Visitors

Perry shrugged. "It's true. You thumped 'em good and they gave up in '83, year I was born in." He eyed Starling and grinned. "Though that don't mean they ain't always causin' trouble any way that they can."

Strout shook his head in disgust. "It ain't no year but seventeen hunnert an' seventy-six. We just got whipped at Long Island, like. Now we're whipped again by the look of it."

"Shut up," rumbled the big bearded redcoat. "And get to work movin' them logs." He lifted his axe to his shoulder and glared at the two Continentals, as if daring them to defy him.

*Meanwhile, inside*

"What the devil is all of this?" Farley demanded, finally arriving on the scene having been fetched by Tide Evans. There was a Navy lieutenant on the floor, bleeding steadily from a wound in his shoulder. Hell's teeth. "Clear away, you men. A basin of water and a towel, now!"

Perry himself began to move toward the logs, automatically obeying the voice of authority, before he remembered that he was not the one being so ordered. He sat down near the shelter of the back door and cut himself a plug of tobacco. "It ain't so bad now. They only got me on account of trickery." He spat on the ground. "Told me I didn't have no choice, but I'd get a lotta money to send to my wife. But we're fighting the French, and that ain't so bad. I don't mind fighting frogs."

He heard a sound inside and peered in through the window. "That sawbones come to take away Mister Deverel, I reckon. You shouldn't oughta go and shoot him, you know. He's a lieutenant."

"It's just a... musket..." Deverel muttered as the surgeon fussed over him.

"Yes," Farley answered crisply. "A musket ball lodged in your shoulder. I had thought this was a place of safety!"

"Didn't go through?" the lieutenant asked with a whimper.

Didn't it? It was hard to tell. "Perhaps it did, but this is no place to support any surgery. Upstairs with him!"

Deverel clenched his teeth and closed his eyes as severel hands grabbed at him.

All the while the events had been happening, Edward had kept his gaze and his sabre on the two strangers until they slung their muskets on their backs. It was then that he sheathed his sabre and helped the surgeon, who had appeared, carry the wounded naval officer upstairs.

"Who are are the villains responsible for this?" Farley wanted to know as he lent his own strength, such as it was, to the task of moving the lieutenant.

Deverel opened his eyes and gave the bar a wistful, bleary gaze as they carried him past through the sitting room. "Gimme a drink first, gimme a brandy." He knew from experience how painful it could be when a surgeon started probing a wound.

"Perhaps," Farley said. He was not pressingly concerned with easing the man's pain at that moment.

*outside*

One of the poorly-dressed men glared at the sailor and offered a brusque, "He oughta knew better, as an officer. We was leavin' quiet-like 'til he reckoned he oughta try bein' a bloody hero."

"Less talkin'," Starling snapped, "an' more workin'." He already had a hefty load of split logs balanced in his arms.

Perry pulled himself away from the window when he saw them carrying the lieutenant away. The surgeon would soon put him to rights. He even made himself useful by picking up a couple of small logs. "You lads know any of the boys from Virginia?" he asked. Curiosity had overcome most of his distrust. "Maybe you know my dad or my uncles. Or my other uncle. My aunt married my other uncle from Nantucket, and that's not far from you, is it? Not my real aunt but my dad's cousin. I can't remember when they got wed, so maybe you don't know her. Did you ever go to sea?"

"Virginia? The hell do you think we are?" The shorter man snapped in reply. "We ain't got no doin's with nobody from the southern colonies."

Starling directed a glare at the two Yankees. "Stow it, you rats, or I'll skin you both!"

"States, not colonies!" Perry corrected. Then he stopped to think. When had they changed from colonies to states? He couldn't remember. It didn't really matter. He turned to the bearded redcoat. "Oh give us a chance, mate. We're just gettin' to know one another, is all. I ain't spoke to anyone from back home in ages."

Starling rolled his eyes. "I'm thinkin' them two ain't wantin' talk."

And this seaman must be thicker than molasses. Or he simply just didn't know to whom he was talking!

Perry shot him an angry look. "What's it to you, anyhow? Eh? I'm talkin' to them, not to you."

A frown darkened Strout's face. "He's got a point, anyways. We ain't wantin' no talk with the likes of you, 'cause of you ain't makin' sense with nothin'."

"Ben," Leech said, his own brow furrowed, but in thought. "That redcoat sounds like us, a'most."

"No," Strout told him firmly. "He don't."

The storm was worsening, wind driving the rain nearly horizontal. Then with a sickening crack in the oak tree above, an enormous limb broke off and fell.

"Mind your heads!" Starling snapped, stepping sharply aside to avoid being struck by the great limb.

The fall made the ground shake beneath their feet and Perry nearly dropped his logs as he started. "I think we oughta get inside!" he exclaimed, shouldering the kitchen door open. He frowned at the darkness as he poked at the wall switch with his elbow. "This thing ain't workin'."

Terry didn't know where he was, but there was an open door with a familiar-looking seaman shouldering it open. It didn't take two seconds for the boy to make his mind up. he wasn't staying out here in the cold rain if he could help it. He darted across the open ground, weaving round a big man in a red coat and slipped past the sailor into the building.

Damned flighty Tar. It was only a tree limb. Starling glared at the two ragged colonials and bade them to hurry up if they valued their limbs being intact.

Then, once the pair had moved toward the open door with their separate loads of split logs, Starling followed.