‘Not a sign,’ said Alan slowly, shading his eyes with one hand as he turned from west to east in his perch in the tree, the other hand braced against the trunk. He smiled down at Davie. ‘Well, it looks as though we’ve given them the slip—for now. We should be moving again soon, but we don’t need to hurry away from here. It’s a good hiding place.’
‘I’m going back to sleep, then,’ declared Davie as Alan clambered nimbly down from the tree. ‘I’ve hardly slept, as it is.’
Alan jumped the last two yards from the lowest branch. ‘I know,’ he said, regarding Davie and looking pleased with himself. Then his expression changed, and he looked for a moment as though he would have liked to join Davie on the rough bed of heather beneath the blanket and his own blue coat. But he changed his mind. ‘It would be a shame to let those fish go to waste,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and catch some for our breakfast.’
Before he went he paused a moment and smiled at Davie, who felt the unconscious answering smile in his own eyes; and he did not take his coat with him.
Sighing, Davie lay back on the heather and pulled Alan’s coat up over himself, brushing his fingers briefly against the little knot of broken threads where one of the buttons was missing. He closed his eyes. It was still early dawn—in June in the north of Scotland, a very early hour indeed—and there were birds singing, pipits and ouzels among the heather and low trees of the moor, and larks already rising into the sky above it; and the morning air was cool on his face; and a little way off there was the sound of the burn, punctuated by the splashings Alan made in his attempts at fishing. Perhaps, thought Davie vaguely, there was something in Alan’s idea of freedom after all. He smiled to himself, and fell into a doze.
But he thought differently again when, some time later, he woke and saw the “Wanted” poster lying discarded on the ground under the tree. He sat up, reached across and picked up the poster, which was slightly damp with dew. There were their two pictures, quite true to life, especially the one of Alan (well, of course: James of the Glens knew him better), and the descriptions... A sudden surge of anger welled up in Davie—against James, and Alan, and Colin the Fox, and all these Highlanders and their quarrels that he’d never asked to get mixed up in. Why couldn’t James have put the man who actually fired the shot (whoever he was) in this poster instead? Now he—and Alan—were in all this danger...
At this point Alan returned, whistling a tune and carrying a couple of small trout slung in a handkerchief. ‘A fine catch!’ he said, presenting the fish to Davie with a little flourishing gesture of his other hand. ‘Such as the Highlands always provide. Have you slept well?’
Davie could not be annoyed by his dashing manner—not now. Trying to put his fears from him, and really encouraged by the thought of breakfast, he got up and set about remaking yesterday’s fire. While he did so Alan sat down on the bed and, taking out the necessary equipment from his bag, combed and retied his hair and shaved his chin; finally he put his coat back on, smiling to himself as he adjusted the set of the lapels to his liking.
It was while the trout were cooking, alongside a pan of oats, that Davie at last said, ‘Alan, are you sure you won’t change your clothes for safety? That poster—you could be recognised so easily in that coat—it’s described all your things perfectly.’
‘Too perfectly,’ said Alan, in a tone suggestive less of consternation at the accuracy of the description than of annoyance at its talk of “tarnished lace”. ‘No,’ he went on; ‘I have no others—and what would the King of France say if I got back there and told him I’d lost him his coat, hmm?’ He was speaking lightly; but his gaze remained on the food as he reached over to turn the fish and stir the porridge, and he did not look back at Davie. Perhaps he, too, was thinking of yesterday’s argument.
Davie did not want to restart that argument—really, he didn’t—but to hear Alan brush off the danger so lightly he could not bear. ‘You won’t get back to France at all if the redcoats catch you because you were too stubborn to take any precautions!’ he said, and did not succeed in keeping his voice from rising a little.
Then Alan looked round at him, with eyebrows raised. ‘Not taking precautions?’ he said. ‘Whose fault is it that we didn’t keep a watch last night?—Look: we’re still ahead of the redcoats; we’ll leave this place once we’ve had our breakfast, and they won’t catch me, or you either.’
Davie shook his head. ‘You could do something,’ he said, persevering despite himself. ‘Just make some little change in your appearance, so they wouldn’t recognise you if they saw you. You could—I don’t know, cut your hair, or something?’
‘Cut my hair!’ Alan sounded really scandalised. ‘Davie, no!’
‘No, I don’t want you to cut your hair,’ agreed Davie at once. He sank his head on his knees—and, so doing, brought the discarded poster again into his view. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said, and buried his face in his hands. He felt utterly miserable; and his misery and fear and anxiety were in horrible jarring contrast to the comfortable little sounds and appetising smells of the fish and porridge cooking, and the cool golden quietness of the morning... and Alan beside him—or what that ought to have been, after last night...
A moment later he felt a hand on his shoulder, and raised his head. Alan was looking intently at him. ‘Davie,’ he said quietly. He bit his lip, uncertain how to go on, and then tightened his fingers on Davie’s shoulder—much as Davie had done to him yesterday evening, in a moment when words would not do. ‘Those redcoats are looking for Alan Breck Stewart,’ he said at last, quietly, ‘and they know who they want. If they catch us up, it won’t help much to have a different coat on. I don’t like it any more than you do... I know it’s not a game. It’s the risk I’ve always had to take, coming here, these last five years.’ He glanced back at the breakfast for a moment, then returned his gaze to Davie’s and said, ‘We must just outrun them, that’s all—and we can.’
Davie shook his head—and then, in a sudden sharp movement, grasped hold of Alan’s hands. ‘I just want you to be safe,’ he said. ‘I want us both to be somewhere safe, somewhere better—to have this somewhere better.’ If the meaning of the last point was somewhat clumsily expressed, he emphasised it by gripping Alan’s hands tightly.
Alan sighed. He pulled one of his hands away from Davie’s, passed it over his own eyes and down his face and said, ‘I know; so do I,’ very quietly.
Then an idea seemed to occur to him.
‘You know,’ he said in something more like his usual voice, ‘there’s something in that about changing my appearance.’ He raised his hand again and touched his moustache. ‘I could get rid of this, for instance. Oh, it’s a small thing, but it would make me harder to recognise.’
‘You could,’ said Davie slowly. It was a slightly surprising thought. Alan was vain enough about most aspects of his appearance, though what he felt about his moustache Davie had no idea. It wasn’t as though it was even the fashion—unless it was some strange French fashion Davie had never heard of, or something. ‘It would make your face look different.’ He looked again at the poster.
Alan nodded thoughtfully. ‘Truth be told, I’ve had my doubts about it for a while. Perhaps it’s time for a change anyway...’ He stroked the moustache another couple of times; then he turned fully back to Davie, smiled at him and said, ‘Well, I’d best get on with it; the breakfast will be ready soon.’ And he got up and went to fetch his shaving things out again.
Davie kept a careful watch over the trout and porridge while Alan was busy with his razor, and when he returned was just dishing the porridge up into the rough little wooden bowls they carried with them. ‘Here you go,’ he said, handing one of the bowls to Alan.
‘Perfect,’ said Alan, taking it, and then, ‘What do you think?’
Davie looked at him. To tell the truth, it did not make so very much difference; yet the absence of the moustache did make a difference to his face, made him just a bit less like the picture on the poster. It would not work miracles, but it might help; and they would surely need all the help they could find...
But there was another angle from which to consider the change too—one which Davie was unable to neglect just now, however anxious he might have been—and in that respect he certainly thought it an improvement.
And so he smiled, and said, ‘I think it looks good. Suits you.’
‘I’m glad you think so,’ said Alan, and he looked it. He sat down on the bed again, and gestured for Davie to join him; and for a little while they sat there in silence, eating the porridge and trout, their arms and shoulders touching, while the summer dawn grew about them. The laverocks were still singing up above, with that remarkable ability that larks have to fill the sky with what seem a myriad voices, when really only two or three birds are singing. The sun, making its first tentative dawn-red appearance between two hills, shone on the little landscape of mosses and lichens that covered the trunk and branches of the tree, casting their greens and greys and reds into an even more intricate pattern of golden light and shadow.
The trout were very good.
When they were finished Alan made as if to rise from his seat, but Davie, summoning up courage, laid a hand on his arm. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘There’s something else I haven’t tried yet—about your moustache, I mean.’
He put down his bowl, then reached over carefully to brush his fingers through the hair which he was so glad Alan had not cut—and pulled Alan to him and kissed him.
Alan saw his point at once, and as he returned the kiss he laughed against Davie’s mouth, a deep and gentle sound more lovely to Davie in that moment than all the laverocks in the world.
‘And does it,’ murmured Alan when at length they broke apart, ‘make a great difference there?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Davie in a mock-musing tone, stroking Alan’s hair again. His heart was beating in delight, and he felt full of strength and courage—whether for showing his feelings to Alan, or for going on running from the redcoats, trusting that they would get to safety in the end. Alan leaned closer to him, still laughing. Actually it did feel different, kissing him with a smooth upper lip. It was a joy to think of it—to pay attention to every little detail of Alan and every sensation of kissing him, and to find new details and new joys in such a change. ‘I think I’ll have to try it again to be sure just what I think,’ he said.
And Alan was very pleased for him to do so.