Sound of the Heart (16 page)

CHAPTER 25

The Colonies

Charleston’s port was never quiet, but when the soldiers and their supplies landed and threw their heavy ropes across, tying onto huge metal cleats, the docks swarmed like a disturbed anthill. The folk of the city crowded as close as they could, peddling wares, gawking at the men now crossing the gangplank. The soldiers, having been surrounded by relative quiet for the eight weeks aboard ship, were taken aback at first, but Dougal’s blood raced at the thought of dry land. He could hardly wait to join the noise.
Glenna,
he thought.
I’m here, Glenna.

There was jostling going on behind him, he assumed, but the grenadiers were put at the head of the line, as they would be put at the head of the troops when the shooting began. John gallantly gestured then followed Dougal as he stepped onto the gangplank. The ocean beneath the platform foamed and splattered against the dock, as if the black depths celebrated their arrival. The air, humid but warm, lifted the coal black hair from his brow and dropped it gently back, settling like a cushion against his skin after the cutting wind of the ship.

Off to the side Dougal saw a well-rounded, red-haired woman whose flashing dark eyes focused on him. He wiggled his eyebrows and gave her a short bow before glancing to the other side.

“Very bonny,” John commented from behind him.

“Oh aye, but after two months alone wi’ these lads, I imagine anythin’ in a gown might seem that way.”

John pounded him on the shoulder. “Ye’re no gentleman, Mr. MacDonnell.”

“I am so. She didna hear me at all. An’ look. I canna please them all.” He lifted his chin so John saw another woman on the other side of the plank, ebony hair spilling over a well-displayed pair of breasts, red lips still puckered after she’d blown a kiss in their direction.

“I think that one’s for me, sir.”

“Oh?”

“Aye. See that?”

The woman wiggled her fingers in their general direction, then cupped her hands under her breasts, showing off her wares. Both men burst out laughing and she grinned.

“Look there,” John said, rubbing at his beard. “That tavern wi’ the flag out front. ’Tis callin’ my name. Can ye hear it?”

Dougal grinned. “Ah, I do. Let’s go have a well-earned dram, my friend.”

The gangplank sloped down toward the dock and Dougal took long steps, letting gravity pull him toward the bustling crowd. The port was crowded with buildings, but in the background, late summer leaves glistened in welcome, and Dougal sensed this might be a good place to be. Two other grenadiers walked before him, thumbs stuck in their belts as they happily stepped foot on dry land. Dougal followed, grinning when he felt the dirt crunch beneath his feet.

“Dougal
.
”

At the whispered sound his knees almost buckled and he felt dizzy, as if the impact of the voice had spun him around, then dropped him. As if the ground beneath him rolled. His skin practically vibrated, and for a moment he couldn’t focus on anything, seeing only the smeared colours of the town’s chaos.

“MacDonnell?” John grabbed the back of Dougal’s arms, jerking him into the present. “Christ, man, have ye lost yer land legs already?”

Dougal struggled to regain his feet, shaking his head as if to rid it of the noise within. He put his fingers to his temples and breathed deeply, though the stink of the port made that somewhat unpleasant. He shrugged out of John’s grasp.

“I’m fine,” he told his friend, wondering if he truly were.

What was that voice? Who? And why now? He listened hard, but there were no more utterings, nothing strange in the sounds around him now. Just people calling out, dogs barking, doors slamming, bridles ringing cheerily as horses passed. Had he really heard it? Was there anyone there?

“I need a drink is all,” he said.

The tavern filled quickly with soldiers celebrating their arrival. The volume rose, washing away the haunting memory of the voice. He was back in the world of the living, in the midst of drinking, singing, cursing, laughing men, and as was his wont, it wasn’t long before Dougal was the centre of it all. The stories he had told the prisoners so long before came bubbling back to the surface, taken up by John whenever Dougal needed a break.

And when the stories wound down, Dougal worked his way around the room, speaking with strangers, asking if they’d seen a small blond slave woman, an angel called Glenna. No one could offer anything.

Ever since Dougal had first discovered too much alcohol limited his fighting capabilities, he had avoided overdoing it. He had never been a heavy drinker to begin with, and, being such a big man, a few drinks weren’t enough to slow him down, but he knew his limit. John was not as disciplined. Dougal watched his friend’s eyes start to shine after three quickly swallowed drinks, noticed that through the ginger beard, John’s cheeks flushed as he downed a couple more. He started to sing, joining in when others danced a jig along with a fiddler’s music.

When John threw back his head and laughed at something he’d heard, the movement threw off his balance, and he tripped backward until he ran into Dougal’s table. He turned slowly, comically, giving Dougal a wide, amiable grin, then slammed both palms onto the table.

“My friend,” he said, slipping over the words. “Are ye no’ a dancer? I imagine ye’d do a fine jig, wi’ those long gams o’ yers an’ all.”

The sweet, burning scent of rum dominated John’s words, as if he’d collected the air of the tavern, syphoned it through a funnel, and now poured it over Dougal’s face.

Dougal grinned. “Will ye sit awhile, John? Maybe until the floor stops movin’ beneath yer feet? Even the best o’ dancers need to rest at times.”

John pondered the suggestion, his eyes sliding in and out of focus. His smile softened into the loose-lipped grimace of an imbecile, then he nodded and plopped down beside Dougal. They sat at a table along with three other grenadiers, enjoying the company of some of Charleston’s finest ladies. These were not like the women back home, whose sweet flirtations and harmless suggestions felt like a game. The women here were bold, used to selling what others desired, and entirely comfortable with draping their scantily clad bodies over soldiers’ laps.

They alternated between the men’s attentions, teasing one, then moving to the next as if waiting for the bids to begin. A tall, slant-eyed brunette with what Dougal considered an adorable pout appeared to claim him, refusing to budge when the women shifted places again. She distracted him from the others at the table, monopolising him with questions, batting her lashes in a well-practiced manner. She introduced herself as Clara and her friend as Rose.

“You’re all from Scotland? Ooh. That’s a wild place, ain’t it?” she asked, stretching the word “wild” into one long, sensual syllable.

He shrugged. “I’ve no idea compared to here. Maybe it is.”

“Did you come here to kill off the Frenchies?”

“Aye, that’s the plan,” he replied, chuckling when her fingertips tickled under his chin.

She leaned forward and burrowed her lips against his hair, tethered behind his neck into a windblown club. Her warm breath tickled his ear. “I tell you what, soldier. I sure could use a night with a big man like you,” she murmured, just loud enough for Dougal to hear over the crowd.

Dougal grinned. “Oh, ye could, could ye?”

She sat straighter on his lap and smiled, her eyes half-closed at the idea. How long had it been since Glenna had disappeared? Since she had last regarded him with an expression similar to this one? Six months maybe? Dougal studied the woman, trying to compare the smooth line of her lips to the ones he had kissed so often. He laid his hand against her cheek and caressed the soft skin with his thumb.

“Ye’re a bonny thing, Clara,” he told her. “But I’m a married man.”

The woman popped her pout back into place. “And where’s she? I don’t see her here. Tell you what, if she’s any kind of good woman, she’d want you to be kept happy while you’re out here fighting for our country, don’t you think? It’s a man’s God given right is what it is.”

Dougal looked in the woman’s painted face, saw the weary lines around her eyes, and prayed to God that Glenna hadn’t been forced into this kind of slavery. He knew it was possible. Many of the women here worked because they chose the life. Others had no choice.

“Clara,” he said quietly, praying she would give him the answer he sought. “Ye dinna ken a wee golden-haired lassie named Glenna, do ye? She’d have come a-ship from Scotland a few months ago.”

“I know a Glenna, sure, but she ain’t fair, and that’s a fact. The Glenna I know is darker than you even.”

Relief tingled in his chest, though he had no right to it. So this one prostitute didn’t know Glenna. That meant nothing. But it was a start.

Across the table from Dougal, John half slumped in his chair with Rose perched on his knee. Her legs were propped on John’s lap, bare skin clearly visible from her narrow ankles to halfway up the creamy white of her thighs. John’s hand rested just above her knee, his dark fingers making slight depressions in her flesh. His grip could have been desire, Dougal thought, or it could have been that he was simply trying to maintain his balance through a cloud of alcohol.

Rose, sensing Dougal’s gaze, winked at him while she squeezed John’s drooping face against her bosom. There was no mistaking her intentions. No spring lambs, these two. She wasn’t pretty, Dougal thought, though she still had most of her teeth. Her blond hair was nothing like the shining white of Glenna’s locks and she was tall enough that she would have dwarfed Glenna. The thought of her petite form came clearly to his mind, and he swallowed grief that tasted like bile.

“Oh, aye, we’re off to war on the morrow,” John declared, his words gently slurred. His expression was so sombre Dougal was tempted to laugh. “’Twould be such a kindness if ye were to care for me this eve.”

“Your friend seems to be stayin’,” Clara said, raising her carefully painted eyebrows with suggestion.

“So he does,” Dougal replied, watching John nuzzle into Rose’s neck.

“Rose lives real near me. Maybe we should take the two of them home, make sure they make it all right, you know?” She blinked prettily over big brown eyes. “These streets can be dangerous for a lady on her own.”

Dougal squinted at her, fighting the desire to feel a woman beneath and around him. Clara’s hands were soft but firm as they massaged his shoulders, then caressed his linen-clad arms. The need for release was more than simply physical, yet Dougal couldn’t imagine following through. Memories flooded his thoughts, images of Glenna’s soft curl of hair on his pillow, the crease in her brow and slightly parted lips when they were deep in their lovemaking. Her voice came as clearly to him as it always did, reminding him that she loved him, that she loved only him. And he knew that he could never love another woman.

“No’ tonight, my dear,” he said.

She stood and swept his hand away, uttering “Pah!” with thinly veiled disgust. After one last hopeful glance, she headed off to the bar and other potential prey.

That was when the door to the tavern swung open, ushering in a warm draft that temporarily cut through the haze of smoke. The volume in the room dropped, and Dougal sat up straighter to see who had come in. He recognised their captain’s booming voice at once and watched the short, stocky man stride around tables, growling at his men as he always did.

“Get off yer ass, ye louse-covered sod. Else ye’ll be on the receivin’ end o’ my boot.”

Dougal kicked John under the table but got no response out of the dozing man. He kicked him again, harder. John sat up with a splutter, blinking and trying to focus.

“Wh-what’s this, MacDonnell?” he demanded.

Dougal nodded toward another table nearby. “Captain’s on his way, John. Ye’d best drop yer plans for this eve.”

John looked from the approaching captain to Rose, then tilted his head. His smile, which had been rich with alcohol and anticipation, melted into a childish sulk. Rose rolled her eyes and scowled at Dougal, as if it were his fault. Dougal, quietly relieved he wouldn’t have to dig his friend out from some awkward situation later on, shrugged and stood to go. Rose left to join Clara, who was already chatting with likelier customers.

“Come on, ol’ man,” Dougal said, offering his friend a hand up. He nodded at the captain as he led John outside, and the older man returned the greeting. Dougal smiled. He could tell the officer knew John was drunk, and on any other night he expected John—as well as a number of others in the same situation—would be punished. But this was their first night in the colonies. It was a night for celebration, and even the strictest of officers understood that.

CHAPTER 26

Into the Woods

The army spent the night in Charleston, wherever they could find lodging. The city didn’t open their arms to the soldiers, providing them instead with only the most basic of lodging. Those soldiers who didn’t warm a woman’s bed or curl up in a hayloft headed past the city’s centre and onto an open field. Dougal and John ended up there as well, stretched out in a six-man tent with another soldier.

Early morning sunshine baked the side of the tent, warming the little shelter until it was too stifling to tolerate. Dougal hadn’t slept well as a result of John’s inebriated snores, but stepped from the tent and stretched, cheered by the sounds of morning. He made his way out to a campfire, started and tended by sentries during the night, and joined others for breakfast. An hour later all the men were awake and lined up for roll call.

“Ye dinna look quite yerself,” Dougal said to John.

John sniffed, then spat to the side. “I’ll do,” he muttered.

The camp was dismantled, the battalions reassembled, and the marching began. Montgomerie’s Highlanders were to be stationed in the Carolinas, their first assignment to protect settlers from ongoing Indian raids. Dougal was looking forward to the change of pace. It wasn’t what he considered to be real battle, but at least it was something that felt more familiar than constant drills. But their destination always seemed to be hundreds of miles away, through thick, smothering forests roped by branches and roots, waterways that soaked through the men’s plaids, rocks determined to tear through black leather shoes. The forests were so crowded they rarely found flat enough areas in which to set up their hundreds of tents, so the Highlanders resorted to the ancient way of sleeping, rolling up in their plaids at the gnarled feet of trees.

In the morning, they washed in any available water they could find, combing their hair and shaving with razors or dirks. Their weapons and uniforms were always cleaned the night before so that when they awoke, they slipped into the cleanest shirts they had, wrapped on their plaids, and set their bonnets at the particular angle required by protocol. It didn’t seem to matter where they were, the British army required a ridiculous standard of presentation. It seemed an awful waste of time to Dougal, but he had to agree that he and his cohorts did smell better than they had when they’d marched together before Culloden.

When they weren’t breathing in the miasma of swamps and battling tangles of forests, the soldiers cut roads so their supply wagons could follow, and built small strategic forts by waterways or portages. The humidity of the land was such that the Scots spent more time wiping their brows than speaking.

“Ye must have delicious blood, my friend,” Dougal said to John.

The day was sweltering, waking the hunger in swarms of ravenous mosquitoes. Dougal was fortunate in that the creatures seemed less enamoured by his blood than they were with others’. John suffered greatly, his neck swelling on one side until it looked twice as large as it should have. His fingers constantly scratched until the bites opened and bled, providing him with no relief.

“Aye, well,” John grumbled. “I’m miserable with these devils. Miserable! They’ve come straight from hell, they have. An’ they can go right back.”

Fighting the back woods of the colonies was a never-ending drudgery, a constant state of slogging through life. For variety, Dougal and the others occasionally disappeared into the woods, which teemed with wildlife. The army provided no more than the daily rations of bread, potatoes, dried peas, mutton, or beef, but the forests and rivers easily gave up the rest. Despite the generous hunting, it soon became clear the land didn’t welcome them any more than the people had.

“MacClanach doesna fare well,” John muttered one day, stooping beneath the heavy branch of a water oak.

Dougal glanced over. MacClanach did indeed look poorly. He was one of the grenadiers, tall and fiery haired, big enough to intimidate most enemy soldiers. But he had wasted away, caught by the sickness that had grabbed so many of them. It had started with twenty men ill, but seemed ten times that now.

MacClanach looked like so many of the others had before they had given up the fight. But he was a stubborn bugger, not about to lie around complaining when he should be working. Over the past two days his skin had taken on a pasty white tinge that looked almost green in the right light, and it was always slick with sweat, night or day. Dougal saw him stumble and reach for a tree for support, but the tree in MacClanach’s mind wasn’t really there. He collapsed and made a halfhearted grunt when he landed. One of the others went to help him up and Dougal saw the big man try to wave help away, then resign himself to the need for assistance.

“Two days for the poor bugger,” Dougal guessed.

John nodded and slapped irritably at a mosquito scouting for an open patch of skin on his neck. “I’ll be dead from these devil creatures long before then.”

Occasionally the army came upon the remains of homes and farms that had been plagued by Indian attacks. Sometimes all they left behind was burnt debris and smoking corpses. It was at times like these that Dougal had trouble with his rage. Yes, he had joined the 77th Highlanders voluntarily, but it had been for the ulterior motive of searching for Glenna. Walking through these devastated places, seeing the death all around, brought back so many horrors he’d seen in his homeland. Everything there had been caused by the English, and now he fought for the English army. And he hated himself every day for that. Here the Highlanders were called upon to get the Indians under control and defend the white settlements. It weighed on Dougal that the English had come across the sea and were now dedicated to controlling the native people here, as they had in Scotland. And now Dougal was a part of all that.

Dougal had seen Indians before, since some travelled with the Highlanders as scouts, guiding them through the thick forests. But those were calm, curious men, more interested in the army’s coin than in their scalps. These marauders, though he’d never seen one with his own eyes, were obviously vicious. Their attacks, or at least the evidence of them, left a clear message that white men were not welcome in this land.

The men took turns as sentries. Those on duty were stationed around the camp, alert and silent. Their Indian guides had warned that they were never alone, and they should be prepared for anything. They thought they had been, but woke one morning to the awful discovery that they had underestimated the enemy. At some point during the night, five soldiers had been silently removed from the camp. Their bodies were found not far away, their heads scalped, their throats slit.

“Which did they do first?” John asked in a hushed voice.

“God, I hope the throats,” Dougal said, rubbing his own in sympathy for the dead men.

“That means they’d have done the scalpin’ after the lads were dead. Who does that to a dead body? What kind of man thinks that way?”

“Men we’d do best to avoid,” Dougal replied. His eyes scanned the forest, looking for anything that didn’t belong. Except that wouldn’t help him, he thought. The Indians were a part of the woods and would have blended as well as the trees within. The realisation sent a thrill of fear up his spine, but his Highlander blood boiled with anger for his fallen comrades.

John evidently felt it as well. “I’ll no’ stand by an’ let them slaughter us like hogs,” he said, his hand resting on the hilt of the sword on his left hip.

Two days later, Dougal, exhausted and craving sleep, took his turn as sentry. He sat near the campfire outside his tent, using the fire for light because clouds blocked the moon. Settling on a supply box, he took out his dirk and started engraving his initials on his powder horn, feeling comfortably lethargic.

Dougal loved this time of night. As much as he enjoyed the company of men and the raucous laughter in taverns, he also loved the quiet. He closed his eyes for a moment, ingesting the tiny nighttime sounds of the forest. A cricket chirped nearby, louder than the thousands singing in the woods. There was a short scuffle he identified as an owl dipping low to pluck a scurrying meal from the undergrowth. The quiet hiss of a breeze through brittle autumn leaves reminded Dougal of home, and he missed it with a physical ache. All those times he and Andrew had slept beneath the stars, dreaming of battle, of saving Scotland from the plague of sassenachs . . . all empty dreams, but they’d been done under a full sky forever painted with promise in Dougal’s mind. Their father had shown them how to follow stars if they were ever lost; their mother had taught them the legends behind the constellations.

But there were no stars tonight. It was peaceful and calm, and yet . . . something in the air kept distracting his attention from the carving in his hands. A twig snapped and Dougal looked up sharply, peering into the darkness, emptying his mind to hear whatever thoughts flitted through the air. He could make out no words, no distinct thoughts.

But there was something. A message he wasn’t supposed to understand. He stared at the jumping silhouettes of trees and tents, lit by scattered campfires. Nothing else moved, no further sounds came from the darkness. For a moment he wondered if the vague voices he heard actually belonged to the forest creatures themselves. Maybe he’d only heard one of the other men relieving himself in the woods. Dougal cleared his throat and tried to return his concentration to his carving.

His hand cramped from the intricate work and he paused to rest it. When he yawned, his jaw clicked, and he caught himself staring at nothing. So, so tired. He closed his eyes, then rested his face on his hands. It would be so easy, he mused, just to fall asleep for a few minutes. The sounds, words, and voices that swam through his head were soothing, quiet. But if he slept, would he wake in time? He knew he couldn’t give in, couldn’t chance endangering the others, but oh, the thought was appealing.

“Dougal.”

He shot to his feet, eyes wide. It was the voice he had waited so long to hear again, half hoping, half fearing its tones.

Every hair on Dougal’s body stood erect, his nerves sizzled. His mind tuned to the babble of voices and he understood. Not soothing at all. Secret. Coming from within the trees. He slid two fingers into his mouth and whistled softly to the other sentries. Two short blows. Dougal sensed the quick response of his cohorts, saw them stand to attention by their separate fires.

Dougal took five silent steps backward, his eyes trained on the forest, then crouched by the opening of his tent.

“Up, lads,” he said quietly. “We’ve guests.”