OPORTO, 22nd May - Barca d’Avintas

Unbelieveable. Javert tilted his head back to the pouring heavens, closing his eyes and let out a groan.

"Do you ever shut up?" he asked, exasperated.

"When I sleep." He smirked, glancing at Javert.

"Least, that's what I hope." He knew it had bothered the corporal but frankly, it had been intentional enough when there were bits of things that he learnt from it.

"Somehow I doubt it," Javert growled, sorely tempted to gag the hussar with his own sword knot if he were to continue - or better, with his neckcloth. He wondered how the boy's messmates could put up with it.

Willoughby gave a small shrug, barely a lift of his shoulders and continued. Surprisingly it was in silence rather than speech, though up ahead Kenley was heard, as he had been for a while. He talked of their gallop, a little about how they've missed out on getting the French because they had to pick this straggling lot, then it was about what sort of celebrations there could begin, once they were all returned.

Herrero picked his steps carefully over the worn ground, obeying his master without much protest. Perhaps they hadn't ridden together for long, yet.. they were indeed becoming a good working pair. Willoughby turned to his horse, patted the side of his neck gently, and loosened his reins a little. A small treat was snuck to the animal's mouth, gobbled down swiftly. The horse tilted his head towards his owner, nudging his side as if to request more. Timothy held his hand bare to the animal. The horse insisted for a short while and then turned back to concentrate solely on the path ahead.

Silence - hooray! Or at least a halt in the incessant prattle. Javert blessed the respite as they carried on going, retracing the steps the corporal had taken only a short while before, though it seemed an eternity in this endless mud, rain and dark. Left alone to reflect Javert's thoughts became steadily gloomier, weighing up his future prospects and finding each time that they did not look that spectacular. He would be transported - he was sure of that, as who would think a French corporal worth transferring when there were hardly any English prisoners that the British may want back. Javert had spent most of his life within the walls of a prison, and now he thought about it the more he was certain that it did not wish to become an involuntary inmate of one, especially and English prison on a vile, windswept moor, or the hell-holes that were the hulks along that too-long coastline. What was there to look forward to? Only the end of the war, and that by Javert's calculation would be quite some time. The English had only begun to bite; it would take years for any resolution...

He noticed, through all his musings, the boy affectionately petting his horse, and smuggling some sort of treat to it. Javert smiled to himself; the English may be cruel to their own kind, but they at least loved their horses, though this horse, for all the mud, was anything but English in origin. He wondered what the treat had been. A handful of oats saved up? Some sugar stolen from the officers' mess?

"So where did you find your damaltian?"

Willoughby's gaze was somewhat sour at the name his horse was given, though befitting each of his spots and dark marks. He looked at Herrero, who's ears twitched in the direction of Javert, twitched back at the curse of one of the hussars, listened as a subtle groan came from the cart, perhaps one of the injured voicing his discomfort, and then forward to the riders ahead.

"..had it with our horses." He patted the animal. Herrero shook his head a little, throwing his thick mane back n' forth. He repeated the motion as some of its strands fell into his eyes.

"...lost mine, and ..well lost mine." He lost two, though neither was his by ownership, they were still felt as horses that were his in all but that. Bella, he wondered where the mare was now and weather she was ridden by some officer or carried packages on her back, or was she still with the horses ready to take the place of the killed one. His other horse had no such luck.

"So they gave me this one." He nodded to Herrero. It was a bit of a punishment, that he knew. But better a horse, even if a bloody dalmatian, than none at all. He frowned, finding it strange that he would feel so bitter about the past, about the losses and the deaths which were not even of men, but of an animal that was a tool. A tool to ride upon, as a weapon and as means of transportation.

"Hard luck," Javert said, though not wholly sympathetic. "Least you managed to get another one..."

Though in all truth it was probably because nobody else wanted it, and by the boy's change in attitude neither did he, it seemed. A punishment mount, then? Oh, that would brilliant if it were true!

They were now approaching more cavalry - this of a different kind - and Javert supposed it would not be long before they were up with the infantry themselves. That would be the test; horsemen quite often trotted on by, but should foot soldiers take a dislike to what they saw...

(OOC - .. damnit, i forgot Kenley was at the back with the French wounded, so.. the earlier post with him chatting, can be anyone else. )

"Yeah." He did not speak more of it then. No need to tell someone, who was an enemy by all standards, the state of their army, how many horses they may have and whether they had fewer now or not. Although Javert might travel to England, and remain out of fighting till the end of the war, some information needed not exchange hands.

The 15th greeted the KGL Hussars. They were near returned. Finally too. Who ever wanted to baby sit the Frogs?

"Ey, Tim!" Kenley called. "This one's groaning a bit less." The lad meant more than he said. But being no surgeon he couldn't have a thorough evaluation of the state of the said man anyway. Just the obvious of which even so he said less.

Javert turned of his heel, and immediate started back to the cart.

"Which one?" he asked quickly, forgetting or perhaps not caring that this hussar could not speak French.

Kenley blinked at the Corporal, first starting to stop the man thinking he tried to escape. A stupid notion really. He looked towards Willoughby, then at the corporal again. He glared at him alright as he stepped back. Whatever the Frog said, he was not answering it. And if it was an insult, then the better he'll be quiet.

"Which one?" It was only after Willoughby had asked that he pointed his finger at the injured man, moving back so that he came into view. "..t' one who's been breathin' real hard earlier. "He stated the obvious.

Fabier. Javert was up on the waggon again in the blick on the eye, taking the sergeant in his arms again, studying him closely.

"Fabier?" he asked. "Sergeant? Come on, Fabier, it's Javert! Please, stay with me; don't die, not just yet!"

There was no response of course. Fabier had groan paler, his skin bearing a sickly sheen of sweat along with the rain, and his breathing was so shallow that it was barely noticeable at all.

Kenley shrugged when Willoughby looked at the lad and asked whether he had seen the state of the man deteriorate sooner than he had called the warning. ".. ..nothin' I can do." The boy said and turned towards the road. They were coming still closer to where a surgeon could aid the man, although it seemed he could do nought but see him, state that he would die and move on to another. And a priest? Well, were they even able to find one at such a short notice?

Willoughby waved to the lad to be quiet, and motioned for him to leave the cart and give some privacy to the corporal and his friend. They wouldn't run anywhere anyway.

One of the 15th troopers stiffened in the saddle.

"Officer comming!"

He had noticed an irate looking Cornet approaching from the direction of the retreating enemy. Somebody must have send the youngster back to round up stray troopers, but he didn't seen to be having much luck.

The rest of the group looked in the direction that the trooper pointed. They straightened in their saddles the almost informal behavour of the earlier replaced by silence.

Well, as near silence as there could be. "Look at 'im. Doesn't look any happier as he'd been chewin' a lemon there." Piper attempted his hand at humour, but there was not even a twitch of the lips of the rest of the riders. "...Haven't done nothing wrong." Kenley piped in. Willoughby averted his gaze from Javert.

".. Silence!" Williamson ordered as the men aligned their horses into a proper line, facing the boy.

the irate looking cornet was in fact a young and obviously newly minted lieutenant who despite the terrain was wearing a pristine tightly fitted uniform, he would ride up the aligned troopers, reigning in his lively bay stallion (an obviously pricey piece of horse flesh to the knowing eye) he would run his eyes along their line.

"whose in charge here?" the young officer would ask, looking from the men to the near by cart. "and why are those prisoners not under close guard?"

"We are all troopers, sir." Williamson seemed to hold enough respect that others would have him talk. He saluted sharply, the other men glancing at the cart where, by all means, all of the wounded were considered quite incapable of fleeing. Except for that Frenchman, who however was bound to remain with these people, or that was what they've been assured anyway.

"They are too badly injured that they could run, sir." Or far. Them on horses and those people on foot, the cavalry was sure to summarize who would have won. Willoughby held the reins of Herrero, while Kenley held his of his own horse, both animals still tied to the cart which they were to pull behind them. The only pair of men on foot, though they were clearly enough of the 15th Hussars.

Behind the cart the remaining few troopers stood. They had a fine view enough of the back of the wagon.

the young officer would return the salute before riding forward to peer into the cart, wrinkling his nose at the smell, he would turn back to williamson before speaking.

"very good then, leave one trooper with the cart, the rest of you are to come with me, we are to rally and harry the enemy. oh and before we leave, have that big frenchie tied to the cart, we wouldn't want him wandering off now." he would turn riding further from the cart before turning back to williamson and adding "oh I will let you choose who will stay with that cart, but be so good as to tell him that he is to ride down or shoot any of them that try to make a run for it"

"the rest will form on me, there are still frenchies to kill my lads and much more glory to be had for the 15th!"

"Sir... we need two horses to pull the cart." And thus two men at the very least needed to remain behind. At first none of the troopers was too eager to point that out, and they just stood there in silence ready for Williamson's decision to either speak, or to choose a man to remain behind.

One then spoke. That Willoughby, which brought relief to most. They could be bold troopers and soldiers, but to correct an officer was something none of them was eager to do. None of them would do, if they could avoid it. The officer was, after all, law.

They looked from Willoughby, the horses and the French cart, back to their officer. Some already moving in threes, a horse beside another.

he would narrow his eyes at willoughby annoyed that he had not noticed this himself. "fine very well two men then...but not you, what is your name trooper?"

to williamson he would turn to speak "two men stay with the prisoners have them continue on and hand them over to the provosts when they come upon them"

"... Trooper Willoughby, sir." The youth replied, cursing himself inwardly that he had spoken at all. It didn't sound promising that the lieutenant ordered him to go. Perhaps any time it might've been, but not when the man seemed irritated at the very least at his undesired imput.

He turned to Herrero, his horse draped in black spots, while his fur was white enough with mud clinging to the legs and belly in places. As Williamson pointed to one of the other Troopers to exchange places with Willoughby their horses too were done so, Herrero first untied and then the other horse tied to the wagon.

Willoughby pulled himself into the saddle. Kenley was chosen to remain, as the boy was already made to walk anyway, and then another more broadchested and stronger of men, who could easily deal with the Frenchman, should he have tried anything.

"Sir." Williamson nodded to aknowledge the order, passing it to the two remaining Hussars. "Ready, sir." He added as the men formed their lines of three.

He looks to williamson and nods "very good lets move out we had best hurry as we would not want to be late for the frenchie hunt now would we!"

He then turns to look at Willoughby "you will stay close to me trooper willoughby, as I will insure your eagerness to stay with the cart is not in truth a sign of unwillingness to do battle with the enemy"

that said he would turn his stallion trot off towards the direction in which he had come.

Willoughby wanted to protest. He had, in no manner or word suggested that it should be he, who stays with the cart, solely that there should be two to stay else the vehicle would have a terrible trouble to move. Though he believed there should have been even more to remain behind he held his tongue and only nodded curtly, with a sharp salute to the man.

"Yes, sir." To protest was to provoke an officer's temper, the young man before him seemed more than eager to grasp at such an opportunity. Willoughby kicked at the sides of his horse, and Herrero sprung forward at a trot, to follow the lieutenant closely. Behind him Williamson and the rest of men spurred their horses, so that the group of men and their animals was soon kicking up dirt and stone as they rode.

Kenley rolled his eyes once they've all gone and turned around to near the Frenchman. "Oy. ..Are you done? We'll have ter tie you to the cart. Such are the orders." Of course the boy did not understand French as was earlier proved and lacked the tact towards the enemy.

Javert looked up from the expiring Fabier in his arms, frowning, confused by all that had been going on since the arrival of this officer. The hussars were being ordered to do something, to line up and... men were being taken away from the cart.

"Hey!" he shouted at the officer, his nerves too stretched and himself too weary to fear upsetting his captors. "Hey, you - tight-pants! What the f- is going on? There's some courtesy for that, isn't there?"

the officer would stiffen in his saddle but would not halt, he would deal with that large Frenchman later if he had the chance, for now it was better that he reported back with the few troopers he had been able to find he would however shout back in french. " You are to be a guest of his Majesty the King, you will find your courtesy within his prisons."

He would then kick his stallion into a canter eager to be away for the foul smelling cart and on to a duty with more glory.

"Bastard," Javert rumbled - just loud enough for others to hear - as the officer rode away, his men spurring on to follow him. At least he could have left the lad who spoke French...

It was then the corporal realised that he could no longer hear the shallow breaths of the man in his arms. He looked down, and immediatley saw why that was so. With a steady hand he gently closed Fabier's eyes, laying him back down on the waggon and, as an after thought, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I hope you are proud," he said softly, simply. Fabier had every reason to be proud of his life, and should by some chance the sergeant came to the gates of some heaven, Javert hoped that the sergeant would face his maker with the same dignity that he had never lost in life. Rest In Peace, Sergeant Fabier; soldier of France and a decent man.