Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [359]
Much to my amazement, I hit the fleeing horse. It went into a skid, went to one knee and rolled in a flurry of snow and legs. My arm was numb from the pistol’s recoil; I stood rubbing it, watching the fallen soldier.
He was injured; he struggled to rise, then fell back in the snow. His horse, bleeding from the shoulder, stumbled away, reins dangling.
I didn’t realize until later what I had been thinking, but I knew when I approached him that I could not let him live. Near as we were to the prison, and with other patrols out seeking escaped prisoners, he was sure to be found before too long. And if he were found alive, he could not only describe us—so much for our hostage story in that case!—but tell which way we were traveling. We had still three miles to go to the coast; two hours’ travel in the heavy snow. And a boat to find, once there. I simply could not take the chance of allowing him to tell anyone about us.
He struggled to his elbows as I approached. His eyes widened in surprise as he saw me, then relaxed. I was a woman. He wasn’t afraid of me.
A more experienced man might have been apprehensive, my sex notwithstanding, but this was a boy. No more than sixteen, I thought, with a sense of sick shock. His spotty cheeks still held the last round curves of childhood, though his upper lip sported the fuzz of a hopeful mustache.
He opened his mouth, but only groaned in pain. He pressed his hand to his side, and I could see blood soaking through his tunic and coat. Internal injuries, then; the horse must have rolled on him.
It was possible, I thought, that he would die in any case. But that wasn’t something I could count on.
The dirk in my right hand was hidden under my cloak. I laid my left hand on his head. Just so I had touched the heads of hundreds of men, comforting, examining, steadying them for whatever lay ahead. And they had looked up at me much as this boy did; with hope and trust.
I couldn’t cut his throat. I sank to my knees beside him, and turned his head gently away from me. Rupert’s techniques for swift killing had all assumed resistance. There was no resistance as I bent his head forward, as far as I could, and plunged the dirk into his neck at the base of his skull.
I left him lying facedown in the snow and went to join the others.
* * *
Our unwieldy cargo stowed under blankets on a bench below, Murtagh and I met on the Cristabel’s deck to survey the storm-tossed skies.
“Looks like a fair, steady wind,” I said hopefully, holding a wet finger aloft.
Murtagh gloomily scanned the clouds, hanging black-bellied over the harbor, their freight of snow wastefully melting into the frigid waves. “Aye, well. We’ll hope for a smooth crossing. If not, we’ll likely get there wi’ a corpse on our hands.”
Half an hour later, launched on the choppy waters of the English Channel, I discovered what he had meant by this remark.
“Seasick?” I said incredulously. “Scotsmen aren’t seasick!”
Murtagh was testy. “Then mayhap he’s a red-heided Hottentot. All I know is he’s green as a rotten fish and pukin’ his guts out. Are ye goin’ to come down and help me stop him puttin’ his ribs out through his chest?”
“Damn it,” I said to Murtagh, as we hung over the rail for fresh air during a brief hiatus in the unpleasantness belowdecks, “if he knows he’s seasick, why in the name of God did he insist on a boat?”
The basilisk stare was unwinking. “Because he knows bluidy well we’d never make it overland wi’ him in the state he’s in, and he’d no stay at Eldridge for fear o’ bringin’ the English down on MacRannoch.”
“So he’s going to kill himself quietly at sea, instead,” I said bitterly.
“Aye. He figures this way he’ll only kill himself, and no take anyone else along wi’ him. Unselfish, see. Nothin’ quiet about it, though,” added Murtagh, heading for the companionway in response to unmistakable sounds from below.
“Congratulations,” I said to Jamie an hour or two later, pushing dank wisps away from my cheeks and forehead.