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long end of the law, and look what became of Archie’s dreams of glory!’
    I sat down, hurt and perplexed. ‘Granted, Matthew is no good example, but I talk to Zander of Archie because it pains me more than anything else in life that he will never know him. And I doubt if there is a boy in Aberdeen who does not dream of being a soldier, who has not been down to look at the troop ship, seen Ormiston and his officers in their fine coats with their swords at their belts and theirscars of honour, and wanted one day to be like them. What else should they want? A life of drudgery and toil such as they see about them here every day? Let him have his childhood dreams; when he comes to manhood he will better see the truth of it, and if he does not, it will be because God has called him to be a soldier and it will not be ours to question it.’
    Her face crumpled, all the defiance, all the rage, gone, and her eyes filled with tears. ‘But what if they take him, Alexander? What if they take him on to their ship, and we never see him again?’
    ‘Sarah …’ I leant towards her and took her two hands in mine. ‘They will not take him. What Ormiston wants is good officers, men who can be relied upon and who can lead, and soldiers strong enough to carry a musket, wield a pike. He has no interest in boys of nine.’
    She sniffed and nodded, but I was not sure yet that she was convinced. She released her hands and picked up the drumsticks that I had set back down on the floor. ‘I broke them,’ she said. ‘After William had left with James. Zander knew he would get no supper. He did not seem to care. He said a soldier had to learn to march on an empty belly, and he went and got his old drum out of the chest there. He beat it up and down the room, up and down the stair, until I could take it no more. I took the sticks from him and I snapped them in two.’
    I closed her hand over them and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I’ll make him some more.’ I went over to the recessin the wall where Deirdre, clutching her doll, was pretending to sleep. I kissed her too, and leaned across her, a finger to my lips, to rub the sleepy head of our three-year-old, Davy. The mischief in the smile he gave me told me that he would tax his mother’s heart more often even than did his brother.
    Upstairs, Zander was waiting, his bottom lip protruding a little, and his eyes fixed on the stairhead in a determination not to cry. He moved sideways a little to make space for me as I sat down beside him. ‘Your mother is very sorry about the drumsticks. I will make you some new ones.’
    He nodded, the tears threatening to brim over. ‘It is because she is worried. She is scared you will go away with Lieutenant Ormiston, and that she will never see you again.’
    ‘We did not want to go away, yet. We only wanted to look at the ship.’
    ‘And did you get a look at it?’
    ‘Yes.’ Sullen still.
    ‘Tell me about it.’
    ‘It is a Dutch merchantman, a hundred feet and five hundred tons.’ His face was brightening and his voice becoming more animated as he went on. ‘And we saw the soldiers, the recruits, at their exercises. And they say they took on boxes of pistols and muskets at Dundee, and gunpowder, and that they are bound for Gluckstadt.’
    ‘I hope they will have taken on plenty of hides and barrels of dry biscuit.’
    ‘I did not see any of that.’
    ‘Oh,’ I looked at him ruefully. ‘Then the soldiers will be very cold, and very hungry, for they will sleep out in the open fields, and find very little to eat as the winter takes hold.’
    He thought about this a while. ‘Will I get any supper tonight?’
    I shook my head. ‘Perhaps the next time you will think of your mother at home and waiting for you. Now you go down and say you are sorry, and get off to your bed.’
    He turned towards me as he set his foot on the third step from the top. ‘Do you think we should tell the sergeant? About the biscuits and the hides?’
    Something,