Camp - first night

"Oh! Well you're welcome."

"Well, come and sit yourself down, then," Cotton said, picking up his own mug.

Maggie leaned her head on Cotton's shoulder and suddenly realized that she was tired, very tired. She stared at the fire, letting her mind wander while the others talked and laughed. Someone nearby was playing a lively tune on a fiddle, but it made her feel melancholy.

Cotton felt the slight weight on his shoulder as Maggie rested her head there. He slipped an arm around her waist. "You just relax an' take it easy, lass," he said, and smiled at the two young Riflemen.

"So how did you find the march today, then?" he asked.

"Was all right. I had a late night last night though, in that tavern and another after you'd left." Perkins grimaced into his tea. "Won't be doing that again for a while, anyway. What about you two? I mean-" he coughed, "the march."

"It was all right. I reckon I'm goin' to have to do somethin' about me left shoe: I think I've got a blister comin'. Bother it. How are yourn doing?"

"They're grand, so much better than the last ones. But the blisters from those ain't healed yet."

Cotton smiled ruefully. "That's what happens when your shoes fall to bits. It's the bloody suppliers; they don't give a damn if we suffer, just so long as they get their money."

"There y'are, Maggie. Will you give me a needle? I've lost mine, and I'll never find it in this dark, but I promise I'll give you it back."

"If I know you, Jenny Ross, I will never see that needle again," Maggie grumbled half-heartedly, standing and stretching. "Come on, me work box is over there."

"Who are them young two, sitting with your Mister Cotton?" Jenny asked as they walked. Maggie looked back over her shoulder.

"Oh, them, they're friends of Gabe's from the 95th." She pointed. "That one's Carty and that one is Ben Perkins."

"Are you going to introduce me when we get back? I like that little sweet one with the freckles. Are his eyes blue or green?"

"Jenny Ross, don't you go upsetting the lad. He's just a boy, and he hardly speaks English at that."

"Well. I'm a very good teacher," Jenny replied with a coquettish smile and a flounce of her skirt.

Now that he was growing used to Cotton's accent, he could follow the conversation almost as well as those with his own company. Perkins had complained at great length to him about his shoes, before he'd been picked to go away with Lieutenant Sharpe for a few days, and he had come back wearing funny little shoes made out of canvas and rope. He said that a doctor had given them to him, and Mícheál had been aghast that it should have come to that. He had kept an eye on his friend during the march, in case his feet should fall off or something.

"So how are you findin' it, Mícheál?" Cotton asked, adding hastily, "The march, I mean," in case the Irish lad didn't understand what he meant.

"Fine!" Mícheál grinned. "I like the walking. But the, um..." He waved his hand expansively, and then gave up. "The sky is dry. There is no rain. In Ireland, there is rain all the time. Like today, with cloud and sun, we say, it is lá bog - it is soft. But there is no rain, no soft rain, only the hard rain. Portugal is a hard place." He pointed to Perkins' boots. "Hard to the feet!"

Perkins smiled, but before he could make a comment, Jenny arrived back on the scene with Maggie following. "Oh Gabriel, I didn't even say hello to you before, how rude of me. How nice to see you again. You're looking well." She flashed her brightest smile at him, slowly turning her head to encompass Perkins and Carty in its glorious light. "And who are these gallant fine riflemen?"

"Aye, hot and hard, is Portugal. And dry and dusty an' all. And when it does rain, it's heavy. And the mud is claggy - clings to your boots and makes them heavy an' all."

He grinned as Maggie arrived, with Jenny, one of her friends. "Hello, there. This here is Ben Perkins, and the other is Mícheál Carty. They're 95th, part of Mister Sharpe's lot."

Mícheál looked up to see another lady with Maggie, smiling as bright as Niamh herself. He looked down into his mug of tea, beaming, what parts of his face that weren't covered in unruly, uncut black hair or freckles turning a dark pink. Lord Christ and all his angels, she was pretty...

"The mud is, is light, but it is heavy, and, and, it was cold in Corunna. Cold like Connemara. But it is not wet, not soft-" He risked a look up, and nearly split his tea. She was still looking at him.

She had already greeted Perkins. "Well hello, Mister Carty. Mind if I join you?" Jenny squeezed herself between the two younger riflemen as they shuffled aside to make room for her. "Now isn't this cozy! A warm fire and starlight and good company, and even music! Listen to that. What could be better?"

"Here, Jenny, sit down and don't stare at the boy so." Cotton moved up to make space for the two women, then realised she'd squeezed herself between the two young lads. "Mícheál, she ain't goin' to bite you, I swear. And Jenny, don't you make im any more nervous than he is, right?"

He drank some of his tea, and went back to the earlier subject. "It were cold last winter, bitter cold. Don't know that I've known anythin' like it."

She was sitting next to him - he could feel her leg, firm beneath her skirts, pressing against his own- He swallowed painfully. "H- h- he-. Dia duit." Dear Lord, it was hot sitting so close to the fire.

Cotton was speaking to him; he forced himself to pay attention. "Bite?" The lady's hair was floating on the breeze - so there was a breeze then - he focused on a strand in front of his face.

Cotton was still speaking. "Cold. Very cold. I re- um, I was very cold. Then." It was hotter than hell now. But Portugal was a very hot place after all.

Jenny didn't care about a previous winter's weather. She was swaying her shoulders in time with the music now, and humming, and Perkins and Carty each had one of her hands curled around his arm.

Cotton noticed that Jenny was holding both of the young Riflemen, and hoped they wouldn't get embarrassed by her.

"Is that your Dan Hagman with the fiddle, there?" he asked, cupping his hands round his battered tin mug and tapping his foot in time with the music.

She was holding his arm now, like he had seen the older lads with their girls walk back from the fairs in Gort or Cill Chriost - only she was holding Perkins' arm too. Mícheál, normally more amiable than most of the saints, felt a surge of anger.

Cotton caught Jenny's eye and tried to let her know without saying anything that she should only have hold of one of them... and it looked like the one who wanted her was Mícheál. Only he couldn't say anything without making Perkins aware of what was going on, and he didn't want to hurt his feelings.

What a day.

But it was Perkins who intercepted Cotton's glance and Maggie's mild scowl. Even in the semiobscure light of the fire he could see plain enough that this Jenny was very pretty with her fair hair and her sweet figure (exactly the sort of figure suited for a fellow to wind his arm around), but he was slightly alarmed by the whole situation.

"May be!" he answered, speaking overloud. "Plays a good tune, our Dan!"

Maggie opened her mouth to speak. "Jenny -"

But before she could finish, Jenny had let go of both of the riflemen's arms and stood to her feet. She swayed to the music for a moment, swinging her skirts, and then she began to lightly step in time, soon developing into a jig. She laughed at them all as she danced and spun.

It wasn't like the Irish dancing, he thought, not until the revelers became very drunk - her arms were moving, the firelight dancing red and orange off the skin of her forearms, not held rigid, and her hips were swaying, making her skirts swish like flames licking the ground. She was laughing, catching his eye, an open invitation.

To Mícheál's artless mind it was artless; to his innocent heart, it was innocent.

"I, um, I-" He stood up quickly, kicking over a pan - he hurriedly bent to return it to its place. "Got to, gotta-" He jerked his thumb towards the trees, carefully not looking at Jenny, and made a gesture, pointing down at the ground with his two fingers. He looked at Maggie and Jenny looking at him, groaned in agony at his limited polite vocabulary and his necessity to resort to obscenity, and backed away, shading his eyes.