The Last Sunset (6 page)

Throughout the past two weeks, a Jacobite force
of Camerons and Macdonalds had laid siege to the fort, their eventual aim to
return the Stuart kings to the thrones of England and Scotland. His sons,
Donald and James, both served with the Glen Laragain contingent of Locheil’s
Camerons. Both had been in the Highland army that had charged from the mists of
Gladsmuir the previous September, to destroy the Hanoverian forces of General
Cope. Both had been in the van of that army as it struck south, into the heart
of their enemy’s country. At their head rode a young prince, his mind filled
with all the delusions of kingly grandeur.

And then the long, bitter retreat north, as the
English Jacobite support failed to materialise. January had seen another
victory for the clans, at Falkirk. But as winter turned to spring they had
fallen back again, towards the sanctuary of their Highland hills, drawing the
Duke of Cumberland’s army behind them like a great plodding beast of prey.

The bulk of the Jacobite army remained at Inverness
while elements carried the war to the Hanoverian garrisons scattered throughout
the Highlands. Chief amongst these was
An Gearasdan
Dubh
; the
black garrison of Fort William.

Although the years had stiffened Achnacon’s
joints, and turned his hair and beard to silver, he had climbed the southern
slopes of Glen Laragain every day to watch the momentous events unfold.

On each day he had made this climb, he had
narrowed his eyes against the cold Atlantic wind, straining to catch a glimpse
of colour; a hint of collective tartan that would indicate where the clansmen
lay while they waited for the walls to be breached. However, all he could make
out were great puffs of white smoke around the lower slopes overlooking the
fort. Some days, if the wind blew from the south, he could hear the distant
roar of cannon, like thunder in a far-off glen. The returning fire from the
Hanoverian artillery in the fort, supported by the white-sailed warships on
Loch Linnhe, seemed heavier than that of the Jacobites.

Achnacon’s concern was more than a preference
for one ruling dynasty over another; more even than a father’s concern for his
sons. He was aware of Glen Laragain’s close proximity to the black garrison. He
knew his green and fertile glen would bear the brunt of any Hanoverian
reprisals if the fort was not taken and its garrison disarmed.

This morning all appeared unnaturally calm. For
the first time in two weeks there was no billowing cannonade around the blurred
outline of the fort. No telltale smoke. Near the mouth of the river two
warships lay at anchor, their sails furled, their firepower redundant.

Even from this distance it was obvious the siege
had been lifted.

For a long time he studied the scene, his plaid
snapping in the wind. At last he turned and began the slow descent into Glen
Laragain. He carried with him a deep sense of unease. A man did not need the
second sight to realise that dangerous times lay ahead for the
Gael
.
Even if they remained unmolested by the garrison, there was still Cumberland’s
army. From the tip of Kintyre to the straths of Sutherland all knew the
contempt the king’s son felt for Scots in general and Highlanders in
particular.

Achnacon resisted the pull of gravity as he
descended the steep hillside. Once upon a time he would have surrendered to the
downward force in a wild headlong dash. But then, once upon a time he would
have taken his place among the fighting men of the clan, instead of watching
from a distant hilltop, like an old
bodach
.

His descent of
Meall Banabhie
ended at
the western end of the glen. Here there were no ridges of cultivation, no
straggling walls to protect hard won crops from deer or cattle. Only a lone
circular wall of stone and turf, within which lay the Glen Laragain graveyard.
No one knew how long this plot of land had been used as the final resting place
for the folk of the glen. For as long as there had been people here, perhaps.

The number of families inhabiting the glen had
changed little over the centuries; and so the years had seen little increase in
the size of the graveyard. Instead, a collection of low green mounds had
evolved, each marked with a simple wooden cross. The graveyard was surrounded
on all sides by rushing burns. This was no accident since it was believed, for
reasons Achnacon had never really understood, that evil spirits were forbidden
to cross running water.

The Christian crosses and running water were
symbols of the fusion of Christianity and Paganism that governed the lives of
his people. When the Irish saints brought the holy word to these glens a
thousand years before, they had encountered a people steeped in ancient
beliefs. Here was a land inhabited by goblins and fairy folk; by water-bulls
that lured the unwary into the black depths of the lochs; by dark spirits that
walked the hillsides at night when disaster was imminent. In such a wild and
brooding landscape it was little surprise the new faith had absorbed rather
than replaced the old.

All continued to believe in the second sight;
the ability to glimpse fragments of the future, which they had learnt to
interpret according to the nature of the vision. To see a shroud about a person
foretold their impending death. Some signs were linked to a specific area. The
Callart light in Argyllshire, for example, was always seen to follow the same
path from Callart House, across Loch Leven to the burial island of
Eilean
Munde
. The light foretold the imminent death of one of the Camerons of
Callart, and traced the route that would be taken by the burial party.

Glen Laragain too had its own specific sign that
heralded death and destruction in the glen.
An adhar dearg
: The red sky.

An adhar dearg
was said to bear no resemblance to the gentle hues of sunrise or sunset. Those
who had seen the vision said it was as if the canopy of heaven had reflected
the fires of hell. The vision had been known of in Glen Laragain for as long as
there had been people here to witness it.

During long winter evenings when Lochaber was
battered by Atlantic storms, or frozen beneath snow and ice, the people would
gather for the winter
celeidh
. Here they would sing and dance, or huddle
round the peat fire to hear age-old stories, such as the tales of
an
adhar
dearg
.

The red sky had appeared in the year 1513 before
an old woman and her granddaughter, as they returned one afternoon from the
graveyard. At that time twenty-five young warriors of Glen Laragain had taken
their place within the ranks of King James’ army, and it would be weeks before
the people of the glen would learn that all of them had perished with their
king on Flodden field the day after the apparition was seen.

The storytellers would also recount the last
time
an adhar dearg
appeared above the glen. The vision had been seen by
a redcoated soldier whose regiment was forcibly billeted upon the townships of
the glen. This operation had been part of the government’s response to the
rising of 1715, and was intended to be no more than a sabre-rattling exercise.
The people’s response to the report of this vision was instant and dramatic.
Mindful of the Glencoe massacre carried out under similar circumstances barely
two decades before, houses were hastily abandoned as entire families made for
the hilltop sanctuary of the summer shielings.

A wry smile creased Achnacon’s grizzled
features. As a warrior in his prime he had fought at Sheriffmuir during this
fiasco. The battle had not brought victory to the clans, but nor had it brought
defeat. Certainly the Cameron casualties had been light and were nothing to
warrant the appearance of
an adhar dearg
.

As for the people of Glen Laragain, after a few
days, when the soldiers were gone, they returned sheepishly from their hilltop
dwellings. It was their good fortune the redcoats had been Highlanders like
themselves. Loyal soldiers of King George they may have been, but first and
foremost they were of the
Gaidhealtacht
and were bound by the laws of
Highland hospitality. Not a stick of furniture had been broken, nor a single
possession stolen. They had, however, suffered offence at the behaviour of
their hosts, and before they left Glen Laragain had rounded up every domestic
beast in the glen, and penned them all together in one great, wide-eyed mêlée
of cattle, horses, sheep and goats. Months were to pass before the ownership of
each animal was re-established.

Achnacon considered himself a rational man. Such
tales instilled a necessary element of fear in the young and unruly. They had
also enriched many a winter’s
celeidh
. Beyond that, he had regarded the
stories as no more than the bletherings of old women. But this day he felt something
he had not felt since he put away childish things to become a man: He felt that
anything was possible… Goblins. Fairies. Water-bulls. Anything…

It had been late in the afternoon of the
previous day and he had completed his descent from
Meall Banabhie
. Near
the graveyard his eyes had followed the flight of a distant eagle as it circled
above
Druim Fada
. The great bird was no more than a tiny speck against a
changing backcloth of mottled clouds and luminescent blues. Suddenly in the
blink of an eye everything had vanished; clouds, eagle, the blue of the sky.
All of it gone, to be replaced by a sky that seemed to be engulfed in flames.
As far as the eye could see the heavens were ablaze. Above the western horizon
hung a blood-red sun, around which glowed a halo of fire. The land below
reflected this terrible transformation, appearing brown and decayed, the ground
withered and dead. The cottages and steadings, even the circular wall around
the graveyard had vanished; all signs of man had melted into the soil.

After the initial shock had passed, Achnacon
tried to make sense of what he was seeing. He could make out patterns within
the inferno, waves that were slowly moving from west to east, as though this
holocaust was no more than another Atlantic weather system, spawned by that
great western ocean. Only now the sea beyond the Hebrides seemed to be on fire,
the flames reflected in the tortured skies above Glen Laragain.

And then as suddenly as it had appeared the
vision was gone. The distant speck of the eagle had reappeared above
Druim
Fada
, framed against the blue and white swirls of the afternoon sky. He had
felt a sense of loss, a feeling of discontentment that nagged bewilderingly at
his soul. But above all he felt a deep foreboding. He had told no one of his
vision, anxious to avoid a panic such as that of thirty years before.

From his vantage point beside the graveyard,
Achnacon could see every township in Glen Laragain, all the way down to
Inverlaragain House at the mouth of the glen. Each clachan was separated from
its neighbour by a patchwork of fields and ridges, all freshly planted with the
coming season’s oats and barley. On the lower slopes of the glen he could see
the cattle that were the wealth of the clan. Soon the younger folk would lead
the beasts into the higher pastures for the summer grazing. There they would
remain until autumn, the little shielings of stone and turf their only
protection from the elements. He felt a pang of nostalgia. Those months spent
in the high summer shielings, when he had been more than a boy but not yet a
man, had been the happiest of his life.

Above each cottage drifted a ribbon of grey-blue
smoke. An indication that within each house lay warmth and welcome for any who
came in friendship. Lately, however, he had become conscious of how vulnerable
this community was to any who came in a spirit other than friendship.

Achnacon drew his plaid tighter around his
shoulders. Something else nagged at him. At the very moment his vision had
ended he had heard a voice, a woman’s voice, emerge from no more than a few
feet away, although he had been alone beneath that blazing sky. She had spoken
in English; a language with which he was quite familiar. The dialect was
strange but he had heard quite clearly what the woman had said to him.

She had said: “There’s no point us standing here
like hogs in a slaughterhouse…”

The message was obviously a warning, but of
what? Was the glen about to become a slaughterhouse? Achnacon felt an agony of
indecision. Should he risk humiliation and alert the clan? He thought of the
old and infirm hiding out in the shielings, with no fires to warm their bones
for fear of revealing themselves to an enemy. Perhaps if he held his tongue,
thought about it some more, an answer would come to him.

Achnacon could hear the mournful cry of a
distant buzzard as he made his way home.

It was obvious now that the attack had
failed. From the safety of the shell hole, Alistair had watched as waves of
kilted infantry stormed forward, to founder on the undamaged barbed wire, yards
from the enemy trenches. Flare after flare illuminated the entanglements as the
attackers desperately searched for a passage through. Alistair watched in
anguish as machine guns and rifles were turned upon every living thing trapped
within those jagged nets.

Eventually the fury of the defending fire
slackened. The tak tak tak of heavy machine guns gave way to the sporadic crack
of single rifle shots.