Tricks of the Trade

Davy shrugged, forgetting the angels for now, whatever Pye had meant by that, and focusing on the demonstration instead. His hand deftly mimicked the motion that Pye's fingers had given, and the coin slowly turned over his fingers. It wasn't walking so much as sauntering, not this slow, but now that he had the basic movement he could see how to do it a little quicker. He sped it up - only to find the coin flying off his hand and into the dirt.

"Aaah, Ah'm butterfingers," he said, sulkily, and bent to pick it up. Pye made it look so easy. "Weor did ye learn aa' the clivvor stuff ye knaas anyhoo?" he asked, curiously. He'd never really found out where Pye came from; London somewhere, he was pretty sure, but Pye never talked about his folks, or anything much before he'd taken the shilling.

He tossed the coin up in the air and caught it again, then glanced past Pye's shoulder and brightened again. "Look! Is't wor Lucy, she's back wi' her mendin'. Lucy!" Davy cried out excitedly, catching hold of Pye's hand and pulling him around to show him off like some sort of prize. "Is't Zack, back from them Rifles."

"So is't ye, is i'?" Lucy said, raising one eyebrow at him and putting her basket full of mending down on the ground. He looked different in the green jacket of the Rifles; the dark cloth made him look even thinner, and a little taller than he had in the red, or perhaps he'd actually grown a little. She'd have known that scarred face anywhere, though. It had frightened her the first time Davy brought him around. "Aa' dressed up, ain't ye? Ah'd hev hardly reckernized ye in those claes." She reached out and pinched him on the shoulder, an old superstition. "Nip fer new, there." Her eyes travelled downwards to the empty pot sitting not far away from the two, which had held leftover porridge when she had gone away that morning. "Ye gan an' eaten aa' that? They feedin' ye on crumbs, or ye just a greedy hoond?" she asked, in tones of deep disapproval.

"Picked it off. Here and there." It was perhaps the truth, but also a rather vague answer to a straight question. He shrugged. He could elaborate on that, and was about to even, when Davy seemed of mind to show him off as a piece of prize winning bull. He felt embarrassed at the display, mostly as he was anything but the prized possession. Seeing it was Lucy, only had the rifleman both grin and drop his gaze as if in the embarrassment of it.

She was as lovely and as spirited as he remembered her, since last time that they parted ways. One of the few that did not shy away or find him a cruel entertainment. Very spirited though, smart of what he could judge, quick witted and with the sense, that could be on par with plenty that he knew. She wasn't the perky kind, nor the always merry and laughing. In fact he rarely saw her do that. Laugh, or smile. But all the same, she was someone he knew.

She pinched him then, and he blinked startled at her. "Wot' was that for?" A nip for new, she had said. If it hadn't been that this was one of the very few new things he had ever gotten in his life, he might have protested further. Ask her about the strange act. Instead, he decided, it had to be done, and had no time to consider it further either.

If he could have looked more guiltily, more like a child who was very, very, very sorry about having eaten all the cookies from the jar, even when told not to, he would have. He stared at the floor, chewing at his lip, and would have jumped and gone to fetch a rabbit right that instant, if it would make Lucy any happier and less disapproving.

"..m'sorree." He mumbled, and fidgeted at his spot. Always hungry. Always eager to stuff his face, when food was around. "Wos' Hungry..I wos'." He did not find this to be as good a reason as it had been at the time. "Didn'a mean ter." This was worse than facing the enemy. The enemy could bring forth no guilt when struck, Lucy could do that easily. "..the's... feedin'. They'um." He would have admitted to anything just then. Even to making the sun shine, and the French attack. "Jus'..."

Lucy eyed Pye askance, his hangdog posture and shamefaced blush saying all that needed to be said without words. Of course, she knew how much he ate; he had been by their campfire before that, when he'd still been in the 33rd. The boy was a bottomless pit, and always had been. She had no idea how he could eat as much as he did, and still stay as thin as a rail.

"So ye came back te see us agyen, finally, Dear knaas how lang it's been, an' ye settle in te eat us oot o' house an' hame." The severity remained in her tone, perhaps even heightened a little as she saw Pye's reaction.

She reached out again, and took hold of his arm, her fingers squeezing through the fabric of his jacket to feel at the circumference of it. "Weel, ye're scrawny as ivvor. Guess ye needed feedin'." Folding her arms, a slight, fleeting smile crossed her face. "Ye've not changed much but yer claes, hev ye?"

Pye visibly flinched at the harsh words. A beaten puppy would not have looked more sorrowful than the lad did. If he had been a dog though, he probably would have found himself whining pitifully, with his tail tucked between his legs. Now, he seemed only very, very sorry. It did not mean, as it never did, that he would not eat again, given a chance. Only that he felt sorry now. Very sorry.

He did brighten almost immediately when she suggested food needed come his way, and all the sadness and shame of his earlier self, seemed to melt away to that ever greater joy. "'certainly do." He said quickly, and grinned. He noticed the smile, which seemed only to make his grin grow wider. "No. Not changed a bit.. 'cept maybe I get to fire different now. N' train different. But 'tis still same ol' me.. Lucy. An'.. I might be able ter get yer two to a feast sometime!" He nodded proudly at being able to give, what he had once often received. Even if much of it was really belonging to the army anyway.

"A rabbit. You'll have that, I promise. Swear ter me self.. you will 'ave it!"

Davy stepped in to Pye's defense at this point, now that he was sure that Lucy wasn't actually too angry at him, and spoke up. "He divnae tek it hisself; Ah telt him te eat i', Lucy, Ah did."

Lucy eyeballed Pye again, observing how quickly he'd gotten over his fleeting guilt. "Ye go' over tha' show real quick, like," she said, a little dryly. "Whey aye, ye're still the same ol' ye. An' Ah figured ye done, Davy." She had her doubts about the promised feast, but she only said, "Ah'd leik a bi' o' rabbit," as to that. "But Ah got a different bone te pick wi' ye, Zack. What took ye so lang te visit?"

"Ah.. well.. you see.. I was. When.." Pye thought Lucy's gaze to be about as unnerving as that of an officer, when she wanted it to be. And she was certainly doing it then. "I did come 'round.. but you wosn't there. You can ask Johnny about it. t' Wilton one." He held his hand as if swearing that his word was truth.

"...I couldn't come real many times tho'. We had summat trouble with some lot. T' provost bastards." He spoke more hushed when he said that, and it was evident how greatly he still disliked them. The authority he hated perhaps just about as much as his former sergeant.

"And I had to train.. 'cos.. it's a lot different with the rifles than n' it is with the usual. We don't jus' stand in line, you know. " He was sorry he had not come more often though. He had tried, but it was harder when he had to stick to the front. There was less excuse to be given for when he was following the wagon, he realised though.

"Would ye' both like ter come around sometime?.. I could have ye meet t' others. Cotton, n' Newbury, n' " He counted a few more names before adding. ".. n' Cotton's lass. He's married." Which really meant nothing to Lucy who hardly knew any of the people he named. "..m' sorry."

He flinched and squirmed under her eye again, and then slowly offered up a stammering set of excuses, that he had been by after all, but couldn't find her, and that he'd been kept from coming, and hadn't had much time in any case. Lucy kept her gaze leveled on him through it, and he kept on going, trying to explain. She was just watching him, that was all, not even glaring, but clearly he had a guilty conscience. Maybe he'd just not wanted to come back to see them.

But he'd actually come by, hadn't he? Took him a while, but at least he hadn't actually forgotten them. "Mevvies we'll come fadge, then, some time. Ah'd leik te meet these new marras o' yours, an' see tha' they're feedin' ye properly." She eyeballed him a moment longer, then her eyes narrowed.

"Haad on, ye're in trouble with the provosts?" Lucy said, sharply, realizing what he'd said earlier. "We divvent want tha' lot sniffin' aboot! Ye'd best be gannin' on, if ye are. They lookin' for ye?" If he was back here simply to hide from the provosts - and that would explain the guilty conscience, for certain.

Davy sat up straight. "Lucy!" he said, shocked. "Ye'd nivvor turn Zack awa'?"

Pye felt like a fool. His mouth had run off, stammering and making little sense, which could have been taken wrongly plenty of times. Some of his words seemed to have done so, as Lucy spoke up.

But he had come around to the 33rd before and wanted then to explain that to her. Even though it was much less common for men, once transferred, to go about with their previous regiment (just as perhaps to be transferred at all) , he had wanted to keep dropping by. His friend, Wilton could confirm this.

So instead of acting almost as jittery as a first time recruit, when asked a question by his superior, he took a few deep breaths. He calmed his nerves and waited till she was done. No, she took it wrong. He hadn't had trouble with te provosts at present. She misunderstood. They had. But women, they seemed to think alike. She thought he would get her and Davy in trouble, and perhaps she was right. He glanced at Davy and felt guilty. Perhaps he was really posing a danger to these two, that he wanted to keep safe at all times.

"...No." He heard himself say. "I ain't runnin' from them right now. It's all been settled." He looked from the boy up to Lucy."I'm sorry I was late in comin'. But, I did do so. You must'a been with the other camp followers when I did. Asked 'bout you. Looked fer ye, yer knows." He shrugged faintly. "Was tole' I wasn't allowed ter leave t' rifles, for a while." It was the Germans that said so: " Which is why then not even Wilton saw me." Perhaps they were afraid that he would desert. Luckily that had not lasted that long.

"I'll come more oft'n, if'n we aren't too far up ahead n' had orders ter stay put. " Which meant that he could not go safely back and forth, or was on scouting or guard duty. " N'..if I's in trouble with t' provosts I swears I won't be comin' here ter get you or Davy in danger." He nodded. "I know better'n that."

She watched him a moment longer with that hard stare, but he had calmed down now, and stopped acting so guilty. Lucy wondered if she'd hurt him with what she had just said; Davy was looking at her like she had kicked a puppy, at any rate.

"Then ye're a bonny sight te see," she said, much more nicely this time, in order to make up a little for the sharpness in her voice before. "An' Ah'll be glad te see mair of ye, wuz both will." Lucy hopped up on tiptoe and leaned in to peck Pye lightly on the cheek, the same way she'd have greeted Davy. "Se' doon," she followed her own advice and plopped down cross-legged with her workbasket in her lap, "an' tell us aa' wha' ye been up te ower there in Rifles."

Pye's cheeks coloured the same as his coat when he felt Lucy's lips on them. It was really a simple peck, more a greeting than anything. But to Pye it had a similar effect as if she had given him one on the lips, and had been doing it quite in what in the modern time is called, the French way.

"Uhn.." He stammered and didn't understand what she meant or wanted. He blinked at her. Lucy was seated nicely on the ground, her legs probably crossed under her skirts, her workbasket in her lap. He quickly sat down, and pulled his legs up taking a few quick breaths. "..Um..say.. we.. uh wot' do ye... wanna know?" He scratched his hand over his head. "This'un... is wot' we have in sense o'... a bayonet... here.." He raised the weapon into view. "...Is more like a sword.. couse see.., our rifles are shorter than t' muskets. So ter make up fer t' length, our swords are longer." He smiled. "t' match t' size." He nodded quickly. "If'n we'd want ter go into a square."

He didn't think a woman would be interested to listen to talk of weapons and tactics, and so paused. "..I've been... not done too much...stuff ter get acquainted ..n'all. Oh.. an' found m'self a chick.... I did. A wee one. But not fer eatin'. She got borne out of an egg which i meant ter eat!"