Ghosts of Culloden Moor 24 - The Bugler by L.L. Muir

Author:L.L. Muir [Muir, L.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2016-08-12T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

When Morey awoke, the sounds of the battle had ceased for the most part. Guns still fired, but randomly. It had been obvious whom God had chosen to be the victor, and Morey’s prayer for a bloodless resolution had gone unanswered.

His horn. He remembered seeing it under a leg. It couldn’t be far. But alas, he couldn’t seem to move. So tired…

~

He woke to pain and groaning and found that the groaning came not from him. There were voices. Two men chatting away as if they didn’t hear the wounded man. Someone grunted. The groaning ceased. It didn’t take genius to know why.

Cumberland’s men were murdering the wounded.

Morey was wounded! Ah, but luckily, he was wearing the enemy’s uniform.

“How many of them?” asked one man.

“Seventeen,” replied the other.

In the ensuing silence came a hail of gunfire. Distant, but not so far away that he couldn’t hear the bodies fall to the ground. No quarter indeed.

The two soldiers chatted again, moving nearer. “This one’s still bleeding.”

“Hold! There, ye see? He’s one of ours.”

“A gonner for certain.”

The joke was on them. He wasn’t a gonner. And he wasn’t a Hanoverian, either.

~

When Morey awoke yet again, it was to full on darkness. But then the darkness moved and startled him. He didn’t think he’d made a sound, but the blackest shadow turned and lowered its hood. If it was Death, Death was a young lass with tears in her eyes.

“Please,” he whispered. “Help me.”

The lass seemed surprised. “Morey? Is it you?”

The agony of his head wound prevented him from thinking clearly. “Do I ken ye, lassie? Forgive me if I doona remember yer name. And forgive me for any dishonor—”

“Ye have no reason to remember me,” she said in a rush, “so ease yer mind.” She squatted beside him, noted the wound on the right of his head and smiled through the tears she’d already been shedding. “I am right sorry for it, Morey, but there is naught I can do—”

“There is!” He winced at the hot knife of pain that sliced through his noggin for raising his voice. “I cannot seem to move, but I wish only to have my bugle placed in my hand. It would be a comfort.”

She nodded, stood, and searched the ground. After a moment, she reached and straightened with his grandfather’s bugle clasped in her hand like a great prize. Triumph! She returned to him and fumbled with his arm.

Disappointment filled his eyes with tears. “I cannae feel it.”

“Sure ye can, Morey Fraser. Ye feel the cold of it, aye?”

“Aye. The cold. I can feel the cold!”

“That’s yer bugle, laddie, all but frozen to yer hand. Ye’ll not lose it now.”

Relieved that he’d kept track of his grandsire’s bugle, as he’d promised to do, he relaxed.

“Ye’re wearing the government uniform, laddie. I don’t suppose ye’d like me to remove it?”

“Auch, aye. It gives me no warmth. ‘Tis a fact, it chills me to the soul to have it on me, aye?” He felt her yank here

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