“Whoop, boys, whoop! Shout like the devil and fight like hell!”
The mountainside erupted and a panicked squirrel leapt from a branch above me and hit the ground running, leaving a spray of moist droppings behind it.
Roger did the same—minus the droppings—climbing as fast as he could through the trees on the slope, grabbing branches to help himself along.
I saw William Campbell, a little below where I stood, still mounted on his big black horse. He saw me, too, and shouted, but I didn’t listen and I didn’t stop, but hitched up my skirts and ran. Whatever happened to Jamie in the next little while, I was going to be there.
Roger
“YE’LL HELP NOBODY if ye’re dead, and ye may be useful if ye’re not. Ye may be God’s henchman, but ye’ll follow my orders for now. Stay here until it’s time.”
Jamie had clapped him on the shoulder, grinning, then turned on his heel and shouted to his men that it was time. Jamie had given Roger two decent pistols, in holsters, with a cartridge box and powder horn. And a large, hand-carved wooden cross on a leather thong, which he’d dropped over Roger’s head last thing.
“So nobody will shoot ye,” he’d said. “Not from the front, anyway.”
Claire, tense and worried, had smiled involuntarily, seeing the cross, then handed Roger a sloshing canteen.
“Water,” she said, “with a bit of whisky and honey in. Jamie says there’s no water on the summit.”
The men had been ready; they swarmed out of the trees and bushes at once, bristling with guns. Faces sweaty and gleaming under their hats, teeth showing, eager for the fight. Roger felt that eagerness hum briefly in his own blood, but his part in this fight would be later, among the fallen, and the memory of the battlefield at Savannah chilled his heart, despite the heat of the day.
To his surprise, though, the men were crowding up together before him, taking their hats off, expectant looks on their faces. Jamie appeared suddenly beside him.
“Bless us before the battle, a mhinistear, if ye will,” he said respectfully, and took off his own hat, holding it to his breast.
Jesus. What on earth …
“Dear Lord,” he started, with not the faintest notion what might come next, but a few words showed up, and then a few more. “Protect us, we pray, O Lord, and be with us this day in battle. Grant us mercy in our extremities and grant us the grace to show mercy where we can. Amen. Amen,” he repeated more strongly, and the men murmured, “Amen,” and put their hats back on.
Jamie raised his rifle overhead and shouted, “To Colonel Campbell! At the quick-march!” The militia drew together with a growl of satisfaction and set off at once toward Colonel Campbell, who sat his black gelding on the rough track at the base of the mountain. Jamie looked after them, then turned suddenly and pressed his hand over the cross on Roger’s breast.
“Pray for me,” he said in a low voice, and then was gone.
146
The Curse Is Come upon Me
Claire
THE SHOOTING STARTED before I had made it a hundred feet up the hill, slipping on dead leaves and grabbing branches to save myself falling. Panicked, I whirled round and ran downhill but slipped almost at once, tripped on a rock and tobogganed a few feet on my stomach, arms flung out.
I slammed into a sapling of some sort; it bent and I rolled over it, ending flat on my back. I lay frozen for a moment, gasping for breath, hearing the battle begin in earnest.
Then I turned over, got to my hands and knees, and started crawling up the mountain.
Jamie
IT WAS FAST and it was fierce.
Frank Randall had described it as a “just fight,” and he wasna wrong about that, though maybe he hadn’t been thinking about wringing with sweat and breathing air full of gun smoke.
He gave a sharp whistle, and the few of his men in hearing ran to his side.
“We’ll go up, but go canny,” he said, shouting over the crack of the guns. “The Provincials have bayonets, and they’ll use ’em. If they do, fall away to the side. Come back up somewhere else.”
Nods and they were pushing upward, pausing every few feet to fire and reload, dodge to another tree, and do it again. It wasn’t only gun smoke now, but the smell of battered trees, sap, and burning wood. It wasn’t bayonets yet.
Claire
I’D HAD TO stop, a hundred feet lower than the summit. I stood plastered against a big walnut tree, eyes closed, holding on hard. A ball slammed into the trunk just above my hand and I jerked my arms back in panic. More balls were humming through the trees, shredding leaves, making sharp little pocks! as they struck wood. Occasional brief cries and grunts nearby indicated that flesh was being struck, as well.
I’d dug my fingers so hard into the bark that sharp bits were wedged under my nails, but I was much too scared to worry about it. They’d seen me move; an instant later, shots struck the tree in a fusillade that sent bark and wood chips flying; they stung my face and flew into my eyes. I pressed hard to the tree, eyes shut tight and watering, using all my strength not to run downhill, shrieking. I was shaking everywhere and couldn’t tell if it was sweat or urine running down my legs and didn’t care.
It seemed to go on for a very long time. I could hear my heart, booming in my ears, and clung to the sound. I was scared—very scared—but no longer panicked. My heart was still beating; I hadn’t been shot.
Yet.
The memory of Monmouth shuddered through me. My eyes were burning and filled with the dizziness of spinning leaves and an empty sky and I felt my blood draining out, my knees giving way …
“Whoop! Whoop! One more, one more!” It was Campbell’s voice, behind and below me. And in the next second, screams and bellows and shrieks broke out and men rushed close past me, clanking and thumping and bellowing when they could draw enough breath to do it.
Jesus, where’s Roger?
Jamie
HE RAMMED THE rod home and home again. Paused to gulp air, and touched the lumpy shot pouch on his belt. How many left? Enough …
They were close enough to the meadow now as to be able to see the enemy. He stepped out from the shelter of his tree and fired. Then he heard a faint, sharp whistle. Ferguson, that was him. Randall said the wee man hadn’t enough voice to call above the roar of battle, so he used a whistle to manage his troops. Like callin’ in a pack of sheepdogs, he thought.
A shout came from above, repeated and echoed across the meadow.
“Fix bayonets!”
Claire
THERE WERE SCATTERED shouts from above, distant. Then all of a sudden there was another ragged roar from the besiegers and the forest was moving, men running out from the shelter of their trees, leaping, crawling upward around me, powder horns swinging and rifles in hand. I heard a shrill whistle through the uproar, far above, and then another and another. Ferguson, rallying his troops.
But now I was hearing a fresh outbreak of battle—far above me. A few shots now, and the sort of yelling men do when they’re beyond words. A shrill whistle and the spreading cry of “Bayonets!”