Quotes in honor of Veterans Day
Here's a new quote collection, in honor of Veterans Day. Hope you enjoy it!
1) Roger and Jamie, discussing how to train inexperienced soldiers in the days leading up to the Battle of Alamance:
Some of the men had been soldiers once, if not trained infantrymen; either in Scotland, or in the French and Indian Wars. Many had not, and each evening saw Jamie conducting military drills and practice, though of a most unorthodox sort.2) Lord John at the Battle of Crefeld, stepping in to command the gun crew after their lieutenant was killed.
“We havena got time to drill them properly,” he’d told Roger over the first evening’s fire. “It takes weeks, ken, to shape men so they willna run under fire.” [....] “It’s the natural thing, to run from danger, aye? The point of drilling troops is to accustom them to an officer’s voice, so they’ll hear, even over the roar of guns, and obey without thinkin’ of the danger.”
“Aye, like ye train a horse not to bolt at noises,” Roger interrupted, sardonically.
“Aye, like that,” Jamie agreed, quite seriously. “The difference being that ye need to make a horse believe ye ken better than he does; an officer only needs to be louder.” Roger laughed, and Jamie went on, half-smiling.
“When I went for a soldier in France, I was marched to and fro and up and down, and wore a pair of boots clear through before they gave me powder for my gun. I was sae weary at the end of a day of drilling that they could have shot off cannon by my pallet and I wouldna have turned a hair.”
(From THE FIERY CROSS by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 26, "The Militia Rises". Copyright © 2001 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
“Load!” he barked, and snatched the linstock from the bombardier, motioning the soldier to replace the man who had fled. Sponger and rammer fell to their work at once, with no more than a hasty glance at Grey, blood-soaked and vicious. The erstwhile bombardier was clumsy, but willing. Grey barked them through the maneuver, once, again, forcing them, guiding them, and then felt them begin to drop back into the accustomed rhythm of the work and pick up speed, gradually losing their terror in the encompassing labor of serving the gun.3) Roger at the Battle of Savannah. Nothing could have prepared him for what an actual battle would be like. It was bloody, horrific, and terrifying, but I think he did really well.
Cannon were firing close at hand but he couldn’t tell whether they were friend or foe; clouds of black powder smoke rolled over them, obscuring everything.
His soaked clothes had gone cold again, and it was raining. He had taken the coil of smoking slow-match from the bombardier and tied it in its bag to his own belt. His fingers were stiff, clumsy; he had difficulty forcing the lighted fuse into the linstock, but forced himself to keep the rhythm, shouting orders in a voice that cracked like broken iron. Sponge. Vent. Load cartridge. Ram. Load wadding. Ram. Check vent. Powder. Fall back! And the hissing small flame at the end of the linstock coming down toward the touchhole, sure and graceful, with no sense at all that his own hand guided it.
(From LORD JOHN AND THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE BLADE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 29, "Dawn of Battle". Copyright © 2007 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
“Help, help me!”4) Here is a bit from the battle of Moore's Creek Bridge, a reminder that men do terrible things in battle. Imagine how Jamie must have felt, killing a man he once considered his friend.
He saw the man then, on hands and knees, dragging one leg, and he splashed through the puddles to reach him. Not much blood, but the leg was clearly wounded; he got a shoulder under the man’s arm and got him on his feet, hustled him as fast as possible away from the redoubt, out of range...
The air shattered again and the earth seemed to tilt under him; he was lying on the ground with the man he’d been helping on top of him, the man’s jaw knocked away and hot blood and chunks of teeth soaking into his chest. Panicked, he struggled out from under the twitching body--Oh, God, oh, God, he was still alive--and then he was kneeling by the man, slipping in the mud, catching himself with a hand on the chest where he could feel the heart beating in time with the blood spurting, Oh, Jesus, help me!
He groped for words, frantic. It was all gone. All the comforting words he’d gleaned, all his stock-in-trade…
“You’re not alone,” he panted, pressing hard on the heaving chest, as though he could anchor the man to the earth he was dissolving into. “I’m here. I won’t leave you. It’s gonna be all right. You’re gonna be all right.” He kept repeating that, kept his hands pressing hard, and then, in the midst of the spouting carnage, felt the life leave the body.
Just ... gone.
(From GO TELL THE BEES THAT I AM GONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 92, "Like Water Spilled on the Ground, Which Cannot Be Gathered Up Again". Copyright © 2021 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
Major Donald MacDonald floundered, rising halfway in the water. His wig was gone and his head showed bare and wounded, blood running from his scalp down over his face. His teeth were bared, clenched in agony or ferocity, there was no telling which. Another shot struck him and he fell with a splash--but rose again, slow, slow, and then pitched forward into water too deep to stand, but rose yet again, splashing frantically, spraying blood from his shattered mouth in the effort to breathe.5) Frank Randall served in MI6 during World War II. We know very little about what he did during the war, but sending young RAF pilots (including Jerry MacKenzie) on incredibly dangerous missions, knowing they might not come back, was certainly part of it, and that obviously affected him very deeply. Here he is talking to Jerry's widow, Marjorie.
Let it be you, then, lad, said the dispassionate voice. He raised his rifle and shot MacDonald cleanly through the throat. He fell backward and sank at once.
(From A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 113, "The Ghosts of Culloden". Copyright © 2005 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
“I’ve no particular right to say this to you--but I will,” he said, low-voiced. “You’re right; they’re not all brave. Most of them--of us--we’re just...there, and we do our best. Most of the time,” he added, and the corner of his mouth lifted slightly, though she couldn’t tell whether it was in humor or bitterness.6) Claire and Bree at Alamance, treating the wounded from the battle:
“But your husband--” He closed his eyes for a moment and said, “The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it. He did that, every day, for a long time.”
“You sent him, though,” she said, her voice as low as his. “You did.”
His smile was bleak.
“I’ve done such things every day ... for a long time.”
(From "A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows" by Diana Gabaldon, in SEVEN STONES TO STAND OR FALL. Copyright © 2010 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
I glanced round the campsite, which now resembled an ambulance depot, littered with bodies, equipment, and blood-stained bandages. Most of the bodies were moving, thank God, if only to curse or moan. One man had been dead when his friends brought him in; he lay quiet in the shade of a tree, wrapped in his blanket.7) William, too, has seen horrific things in battle. Seeing a friend shot in the head by an enemy soldier, inches away from him, with no warning at all, was certainly one of them. I thought the TV show did an excellent job depicting this scene.
Most of the injuries I saw had been slight, though there were two men shot through the body; I could do nothing for them but keep them warm and hope for the best. Brianna was checking them every few minutes for signs of shock and fever, in between rounds of administering honeyed water to those suffering more superficial wounds.
[....]
I had had to amputate a leg, soon after the battle ended. It was a man from Mercer’s Company--camped near to us, and lacking a surgeon of their own--struck by a rebounding chunk of a mortar round that had torn off most of his foot and left the flesh of the lower leg hanging in ribbons from the shattered bone. I’d thought [Bree] would faint when the heavy limb thumped into the dirt at her feet, and she’d thought so, too, but had by some miracle stayed upright, supporting the patient--who really had fainted, thank the Lord for small mercies--while I cauterized the bleeding vessels and bound the stump with brutal speed.
(From THE FIERY CROSS by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 67, "Alamance". Copyright © 2001 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
“What do you think--” he said, turning to Gruenwald, and was startled to find the ober-leftenant staring at him blank-faced, his jaw hanging open. The man’s hand loosened and fell to his side, and the mitred helmet fell and rolled away in the dust. William blinked and saw a thick worm of red snake its way slowly down from under Gruenwald’s dark hair.8) Jamie at the second battle of Saratoga, under fire from British troops:
Gruenwald sat down quite suddenly and fell backward in the road, his face gone a muddy white.
“Shit!” said William, and jerked suddenly to an awareness of what had just happened.
“Ambush!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Das ist ein Überfall!!”
There were shouts of alarm rising from the column, and the crack of sporadic firing from the woods. William grabbed Gruenwald under the arms and dragged him hastily into the shelter of a group of pine trees. The ober-leftenant was still alive, though his coat was wet with sweat and blood.
(From AN ECHO IN THE BONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 59, "The Battle of Bennington". Copyright © 2009 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
He scrabbled with his feet, clawing for purchase on the logs of the abatis, got one hand through a gap and onto a log, but lost his grip on the flaking bark and fell back, landing bruisingly on his rifle and knocking out his wind. The man beside him fired up through the gap, and white smoke spurted over him, hiding momentarily from the Hessian he’d glimpsed above. He rolled over and crawled fast away before the smoke could drift off or the fellow decide to drop a grenade through it.9) We have heard Jamie speak of "the red thing" before, a blood-lust that overwhelms him with the desire to kill his enemy. Occasionally he can overcome it, as he did at the Battle of Alamance, but it's not easy.
“Get clear!” he shouted over his shoulder, but the man who’d fired was trying his own luck with a running jump. The grenade fell through the gap just as the man leapt upward. It caught him in the chest and went off.
Jamie rubbed his hand on his shirt, swallowing bile. The skin of his palm stung, scraped and full of bark splinters. Shards of metal and wood chips had exploded outward; something had struck Jamie in the face, and he felt the sting of his sweat and the warmth of blood running down his cheek. He could see the grenadier, a glimpse of green coat through the gap in the abatis. Quick, before he moved.
He grabbed a cartridge from his bag and ripped it with his teeth, counting. He could load a rifle in twelve seconds, he knew it, had timed it. Nine … eight … What was it Bree taught the weans, counting seconds? Hippopotami, aye. Six hippopotami … five hippopotami … He had an insane urge to laugh, seeing in his mind’s eye a group of several hippopotami solemnly watching him and making critical remarks regarding his progress. Two hippopotami … He wasn’t dead yet, so he pressed himself close up under the abatis, aimed the barrel through the gap, and fired at the smear of green that might be a fir tree but wasn’t, since it screamed.
(From AN ECHO IN THE BONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 59, "The Battle of Bennington". Copyright © 2009 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
The man he pursued heard him coming, glanced back over his shoulder, and with a shriek of terror, ran full-tilt into a tree. He threw himself upon his prey, landing on the man’s back and feeling the springy crack of ribs beneath his knee. He gripped a handful of hair, slick and hot with greasy sweat, and jerked back the man’s head. He barely stopped himself cutting the naked throat that lay before him, stretched and defenseless. He could feel the shock of the blade on flesh, the hotness of the spurting blood, and wanted it.10) And finally, here's a quote from THE FIERY CROSS that seems especially appropriate for Veterans Day:
He gulped air, panting.
Very slowly, he drew the knife away from the leaping pulse. The movement left him trembling with need, as though he had been dragged from his woman’s body on the verge of spilling seed.
“You are my prisoner,” he said.
The man stared up at him, uncomprehending. The man was weeping, tears making tracks through the dirt on his face, and trying to speak, sobbing, but unable to draw enough air to make words with his head wrenched back. Vaguely, it occurred to Jamie that he had spoken in Gaelic; the man did not understand.
Slowly, he loosened his grip, made himself release the man’s head. He groped for the English words, buried somewhere under the bloodlust that pulsed through his brain.
“You are ... my ... prisoner,” he managed at last, panting for air between words.
“Yes! Yes! Anything, don’t kill me, please don’t kill me!” The man huddled under him, sobbing, hands clasped to the back of his neck and shoulders hunched around his ears, as though he feared Jamie would seize his neck in his teeth and snap his spine.
At the thought, he felt a dim desire to do so, but the thrum of his blood was even now dying down.
(From THE FIERY CROSS by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 65, "Alamance". Copyright © 2009 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
"Many of us died in battle," he said, his voice scarcely audible above the rustle of the fire. "Many died of burning. Many of us starved. Many died at sea, many died of wounds and illness." He paused. "Many died of sorrow."Many thanks to all those who have served in the Armed Forces!
His eyes looked beyond the firelit circle for a moment, and I thought perhaps he was searching for the face of Abel MacLennan. He lifted his cup then, and held it high in salute for a moment.
"Slàinte!" murmured a dozen voices, rising like the wind. "Slàinte!" he echoed them--then tipped the cup, so that a little of the brandy fell into the flames, where it hissed and burned blue for an instant's time.
He lowered the cup, and paused for a moment, head bent. He lifted his head then, and raised the cup toward Archie Hayes, who stood across the fire from him, round face unreadable, fire sparking from his silver gorget and his father’s brooch.
"While we mourn the loss of those who died, we must also pay tribute to you who fought and suffered with equal valor--and survived."
(From THE FIERY CROSS by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 15, "The Flames of Declaration". Copyright © 2001 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)
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