James Stuart McGowan pictured himself astride a white horse, wearing the red and black Gow tartan, sword at his side. Too cool, he thought.
“April 16, 1746… and the Highland army under his right bloody Charlie is waiting to meet the English at Culloden Field. McGowan. He wasn’t a clan chief. Nobody very important. Say he was a subtenant. So part of the rent for his little piece of land was that he had to go and fight when he was told to, or else have his house burned over his head and his one cow killed. He might have been quite young-say fourteen.”
“Did he have a horse?” asked Jimmy.
Lachlan laughed. “He did not. And nae food, either. They left the food back in Inverness by mistake. And brought the wrong size ammunition for the cannon, as well.”
“What about a sword?”
“Oh, aye, a bloody great claymore ye canna lift. And waiting for you across the field is a well-fed English army led by the Duke of Cumberland-Stinking Billy, he was-and they’ve got loaded muskets, bayonets, and cannons with grapeshot.”
Jimmy shivered. “Swords against muskets and bayonets?”
“Aye. So there you are, McGowan of the prince’s army. You’re cold and ragged; you have nae eaten for three days n’er slept for twa, and you did nae want to come and fight in the first place, but the laird said you had to. And you’re holding a sword ye canna lift while looking down the barrel of a bloody musket, or at an army of grinning faces who’ll bayonet you on the field if you don’t die during the battle. Aye. Sounds a treat, doesn’t it, Jimmy? And McGowan of Clan Gow is thinking tae himself: ‘If I can stay alive long enough to get off this sodding field, I’ll get me out of Scotland and ship out to whatever godforsaken colony will have me, and please God that I never see that stinking tartan of my landlord’s ever again.’ ”
“What a stupid war,” grumbled Jimmy.
“Well, don’t go blaming McGowan for it. Sometimes I think of the likes of him, though, in some celestial distillery looking down on his descendants parading around in that great bloody tartan that got him killed, and I think how fash’t he’d be with you.”
“Then why do people make such a big deal out of it?” asked Jimmy.
“Because people like to think that glory and honor existed in the world somewhere, sometime, and that it has aught to do with them.” He sighed. “I don’t suppose they do any harm, though.”
Jimmy didn’t answer. He was listening to the wail of a bagpipe somewhere in the distance, and trying to imagine how it would feel to walk into the crossfire of an army.
“I always cry at this one,” said Elizabeth, dabbing her eyes. “ ‘The Bluebells of Scotland.’ When they say, ‘O where and o where is your Highland laddie gone?’ I always think he must have been killed in the war.”
“War?”
“Oh, yes. In Charlie’s year, when the Highland clans fought the English. For Bonnie Prince Charlie.”
“Is he popular over here? I saw Princess Diana in a parade once.”
“You don’t mean you’ve never heard of Charles Edward Stuart?” said Elizabeth menacingly.
“Oh, him. Of course I have. I think I had to do a report on him once.”
“Isn’t it sad that the Rising failed?” sighed Elizabeth. “If only they hadn’t had such bad luck-”
“Yes, but then we’d be out of the United Kingdom,” said Cameron reasonably. “And that would simply kill the economy. It would set us back forty years industrially.”
Elizabeth shook her head. She couldn’t see what economics could have to do with such a just and noble cause as the Stuarts’ right to the throne. Men had such odd ways of looking at things. But, she thought, snuggling closer to Cameron, it didn’t seem worth fighting about this late in the day.
As a student of theatre, Geoffrey thought that the Hill-Sing had the most dramatic potential of anything that had happened thus far. He wondered if he could incorporate something similar into the second act of Brigadoon. He was just trying to decide what kind of lighting it would take to get the shadows right, when a single voice began a new song.
“Flower of Scotland, when will we see your like again…”
Geoffrey noticed that several people about the field were struggling to their feet and standing at attention. Must be another of their rituals, he thought. Might as well go along with it. Geoffrey stood respectfully, straining to catch the words. Something about “proud Edward’s army.” History, he supposed.
By the time the singers had reached the last verse, most of the people at the Hill-Sing were standing, out of some obscure instinct to follow the leader.
“Those days are passed now, And in the past they must remain…” “They’re dead right about that,” muttered Lachlan Forsyth in another part of the field.
Near the bonfire, Jerry Buchanan wiped a tear from under his glasses and sang on lustily. So many people standing-the Cause was growing.
The last notes of the Corries’ song were still hanging in the air when a stocky man in a kilt eased in beside Geoffrey and said in a solemn undertone: “Stands Scotland where it did?”
Hello! thought Geoffrey. Another theatre person. Act four, scene three. In his best Shakespearean tones, Geoffrey rounded on the man and proclaimed: “Alas, poor country! Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot be called our mother but our grave…” Then, dropping his pose, he said cheerfully, “There! We’ve quoted from the Scottish tragedy and we’re both damned. Quick-turn round three times and swear!”
The man shook his head. “You must outrank me, friend,” he drawled. “I just know the ordinary password. Anyhow, I’d like to invite you to a little get-together some of us are having.”
“A party?” asked Geoffrey hopefully.
“Yep. You don’t even have to bring your own bottle, seeing as how you’re one of the big-shots. Follow me, sir.”
The mention of bottles combined with Geoffrey’s natural curiosity to make him follow the man without further discussion. This is interesting, he thought. He managed to resist the temptation to say, “Lay on, Macduff.” His new acquaintance led him to a large motor home in the camping area. Inside, half a dozen men in different plaids were seated at a plastic table examining a map of Scotland.
“The boss will be here soon,” said a man in a green kilt and a cowboy hat. “He had a kid with him, and he’s waiting for the parents to come back.”
“I found another one of the higher-ups,” said the stocky man, pointing to Geoffrey. “He’s an American, too. Don’t it beat all? I ran across a real Scotsman at the clan tents today, and he didn’t know jackshit about any of this.”
“No, you mustn’t mention this to him,” said Geoffrey quickly. “He’s M15-British secret service.” He was most gratified by his audience’s startled gasps. This is like improvisational drama, Geoffrey thought cheerfully. I wonder what I’ll say next.
“Should we get him out of the way?” asked one of the men in carefully neutral tones.
Whoops-dangerous ad-libbing, thought Geoffrey. I don’t want to get Cameron mugged by this bunch of… whatever they are. “Absolutely not,” he said solemnly. “That would attract too much attention. It’s best to ignore him. Do you suppose I could have a drink?”
“Well… we usually wait for the boss, but seeing as how you’re obviously somebody important…” He indicated Geoffrey’s Royal Stewart necktie.
One of the men got out plastic cups and a bottle of Drambuie, while another set a small bowl of water in the center of the table. When the cups had been filled, the men held them above the water bowl. A little nervously, Geoffrey followed suit.
“To the king over the water!” they intoned.
Geoffrey, who had spent the last few moments contemplating his necktie and reading the back of the Drambuie bottle, had begun to make sense of things. Charles Stuart again, he thought, noting that the Bonnie Prince was credited with the original recipe of the liqueur. A man of many talents, Geoffrey decided: bootlegger, female impersonator-it seemed churlish to quibble about his generalship. Besides, he had been dead for nearly two centuries; but not, apparently, resting in peace. Surely these clowns couldn’t be contemplating the overthrow of the British government.