Bruar's Rest

to stay out of what concerned her and her child, came from the tent, her baby wrapped in a shawl and tied around her body. It was easy to see the tears flowing freely down her face. ‘Jimmy, we—me and Nicholas—have much need of you. Please, man, don’t you dare say that some King hundreds of miles from this quiet glen can order you away from a loving wife and innocent wee boy, to fight for a country that spits at your feet whenever it can!’
    Jimmy, totally out of character, raised his voice, ‘I’m head of my family, and if I want I’ll take arms for whoever I bloody like. Now go back into the tent at once!’
    Crying at such an outburst from her usually gentle husband, Rachel pulled part of her baby’s woollen shawl over her head and ran back to the tent.
    O’Connor had been silent till then, but he’d no stomach for war and said so. ‘Doctor, I’m not saying this to you, but Wilson, you can go home an tell that bloody Kitchener that he won’t find anybody here to fight his battles for him!’
    Sergeant Wilson, face stretched with fury at the total disrespect to his sovereign from these heathens, said, ‘Come on, Mackenzie, I’m off. The taste left in my mouth from this filth is unbearable.’
    Without waiting for the doctor to untie his horse he was gone, marching off down the track.
    Bruar soon caught up with Megan who was hiding at their favourite meeting place, an old oak tree, twisted by the winds which blew hard through its branches in the deep winter storms.
    ‘Bonny Megan, what is wrong with you? Surely you would not expect my brother and me to stay home like couried rats, while the whole male population is defending our rights?’
    ‘Bruar, did I not witness the Omen? Don’t you see it heralded doom? I’ll lose you to a foreign enemy, who doesn’t bother whether you and I are toffs or tinkers. Rachel’s right, nobody cares a snot about us. To the world we’re “white niggers”, that’s all we are. Not that niggers are bad folks; I’ve heard the women of Kirriemor speaking about rich faraway folk having slaves, poor souls with black faces and snow-white eyes. To this King and his Kitchener, slaves are what we are. Only we’re white ones! If you gave your lives, would the so-called King mind out for us, left behind without our men? We’d die of the hunger in no time. Mark my word, that’s what would happen, we’d be soon dead. And another thing, what of our plan for having children?’
    The more she went on, the more it was apparent he wasn’t listening. Her hysterics had no effect, and she could see that look in his face. The one she saw when he spoke of the Norsemen in olden days invading Scotland. No, he’d go, she knew that, but would he come back? Was the eagle she’d seen on the hill definitely a message of death? Too tired to run off again, she lowered her eyes to the heather around their feet and asked the inevitable, ‘When?’
    ‘Tomorrow, Jimmy and I will enlist tomorrow.’
    ‘Then take me now, while the longing in my breast beats so strong, for it might be the last time we ever join again.’
    Bruar saw in her a new weakness, she was not usually faint-hearted or limp. ‘Now listen to me, how many times have you solemnly promised with hand on heart that you will rest me in Durness? I will come home, we will grow old together and you will see to my end.’
    Megan nodded through her tormented thoughts, yet at that moment all she could think of was tomorrow, not many days ahead. She felt only the pain of not having him lie by her side, to rise with a hug and kiss at the lifting of each new sun.
    His strong, powerful arms circled her frame. Gently the lovers each removed their clothes and as they sank into the soft heather they made intense, raw and passionate love. It moved them onto a higher plane than any lovemaking they had ever experienced before. For a long time afterward they lay together saying nothing. His head was filling with a mixture of concern and excitement; worry at leaving her and the excitement of standing on a battlefield fighting back an enemy, just as his great ancestors had done to the Norsemen!
    Megan’s thoughts were of one thing—a shadow-winged eagle, gliding and soaring in a misty heaven. She fell asleep exhausted, and when at last a singing nightingale awakened her, he was gone. It would have been futile for her to run home tearing at her clothes and sobbing uncontrollably, because she knew her man had to take his place within the