Clandara (34 page)

The Camerons, the Stewarts of Appin and the Mackintoshs, Farquarsons, Macphersons and MacBeans, all members of Clan Chattan, the Clan of the Cats, stood to the right and centre, and the left line was held by men of the Clan Chisholm, with the indomitable Clanranald, Keppoch and the other setts of the great Clan Donald, and with them stood the Chief of Dundrenan and his three sons. Behind them at the centre of the lines, Prince Charles himself waited on a grey gelding, surrounded by his bodyguard of FitzJames Horse, now reduced to the strength of half a troop, and beside him the Royal Standard blew back in the wind.

From Creagan Glas, the spectators strained forward, huddled in little groups, the women drawing their plaids over their heads and hushing the crying children that dragged their skirts. The few people of quality stood apart in scattered groups, and among them, wrapped in a cloak, her horse tethered to a bush on the hill below, Fiona Mackintosh stood to watch the battle in which Hugh Macdonald fought.

For the past three days she had listened to the talk of Cumberland and his army; its strength, the number and size of his guns, the perfect training and discipline of his troops, and through it all there ran her unspoken horror lest the man she loved should fall a victim to this efficient, hateful machine of war. Her uncle had talked on, thanking God again and again that he had not committed himself to joining the doomed Prince and his Cause, bewailing on the other hand the rashness of various cousins who had ignored his advice and gone to offer themselves and all they had to the young man at Inverness. Fiona Mackintosh said very little; it seemed to her that her aunt was watching her a little anxiously, but she did not betray herself. She was awoken at dawn by the sound of the English army marching from Nairn only a mile or two away, and she had dressed herself and crept out of the house and taken one of her uncle's fastest horses to ride to the Prince's army at Culloden. And standing on the bleak brae her courage faltered and the tears came, running down her face as fast as she wiped them away.

“Are you here alone?”

Fiona looked round and found a tall woman in a crimson cloak and fur-lined hood standing beside her; she had seen her among the group of people from Inverness, standing a little apart. The pale and handsome face looked down at her and softened.

“You are alone, aren't you? I saw you weeping.”

“I came to see them,” Fiona whispered. “And now I wish I hadn't. Have you a husband down there, madam?”

“No,” the older woman said. “Only a lover. My name is Janet Douglas. What is yours?”

“Fiona Mackintosh of Glendar.”

She saw the woman start, and then the same strange smile came back, softening her classic features until she seemed almost beautiful.

“Then you are watching for the brother of my man,” she said. “Hugh Macdonald, is it not? I might have known you would not forget him. I came all the way from Perth hoping to see James, but I was too late. He was already at Culloden with the Prince.”

Fiona looked up at her. “I've heard of you,” she said shyly. “I don't believe we ever met.”

“No, we did not,” Janet said. “But we meet now, in this place, looking down upon the battle. You shouldn't be here alone; it's no place for a girl to be caught by the troops of either side. You'd best stay with me.”

“I shall go down and search for him,” Fiona said. “That's why I came. Whatever happens, if he's wounded I shall take him back to Dundrenan itself if I have to, and stay with him there if he'll have me. And if he's dead,” she said, “I'll lie down and die beside him.”

“We'll search together,” Janet said. “Many will die today, but Hugh won't be among them. His life is charmed.”

“His brother will be safe.” The young girl tried to comfort her in turn. “Hugh told me no man alive could best him in a fight. Listen to those drums; how I hate them with that inhuman tapping noise!”

“There are so many of them,” Janet said slowly. “Look there, their line is deep and thick. Our people are strung out so far, they look so thin … See, the redcoats are closing up and moving nearer.”

Below them the final manoeuvre was taking place, and the men moved like clockwork, wheeling and marching and re-forming under the eyes of their sergeants and officers. When they had finished and were drawn up, only five hundred yards separated them from the Prince's army. The two women turned instinctively, and Janet put her arm around Fiona and drew her close.

“Pray,” Fiona said. “Pray that we'll win.”

“I'll pray for that,” she answered gently. “I'll pray for my prince who's waiting down there with his life and all his hopes at stake today. And I'll pray for James and Hugh, wherever they are.” For a moment her face contorted, and the arm around Fiona trembled.

“If he dies,” Janet said, “if he dies I shall have nothing left to live for … And, even so, he never loved me. I wonder where
she
is, that cursed woman. I don't see her standing here to watch and pray for anyone …”

“If you mean the Lady Katharine,” Fiona said, “she's married. Her husband is the Ogilvie of Spey, and he's down there with the Prince. I was at their wedding. You've nothing to hate her for now, madam. She belongs to someone else, and I believe she's miserable enough.”

“What waste and folly,” Janet said suddenly. “And what a fool I am to stand here shivering in this foul wind … and yet I cannot help myself, no more can you.”

“You love him,” Fiona said. “As I love Hugh. That is enough for now.”

As she spoke, there was a sharp crack in the silent air, and simultaneously puffs of pale smoke burst out along the front line of the English battalions and the first cannonade roared overhead and fell in a hail of shot among the men of Clan Chattan. The battle had begun.

7

Across five hundred yards of moor the air was black with the smoke of English cannon. They roared and rumbled and belched out their volleys of heavy balls which crashed into the massed ranks of the Highland army, killing and maiming men four deep. Clan Chattan and the Camerons of Lochiel were scythed down by the continuous fire; the music of the pipes cried on through the appalling noise, and the shouts of the Highland officers “Close up! Close Up!” told how the cannon were thinning their ranks.

Fire swept the Appin Stewarts and the Athollmen and bowled down the lines of Frasers; still the time passed and the men of the Prince's army stood their ground, falling and dying even as they begged for the command to charge their enemy and escape the murderous bombardment. For fully fifteen minutes the clans waited, until at last Lochiel himself, who had been standing at the head of his men with the cannon-balls roaring past him and the screams of his wounded drowning the rant of his piper, sent a message to the commander of the right flank, Lord George Murray. Unless he was given leave to charge he could not, and would not, hold his men. Behind the second line of his army Prince Charles sat on horseback, watching the confusion of the bombardment, and the sight seemed to immobilize him. A ball fell so close that his own horse dropped under him and his groom was cut in half by a direct hit.

“Permission to charge, Highness! Lord George says he can't hold the line any longer …”

At last the responsibility he craved belonged to Charles alone. His hated opponent Lord George was begging for the order and at that fatal moment he faltered, knowing that he should have given it himself, ten minutes ago. His voice hoarse and shaking, he shouted above the uproar to his aide, Lachlan Maclachlan.

“Give the command for a general advance against the enemy!”

Lachlan rode off, waving his bonnet and cheering, but before he had reached the front line to deliver his message a ball smashed him from his horse and dropped him dead upon the heather. And so the clans waited, while hundreds died without even seeing the faces of their enemy. It was the men of Clan Chattan, the Mackintoshs and their kin, who broke away, led by their officers. With a great yell of their ancient war-cries, the Mackintoshs shouting “Loch Moy! Loch Moy!” as they ran, the clan began their charge through the smoke towards their enemy. That was when the English artillery received the order to change round-shot for grape.

The rain and sleet had stopped some time ago; its work of soaking and freezing them was over. Now death came sweeping down upon the advancing Highlanders, as thick as the sleet itself, a deadly hail of lead, nails and iron, and the running men began to fall and those behind leapt over them, and still they fell. And on the right of them the men of Atholl and the Camerons and Appin Stewarts were charging, and the withering fire swept through them. Cameron of Lochiel, the fighting chief, fell as he ran, both ankles broken, and as he lay he shouted to his people to run on and leave him. What was left of the right flank of the Highland army was but twenty yards or so from the first line of Cumberland's infantry when the first discharge of musketry was fired into the mass of Highlanders. The first English ranks fired, reloading while the second and third ranks loosed their roll of musketry. Those of Clan Chattan and the Camerons and Athollmen, who slashed and stabbed their way among the English front-line troops, fought on right through to the second-line regiments of Howard's and Bligh's and there they fell, some with as many as twelve dead men to their credit. The Colonel of the Clan of the Cats, MacGillivray of Dunmaglas, crawled through them mortally wounded, fell forward into a little stream and drowned.

And among the fighting groups the old Maclachlan chief, whose son was killed with the Prince's message undelivered, died on the bayonets of his enemies, and with him perished nearly all his people. In the centre and right of the Moor, the dead covered the heather four deep.

On the left, the long line of the great Clan Macdonald, its pipes playing, each chief running ahead with his bodyguard of two picked men, his sons in command of the companies behind him, began to move up the sloping ground that fronted them and onwards towards the English regiments of Poulteny and the Lowland Scots Regiment known as the Royals.

“Claymores!” The command was shouted up and down from officer to officer, and with a fierce yell, the men of Keppoch, Clanranald, Glengarry and Dundrenan raised their swords and surged forward to charge at last. Sir Alexander Macdonald was ahead of James and Hugh; he stumbled over the rough ground, his eyes watering with the smoke that drifted thickly over the battlefield, and all around him the deadly grape-shot sang, and cries arose from the clansmen who ran with him, as men threw up their arms and fell, or doubled up and rolled in agony upon the ground. He paused only for a moment, and that was to see if his sons were following, and through the noise he heard James's voice raised in a savage yell; on the left of him, Hugh was ahead; he glimpsed the tall figure of his second son as it passed into the wreathing smoke and then it disappeared.

“Charge on!” the old man shouted. “Follow me!”

Out of the mist a charge of grape-shot tore into the man beside him; with a terrible scream he dropped his sword and fell forward on his shattered face and died. And then James came to his father, yelling at their men to pause, and he flung the old Chief to the ground.

“You dog!” Sir Alexander bellowed at him; he struggled to rise and began striking at his son. “You dog, would you have me hide like a woman? … Get up, God damn you, and go on like a man!”

“Let them come to us,” James shouted back. “Stop the charge and let the men fire their pistols. That may bring them forward. God's life, we can't even see them in this smoke and we're being cut to pieces! Do as I say!”

“Fire your pistols,” Sir Alexander shouted. “Take shelter and fire; we're going to draw them out from behind their cannon. The cowards!” he raged. “The dirty skulking cowards! Come out and fight with us, you scum of England!” He raised himself up and shouted at the hidden enemy. “Come out, you dogs, and kiss the Macdonald's steel!”

“Where's Hugh?” James asked him as he crawled away.

“Gone to the front and doubtless broken through,” his father snarled.

The pistols of the Macdonalds cracked out through the thundering artillery, and the sound of their shouts and jeers reached the English officers of the line and caused them much amusement. A breeze was coming up and it was blowing away the powder-smoke; it revealed the Macdonalds a hundred yards distant from the English, and, even as the officers watched, their guns swept the ragged Highland line with grape-shot and the dreaded musketry began. From his horse on a rise behind the Royals, the Duke of Cumberland adjusted his short telescopic glass and brought the left flank of Prince Charles's army into focus. The advance had strung them out unevenly; to the right of them the Chattan men and the Stewarts and Cameronians were throwing themselves on death, and already a little trickle of them were turning back and running towards their own second line. But the line on the left, where the different setts of the Macdonald tartans glowed in the grey light, was standing still, firing its few flintlocks and pistols spasmodically at the unmoving British line.

“Good God,” the Duke remarked, handing the glass to Lord Mark Kerr. “Look at that; our men are shooting them like rabbits!”

“They're going back,” the dragoon commander said.

Cumberland took the glass again.

“Only to re-form. See, they're charging again. Good God,” he repeated, “have you ever seen the like? … I must say they they make excellent targets!” and he laughed.

Down on the bloody Moor James rallied his desperate men once more. Their old-fashioned firearms and pistols were flung away upon the ground; the ruse had failed and twice already they had advanced, jeering and yelling through the murderous fire, only to be beaten back and then re-form and try again. And a third of all who bore the name of Macdonald were already dead or wounded on the field. “Once more,” James yelled. “Claymores, my people! Follow the Chief!” His father lived by some miracle, though shot had torn the skirts of his coat and whipped the bonnet from his head. As he ran forward once again, his broadsword flashing in his hand, he roared with hatred and contempt. James leapt after him; he had flung off the plaid that protected his left arm; he carried only his buckler and his broadsword and the dirk grasped in his left hand. His face was streaked with sweat and dirt and blood ran down the side of it from a grape-shot wound. All around him was death; his feet stumbled over bodies as he ran, he trod on them because he had to, and then he added his own fierce yell to the terrible clamour around him, through which the grape-shot whined and whistled and the methodical English musket-volleys cracked like whips. And then, within twenty yards of that line of red coats and sticklike legs gaitered in white, the men of Dundrenan faltered before the withering musket fire as they met the survivors of Cameron and Mackintosh running back. Through the red haze of blood and smoke James paused and saw his people waver, some of them turning, running, only to fall with their backs towards the enemy. Madness possessed him then, the madness of despair and hate. He stood with his arms wide, cursing at his clansmen, and the sound of his voice was drowned by the thud of hooves as the Troopers of Kingston's Cavalry rode down upon the remnants of Macdonald regiments from the left.