9 June; Roving

There was the sensible thing to stay quiet. Know to say: 'yes, sir, no, sir' but mostly just keep silent. Palmer had already condemned him infront of Vickery and although the boy wished to snap at the man that it was not true, he just could not bring himself to say anything.

He stared at the ground, squeezed a tighter hold on his French shako, relaxed it and still no words came. He did not know where to start, not really. "...I turned coat...physically.. not... not with mind." He bit his lip and sighed. " Got t' do it so we are here now." His voice was small, rather quiet and clearly frightened. He might not have feared the obvious though.

There was something going on here that he didn't quite get, and wasn't sure whether it was because he was an officer and the Riflemen had closed ranks against him, or whether it was simply that he didn't know the full picture. He suspected the latter.

"Right. Start from the beginning and make your report. What happened with the French, and how did you make your escape?" he asked, adding dryly, "I very much doubt that they simply turned a blind eye and let you walk away from them."

Pye looked at the Palmers nervously, avoiding Cotton's gaze altogether. They did not believe him. What could make him think Vickery would.

"...We were caught n' brought t' camp. Then we.. were there. Then I..." Right, that was not easy to say at all. Should he suggest that he decided to change sides? That he came with a grand plan? Who would believe him, he had planned it that way? That he was actually thinking beyond the food that the French brought on their plate. "Frog gave us food..." He was hungry even now, which made it harder to think. "..I went to surgeon. Sir. Newbury was not doing too well. His injuries..n' all.." He hesitated, "We saw Bright...a deserter there." Which was useless information really. "...We had to escape, 'couse o Newbury an'.. couse o' we could get shipped to France." Which was probably not that far away, but still!

"...So...when I had the coat, I could look, and then at night we escaped. Got rid o' t' guards..an....an' the horses got loose..n'.. that." Bad report, but his voice was still quivering and his tummy rumbled in answer to it.

"Thank you, Pye." He had no idea how he was going to get the lad out of this one. "Does anyone have anything else to add?"

"Um, sir, he did help us get away from the Frogs," Cotton interjected, grudgingly. He wouldn't see anyone put on trial for anything unjustly if he could help, even if he didn't fully agree with what they'd done.

A grimace passed over Jed Palmer's face. "Near thing. Gettin' outta the Frog camp was far's it went for his doin'. We'd have never got too far if that redcoat officer hadn't pointed us the right way."

"I didn'...." He began but turned quiet. He was dismissed. He would be better of just being quiet. He looked back at the ground, feeling the strange sensation in his belly, which was not hunger, nor discomfort of one having eaten something bad, but something altogether worse. Cotton's words made him look up briefly. They surprised him, yet even those were spoken in some error. Cotton thought he deserted yet changed his mind again.

And then what hope he had was diminished by Palmer's words. He sighed.

"Redcoat officer?" Vickery asked, raising his eyebrow.

"Captain Padstowe, sir," Cotton replied. The Palmers might not have got too far without Padstowe's help, but he knew that all they had needed to do was follow along the road, keeping to the hills. But then, the Palmers were city lads with not an ounce of sense between them when it came to moving around in the country.

"... sir. Wot'..." Pye began then stopped. The courage to ask was gone. He wanted to know, perhaps, what would happen then but at the same time dreaded the answer. He was also tired and though he wished to speak in his own defense, he wondered if it would be followed by any success at all.

There might be a chance to salvage this, somehow, but Pye was going to have to be on a short leash, so to speak, for a time. If the worst came to the worst, the fact that Pye was back here now and had evidently helped the Riflemen would count in his favour.

"How did you get your rifles back?" he asked, looking between the Palmers, Cotton, Fischer and the others. "Pye, get that coat off."

Rifles. The word slipped through the haze drifting around his head, worming its way into his slumbering brain and awakening some sense of awareness. Rifles. His fingers twitched, curling together as if gripping an invisible rifle stock. When his fingertips touched his palms with nothing but empty air between them, Newbury came awake.

"They came outta the dark," he said, opening his eyes enough to peer blearily up at the others. "The rifles did. Cotton was carryin' a bunch." He summoned enough energy to shrug slightly. "Couldn't see much upside down though."

Vickery looked down at Newbury. "You sit still and don't fret yourself, understand?" He was going to have to ask a surgeon to look at the Rifleman; Newbury was not in the best shape, even before this latest escapade.

~ ~ ~

Cotton rolled his eyes. Newbury had made it sound as though their rifles had somehow grown legs and walked. "Ah, that was Pye an' all, sir," he said. "He'd got some of 'em away from the Frogs, I think, dunno how, an' me an' him brung 'em back. Lost our swords an' powder-horns for good an' all though, sir, sorry, sir."

Having spoken of what he could remember of the initial escape, Newbury was already subsiding back into a state of protective inertia. It was less stressful to close his eyes again and slip away to sleep.

Sleeping wasn't part of the plan right now. Cotton looked down as Newbury slumped against his leg. "Hey, Joe. You all right there, mate?"

It wasn't like him to just doze off when the Captain was around, it really wasn't.

He heard his name, but the sound was fuzzy and distant. What did they want now?

"Mrh." Newbury stirred, willing his eyes open again. Weren't they done with this... whatever was going on? What was going on? Where were they, for that matter? "Frogs comin'?"

"No, there ain't any Frogs here. You feelin' all right?" He hunkered down next to Newbury, content to let the conversation about their escape simply wash over him. He was more concerned about his skirmishing partner. "Here, Joe, you ain't been knocked in the head again, have you?"

Knocked... in the head? Newbury frowned a little. That had happened before. He remembered those damn provosts. But he couldn't recall taking any more clouts above the shoulders.

"No?" He offered the denial even though he wasn't at all sure of the truth of it. "Mebbe that redcoat dropped me."

At least the effort of speech was waking his brain up.

"Sir..." This was getting really bad.

"You ain't right, Joe," he said, looking back to his mate.

Vickery came over and dropped to one knee. "What is it?"

"He ain't... He don't sound right, sir."

Now they were staring at him like they'd never seen him before. He knew it. That damned redcoat had dropped him.

"Course I don't," Newbury protested. "You'd be off too if you was dropped on your head. Bloody redcoat..."

Cotton's eyes met Captain Vickery's, and the Rifleman shook his head. "He weren't dropped, sir. Leastways, not deliberate, and not on his head." He couldn't hide the look of worry on his face.

Vickery didn't reply to him, but turned to the nearest Rifleman who hadn't been part of the whole escape. "Fetch a surgeon, now!"

The Rifleman gaped at him, saluted and ran.

That couldn't be right, though. How else could this fuzzy-headed be explained? Newbury's brow furrowed in confusion.

"How d'you mean I ain't..." It would be nice if he could remember what had happened after they'd left the Frog camp. The memory was blurry and indistinct. Damn it. Why were they bothering him about this, anyway? He had been doing just fine as he was. Nearly been asleep, even!

Aimes trailed behind the hurrying rifleman, nearly colliding with the young man as he came up short before his captain. "What appears to be the trouble, sir?" the surgeon asked, stepping out from behind his greencoated guide.

Oh lovely. A sawbones.

"Ain't trouble," Newbury said, feeling irritated with Cotton and Captain Vickery both. "If I ain't been dropped on me head, it's nothin'."

Well, that narrowed it down. Ignoring the man on the ground, Aimes looked from the officer to the other riflemen nearby. "What are his symptoms?"

Jed Palmer shook his head. " 'Side from him bein' off his nut? He ain't hardly stood up of his own power in days. Been a bit slower'n usual too."

"Meanin' he ain't speakin' sense t'all," Zeb clarified. "Took a knock to the head a week gone, or a few of 'em more like. An' we all just 'scaped from the Frogs. This 'un ain't walked more'n two steps of all that. Had to be carried!"

Newbury bit down on his tongue and scowled.