“After the Battle” by Jennifer Morag Henderson
The two women picked their way across the battlefield in the cold early light. “Have to get through before the soldiers come back,” muttered the old woman, “watch the dead.” She kept up a rumbling of muttering and complaining, constantly commenting on what was going through her mind. Her younger companion did not listen. It was the second day after the battle and already they were used to seeing the bodies. The path in from Inverness had been a strip of horror since Wednesday; dead and dying soldiers lying in ruined colour. Homes were barricaded against what might come. There were only a few shadowy figures like themselves, awake in the half-dark, stumbling across the moorland.
The younger woman almost fell across the body of a young soldier. They were near what had been the front line. “Watch your feet, pick them up,” the old woman mumbled, before she bent down to pat her hands along the soldier’s clothing, looking for anything valuable. The first day they had done this, some of the bodies had groaned: they were still alive. The old woman had poked and prodded them harder, until those who could stand were forced upright. She jabbed at them with her sharp fingers, pointing them away from the battlefield. The women did not think they would make it if they did not have the strength to run from the government troops, or did not have a horse to carry them away, but they pointed some of the wounded towards a barn, next to the cottage at the side of the battlefield. They knew there were men sheltering there: if they had a night out of the rain and falling snow, perhaps they had a better chance of some sort of survival.
The older woman stopped her slow search of the body. She took something from the dead soldier and passed it back to her companion. “No money, poor men,” she muttered. The younger woman closed her hand around the object: it was a necklace, a Celtic cross. It looked like a woman’s necklace to her. She looked down at the man and wondered who it had belonged to before. The man’s hair was dark, getting darker now with the rain that was starting to drizzle down again. His face still looked like a live person’s face. His clothes were torn; she could see that even the buttons on his shirt had been ripped off. She wondered what had done that.
“Stop, wait!” the old woman put her hand up to indicate they should not go forward. There was no cover on the moor. The young woman was intensely afraid of what might happen if the government soldiers met them there. She held onto the cross fiercely, like a talisman. “A coach,” said the old woman. Her hearing was good. “They go faster than us. Crouch down. In the mud.” They crouched, seeking what cover they could from the tall grasses, peat banks and their brown, shabby, mud-coloured clothes.
“Looking at the battlefield. Walking through.” They could hear the noise of the horse. The coachman was finding them difficult to control; they did not like the weather, or the smell of the dead horses and men on the field. The coach was not a government one, not even an army one. It belonged to one of the rich families who lived near Inverness. The two women had seen it before, driving through town, splashing them with mud. It was almost stuck in the mud here now.
“What are they doing?” the young woman asked.
“Looking.” The old woman nodded. “They’ve come to see the colours, come to see the ruins.”
“Just looking? But why?”
“Curiosity? Women like that maybe never see things like this.”
The carriage had slowed down. They could see it was two women now, like themselves, one older, one younger. They held handkerchiefs to their noses. Their eyes above the squares of cloth were bright. The colour of the kilts and the pale skin of the slain – no red-uniformed bodies were left lying on the field – stood out more than the brown of the two poor women’s dresses. The scavengers were safely concealed, for now.
Behind them, there was the noise of shouting.
“Shouldn’t have come! Shouldn’t be here, not safe… but we need the money, need something, begging for something…” the old woman whimpered. But the noise of shouting was not directed at them, nor at the coach. It was coming from near the barn, where the wounded soldiers were hiding.
“The government troops are back. We need to go.” There was no way to leave, just yet. They were trapped between two groups of spectators. The young woman gripped the cross tighter in her hand. “What are they doing?”
There was the crackle of wood. The barn caught fire slowly in the damp air. “They’re burning the barn!” The women in the coach and the women on the field watched.
“It’s not right. The men are still inside.” The young woman spoke almost without knowing she was doing so. “Who is left to do something right?” She looked angrily at the coach. Its driver had succeeded in freeing the wheel. They started to slowly move away. She felt the cross cold between her fingers. The old woman reached out suddenly and prised it from her fingers.
“Are you doing the right thing? Who’s to judge?”
“We have no choice…” The cross fell into the mud. Half-buried, it lay, dull under the pale grey sky. It was too much to try to understand the soldiers actions. The young woman looked after the retreating coach. “They want to come and watch this. I can’t understand why they would choose to come to watch this.”
The old woman shook her head. Behind them, the flames burnt, limply, taking hold despite the drizzle. The wind was blowing away from them. “There was a driver. The driver maybe had no choice.”
“The ones who chose to come should be cursed. It’s not right. They should have to drive past and see this everyday...”
But the old woman was back to mumbling again, making no sense once more; no conversation companion. The rain continued to fall on Culloden battlefield.
And they say that every year, on the wild nights in April, a phantom coach rides across Drummossie Moor, out of control, with no coachman to lead the horses. It is only one of many ghosts.