You Can't Go Home Again (Or Can You?): 2

The Battle of Culloden

Scotland, 1746



“Meal's here finally! Ye want yer share, laddie?”

“No, thank ye,” came the tired response.

“Suit yerself. It's the last ration of the day. Yer gonna have quite a fight on yer hands if ye wait much longer...”

James Robert McCrimmon watched his cell mate beat a hasty retreat and lowered his head in exhaustion. He didn't feel much like eating. Every day it was the same: twice a day he and the other prisoners would be given a ration of food, which wasn't much of anything. In the morning it was cold, congealed gruel of some sort. Later in the day it was a few stale pieces of bread and scraps of cold meat – lamb, most likely. Hell, he couldn't really tell as most of the taste had gone out of it long since, probably. Or maybe his taste buds quit working.

The rest of the days they'd endured interrogation by the Redcoats, asking all sorts of ridiculous questions they didn't know the answers to, or even care about. The nature of their replies didn't matter; the interrogation always ended with the Redcoats inflicting some sort of corporal punishment on them.

As if the punishment they doled out wasn't bad enough, some animosity had developed within the prison cell. The rations of food were never enough for the seven of them and there was always a huge fight to get a decent amount. Jamie being rather small in stature was at a natural disadvantage, although there were times they underestimated him. He was small but he was also quick and resourceful. One of the reasons he'd told his cell mate he wasn't hungry was that he'd hidden away most of his ration from the night before. He'd saved it under his huge tartan sash, well-wrapped so none of them would suspect. He'd done it several times already over the past week or so. Of course he'd have to be careful and wait until they were all busy collecting the rations or taken out for questioning to eat lest they'd catch him.

Luckily that hadn't happened yet, but he'd still managed to get roughed up. He'd been having strange dreams nearly the whole time he'd been here. They usually involved him fighting battles – not the usual ones, but battling some odd creatures: men made of metal, huge hairy beasties, and giant, strange-looking men wearing odd battle uniforms to name a few. The warriors on his side weren't his fellow Jacobites. They appeared to be strangers of this land and some of them were even women. The leader of their – for lack of a better word – clan was a man of similarly small stature with dark hair and a strange uniform. His fort seemed to consist of a rectangular blue building: a strange one that looked small on the outside but with an interior that belied its outward appearance.

At first Jamie had chalked these dreams up to exhaustion, maybe even to a bit of delirium from being so hungry half the time, but they persisted night after night and they only seemed to get more vivid as time went on. He'd ended up confiding in Angus, one of his cell mates. He was sure the older man would find him daft, but he seemed to be the only one who would take him seriously half the time; not quite a friend, but something close. He'd pleaded with Angus not to tell any of the others, especially the ones who were more apt to tease or start arguments. The man had kept his word at first, but about a week later he'd begun telling some of them what Jamie had told him. The young man quickly realized there was hardly anyone he could trust now.

It was mostly teasing at first but it soon escalated into outright malicious taunting. They started calling him “daft” or “stupid”, accusing him of making up stories just for attention. He was the “little bairn with the fantastic rubbish in his head.” They'd push and shove him. Jamie would fight back but he always seemed to have bad timing. Most times the guards would catch him, blaming him for starting a ruckus. On the rare occasions they happened upon the others physically attacking him, they would play innocent and blame Jamie for starting it in the first place. It seemed he couldn't win no matter what.

He began to realize those dreams he had seemed tied to these vague memories of something that had happened not long before he'd ended up in this prison cell: memories of the tall, slender blue fort, this “clan” with whom he was doing battle, and their leader. They'd helped rescue him and had sent his laird and Kirsty on a ship to Paris. Jamie had elected to stay behind and navigate them through the moors to get back to their fort. The next thing he knew, he was back in the middle of the fight and all traces of these strange people and their fort were gone. A Redcoat had shot at him and he'd taken off after the man. He was suddenly ambushed by another group of Redcoats from behind who had captured him and thrown him into prison. He now wished he had been shot out on the moors and left for dead.

He wasn't even sure how long he'd been in here. He'd long stopped keeping track of how much time had passed, but he guessed it had to be around four weeks, a month at most. He was tired. He was hungry. He was sore and he was dirty. Under strict supervision of the guards, they were taken out to bathe in the cold loch water and made to shave with a straight razor once a week if they were lucky. He'd also earned quite a collection of bruises and cuts both from his cell mates and from the Redcoats' interrogation methods. His stomach ached from not eating enough to nourish himself.

He was pulled from his thoughts as he heard his cell mates arguing over the last rations and decided it was his chance to eat another portion of the food he'd hidden away from himself. Looking around cautiously and seeing no sign of the other men, he carefully lifted his sash and grabbed another handful of the cold meat in the small bucket. He was about to put it in his mouth when he noticed something moving. He wrinkled his nose in disgust upon finding maggots crawling around it and threw it to the ground. He gazed mournfully at the rest of the food which was no doubt riddled with more of them.

“What's this now?!” a voice suddenly boomed behind him, causing him to yelp and jump in surprise. He wheeled around, coming face to face with Ian, a fair-haired man in his thirties who was much taller and looked like he could fall a group of twenty men with his bare hands.

Jamie stared at the larger man, at a loss for words as his heart started pounding in his chest.

“Where'd ye get that, hm?” he questioned accusingly, yanking Jamie's piled up sash away and dumping the contents of the bucket on the ground. He picked up the meager amount of meat, eyeing it closely and then tossing it when he seemed to notice the maggots. “How long've ye had this, McCrimmon??”

Jamie continued to stare at him in fear and merely shook his head.

Regarding the spoiled meat again, Ian sniffed in disgust. “Day or two at least. Ye stole it, didn't ye?”

The man's accusing gaze unrelenting, Jamie finally nodded and his gaze dropped to the ground. “Aye,” he replied quietly.

“HOW MUCH?! Ye little bastard! We all wouldnae been starvin' so much if it weren't for ye and yer selfish ways,” he shouted, pushing Jamie hard.

“And how's that?! Ye'd eat it with all those maggots crawling about? Ye just dumped it all on the ground!” Jamie shot back, smacking Ian's hands away from his chest.

“Aw shut up, ye wee little trouble-maker!!” Ian pushed Jamie hard once again until his back was up against the cell wall. “Why don't ye dream up more fantastical rubbish in that thick skull o'yers?! Ooh, the big blue fortress and the battles against the metal men!” he taunted, waving his hands in the air. Jamie fixed him with a hard glare, his nostrils flaring. The older man ignored him and looked back toward the others. “Och, look who's been stealin' rations!!”

Jamie briefly shut his eyes and groaned, hearing cries of disbelief and the thunderous sound of boots. They were all in front of him, looking angrily in his direction as Ian showed them the bucket and the scraps of meat on the ground.

“What is the meaning of this?! Ye hoardin' all the food for yerself?!” one man shouted.

“But I hardly took anyth--”

“Aye, right!” another named Robert chimed in sarcastically. “Ye probably ate most of it before Ian caught ye now. Selfish bampot. Yer gannae make us all starve to death!” Pushing Ian out of the way, he got dangerously close to Jamie and spat on him.

Jamie flinched for a brief moment. He narrowed his eyes dangerously and began breathing fast and hard through his nose before shoving Robert. “Look, if ye would just listen ...”

“Shut yer pus. We're no' listenin' to any more of yer mince.”

The two men and Ian having moved apart, Jamie was able to see the other prisoners behind them. He saw Angus watching with an expression on his face that seemed almost sympathetic. Jamie locked eyes with him in desperation, hoping Angus would come to his rescue. The older man looked away and then gazed at the ground, obviously not interested in helping. Jamie snorted inwardly. He was the one who had told the others about Jamie's dreams in the first place. Why on earth would he be interested in helping?

He didn't have time to react when he felt suddenly felt something pressing into his chest. He lifted his gaze to find Ian holding a rile – one a guard probably dropped – on him and glaring angrily.

“I've 'ad enough of ye. We all have. First the fantastical rubbish and now yer stealin' our food. There's but one thing left tae do....”

Jamie began praying that the rifle wasn't loaded, but it was in vain as he heard the distinctive 'click' of a bullet being chambered. Jamie held his left arm out and, feeling the absence of a wall, he pivoted and clumsily ran backwards a good ten feet into one of the cell's corners.

Ian approached with the rifle and Jamie backed away until he once again had his back against a wall. As Ian neared, Jamie caught the pure hatred reflected in his eyes.

“Och, I am gannae enjoy this.”

Jamie quickly moved his head from side to side, looking for an opening but there was none. He was literally as good as dead. Feeling the barrel of the rifle dig further into his chest, he squeezed his eyes shut and grimaced, expecting to be met with white hot pain.

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!!”

A single gunshot pierced the air followed by cries of alarm.