Chapter 12 Alan Breck, Murderer

 

At about nine in the morning, I woke up. Alan's hand was across my mouth.' Don't speak!' he said very quietly. ' You talked in your sleep.'

' Oh?' I said.' But why did you wake me?'

He looked over the rock with one eye, and I did the same. It was a sunny day and the sky was blue. A river ran between the mountains. Less than half a mile up the river there were a lot of soldiers. They stood and sat round a fire. Near them there was another rock. It was as high as ours. On the top was a man with a gun. There were more soldiers next to the river. Some were on horses.

Alan said, very quietly,' They're watching the river. We're all right up here, but we don't want them to come up the hill. They'll see us. There are not many of them at the widest place on the river. So when night comes, we'll try to get past them there.'

' And what are we going to do all day?' I asked.

' We stay here and the sun will cook us,' he said.

The rock got hotter and hotter. At about two o'clock we couldn't stay there. There was now a place out of the sun at the back of the rock.

'We have to move,' said Alan. He jumped down to the ground, and I followed him. We sat out of the sun for an hour or two. We were very weak and very thirsty. No soldier came or saw us.

Out of the sun, we felt a little stronger. So we began to move, very carefully. We went from rock to rock across the hill. I followed Alan. Sometimes we went on our stomachs, sometimes we had to run.

When the sun started to go down, we came to a small river. It ran down into the bigger river. It was wonderful. We drank, and we put our heads under the cold water. We stayed there and waited for night.

When night came, we moved again. We were very careful. Then we went very fast, and left the soldiers behind us.

 

For three days, we walked at night and slept in the day. We only spoke to one man. Alan knew him. He showed us a paper, and we read about the murderer of Colin of Glenure. 'Alan Breck, the murderer,' it said,'wore a blue French coat, with shiny buttons...'

My name wasn't there, because nobody knew my name. I was 'his helper: a tall strong boy of about eighteen in an old blue coat...' (and my clothes and shoes before I got other clothes from James's son).

After four days, we were very tired. We could not see anybody below us. So we came down from the mountains and on to the open ground below. At about twelve o'clock, we were near the middle of the open ground. We stopped.

'You sleep first,' said Alan.

I was tired when he woke me. Alan went to sleep and I began to watch. Perhaps it was the hot sun, but I slept again.

I woke up and looked round me.

Soldiers!

I saw them on their horses and woke Alan. He looked at the soldiers, and then at me. He didn't say,' You were asleep,' but he knew it.

' Do you see that mountain?' he said.' It's Ben Alder. There are a lot of good places up there. Let's go.'

He started to move across the ground on his stomach, very quickly. I followed him. We did it for hour after hour.

When it started to get dark, I said,' I'm nearly dead. Can't we stop?'

' No,' said Alan.' Before day comes, you and I have to find a place on Ben Alder.'