* * *
It was midafternoon before we reached the village of Tranent. Perched on the hills above the seaside, the usually tranquil hamlet was reeling under the impact of the Highland army. The main bulk of the army was visible on the hills beyond, overlooking the small plain that stretched toward the shore. But with the usual disorganized comings and goings, there were as many men in Tranent as out of it, with detachments coming and going in more or less military formation, messengers galloping to and fro—some on ponies, some by shanks’ mare—and the wives, children, and camp followers, who overflowed the cottages and sat outside, leaning on stone walls and nursing babies in the intermittent sun, calling to passing messengers for word of the most recent action.
We halted at the edge of this seethe of activity, and Jamie sent Murtagh to discover the whereabouts of Lord George Murray, the army’s commander in chief, while he made a hasty toilet in one of the cottages.
My own appearance left a good bit to be desired; while not deliberately covered with charcoal, my face undoubtedly sported a few streaks of grime left as tokens of several nights spent sleeping out-of-doors. The goodwife kindly lent me a towel and a comb, and I was seated at her table, doing battle with my ungovernable locks, when the door opened and Lord George himself burst in without ceremony.
His usually impeccable dress was disheveled, with several buttons of his waistcoat undone, his stock slipped loose, and one garter come untied. His wig had been thrust unceremoniously into his pocket, and his own thinning brown curls stood on end, as though he had been tugging at them in frustration.
“Thank God!” he said. “A sane face, at last!” Then he leaned forward, squinting as he peered at Jamie. Most of the charcoal dust had been rinsed from the blazing hair, but gray rivulets ran down his face and dripped on his shirtfront, and his ears, which had been overlooked in the hastiness of his ablutions, were still coal-black.
“What—” began a startled Lord George, but he broke off, shook his head rapidly once or twice as though to dismiss some figment of his imagination, and resumed his conversation as though he had noticed nothing out of the ordinary.
“How does it go, sir?” said Jamie respectfully, also affecting not to notice the ribboned tail of the periwig which hung out of Lord George’s pocket, wagging like the tail of a small dog as His Lordship gestured violently.
“How does it go?” he echoed. “Why, I’ll tell you, sir! It goes to the east, and then it goes to the west, and then half of it comes downhill to have luncheon, while the other half marches off to devil-knows-where! That’s how it goes!”
“ ‘It,’ ” he said, momentarily relieved by his outburst, “being His Highness’s loyal Highland army.” Somewhat calmer, he began to tell us of the events transpiring since the army’s first arrival in Tranent the day before.
Arriving with the army, Lord George had left the bulk of the men in the village and rushed with a small detachment to take possession of the ridge above the plain. Prince Charles, coming along somewhat later, had been displeased with this action and said so—loudly and publicly. His Highness had then taken half the army and marched off westward, the Duke of Perth—nominally the other commander in chief—tamely in tow, presumably to assess the possibilities of attacking through Preston.
With the army divided, and His Lordship occupied in conferring with villagemen who knew the hell of a lot more about the surrounding terrain than did either His Highness or His Lordship, O’Sullivan, one of the Prince’s Irish confidants, had taken it upon himself to order a contingent of Lochiel’s Cameron clansmen to the Tranent churchyard.
“Cope, of course, brought up a pair of galloper guns and bombarded them,” Lord George said grimly. “And I’ve had the devil of a time with Lochiel this afternoon. He was rather understandably upset at having a number of his men wounded for no evident purpose. He asked that they be withdrawn, which request I naturally acceded to. Whereupon here comes His Highness’s frog-spawn, O’Sullivan—pest! Simply because he landed at Eriskay with His Highness, the man thinks he—well, anyway, he comes whining that the presence of the Camerons in the churchyard is essential—essential, mind you!—if we are to attack from the west. Told him in no uncertain terms that we attack from the east, if at all. Which prospect is exceedingly doubtful at the moment, insofar as we do not presently know exactly where half of our men are—nor His Highness, come to that,” he added, in a tone that made it clear that he considered the whereabouts of Prince Charles a matter of academic interest only.
“And the chiefs! Lochiel’s Camerons drew the lot that gives them the honor of fighting on the right hand in the battle—if there is one—but the MacDonalds, having agreed to the arrangement, now energetically deny having done any such thing, and insist that they will not fight at all if they’re denied their traditional privilege of fighting on the right.”
Having started this recitation calmly enough, Lord George had grown heated again in the telling, and at this point sprang to his feet again, rubbing his scalp energetically with both hands.
“The Camerons have been drilled all day. By now, they’ve been marched to and fro so much that they can’t tell their pricks from their arseholes—saving your presence, mum,” he added, with a distracted glance at me, “and Clanranald’s men have been having fistfights with Glengarry’s.” He paused, lower jaw thrust out, face red. “If Glengarry wasn’t who he is, I’d…ah, well.” He dismissed Glengarry with a flip of the hand and resumed his pacing.
“The only saving grace of the matter,” he said, “is that the English have been forced to turn themselves about as well, in response to our movements. They’ve turned Cope’s entire force no less than four times, and now he’s strung his right flank out nearly to the sea, no doubt wondering what in God’s name we’ll do next.” He bent and peered out the window, as though expecting to see General Cope himself advancing down the main road to inquire.
“Er…where exactly is your half of the army at present, sir?” Jamie made a move as though to join His Lordship in his random peregrinations about the cottage, but was restrained by my grip on his collar. Armed with a towel and a bowl of warm water, I had occupied myself during His Lordship’s exegesis with removing the soot from my husband’s ears. They stood out now, glowing pinkly with earnestness.
“On the ridge just south of town.”
“We still hold the high ground, then?”
“Yes, it sounds good, doesn’t it?” His Lordship smiled bleakly. “However, occupation of the high ground profits us relatively little, in consideration of the fact that the ground just below the ridge is riddled with pools and boggy marsh. God’s eyes! There’s a six-foot ditch filled with water that runs a hundred feet along the base of that ridge! There’s scarce five hundred yards between the armies this moment, and it might as well be five hundred miles, for all we can do.” Lord George plunged a hand into his pocket in search of a handkerchief, brought it out, and stood staring blankly at the wig with which he had been about to wipe his face.
I delicately offered him the sooty handkerchief. He closed his eyes, inhaled strongly through both nostrils, then opened them and bowed to me with his usual courtly manner.
“Your servant, mum.” He polished his face thoroughly with the filthy rag, handed it politely back to me, and clapped the tousled wig on his head.
“Damn my liver,” he said distinctly, “if I let that fool lose this engagement for us.” He turned to Jamie with decision.
“How many men have you, Fraser?”
“Thirty, sir.”
“Horses?”
“Six, sir. And four ponies for pack animals.”
“Pack animals? Ah. Carrying provisions for your men?”
“Yes, sir. And sixty sacks of meal abstracted from an English detachment last night. Oh, and one sixteen-inch mortar, sir.”
Jamie imparted this last bit of information with an air of such perfect offhand casualness that I wanted to cram the handkerchief down his throat. Lord George stared at him for a moment, then one corner of his mouth twitched upward in a smile.
“Ah? Well, come with me, Fraser. You can tell me all about it on the way.” He wheeled toward the door, and Jamie, with a wide-eyed glance at me, caught up his hat and followed.
At the cottage door, Lord George stopped suddenly, and turned back. He glanced up at Jamie’s towering form, shirt collar undone and coat flung hastily over one arm.
“I may be in a hurry, Fraser, but we have still sufficient time to observe the civilities. Go and kiss your wife goodbye, man. Meet me outside.”
Turning on his heel, he made a leg to me, bowing deeply, so that the tail of his wig flopped forward.
“Your servant, mum.”