10th June: The misplaced

"I will certainly try my hand at charming some from our surgeon if you think you can't survive my company without it, but ... It may be that you will have to make do with booze. Even my unsurpassable charms can't wring water from stone, and the demands on that stuff have been heavy."

The lieutenant adjusted his stride to better match his friend's slower pace.

"As for my little interview, for the most part I'm to tell you not to worry, to get drunk and not to encourage what he has termed my 'talkative tendencies'. I think he doesn't appreciate them as he should. Of course he found several other faults in my behaviour as well, but what seemed to put him out most was the fact that somehow, with the old man getting wounded and him taking over so suddenly, it was never brought to his attention that there were still some men from that disaster in Oporto unaccounted for."

"Hmm.. perhaps, if you provide drink enough I might not notice the lack of other things." Or perhaps, if he got so dead drunk, he might just not notice or remember anything, including his pain. He hoped that he would be as fortunate.

"Hmm.. It is because you do not do your duties and paper work. You ought to have written that I was missing." He smiled. "That you thought that by not writing it, I would not be missing was... quite silly of you." He really hoped to get drunk, knowing he was quite safe not to make a fool of himself infront of Prayon. Or should he make a fool of himself infront of him, that he would be the only one teased, but others would not be told!

"..I pity the officers who had ..gone to be taken to England. I have tried to convince them to protest against this and to.....well, you know me. I do not think it right to rest myself somewhere distant, while the cause needs men to fight for it!"

"I'm quite sure I wrote something like this somewhere. You fitted in neatly between the thirty muskets and the Quartermaster's second box of candles."

Bastien chuckled, but then one corner of his mouth twisted down disparagingly.

"They certainly did what they thought best. Fools!"

He walked on silently for a few steps, the muscles in his jaws working.

"But we should have done more to get you back. Searched for you, pressed the enemy more ..." He shrugged helplessly. "Done something!"

"I am glad I was as important as to take place with the muskets... though the box of candles wounds my pride!" He grew quiet when Prayon expressed his displeasure at what they had done to find him and at what the other officers had attempted at fleeing.

He shook his head. He understood the dangers of war and the cruel reality that once one was lost, they could not expect someone to seek them. He shook his head and place a hand to Prayon's shoulder, giving the tassles of his epaulette a small nudge. "You would not have found me, Bastien. You would not know where to look...it was my duty and want to return.. to risk capture by the enemy again, to be able to come to our army. But you had done more than I could ever have expected or hoped for, when you found me in the 86th camp. I am grateful to you for that...though I sense that any moment now, you shall slap me on the back.....or maybe.. figuratively speaking,.. and claim I am sappy to say so."

"I didn't ..."

Bastien's voice caught and he swallowed heavily. The forced intake of his breath was the only sound he made for several heartbeats, but then he had himself in hand again. Squaring his shoulders, he danced out of Etienne's reach and gaily twirled a belt around his hand, precariously balancing the rest of Etienne's new gear with his other arm.

"Mad, that's what you are! You know that I'm usually ready to put a pistol to my head whenever I have to do something as military-like as making a report, and should know better than to listen to the things I say under the influence of that torture. Or place any reliance on the report, for that matter. You know I'm only here for the booze and the women."

"Yes, yes. The booze and the women. I'll mark that." Saint-Hilaire chuckled, thinking to let Prayon display his bravado. It was what the man was like, but Saint-Hilaire knew better, knew that the heavy swallow was not because Prayon had just eaten something that stuck in his throat. He did not need to point it out. It would not be fair to tar the man's reputation.

"I'm afraid though that today's dinner will contain no women. Do you believe that you will survive with only me and the booze for company?.. One, I fear again, will have to be in most provided by you, rather than myself. Unless we can find anything of use in my chest."

"I can with absolute and total certainty assure you that your chest contains no booze, women or other objects of enjoyment whatsoever! We'll have to make do with what I have left and what can be organized. Still, we will contrive to have some fun, I think."

He looked mischievously at Etienne from under half-lowered eyelids.

"I'm not sure whether I should wish that your general dislike of all things Portuguese extends to their brandy, leaving more for me, or whether this would require me to balance that deficit with my own superior French one, which would be a tremendous loss, not to say a total waste on your unrefined palate."

"I will do my duty in the demise of Portuguese brandy." Saint-Hilaire answered. He however did not sound as amused as Prayon at the suggestion. The days he had spent in the enemy's company was nothing to laugh about, and the loathing and also the fear he felt towards them only made him feel less at ease.

"..Just bring what you have, I will repay you in kind, once I am returned to duty. And I promise that then you might also enjoy the company of women as well as rest from the writing of paperwork." They were quite near his tent now. He yawned. "Remember, if I fall asleep, I will ask you to wake me up no matter..."

"My rubble of a hut is in no way fit to receive visitors, so there's no way how you could escape me coming here later. Until then I suggest heavily that you sleep. You are very ill. You just offered voluntarily to do paperwork."

Bastien held the tent-flap open for Etienne, then dumped all the stuff he was carrying into a corner of the tent and started to disentangle himself from the various straps.

"Would you prefer an Alsatian dinner in three courses or some Haute Cuisine in five? You won't get either, but I'll place small tags on the rations so that you will know what I would have served if the Army had just seen enough reason to provide me with a first-class chef and a larder."

"I would of course like one in five. The more the merrier." He answered, leaning into his cot with a heavy sigh. He lay on his side, the one which did not have an injured shoulder and so could be slept on. Gazing at Prayon he smiled.

"Anything you provide would be quite well...I wonder. I heard that the cook of the 86th had been robbed of many of his prized possessions. Bottles that he was supposed not to have at all. That is, there was a claim someone had taken his spices at about the time the prisoners escaped. Do you think that if he lied at not having them.....that perhaps our own cook might have more than he promises?"

Bastien's grin showed off his teeth in a distinctly predatory fashion.

"I will do my very best to find out."

Spreading the blanket over Etienne and tucking him in, he sang an old lullaby so off-key that only someone completely tone-deaf would have been able to fall asleep, then took the unlit candle, doused it elaborately, then quickly dodged out of the tent.

"I am asleep!" Saint-Hilaire exclaimed after he allowed the song to be sung for a couple of minutes and even made the noise of snoring, to confirm his claim. "You can stop singing, see, sleep." Snore, snore!

He would make sure to have his friend either taught to sing or, if that failed, to have him never sing loudly again. A quiet murmur could possibly be tolerated. Now, he just hoped Prayon would not come up with something terribly unconvential to wake him with.

Finally, his tent was silent again and with a heavy sigh, he really did fall asleep, curled as comfortably as his injuries allowed, in his cot. He hoped that dreams would not haunt him that day.

Bastien approached Etienne's tent again when the sun had just set and the air was turning from the day's oppressive heat into the cool of the night again. His step and carriage for once was precise and military, a fact probably due to the six soldiers following in his wake who carried bottles, platters and a small table. These individuals tried their best to keep to parade ground discipline, but the occasional, barely suppressed bouts of laughter at their officer's antics somewhat marred the picture.

Said officer didn't care in the least; with unfailing earnest he commanded his small squad to halt, turn right, wheel about and finally formed them up in a nice line some steps away from Etienne's tent.

When he stepped back to proudly look over his handiwork, his whole demeanour changed suddenly, however. The blown out chest vanished and was replaced with a sudden tension and energy.

"Put those things down and see to your own dinner. Dismissed!"

The command was curt but not unfriendly, although the lieutenant didn't look at them. He was already halfway through the tent's entrance. By now the faint screams from the tent had reached the ears of some of them and they looked both curious and confused, but once again Fernel picked up the pieces behind his lieutenant's back and send the men about their business with a few quiet words. Then the sergeant settled on the camp-stool one man had carried, took one of the glasses, opened a bottle and set his mind to convincing all the bypassers that nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Bastien had gripped the hilt of his sabre, but as soon as his eyes fell on Etienne's twisting form, he released it and quickly knelt down beside the cot.

Gripping the sleeping man's shoulders to prevent him from rolling onto his injured back, he firmly, though not loudly, addressed him:

"Etienne! Etienne, wake up!"

Saint-Hilaire twisted, his breaths coming in short, shallow intervals. The grip on his shoulders seemed to frighten him further, for he fought with the vigour of one thinking that he might die if not putting the effort into his struggle. "Non." He kept repeating, and with it. "Please." Sometimes a soft. "No more." found its way into his distressed speech.

He thumped his injured hands against the person he thought his agressor. "Please, don't." He whispered, his face contorted with the feeling of anguish.

Bastien bit his lips, but only tightend his grip on the other man's arms, trying to prevent his thumping hands from connecting with anything that might further hurt them.

His voice steely now, he commanded:

"Saint-Hilaire! Look at me! You are safe!"

Saint-Hilaire gasped, his eye opening wildly, unfocused at first, as if not seeing Prayon. When it finally focused and recognition was made he calmed down. He no longer thumped, but looked terribly ashamed, his gaze downcast.

"..Good...ah... evening." He managed. "...I...was just about to... come out.."

Bastien waited until Etienne was steady enough not to fall on his injured back, then he released him and jumped to his feet again.

"Yes, I realized. Unfortunately your mind seemed to have decided to send your body out alone and continue sleeping. I'm of course deeply offended that it didn't even bother to greet me before it dismissed my company as too tiresome to stay awake for. Therefore I insist that it either gives satisfaction or refrains from participating in the sumptuous dinner my little escort has probably just done away with."

"..Yes.. Did you bring drink? I've a terrible thirst just about now.. and water would not do at all to quench it." He eased his breathing and slowly sat up.

"I didn't scream.."He whispered as he got up, stumbling a few steps, then straightened up. "...and food? A five course meal?"

"I did beg, steal and borrow enough plates to serve the rations out in five different courses, have even managed to organize some cheese for dessert and had the cook describe to me in detail all the wonderful things he would have liked to serve us if he had just the right ingredients. But you were right, of course: His larder is better stocked than usual, and by promising him that you would write a letter for him I organized some nice little titbits our poor fellow officers won't have on their table tonight."

Bastien rattled on cheerfully, clearing some space in the middle of the tent to set the table in. As soon as Etienne had steadied, he turned back to him again.

"Ready? I've not the slightest idea in which state our dinner is now. Probably we will have to chew on the legs of that table I brought because they have swallowed up everything else already."

"I am ready." Saint-Hilaire nodded nudging a chair up to the table, and thinking he could try doing so with another, which would of course serve Prayon. "Lets hope it is not wood that we will be forced to chew on."

He cursed inwardly, for if there were many men outside, any one of them could have heard him. Yet, if he could have stopped it, he would have. If he could have not had dreams of this kind reappear at the worst moments, he would certainly have done something about it.

"I hope we will not alienate ourselves from our brother officers, by having them condemned to lesser foods."

Bastien gave an exaggerated sigh.

"If you insist, I will go and invite them to share our table. It's pine with a nice side-dish of wood-worms."

"...I think I'll pass. And not only on the company.. but what on earth did you think to have such food?" He shook his head.

"Atleast you have not brought water as drink, have you?"

Bastien turned his nose up huffily.

"If you want to pass on my company, then I'll take the nice red wine I organized just back with me again."

Giving every indication of being deeply offended, he made to stalk primly out of the tent.

"Shut your mouth, Bastien, and sit down." Saint-Hilaire said almost forecefully. "If I had loathed your company and what you brought me, I would probably have never asked for you to come and wake me up." He crossed his hands over his chest.

"And be here with the wine, I'm thirsty." He paused and adjusted his seating. "...Please?" This said, with such an angelic look, and sweet and pleading, that he would have been missing only either a halo and wings.

Bastien burst out laughing:

"Hey, looking like an innocent little puppy is my trick."

He then ducked out of the tent and surveyed the situation outside. Some quick discussion followed, then he and Fernet both took hold of the table, now piled high with platters, and carefully manoeuvred it into the tent; another trip outside brought in the other accoutrements of their dinner, and then the sergeant saluted formally, took the bottle he had opened and his glass, and departed.

With a grand gesture Bastien invited Etienne to the table:

"Here, five courses as promised."