27 May; Pursuing a prankster

Burr passed the lantern to the other Guardsman and took hold of the Rifleman's hand. That wasn't bird droppings. It was too thick and solid. He picked at it and managed to prise up a small bit of it.

"Don't look like any kinda droppin'," he remarked, holding the bit of slightly-sticky black whatever-it-was up to his nose to sniff at it. "Smells like... pitch."

"Pitch?... can't be." The lad cursed himself silently. How careless! He looked at Burr. Could he connect one dot with another to make an assumption which might make the rifleman wish he could bolt? He didn't dare to look at Cotton.

Pitch? How had he managed to get pitch on his hand, and was it going to be.. No, the sergeant had been looking for it, which meant that whatever he thought Pye had done was bad. His mind was racing, but he couldn't think of any innocent reason why he might possibly have pitch on his hand.

Now, Burr wondered privately, what were the odds that this greenjacket should have traces of tar on his hands, the same evening that provost had come to be well-smeared with tar?

"Can't be, 'cept it is. Now, there's a fella back thataway yon what's fair coated in this stuff. But I reckon ye'll have come by it accidental-like, aye?"

Pye was quiet, giving Burr a faint shrug. The sergeant could think what he wanted. He wasn't going to confirm it being there with a reason, but he thought he might dig his hole deeper if he was to suggest and swear it wasn't , and be proven wrong.

"A rifleman got coated in this?" He asked instead.

The Guardsman with the lantern snorted.

"No," Burr answered, letting the boy's hands drop. "A provost. Same one as I hear's been crost yer path 'fore today, too. Got a hunk took outta his leg or sommat." The Scotsman shrugged lightly. "Some fella's done him bad. Tar all over, covered over with feathers, nettles down in his trousers an' all..."

"Sarn't," called Belcher, approaching the group. "We got the dog. S'back at the tent, wi' the horseleech too."

Cotton winced. That sounded nasty. He wouldn't do that to his worst enemy. He recalled Hakeswill's leering face and that insidious promise "For you is next," back in Lisbon, and corrected himself. Maybe he would, but not to some idiot he'd only met once.

Pye didn't respond. They seemed to have found the unfortunate soul. Served the provost right. They still couldn't prove it was him. A speck of tar on one's hand. Of course it could've come from anywhere else. A wagon, any other more innocent place he might've stuck his hand into. But then there was talk of a dog.

The undesirable creature which was best seen dead, or far away. They used dogs to track men and animals. The ferocious beasts would not stop till they found their target and rip it to shreds or die trying. He stole a glance at Cotton.

"Right," Burr said. "Ye oughta come 'long, laddie."

This was not a gamble he cared to take, and resolved to make his misgivings known again once they returned to the surgeon's tent. Using a dog to confirm what he already knew was unnecessary, not to mention foolish.

"Hang on a minute. Who's to say he didn't brush his hand up ag'in a wagon or some such?" Cotton said, suddenly realising that the Sergeant seemed to be planning to taking Pye away somewhere.

When Belcher left them at the tent, Matthew and Judd - mostly Matthew - went about trying to set Lavinia onto the trail. Matthew had gone in to get a little of the tar that was being cleaned off the unlucky provost, and with the tar smeared on his handkerchief, tried to get the spaniel to follow the scent. "Find it," Matthew told her, ruffling her ears, while Judd watched curiously. She sniffed at it with interest, black nose twitching, and then set her nose to the ground, going in widening circles before she stiffened, suddenly alert.

"She's got it," Matthew said, rather proudly, and followed as Lavinia went ahead, snuffling along. It wasn't long before she stopped and crawled into the undergrowth, however, and dug eagerly at the ground. Matthew squatted down next to her. The earth had been freshly turned here, not long ago, before Lavinia was at it. Her paws rooted at the dirt, darkening the white parts of her fur, and soon a corner of fabric was visible. Matthew gestured for Judd to bring the lantern closer as he uncovered the rest of a rough, dirty burlap sack, while Lavinia sat by wagging her tail with an air of immense pride.

Matthew pulled it out and looked inside - it was bedaubed with tar, and feathers were sticking to it as well, not to mention leaves. He'd found a Clue. He felt nearly as pleased as Lavinia seemed to be..

"If he had," said Burr patiently, "wou'n't he have said's much, 'stead of denyin' it?"

"Look there," the fellow from the Third Guards said, gesturing with the lantern. "That the dog them Buffs was onn'bout?"

Lavinia looked up, and barked excitedly; she left Matthew and Judd and darted towards the newcomers, to leap up at them, tongue lolling from a laughing mouth. She set her paws as high as they'd go on Burr's legs, and endeavoured to lick his hand.

"I didn't hear him deny nothin' 'bout brushin' up against no wagon, Sar'nt," Cotton said doggedly. The Buffs? What had the Buffs, sensible East Kent men like Cotton himself, got to do with all this?

Pye followed the direction that Burr pointed and felt his heart sink. They appeared to have found something. He couldn't see what, but he recognised that bit of land well enough. He'd been there earlier, hadn't he. He opened his mouth to speak, but found himself quiet and at a loss for what to say exactly.

And then that dog came running up, leaving Pye to fight his instinct to either run from it, or give it a heavy kick in the snout, to send it flying back, all the way to it's owner. He did neither though, just looked very uncomfortable and annoyed at the mutt.

Bloody dog. Burr pushed the creature down, gently since its master seemed to be present, and tried not to look at the streaks of dirt on his white trousers left by the animal's paws.

"He coulda just said that was where yon pitch came from," Burr pointed out reasonably. Only he hadn't. "This 'un belong to ye, sir?" He asked the man, after managing to nudge the dog away. At least the beast hadn't been able to smear slobber on his hands.

Yes, he could have. But Pye obviously hadn't done just that, or he would have said so. This was getting to be a proper deep mess, wasn't it? God only knew what the Captain was going to do...

Finding Burr unwelcoming, Lavinia snuffled at his boots for a moment, then turned her attentions to Pye. She recognised the rifleman from before, and eagerly ran towards him, circling his heels for a moment then leaping up at him as she had at Burr.

"She's mine, yes," Matthew answered the red-coated sergeant, as he approached the group, followed by Judd and the lantern. "Are you Sergeant Burr?" he asked. "She's just dug this up over yonder." He held up the sack.

Pye kept his own councel and remained quiet. He could have offered some means of protest, but as often learned before, when there was no chance of a yes sir and no sir to be said, it was better to say as little if nothing at all.

When his mind could have been occupied with the worries this situation brought, it was instead wrought with displeasure at the dog's attentions. She circled him, which actually made him step back, trying to avoid the little beast. But she persisted and came up to his trousers, thinking she would find herself welcomed. Pye though didn't have that in mind when he lifted his foot and part nudged part kicked her away from himself. It was that or get badly beaten!

It was just in time too that he looked up. He cursed silently. The bag... they could not trace the back, they ought not to be able to trace the damned bag to noone!

"That's me, aye." Burr accepted the sack and opened it, holding it up to the lantern so he could see into it. "Good lass."

One more piece of evidence against this Rifleman - who had, by his own admission, been digging. For worms. It wasn't damning by any stretch, of course, but it was seeming too coincidental for Burr's liking.

"Um, sir, he don't like dogs too much," Cotton said to the cavalry officer, who appeared to be the owner of the excitable little thing. He crouched down to try to call her over. He'd never had a dog; his family would never have been able to keep one and their cottage was far too small, but he did like animals of all sorts and would have liked to have been able to have a dog.

Matthew whistled to Lavinia, but she was more interested in greeting Cotton at the moment, who was clearly friendly; she licked Pye's boot as he nudged her, then crossed over to the other Rifleman. Lavinia snuffled at Cotton's outstretched fingers, then licked them thoroughly. "Give her a shove off and she'll leave you alone," Matthew told Cotton, and then told Lavinia in a slightly sharp tone, "Sit." She planted her rear on the ground, promptly, though her tail continued to wave at Cotton.

"Rifleman Pye?" he asked, surprised to see the man here with the redcoats. He was sure he recognised the lad with the scar - it was the one who had come to see him with the chick not long ago. "How's Peggy?"

"Peggy's fine , sir." The lad was relieved to see the damn dog out of his way. He tried to ignore the bag, and concentrated instead on the new arrival. "..eaten her first earth worms today. Think it was.. much better fer 'er than 'fore. No trouble no more neither." He smiled turning his back to the sack. "... thank ye fer t' advice on 'er." Well , Mister Broderick has just proven him not a liar. He had taken up to dig up earthworms, and he had gone to see a man about his chick. He smiled.

"Ah, she'm all right, sir," Cotton said. She was clearly a very friendly sort of dog, if the way she'd just washed his hands for him was any indication. She hadn't tried to wash his face, which was something, at least.