Dougal shook his head, flipping water out of the pool at a curious jay that ventured close.
"Now, there you're wrong, lass, and you'll pardon my saying so. Imagination is all verra well, but it isna equal to the sight of a man having his back laid open. A verra nasty thing—it's meant to break a man, and most often it succeeds."
"Not with Jamie." I spoke rather more sharply than I had intended. Jamie was my patient, and to some extent, my friend as well. I had no wish to discuss his personal history with Dougal, though I would, if pressed, admit to a certain morbid curiosity. I had never met anyone more open and at the same time more mysterious than the tall young MacTavish.
Dougal laughed shortly and wiped his wet hand through his hair, pasting back the strands that had escaped during our flight—for so I thought of it—from the tavern.
"Weel, Jamie's as stubborn as the rest of his family—like rocks, the lot of them, and he's the worst." But there was a definite tone of respect in his voice, grudging though it was.
"Jamie told ye he was flogged for escape?"
"Yes."
"Aye, he went over the wall of the camp just after dark, same day as the dragoons brought him in. That was a fairly frequent occurrence there, the prisoners' accommodations not bein' as secure as might be wished, so the English ran patrols near the walls every night. The garrison clerk told me Jamie put up a good fight, from the look of him when he came back, but it was six against one, and the six all wi' muskets, so it didna last long. Jamie spent the night in chains, and went to the whipping post first thing in the morning." He paused, checking me for signs of faintness or nausea, I supposed.
"Floggings were done right after assembly, so as to start everyone off in the proper frame of mind for the day. There were three to be flogged that day, and Jamie was the last of them."
"You actually saw it?"
"Oh, aye. And I'll tell ye, lass, watchin' men bein' flogged is not pleasant. I've had the good fortune never to experience it, but I expect bein' flogged is not verra pleasant, either. Watching it happen to someone else while waitin' for it yourself is probably least pleasant of all."
"I don't doubt it," I murmured.
Dougal nodded. "Jamie looked grim enough, but he didna turn a hair, even listening to the screams and the other noises—did ye know ye can hear the flesh being torn?"
"Ugh!"
"So I thought myself, lass," he said, grimacing in memory of it. "To say nothing of the blood and bruises. Ech!" He spat, carefully avoiding the pool and its coping. "Turned my stomach to see, and I'm no a squeamish man by any means."
Dougal went on with his ghastly story.
"Come Jamie's turn, he walks up to the post—some men have to be dragged, but not him—and holds out his hands so the corporal can unlock the manacles he's wearing. The corporal goes to pull his arm, like, to haul him into place, but Jamie shakes him off and steps back a pace. I was half expectin' him to make a dash for it, but instead he just pulls off his shirt. It's torn here and there and filthy as a clout, but he folds it up careful like it was his Sunday best, and lays it on the ground. Then he walks over to the post steady as a soldier and puts his hands up to be bound."
Dougal shook his head, marveling. The sunlight filtering through the rowan leaves dappled him with lacy shadows, so he looked like a man seen through a doily. I smiled at the thought, and he nodded approvingly at me, thinking my response due to his story.
"Aye, lass, courage like that is uncommon rare. It wasna ignorance, mind; he'd just seen two men flogged and he knew the same was coming to him. It's just he had made up his mind there was no help for it. Boldness in battle is nothing out of the way for a Scotsman, ye ken, but to face down fear in cold blood is rare in any man. He was but nineteen at the time," Dougal added as an afterthought.
"Must have been rather gruesome to watch," I said ironically. "I wonder you weren't sick."
Dougal saw the irony, and let it lie. "I nearly was, lass," he said, lifting his dark brows. "The first lash drew blood, and the lad's back was half red and half blue within a minute. He didna scream, though, or beg for mercy, or twist round to try and save himself. He just set his forehead hard against the post and stood there. He flinched when the lash hit, of course, but nothin' more. I doubt I could do that," he admitted, "nor are there many that could. He fainted half through it, and they roused him wi' water from a jug and finished it."
"Very nasty indeed," I observed. "Why are you telling me about it?"