Summer of Love by Gian Bordin Page A

helped Betty and me escape! … He could have raped me, and
there was another soldier there to help him. He tricked him into letting me
go," she pleaded.
         "He probably could not get it up," sneered Dougal. "Yes, that’s it."
         "Dougal, watch your words," muttered Mary, but he ignored her and
ranted on: "He is impotent, the miserable, despicable coward. That’s why he
was afraid to go to battle… I should have known not to trust him… Burn this
into your minds, children, all of you. Never trust a Campbell. You could not
trust them fifty years ago when they murdered the MacDonalds of Glencoe
in cold blood and you can’t trust them now. Listen, they even were their
guests for two weeks and ate their food." He caught his breath. "How
gullible I was to believe him! He was so sly with his talk of not taking sides,
and then he brings the soldiers into our clachan and burns our houses and
steals our cattle."
         He isn’t a coward. A coward wouldn’t have dared to oppose that big, ugly
man. Maybe he is cunning the way he helped me get away, Helen’s mind
protested, but she said nothing. She knew that her father, raving and ranting,
would not hear her words. She was back to her unanswered question: Why
had he helped them? She turned inward, stopped listening to the repeated
outbursts of her father, holding Betty who, exhausted, had finally fallen
asleep in her arms.
         The communal dinner that night was a somber affair. Nobody spoke.
Despite being hungry, the women only played with their food. One of the
two young ones who got raped suddenly rushed out of the hut, silent tears
running down her cheeks. Her husband followed her immediately, his face
worried. The other one still had a vacant look on her face. Her man
occasionally shot her a glance, his expression a mixture of anger and
loathing. Only Mary’s face was again set in stone, closed up, betraying
nothing.
         At the end of the dinner, Dougal announced that from now on the men
would remain in close proximity of the huts, rather than hide in the ravines,
and that no woman or girl was to venture away from the shielings unless
accompanied by two men.
     
     * * *
     
    In the waning light of the evening—it never gets really pitch dark in June and
July at these northern latitudes—the growling bark of the dogs heralded the
approach of strangers. The men readied their pistols and swords and sneaked
noiselessly out of the huts.
         The dark silhouettes of four men, all wearing Highland plaids, stood out
sharply against the horizon on the small rise protecting the huts from the
incessant westerly winds. One of them limped badly and was supported by
another. They halted.
         "Creag an Tuire!" came their battle cry. "Friend or foe?"
         "I am Dougal MacGregor! And you are Donald MacLaren," Dougal
answered their call. "The last time I saw you was in Inverness. Welcome to
our humble abode!"
         "Aye, Dougal MacGregor. You made it back safely."
         "Yes, just to see our clachan burned and our cattle driven away!"
         The four slowly walked down to the huts. Dougal met them halfway and
embraced the limping man.
         "Come inside. You are wounded?"
         He helped him to a bench in the hut. "Woman, look at his leg!"
         Mary brought a fir candle and carefully removed the bloody cloth
wrapped around Donald MacLaren’s thigh. He looked her over questioningly. "And who ripped your clothing, lady?"
         Dougal answered instead: "They got attacked and robbed by five dragoons
this afternoon."
         "Ah, that must have been the same group who surprised us on the slopes
of Beinn Leabhain. That’s how I got wounded."
         Mary looked up from her task, hope in her face. "Did you kill them?"
         "No, we did not."
         Visibly disappointed, she went back to cleaning the wound.
         "How did you get away then?" asked Dougal.
         "Something very strange happened. I still