Son of a Jacobite

By T. J. Lovat

April, 1746. Born on the final day of the Jacobite Rebellion at Culloden, Thomas Lovat enters the world on the same day his father departs, killed in action. The devastation of Culloden and the Highland Clearances will have a profound effect on the rest of Thomas’s life.
Conscious of his heritage and its associated anger, Thomas is confronted with a confused identity and heritage as he grows into a young man. Travelling to the Middle East, he meets and marries his first love. Together they bear a child. He comes to see the beauty and troubles of Islam and so reflects on his own religious beliefs and values.
Returning to England, Thomas joins the British Army and travels to the Americas in the prelude to the War of Independence. As the American Revolution plays out, the tension between Thomas’s rebellious Jacobite heritage and his duties as a British officer come dramatically to the fore.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Oct 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781838596996

T. J. Lovat

T.J. Lovat is a retired Australian academic. His scholarly interests have been mainly in education and religion, principally Islam. He has travelled widely across all continents. His two novels, Son of a Jacobite (Matador 2019) and this one, capture his distant heritage between Scotland and Australia, and also his interest in Islam. 

Book preview

Contents

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Epilogue

Scottish English Glossary

Scottish Gaelic Glossary

T. J. Lovat is an Australian of Scottish descent. His author page can be found at tjlovat.com.au

1

Emma stood on the porch of her Tarradale home peering towards Culloden. There was nothing to see for the mist and drizzle, nothing to hear because the battle had not begun.

She remained there longer than she should have in her condition. The fine spray was moistening her pale, freckled complexion. It went unnoticed until the small droplets falling from her abundant eyelashes began to blur her vision.

By the time she retreated inside, she was drenched and the fire in the hearth was dying.

She felt more uneasy than ever before.

‘May he be safe; let them all come home safely,’ she muttered in prayer, glancing at the small crucifix that adorned the dresser. ‘And buadhach – victorious.’

*

Emma had tried to busy herself through the morning in the hope that Edward would be home by late afternoon or nightfall at the latest. She had felt so good these last two days, able to be the wife she had rarely been for her Jacobite hero husband. The birth of their first child was only weeks, maybe days away.

Theirs had been an ecstatic but difficult marriage. There had never been anyone else for either of them. Any time they had spent together was idyllic in an almost fantasy-like way. And that is just how it had been these past two days.

‘I just adore being with ye, Edward Lovat,’ she said when he had apologised for not taking her out for a ride or a walk. ‘I nay care where we are or what we’re doing. As long as I’m with ye.’

‘What did I ever do to deserve ye, my darling?’

She knew there was no need to answer that.

For all its idyllic nature, their relationship was encased in the rebellion from its beginnings. Endless talk and preparations had prevented them from spending the time together they would have wanted, the intrusion only increasing as the years rolled on.

When they were children, it was mainly in the form of games, single-minded play with one storyline, defeating the English. As adults, it steadily became more serious, and the seriousness was peaking today with the pending do-or-die battle just a few miles away.

Emma had taken more time than normal with her hair that day, golden auburn in the best Highland tradition. She wanted to look her best for Edward’s return. He loved her hair, even when she did not take particularly good care of it, as had often been the case lately. He had played with it more than ever in these last two days, slipping in and out of a particularly pensive mood and occasionally, almost absent-mindedly whispering.

‘I just love yer hair.’

It always lifted her spirits when he said this because, years before, it was an unexpected compliment about her hair that made her realise the admiration was mutual.

His unusual pensiveness had alarmed her slightly. Edward was always so confident, so in control but something had been worrying him about this battle, a topic neither of them entered upon lest it spoil the bliss of those rare days together.

‘Gu cinnteach the English will ken brawer than to take on such a force as these feargach Highlanders,’ she thought as she tried to console herself. ‘The English are just doing it for the pitiful wage they collect. A bought army can be nay match for a Scottish force fighting for aur.’

This is the way things had gone so far in this treacherous revolt, as the English called it, and how good can this Cumberland be that he could turn it all around today?

Emma held this hope in her heart throughout the morning as the weather deteriorated to the point that surely no battle could be waged anyway.

*

Ever since Lord Lovat’s regiment had formed at Glenfinnan in the previous August of 1745, it had enjoyed remarkable success. Edward was second in charge with a rank of Lieutenant Colonel, under the leadership of his second cousin, Simon, Lord Lovat’s eldest son. They were cousins through Margaret MacLeod, wife of the 9th Lord Lovat and a grandmother to them both.

Edward and Simon were inseparable. Even as small boys, they had regularly spent long days together, having run or ridden the short distance between Tarradale and Beauly, where Simon lived at Castle Dounie. Castle Dounie was the ancestral home of the Frasers of Lovat, the grandest castle in the Highlands that dated from the early 1400s. It was noted for its blackstone, four-storeyed twin towers that dominated the landscape of the Lovat Estates on which the two villages of Tarradale and Beauly were situated.

Edward was a year or so older than Simon, a little taller, darker in complexion and quite a bit bolder. Too bold for the likes of some in the area who thought him overly rebellious. Even Lord Lovat, himself sporting the dishonourable title of Old Fox for his cunning, had warned Simon about spending too much time with his cousin.

‘He’s trioblaid, lad. And he’ll get ye into trouble.’

Simon took it with a grain of salt because everyone knew that the Old Fox and Edward’s father had fallen out in 1719 over an earlier rebellion. The Old Fox had sided with the English, an unforgiveable act for Edward’s father who thereafter threw off the Fraser surname and named himself Thomas Lovat.

While a first cousin to the Old Fox, Thomas was far from being a Lord or living in a Castle. He was a hard-working farmer, a self-made man and a fiercely independent Highlander who would never have taken up with the English. As a result, there had been some feeling between these two cousins that lasted a quarter of a century until Lord Lovat finally nailed his colours to the Jacobite mast.

Edward was not really the troublesome boy the Old Fox deemed him to be. All the same, he certainly had not had the same cushioned upbringing as his cousins. This was part of the attraction for Simon. Edward had learned to survive the roughness of Highland life. He was naturally suspicious of nobility of any kind, other than Simon. Most especially, he had inherited his father’s despising of the English.

Hence, Edward normally devised and led the many campaigns he and Simon waged in their playtime wars against the English. The open fields and hills between their two villages, in the shadow of the noble old hill known as Ben Wyvis, offered endless opportunities for surprising the imaginary English forces, and inevitably overcoming them.

More-often-than-not, the enemy forces were pretend ones. On occasion, other friends would join in the games. When that happened, they were quickly relegated to the ranks of the soon-to-be vanquished English. Overall, Edward and Simon preferred the pretend option because it created less fuss and protest about ‘isn’t it our turn to be the victorious Highlanders?’ For them, the very idea of slipping into the persona of the English for the sake of a turn was as unthinkable as it got.

Theirs was an endless and tireless game of victory so when the real war began, they expected no different. They were battle-hardened beyond their years and actual experience.

*

One of the not-so-annoying companions to their war games was Emma Simpson, three years’ Edward’s junior.

Edward was about fifteen when he had his first experience of finding a girl something other than annoying. While she tended to fit in with the other players, unlike them, Emma never complained about being a perennially conquered English soldier. This was the case especially if Edward was doing the conquering. He noticed how compliant she was to his every command, how she looked at him with those adoring, jade green eyes, and how she looked through him to see even the vulnerable bits with which he was yet to find comfort himself.

‘She ken that I’m brawer than I ken myself,’ his inner self told him.

Edward surprised himself that he felt for the first time comforted rather than threatened that someone was seeing him in this way. He was used to hiding behind the moniker of being a bit of a ruffian, but here was this barely pubescent girl seeing him in a different light. He began to take just a little more care about his looks, especially if he knew Emma would be there on the day. He was a handsome boy but typical of his age and gender, cleanliness was not his forte.

‘Make sure ye wash and do yer hair, lad,’ his mother would say.

Like most mothers of teenage sons, she wanted to move him past the feral state, but all was in vain. Even when successful, the effort was a waste by the time he was over the first hill.

This all changed around the time Edward became interested in Emma and she noticed it. His jet-black hair had a shine about it now and the way his fringe fell over one eye, partly obstructing his vision, seemed less accidental than before.

At the same time, Edward began to take in her features, being careful not to make it too obvious. It was the eyes that he found so haunting but the hair that had first drawn him in.

‘Like yer hair’ was the first slightly intimate thing he flung at her as he raced off one day to prepare a trap for the English blighters.

It was Emma’s best day ever.

2

When he was sixteen, Edward moved to a military college in Inverness. It served as a finishing school for those who could afford it but also provided some basic military training. It was ostensibly a British college, in the spirit of the Union of 1707 between the English and the Scots.

This so-called union had been negotiated between the English and the Lowland Scots without even bothering to ask the Highlanders what they thought. That was a mistake if ever there was one. The British Army oversaw the college, but the military trainers were mainly Scots, the majority Highlanders. That was another mistake. While overt loyalty was to the Hanover Crown in London, not so far beneath the surface the rebellion was fuelling.

Edward learned much about military strategy there but also had his grounded beliefs in Scottish independence reaffirmed. There was an abiding sense that he knew exactly how his newly honed military skills would apply down the track.

Even though Inverness was only about ten miles from Tarradale, Edward only came home on rare occasions, especially in the first year. He preferred spending downtime with his new friends, often plotting and planning the rebellion. When he did come home, he would re-connect with Simon but then spend most of his time with Emma, his first and only love. This increased steadily as his commitment to her grew.

By the time he came home for good, he was eighteen and Emma a striking fifteen-year-old, the belle of Tarradale who had eyes only for Edward.

*

They began courting when she turned sixteen, the delay being at the insistence of the Simpsons, especially James the father who detested the Lovats, seeing them all tarred with the same brush of nobility. As a crofter on Lovat land, he had a history of tensions and disagreements, most directly with Thomas, his immediate landlord.

Emma was happy enough to abide the compromise of waiting for her sixteenth birthday. It was a benevolent result compared with the first response when James heard that his precious daughter and a dreaded Lovat were seeing each other.

‘I nay want ye spending any more time with that Lovat rogue, lassie. They’re dona stock, the lot of ‘em, the Da especially.’

For his part, Thomas was not especially impressed at the match of his son with a Simpson, but this son was now a soldier readying for the noble battle that was to come. As such, he was beyond guidance in matters of the heart. The two mothers, Hannah Simpson and Margaret Lovat, were quietly happy with the arrangement. They offered their progeny support and discreet advice, including about how to handle their respective fathers.

Things moved quickly once courtship began, as it does when lovers’ stars align. Edward and Emma were engaged nine months after their intentions were made public. They were married within the year, in late 1744. He was nineteen, she still sixteen.

The marriage was conducted in the small Catholic chapel in Beauly. St Mary’s stood in the shadow of the ruins of the Valliscaulian Priory, once a thriving monastery for French monks dating back to the 1200s.

The lavish affair was hosted by the Lovat Estates. Simon, heir to the Lordship, was best man. His entire family was there, as were several other Highland nobles. Most of those living on the Estates were invited, at least to the ceremony. The chapel could only hold a small portion of the crowd, so the rest spilled out into the Priory grounds and its surrounding graveyard. Fortunately, it was a mild winter that year.

Emma looked resplendent. She had insisted on wearing the simple wedding dress passed down by her mother who had also woven her handiwork onto its edgings. Simon’s sisters provided French lace as an additional adornment for the old veil.

As for the hair, the custom at the time was to have it pulled back tightly and covered almost entirely by the veil. Emma was insistent that this tradition be broken and as much of the hair as possible be on show. She knew Edward would want that and what he wanted was more important than what her mother or anyone else might think about it.

Edward did want it, even if he had not realised it until he saw her walking down the aisle on the arm of her father. Emma’s hair looked to him like ribbons of gold hanging daintily from the veil and flowing onto her snowy white dress. He could not believe his luck at that moment that she was his and his alone.

‘Love yer hair,’ he whispered as James Simpson handed over his daughter with a semi-appeasing acknowledgement.

‘It’s for ye,’ she whispered, blushing.

They were so happy. Life could only be good from there.

The wedding party ate and drank into the night, the feast provided largely by Simon’s family. They had turned the resources of the Castle over to the event. Several fowls had been sacrificed for the occasion and most of the produce came from somewhere on the Estates. There was no shortage of wine, most of it imported from France.

Both sets of parents were unaccustomed to the lavishness. They would have happily settled for something far simpler. Nonetheless, they entered-into the spirit of things and James Simpson and Thomas Lovat took the opportunity to settle any lingering differences between them.

For their part, Edward and Emma could not have asked for more. They were delighted with the occasion and deliriously happy with each other.

At the end of the evening, they took a carriage to Eskadale, a few miles down the river. One of the cottages there had been vacated and set up for them for the short holiday that would mark their first days as a married couple. There they sealed the troth they had pledged on more than one occasion.

‘At last,’ Edward said as they slipped into the bed prepared for them.

Emma responded with a shy smile.

3

By the early weeks of 1745, the seeds of rebellion among the Highlanders, having sowed for years, were beginning to produce a rich crop. The newlyweds were by this stage set up in their own home in Tarradale, just a few hundred yards from Edward’s family home and not much further from Emma’s. Edward’s father had agreed on the place, as had Lord Lovat in his absence.

The Old Fox was already in the sights of the English for his now-known collaboration with the Stuarts and the French King and so would be arrested if he made an appearance anywhere near Inverness.

This all added to the intrigue and excitement the Highlanders felt for the impending rebellion, an excitement indulged in no better than by Simon and Edward, the two warriors of endless war games that had always had only one ending, the defeat of the English.

Hence, the first few months of Edward and Emma’s marriage were times of excitement in more ways than one. While the two lovers indulged in each other as much as possible, their love seemingly one of those magical gifts of which they would never tire, there were also multiple interruptions as Edward would slip out at night for long meetings with Simon and others as they prepared for the battle that they all knew was coming. Partly resulting from his absences, but with two false starts in between, Emma’s first successful pregnancy did not begin until July of 1745.

*

Though Edward was away more often than he was home during the first year of their marriage, nonetheless everyone, including Emma, understood what he was doing and the importance of it. Such was the commitment to what they saw as a God-given cause to overthrow English rule.

Since the marriage, James Simpson had done a complete turnaround. He was now immensely proud that his new son-in-law was destined to be such an important commander in the battle that was to come. A month after the Battle of Glenfinnan, two of his boys were under Edward’s direct command at the Battle of Prestonpans, near Edinburgh. It was there that Edward’s reputation as a fearless warrior commander was sealed. They all regarded him as the mastermind of the routing of the English in that battle, as well as having killed three enemy soldiers single-handedly on the day.

In January of 1746, he led the regiment to another victory at the Battle of Falkirk outside Stirling.

At every turn and skirmish since then, from Edinburgh through Carlisle, Preston, Manchester and then Derby, little more than 100 miles north of London, the regiment advanced the cause of the revolt that would go down in history as the Jacobite Rebellion. Its goal was to re-install the Catholic Stuarts, of proud Scottish lineage, to the throne in the form of Charles Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie), son of the last Stuart King, James II. King James had been deposed in 1688, with his Protestant daughter, Mary installed as Queen. In turn, the Stuarts had lost the throne entirely in 1714, replaced by the Hanovers, another Protestant dynasty.

The Jacobites were all about setting right these wrongs and, by December of 1745, having overcome the forces at Derby, they were close to London and achieving their goal.

It should have been easy from there.

The English, however, responded by calling on one of their old warriors, the Duke of Cumberland, who began marching north with his army. The Jacobites retreated but today, 16th April 1746, they would make a stand at Culloden, just outside Inverness.

The force they had gathered was far larger and more experienced than anything the English had faced. They also had the advantage of being on their own land with plenty of support all around.

They had reason for feeling confident.

*

Emma’s fragile calm was shattered by the sound of cannon-fire late in the morning. Interspersed were muffled sounds of rifle-fire and the odd squeal and roar breaking through the constant din of howling wind. It was impossible to see anything but every now and again the unmistakeable odour of gunpowder was in the air. Emma now felt more apprehensive than she had experienced before – ever. There was an emptiness inside as though someone had left the house never to return.

Under the strain of it, she collapsed and lay motionless on the floor, conscious but not able to move.

It must have been close to an hour later that her mother, Hannah, arrived at the house and found Emma in an almost catatonic state. The loaf of bread she had been slicing lay beside her, the knife still impaled in it. The pot on the stove had boiled dry. Hannah was beside herself. As if having the worry of a husband and two sons at war today is not enough.

‘What is it darling?’ she pleaded, sobbing as she rushed over and knelt next to her. ‘Emma, Emma, can ye hear me, darlin’?’

‘He’s marbh. Is he nay marbh?’ Emma moaned, lifting her head. ‘I ken he’s marbh.’

She fell back, hitting the back of her head on the floor.

‘Careful darling,’ Hannah said. ‘We nay ken whether he’s dead or nay. We nay ken anything.’

*

Regardless of what had or had not happened on the Culloden field, there was another battle going on in the house. Having dragged Emma onto a bed and ensured her comfort, Hannah ran to get help. Things were not going well with Emma’s pregnancy, and perhaps with Emma herself.

‘I could lose it all today,’ she thought to herself as she rushed down the sodden track.

There were no doctors around, even for the families of Scottish nobles, on a day like this. Hannah went first to the home of Edward’s mother, Margaret, and then solicited the help of a couple of women with known birthing experience. She raced back and set about preparing for whatever might transpire.

During the afternoon, pieces of news began to filter through from the field of battle. None of it was good. Around mid-afternoon, Hannah heard that her husband, James, and their two sons were dead.

‘I’m gle dhuilich, my dear,’ the woman said at the door. ‘Is nay there anythin’ I can do?’

‘Aye, if ye ken anything at all about birthing, ye’d be very welcome to join us.’

In normal circumstances, Hannah might have collapsed, but she knew that Emma needed her undivided attention at this time. Grieving could come later.

Margaret moved to console her.

‘Thank ye,’ Hannah said without emotion.

Soon after, news came that Thomas, Edward’s father, had been killed.

‘Oh Laird; oh, my Laird. What’ll become of us?’ Margaret screamed.

Most of the women helpers received similar news about their menfolk, either killed or wounded. It was as though nobody would be spared grief that day.

*

The stream of tragic news was kept from Emma, or so they thought. She was delirious at times while at other times entranced. Throughout, it was clear she was in some form of labour, but the normal signs were missing. Something was not right. Whether she would give birth to a live baby or stillborn, or survive the ordeal herself, was on everyone’s mind. There seemed to be no signs of life inside her and little from Emma herself beyond the odd bout of delirium.

‘It’s as though her soul’s gone to some other place,’ Margaret said.

‘Aye,’ Hannah replied. ‘And I nay ken it’ll come back.’

Without warning, Emma came to life. She bore down with a guttural, soulful keen. In what seemed like seconds, those around her beheld a healthy baby boy. Thomas Edward Fraser Lovat had entered the world, wailing in what could have passed for an ancient Pictish war cry.

Hannah picked up the baby while one of the women cut the umbilical cord. Attempts to abate the wailing were futile until he was placed at Emma’s side. She held the boy, and he went to sleep

Early that evening, word came through that Simon was wounded and Edward was missing in battle. Whether Emma heard the news being passed discreetly at the door or just knew in the way of her Pictish ancestors, there could be no certainty. When they told her that Edward was missing, she responded calmly.

‘Aye, I ken. He’s marbh.’

When all the news was in, the women reflected that Emma’s coming to life and the moment of birth would have coincided with the time of Edward’s fate. If he was indeed dead, then not only was his son born on the same day as his death but at the same instant as well.

This is the way Emma seemed to understand the events of the day. It was as though the baby was dead inside her until his father breathed his own life into him.

These understandings were deeply embedded in the Indigenous spirituality of the Highlands, an underlying mystical ripple that infuriated the rationality of the English.

4

The women sat in the wagon, stunned, sobbing, wondering where to begin their gruesome task.

‘Oh, my Laird, nay. Nay!’

The first glimpse of the devastating scene was preceded by the stench that hit them as they neared the top of the rise overseeing the field of battle. Even the smell had not prepared them for the assault on their eyes as they peered over the field. Some of them had never even seen a corpse in the best of circumstances, much less hundreds whose lives had been ripped from them so mercilessly.

Little did they know that the light fog and lingering smoke of gunpowder was shielding them from the spectre at its grisliest.

Hell could be no worse.

Emma’s mother and the others had tried to dissuade her from coming but she insisted.

‘And my bairn’s coming as well.’

Steeled to the task, the baby suckling at her breast, Emma surveyed the scene in the vain hope that Edward might appear as he had so often surprised her in the past, sometimes when she was least expecting it.

Despite the resignation that came with the scene, it was still hard to accept that someone so large in life, especially in her life, could simply not be there anymore. She had even found time to do her hair that morning, vainly hopeful that this and the sight of their child might bring even a deceased Edward back to life.

‘I need to do my hair’, she had shouted as the others were mounting the wagon. ‘He can nay see me like this.’

Nothing could have prepared them. The fifty or so dead English and wounded had been evacuated, along with any Scottish weapons, rifles, swords, pitchforks, or knives. This left a thousand dead Scots on the field, many of them mangled beyond recognition. About half that number again were writhing in agony from their wounds, many of them in the throes of death.

The English in their hateful red coats ringed the field, rifles, and bayonets to the ready. No care was being offered, not even from the army surgeons.

There were just three doctors and a dozen or so nurses and volunteers, all Highlanders themselves, checking for signs of life and tending to the wounded. A couple of elderly priests and pastors were offering the last rites and whatever consolation they could. Most of the more erstwhile able-bodied priests and pastors, and several Highland doctors, were among the dead and wounded.

There was nobody to assist other than those in equal confusion and grief. The English soldiers encircling the scene were there merely to ensure there were no vestiges of rebellion. They had orders to shoot and ask questions later should there be the slightest suspicion of a rifle or knife appearing from underneath a body. They were, by order, stony-faced and dismissive of any appeals for help.

Emma was the first to pull herself together, jumping down from the wagon, babe still in arms, and beginning the short journey to the execrable scene. The others quickly followed. Emma made a feeble attempt to solicit help from a soldier who looked surprisingly innocent.

‘Could ye help me, sir? I’m looking for my husband; I’ve a newborn and would love him to see the bairn.’

The pale, frightened looking teenager simply pushed her away.

Unaided, they began the gruesome task of picking their way through the bloody mess, searching for a familiar face. When the face was not an option owing to its damage, they searched for anything that might offer a clue about identity, perhaps a hat, a glove, a coat, or shoes. As they mingled with others, they came across some neighbours from the Lovat Estates. They were able to point out roughly the area where Lord Lovat’s regiment had fought and, for the most part, been slaughtered. They moved to it.

Finally, they could pick out some signs of familiarity, this moment quickly turning to a new round of wailing as their worst fears were realised.

‘Oh, Laird, nay,’ Hannah screamed, rushing towards a mangled mess that shed some hint of familiarity.

It was one of her sons, Emma’s nineteen-year-old brother. His throat had been cut, almost severing his head, the startled and anguished look that accompanied the event frozen on what was left of his face.

‘I nay ken it is him,’ Hannah sobbed, the last shred of hope evident in her voice. ‘I ken it’s his coat, but he might’ve loaned it to someone. He’s a fialaidh lad, ye ken.’

She rolled up his right trouser leg to see if the familiar scar was there. He had suffered the wound as a small boy when he stumbled on the ploughshare.

‘I can nay see it,’ she sobbed, rubbing the mud away. ‘I nay ken it’s him.’

The others saw the scar before Hannah did. They watched as she stopped rubbing, staring at the wound.

‘Oh, nay,’ she screamed. ‘Laird, nay.’

There were no more caverns in Hannah’s head where the awful truth could hide. Her beautiful teenage boy had his life snuffed out at Culloden. Emma stepped forward, babe in one arm, resting her hand on her mother’s shoulder.

‘Oh, Ma. Oh, Ma.’

Time for consoling was brief. There were too many other hopes waiting to be snuffed out that day.

The rest of it was easier somehow, for Hannah at least. The sting of death had been blunted; the hope of a miracle evaporated. It was now just a matter of finding the others and getting them out of this hellish place.

It did not take long because their loved ones had all fairly-much fallen together, James Simpson and his other son, as well as Thomas Lovat, Edward’s father. The short distance between them merely signalled how far they had managed to advance before being cut down by cannon, rifle, or sword.

It seemed that Emma’s nineteen-year-old brother had advanced the furthest, sufficient to be the only one to engage in hand to hand, or hand to throat, combat. The others had all been cut down before reaching that point.

The other brother, a mere thirty feet behind his sibling, had been blown apart by an exploding cannon ball. There was little left of him but somehow his face was intact, the explosion behind hurling him forward, leaving body parts in its wake. His face had landed in a muddy patch of ground and Hannah, now hardened to the task, was able to lift and turn it to confirm her worst fears. Unlike his brother’s, this face was eerily serene, as though the mud had provided some momentary relief from the pain of feeling one’s body being ripped to shreds.

Between the two brothers, lay James and Thomas, both shot and seemingly dying instantly, one in the throat and the other from a bullseye through the heart. They had fallen where they had run, a mere three feet apart, probably from the same volley of shots.

So, Hannah grieved over her husband and two sons, Margaret over her husband and son yet to be found, and Emma over her father and brothers. Still, her Edward was nowhere to be found.

*

Using blankets and quilts they had brought from home, together with a small barrow, they were able to retrieve the bodies and pile them into the wagon. Simon’s nine-year-old half-brother, Archibald, was assigned the grisly task of driving the wagon, filled with the bodies, home to the Lovat Estates. Archibald had gladly accepted the advice that he should stay in the wagon rather than come down to the field. The shock was beyond anything that tears could appease so he simply sat stunned and frightened throughout.

The tears came when he saw the mangled bodies of the Simpson boys who were childhood heroes to him.

Margaret accompanied and consoled him on the trip home.

Meanwhile, the others, including Emma, one-day old baby still wrapped up in her arms, stayed around the field of battle, looking for Edward and Simon. Simon’s family being there offered some consolation for the grieving widows and mothers, especially those from the Fraser of Lovat Clan.

Though still short of thirty years of age, Georgina, the Old Fox’s eldest daughter and Simon’s older sister, was a matriarchal figure. She was a tall, dark, and especially handsome woman. Her own mother had died when she was only twelve and her stepmother, not that much older than her, had separated from the Old Fox some years before. With her father in exile in recent years, Georgina was the virtual Lady Lovat, matriarch of the Clan. She played the role with grace, dignity, and largesse. Her presence was therefore important to the others. She and her sisters spent time moving among Clan members and other Highlanders, offering practical help or, when none could be provided, their condolences.

Condolences were in no short supply that day.

*

Emma was visibly weakening as the day wore on. The hair she had spent more time on than warranted was dirt-ridden and bedraggled. Her normally bright jade eyes were hidden by black circles and her dress was bloodied. Still, she clung to the babe she had occasionally stopped to feed, wherever she could find a place to sit or lean.

‘There, there, wee one,’ she would whisper as Thomas suckled. ‘We’ll find yer Da; he’ll be air bhioran to see ye.’

Hannah supported her daughter as best she could.

‘I’m cinnteach he’s alive. I ken we’d have found him if he nay were.’

The lack of assistance from the soldiers was not helping. Emma risked all by confronting one of them again.

‘Could ye please assist me, sir? I’m looking for my husband. He was with Lord Lovat’s regiment over there, but we can nay find him.’

The young soldier looked frightened. He said nothing but began poking his rifle at the mother and child. Hannah rushed across and stood in his way.

‘Please, sir. My daughter means ye nay harm.’

Georgina was close by and saw the scene playing out. She hastened to their side.

‘Sir, I am Laird Lovat’s daughter. He is the Macshimi of all these lands. I demand to speak to yer commanding officer.’

It was a risky strategy, but it worked. The soldier went to speak with a corporal who, in turn, agreed to escort them to meet the colonel in charge.

They walked some 400 yards across the soggy, muddy, and bloodied field. Hannah and Georgina’s sisters took it in turns to hold the baby. They arrived within a few yards of a large white tent.

‘Wait here,’ the young corporal commanded them.

They watched as he approached a soldier standing guard in front of the tent. The guard stepped inside the tent before exiting and speaking with the corporal.

‘The colonel will see you in a moment,’ the corporal said. ‘Just wait here.’

After a few minutes, an officer emerged from the tent. He made no attempt to hide the small flask in his hand. He began to approach the women, stumbling on the rough ground.

Arthur McWilliam had seen better days. He was only in his mid-forties but held himself like a much older man. His uniform was hanging off him without pride, his stubble looked days old, his greying hair mussed, and he reeked of a mixture of gunpowder, sweat and whisky. Nonetheless, Georgina could see from the anticipatory smirk that he fancied himself as a lady’s man. While he was still making his way towards them, she quickly pulled her hair back and straightened her dress as best she could.

‘Ladies. I’m Colonel McWilliam. How may I be of assistance?’

‘Dear sir,’ Georgina said, looking up at him from lowered eyes and smiling. ‘We ken how busy ye must be and am so very grateful for yer time. We’d be even more in yer debt if ye could provide just a wee bit of assistance