The pipes, the pipes are calling ...... in Panama?
The Pipes, The Pipes are Calling
Prelude
In 1695, the Scottish Africa and India Company was founded with the vision of economic gain in the model of the British East India Company. Three years later, around 1,500 Scottish men, women and children landed in the Isthmus of Panama, intent on setting up a trading post to cut out the long journey around Cape Horn, and put Scotland at the head of international trade . Instead of an Eden, the settlers soon discovered that their new colony of Darien was a hell-hole. Torrential rains came, "200 inches a year in the area is not uncommon", and with the rain came mosquitoes, malaria and yellow fever. By June 1699, half the colonists were dead. Meanwhile, another 1,300 Scots, unaware of the fate of the first colonists, arrived in Darien. They fared no better. After battling against several Spanish attacks, Fort St. Andrew surrendered in 1700 ending Scotland’s attempt to settle a colony in the New World, sucking up a third of the national funds and ultimately ending all hopes for an independent Scotland. Smothered by English bribes the Parliament in Edinburgh along with Westminster signed the Act of Union in 1707...
*****
Alex winced as his wife, Anna put the bandage around his head.
"You little baby, Alexander, it's only a scratch"
"Aye, it's easy enough for you to say"
"Aye it is" Anna smiled "I'll go get you some wine". As she left Alex undid the buttons on his jerkin, during the fighting he hadn't noticed it had turned midday, the humidity was ridiculous and apart from his back and thighs, his body was totally sunburned and covered in bites, how he hadn't fallen to yellow fever he put down to good fortune.
"To Arms! To Arms!" cried the sentry, Alex quickly grabbed his musket and painfully ran to the ramparts. He began loading his weapon only to duck as a cannon ball flew overhead crashing into the flagpole at the centre of the fort, sending the tatty blue and white soultire to the mud below. This image didn't boost Alex's confidence much but he jumped up and began loading again, he wasn't doing this for Scotland, he was doing this for Anna and little Margaret god rest her soul, he wasn't going to let some damn Spaniards take what his baby died..... 'god she didn't die for this' he thought 'she came along with ma and da because it would be fun, I thought it would be paradise, a new start for us all, instead it was an early end'.
Alex raised his musket and waited for the enemy to come into the open. It was quiet. A flock of birds flew above the high jungle canopy. It began.
An almighty roar went up as the some three hundred Spanish soldiers charged out of the treeline straight for the fort. The settlers opened fire in a volley but not Alex. He waited. They got closer. A second volley fired. Closer. Alex's eye picked out his target, the officer leading the assault. He aimed carefully and the standard bearer was thrown to the ground. Alex pulled his family claymore from it's scabbard and began running down the ramparts towards the main gate, as he did, Spaniards began to climb the walls. Alex was a man possessed, no one stood in his way as he ran down the line, stabbing, slashing and clubbing as he went. He vision was red, consumed with bloodlust, a dozen fell if not more as he pushed on. Eventually he reached the gate as the Capitán mounted the battlements. He was a large man, a master with a sword, besting all before him, but Alex did not care. He kept going. The Spaniard lowered his pistol and fired, hitting a settler full on in the chest, with a smug grin he turned around only to receive a gun butt to his jaw.
Alex could not control himself, he threw the man to the swampy mud below and followed him. He didn't stop. He kept stabbing and clubbing and punching until all before him was a gorey mess, yet all he saw was the face of his darling Margaret , and as the pain and the love and the anger seeped away he got back up and stumbled back to the battle, this would be a long day.
*****
The people of Darien celebrated that night, not for victory but for survival in more ways than one, and within two weeks another group of some 2,000 settlers would arrive to help drive the Spanish from the Isthmus all together. Within those two weeks a man would die of his infected wounds with his wife by his side, and she would later return home without a family to a free Scotland, won in blood in the mosquito infested swamps of Central America...