Midnight Honor

MacGillivray in the lead, they veered to avoid a sunken morass of mud near the center of the field, and found themselves running shoulder to shoulder with the Camerons. They were the first to reach the government line, scattering the terrified soldiers with the sheer impact of their fury. Lochiel went down, his ankles shattered by grapeshot, but his brothers Alexander and Archibald brought the full wrath of the clan forward, hacking and slashing their way through the infantry lines, carving such a deep and bloody swath through the government troops that they unwittingly opened their own flanks to fire from the divisions on either side. Caught in a deadly crossfire, they had no choice but to withdraw and wait for support from the other clans, but there were no other clans close enough to come to their aid.
    Lord George Murray struck the line on the right, where the fighting had become so intense his men had to climb over their own dead to reach the soldiers. Cumberland's troops kept up a steady, precise drill of fire, reload, fire, not even needing to aim in the closely packed mass of kilted Highlanders. Those who survived the grapeshot and synchronized fusillades were met with fifteen inches of serrated steel thrust at them from an unmoving wall of well-disciplined infantrymen.
    Frustrated by the redcoats' refusal to turn and run as they had before, appalled by the dead mounting before them, the Jacobites began to fall back. Cumberland observed this with a triumphant smile and gave the nod to the men of his second line, who moved forward, fresh and eager to relieve the battered front ranks.
    Lord George, seeing this new barrier of infantrymen six deep step up into firing position, realized the action was hopeless and screamed the order to retreat. That was when he saw, to his further horror, that the stone walls he had pleaded to have taken down were now lined with Cumberland's men, sharpshooters who propped their muskets on the topmost stones and took deadly aim at the unprotected backs of the retreating Highlanders.
    Blinded by the rain, the smoke, the confusion, the clansmenfought their way back over a field littered with their own dead and dying. MacGillivray had lost sight of Jamie and Robbie Farquharson in the frantic charge, but he saw them now, lying together in a tangle of bloodied arms and legs, the one shot while trying to pull the other to safety. Eneas was beside MacGillivray. At the sight of his slain brothers, he turned and raised his sword, screaming obscenities at the English. Two, three, five shots smacked into his chest, his belly, his shoulder and still he charged back toward the government line, hacking the hands and sword off the first man who stepped up to meet him, cleaving the skull of the next, and going down, finally, under the bayonets of a dozen infantrymen.
    Just when it seemed some of the clans might make a safe retreat, Cumberland unleashed his cavalry, five hundred strong. These were the dragoons who had run at Prestonpans and again at Falkirk, and now that they could see the Highlanders were crippled and helpless, they took special glee in running them down, killing even those who threw aside their weapons and raised their arms in surrender.
    The beating rain gave the smoke nowhere to rise, and the air was choked with sulfur. Lord George, wounded in half a dozen places, his face awash with blood, saw there was only one escape open to them and shouted for the clans to stay together and retreat along the moor road. The prince's standard had already been taken down. There was no sight of the royal figure or his white charger, and for that they could be grateful, for within minutes of the cavalry being unleashed, the high ground was overrun.
    It fell to the Camerons and the MacKintoshs, both of whom had lost half their men in the slaughter, to protect the retreat. Alexander Cameron took the right, and on a waved acknowledgment from John MacGillivray, the MacKintoshes positioned themselves to protect the left flank. Throughout the charge and the terrible aftermath, MacBean and MacGillivray had managed to stay together, and they fought side by side now, rallying their men to hold off the assault of the soldiers who pressed toward them in an unrelenting sea of scarlet and white.
    “Moy Hall is it, then?” Gillies snarled, fixing his gaze on apocket of soldiers who were advancing across the field and smirking along the lengths of their bayonets.
    “Aye, we'll meet there, brither,” John