The Gathering Storm (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 3)(35)

       
           



       

Beth ensured that they took bandages and salve with them, and then, after having desultorily packed a few of their clothes, gave up, took her warmest cloak and went for a walk on the pretext of fetching water, but in reality to say goodbye to the landscape she had made her own in the last weeks.

She walked slowly and aimlessly, knowing that by following the stream she could not get lost, and ended up walking further along it than she ever had before. There was a definite chill in the air; Alex was right, snow was imminent. The hawthorn and rowan still sported a few berries, red as blood in the otherwise predominantly brown landscape. A few stubborn leaves clung to the trees, fluttering tenaciously in the breeze, but most of them had fallen now, and Beth kicked her way through them, lifting great clouds of them with her feet, watching in delight as they floated back down, red, brown, copper, bronze and gold. The previous week the children and some of the adults had collected an enormous pile of leaves in the centre of the settlement, clearing the forest for a considerable distance. Then they had thrown themselves into the pile, burying themselves and each other, plaiting them into their hair, seeing who could find the biggest leaf. Beth had, delightedly, found a leaf that exactly matched the colour of her husband's hair, and he had obligingly worn it weaved into his chestnut locks until bedtime.

If we stay here much longer, Beth thought, smiling to herself, we will all become little children again. She tried to keep in mind what Alex had said, that life was not always this carefree. Maybe not, but the irrespressible good humour of the MacGregors was infectious, irresistible. If there was pleasure to be found in something, they would find it. She did not want to leave.

She sighed, and stopped at a point where the stream bubbled merrily over an outcrop of rocks. She contemplated whether it was worth negotiating the boulders, many of which were wet and looked slippery, and decided against it. She had walked far enough. Instead she sat down on one of the drier rocks and stared moodily at the stream for a while, lost in thought. Then she stood and picked her way carefully down to the edge of the water, bending to cup her hands in the icy flow and drink.

A flash of scarlet caught her eye and she froze immediately. It was too bright to be hawthorn or rowan, and in any case the patch of colour was too extensive for berries, and in the wrong place. She turned her head with infinite slowness in the direction of the bright splash, and found herself looking into the frightened brown eyes of what was unmistakably a British soldier, who had wedged himself between two boulders.

She should have run, as fast as possible, praying as she went that his musket wasn't loaded and that he was not fast enough to overtake her. Part of her mind told her to do just that, and she jerked backwards, then stopped. The rest of her mind told her that he had been there all the time she was sitting brooding, and must have known she was there; she had not been quiet. If he had wanted to kill her, he would already have done so. His eyes indicated that he was more terrified of her than she was of him, and the pale strained face around the eyes told her that he was no more than a boy, in spite of the military garb.

Seeing her indecision, he raised his hand in supplication.

"Please," he said, his voice soft and etched with pain. "I won't hurt you. Please, don't tell anyone I'm here."

Beth straightened slowly, moved a few steps closer, then stopped. She was still far enough away to run if he made a move, but from her new vantage point she could see that he was not going to do that. He was slumped against the rock, half sitting, his legs stretched out in front of him, the lower half of the left one canted at an unnatural angle. He had clearly made an effort to take his boot off, and had given up.

She approached him now without fear, and squatted down a few paces away from him.

"It's all right," she said. "You're injured. What happened?"

His eyes widened in amazement.

"You're English!" he said. "Is there a regiment camped nearby?"

He clearly assumed she was a soldier's wife or a camp follower. Yet his voice held no optimism at the thought of being in close proximity to a British regiment, as she would have expected it to.

"No," she said. "Not as far as I know. I am not with the British. This is clan country." That was as much information as she was willing to give. He must already know it was clan country, and could surmise what he wished from her presence in it. She looked at him, made a decision, drew her knife from her pocket slowly, and saw him flinch.

"I'm not going to hurt you," she said. "Your leg is broken, I think. If you will let me take your boot off, I can have a look at it."                       
       
           



       

"I've tried already," he said. "I can't get it off. My leg's too swollen."

"I can cut the boot off if you'll let me," she replied. "But you must stay still so I don't cut you by accident." Even so, it would hurt, although she did not tell him that. He nodded, and she moved closer.

The stench that hit her nose was so sudden and so overpowering that she heaved, screwing up her face in disgust and turning away to try to hide her revulsion.

"I'm sorry," he said, shamed. "I've … "

"It's all right," she interrupted. "It's understandable. I just wasn't expecting … it's not that bad," she lied, breathing through her mouth.

The smell was appalling. She could only think that he must have soiled himself, badly. The smell of faeces was unmistakable, mixed with another odour that she could not identify.

"How long have you been here?" she asked.

"Since yesterday," he said. "I fell off my horse and he ran away, so I crawled in here to get out of the wind."

She quelled her stomach and set to work on his boot.

"Your accent is from the south, isn't it?" she said, hoping to engage him in conversation and take his mind off the pain she could not avoid causing him.

"Yes," he said. "I'm from Dorset."

"How did you come to be here, then?" she asked.

It was the question he must have wanted to ask her, but to her relief, he did not.

"My regiment was sent here two months after I enlisted," he said. "We're on our way to reinforce Fort William in case of a rebel … " his voice trailed off as he realised he'd said more than he should.

The knife, razor sharp, was making easy work of the boot, but she had to go slowly because of the swelling.

"You're very young, if you don't mind me saying," she observed, pretending she hadn't noted the import of what he'd just said. "What made you want to enlist in the army?" Probably the glamour of the uniform and the promise of travel and adventure.

"I didn't really want to," he said to her surprise. "It was a mistake. Oh!"

She had cut the leather down to the sole, and now pulled the boot gently from his leg, which had hurt, and had caused his exclamation. She looked at the injury.

"Mother of God," she said softly under her breath.

"Is it bad?" he asked.

It was definitely, most definitely, broken. The shattered tibia had pierced the skin and was poking through his stocking, which was soaked with blood, the jagged end of the bone clearly visible through the thin material. The whole leg was terribly swollen.

"Yes," she said. There was no point in lying. "I need to take your stocking off to get a better look at it. Do you mind?"

"No," he said bravely. "But won't it make you feel sick, if it's very bad?"

She looked up at him and smiled. She thought nothing could make her feel more sick than the smell emanating from him, but did not say so. It was not his fault. In the state he was in, he could hardly wander off in search of a latrine.

"Yes," she said. "But if I want to help you, and I do, I've got no choice."

She took the time to steel herself by taking his empty water bottle and refilling it from the stream. Then she came back and handed it to him, before setting to work on his leg again.

"Why was it a mistake?" she asked. "Enlisting, I mean."

"I was drunk," he said. "I'd been doing bits of jobs on Johnson's farm for years, you know, casual stuff, helping out with the harvest, a bit of weeding, that sort of thing. Anyway, when I turned fourteen, he said that I was such a good worker he'd take me on permanent, like." He stopped, shuddering with the pain as she eased the stocking from his leg, bravely trying not to cry out.

"Is that what you wanted to do, be a farmer?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, his voice strained. "One day I'd like to have my own place. I was really pleased to have the job, because Mr Johnson was a good master, strict but fair, and I knew I'd learn a lot from him and he'd pay my wages on time. Which was the problem."

"Why?" Beth lifted her skirt slightly, tore a strip off her petticoat, and wetting it, started to carefully clean the worst of the blood away from the wound.

"At the end of six months he paid me, and I took the money to my parents. My dad gave me a shilling back. A whole shilling! So I went to a tavern in Poole to celebrate with some of the other farm boys."