Randall Wallace - Braveheart

Just as he had this thought, the scout at the head of his column gave a low whistle, and Dolecroft spun back to see five Scots trudge out of the forest up ahead. Even at that distance Dolecroft could see they were exhausted men. They walked on wobbly legs, clearly weakened from hunger; they hadn’t even lifted their eyes to see the English column. Even so, they were in a formation of their own, a huge redheaded brute at the center of a V formation, as if they were the vanguard of a larger band. Dolecroft stared, scarcely able to breathe. It was as if he could halt his men right there on the road, and the spent Scottish outlaws would march right onto the points of the English spears.

Then the Scots saw them; the big redhead staggered, spun round, snatched at the men on either side of him, and virtually hurled them back toward the forest from which they’d come. The startled Scots ran like frightened deer, and Dolecroft know instantly that they had just made their second blunder — this one fatal –for in tier surprise they were leading him straight back to their main band, possibly even to Wallace himself!

The scout was waving wildly, but it was unnecessary; every rider in the column had seen the Scots already. “After them!” Dolecroft shouted and spurred his horse.

Hamish and his men –for it was Hamish that Dolecroft had seen — changed direction, but the English scout spotted them crossing a hilltop and led the column after them.

Scrambling over rocks, tripping and falling, tumbling downhill and clawing their way up again, the emaciated Scots ran for their lives. The English horsemen galloped in pursuit, closing the gap quickly. The Scots changed direction onto rockier ground. Dolecroft shouted the order, “Patience! Mind the footing!” and his experienced rides slowed their pace so their horses could handle the harder footing without danger and still drew nearer their prey.

Hamish now made his final blunder, leading his men in panic across an open field surrounded by low hills. The Scots were boxed in; there was no escape. Dolecroft felt a passing pang of disappointment that the feeling men had not led him to the heart of the whole band, but they could still take one or two of these harried men alive, and who could say what a little torture might reveal? Dolecroft spurred his horse on, and his whole column charged into the open field.

The English scout was the first to notice something wrong. His horse was staggering, having difficulty with the footing. “We’re in a bog!” the scout shouted.

And so they were. The Scots, bounding from grassy clump to grassy clump like rabbits through a familiar field, were trotting along with surprising ease, but the horses were miring halfway up their forelegs in the soggy earth. This was not comforting to the hoses; it made them jittery. “Here, it’s firm this way—“ Dolecroft called.

But as soon as they moved toward the firm ground, fifty Scots appeared on he crest of the hill on the far side of the bog. A grizzled redhead –old Campbell —stood at the front, and he was smiling. On the hills to the left and the right more Scots appeared; the English were boxed in the bog. Dolecroft wheeled and looked to his rear; and there stood William Wallace, his broadsword resting on his shoulder, fifty more Scots behind him.

Dolecroft scarcely had time to realize his blunder. Wallace lifted his broadsword, screamed, and led the charge. The Scots swarmed in from all directions; the English horses could barely move, the bog sucked at their hooves. Wallace’s broadsword swung so fast that it blurred in steel and blood.

It was a slaughter.

When Lord Pickering, head of the English occupational army in Stirling Castle, was handed new of the disaster, he was dipping his fingertips into a bowl of berries sent to him by the king himself, who was campaigning in France. Lord Pickering read the message and his face turned as white as the porcelain bowl. “Another ambush! My God!………What about our infiltrator?” he asked his assistant.

“He has already joined them, m’lord,” his assistant told him.

Pickering sat back and calculated. If their infiltrator had already joined the Scottish rebels, then he was with them during the ambush. So they would trust him. He could get close to Wallace. The plan was working.

It would not be so bad to have to tell the king that he had lost so many men to ambushes and raids by these rebels if he could present to the king the head of this man that so many Scots were looking to as their savior.

Pickering felt better. He went back to his berries. After a few minutes, he called for more wine and some cheese.

DURING THE TIME HE HAD SPENT WITH HIS UNCLE ARGYLE, William Wallace had studied all of the terrain of Scotland. Uncle Argyle had told him that the survival of any man who fought against outrageously superior numbers would depend on that man’s knowledge of the land through which he would be hunted. William had learned his lessons well. In a time when many people had never left their home village and could never find their way back to it if they were carried but ten miles away, William had crisscrossed his country with his uncle by his side, stopping here and there at the home of one of Uncle Argyle’s follow ecclesiastics to examine a new book or even at a monastery’s library, riding on to discuss the knowledge gleaned from those volumes, but always, always, studying the terrain.

So it was that after the ambush of Dolecroft’s cavalry, William Wallace led his men north into a deep woods, where they would find more shelter and protection. They needed rest and were laden with the booty they had taken from the English cavalry; extra weapons, clothing, food. Many of the men with Wallace, including old Campbell and his son Hamish, were experienced sheep rustlers and were familiar with the north-south trails that led across the ridge tops, but they found these forests that William led them into to be mysterious, mystical places. They did not see the trails that William saw. They didn’t like the unfamiliar noises they heard when they tried to sleep. They didn’t like the way the moon, especially when it was full as it was this night, seemed to be walking with them, looking down on their every move. Wallace realized their discomfort; as Uncle Argyle had told him, men will choose the familiar way, even when it appears less favorable. But they were safe here — or so William thought.

He walked along through the trackless forest, his heavy sheathed broadsword across his shoulders. They were all on foot; the horses they had taken from the cavalry were already on their way to be sold in the Highlands. William began to think of trade — another topic of discussion with Uncle Argyle. England wanted to control Scotland’s trade with other countries, but here was so much Scotland could produce that traders in other places might—

One of the men close behind Wallace staggered and fell from exhaustion. The men who tried to help him could barely find the strength to lift him to his feet. Angry at himself for forgetting the fatigue of his men, Wallace said to Hamish, “Stop here and rest.”

They collapsed to the leaves and loam and greedily squeezed water from the sheep belly canteens.

Wallace sat down on a pad of moss and leaned back against the trunk of a tree. He tried to think, to remind himself to keep thinking, but he as so tired. He had not realized it before.

Suddenly he froze; a shaft of moonlight illuminated a cloaked woman standing twenty feet ahead of him. Something about her was familiar, and then she pulled off the hood and revealed her auburn hair, cascading in the moonlight. It was—

It couldn’t be! But it was! Murron! Her pale gray eyes held him, watching in absolute peace, a half smile on her lips, as if she had been anticipating his reaction to this surprise and had already played it out in her mind.