13th June: Locusts and honey

Freddie had a plan. It certainly didn't rank high on the general scale of things; but for a seventeen year old boy eager to please in his new position as batman, it was one of the most important things in the world.

When he had been with the patrol yesterday, he had heard a humming. A steady, busy, resonant humming, promising rich, sweet honey. But to get it, he would have to leave the camp. And he would need a a friend by his side. Someone who could be trusted to keep his eyes open and who would share the exhilaration of doing something forbidden. And of course someone with whom the bounty could be shared.

Freddie thought that maybe now he knew just the right person. Innocently whistling, he set out to find Rifleman Pye.

Pye sat observing his chick, which was pecking at the ground where a few crumbs of old bread had been scattered, and among them the sort of seed that the horses should have been given. He managed to acquire some though he learned to stay fairly clear from the 15th Hussars. They appeared to have a rather unpleasant air about them towards the 60th Riflemen. And he guessed it had to do with a certain encounter that was rumoured to have happened.

Now, since there weren't that many witnesses the details were hard to find, and the story itself had enough holes, but atleast he confirmed that they were not happy to see any of them.

Peggy chirped and ran up to him then hopped onto his foot, from where she observed the world around her. She had grown some from the time that she had come from her egg. "...You silly thing." Pye murmured oblivious of his surroundings, but feeling that since he was in camp, he was relatively safe to do so.

Spotting a small ball of fluff disappearing behind a tend, Freddie trotted in that direction. There weren't too many chicks in the camp.

When he peered around the tent, he saw that Peggy's only company was indeed Zachary Pye, the young rifleman Freddie had become friends with yesterday.

Crouching down in the shadow, the young German dug into his ubiquitous satchel to find something for Peggy. Simultaniously he gave Pye a wicked grin:

"Hullo, Zachary! What is Honig in English? The thing Bienen", he imitaded the sound of a gigantic swarm of bees, "have?"

"..Hon......Honey?" Well he started the correct way, the buzzing did remind him either of bees or something else and it both started in a similar letter as that of its German counterpart. He sat up startled. "Oi, Freddie. Hadn't seen.. you, m' sorry."

He grinned and paused. "I think you mean honey.. is what bees make. Honey. Real sweet sort o' stuff... I think. They say so." He nodded hoping he had guessed the correct word. Peggy ran up to Friedrich chirping happily. The lad had to have something for her too! Surely he had. She saw his hand disappear which meant he was just taking his sweet time retrieving it!

Having finally found some piece of biscuit, Freddie crumbled it and offered it on his flat hand to Peggy.

"Honey!" The word was drawn out luxuriously. "I know where honey is. Will you help? To get it?"

"Get it?" Pye looked up, his chick happily pecking at Friedrich's palm and the food that he offered her. Since he would accompany another rifleman he would be in the company of another rifleman, and that meant he was still fulfilling what Vickery has ordered him. While this was finding a loophole in an order he was eager enough. "Aye. I'll help." He grinned. "Now?"

The chick chirped at Friedrich notifying him that he ought to lower his hand a bit so that she would more easily peck food from it.

Freddie laughed at the little chick's indignant protest and obediently lowered the back of his hand to the ground. "You're a bossy little lass!", he told her admiringly in German, gently strocking her down with one finger of his other hand.

When Peggy seemed satisfied with the new arrangement, he turned his grin to Pye again. "Yes, now! If you do not have something other to do? It is only a half hour to the tree."

"I do not. No." Pye shook his head and reached down to catch Peggy before she realised that she would need to return to his breadbag because they were leaving. The chick was chirping unhappily and only turned quiet after she had been neatly concealed under the flap.

"There, les' go then. " He said with a nod then said it again better and slower. "Let us go then." Smiling he motioned for Friedrich to lead the way as it was the boy who knew where the bees were.

Completely out of context, Freddie answered with a delighted "Ahoi!"

Then he led the way out of the camp. There was of course the slight problem that they were not allowed to leave camp, but some deft tacking between tents, bushes and trees left all officers and sentries in blissful ignorance of their excursion.

Soon they were out of sight and could walk and talk unhindered.

"..When we get back..we've found honey on a tree right b'side our camp fire." He looked at Friedrich. "If they catch us havin' it." He smiled sheepishly. He could not help it, wanting to get the sweet reward was strong and he knew that they were not going places to desert and he hoped that nobody would miss them in the meanwhile.

"Keep yer eyes out fer t' Portuguese n' t French." He nodded. "'Couse we are too easily mistaken for the wrong kind, what with us being green instead of red."

This burst of speech thoroughly confused Freddie; honey, camp fire, Portuguese, French, red and green, something wrong and somebody catching them simply didn't fit into one picture.

Trying to unravel this mystery, he decided to start at the end; keeping one's eyes open for French and Portuguese seemed a good idea, irrespective of the context. But why was green and red important?

"What is 'the wrong kind'? Why is it green?"

"..Ok. So... the Portuguese I heard are sometimes.... daft. They see a red coat and they say British. But when they see a green coat they don't know. And sometimes they think.. it must be French." Wow, he had spoken slow and well up to now. He could take a deep breath. Pause, and continue.

"So.....us? We is green. The Portuguese might thing us Frenchies." He waved his hand. "So we need to be careful. "

"Ah, ich verstehe! Yes, we are careful!"

Freddie shifted his grip on his rifle, ready to bring it up at a moment's notice.

"You look right, I look left, we walk in bushes, and no Portugiesen and Frogs see us."

"Aye." Pye nodded shifting his hold on his rifle. He had tested his fingers again. Still tender, they were on the mend for certain. Slight excercise was helping too. "What do you plan to do once we get to the bees?" He wondered how Friedrich would go about separating the bees from their hive where the honey was. The bees would be furious and certainly chase them with stinging whenever they got the chance.

Keeping his eyes now firmly turned to his side of he road, Freddie thought for a moment until he had managed to assemble a sentence that might describe what he intended to do.

"Best is burn green wood. Bees do not like Rauch ... smoke. But vielleicht the Portuguese see? Then we take blankets."

He tugged at his blanket, slung over his shoulder.

"Serjeant Waldmeier says bees do not stechen .... push ... bayonett you when ... if you do powder over your hands."

Pye paused, mulling over the words said by his German companion. "Oh.. they do not sting? Bees sting." He chuckled as he imagined a swarm of bees with bayonets aimed at anybody who dared attack their hive. "Stechen..." He murmured to himself. This had to mean the same.

"Powder.. powder your hands with what?" He did not want to put any gunpowder on his hands as that might well be wasting it. If the lad meant dust however, there was a great abundance of that where they were at.

"Hmm...we can take green wood, if we do not make a great big smoke." He nodded. "And if we are quick, fast." He indicated with the gesture of his hand, and averted his gaze again to his side. He saw movement, but as he paused he saw that it was but a small bird jumping about the low branches and a few more of its companions were shaking the thorny bush.

When Pye stopped, Freddie immediately halted as well, closing ranks, bringing up his rifle and turning lightly to the other side to form an outward facing V pointing in the direction of the threat.

Only when he saw the birds and felt Pye's tension ease he relaxed himself again.

"Powder, gunpowder, or ashe, or everything that stinks, I think. At home they take smoke."

"Should'a known that before. We would have taken some of our campfire." The amount that was thoroughly cooled though, of course. It would perhaps appear somewhat suspicious that a pair of lads would try harbouring any great amount of ash and it would perhaps manage to dirty their bags well, should they stuff it in there, but it would still have been an easy way to go about things without the need to use their much more valuable gunpowder.

"You have done this often at home? Find and take honey from bees?" He whispered. He glanced in the direction in which he had seen the birds and skimmed the grounds near to it, then higher and past the few bushes. He stopped his gaze there, though he walked awkwardly forward, so that he needed to tilt his head. Then he looked to the front again. Still safe but further from their camp than before.

Freddie shook his head apologetically:
"No, only one time. The other boys, they did not take me. They sayed I tell Schwester Maria." He looked thoroughly offended: "I never würde das tun!"

He looked at Pye for a second, his head tilted: "And you? Did you go out of the home to take something?"

"They said." Pye corrected the lad in a friendly way and then blinked as he understood that the lad would never... but what? The common sense dictated that the other might have wanted to say that he would not have done it. "..Wurde dastun?" He paused and blinked. "You never......never would do that?" He was guessing but if wurde was would - quite similar in fact - and then dastun was do that? Perhaps that? He should have listened better and he might have realised then that das and tun were two separate words.

"We did go out from home yes." He shrugged. He thought he was safe and comfortable to tell the lad. "Not honey. We did not know where honey would be, not from the bees." He tried to limit himself to simple words and those said well so that the other boy could understand. He knew it was hard because understanding German was too!

"So..we took from houses at night, an' we took from people that had things in the street. Money or handkerchiefs or watches, or sometimes they had rings or little things." He looked sheepishly at the other boy. "Stalls had good things too. Fruit or ware..things that were then brought home or sold. I took chicken and sometimes things from the kitchen when I moved but then I was not home any more. We was taught ter take." He refrained from saying steal, but it was just that. Petty thievery that could escalate, that was taught as well as if there had been a school for it. It was only bad if one was caught or... if something else happened and then one needed to leave.

"Yes, I ... never ... would ... do this!" Freddie spoke slowly, emphasizing each word to commit the sound to memory. Then he suddenly grinned again: "'Would' is 'würde'! I must remember that! Thank you!"

Then he gave his attention to Pye's narrative. He understood the other lad pretty decently most of the times by now. That Pye tried to speak slowly and clearly and with few words was a huge help. He didn't have that much difficulty following the tale. But just to make sure, he inquired:

"You was in school and learned to ...?"

His own fingers stole unobtrusively to Pye's breadbag; lack of practice had made them loose some of their skill, but as this was for demonstration only, he didn't care too much. He could do much better things now!

"Not exactly a school but.. like that. We had older boys learnin...teaching the younger'uns." Pye stepped to the side, his hand snatching at Friedrich's, fingers curling around those that had come towards his breadbag. He arched a brow, first inquiringly and then in curiosity for this was not an attempt of one who had no idea as to what he was doing and thought that this or that manner of moving a hand - which was too often as obvious as day - would cause them to sneak their hands into somebody's pocket. It felt much more practiced, if perhaps just a bit rusty.

"Yes." Was his answer at last. He allowed his rifle to drop and rest its weight on its sling so that he now had both hands that were relatively unhindered.

Freddie looked at Pye's fingers and laughed self-deprecatingly: "I'm not good. You are much more quick, I think. I have never learned it. Not like you."

He didn't mind sharing with Pye his checkered career. The shared secrets felt almost like treasures.

Returning his attention to the side of the road, he pointed forward:
"There! That big tree on that little hill. There are bees!"

"You are good, Freddie." Pye answered and then averted his gaze towards the big tree to which the lad had pointed. His smile turned into a grin.

"Think we can break off a few of the green branches there. ...If those are the right ones."He indicated a spot, that was much closer than the big tree. He patted the lad on the coat and then slipped his hand back to his breadbag.

"You'um good good eyes to have found that!" He complimented him, with another broad grin. He was looking decidedly forward to claiming some sweet reward for themselves. The fact that they did not encounter any Portuguese or French only made this trip better.

Freddie tugged at his earlope. "I heard the summm", he drew the sound out. "You here it in amoment."

He took hold of one of the branches Pye had indicated. "This makes nice stink...y smoke, I think." He snapped off a twig and waved it playfully:

"Attention, bees! Now we come!"