10th June: The misplaced

Bastien held up the bottle to Etienne. There wasn't much left in it now.

"Yes, I have. The moment I start to sing, everybody listens with awe and fear in their eyes and do everything I want so that I'm happy and stop. Are you really sure you want to hear that?"

"Can't be worse than hearing the hospitality of our neighbours." Indeed during the night sometimes one could steal hear them. Not as frequently perhaps as it was in Spain, but they were there and they had their French prisoners with them and those were the ones one could hear.

He closed his eye. "Come on now, my dear friend, sing. Sing and I will join you!" Drunk, and more now that he drank a few sips more.

Even though he had drunken much less than his friend, at this moment Prayon was not quite sober anymore either. Perhaps this was what finally convinced him that this was a good idea; perhaps he simply didn't have a thought for the neighbours. Anyway, without further encouragement, he opened his mouth and began to belt out a song in his native dialect. Most of the words were German, but the story seemed to centre around some Rinaldini.

The lieutenant had a good, loud voice, but either couldn't or wouldn't carry the tune. His knowledge of the lyrics was far from perfect as well, but this deficiency he nonchalantly covered up by substituting his own, even if he most of the time ended up with a couple of syllables more than the line would hold. In this case he either tried to squeeze in what wouldn't fit, or simply dropped his own whenever he remembered the original words again, even in midword.

Saint-Hilaire listened at first, tried to follow and failed to make any sense at all. He did not know the words, he did not know the tune, he was just repeating the parts which would be repeated and even those it was sometimes more guesswork than coherent thought.

Of course, he was drunk enough not to care or be able to squeeze out too many well pronounced words any way, so why bother trying. While his voice might have been not so bad, at present his drunken voice was.... something of a curiosity.

Outside there must have been a groan of protest of someone who had to hear them both and could not find anything close to peace and quit because of it.

Bastien, having run through the lyrics, now freely improvised. With each stanza the tune progressed to a higher key, although this seemed to be more by accident than by intention, and his usually rather deep voice became shriller and shriller. A cat being gutted could not have assailed the ears more.

A donkey seemed to recognize something in the infernal wailing, because he felt invited to join in, adding to the noise. Suddenly something rapped against the cloth of the tent, denting it in a good few inches, then fell to the ground.

"Keep it down!", an agry voice yelled.

Saint-Hilaire had been a quiet singer a moment ago, but now that they received a protest, his voice became stronger as well, to join the donkey's and Prayon's. It was done because there was a voice yelling for them to grow silent, only to have that voice know that they could sing just as loud as they wished and nobody could do anything about it.

Saint-Hilaire made the words up and at times it was just murmur, a hum, words that did not even exist or meant nothing. Some were slurred, but loud and all pretense at attempting to try to sing well were now abandoned.

Lets not. Because it was far more fun that way. Because it bothered someone else. The content of his song - though following the tune of Bastien's, was getting more and more bizzare and perhaps also rather amusing if somebody could actually have understood it any way.

Bastien fortified his voice with another gulp from the bottle, then started to conduct an invisible orchestra with it, splashing brandy around. His movements were quite energetic, and he nearly brained Etienne when the chorus came around and he demanded another fortissimo.

The voice outside was by no means pleased, though. It cursed profoundly, adding to the over-all levels of noise, yelled at the donkey, who replied with a loud bray, and finally came closer.

"Damn you, Prayon, will you for heaven' sake shut up?"

An energetic hand jerked back the tent flap, nearly bringing the tent down.

"DAMN you , Prayon, will you for heaven'sake shut up!" Saint-Hilaire imitated the irritated voice and burst into giggles. " DAMN YOU, DAMN YOU!" He sang then.

"Oh I you damn!" He chuckled and gazed at the tent flap and the source of the dangerous tottering of their tent." Damn you, man. Be gentle with our house!" He should have been worried, but he obviously appeared more amused. "Join us." He said without yet recognising the person.

Bastien started to bombard the offended man outside with a stream of loud, passionate and completely unintelligible explanations. He had struck a very heroical pose and was delivering what seemed to be a speech designed to prevent them both from execution.

Saint-Hilaire laughed. Poor offended man had it coming. "Come now, mons...mon.. mo..mumble." He spoke. "Sing with us or be gone! Be gone from us, for this is my tent and I order you be gone, have you not reason to be here!" He had managed to make this sound rather coherent, and looked proud enough to burst.

Of course his next few words were far from coherent, and at last he gave up and just giggled. When he shifted a bit, to be more comfortable, he started to stare at his bandaged hands and feet. Why were they bandaged again? He tugged at one of his hands and the bandages there, wanting to see. He briefly looked at the protesting man again. "Who be you. .any way ,that you dare come in an...OFFICER'S tent!"

Captain Sourette, acting chef-de-battalion and by now a very tired, unhappy and uncomfortable individual, took the boot he had collected again outside and without further ado threw it at Bastien, hitting him squarely and with some force in the chest. The Lieutenant, not quite steady on his feet, staggered and came to sit down on a chest standing behind him rather abruptly. Then the man glared at Etienne.

"Keep. It. Down!"

He was exhausted from trying to do the work of two officers at once, his own wound was itching like hell and he still hadn't gotten used to the way his knee bend no longer, but hurt in the evenings. Other people singing merrily and keeping him from what little sleep he got was just too much tonight.

Saint-Hilaire nearly fell head over heels when he tried to get up as fast. He saw his friend assaulted and would have demanded some sort of satisfaction, if only he could get to the tent flap in time. Of course, tripping over one's two feet was not exactly the way to go, but he did manage to half crawl, half stagger rather close to the offensive man.

"You SIR," He had not recognised him just yet, but he was better to do that soon. " I demand satisfaction from!...because you have dishonoured the honour of my honourable friend!" He burst into a bout of giggles. "So.. we go, outside, right now!!" He was not steady, his one good eye blinking, until he had rubbed it.

Bastien's own social instincts were usually pretty poor, but although he was the louder of the two, he wasn't quite as drunk as Etienne was, and some sort of survival instinct kicked in for his friend's sake. He reached for Etienne's arm, managing to grasp it on the third try.

"It's all-all-alright!", he tried to explain in a slur. "He can't sleep."

Waving the nearly empty bottle at the Captaine, he asked in a friendly manner, as if the officer had only come for that:

"Want some? Good stuff! Etienne doesn't feel bad anymore, don't you, Etienne?"

"Don't feel bad no. I don't feel bad at all! But he threw a boot at you.. or was it a book? He threw it at you! I cannot stand that. He could have thrown a sword at you and hurt you!" It indeed made no sense.

"I want satisfaction!" He exclaimed though he moved no further, his attention caught by the bottle. He wanted either satisfaction or that bottle, or both. But the captain deserved none of it! Especially not their precious drink.

Sourette looked rather stunned for a moment. He had screamed at Prayon because - well, frankly, because screaming at Prayon for anything that was either too loud, too flashy or too silly had become a kind of regimental habit. But the beauty was that Prayon rarely took offence and certainly didn't hold a grudge, and most times one either went away feeling better or ended up drinking and playing cards with the man. Having someone else take up the cudgel in his defence confounded the tired Captaine. Especially if it was a man who had been dead and now looked only marginally better.

"I ... beg your pardon, Saint-Hilaire. I didn't know you were here as well."

It was a completely foolish sentence, but his brain refused to cope with the situation for the moment.

"It's my tent, 'fcourse I will..." He blinked once. Blinked twice, the third time it was merely a half blink as Saint-Hilaire began to recognise the features of their Captaine.

"Sir. " It was his turn to be at loss for words. He glanced at the bottle and was distracted enough to snatch at it. When he looked at Sourette again, he appeared as if he had just seen him anew. "Good day , sir.. evening. .um night... Erm.. Good whichever." He bowed and nearly toppled over.

Sourette instinctively tried to catch Etienne, leaned on his shattered knee and yelleped in pain, staggering and crashing into Bastien, who had jumped up to catch Etienne as well. Some quick in-flight sorting prevented him from crashing to the floor, although Prayon landed there, but on a chair instead. He took a deep breath, then held a hand out to help Prayon up.

"It's night, but whether it is good or not is for you to decide."

He spotted the forgotten wine on the table. A glass or two would do wonders for his knee - and the colour promised that it was better stuff than the rather watery stuff that had found its way to his table this evening. He looked quite longingly at it, hoping that one of the other men would take the hint and invite him to some.

"Pardon, pardon, sir." Saint-Hilaire hurried to speak and then as he followed the gaze of the man, he went and snatched the wine bottle then poured a full glass. How he had managed to keep a steady hand for that at all was admirable. Though perhaps the sudden crash might have just sobered him up a little.

He thrust the glass to the man, speaking still with the apologetic tone. "I am sorry, Mon Dieu, I am sorry. Here, drink this. There is more where that has come from." He spoke this, offering a promise of more wine, when the glass was emptied. "Sit, do sit. " He pointed his hand towards one of the chairs. "Steady. Bastien, help him, please." Because if he tried he was afraid he might only break him more.

"

Prayon took Sourette's hand and climbed up from the floor again; he wasn't quite steady on his feet either, and rubbed his bum with a grimace, but otherwise he didn't seem to mind his fall.

"Sure. Make yourself comfortable and have a glass, Captain. It's the best stuff I could find, and Saint-Hilaire here chose to ignore it after no more than two sips, and drain my brandy instead!"

Sourette gave him a twisted grin, sorting himself properly into the chair, then accepting the offered glass and toasted them.

" À votre santé ! Your's and mine especially, Saint-Hilaire. It seems our sunshine there has managed to breeze through the last engagements without so much as a scratch, lucky bastard."

He said this without quite a charming twinkle in his eyes, though.

"Might be he'd been under skirts more than under fire." Saint-Hilaire mused, managing to form a fairly witty sentence and looking absolutely proud of it. He raised an empty glass and murmured the toast, he then blinked at glass, poured the wine into it too then looked torn from which he meant to drink the wine.

He did scowl at his friend who had berated him on taking brandy over wine. "We'll be right as rain soon, sir." He spoke more seriously. "And then our enemies will submit and peace shall be restored." He drank from the glass at last, but the bottle seemed to be still a tempting alternative.

"You, lieutenant, want to have a glass for yourself?" He asked waving the bottle dangerously infront of him. Dangerously of course, for its contents to be spilled and not for a life to be taken.

Bastien quickly rescued the bottle and filled the remaining brandy into his own wine glass. He tried to put on the airs of a dignified butler, but only managed to portray a very tipsy one when he presented the glass to Etienne. Fortunately the glass was large compared to the bit of liquid in it.

"Your drink, Sir!"

He peered at the bottle, then declared:

"Empty! Must get a new one! Be good and don't fight! Or you will be sent to bed without supper!"

With this omnious threat and making the sign of a cross, he careened towards the exit.