Page 92 of Stealing Sophie
Chapter 25
“Red soldiers,” Connor said, glancing at Neill and the others. “Get down!”
He and Neill stood with Andrew MacPherson and his brother Thomas on a hill at dusk, over a hundred feet above the valley floor, their perch hidden by a steep and jutting incline. Quickly, the four men dropped down to lie in a rough carpet of turf and old heather. Peering through a thicket of gorse, Connor swore.
“The time has come for us to do something about all this,” he said, gazing down at Wade’s latest effort. “The road is already a threat, and now they are building a new bridge but a half-mile that way.” He pointed. “It is the greater hazard.”
“Our own fault,” Neill said. “We ruined the bridges and they are remaking them in stone, strong enough to accommodate the passing of troops into our region.”
“Then we must stop it if we can,” Andrew said. Beside him, Thomas grunted assent. The younger MacPherson was a gangly lad with a wispy beard but an unerring aim with any weapon to hand. Noting the firelock pistol hidden under the lad’s plaidie, Connor was glad he had come, for he might prove very useful.
Leaning his chin on his hand, he studied Wade’s road. It ran straight as an arrow through the pass into Kinnoull lands, where he and the others now crouched. From there, the road cut through the moorland toward Kinnoull House, visible in the distance. Lower in the glen, the river curved and split into two wide tributaries needing good bridges. Neill was right; they had brought this on by collapsing the old wooden bridges the night they took Sophie. Wade would establish better access to the glen and Kinnoull now. Connor knew it might happen—but not so soon as this.
Along the road and far off, on the stone bridge in progress, dozens of men were at work, many of them soldiers, a good number Highland men in need of paying work. The crews toiled at various sections of road and bridge with axes and shovels, moving earth and stones in wheelbarrows. The road was comprised of stones in successive layers, larger at the bottom, smaller above, with a final topping of gravel.
“The General is a fine engineer, very organized,” Connor observed. “And he is taking a mathematical approach to his wee roadways. But Scotland is not so geometrical. His roads do not follow the flow and turn of the land that a truly good engineer might do.”
“True, that road is just straight,” Neill said. “The earth and hills are like a woman’s body. If you follow the curves and do what they need, you will have a pleasant and peaceful path. Cut through without regard and she will make your life hell.”
Connor laughed, as did the others. “Exactly so. But he cuts straight military roads to save time. Whatever is in his way, he will blow it to hell and move through it.”
“Aye, that must be what he has in mind. That wagon down there is loaded with kegs of black powder, see,” Andrew said, pointing.
“I wish it was whisky kegs,” Thomas said.
“The whisky might do them good,” Andrew mused. “If they were all drunk, we could sneak down there and take that black powder, and blow their wee road to hell.” He glanced at Connor. “What do you think? We have done it before.”
“They will be taking those kegs to the magazine at Wade’s camp north of here,” Neill said. “They are hitching the ox to it again, see. Time we decided.”
“Well, then.” Connor considered it. “We ought to blow the wee bridge.”
“The bridge, aye,” Andrew said.
“I could take that powder keg now,” Thomas said, drawing his pistol. “That would blow those red soldiers apart, just next to it.” He aimed the gun’s barrel.
“Do not.” Connor laid a hand on the boy’s arm. “Thomas MacPherson, I know your mother raised no fools.”
“As he said.” Andrew took the gun from his younger brother’s grasp.
“Then let me get the black powder for you,” Thomas insisted. “I can go down and snatch it away. Better to blow the bridge at night, when the red soldiers are gone.”
Connor exchanged glances with Neill. “We could wait for full dark.”
“The lad should not be getting the powder by himself,” Neill said.
“We should not wait long,” Thomas said.
“We will wait a bit to borrow the powder. We cannot walk down this long hill in plain sight,” Connor said.
“If we blow the foundation, they will just rebuild it.” Neill pointed to the bridge.
Connor nodded. From his high vantage point, he could see the structure, which did not yet span the river. Two abutments curved into piers, forming the skeleton, but the keystone was missing as yet. Soon it would be set in place. And the paving was yet to be done. Just now, only wooden planks allowed the workers to move back and forth.
The watercourse narrowed there, he knew, so a single arch bridge would suffice. In peaceful times, stone bridges in this glen would be useful. Flooding often took down the old wooden bridges. And before stone bridges would ever wear away, thousands of troops could cross into this part of the Highlands.
“Destroying a more complete bridge,” he said, “might send them somewhere else to begin again. Someplace not so near Kinnoull. We should blow it once it is further along.”
“We could do it late at night, by stealth,” Thomas said. “I will do it.”
