Prince Across the Water Read online

  “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 s
haven, 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.

  I went back close to the redcoats again and said to one of them in English, “Dinna worry. We’re no going to eat ye. Yet.”

  He was a fair-haired man with cold blue eyes, and a dirty bandage on his right arm. He seemed as startled to hear the words from my lips as he would have been if a dog had just spoken them. Then he pulled himself up stiffly, his eyes going even colder.

  “Worry about yourself, youngster,” he said. “Worry about what will happen to you when King George catches up with you.” His accent was strange to me, though I understood his words well enough.

  I was aware that Granda was watching me and suddenly I knew how to answer. “German George is no my king,” I said boldly. “And he should start packing his bags now. It’s a long road back to Germany.”

  At least I thought it was a long way. I had no idea where Germany lay. It hadn’t been on Granda’s dirt map.

  The Englishman didn’t reply to me. Instead he turned his back and began talking to his comrades in a low murmur.

  “Come away,” Da said, walking over and taking me by the arm. “Dinna shame me by blowing yerself up like a bladder. Yer granda has been filling ye with false ideas about war. I hope this is the last ye see of those redcoats and hope, too, that this war is quickly done.”

  8 GLENFINNAN

  It took us another five days to reach Glenfinnan, through two days of sunshine and two of rain that fell as thick and hard as arrows. We marched in two columns, three abreast, the prisoners in the middle herded along like cattle.

  “Och, why carry them along?” called out Uncle Dougal to the Keppoch when he came to inspect how the redcoats were doing. “Why no just kill them all and be done with it?”

  The Keppoch shook his head. “Because we’re no savages,” he said, raising his voice so we could all hear, “nae matter what the English think. And I willna have these men mocked or mistreated.”

  In fact, he had them fed as well as us, which by this time was little enough. It had been days since the beef feast at the Keppoch’s house and all our stomachs had shrunk to the size of dried peas. Feeding three hundred men on a couple of deer and a bevy of quails was hard enough, though Granda had given me his wee share, saying, “I have no the belly for this. I prefer porridge myself.”

  We passed by small huddles of villages along the loch, and large farms, where cattle and sheep grazed side by side in green fields. And though the farmers waved as we went by, and many even joined us in our march, they were all sparing with their food. We were too many for any one farm to feed and the Keppoch wouldn’t let us just take a bullock for a roasting.

  By the fifth day, walking from dawn to dusk, my legs were as soft and wobbly as curds of cream. Even some of the men looked grim and there was much grumbling.

  “Are we still in Scotland?” I asked Granda. “Surely we’ve walked far enough to have reached London by now.”

  Granda laughed though I could see he was more tired than I. “The world’s a good sight bigger than ye think, Duncan. There’s room enough for a man to walk and walk and still find himself nae place at all.”

  “Nae place at all? I hope my feet are no bruised for nothing.”

  “Glenfinnan is close by,” Granda assured me. “Just past yon hill.” He pointed ahead. “I was there once as a boy.”

  There were doves—cushie doos—cooing in the trees, and a blank blue sky above us. The day seemed fair and promising. A small wind riffled the dark waters of Loch Eil, turning over little white-capped waves. It was hard to believe that all this marching was to end in war.

  Suddenly our whole column came to a halt.

  “What’s going on?” Granda asked, though he seemed relieved to have stopped.

  “Maybe another ambush,” said Jock, speaking eagerly, as if such a thing would be welcome.

  I stood on tiptoe trying to get a glimpse of what was happening to delay us, but there were too many men in the way.

  Just then the white-maned Keppoch stood bolt upright in his stirrups and that we could all see.

  “Even the Keppoch’s stopped,” I told Granda. Then I added, “Wait!”

  A small bit of sound came threading back toward us.

  “Listen,” I said.

  It resolved itself into the unmistakable skirl of pipes.

  “I know that pibroch,” said one of the men standing near us, a narrow-faced smith with forearms as big as small trees. “It’s Lochiel’s pipers. The Camerons of Lochiel are ahead of us. They are at Glenfinnan already.”

  Jock made a fist and shook it at the soldiers. “I knew it! I knew the British prisoners would slow us down and let Lochiel get there first.”

  “Pipers,” the Keppoch yelled, still standing up in his stirrups, but turning his body halfway around to look at them, “give us a jig so we can join the dance!”

  Our pipers filled their bags with air and started a low drone, like the buzzing of angry bees, drowning out the doves and the sound of our own cheers. The piping rose in pitch, then flowered into a warlike march that set us on our way, arms swinging, heads held high, as if this were the first hour of our journey, instead of the last.

  We passed down a narrow glen lying between high craggy mountains and emerged into Glenfinnan, where the sun flashed off the surface of Loch Shiel like a shimmer of silver coins. The loch was a great, long finger of water pointing westward toward the sea, with green hills rearing up on both sides dotted with prosperous farms. The summer’s wheat was golden in the fields.

  Some boats had been dragged up onto the shore, where they’d been turned over, to keep any rain out of them. Men posted on the hilltops as lookouts waved and yelled when they saw us, and we shouted back ch
eerily.

  Only the prisoners, huddled nervously together, took no part in the celebration.

  To the north, rank upon rank of Camerons were marching down the hillside to form up in a great colorful mass along the shore. I thought they were more than twice our number, six or seven hundred at a guess. Beyond them, on the higher ground that overlooked the loch, another tartan-clad band of three hundred was assembled outside a small, stone chapel. I supposed that was where the prince would be, though I couldn’t pick him out from the crowd.

  The number of men overwhelmed me. We were a vast army of kilted Highlanders covering the hills. I saw the cold-eyed Englishman gape at the sight and that made me smile.

  “Granda,” I said, “is he here? Is the prince here?”

  “Yer eyes are better than mine, Duncan,” he answered. “Ye’ll have to tell me.”

  Once all the clansmen had formed a rough crescent in front of the chapel, the Keppoch and his chief attendants joined those at the chapel door. As they arrived, the raucous cries stilled to a babble, the babble to a whisper, the whisper became a hush.

  Once again I could hear birdsong, though this time the singers were gulls, white and wheeling over the loch, calling out in raucous voices.

  Granda and I were stuck in the middle of a boil of men. How I wished I could run right up to the prince and present myself. Give him my hand. Maybe even beg him to let me stay and fight for his throne. But I knew that would only get Da in trouble, and me in worse. So I stayed where I was.

  “What happens now?” I whispered to Granda.

  The smith was the one who answered, his voice as quiet as mine. “We wait for the raising of the standard, lad.” Then, seeing that I looked puzzled, added, “The king’s banner.”

  “Aye,” Granda added. “And it will be glorious to see King James’ banner fly over Scotland once more.”

  “Wheesht …” cried another man, a small man with a beard down almost to his belly, “look who comes.”

  On my tiptoes again, I looked. “That’s no the bonnie prince.” In fact it was a man so ancient, so weak in the legs, he needed an attendant on each side to support him.