The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [181]
“When I went for a soldier in France, I was marched to and fro and up and down, and wore a pair of boots clear through before they gave me powder for my gun. I was sae weary at the end of a day of drilling that they could have shot off cannon by my pallet and I wouldna have turned a hair.”
He shook his head a little, the half-smile fading from his face. “But we havena got the time for that. Half our men will have had a bit of soldiering; we must depend on them to stand if it comes to fighting, and keep heart in the others.” He glanced past the fire, and gestured toward the fading vista of trees and mountains.
“It’s no much like a battlefield, is it? I canna say where the battle may be—if there is one—but I think we must plan for a fight where there’s cover to be had. We’ll teach them to fight as Highlanders do; to gather or to scatter at my word, and otherwise, to make shift as they can. Only half the men were soldiers, but all of them can hunt.” He raised his chin, gesturing toward the recruits, several of whom had bagged small game during the day’s ride. The Lindsay brothers had shot the quail we were eating.
Roger nodded, and bent down, scooping a blackened ball of clay out of the fire with his own stick, keeping his face hidden. Almost all. He had gone out shooting every day since our return to the Ridge, and had still to bag even a possum. Jamie, who had gone with him once, had privately expressed the opinion to me that Roger would do better to hit the game on the head with his musket, rather than shoot at it.
I lowered my brows at Jamie; he raised his at me, returning my stare. Roger’s feelings could take care of themselves, was the blunt message there. I widened my own eyes, and rose.
“But it isn’t really like hunting, is it?” I sat down beside Jamie, and handed him one of the hot corn dodgers. “Especially now.”
“What d’ye mean by that, Sassenach?” Jamie broke the corn dodger open, half-closing his eyes in bliss as he inhaled the hot, fragrant steam.
“For one, you don’t know that it will come to a fight at all,” I pointed out. “For another, if it does, you won’t be facing trained troops—the Regulators aren’t soldiers, any more than your men are. For a third, you won’t really be trying to kill the Regulators; only frighten them into retreat or surrender. And for a fourth”—I smiled at Roger—“the point of hunting is to kill something. The point of going to war is to come back alive.”
Jamie choked on a bite of corn dodger. I thumped him helpfully on the back, and he rounded on me, glaring. He coughed crumbs, swallowed, and stood up, plaid swinging.
“Listen to me,” he said, a little hoarsely. “Ye’re right, Sassenach—and ye’re wrong. It’s no like hunting, aye. Because the game isna usually trying to kill you. Mind me—” He turned to Roger, his face grim. “She’s wrong about the rest of it. War is killing, and that’s all. Think of anything less—think of half-measures, think of frightening—above all, think of your own skin—and by God, man, ye will be dead by nightfall of the first day.”
He flung the remains of his corn dodger into the fire, and stalked away.
I SAT FROZEN for a moment, until heat from the fresh corn dodger I was holding seeped through the cloth round it and burned my fingers. I set it down on the log with a muffled “ouch,” and Roger shifted a little on his log.
“All right?” he said, though he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were fixed on the direction in which Jamie had vanished, toward the horses.
“Fine.” I soothed my scorched fingertips against the cold, damp bark of the log. With the awkward silence eased by this little exchange, I found it possible to address the matter at hand.
“Granted,” I said, “that Jamie has a certain amount of experience from which to speak . . . I do think what he said was rather an overreaction.”
“Do you?” Roger didn’t seem upset or taken aback by Jamie’s remarks.
“Of course I do.