A restful evening

This was undoubtedly officer country. Burr looked around at the fine furniture and wondered, again, how he had come to such a place. Unnatural. That's what it was. Even though he was intrigued by it at the same time. Unnatural, but interesting at the same time.

Burr was curious, and it was his curiosity that won out. He ventured past the apparently half-broken front door and spotted the familiar polished wooden block that signified a bar. Now that was something he was happy to see. A good, stiff mug of ale would go down nicely.

But, as he quickly found out, there was little way to tell what was what amongst the array of bottles lined up neatly underneath the bar. The fancy script on some of them defied easy reading, while others made no sense. Whatever happened to a good, simple, bottle of ale? Had things really changed that much since the regiment had last been in England?

"Damn," he grumbled, after fumbling with one bottle until he figured out the top twisted off. That was only plain daft, wasn't it?

Jenny stopped in the doorway, staring at the stranger. "What are you doing? Are you stealing?"

At the unexpected question, Burr looked up. "Tryin' to find some ale, Miss," he replied, lifting the bottle in his hand to emphasise the truth of this statement.

"Who said you could come in here and take our ale? Who are you?" she demanded, advancing on him.

His bushy eyebrows arched. She had a point; he had invited himself in. This probably was an officers' mess, then.

"Din't mean no harm by et," he said, momentarily turning his attention back to the bottle in his hands. Might as well put this away, along with the others. He would not draw unnecessary attention to himself by leaving the bar out of order.

"I'm Sergeant Burr," he added in the same even tone. "D'ye got a name too, Miss? Like t'know who's throwin' me on me ear, see."

"Oh." Now that she looked at him, it was indeed quite evident by the stripes on his arm that he was a sergeant. She frowned. "In that case - Sergeant - you're welcome to whatever you like. As always," she added in an undertone. She cleared her throat and glared up at him. "I'm Jenny Ross."

Burr inclined his head slightly, his approximation of a bow since he was on one knee at the moment. "Servant, Miss," he told her. "D'ye know what's ale here'bouts, an' what ain't, perchance?"

She sighed and crossed to the other side of the bar, walking around to where he was examining the bottles. "That's ale," she said, grabbing a bottle and plunking it down in front of him. "That's wine. Ale, ale, ale, wine, wine, wine. Other spirits there. Use that thing to open them, or that one."

Random Bottle: *falls to the ground and smashes*

Jenny jumped in surprise and stared at the man. "What did you do? Clumsy ox, be careful!"

Cotton heard a crash from the room he was passing and paused to look in the door. "Hello there, Jenny." His eyes widened a little as he came in and saw the Sergeant kneeling down by the bar. "Evenin', Sar'nt."

Ah. He had been close to discovering what he was after, at least. Burr nodded his thanks and reached for one of the ale bottles Miss Ross had pointed out to him. This venture was interrupted when another bottle unexpectedly came off the shelf and shattered on the floor.

"Ain't that sumthin'," he muttered, shaking his head slightly. Bottles taking falls without anybody touching them. This was a strange sort of bar. The mess would need cleaning up though, before any of the officers that undoubtedly lived here saw.

Another voice came from the doorway and Burr looked up, halfway through scooping up as much of the broken glass as he could with his hands. "Evenin'," he replied. "D'ye know where there's dry cloth handy? Spilt wine or summat here."

"Dry cloth? Under the bar or som'ers, I should think." He shrugged. "Don't think we've met. Name's Cotton - Gable Cotton." He disappeared behind the bar and produced a cloth. "This do you, then?"

" 'Bliged, Cotton," Burr told him, accepted the cloth. He went directly to work with it, sopping up the puddle of wine. Or whatever it was that had spilled. "Name's Burr."

"You're welcome, Sergeant," Cotton replied. "Don't s'pose there's any chance I could have an ale, is there?"

Ale. Burr grinned slightly. "Just here," he said and held up one of the previously-described ale bottles. "Time for the usual ration, is it?"

There were voices from the room the bar was in. Newbury, passing by in the hall, heard Jenny Ross speaking, followed by a strange male voice. And Cotton as well. He hadn't seen Jenny since the visit to that cursed ship.

"This where folks've got to?" He asked, poking his head into the room.

"Joe. Well, you're back," Jenny observed.

"Aye," he said, a trifle uncertainly, for he didn't understand her meaning. They were all recently returned from their outing, after all. Right?

Another bottle crashed from the shelf. Jenny started and looked at Joe in surprise, as if he had somehow caused it.

Newbury stared back.

"Who's throwin' bottles?"