Escaping Yesterday by Jill LaForge Jones

Author:Jill LaForge Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jill LaForge Jones
Published: 2021-09-21T18:41:18+00:00

Preview

Chapter One

On board the Orion, April 1746

“Run for your life, Will! They’ve got us!” The words crashed into his ears, along with the sound of guns, the cries of men dying. Sleeting rain pelted his face, and he wanted to run, but he didn’t know which way to go. A horrid, metallic smell began to pervade the battlefield, the smell of blood mixed with the stench of gunpowder.

“Run for your life!” he heard again and realized it was his friend Duncan who was calling to him. He turned just in time to see Duncan’s head blown away. One minute his friend was alive and warning him, the next he was like a piece of raw meat crumpling to the ground.

“Run!” he thought he heard again, but it couldn’t be Duncan. Duncan was dead.

Will tried to run, but his feet were mired in the soggy ground of Culloden Muir. He stumbled and fell headlong into the muck. He tried to breathe but was suffocated by the watery ground that oozed around him, even into his nose. He tried to see, but all was suddenly turning dark.

Around him, the screams of the dying filled his ears. He closed his eyes tight, held his breath, clenched his fists, and waited for a bullet or the killing stab of a British bayonet.

Will awoke with a start, bathed in a cold sweat. Would that nightmare ever leave him, the memory of that massacre on the Culloden battlefield that had destroyed his life? Taken his family, his entire clan? He sat up and felt his body being gently rocked in the small bunk where he had slept and remembered where he was…on board a sailing ship, headed away from Scotland and all that he’d ever known.

He rolled over in his tiny bunk, trying to fall asleep again, but his tormented thoughts wouldn’t leave him. He remembered regaining consciousness on the sodden moor, how silent it was. The icy rain had stopped. The sky was dark. It was night, and he was alive. He managed to drag himself to his feet and looked around, expecting to see redcoats, but no one was in sight. Shivering, his mind numb, he slogged away from the killing field, not knowing here he was going, only that he had to get away from this place.

Now, as he lay in the dark, remembering that evil day, anger overcame grief, as it always did. He and his Da and all his kinsmen had fought alongside the man who owned their farm, and their lives, Lord Lewis Gordon. But for what? For a royal person he had hardly heard of who some thought should be the English king. Bonnie Prince Charlie, they’d called him. What kind of king had a name like that? And why did Will’s kin and clansmen have to die for him? They were Scots, not Englishmen. Will knew his Da was dead, they were all dead. He would be dead too except for the kindness and courage of the couple who’d rescued him in Inverness.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.