Second day on the march

Edrington followed Harris across to Sharpe and Sir Arthur. The sense that they knew more than he did irritated him. This was not the time to play secret games, and he had no secrets anyway, at least about this. "It seems clear that they are men from the company of French Hussars, that we knew had evaded capture. The stragglers - or worse - and caught here by Portuguese Irregulars. I would not give much for the survival of the rest of them." He looked around. There was no sign of fighting. These men had been taken almost without putting up any resistance.

Hagman. What he wouldn't give to have Hagman here right now. Well, he wasn't so bad at reading the ground for himself.

"Are we sure they were caught here?" he asked, addressing the question to everybody and nobody in particular. He looked around. It didn't look like the plae where the French mutineers had left him and the others, though he'd seen that only in the dark, and was suffering from a headache caused by being hit with a pistol-butt.

And Edrington was being far too nosy. It it weren't for him, Sharpe would have no compunction about asking Harris what he thought about the area. He sighed. It looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't swear to it.

Stephen stood to the side, silent, taking everything in. The Dear only knew how he would be able to break this news to des Sablières. He did not wish to draw any more attention to himself than necessary, given this Colonel, who was building up an accurate, if limited picture of what had happened. He found himself taking long looks at the body on the thorns, and there was a tree that flocks of ravens had settled on, and he was sure that he could see points of pink and brown and red among the leaves.

Sir Arthur held out his hand for the scrap of uniform and Sharpe handed it over to him. He looked at it consideringly, running his thumb over the slightly-charred fabric. There was no mistake.

"Poor fellows." It had to be said - for all they had been linked with the torture and murder of a priest, he doubted any of them had a direct hand in it. "One can only wonder if we shall stumble across the remainder further on."

And he was slightly annoyed that the Portuguese had not seen fit to inform him of this, despite him having sent out enquiries...

Even if it meant wishing good luck to a party of mutineers, Sharpe hoped the rest had got away.

"Fair nasty to do that to another man," he said. "Whether they did owt or nowt."

For some reason, it was the man on the the thorn bush that affected him the most. Sharpe shuddered, looking at him. "Hope I never upset anyone enough to make 'em want to do that," he said.

Wellesley snorted.

"I have not yet done that to you, Sharpe, so unless you pull Satan's tail I should think you will be fairly safe."

It was a barbed comment, with very little real humour in it, but it made him feel better saying it.

Stephen looked up at Wellesley, all the anger and disgust at himself finding a target in that joke. A joke. He stepped forward, his hands at his side, clenched and shaking.

Sharpe saw the movement out of the corner of his eye. "This ain't the time or place, Stephen," he said. Bloody tasteless joke, it had been, but some people needed to make those - or go mad. "Do you recognise where we are?" he asked instead, trying to work out how far they'd got before being abandoned. If that was indeed what had happened, though it looked like that - they all had injuries before being caught by the Portuguese.

"I know it is not the time or the place, Lieutenant," he snarled, darting a look at Wellesley, before returning the ferocity of his glare to Sharpe. "But I do not know Portugal well at all." Idiot!

And that was - interesting, Edrington thought. Everyone was feeling the strain of this place. People just responded to it differently. But this was -as Sharpe had said - not the time or the place to start probing further. Sharpe would be around for some time yet.

[OOC - Having decided not to probe, I am now away until later.]

Bother. Bugger and damnation. Why couldn't Sharpe shut up - and why couldn't the bloody Colonel bugger off?

"Sorry. Forgot - it's Spain you know."

He could kick himself.

Stephen saw the Colonel's look of interest, and struggled to keep his anger at Sharpe from showing. He had thought he could trust the man. "No matter," he said through gritted teeth.

Ah. Perhaps it may have been best to hold his tongue; he'd forgotten how touchy Maturin was.

"Is there anything else to do here?" he asked, raising his eyebrows meaningfully at Sharpe.

"Bury them, sir." The carrion birds were unsettling, and Sharpe hoped someone would do the same for him if... if... He couldn't finish the thought, and surreptitiously touched the butt of his rifle to ward it off.

"I bring some more of my men up here, we bury them and rejoin the column. Be done before you've made camp."

"There is another man in that tree," Stephen said softly.

Sir Arthur looked up and vaguely wondered whether all that was hung up there constituted enough for a full human being.

"What did they do to that poor bastard?" Sharpe wondered. "No, don't think I do want to know." He wouldn't put it past the bastards to have done them one by one, forcing the others to watch, knowing... That thought made him shiver. He really wouldn't want to fight against an enemy that could do this sort of thing.

Burying the poor buggers was not going to be a pleasant job at all, but it was the right thing to do.

"Do you need me for anything else?" Stephen asked, his hands clasped behind his back. He wanted to talk to the two boys, Perkins and his friend Carty, and Padstowe weighed heavily on his mind. If he could he would take down descriptions of the other two men, but he did not know how possible that was.

"No - Thank you." Maturin's pale eyes forbade any questions, and Edrington realized that he was tired, anxious and as sickened by this as any of them. "Thank you," he repeated. "This is not a pleasant task for you."

Stephen bowed. "My duty, sir," he said, and then walked to the body in the trees, stamping to frighten the ravens, and taking his notebook from his pocket.

Harris approached Dr Maturin with some caution. There were already enough frayed tempers round here - most of it caused by what they had found, but the two senior officers didn't help. Why did they have to poke their noses in?

"I'm going down to round up a burial party," he said, standing back, and trying not to look at what Maturin was examining. "Is there anything you need before I go? You won't want the boys helping you, not with this."

"Never in life," said Stephen, with a glance at Carty and Perkins. "Should they go down instead, do you think? There is very little I can do at all - I will note down what I can, and I do not need anything, except maybe a hand in dislodging the-" He saw Harris' face. "Never mind, I will manage," he said, reaching up.

"He couldn't send one without the other, and there's still a need for discretion, even among the rest of the 95th." Harris looked up at what Maturin was doing. At first sight he though they had used the trees to pull the body apart, like Sinis, but they were the wrong sort of trees. "It will not be easy keeping this from becoming the food for gossip, once they see what it is. But I have a better idea who can be trusted not to make too many wild guesses or tell everything in their cups."

Stephen had been stretching in an attempt to dislodge a foot from the crook of a branch - he looked long at Harris, easing back off his toes. "You are right. It may be best for me to be on my way before they arrive. To do away with one possibly confusing factor at least."

Harris looked up at the foot, at the doctor who was a few inches shorter than himself, and sighed. He reached up and grabbed the thing by the heel and pulled it free. His stomach turned just from touching it, and he dropped it quickly.

After a moment he said: "It will take me more than an hour to be back with some lads. Will you need longer? If you can get the officers to go with you - not Mr Sharpe, of course - no one will notice you riding down."