The enemy and the friend: Evening, 1. June.

"...m' name's Pye." He hesitated and shrugged. "Not t' food I think." He did not know how his last name was written, but he was certain he was no pie. "Good'ay Moorow and.." He was not sure his guard had introduced himself either and felt awkward, just a little.

"He's a troublemaker?" Moreaux asked in French studying the hand. The fingers looked rather bad, and the ankle at which they were at present made Moreaux wince. "Did he tell you yet why's he got them broke? Though the English only flogged.."He noticed that the hand was on the side which fired. "Would be stupid to make your men this useless for fighting." Though great for the French, who would win easy. He paused then and gave a confused boy a nod. "Hello, Pye. This is Le Bras you talk." He preferred French.

"No. Well, maybe." Le Bras shrugged, "If it was justice for something, it was rough justice, unofficial like."

"...What is he saying?" Pye did not like the fact the two men could understand him, but he could not understand a word they said in French. They could as well have been talking about what stew they would make out of the little grasshopper and he would be none the wiser about it.

"He asks if that," he pointed to the boy's injured hand, "is an English punishment. I told him that it is not an official punishment. He asks too if it happened because you were a..... because you make trouble."

The small strip of sacking which Turcat had wrapped around his left hand had blossomed thick red patches, and felt hot and sticky across his palm. It clung to his skin the way a uniform did on a hot day mixed with rain showers. He eyed the thing wearily, pulling it back and away from his palm to reveal the gash there. The fingers were mostly numb, by then. It was superficial, but even so, hands always bled like a rabouin and it was better that he get it sown up.

He'd grabbed at the blade as it came at him, and saved himself a nastier wound.

Turcat made his way purposefully towards the surgeon's, not that he much cared for them in general, surgeons; but we do what we must, and that's the general way of things in this life, so we don't complain. He found Le Bras and Moreaux walking together with a grasshopper in their midst.

He came upon them in such a way that he'd ended up coming at them from their right. The look on his face as he approached was one of general inquisitiveness, and he raised an eyebrow at them. "Are the Anglais and the trouble two of the same things?" he asked, in muddled English, which he'd learned from a chain mate.

"This? No." He was not the cause of trouble, but the cause of that trouble not ending even more poorly for his two friends. Drawing his hand closer to his chest, not daring insomuch as to flex it he continued: "I got injured by t' river wantin' ter fetch water fer our campfire. Not my trouble. Got 'mbushed. Will he understand?" And even if he was a troublemaker, he would not have admitted to it. No use making his chances of proceeding with his plan any slimmer than they already were.

He tensed at the unfamiliar voice and jerked his head around till he could more easily see the unfamiliar man. He scowled. "For French, maybe."

Moreaux grinned at Turcat: "What dragged you about?" He spoke in animated French, inclining his head towards the injury that the man had sustained. "Had a mild disagreement with your bayonet?" He asked cheerfully. He spared the young grasshopper a short glance.

He shrugged a bit at the grasshopper and held up his hands in a gesture of ease. Just a joke, grasshopper. No need to get worked up, or cry, or anything.

Turcat smirked, which was the closest he ever came to smiling, and nodded. "That's right," he replied in French, his voice deadly serious in that particular way which conveyed that he wasn't particularly serious at all. "Not mine, though. A grasshoppers. It insisted that it wanted to get to know me better," he said, pointing at his chest, "and I declined."

Le Bras grinned, "I hope you returned the favor?"

He made a face, something like a grimace, and wagged his head back and forth. "More or less."

"Although," he shook a finger in the air, and took on a considerate air, "I think he would rather he hadn't met me."

Le Bras gave a snort of laughter, glancing up at the bigger man. “Just glad you’re on our side, mate.”

To the young grasshopper, he said, “Turcat tells us how he received the wound in his hand. A token of the affection from one of your friends.”

"My friends?.. Riflemen?" It could have been the redcoats just the same if Le Bras considered all of the English as his friends and fellows. He did not want to hear the man killed one, though he was the apparent victor in that struggle.

"With sword bayonet?" He asked indicating the size of the weapon. "Do ye have them 'ere?"