God's Highlander (43 page)

C
OLONEL FITZPATRICK LISTENED patiently and politely to Wyatt's plea on behalf of the Highlanders. All the while he spoke officers were coming in to report men ready to march and ammunition issued. Once a messenger arrived from ‘the advanced party' with a note for the commanding officer.

Despairingly, Wyatt gave up in mid-sentence. It was apparent that nothing he said was making any difference. He had arrived at the camp of the Irish soldiers as they were moving out against the Highlanders. The messages reaching the colonel's tent made it apparent that other men had left Fort William very much earlier.

Seated at a table in his tent, the commanding officer looked up from the note he was scribbling. ‘I
am
listening, Jamieson. Do go on.'

Wyatt shook his head. ‘I'm wasting my breath. We both know it. I'm pleading with you to call off your action against the Highlanders, yet even as I speak you're sending more troops into the mountains. I had hoped you might show some compassion. The clearance orders should never have been issued. Garrett's the man you should be after, not a poor Highlander trying to cling on to the pitiful little he has.'

‘Your Factor Garrett seems to have made himself scarce, Jamieson, though I do have men out looking for him. Nevertheless, I have just had the most unhappy task of composing a letter of sympathy to a very close friend. His nineteen-year-old son is dead after being blinded by a musket-ball from a Highlander's gun. Am I to tell
him
I allowed his killers to go free because the man who pulled the trigger had been unfairly treated by some factor?'

Colonel Fitzpatrick shook his head sadly. ‘I can't tell him that – and I won't allow my soldiers to feel
their
lives are worth nothing. I hope one day to lead my men into battle –
real
battle. Every man behind
me will be carrying a loaded musket. If I'm killed in action, I'd rather the musket-ball came from the enemy lines and not my own.'

The officer sighed and laid the pen down upon the paper. ‘There are other, rather more serious implications to be considered. The corporal who brought the men back after this unfortunate skirmish reported there were approximately eighty attackers, each of whom was armed in some way or another. This might well be described as an “uprising”, Jamieson. I have no wish to exaggerate the seriousness of the incident at all; I,
too
, sympathise with your people. However, if the authorities in London deem it to
be
an uprising, you'll have more soldiers than sheep in these hills. It will not be safe for a Highlander to show his head above a bush anywhere in the country.'

Colonel Fitzpatrick stood up and reached for his hat. ‘While we're on the subject of sheep … I've had a report that your Highlanders are rounding up thousands of sheep and driving them towards us, along Glen Loy. From complaints I've been receiving during the past twenty-four hours it would seem your people have vowed to drive every beast from the mountains.' The colonel buckled on his sword-belt. ‘I regret I cannot allow them to succeed.' He gave Wyatt an understanding smile. ‘I think it will be better if you come with me, Minister Jamieson.'

‘I have other matters to attend to, Colonel.'

‘Then, I regret I must put it another way. I
insist
you accompany me.'

‘You're
arresting
me?' Wyatt's indignation grew from dismay.

‘That's certainly not a word I would use, Jamieson, but I know something of your background. You're a resourceful man, and admirably loyal to your people. I would prefer to have you where I can see what you're doing.'

The colonel hesitated before adding: ‘I would also like you to see for yourself the events of today. I am not a vindictive man, Jamieson. I am not going into the mountains seeking revenge, but I fear history may try to distort my actions. You'll be able to set it right.'

Colonel Fitzpatrick was an infantry officer, but he was sufficiently senior to
ride
at the head of his men. Wyatt was well to the rear with a young officer as company and four soldiers who were never farther than a few paces away. Two of them had been present at the skirmish with Eneas Ross and his friends. Although Wyatt was not officially a prisoner, it would be impossible for him to slip away unnoticed.

There was an Irish soldier waiting on the bridge spanning the river at the entrance to the glen. The marching column came to a halt while he spoke at some length to Colonel Fitzpatrick. Then the colonel turned in his saddle and waved the men across the bridge. They were halted again while the commanding officer talked to his officers, Wyatt being kept well out of hearing.

When the meeting broke up, the officers hurried back to their men and small parties began moving into the wooded glen.

Wyatt was led farther away and made to sit down, the four soldiers making it very clear they resented being left out of the action in order to guard a Scots minister.

They were seated on a grassy bank for almost half an hour before a sound began to make itself heard. At first Wyatt was unable to identify it. Then he realised it was the bleating of sheep. Thousands of sheep.

The Highlanders were walking into a well-planned trap. Wyatt stood up, hoping to see something or someone, but the officer ordered him to sit down. When he made no move to obey, one of the soldiers spoke eagerly to the officer: ‘Let me run him through with my bayonet, sir. He'll make no noise, I promise you. We can say he tried to run away….'

‘Try anything like that and you'll be standing in front of a firing party tomorrow morning.'

The soldier scowled sullenly, and Wyatt knew the Irishman would need only the slightest excuse to disobey the warning given him by the officer.

Minutes later a vast sea of sheep spilled from the shadow of the trees and poured out across the wide glen entrance. Suddenly a single shot rang out from somewhere out of sight beyond the trees. It was immediately followed by a whole fusillade. Colonel Fitzpatrick's trap was sprung.

Disregarding the shouts of the officer and the soldiers guarding him, Wyatt sprinted to where sporadic firing could still be heard. There was a shot from behind him but it must have gone well wide – and then Wyatt was in among the sheep. Spurred on by the shots behind them, the creatures were running in all directions, like water down a mountainside. Great streams curving in all directions, some joining up again, others taking their own course.

The ambuscade had been well executed. The bodies of Highlanders lay crumpled upon the ground. Wyatt ran towards them – and the first body he saw was that of Stewart Ross, one of Mairi's brothers.

Wyatt kneeled by the body and checked for life. There was none. Single shots were still being fired from widely dispersed spots up and down the glen, but a bugler was playing a recall now. The brief one-sided battle was over.

Wyatt was saying a brief prayer over the body of Stewart when a sergeant came to him and said: ‘There's one of yours asking for you. You'd better be quick. He'll be dead soon.' Having delivered his abrupt and callous message, the sergeant walked away and shouted at some stragglers, ordering them to hurry towards the sound of the bugle.

Wyatt looked about him and saw a Highlander propped against a tree. It was Ian Ross, and he was very badly wounded. Wyatt could tell even before he pulled aside the bloody plaid and uncovered the blue-edged hole in his chest that Eneas Ross's eldest son had received a mortal wound.

Wyatt looked up from the wound and saw the accusation in Ian Ross's face.

‘I came to plead with the colonel not to seek revenge. They wouldn't let me return for fear I'd warn you,' Wyatt said shortly. ‘Why, Ian? Why this foolishness?'

‘We beat them in the mountains.' The pride in the statement overrode the pain, but Ian Ross's breathing was ragged. He was losing a great deal of blood, and Wyatt could do nothing to staunch the bleeding.

Wyatt resisted an urge to tell the dying man the so-called victory in the mountains had resulted in this savage reprisal in which many other Highland men had been shot down.

‘Have you seen any of the others?' Ian Ross tensed and gripped Wyatt's wrist. ‘We were all here. All my brothers.'

Wyatt fought hard to contain the horror that filled him. The trap had been very well planned. How many more of Mairi's brothers would he find lying dead in Glen Loy? To Ian Ross he managed to say: ‘No, I haven't seen any of the others.'

Ian Ross relaxed, and his hand fell away from Wyatt's arm. ‘Thank God. They must have got away.'

Wyatt tried not to think of the scattered shots farther along the glen. He doubted whether many Highlanders had managed to escape.

‘I'll go and find a surgeon—'

‘No!' Ian Ross leaned his head back against the rough bark of the tree. ‘He'll be able to do nothing. I haven't long….'

When Eneas Ross's eldest son looked at Wyatt again, his eyes were those of a dying man. ‘Tell Ma I'm sorry. Tibbie….' An expression of pain crossed Ian's face, but it had nothing to do with his wound. ‘Tell her … what happened doesn't matter any more. I couldn't have wished for a better wife.'

Ian Ross fell silent for a full minute, although blood was making his increasingly shallow breathing noisy now. Wyatt thought he had said all he had to say, but with a conscious effort Ian Ross found some more words.

‘Make Pa listen to you, Preacher. Old days … are gone. Tell him.'

Ian Ross said no more. Two minutes later he stopped breathing, and Wyatt said a prayer over the second of the Ross brothers to die that day. There were seven other Highlanders lying dead in the glen, and Wyatt breathed a bitter sigh of relief when he checked the last and learned it was not a Ross. His relief was premature. Irish soldiers returning from their pursuit carried in two more bodies. One was Mungo Ross.

There were tears in Wyatt's eyes as he rose from the body of the third Ross to die. He turned to find Colonel Fitzpatrick standing watching him.

‘You know these men?'

‘They were my parishioners.' Wyatt spoke guardedly through his grief. The commanding officer might be planning retribution against their families, too.

‘They'll have brought sorrow to many homes by their foolishness,' said the colonel with what seemed to be genuine regret. ‘A father can find pride in the manner of his son's death, but a mother's grief is fed by memories of the child he once was. The bodies will be taken to Fort William. Their next of kin may claim them without any questions being asked.'

‘It's all over now, then? You'll be returning to Fort William?'

‘Not quite. This whole sorry business began when my men were fired on from a croft only a few miles from here. When the croft has been destroyed justice will be satisfied.'

Wyatt was alarmed. Colonel Fitzpatrick was talking of the Ross home. Mairi's home!

‘Colonel, three of the dead men here are from that croft.
Three brothers
. Isn't that justice enough for you?'

‘The officer who was shot from the croft was an
only
son. To his father and mother he was the
whole
of their family.'

‘And will they lose their home, too – and a lifetime's possessions? The boys' father is an ex-soldier, Colonel. He fought through the Peninsular campaigns and at Waterloo. Is this how it's all to end for him?'

Colonel Fitzpatrick appeared to be digesting Wyatt's words for a long time. Then he said: ‘I'm sorry, Jamieson. This must be seen to be done. No one can be allowed to use arms against the Army to prevent eviction – lawful or otherwise. I intend resting my men here for an hour. You can use that time to remove what you can from the croft. My men will burn the house and everything remaining inside. Nothing more.'

E
NEAS ROSS LOOKED back only once at the ragged plume of smoke rising from the burning croft. It was all over. The life he had known. His family…. Five sons dead within a twelvemonth, among them his firstborn. The boy he had watched with such pride as he grew to manhood.

He had learned of the disaster of Glen Loy long before Wyatt arrived. The three surviving brothers had fled the scene of the ambush and not stopped running until they fell in through the doorway of their mountain croft. Even so, the bearded patriarch had not known the full extent of the tragedy until Wyatt broke the news of the death of his other three sons.

Eneas Ross had walked away from the croft refusing to remove a thing from the building. It would be a funeral pyre for his sons, a primitive tribute.

The three women, too, were bitterly grief-stricken, but they and the surviving sons salvaged what could be carried off. They left when the drum-beat setting the pace for the Irish soldiers could be heard approaching.

Eneas Ross felt numb and old. Very, very old. He could hear the women sobbing and wailing. It was the natural thing for them to do. Mairi had lost three brothers today and Tibbie a fine husband. While Magdalene had lost three children … three of her ‘babies'. But their noisy sorrow did not impinge upon his own deep-rooted grief. To anyone who did not know him well Eneas Ross would appear to have taken the news of the tragedy calmly and without emotion. Such an assumption was a very long way from the truth. With the death of his sons – of Ian in particular – Eneas Ross had died inside. Wyatt had told him of Ian's last words, and the head of the Ross family reflected
upon them. How much had
he
as their father contributed to their deaths by his talk of past glories? It would never be known, but nothing could prevent Eneas Ross torturing himself for the remainder of his life in search of an answer.

 

Lachlan Munro was buried with those who fell at Glen Loy in a ceremony that emptied every house and cot for many miles around Loch Eil. Men, women and children packed the small kirk, and a hopeful sign for the future of the area was the presence of the Earl of Glenadon's steward, sent by the Earl to represent him at the funeral service.

Both kirk and manse had been returned to Wyatt, Angus Cameron having vacated them before the Earl's notice was served on him. The Eskaig elder had lost the respect of the parishioners and when he learned John Garrett was being replaced he knew his last bastion of support had fallen.

After the funeral service a brief funeral tea was held in the grounds of the manse, where the Ross family was staying. Alasdair and Evangeline Burns were here. So, too, was Charlotte Garrett.

John Garrett had not been seen since the day when he accompanied the Irish soldiery to the Ross home. He had returned to the house at Corpach, gathered up clothes and personal belongings and left. Charlotte Garrett was staying with her daughter and new son-in-law at the schoolhouse for the time being.

When the time came for Alasdair to take up his post as factor of the Kilmalie estate they would all move back to the Corpach house. Until then they were comfortable enough. There seemed little doubt that the post of factor would go to Alasdair. The Earl of Glenadon's steward had interviewed him at some length, and the two men got on well together. The steward told Alasdair that the final decision rested with the Earl, but
he
was going back to Glenadon with a recommendation that Alasdair be appointed factor immediately.

There were still a number of victims of the clearances camped in the churchyard. When Wyatt carried the daily pot of hot soup out to them that evening, Mairi came with him, trying not to look at the mounds of earth where five of her brothers now lay buried.

Afterwards, as darkness moved in upon them, they walked together at the edge of the loch and Wyatt asked Mairi if she had thought any more of the future.

Mairi shook her head. ‘I can't make plans just yet, Wyatt. Not until I know what Pa intends to do.'

‘He can have the old croft back if he wants it; or build a new one if that's what he would prefer.'

‘He won't talk about it, Wyatt. Not yet. It's too soon for him to think of the future. I'll have a word with him in a day or two, when I think he's ready.'

Mairi found Wyatt's hand. ‘It's been a bad time for all of us, but nothing that's happened has changed the way I feel about you. I still love you.'

‘Then, everything will work out, Mairi. You'll see.'

 

Wyatt's words had a hollow ring to them the next day when Eneas Ross announced his intention to emigrate to Canada.

He broke the news at the table, when the family and Wyatt were sitting down to dinner. Eneas Ross had spoken so little since his sons died that it came as a surprise when he suddenly said: ‘I have something to say to you all.'

Spoons and knives were lowered as everyone looked to Eneas Ross.

‘I've decided to leave Scotland. Make a new life somewhere else, in Canada maybe.'

The stunned silence was broken by Wyatt. ‘Have you thought about this, Eneas? I mean
really
thought about it?'

‘I've thought about it well enough. All that's left for me in Scotland – for any of us – are sad memories of what was, and thoughts of what might have been. But there's no going back and I've become a stranger in the land of my birth. The land that's robbed me of five grown-up sons.'

‘There are the others to think of: Magdalene and Tibbie and the other boys.'

‘True, I still have three sons. They're fine boys, but no one can take the place of a firstborn son. If I stay here, they'll reap the bitterness that's been sown within me. They deserve better. Tibbie is as much a daughter to me as my own, but she can come with me or stay, same as Mairi. As for Magdalene….' Eneas Ross looked to his wife to provide an answer to Wyatt's question.

Magdalene Ross had been torn apart by grief, but she said: ‘You've no need to ask me, Eneas. You know my answer. I have buried ten children
in your country. Part of my heart will always be here with them, but I followed you for many hundreds of miles in Spain, sharing your victories and your defeats. Accepting them because I was
your
woman. I am
still
your woman and you need me more than ever now.'

The look Magdalene Ross gave her husband was a mixture of haughty Spanish pride and uncertainty. Suddenly a wail of anguish escaped from her, and she turned and ran from the room. Mairi was only moments behind her. After a few seconds' hesitation Tibbie went, too.

Wyatt tried to talk Eneas Ross out of his decision, convinced it had been taken for the wrong reasons, but the Highlander had made up his mind – and his three surviving sons were firmly on his side. They had suffered a tragic and humiliating defeat. By going to Canada they could put the past behind them and start anew. The more they talked, the more enthusiastic they became. As far as the male members of the Ross family were concerned, Wyatt's arguments were wasted.

The Ross women remained together all evening in the room set aside by Wyatt for the two girls. Eventually he asked Evangeline to go in and tell Mairi he wished to speak to her.

They walked together in the garden and passed meaningless comments about the weather until Wyatt said: ‘I don't seem able to change your father's mind about going to Canada.'

Mairi shook her head. ‘He sees it as the only way to regain his pride. If he stays here, he'll always be haunted by the ghosts of Ian and the others.'

There was one more question that had to be asked.

‘When the others go …
you'll
stay here and marry me?'

Wyatt knew what her answer was going to be when she would not look at him, but it was a long time before she spoke.

‘I can't, Wyatt. I can't leave Ma and Pa, not the way they are now. They need me … Ma especially.'

‘
I
need you, Mairi. I need you more now than ever before.' Mairi dared not let him see how close she was to tears.

‘Things are going well for you now, Wyatt. You have all you want. Your church, a factor who's a friend, and a landowner who respects you. Pa has lost almost everything he's lived his life for. He's very close to total defeat, and Ma is broken-hearted at the death of the boys. If she lost me now, it would be the end for her, I know it would.'

Wyatt tried to choose his next words very carefully. They were among the most important he would ever speak.

‘Mairi, all the things you say I have now are not really
mine
. They're to help me carry out the Lord's work, here in Eskaig. I'm grateful for them, but you mustn't confuse them with
my
needs. I'm just an ordinary man. A man who's sometimes frightened, often lonely – and always weak. I share the needs and emotions of my fellow-men. I've already told you I love you, and need you. Will it help you change your mind if I also tell you that without you there will be a huge gap in my life that other things, however important, can only be a substitute for?'

‘I'm sorry, Wyatt. I
do
love you. I always will. But you're strong. Ma and Pa are not. They need me….'

Suddenly, Mairi turned and ran back inside the house – and Wyatt knew he had lost her.