2 June - visiting the surgeon

When they roused Jenny from her sleep in the tent, she was most loathe to leave her cot. She sat up and drank a little more water, which helped, but she mumbled, "No, I don't want to march. I can't. Let me - damn." She switched to French with some difficulty. "I do not walk. Not the light, the sun."

"The tent needs to come down," Jérémie told her, deliberately staying by the tent flap. "You've got to move."

"No!"

God damn it.

"Yes." Jérémie lifted the tent flap so the strengthening morning sunlight could shine in. "If you hurry, I can get you to the surgeon."

She cringed and groaned as he let the light in, damn his eyes, while she covered his own. But she understood one significant word. "Surgeon?"

"Surgeon," Jérémie confirmed. "You have to get up though."

At last she vacated the cot, standing on shaky legs. She would need something to shade her eyes if she must venture outside. Where was her bonnet? She could not even remember taking it off. Or her shoes. She did not remember removing them either. She sat down and pulled them on, her clumsy fingers fumbling with the laces. Laces. Olivia had loosened her stays. Well, who the hell cared. Where was Olivia? Jenny felt a bit drunk. "My hat?"

Hat? Jérémie shook his head. "I don't know." There didn't look to be a hat lying anywhere about. "Is it important?"

"My eyes. I do not like the sun." Strange how all of this French language was coming back to her. Had she even been wearing a bonnet last night? She could not remember. Maybe she could march with her eyes closed, all the way back to Oporto.

Oh.

"Here, then," Jérémie said, pulling off his own hat and holding it out. If it got her to move, it'd be worth it.

She accepted his hat and put it on her own head. It was enormous. She had sometimes donned young Cavender's shako, but Cavender's head was apparently smaller. But at least this one would shade her eyes from the blasted sun.

And that was the end of her toilette. She had neither the ability nor the inclination to improve her appearance. Who cared.

"Surgeon."

Relieved, Jérémie nodded. "Surgeon," he agreed and turned to lead the way to the Montreuil's wagon. It was all he could do to keep from grinning, though. She looked ridiculous with his hat on.

Even in spite of the hat's shade, Jenny kept her eyes closed most of the way, and she put her hand on the soldier's arm to steady herself, using him as she might have used a walking stick.

This was almost like watching ladies and their escorts walking about town, Jérémie thought. Shame the distance to Montreuil's wagon wasn't longer.

"Woman to see you, sir," Jérémie called out as they got closer. " 'Bout head aching."

"Shhh!" Jenny hissed, wincing at his bellow. "Not loud!"

Montreuil glanced up from securing his supplies. It was indeed a woman. One of the English prisoners, it would seem. He looked her over critically before addressing Blanchard, "Does she speak French?"

"Yes," he replied. When she feels like it.

She squinted at the man before her. "I have headache," she said abruptly.

Montreuil nodded curtly. Taking a piece of clean linen, he wet it, wrung it out, folded it and handed it to the woman. "Sit down and put that over your eyes. You may now, I think," he added as an afterthought, the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, "give Monsieur Blanchard his hat back."

Sit, eyes, Blanchard, hat. Obeying the last command first, or what she imagined the command to be, Jenny handed the hat back to the soldier who had accompanied her, remembering now that Blanchard was his name. All these Frogs blended together. She took the damp cloth and looked around for a place to sit, choosing a wooden crate in the shade of the wagon. What was she supposed to do with the cloth? She patted at her face first, the coolness soothing her skin, before tilting her head back and laying it over her closed eyes.

"This headache, do you know what may have brought it on? A blow to the head? Alcohol? Stress?"

Having her eyes covered, she did not realize that the surgeon was talking to her. She heard the words and phrases "headache, head, alcohol," but none of it meant anything. She leaned her back against the side of the wagon, not caring that it was probably dirty. Perhaps she could fall asleep here.

"Mademoiselle," Montreuil tried again, an edge of impatience in his voice, "You have a headache, yes?"

She lifted a corner of the cloth and squinted at him. "Yes." Hadn't she and Blanchard just told him that?

"Have you received a blow to the head?" Perhaps, he thought, a somewhat slower approach would improve communication.