the lurch?”

“I won’t be leaving, either,” Colin put in
quietly. “Whatever yourselves decide to do, I’ll be staying here with my
brother.”

All eyes turned to the American, who raised his
hands defensively before him.

“Hey, I’m just laying out the options. The
alternative is to make a stand here, and that means we gotta be prepared to
fight this bad-assed Duke and his whole freakin Limey army, no offence
intended.”

“None taken,” the corporal murmured.

Colin leapt to his feet, his face flushed with
excitement. “What was your date of birth?” he asked the American.

“My what?”

“Your date of birth. When were you born?”

“The fifth of April. Why?”

“No, I mean what year?”

“Two thousand two. Why? What’s that got to do
with anything?”

Sam saw the shock in the soldiers’ eyes and
slowly the realisation dawned on him.

“Oh crap. You guys, you’re, ah, you’re not from
my neck of the woods, are yuh?”

The soldiers backed away from the American, as though
he was from another planet.

“I know my house is a wee bit ramshackle, but it
was never a ruin,” Colin whispered indignantly.

Jamie turned to his corporal. “Ye know what this
means, don’t ye?”

Dumbly Andy shook his head.

“It means that nuke we saw wasn’t from our time.
It must’ve been from the future…”

The last dregs of blood drained from Sam’s face.
“Oh dear God, you saw that…
thing
in the sky. You saw what Shawnee and
me saw.”

“Like the sun had exploded?” Colin mumbled. “We
saw it too; Alistair and myself, just at the end…”

All four stared in astonishment at each other.
The silence was broken by Colin’s diffident tones:

“Did ourselves win the war against Germany?”

Nobody replied, as if all were afraid of
betraying some terrible secret.

“Please, for Alistair’s sake, I have to know if
it was ourselves that won.”

“Yeah, we won,” said Sam. “It cost millions of
lives and took the full might of the Americans, the British and the Russians,
to finally defeat Germany.”

“The Americans? When did the Americans join the
war?”

“Nineteen forty-one.”

“Nineteen forty-one?” Colin echoed. “The war
went on all those years?”

Sam nodded. “Lasted another four years. Hitler
wasn’t finally defeated until nineteen forty-five.”

Colin gazed at him, fascination and bewilderment
on his face. “Who’s Hitler?” he asked.

At that, words finally failed the American. He
stared at the young man, as though he’d suddenly realised he was communicating
with a ghost.

“When were you born, Colin?” Andy said softly.

“Eighteen hundred and ninety-eight.”

“Oh fuck,” said Jamie.

The late afternoon sun had begun its slow
descent towards the cleft in the hills at the western end of the glen. The wind
had died, and clouds of midges were swarming in the still of day. As yet they
were no more than a multitude of tiny wings beating against the cool spring
air. Only with the arrival of warmer weather would they become the detestable
biting plague of the Highlands.

“D’ye follow the football at all, Sam?” asked
Jamie.

“Y’mean soccer, don’t yuh? Yeah, a little, I
guess.”

Jamie edged closer to the American. “D’ye ever
watch the World Cup? Ye know, the competition that’s held every four years?”

“When I was a kid I used to watch some of the
games.”

An expectant gleam appeared in the soldier’s
eyes. “Ye’d know, like, some of the teams in the competition then, wouldn’t
ye?”

“I guess.”

Andy had also begun to pay attention. Jamie went
on: “Ye couldn’t tell us who’s won the World Cup back tae nineteen
seventy-eight, could ye?”

Laughter broke from the American’s battered
features. “That’s some priority list y’got there, fella. I could tell ya who
won the World Series no problem, but the soccer World Cup, Jeez that’s a tough
one.” He scratched his head. “Let’s see now; Brazil won the last World Cup
eight years ago. The competitions before that?” He shrugged his shoulders.