The Veteran's Legacy

3. Glen Cailleach, Scotland, 1757-1

Thirty-one-year-old Simon Fraser of Lovat, son of ‘the Old Fox’ and un-blooded veteran of the 1745 Rising, rode into Glen Cailleach with his back straight and his head held high, as befitted the chief of a clan, albeit one without a square inch of land to his name.

“Gather the men,” he said quietly to the tacksman who hurried to greet him. “I wish to speak to them.”

Fraser’s word was passed around from clachan to clachan and man to man until eventually, it reached Mary MacKim.

“Your time has come, Hugh,” Mary said.

“Yes, Mother.”

“Fraser himself has summonsed the men,” Mary said. “That can only mean one thing. He is leading the clan to war.”

Hugh nodded. There was no question of refusing the summons. He would follow the chief, as his brother had done, and his father, and his grandfather’s father’s father. He was a MacKim, a man of a sept of the Frasers; there was no more to be said. It did not matter who they were fighting; it only mattered that their chief required their broadswords.

The men of the glen hurried to the old gathering place at Clach Mor, the ancient Standing Stone that legend attributed to the druids but which had thrust toward the damp sky for aeons before any druid’s foot had trodden the land. From youths of fifteen to grey-bearded men who had faced Red John of the Battles on the field of Sheriffmuir, they gathered, fully aware that they may never return to their homes again.

“Men.” Fraser looked around at them without dismounting from his horse. “King George is engaged in a just war against the King of France. I am raising a regiment to support his cause and I expect all the young men aged between eighteen and thirty to join. You will accept the King’s Shilling at Inverness. God save the King.”

“God save the king,” a few of the men repeated. Lachlan MacPherson, a man of the same age as MacKim, pressed his mouth tightly shut.

“I’m not fighting for King George,” he whispered. “Not ever.”

“Three cheers for the king!” somebody else cried, and a handful of the men joined in.

Simon Fraser raised his hat in response. “I praise your loyalty,” he said, without a trace of irony. “Now, you have your opportunity to prove it.”

“Three cheers for the chief!” the same voice sounded, and the men cheered, louder than before.

Nodding once, Fraser wheeled his horse and rode away. He had said all that was necessary for him to say. Few of the men cared about King George or his quarrel with the King of France; they would join the regiment and follow their chief wherever he led, and whichever king he decided to support.

“Be a man, Hugh,” Mary MacKim said. “Remember you are a MacKim and remember the blood oath you have sworn.”

“Yes, Mother.” MacKim glanced at the Bible, which they had dug up as soon as the last redcoat retreated from the glen.

“You are bound by your word.” Mary MacKim had aged in the years since her older son had died. Her dark eyes, now deep-set between a network of furrows, seemed to bore into MacKim. “You have learned English, and you know how these people live, talk and think. Now you must hunt and kill the men who murdered your brother.”

“Yes, Mother.” Revenge had dominated MacKim’s life for the past eleven years and not a day had passed when his mother had not reminded him of the oath he had taken. At the age of twenty-one, MacKim was wiry rather than muscular, no taller than average height, but intense and better educated than most of his peers.

“Now go, Hugh.” Mary gave him a gentle push in the back. “Go and do your duty.”

Lifting his small bundle of belongings, MacKim stepped out of the cottage with its heather-thatched roof and the familiar scent of peat smoke. He did not know when, if ever, he would see it again. When he looked around, his mother stood at the door, with one hand lifted in farewell. She was alone now, yet MacKim knew she would never be lonely in the glen. The people would look after her, as they always looked after their own. Turning away, he began the trudge toward Inverness with his road and his destiny before him.

* * *

With his bright red sash over his left shoulder and the white lace cord on his right shoulder, it was evident that the tall sergeant was a soldier of distinction. Although he must have been approaching middle age, he walked with a youthful spring as he inspected the curious line of recruits, shaking his head as if unable to believe what he saw.

“I am Sergeant Dingwall.” He spoke in clipped Gaelic. “You will address me as Sergeant, or as Sergeant Dingwall.” He stopped directly in front of MacKim. “You may think of me as your father if you ever knew that unfortunate man, and you will treat me as God for I have the power to have you shot, to flog you to b****y ribbons or even to make your life pleasant.” Dingwall’s smile could have frightened the Brigade of Guards. “Welcome to the 63rd Foot, Fraser’s Highlanders.”

MacKim watched Sergeant Dingwall and listened to every word. He was determined to be the best soldier he could be.

As Dingwall hefted his halberd, MacKim shuddered, remembering the Grenadier corporal pinioning Ewan with a similar weapon. The sergeant stepped to the red-haired youth beside MacKim and thrust the halberd at his breast. “Stand straight, my fine fellow, or I will tie you to a tree until you learn how to stand.”

The man flushed scarlet and pulled himself erect.

“That’s better,” Dingwall said. “Now you look something like a man, if nothing like a soldier, even a first day, shambling recruit soldier. What’s your name?”

“Neil Cumming, sir.”

“Sergeant,” Dingwall said, softly.

“Sorry, Sergeant.” Cumming looked along the line of recruits for support. MacKim avoided his gaze.

Nodding slowly, Dingwall took hold of Cumming’s nose and pulled him forward. “I ordered you to call me Sergeant, Cumming, and you called me sir. You will say sir only to officers who have His Majesty’s commission. Now, as from this day, you are my eyes and ears in the company, Cumming. You will tell me what is happening and if anybody breaks the law, my law, you will inform me, or I will sit you astride the wooden horse and have you dragged over stony ground until you beg me to shoot you. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

Pushing Cumming back to his place, Sergeant Dingwall continued in a roar that MacKim thought people could hear twenty miles away in Glen Cailleach. “You are the most useless bunch of bare-arsed farmers I have ever seen in my life. My job,” he said, “is to turn you into soldiers somehow, although only the good Lord above knows how.” He shook his head again, sighing deeply at the burden that higher authority had passed down to him. “Your job,” Dingwall continued, “is to obey every order I utter, instantly and cheerfully.”

With the unfamiliar long red coat over his new waistcoat, and the kilt hugging his hips, MacKim was supremely uncomfortable, already hating the bonnet he had c****d above his left eye. The square-toed, iron-studded shoes pinched his toes, the straps of the knapsack cut into his shoulders, and the musket was long and cumbersome. Also, the broadsword was burdensome on his left hip and the bayonet awkward in front. Used to dressing lightly from spring to autumn, MacKim felt constrained by the unfamiliar layers of clothes and carrying such an array of weapons.

“This is your musket.” Sergeant Dingwall held the weapon up to ensure the recruits saw it. “We know it as Bess, or Brown Bess.”

MacKim nodded to show he was listening.

“Bess weighs fourteen pounds and fires a one-ounce leaden ball that can kill at fifty yards and wound at up to a hundred. It has a larger bore and is more reliable than the French equivalent and in the hands of a trained infantryman, can fire three times in a minute.”

MacKim remembered the sound of musketry at Drummossie Moor that men now called Culloden. He had already seen the result of three volleys a minute on a mass of advancing men. A thousand muskets in the hands of trained men would create devastation.

“Bess is a flintlock musket,” Dingwall continued, “so-called because she uses a flint to create a spark. The spark ignites gunpowder, which explodes inside your musket, propelling the lead ball in the direction of the enemy. Keep your flints sharp – the sharper the flint, the brighter the spark and so the less chance of a misfire.”

MacKim listened. He wanted to learn everything.

“To load Bess, you need this.” Dingwall held up a small, paper-wrapped packet. “This is a cartridge that contains a charge of powder and a lead ball. You will rip open the paper, either with your fingers or your teeth and pour some of the powder into the pan in the firing mechanism, here.” He indicated the position at the lock of the musket.

MacKim nodded.

“The rest of the powder goes down the barrel. Then you fold the paper and stuff it into the barrel, with the lead ball on top. Do you understand, MacKim?”

“Yes, Sergeant.” MacKim started when Dingwall shouted his name.

“Good man. Show me.” Dingwall indicated that MacKim should stand in front of the other recruits. “Here is a cartridge.” He passed over the paper package and stepped back.

Ignoring the bitter taste of the black powder, MacKim ripped the paper open with his teeth and followed the sergeant’s instructions.

“Good.” Dingwall nodded. “Now you use the ramrod, that’s the long metal rod under the barrel of your musket, to force the ball and wad down the barrel.”

Taking MacKim’s musket, Dingwall demonstrated slowly. “When that’s done, you aim at the advancing enemy and pull the trigger. You will notice the recoil as Bess ejects the ball to about a hundred yards on a good day and a lot less if it rains, which occasionally happens in Scotland.”

The recruits gave a nervous laugh at the sergeant’s attempt at humour.

“Now, you fire it, MacKim. Prove to me how clever you are.”

“Yes, Sergeant.” MacKim brought the musket to his shoulder. “What shall I fire at?”

They stood in the open countryside outside Inverness, with the grey-green hills of the Highlands in the distance and the river Ness surging blue at their backs, lapping at a group of small islands.

“You see that island?” Dingwall pointed to the nearest of the Ness Islands, from which trees grew to overhang the river.

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“Try to hit a tree.”

The musket was heavier than MacKim had expected. Lifting it to his shoulder, he closed his left eye, pointed the barrel at the nearest tree and pressed the trigger. From the corner of his eye, he saw the hammer come down. The resulting spurt of smoke in the pan took him by surprise and then musket seemed to leap back, hammering into his shoulder, so he staggered backwards.