5 June; At odd ends

It was an unusual evening for him. No sentry or cooking duty, and for once his sergeant was leaving him be. The lack of official employment was perfectly fine with Jérémie, but it did mean the others were coming to him in groups needing their shoes repaired.

The expectation that he could do such work irritated him slightly. He did not have much in the way of supplies and working on more than two pairs at a time was difficult when he was the only one at it. It didn't help that the others were snappish about it, either.

Jérémie cursed under his breath when the needle stuck through a rotting patch of leather and pierced his finger. And of course at the moment somebody else was coming toward him, no doubt with shoes in an equally-deplorable state.

"Go away," he said curtly without looking up. "Shop's closed 'til tomorrow."

For the first time sleeping under the opened sky wasn't something she counted with. Frankly, the brunette was expecting a nice place where she could place here thing, a French double bad where she could spend the time and some servant like soldier who would take care of her dinner. The first impression was shocking, then after recovering Angy tried find her around, but her guide was late. Well either that, or no body gave a damn of her being there.

So as she was exporing the labyrinth of tent soon she realized what a world was that she just set her foot. It wasn't the thing she could put her finger on by first sight, for she never seen such a place, but then a gent, working hard over there with shoes of some kind came to her attention as she looked around.

No more needed, she went closer to him to find out something useful about this 'area' that appeared to her as a time travel back to the Neander Valley. But before she got there he addressed a few words to her.

"Excuse me? Sir, I am ot really interested your goods here. I just like to asked for direction. Where is the Cammander's tent?"

Her lips curled up into a little smile.

"What are you doing here anyway?"

At first, Jérémie did not realise he had been addressed. He had never been called 'sir' in his life and as such didn't recognise it as a term that applied to him. Then it dawned on him that he was being asked a question and the voice asking this question was female. More to the point, it was not one of those frustrating Englishwomen prisoners.

"What?" He asked, looking up from his work at last. It was a proper-dressed lady staring down at him. Of all the...! "Oh. Er. There's Sous-lieutenant Leclerc's tent over there. He'll know where le capitaine is." Damned officers, he thought wistfully. They had all the luck!

He shrugged then and gestured with the shoe in his head. "I repair these," he explained, thinking that it had to be obvious what he was about. Then he checked himself. His irritability was getting the better of him. "For the men."

There was a hasitation in the air causing her to take a better look of the gent as he was popping out of his every day routine. That was understandable, she also had trouble with others from classes. Who in the world would thought that either she was overdoing her polite manner or was taking some bad wood on the fire, causing trouble. He was sweet in his simple was as he with confusion looked up at her, as so many other usually do. Her smile remained unchanged.

"I see, well... thank you. Would you mind sharing me when will the next supply arrive, Sir? You see I might have a chance to send a letter home with the carriers that brings the division.. "

Repairing shoes, didn't seem much of a fun, but at least it kept him busy from the death of boredom.

"So you good in fixing things. Could you fix some hole on a old tent?"

The next supply? Jérémie suppressed a chuckle, settling for a curt shake of his head. "We just had one. Lootin' the British baggage wagons. That'll be it for a while. Who knows what'll happen we get to Spain though."

Letters though. Those would be nice. If he could read, that was. He shrugged. "I might, if it's not too big and there's canvas to patch it with."

That wasn't what she expected at all, she promised her children she will write to them right after arriving. In the end she would found out that she even missed dinner, there were plenty of thing to catch up with. Her attention went around, there were no one else there.

"Does that mean the enemy is holding back for now? How far they be?"

Then titling her head as she was watching that shoe in his head, she was wandering.

"That's good, I have a tent with me, just bought before I came here. Can you take a look at it after you done here?"

"About Spain, what's the situation there?"

Jérémie shrugged again. "Maybe. The dragoons gave 'em a hiding. You should ask some of the rosbif prisoners over there." He nodded in the direction of the sullen group of prisoners, over a dozen yards away.

"I suppose," he went on, working the needle through the failing leather a few more turns. "I don't know anythin' about things in Spain. I'm no officer."

Though the war sistuation wasn't the first on her list, but since she was here sooner or later she had to know more, and a way couldn't hurt either to keep in touch with her family.

"Alright."

Heading to the mentioned prisoners, she guessed changing the language would be more handy if it was necessary. So there she asked the first one she met, but first she checked how the man was closed up or tied up.

"Sorry, can you tell me how long you been here and whether the Brittish forces retreated or just holding off?"

Then as the answer came to feed her hunger of information she returned to the private to keep him accompany.

"There's some very poor circumstances. What's it like here when you people have a 'good time'?"

(you could rp the prisoner)

To his amused disbelief, the lady approached the one of the clusters of scowling redcoats. Then, shaking his head, Jérémie returned his attention to his work. Good luck to her getting anything sensible from that lot. The only prisoners he'd met who spoke French were those two plucky women.

"Och. Sarge. Look yon," one of the boys muttered, nudging his sergeant with a bandaged elbow.

Sergeant Lowden looked up from his restless picking at the frayed edge of his tartan and grimaced. What the devil did some nattily-dressed French lass want with them? Unless it was to stare at the wounded, ragged redcoats?

To their surprise, however, the woman addressed them in English. Lowden found the question so strange that he laughed. "How long? Why, lassie, 'tis only been a week! Not verra long t'all. That's five days ye ken. Never ye fear 'bout the British retreatin', neither. There ain't a Frog army alive can - "

The Frog lass turned abruptly and strolled away again, and Lowden cut himself off mid-sentence. Well! Didn't that beat all.

Private Murchie rattled a laugh. "Yon lassie don't wanna ken, do she? Frogs!"

That, Lowden thought sourly as he flexed his wounded leg, was just about the size of it.

The woman was back. Now what.

"A good time?" Jérémie echoed, his brow creasing in confusion. What did she mean?

Still marching up and down in the camp like some chicken after its head was chopped off. Certenly she didn't find her way around, for none of the fellowship was familiar and even the kind private couldn't keep her tied up for long. She had to focus and keep her head together. There was no enemy around, and there was no threat to worry about, at least not yet.

And private Jérémie, well poor soul, was like a mirror image of herself. Not that fancy, but he was too in confusion. Hm.. so they had something in common after all.

"Yes, good time like days you appreciate more than the other. I mean do you have fun sometimes? May I sit?"

Her legs felt heavy. In this place everything was so weird, the jungle of man. Only officers were allowed to give orders, and what was she here? She was pondering, at least those lost Brittish tourists knew their places in the cage.

"What can you tell me about the camp in general? Things you like, things you dislike or how did you get here? I won't tell anybody if you say something 'unpleasant' you can have my word. "

Her questions were beginning to make him suspicious. Was she sent here by the colonel or something to spy? Jérémie couldn't be sure but he wasn't about to mark himself out as an informer of any sort.

"I am from Amiens. I came here as a conscript," he replied, choosing the safest question to answer despite her assurance of secrecy. "In this camp there's a lot of infanterie but we've got some cavalry too."

Having nothing better to do, she found a box to sit on. Her associate here seemed to be a simple fellow with his simple manner. There was not much to know so far, but she got the feeling he kept that 'three steps distance' from strangers.

'I'm Lady Angeline Blanchefleur from Bourges and I am kind of just got here with nothing to do, so... so do they call you in this parts?'

Watching him as he did his job and the look when he narrowly opened his eyes, it was as if some suspiciousness in them.

"I don't see too many woman around. Does that bother you or is that one set infront of you?"

Oh hell. Lady. She was aristocracy? What in God's name was she doing here alone?

"Blanchard," Jérémie answered, a trifle stiffly. "Soldat Blanchard."

Now he definitely was suspicious. Nothing about this conversation seemed right. He set the half-repaired shoe down for a moment.

"There are women around. But I think they're busy with their usual work." He affected a shrug. "There are the Englishwomen too. They are prisoners alongside their men."

Sudden changes appeared on that face as they went on, a stiffness of some sort as if he swallowed a broom stick. That she noticed with calm features. How would he reacted if she was showing a magic wand?

"Nice to meet you, Monsieur Blanchard. How do you feel, you look different?"

To be honest she had knew idea why she was called here, could be important. She prefered being with her daughters.

"Their fate isn't easier either. Tell me something, if the camp gather more and more prisoner, wouldn't that slow down the march and put the division bigger test?"

It was all Jérémie could do to keep his face blank. "I'm fine, madame," he told her. "I couldn't say anything about more prisoners, madame. I'm not an officer."

For a moment she was staring straight into his eyes with some uncertainty. Then it hit her, this place made its own people.

"Fine. Sorry for the questions. Then I'm going to ask the officers later."

Angy suddenly felt emptiness in her chest, she remembered of the letter for her children, so she took her diary out of her bag which scarcely had some plain pages left and read a little from the last page. Then a little later she looked up.

"Do you have children?"

That sounded a good idea to Jérémie. When she diverted her attention to a small book, he resumed his own work. Once he got the thread out of this shoe, he could replace the leather and sew it together again.

"Children?" It was an odd sort of question, he thought. "No, madame."

Amongst her elder notes she foundthose written to her children with some dates, thoughts and all of those things she wrote before when she was away from home. She gave a smile for he had been a quite young man with no children.

"Kids make all the difference after grow up, you seem to have plenty of time to start a family life. My children are write every week, that's going to be difficult I guess. What children do you like to have?"

Angy pulled out some ink from her bag in a ink holder, and was starting to creat something in her ittle book.

"Are you married?"

Him, having plenty of time? If only! Jérémie shook his head, once. Never mind that he had little enough interest in that sort of dalliance. They were on the march, for God's sake!

"None," he replied, setting the needle and its thread aside now that the thread had been worked backward out of the shoe. From here, it was easy work to peel away the rotted leather and examine the state of the sole underneath.

And married? This question made his naturally-red face flush dark. "No," he repeated and kept his gaze on the disassembled shoe in his lap. For once, he found himself wishing an officer was close by.

Her hand moved with great carefulness as her narrow looking eyes were traveling up and down, taking a glance of him then then they returned to her book.

'Seems like we got a soft spot here. Any girl you like is waiting for you in your home town?'

It was hard to unnoticed as that nice face of his was becoming even more lovely, though the soldier hold his ground and didn't ranaway.

'Are you always that talkative? No offence, I am just wandering..'

And the lips gave an encouraging smile.





(Jérémie could ask somethings if you want to...)

"No."

He'd been away from home for much too long to have any thoughts of a sweetheart. The closest he might have come was that one girl in Saint-Domingue, but that had been a long time ago. Jérémie affected a shrug and wished the heat in his face would go away.

"Our dear Rosy is always given to chatter," a new voice said. Jérémie shivered slightly. While he had been hoping for an officer to come by, he was not pleased to have Bright within earshot. The British deserter was not at all one of Jérémie's favourites.

"Shut up, Bright," he told the Englishman curtly.

And the master piece was almost done, just one more line there and a little thickening to pull that look more off. The model was an interesting piece of work to work with, but she always found it amusing when something new came up. Then a voice came in.

"Who's that? That sounded weird, is that Bright your friend?"

After that the lady wasn't saying anything, only was letting her mischievous nature to show a smirk on her face as she turned her book around. In it, Jérémie could find his drawing image as he was fixing a shoe. Her careful look was slowly showing up behind book, trying to spying on the look of his blushed face.

"Friend?" Bright chuckled, answering the woman in easy French. "I'd say so, aye. Rosy ain't a bad sort."

Jérémie grimaced. "I am no friend of yours," he countered flatly. His composure slipped a bit more when the lady turned around the book she had been working in. She had... drawn him. Jérémie's eyes went round. Was that what he looked like?

There was a braying laugh from Bright, who had, of course, wasted no time shifting around to see as well. "God above, mate. Ain't it fine? Who'd've reckoned you fer a model, Rosy?"