This is an excerpt from one of 40 short stories in the OMP (One Million Project) Fiction Anthology.
Historical fiction based around the Battle of Culloden -the last battle to be fought on Scottish soil.
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*This is an excerpt only. The story is one of 40 published in the 2018 OMP Fiction Anthology with all proceeds going to homelessness and cancer charities. There is also a published Thriller and Fantasy anthology.
Ghosts of Culloden was written in memory of all those who lost their lives in the last battle ever fought on Scottish soil. This is a work of fiction and is not intended to be an actual representation of events or people.
The lullaby, 'Babby, My Babby, Be', was written for the story.
In July 1745, Charles Edward Stuart landed in Scotland, in a bid to remove the Hanoverian line of King George II from the throne.
On the 6th April 1746, Charles Edward Stuart's supporters, the Jacobites, were defeated, at the Battle of Culloden; which was fought on Drumossie Moor.
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I stand alone on a wooden bench and peer out through the barred window of my bleak cell. Outside, there is only darkness. It is as if the world beyond this prison has ceased to exist, and for me it has. I believe the year is 1746. Yes, I am sure it is still 1746, but of the month, I am less certain. I arrived in springtime, and now autumn has been replaced with winter.
My gaolers refer to me as a savage Scot and are wary. But it is an act on my part, or rather it started out that way, and now I am no longer sure that this has not become my true nature. I am a twenty-five-year-old dirt-encrusted highlander who was picked up in Inverness many months ago; delirious and bedraggled. I have remained here as Butcher Cumberland's guest ever since.
I am a Jacobite, as was my father before me and his father before him. When I was first brought to this cell, there were ten of us, and now there is only me. I wait in dread of the day I am also removed. Amidst such uncertainty, the only thing that is sure is my proclaimed guilt. The court will now decide whether I am to be sentenced to transportation or hanging. I have been charged with high treason, but treason implies I intended to harm the King. That is not so. I had been willing to lay down my life for the one true king. Many call him the Pretender.
