The Low Road (10 page)

Finally we reached Fort William, and none too soon; the soldiers were tiring of my silent presence, and preparing to amuse themselves with me. I was delivered to the captain of the garrison and put straight into a tiny cell which has now been my home for three weeks. I was provided with bread and water through a tiny hatch in the door. Nobody spoke to me. I had one blanket, filthy and lousy, to protect myself against the cold nights. A bucket in the corner of the cell serves all my other needs.

The silence was the worst thing; after a few days I started talking to myself just for the company of a human voice. I feared madness, Charles, in that terrible time. But God was merciful and sent a kind young soldier to tend me. The rope burns on my wrists were still open and dirty; my head was scabbed and scarred from the vicious attention of the prison barber who shaved it when I arrived.

This soldier, a pale, blond English boy only a little older than you, came to my cell at dawn, not daring to speak above a whisper for fear of detection. All the guards were under strict instructions to leave me entirely alone until General Wade himself should arrive at the castle to question me; perhaps they hoped I would die in the meantime. My soldier, however, took pity on me.

First of all he brought me meat and drink from his own rations, took away the stinking slop bucket and returned with clean cloths and a bowl of hot water. He sat patiently beside me while I wolfed the food, watching me through dark, troubled eyes, nervously wringing his hands. When I had eaten he took the plate from me and whispered in my ear.

‘Don't make a noise. Let me help you.'

Carefully, gently he tore away the bandages I had improvised from a
few torn strips of my shirt and dabbed at my wounds with clean water. Then he slid the ruined garment over my head and attended to the weals on my back where the soldiers had beaten me with sticks. He cleaned my neck, my ears, my scalp. The water, and the touch of kindness, felt so good that I revived and, for the first time in weeks, seemed to breathe freely.

The soldier lifted me carefully to my feet and pulled away the foul rags that were all that remained of my undergarments. After all this time in solitary confinement I was disgracefully dirty, and thoroughly ashamed of myself; the soldier did not seem to mind, and pushed my hand away when I tried to stop him. He wrung out his cloth and dabbed away at my hindquarters, rubbing gently until I was once more presentable. Then he transferred his attentions to the front. I must have smelled terrible. He didn't seem to mind.

Soon I was clean once more, and I felt the strength and self-respect returning. My guardian angel, still kneeling before me with the cloth in his hand, seemed in no hurry to finish his job; perhaps he was as lonely as me, and relished this sympathetic human contact. He was drying me now with a clean towel, slowly, carefully. I noticed that his hands were shaking.

God forgive me, I realised at once that I had him in my power. I am not a cruel man, Charles, but I know that a man in desperate straits must clutch at every opportunity that presents itself. When I saw him lick his lips, I seized the advantage. I grasped him by the wrist - his arms were thick, white and hairless - and held on to his hand, staring straight down into his imploring eyes. He was terrified, I could see. What punishments, I wondered, would await him? He had compromised himself quite enough by helping me... but now?

The tenderness with which he had ministered to me had awakened my lower self, and I was half erect. I will spare you descriptions, Charles; I know that you have seen it all for yourself, that night through my chamber window.
My soldier, however, had never seen it before and was transfixed. I let go his hand and swayed my hips slowly before him. It was all a ruse, I suppose, but I was not immune to the charm of the situation. When he took hold of my fully hard cock, I was as pleased as he was.

At first he was too scared to do much, and needed reassurance, so I knelt down beside him (his hand never left me), took him gently by the chin and kissed him. Oh Charles! After denying myself the pleasure of human contact for so long in my guise as a priest, I cannot tell you how sweet it was to kiss another - even in these degraded circumstances! The soldier's breath was fresh; unlike his
confrères,
he did not drink beer or smoke tobacco. He returned my kiss with ardour, and we sank to the cell floor in a passionate embrace. I tore myself away and barked out an order: ‘Strip!' My soldier recognised the voice of command, jumped to his feet and divested himself quickly and efficiently of his uniform.

What I saw astonished me. The whiteness of his skin, and the athletic development of his body, resembled exactly the marble statues of ancient Greek athletes that we see in the great collections of Paris. There was only one difference: where the Greek ideal is minutely endowed, this living statue was blessed with a huge, hard rod curving up between his legs. It was my turn to stare. The soldier blushed and tried to cover himself with his hands, as if he was ashamed of his arousal. I stood beside him, put an arm round his shoulders and took it in my hand. I thought he would faint.

Nobody has ever touched it before, sir.'

‘Not even your wife?'

‘I have no wife. Oh please, sir...'

His knees were buckling; I had only handled him for a few seconds and great white bullets were arcing out across the cell floor.

I thought now that he would dress and hurry away, but far from it. With the last drop hanging from his still-hard cock, he fell to his knees and
took me in his mouth. God, it was good! I was ready to come in his mouth, but he had other plans. Kneeling on all fours, he presented his hard, white arse to me. I needed no further bidding. Hawking into my hand, I smeared spit over the end of my cock and placed it against his hole. One rude shove and I was inside him. He wanted to cry out in pain, I know, but could not. The bestiality of the situation inflamed me, and I was merciless. Reaching round to feel him, I found that he was still as hard as wood. When I pumped myself dry inside his tight arse, I held him in a fierce embrace and watched as he coaxed another load to splatter against the damp stone.

We held each other for a while until my soldier, awakening at last to the dangers of our situation, dressed and left me - not, however, before I had extracted from him a promise to visit me again with pen and paper.

So now, Charles, you know all. You know what sort of man I am, and you will perhaps guess how hard it was for me to play the tutor-priest in Gordon Hall. You will understand the sorrow with which I destroyed your friendship with Alexander. You will also understand the lengths to which I will go to furnish myself with the means to write you this warning. I hope, Charles, that to understand all is to forgive... not all, perhaps, but some.

It is only the thought of your safety that has kept me hopeful during this terrible time. I may never be able to communicate with you again. Forgive me for imposing my experiences on you. Now I wish I could erase it all and start again, but my soldier is waiting at the door to take this message away and smuggle it out of the prison. I enclose it in a letter to your mother.

 

Charles, your image is with me always.

Enough. I must close now.

Do my bidding and then find safety.

Pray for me

In haste

BL

What had I done? God, what had I done? In an agony of soul-searching I fled from the library and ran along the corridor, half blinded by tears. I found the door to Lebecque's old room, mercifully unlocked. Nobody had been inside since his arrest; my mother must have believed that he would one day return.

He had left it tidy. The trunk was neatly packed, the bed made, the few books and papers in perfect order on his desk. I dived into the trunk and started flinging the contents about the room: his riding boots, a Bible, a small framed portrait of a woman, a few garments, his shaving kit. It was all here, and poor Lebecque was in prison facing certain death.

The trunk was a cunning piece of workmanship with a false bottom that it took me several minutes, and three broken nails, to unfasten. There was the list wrapped in purple silk - just two pages of meaningless symbols, numbers and letters. For this Lebecque had been willing to sacrifice his life. I cast around me for the means of destruction, but there was nothing to be found. There would be a fire downstairs. That would have to do. For a moment I held one of his shirts to my face and breathed deeply, hoping to catch a trace of him, then leapt to my feet and ran as if the whole English army were at my back. My mother, disturbed by the racket, appeared at her bedroom door like a ghost, calling after me. I ignored her and bounded down the stairs, into the hall and flung the papers into the flames. I barely breathed until they were consumed in ashes then, grabbing the poker, I smashed the few curled black remnants into powder.

Panting, sweating and with tears smudging my face, I sat on the floor in a daze. My mother glided into the room and clung to the door frame.

‘Charles! What is the matter?'

‘Nothing... nothing...'

‘I insist that you tell me what you are doing.'

‘I cannot.'

‘Is it Lebecque?'

I nodded, and wiped my face. I had to take control of myself. I was truly the man of the house now, without Lebecque's protection.

‘Mother, I think we must leave Gordon Hall.'

‘What? But I thought -'

‘I do not consider our position here to be safe. Please make preparations for our departure. We will close the house down.'

‘But Charles -'

‘Please, mother. There may be no time to lose.'

I don't know what I feared exactly; I did not fully understand what Lebecque feared. It was enough that he had trusted me with this final commission and had counselled retreat. He would find me now, after the event, obedient. Now that it was too late to make a difference. Too late to save him.

My mother, recovering miraculously from the ailment that had kept her to her room for so long, bustled around the kitchen with Ethel, directing the packing-up of crates and trunks for our removal to the island of Rum. Within eight hours, the house was put to sleep: dust covers on the furniture, bags on the chandeliers, the shutters barred and locked over every door and window.

I had done my share of the work; as the only man on the estate, I had no choice. MacFarlane, whose services we would usually have called on under such circumstances, was nowhere to be found. I had little doubt in my mind that he was the spy who had sold Lebecque to the English.

A coach and horses was hired at vast expense from Portnacroish, our goods loaded on board by the surly driver, and all was ready for our departure. I was proud of the haste with which I had obeyed Lebecque's orders - and yet, for all that my mind was occupied with details, I was troubled in my soul. I was running away.

It was what he had told me to do. If he had been here, he would have pushed me into the coach himself and slammed the
door on me, ready to face any dangers on his own. Why? Was I not a man as well as he, able to stand up and fight? Did he truly believe in his heart that I would abandon Gordon Hall - and, more to the point, that I would abandon him to the tender mercies of the English? He had said things in his letter which I'd had no leisure to consider - certain phrases - ‘Your image is with me always'-a note of tenderness and regret running through the fevered confessional. I could not interpret it now, I was confused, tired and afraid. My mind jumped back to our last conversation, the imploring look as he was led away like a dog. Duty told him to send me away, to forget me. But something within - behind that trap-door face, that granite exterior - wanted me to do otherwise.

I climbed into the coach beside my mother and we rumbled down the drive, leaving Gordon Hall and all its memories behind us. We rounded the coppice, we passed the stables, drove through the gates and out on to the road, headed north-east to cross the loch at Ballachulish Bridge. My head was spinning.

Delayed at Ballachulish by a queue at the tollgate, we waited motionless for ten minutes. My mother, wrapped in her shawl, was shrinking back into a corner of the carriage. Ethel, exhausted by the day's alarms, had fallen asleep. Finally the traffic ahead of us inched forward, stopped, inched forward again, and we were moving.

Just before the horses stepped on to the bridge, I eased the door open and dropped quietly to the ground. The carriage picked up speed; I heard my mother's cry and caught sight of the white flash of her bonnet as I jumped over the fence and slid, unnoticed by any but her, down the slope to the river bank.

I rested quietly by the water until dusk, watching the rats playing on the bank and hearing the rumble of wheels above my head.
Finally the tollgate was closed and all was silent.