Prisoners marching - 6 June

With Jenny's help, Christian got unsteadily to his feet, gripping her arm as though his life depended upon it. "You alright?" he asked thickly once the initial surge of nausea had dissipated. "You and...and... you and Polly?"

"I'm fine," Jenny reassured him. "Which is more than we can say for your coat. Your poor face. Polly, have you got a handkerchief at all?"

Polly shook her head. "No. No 'ankercheff."

She did still have her apron on, however dusty and mud-stained the hem had become. Using a corner of her apron, she reached up to wipe a bit of mud from the man's face. The familiarity of the action caused her to smile a bit in spite of their situation.

"Dirtier 'n me wee brother," she said, concentrating on a stubborn streak of mud along Christian's cheek.

" 'Bliged," he mumbled, blushing despite himself. Belatedly his mind made the connection between his own squalid state and the fact that he was leaning rather heavily on Jenny. "Yer dress--" be began, pulling away, but the damage was already done.

"Don't worry, dear. I've had worse." She turned to give the hovering French soldier a nasty curse - she did not know any mild ones - and to demand his canteen, which he handed over in surprise. "Use this, Polly. Mind the gash there. How'd you get that, Christian? Trying to kiss a sabre? You're going to have a remarkable scar. Stories to tell all the girls at home."

Pouring a bit of the water into her apron, Polly went back to wiping Christian's face. She dabbed carefully around the edges of the nasty-looking cut.

"It looks painful," she said worriedly.

"It ain't as bad as it looks," he protested weakly, beginning to feel rather like a small, errant child.

"A sabre?" The events of the fighting that day were little more than an indistinct smear in his memory, but that seemed familiar somehow. "Aye, I reckon it was. Bloody cavalry. Beggin' yer pardon, miss," he amended hastily, remembering Polly.

Jenny lifted up her head and kissed his brow, avoiding the gash itself. "Well, it will just be a more visible sign of your bravery. But what about last night? Why'd they bring you to the surgeon's wagon?" The wagon that was rolling away from them, now that someone had reattached the ladder to its chain. Evidently they had decided that since Christian was walking, he did not need to ride.

"Visible sign of stupidity, more like," he muttered, trying his best to suppress the idiotic grin which threatened to spread across his face. But last night... Why was it suddenly twice as hard to concentrate? And why was his face so bloody hot?

"Some lads escaped," he recalled after a long pause, "Rifles, I think. The Frogs were in a right state when they found out. Got a bit rough wi' the rest of us, is all. Guess they didn't want us tryin' nothin'."

Jenny's eyes widened. "Some of the rifles escaped? Who?" But she checked her outburst and brought her attention back to the man in front of her. "What did they do, the French? What happened?"

"I don't really remember. They were all shoutin' and kickin' at us, usin' their muskets, some of 'em. Reckon I took a blow to the back o' the head."

"What? Let me see!" Jenny exclaimed. She shot the nearest Frenchman a poisonous look as she stepped around Christian to examine the back of his head. But with the mud and the rain and her own untrained eye, there was not much to see of interest. "Poor thing, it must ache terribly! You bastards," she said, switching to French. "You break he head! Where is the surgeon? You break the head of a man not armed."

Christian felt a sickening, slow surge of panic as Jenny's words dissolved into gibberish. It wasn't that bad. It couldn't be that bad.

"No! Jenny -- Jenny, stop," he pleaded, "It's fine. It don't even hurt now. Please."

Her blood was up and she wanted to vent her rage on somebody, even if her output must be broken half sentences. But poor Christian sounded quite earnest in his protest. And so she relented and took his hand instead. "All right, dear. If you're sure. But if you start to feel headache, or dizzy, or sick at all, you tell us. Polly and me will see you right."

Never mind that he felt all three of those things in varying degrees at that moment, Christian was too relieved -- both at her leaving off antagonizing the nearby Frogs and the fact that he could once again understand her -- to care overmuch. He smiled and gave Jenny's hand a grateful squeeze; it was going to be alright.