Visitors

It was raining but there was a brightly-lit building ahead. Buildings meant shelter, warmth, and dry. Jérémie pulled his worn coat tighter around his chest, as if that would help keep him from becoming any more thoroughly soaked, and ran. That building and whoever was in it could only be a welcome place.

He made it as far as the opened door when he spotted the big redcoat. By then it was too late to turn.

The man running behind him nearly crashed into his back. "Well move!" he said indignantly, pulling his collar up about his neck.

"Frogs!" Starling burst out, turning around sharply to see who was coming through the door. His load of split logs dropped heavily to the floor as he lunged for the nearest Frog's coat, trying to catch hold of him before the man could think to bolt.

"Frogs!" Billy shouted, echoing Starling's cry as he burst out of the kitchen. "Boarders away!" He grabbed the first person he saw in an unfamiliar uniform.

Frogs? Strout threw down the couple of split logs he'd been carrying and scrabbled to unsling his musket. If there were Frenchmen here, they were friends and therefore worth defending.

"Ben!" Leech cried, half an instant before one of the Englishmen seized hold of Strout's arms.

"Gerroff!" Strout snarled and tried to get enough of a grip on his musket to employ it as a club.

For his part, Jérémie was just as shocked as the redcoat was. The only trouble was that he was not as quick to react. He twisted madly in the big redcoat's grip, to absolutely no use at all.

"Anglais!" It was a warning to the man behind him, who by his words was a Frenchman too.

Daubigny yelped in surprise. He turned to run but slipped in the mud. One of the British seemed to have realized his own mistake and released his captive, lunging for Daubigny instead.

"Gotcha!" Billy yelled triumphantly, catching the Frenchman by the ankle.

There wasn't anything Jérémie could do for the other fellow, soundly caught as he was, but he tried. His foot battered the redcoat's shins, until the big man put a half-closed fist against the side of his head.

Dazed quite soundly by the blow, Jérémie stopped his resisting.

Suddenly, Strout was freed from the sailor's grip. He took full advantage of the opportunity. "Bayonets!" He barked at Leech, grabbing for his bayonet even as he spoke. It was easy work to fix the long blade to his musket, then he was swinging the firelock up to his shoulder. Beside him, Leech was doing the same.

"Gerroff them Frogs," Strout snarled.

"I am not French!" Daubigny cried in his rusty English. But he stopped mid-protest when two of the apparent English seemed to change sides. What the bloody hell was going on here? He decided to ask them as his attacker released his ankle. "What the bloody hell is going on here?"

"Whoa, easy!" Billy said, holding up his hands and backing away from his Frenchman. There was not much arguing with a bayonet and the barrel of a musket behind it.

"Bloody Yankees!" Starling flung the Frenchman he'd clouted away and grabbed for the axe at his belt. He had no fear of bayonets, fixed or otherwise. He'd had quite enough of these two fools. Maybe now he could sort them out properly.

"Yankees?" Daubigny echoed, still thoroughly confused. "What's going on and where the hell are we?"

"You men stand down!"

Blackwood could not believe what he was seeing. Two men with muskets, bayonets fixed, holding them on a redcoat and a sailor. There were two other men, one half-sprawled against a floor cupboard, standing nearby. The redcoat, he saw immediately, had an axe in hand. No doubt about to use it on the two men with muskets.

Whatever was going on, it was painfully clear he had arrived only in time.

"Sir!" Billy cried, recognizing the voice of British authority. "They're French!"

"Don't you move, Jack," Strout snapped, ignoring the redcoat officer's angry command. He was no one that Strout recognised as an authority, even though the man's timely arrival had spared the two colonials an ugly fight.

The big redcoat lowered his axe reluctantly. "Them two there's Frogs, sir," the giant said, pointing with his empty hand at the two Frenchmen.

"But they're helpin' em, sir!" Billy added, looking at the other two men.

What was going on? Jérémie couldn't understand a word of what was being said. He kept one hand at the large lump he felt rising on the side of his head and grimaced.

"What's going on?" He asked, directing the question to his countryman. All this shouting in English was confusing him.

"I don't know! This place is mad." The British and the Yankees seemed to be preoccupied with each other for a moment. Daubigny tugged at the Frenchman's arm. "Come on, let's get out, quick!"

The two men with muskets were French too? Blackwood's frown deepened. The shorter one had spoken English. Accented English, certainly, but...

"Put your muskets down," Blackwood barked, giving the command in English first and then in French. The latter was more for the benefit of the two wide-eyed men that the sailor had identified as Frenchmen. What in the world had he walked into?

He glanced at these two sharply an instant later, recognising the urgency in the better-dressed one's voice. "Stand fast!" The captain said tersely, this time speaking only in French. "Both of you."

Daubigny gulped and looked at the Yankees. "Don't listen to him!" he said wildly, scrambling to his feet at last. "Why should you listen to him? He's not your officer! Not if you're Americans!" He was babbling in French now, heedless of whether they could understand him or not. He turned to the other Frenchman. "You - man - take his..." He looked and realized that the British officer was not carrying a sword, or a pistol, or any weapon at all. He pointed instead to the giant bearded redcoat. "Take his axe."

He could understand nothing of what the Frogs were saying but he could guess very well that the gesture at his axe meant.

"Best get back, sir," Starling told the officer, setting his feet in readiness to defend himself.

Strout and Leech had moved slowly toward each other until they stood almost back to back, bayonet-tipped muskets pointing outward toward the redcoats. This was a bad situation. It was made worse by that Frenchman's babbling and gesturing at the big redcoat's axe.

All the confusion and tension was interrupted by a bellow from somewhere above them, following mere seconds later by a clatter of shoes outside the opposite door to the kitchen. Tom Mayden appeared, lacking his long-tailed coat. His shirtsleeves and waistcoat were splattered with blood.

"Candles!" The Marine exclaimed, not realising what he'd barged into for a second. "I need - what the bloody hell's this?!"

"Sir!" Perry cried. He burst into the kitchen right behind the marine, brandishing a pair of pistols that he had retrieved from the makeshift arms locker. He passed one to the redcoat officer, gaped at the blood-covered marine, and bellowed "Terpsichores!"