By the fireside; evening, 26th May

He sighed and covered his eyes with his hand before dragging his hand down his face, feeling the slight rasp of stubble, then letting his arm drop to the ground. He felt completely helpless, suddenly, unable to do anything for his friends or for his wife. He was drained and for a moment, couldn't even summon strength to sit up.

He had to though. What he wanted to say to her couldn't be said while he was lying on the ground, and he sighed before pushing himself to sit up. "Maggie, we ain't goin' to get kids, not never, if you's allus goin' to be that scared an' run off, put it off. It don't work like that. You got to, I dunno, show me how to help you, 'cause I dunno. You know I won't never hurt you, you know that." He put his arms around her and pulled her head down to rest on his shoulder. "But the way we are right now, we might's well be brother an' sister." He sighed. "I do love you."

She had begun breathing faster, heavier, and now he was able to hear that she was crying. Her shoulders had stiffened, and apart from her head on his shoulder it was like embracing a statue.

"Please!" was all she could say. She had said it to that sergeant too, but he had not listened. No, he had listened, but he had laughed, mocked her for it, and choked all the words right out of her throat. Suddenly she was clinging to Cotton as if for dear life, anguished in her quiet urgency. "Please Gabe, help me! I'm sorry! Please, I can't, I don't know, I'm sorry! Please don't make me!"

"Oh, Maggie," he said, holding her close, though she was so rigid he thought she'd do herself an injury. He pulled her against him and started rocking her. "I promised you once, an' I'll say it again, I won't force you, never. I... I love you too much. I never meant to make you cry, honest I didn't." At least, she'd pulled him closer, rather than pushing him away. He found himself stroking her hair, gently, over and over.

"I know. I'm sorry. I know." She pulled back slightly to look at his face. "I will some time. Please just not yet. It scares me that much." Her words were overwhelmed with a sob at the end and she tucked her head back against a shoulder and clung to him through a spasm of weeping, barely contained.

"I ain't goin' to make you, Maggie, I promise. I don't want you to be scared of me, please." He continued rocking her, murmuring a stream of nonsense in a low voice, wondering if he had a rag or something he could offer her.

She twitched and shivered and sobbed until she was empty, wrung out dry. Then she was still, so still that it seemed as if she were asleep, but in fact she was simply drained of all inclination to move.

"Ssh..." He laid her down, carefully, then went to find her blanket and his, laying down next to her and wrapping them both in both blankets, holding her close, yet not so tightly that she would feel trapped.

After she had quieted down, she spoke again in a tentative whisper. "You must've had things that scared you."

"Yeah," he replied. "Don't think I ever told you about me brother Mal, did I?"

Pye approached quietly, and saw a familiar pair of forms by the fire which was slowly weakening, and so turned about. He noticed a pile of wood and smiled. Collecting some of it in his arms he carried it to the fire and added a few, keeping the rest close by. He nudged the red , glowing bits with a lean stick.

Soon the fire which was licking at the new fresh logs began to grow stronger and emit more heat. Pye held his hands above the flame warming them. He glanced at the two figures, hugging close and chose to give them whatever time they wanted, even if till morning. He looked about and spied his pack, and from it took a blanket wrapping it around his shoulders.

Maggie looked up shyly at the newcomer, but it was only Pye. He was all right.

"I remember you have a brother Mal."

He turned his head as he heard footsteps, and smiled as he saw it was Pye. He turned back to Maggie, and began talking in a low voice, trying to find the words. "Well, he's younger'n me, about Joe Cavender's age, he would be now. An', well, it was one haymakin', must've bin eight summers ago, mebbe a few more. We'd gone from the haymakin' one afternoon, when it was all near done, me an' me brother Dan, to go for a bit of a swim - there'd been an old watermill, once, though it had gone years back. The mill pool was still there though, an' real nice for swimmin'. Only, we didn't know Mal had followed us. He... he was in the water, too, only he couldn't swim." He took a breath. "He near drowned afore we knew what'd happened. I dunno how we got him out of the water, got him to take a breath, an' I was never so scared in all me life."

Maggie listened in concern, almost forgetting her own troubles in the face of Cotton's story. "Poor little thing! I bet he was scared too!" She paused before adding, "And I bet he was scared to go back in the water for a while after."

An insistent chirping stirred the lad from his thoughts. The top part of the bread bag was hopping, thrusting outwards as if something inside was pecking at it and chirping rather unhappily. Pye smiled and lifted his blanket a little reaching out to pull the bag closer. The chirping persisted, so carefully he reached into the bread bag and took the little bird out. "There you go. Don't need to get all upset with me." He whispered to the little being, feeling it give him a few pecks at the fingers before the chick hopped on his palm, and looked about. It opened its mouth insistently and searched his palm for any food.

"Right. Give me a moment." He slipped his other hand into his pocket and brought from it the piece of hard bread that one of the camp followers threw at him. He bit into it, making some of it crumble into his palm and smiled. "Eat up. " He whispered to the little animal which obeyed eagerly. He heard voices from the pair Gabe and Maggie, muffled, whispered but even these he tried to not hear. It was a private conversation, theirs.

"I suppose he was," Cotton said, slipping his arms around Maggie. "Though, well, he did come with us after that, though he was more careful. Ma made us teach him to swim, in the shallow water. Said one of us had to stick with him all the time till he could swim, or we'd get a proper leatherin' from Dad's old belt." He chuckled. "He couldn't half hit you hard, Dad could. Comes of bein' a farm labourer, that. Didn't used to get beyond ten, an' then only if he was real angry about sup'm."

Maggie was relieved that the conversation had strayed away from the previous topic. She decided to keep that way, particularly as there was now another person nearby. Keeping her voice low, she asked, "What was wrong earlier, with Joe and Pye?"

Pye held his hand open, the palm flat and facing upward. The chick pecked merrily at it, finding grains to eat, and hopping about energetically. It was growing stronger day by day, eating well, getting bolder too. It chirpled loudly, at last free from its confinements. It didn't seem to appreciate those too much, but it did seem to consider Pye as the mother hen and even if let to wander about alone, would probably have run right after the lad at all times.

"There, 'be enough for you." Pye touched his mug which he had filled with some tea. It had been hot earlier, but now it was becoming pleasantly warm. Still bitter. The only time he got to know what sugar tasted like, was on his first day. He smiled. It was a choice very worthy of being made, joining the rifles.

He lowered the mug to the floor, and watched as the chick hopped onto its brim then bent down to drink. It made a few startled chirps, then tried it again. "Easy now, lass. " He hoped he wasn't doing it an injustice, especially if it proved to be a male chick after all. The chick fell in, squabbled, managed to come out with a bit of help and a finger dipped in to grasp on. It shook itself dry, then looked up at Pye. Hopping up his sleeve it made itself comfortable on its shoulder and observed the fire silently. "Peggy. .. Pegs, .. don't know what to call you." He patted the little being on the head gently and affectionately. The chick was something he was responsible for, and at the same something that depended of him in full.

"I dunno, 'zackly." Cotton shrugged and pulled the blankets a little closer around them both. "Well, I do know, sort of, but it ain't really my place to say." He gently stroked her cheek with his finger. "You said... you said once it was just you an' your dad at home. Din't you have anyone you talked with or anythin'?"

Maggie shook her head. "No. Well there was Jem, but we were real young then. There were girls at the mill, and Jem's mum at the shop. But what was there to talk about?" She shrugged. "I was usually too tired for talking."

"We talked. Didn't allus say very much, but we talked - hard not to, when you've got a cottage as small as ourn was, with the number of folks livin' in it. Dad never said much, though - he was like that. Mind you, it ain't easy, comin' in from a long day out ploughin' or whatever, and tryin' to find the words to say to folks." He smiled. "Don't think I do too bad, though."

"Aye," Maggie agreed absently. "I mean no." Her mind was still taken up with what had gone before, her outburst and poor patient Gabe. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I know I said it before, but I really am sorry about... everything. You know. All of it. I don't want you to be sorry you married me. Crying all the time and not being a proper wife at all. I'll do better soon, I'm sure of it. I'll try, I will, I promise."

"I know. I don't want to... to push you, too soon, an' end up with you hatin' me for it. It's early yet, after all. An' we'll have kids -as many as you want - and then when all this fightin's done an' we'll go home to England, we'll live in a cottage some'rs, with roses in the garden. Well, that's if the Captain don't want to keep me on, anyways, 'cause if he does, I reckon we'll likely end up livin' in some big house with him, mebbe. Though I can't imagine that, me."

He pressed a kiss to her head - he thought it was her forehead, but couldn't quite be sure it wasn't her cheek. "I... I wish I could make you happy, Maggie. I'd give anythin' for you to be happy again, like we was before."

"I am happy!" she protested anxiously. Then she laughed at how unhappy her protestation sounded. "Well, happy enough, at any rate. I'd be happier if we was at home in a cottage right now, and everything, and everyone, was gone away. Peace and quiet. I always thought a convent would be like that, you know, quiet, peaceful, and holy ladies tatting lace or whatever they do. But that one in Coimbra was awful."

The sisters had not been unkind, but her mind had made the comparison that her experience was like that of a wounded soldier taken from the battlefield to the comparative peace of the field hospital, full of screaming and dying men and surgeons wielding bloody saws.

"I'll do better here with you than if I'd stayed with them nuns."

He chuckled at her anxious declaration. "Well, I ain't never bin in a convent with nuns, so I can't say. But I'm real glad you came back to me. I was awful worried about you, you know." He drew her head to rest against his shoulder. "I'll look after you, Maggie. I don't allus say the right sort of things, but I just want to do the right thing by you."

With the bird fed Pye lay down by the fire, tucked the chick back into its bag, placed a hand over it, but not allowing it to smother the poor thing, just protect it. He tugged the blanket over his shoulder pulled his pack under his head, shifted just a little more, closer to the fire, but not too close. He sighed contently. His could avoid the river for the night. Fill his canteen... eh, sometime. He was sleepy and off closing his eyes, ready for the night to claim him.