He wasn’t yet certain whether that made things better or worse.
“If that’s so,” Rabbie asked, “why are you out here with us?”
“She’d believed I was dead,” he said. “Our return came as a shock to her. I’m giving her a moment to recover.”
“Well, at least she’s still here,” Callum said. “That means you fared better than I did.”
Munro, the field surgeon, joined them. “Still no news about your lass, Callum?”
Callum shrugged. “There’s news. My uncle in Glasgow checked the records of the ship what sailed for Nova Scotia. There was no Miss Mairi Aileen Fraser on the passenger list.”
“But that’s good,” Munro said. “Means she’s still here in Scotland.”
The round-faced soldier shook his head. “I said there was no Mairi Aileen Fraser on the list. There was, however, a Mrs. Mairi Aileen MacTavish. So much for my returning hero’s welcome.”
The older man clapped Callum on the back. “Sorry to hear it, lad. If she didna wait, she didna deserve you.”
“I canna blame her.” Callum patted his chest with the stump of his left forearm—the one missing a hand Munro had amputated in the field. “Have a look at me. Who’d wait on this?”
“A great”—Fyfe hiccupped—“many lasses, surely.”
Logan pulled a flask of whisky from his sporran, uncapped it, and passed it to Callum. Sympathetic words were never his strong point, but he was always ready to pour the next round.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When the regiment had landed at Dover last autumn, they’d been greeted as triumphant heroes in London. Then they’d marched north. Home, to the Highlands. And he’d watched his men’s lives and dreams fall apart at the seams, one by one.
Callum wasn’t the only one. The men gathered around him represented the last of his discharged soldiers, and the worst off: the homeless, the wounded, the left behind.
They’d fought bravely, survived battle, won the war for England on the promise of coming home to their families and sweethearts—only to find their families, homes, and sweethearts gone. Pushed off the lands they’d inhabited for centuries by the same greedy English landlords who’d asked them to fight.
And Logan couldn’t do a damned thing about it. Until today.
Today, he took it all back.
The hulking man at the edge of their group startled. “What’s this, then? Where is this place?”
“Easy, Grant.”
Grant’s was the saddest tale of the lot. A mortar had landed too close at Quatre-Bras, tossing the giant of a man twenty feet through the air. He’d survived his injuries, but now he couldn’t remember a blessed thing for more than an hour or so. He had a perfect recollection of everything in his life up until that battle. Anything new slipped through his grasp like so much sand.
“We’re at Lannair Castle,” Munro explained. The grizzled field surgeon had more patience than the rest of them put together. “The war is over. We’re home in Scotland.”
“Are we? Well, that’s bonny.”
No one had the heart to dispute it.
“Say, Captain,” the big man said. “Will we be making our way to Ross-shire soon? I’m keen to see my nan and the wee ones.”
Logan nodded tightly. “Tomorrow, if you like.”
They weren’t going anywhere near Ross-shire tomorrow, but Grant would forget the promise anyhow. Most days, Logan couldn’t bear to tell him they’d been to Ross-shire months ago. Grant’s nan was dead of old age, the wee ones had perished of typhus, and their family cottage was a burned-out shell of ash.
“Tomorrow would be fine.” After a pause, Grant chuckled to himself and added, “Did I tell ye the one about the pig, the whore, and the bagpipes?”
The rest of the men groaned.
Logan silenced them with a look. At Corunna, Grant had held off an entire line of voltiguers, giving their company time to fall back. He’d saved their lives. The least they could do was listen to his bawdy joke one more time.
Logan said, “Let’s hear it, then. I could do with a joke today.”
The telling of it lasted a while, what with several starts, stops, and pauses for Grant to collect his thoughts.
When he finally came to the end, all the men joined him in a bored tone: “ ‘Squeal louder, lass. Squeal louder.’ ”
Grant laughed heartily and slapped Logan on the back. “A good one, isn’t it? Can’t wait to tell it back home.”