Culloden from Lord John and the Private Matter
Copyright © 2003 Diana Gabaldon, Lord John and the Private Matter. All rights reserved.

The Highland campaign following Culloden had been his first, and he had seen such sights during it as would have made him ashamed to be a soldier, had he been in any frame of mind at the time as to encompass them. As it was, he had been shocked to numbness, and by the time he saw real action in battle, he was in France, and fighting against an honorable enemy--not the women and children of a defeated foe.

Culloden had been his first battle, in a way--though he had not seen action there, thanks to the scruples of his elder brother, who had brought him along to have a taste of military life, but drew the line at letting him fight.

“If you think I am risking having to take your mutilated body home to Mother, you are demented,” Hal had grimly informed him. “You haven’t a commission; it’s not your duty yet to go and get your arse shot off, so you’re not going to. Stir one foot out of camp, and I’ll have Sergeant-Major O’Connell thrash you in front of the entire regiment, I promise you.”

Fool that he was at sixteen, he had regarded this as monstrous injustice. And when he was at length allowed to set foot on the field, in the aftermath of the battle, he had gone out with pulses pounding, pistol cold in a sweating hand.

He and Hector had discussed it before, lying close together in a nest of spring grass under the stars, a little apart from the others. Hector had killed two men, face to face--God knew how many more, in the smoke of battle.

“You can’t tell, really,” Hector had explained, from the lofty heights of his four years’ advantage and his second lieutenant’s commission. “Not unless it’s face-to-face, with a bayonet, say, or your sword. Otherwise, it’s all black smoke and noise and you’ve no idea what you’re doing--you just watch your officer and run when he tells you, fire and reload--and sometimes you see a Scot go down, but you never know if it was your shot that took him. He might just have stepped in a mole-hole, for all you know!”

“But you do know--when it’s close.” He had given Hector a rude nudge with his knee. “So what was it like then? Your first? Don’t dare to tell me you don’t remember!”

Hector had grabbed him and squeezed the muscle of his thigh until he squealed like a rabbit, then gathered him in close, laughing, forcing John’s face into the hollow of his shoulder.

“All right, I do remember, then. Wait, though.” He was quiet for a moment, his breath stirring John’s hair warm above the ear. It was too early in the year for bugs, but the wind moved over them fresh and cool, tickling their skins with ends of waving grass.

“It was--well, it was fast. Lieutenant Bork had sent me and another fellow round a bit of copse to see if anything was doing, and I was in the lead. I heard a sort of thump and a cough behind me, and I thought Meadows--he was following me--I thought he’d stumbled. I turned to tell him to be quiet, and there he was lying on the ground, with blood all over his head, and a Scot just dropping the thumping great rock he’d hit Meadows with, and bending down to snatch his rifle.

“They’re like animals, you know; all wild whiskers and dirt, generally barefoot and half-naked to boot. This one glanced up and saw me, and tried to seize the rifle up and brain me, only Meadows had fallen on it, and I--well, I just screamed and lunged at him. I didn’t think a bit about it; it was just like the drills--only it felt a lot different when the bayonet went into him.”

John had felt a small shudder run through the body pressed against him, and put his arm round Hector’s waist, squeezing in reassurance.

“Did he die right away?” he asked.

“No,” Hector said softly, and John felt him swallow. “He fell back and sat down hard on the ground, and--and I lost hold of the gun, so he was sitting there with the bayonet sticking in him, and the rifle-butt...it was on the ground, bracing him, almost, like a shooting stick.”

“What did you do?” He stroked Hector’s chest, trying in some clumsy way to comfort him, but that was far beyond his powers at the moment.

“I knew I should do something--try to finish him, somehow--but I couldn’t think how. All I could do was to stand there, like a ninny, and him staring up at me out of that dirty face, and I...”

Hector swallowed again, hard.

“I was crying,” he said, all in a rush. “I kept saying, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ and crying. And he sort of shook his head, and he said something to me, but it was in that barbarous Erse, and I couldn’t understand if he knew what I’d said, or was cursing me, or if he wanted something, water maybe...I had water...”

Hector’s voice trailed off, but John could tell from the thickened sound of his breath that he was near to crying now. His hand was fastened hard around John’s upper arm, clinging hard enough to leave a bruise, but John stayed still, perfectly still, until Hector’s breathing eased and the iron-hard grip relaxed at last.

“It seemed to take a long time,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Though I suppose it wasn’t, really. After a bit, his head just fell forward, very slowly, and stayed that way.”

He took a deep, wet breath, as though cleansing himself of the memory, and gave John a reassuring hug.

“Yes, you do remember the first one. But I’m sure it will be easier for you--you’ll do it better.”

Grey lay on Nessie’s bed, wine-glass in hand, sipping slowly. He stared up at the soot-stained ceiling, but was seeing instead the gray skies over Culloden. It had been easier--to do, at least, if not to recall.

“You’ll go with Windom’s detail,” Hal had said, handing him a long pistol. “Your job is give the coup de grace, if you find any still alive. Through one eye is surest, but behind the ear will answer well enough, if you find you can’t bear the eyes.”

His brother’s face was drawn with strain, white under the smudges of powder-smoke; Hal was only twenty-five, but looked twice that, uniform plastered to him with rain and filthy with mud from the field. He gave his orders in a calm, clear voice, but Grey felt his brother’s hand tremble as he gave him the gun.

“Hal,” he said, as his brother turned away.

“Yes?” Hal turned back, patient but empty-eyed.

“You all right, Hal?” he asked, lowering his voice lest anyone nearby hear him.

Hal seemed to be looking somewhere far beyond him; it took a visible effort for him to bring his gaze back from that distant place, to fix it on his younger brother’s face.

“Fine,” he said. The edge of his mouth trembled, as though he wanted to smile in reassurance, but it fell back in exhaustion. He clapped a hand on John’s shoulder and squeezed hard; John felt oddly as though he were providing support to his brother, rather than the other way round.

“Just remember, Johnny--it’s a mercy that you give them. A mercy,” he repeated softly, then dropped his hand and left.

It lacked perhaps two hours ‘til sunset when Corporal Windom’s detail set out onto the field, slogging through mud and moor plants that clung and grasped at their boots as they passed. The rain had stopped, but a freezing wind plastered his damp cloak to his body. He remembered the mixture of dread and excitement in his belly, superseded by the numbness of his fingers and his fear that he would not be able to prime the pistol again, if he had to use it more than once.

As it was, he had no need to use it at all for some time; all the men they came across were clearly dead. Nearly all Scots, though here and there a red coat burned like flame among the dull moor plants. The fallen of the English were taken away with respect, on stretchers. The enemy were thrown in heaps, the soldiers blue-fingered and mumbling curses in puffs of white breath as they dragged the bodies like so many felled logs, naked limbs like white branches, stiff and awkward in the handling. He was not sure if he should help with this work, but no one seemed to expect him to; he trailed after the soldiers, gun in hand, growing colder by the moment.

He had seen battlefields before, at Preston and Falkirk, though neither had had so many bodies. One dead man was much like another, though, and within a short time, he was no longer bothered by their presence.

He had grown so numb, in fact, that he was barely startled when one of the soldiers shouted, “Hey, Cheeky! Got one for you!” His cold-slowed mind had not had time to interpret this before he found himself face to face with the man, the Scot.

He had vaguely supposed that everyone on the field was unconscious, if not dead; execution would be no more than a matter of kneel by the body, place the pistol, pull the trigger, step back and reload.

This man sat bolt upright in the heather, weight braced on the heels of his hands, the smashed leg that had prevented his escape twisted in front of him, streaked with blood. He was staring at Grey, dark eyes lively and watchful. He was young, perhaps Hector’s age. The eyes went from Grey’s face to the gun in his hand, then back to his face. The man lifted his chin, setting his mouth hard.

Behind the ear will serve, if you find you can’t bear the eyes.

How? How was he to reach behind the ear, with him sitting like that? Grey lifted the pistol awkwardly, and stepped to the side, crouching a bit. The man’s head turned, eyes following him.

Grey stopped--but he couldn’t stop, the soldiers were watching.

“H-head, or heart?” he asked, trying to keep his voice steady. His hands were shaking; it was cold, though, so very cold.

The dark eyes closed for an instant, opened again, piercing through him.

“Christ, do I care?”

He lifted the pistol, the muzzle wavering a little, and pointed it carefully at the center of the man’s body. The Scot’s mouth compressed, and he shifted his weight to one hand. Before Grey could jerk away, he had lifted his free hand to seize Grey’s wrist.

Startled, he made no move to pull away. Breathing hard with effort, teeth gritted against the pain, the Scot guided the barrel so it came to rest against his forehead, just between the eyes. And stared at him.

And what he recalled most clearly was not the eyes, but the feel of the fingers, colder even than his own chilled flesh, curling gently round his wrist. There was no strength left now in the touch, but it stilled his shaking. The fingers squeezed, very gently. Offering mercy.

An hour later, they had gone back in darkness, and he had learned of Hector’s death.

The candle had been guttering for some time. There was another on the table, but he made no move to reach for it. Instead he lay staring as the flame went out, and went on drinking wine in the musky dark.