On the road to Lisbon

By the time they passed through into the city and stopped in the Headquarters' stable Sharpe had noticably got more control over Noix, not to mention looking less likely to fall off, although he still possed all the grace in the saddle of a sack of grain with the contents leaking out the corner.

Padstowe dismounted, handing the nag to a groom and immediately went to the stall where he knew Bethany to be kept. The top half of the door was open, her head poking out, and at the sight of him her ears pricked up, craning her neck forward to nuzzle his hand in the hope of a treat.

"Hello, my girl," Padstowe said affectionately, fondling her velvet nose. "Hello there; did you miss me?"

(OOC - you just posted the thousandth comment in this thread! W00t!)

Sharpe hoped it would be all right to leave Noix here, in the stables belonging to Headquarters. His own billet possessed not even a scrap of grass where he could put a horse.

As he dismounted - slid off ungracefullly, anyway - he was pleased to see a groom come over to take Noix to a spare stall across from where Padstowe was visiting his own horse.

He bit back a curse as he realised just how stiff he was even from just that short ride.

"I ain't a jockey, Jonathan, not in any way. Reckon I can let him have her back?"

[OOC: Eep! ]

"It's worth a try," he said, giving Bethany a final pat on the neck before turning back to Sharpe and making their way round to the front door of the building. "It all depends on the conditions of his parole, which I hope I can pursuade Major Hogan to make quite generous."

"You'd better see Hogan first, then, 'cause the way I feel, he won't want to do anyone any favours after I've had words wi' him."

What he really wanted, of course, was to head back to his billet and catch some shut-eye, but it wasn't going to happen until he'd reported to the General, and seen Major Hogan. And then there were preparations to be made for getting on the march, whenever the General decided to move them out.

At least Harper and the Chosen Men had been able to head back to their billet, to get some sleep. So he wouldn't have to deal with cranky Riflemen, anyway. He was the crankiest thing around here in a green jacket, and he knew it.

Oh, the horror that was a frustrated Richard Sharpe...

"I suggest we see him together, considering you may have to wait a while to see the General -"

He stopped as he suddenly remembered the papers in his saddle.

"One moment."

He jogged back around to the stables - probably a very unwise thing to do, considering the way it made him feel - and approached the groom who was leading the nag he'd ridden in on to an empty stall.

"Take off the saddle and put it in the tack room," he said. He indicated Bethany. "That one is mine, and I shall not be requiring this one again."

He then set about removing the saddlebags, directing the groom to remove the harness and whilst he was busy with that Padstowe slipped the papers and cypher book out, depositing then in the bag. He then went top rejoin Sharpe.

"Be forgetting my own next," he muttered darkly as he hefted the bags over his shoulder.

Sharpe was about to say something when Padstowe remembered something he'd forgotten, and went back round to the stables.

He muttered something about forgetting his own name next. "It's understandable. You're tired. I'm tired. Mebbe we had best see Hogan together."

Though how Padstowe was going to be able to stop him giving Hogan an earful, he didn't know. Hogan's a senior officer, some treacherous corner of his mind whispered, and he squelched it firmly. He didn't care; the man had risked his life, his men's lives, as well as those of Maturin and Padstowe - and the papers they carried - by not sending a big enough escort. Sharpe would have welcomed having the rest of his lads, and they probably wouldn't even have been attacked if he'd had them.

He stalked up the steps to the main entrance, looking thunderous.