13th June: Mapping out surroundings

The corners of Edward's mouth lifted in a little smile.

"The men often carve their names or signs into the founding stones of the bridges. In the end their names will perhaps be more remembered than the architect's."

He shrugged rather self-mockingly.

"I would fix quite a large plaque to my structures, bearing my name and all honours, but it could turn out rather embarrasing should somebody see the bridge as a ruin in a hundred years."

"Even ruins can be quite impressive as you yourself must have seen," Vickery pointed out. "Well, either impressive, or romantic, which is not at all the same thing."

Edward chuckled.

"No, not quite. So would you prefer that the ruins of anything I build here to look romantic or impressive, Sir? I will of course try to incorporate your wishes into my design to acive the best effect possible."

Privately, Blackwood thought that while it was all very fascinating to discuss bridges and their durability, doing so did not quite fulfill their purpose for the day. Or maybe they did and he was simply failing to understand it. That was possible, he supposed. Either way, he'd never really seen the attraction of old bridges and the like. To him they were all just weather-beaten structures that had been built in the foggy distant past.

Vickery laughed. "I think we had better start training the men to help you make your maps so that you can build your bridges, sir, or there will be no ruins to look either impressive or romantic, and no bridges to help Sir Arthur win his war."

"Certainly. Especially since he would probably say rather cooly that he would prefer his bridges neither romantic nor impressive, but standing."

"With a disdainful look down that great beak of a nose to boot," Vickery replied.

"Since he is one of the few generals to properly value engineering work, most engineers will forgive him that very easily."

The scene was a rather vivid picute in Edward's mind now ... his fingers itched to draw it.

"He has very proper ideas about the value of Light Infantry too," Vickery said. "I must beg your pardon. Would you care for a cup of tea, perhaps? It was inexcusable of me not to have asked before."

"It would be a great pleasure, Captain."

Edward's mien was rather cool, the animation he had shown when talking about his maps mostly banned from his face and voice again. Yet he was noticeably more relaxed than he had been before.

"Perhaps you could instruct me in those values sometimes? My own training, I must admit, did cover these grounds only very scantily, but I suspect it will make quite a big difference in the way this war is carried on."

"Certainly. I rather think you may learn some of those values this afternoon - Riflemen are taught to think for themselves, moreso than soldiers in the Line regiments. It is something than I think officers not used to our methods may find somewhat... disconcerting, at least at first."

Torrington had become all business again now that they were not discussing mapmaking. Vickery wondered if perhaps that was why he chosen to join the Royal Engineers rather than an infantry regiment, where a man of his status could advance far more quickly.

"If they think independently, that can certainly be only of advantage in my line of work, but I would guess that it makes commanding them regularly rather more challenging? Especially if they have not much to do but to wait."

Vickery smiled ruefully. "They are certainly inventive in ways of getting around whatever bans I put in place, or figuring out what I have not needed to prevent them from doing and doing just that thing. They are by no means all scoundrels, though, and several of them are quite the opposite."

"I don't think at all that you can call the two troublemakers from this morning 'scoundrels'. They even brought back an enemy officer and seem to have been instrumental in a small victory. But still I must admit that I am glad that it was your place and not mine to try to sort through this incident."

Edward's eyes held an amused, but fond look now.

"Rottländer certainly has energy enough to find a whole in every wall and slip through, and I would suspect his friend isn't far behind in that."

A small sigh escaped Vickery at this point. "The two this morning are... if not quite a fair representative of what I have to deal with, they are not far from being so. I think with them it is not deliberate rule breaking so much as youthful high spirits. I do not begrudge their friendship, but I do feel as if I shall become grey-haired in the Service through dealing with them. They are neither of them mean-spirited, however, which is some small mercy."

He shook his head, smiling. "I do not know that I will ever be able to think of everything they might do and forbid them from doing it before they have done it. They remind me of nothing quite so much as a pair of mischievous schoolboys."

A responding smile curved the corners of Edward's mouth.

"You really are herding cats here ... Two very youthful and inquisitive tomcats more specifically. But I hope it will not turn your hair grey. They would both be very shocked should they realize that this was their doing."

But they weren't the only one with mischievous spirits in the camp either. Someone else must have shared their taste for pranks.

"I'm glad that I can be quite certain that at least Rottländer hasn't had a hand in poor Newbury's sudden appearance. Has any information concerning that come up yet?"

Vickery shook his head. "About the only person guaranteed to be innocent there is Newbury himself; there is no way he could have physically walked here from the surgeon's wagon. I believe that Rottländer and Pye are innocent of it, too. As is Cotton, of course."

Cotton himself came in at this point, moving the tent flap aside with an elbow in order not to spill the contents of the tin mugs he was holding, which he placed carefully on Vickery's writing table. "There y'go, sir. An' for your guests, too."

Edward acknowledged Cotton's appearance with a friendly nod.

"When I came to the fire, all the riflemen there seemed rather stunned by the whole incident. I don't think any one of them had been hiding something ..."

Edward looked at Cotton with a twinkle in his eyes.

"... Apart from the fact that they worked very hard to make me believe that nothing out of the ordinary had happened."

He looked from one officer to the other, and wished that he had waited another few minutes before bringing their tea in. "Well, sir, we wasn't goin' to let anyone get in trouble for summat we knew nothin' about, sir."

Edward raised an eyebrow, the look in his eyes still teasing.

"Commendable. In this case I would suggest, however, that one of you stays with Newbury all the time. I gather he has a habit of getting into trouble through something you know nothing about. By the way, how ... is he?"

The question started as a polite phrase, but halfway through it there was a minute pause, as Edward suddenly realized that he really wanted to know. That it wasn't some chance acquaintance who stayed home for a day or two because of some minor discomfort, but a wounded man who might have been killed by this thoughtless prank.

"He is... in the best hands he can be, and I have every hope he will recover, given time." If they could give him time; Vickery might have to send him back to the army's hospital at Belem otherwise.

Edward pressed his lips together. The surgeon had impressed him rather unfavourably. If his were the best hands available here, he did not care to find himself in them.

"That certainly would be very much to be hoped for. How long will he have to stay in the surgeon's care? If he can't return to full duty immediately, I would be very glad to have him as an assistant. I imagine that it is somewhat less strenuous than the usual exploits of your company."

"I think it to be a matter of months rather than weeks, unfortunately." Vickery sighed. "I may yet have to send him back to Lisbon, to the hospital at Belem." He wondered if Newbury would be able to help Captain Torrington, or if his head injury was too severe.

"May I ask where he had contracted those injuries? They were not all inflicted by the enemy, weren't they?"

Vickery shook his head. "He had some sort of disagreement with some provosts or something." His tone hardened a little. "They are now ex-provosts, and may count themselves fortunate indeed not to have been brought to the triangle."