The tocsin of the soul - the dinner bell (25th June 1809)

Freddie grinned as if Cotton had just told him that tomorrow would be Christmas. A small cry of joy escaped him, but he quickly tried to suppress it and look and sound as dignified as befitted his rank of gentleman's gentleman, army style.

"Yes! I mean ... Thank you, yes, please." He was still grinning to split his face, but managed not to hop about ... even if only barely. Faint laughter from the officer's tent reached them, and suddenly Freddie remembered that there was still work to do there, too. He looked questioningly at Cotton.

"Should we bring the next ... Gang. Walk? Step? Or do they call?"

"Oh, cripes!" He'd somehow managed to forget all about the officers. "Hell. I'll take 'em over a fresh bottle of wine, you get the next course ready in case they're waitin' for it."

He grinned ruefully at Rottländer as he decanted the wine. "Even I mess up sometimes, see."

Freddie smiled mischieveously, already busy with a pan and some lard he had organized who knew where.

"You only think about their ... belly. To eat much quick is not good. We take care on them!"

"I think about a lot more'n that," Cotton grumbled, swishing the wine around in the decanter. "Sometimes there's more important stuff than food to think about - even for officers."

He headed over to where the two Captains were sitting. "Sorry about that, sir," he said to Captain Vickery, who looked up at him with one eyebrow raised questioningly, and bent to refill Captain Torrington's shamefully empty glass before attending to his own officer.

The Captain looked a bit startled at the glass, as if he could not only not quite believe that it was empty, but also that this implied that he must have drunken it.

He pushed it towards Cotton, still more concentrated on the story he was sharing with Captain Vickery.

"Yes, quite. Thank you."

(OOC - I am so sorry!! I read your post and was going to reply but forgot all about it! Poke me next time, do!)

"So there was I, in the middle of the night, trying to find where on earth my horse had wandered off to, without waking half the camp or blundering headlong into trouble because it was pitch dark with not even a hint of a moon," Vickery was saying, sparing a quick glance up at Cotton.

"You should have seen the panic the next morning, trying to find him. Not an easy job at all, what with a regiment of cavalry camped near us, and a troop of horse artillery, not to mention all the officers' horses and pack-mules."

(OOC - Don't be. I forget sometimes, too ... So poke me if necessary as well.)

Edward cuckled, although he quickly tried to conceal it as a polite cough.

"Uhm, well. I hope you did and had not lost him to better company? Or had your mount decided to raid the corn sacks?"

He picked up his napkin to give Rottlaender, who had appeared with the second course, room to serve them.

Vickery shot his fellow officer a look of amused disgust. "He was getting rather friendly with one of the cavalry's troopers, if you can believe it! My gelding, of thoroughbred stock, with a common cavalry remount." He chuckled himself. "I must be a bad influence, that is all I can say about the matter."

Edward had to hide behind his napkin to keep from laughing out loud while Cotton and Rottlaender were still in the tent. The picture of Vickery, offended at his horse's entertainments, was just too rich. The 'influence' part had him slightly puzzled; so far he hadn't heard anything that would indicate that the Captain was a bad example in that sphere. But perhaps he had simply mastered the fine art of discretion. Edward decided that he was not even half drunken enough to go there. Instead he replied very seriously:

"Well, I sincerely hope you managed to buy off this cavalry hussy and gave him an appropriate scolding! I will of course immediately take precautions that my own mount does not repeat this mistake and falls into her evil clutches."

"I certainly did," Vickery said. "It was the first time that Brandy has given me such trouble, and to find that he had drawn his sword and marched off - for he was tied to a sword-bayonet stuck in the earth at the time - was mighty disconcerting."

Freddie set down the covered dish that would, he hoped, make a reasonably good substitute for a pie. Not that he knew what that thoroughly English dish really was, but he had tried his best to make sense of the descriptions, and he hoped that his attempt would at least taste a bit like it.

Covertly he listend to Captain Vickery's tale and made a mental note. One sword-bayonet was not good for keeping a horse at one place. He would have to ask Pye to borrow his, too, if he had to hobble Trueno that way. And probably tie him to the kettle as well, just to make sure.

"That looks good, Rottländer," Vickery replied, glancing up. It looked like a reasonable attempt at a pie, and he could only hope that it might taste like one, although Rottländer would have done his best, naturally.

"May I help you to some of this?" he asked Torrington, accepting a serving spoon from Cotton.

"That would be very welcome, thank you!"

Edward held up his plate to be served. He quirked an eyebrow at Rottlaender.

"May we expect turtle-soup next?", he inquired, gently mocking.

When Rottlaender turned beet-red again and looked close to panic, Edward quickly amended:

"I'm jesting! This pie smells very good. And I don't particularily like turtle soup, anyway, so unless you happen to harbour a strong desire for it, Captain Vickery ...?"

"Oh, no, not in the least," Vickery replied, smiling, serving a generous portion of pie onto Torrington's plate. "I'm not sure what sort of pie this is, so I hope you find it acceptable," he added, hoping that it wouldn't be too gristly if it turned out to be ration beef.

It was ration beef, but in a pie with several other things, stewed carefully, it didn't taste too bad. Of course it was helpful that somebody had taken time to cut away all the less savoury bits and arrange the whole dish in a pleasing manner.

Edward tasted a bit of meat, chewing it slowly. It wasn't as good as the meals his father's chef and kitchen staff prepared, but he had definitely tasted worse.

"I think I would call it Officers' pie. Or perhaps Batman's pie. Making the best of what the army supplies."

He looked at Rottlaender, a grin in his eyes.

"I think I will try to free you up for a couple of hours each time we are threatened with ration beef. Tasting it in this form is definitely worth having to care for my own horse myself. I might even consider trying to clean my own boots for this ..."

Freddie looked absolutely horrified, and Edward burst out laughing.

Vickery had to control his own laughter. "Careful, Captain. You are likely to send him into a panic if you keep teasing him like that. I believe Cotton has been teaching him that officers should not have to exert themselves even to raise so much as a finger, let alone do any real work."

Cotton opened his mouth to object to this, closed it again and contented himself with merely looking affronted.

Vickery smiled up at Rottlaender. "He is teasing you," he explained in the Rifleman's own language. "There is no need to look so... shocked."

Rottlaender looked very relieved at that. "Uhm, Danke, Sir, Mylord." he answered, already starting to grin again; he was not quite sure whether there was a compliment somewhere in there, but he suspected that perhaps there might be.

He made a mental note to try squeezing in the time to make pie more often - it definitely put the officers in a good frame of mind. And with all the stuff he had cut away to make the meat palatable to more refined palates, he could perhaps bribe Pye into helping him, so it should be possible without having to neglect other duties ... He was already rearranging his mental time-table to include 'pie-making', slitting it in before 'cleaning stuff' (which could be done while pie was baking) and after 'Drill' - which perhaps could be kept to the necessary minimum by supplying the Sergeant with some samples of why he needed a bit more time for his officer. The item 'teasing Pye and having fun" could possibly combined with it, too, so it would be a double pleasure.

"It might be more the thought of what I would likely do to my boots that has thrown him into shock!", Edward suggested, trying hard to appear calm again, although the corners of his mouth still turned uncontrollably upwards.

"I'm afraid my housekeeping does not in general meet with his unqualified approval."

This time he consciously smiled at Rottlander to let him know that he was teasing again. He wouldn't be teasing him in this way if he wasn't fond of him by now, and he knew fully well that Rottlaender was a god-sent for a pampered lord without any practical survival skills.

"That officers shouldn't be allowed to fend for themselves seems to be the accepted thought around here," Vickery replied. "I must admit, though, that the thought of attempting to clean my own boots is not one I relish... What it is to be civilised!" He smiled at Torrington over his forkful of pie.

"You have a very good cook there, Captain," he added a moment later. "I think that if Cotton were not such a good batman, you would have to guard him well or I would appropriate his service for myself."

Edward nodded, hoping that Rottlaender had understood the compliment or Cotton would translate for him later. He sipped at his wine again, then spooned up another bit of the filling.

"I could of course reply that if Rottlaender wasn't such an excellent cook, I might try to snare your servant, but I'm afraid that would be an injustice to his other excellent, if yet unhoned qualities. You might of course do me the honour of dinning with me more often and enjoy his cooking skills - which indeed are remarkable - that way."

Having learned a bit since his arrival here, he took a moment to consider whether this was a good idea: Rottlaender would have more work with dinner, yes, but Cotton would be there to help him, he suspected, and Rottlaender probably would like the chance to learn from the older man. Perhaps they could keep it on an informal tone which didn't require quite as opulent a setting as tonight. He had a slight suspicion that on the long run, he would profit more from throwing their two batmen together than Vickery.

Edward also found that he rather liked the thought of dinning in company more often. He raised his glass.

"Then here's to well-cooked food and blackend boots, a corner of civilization even amidst this war. May Boney lack both!"

"I'll drink to that," Vickery replied, raising his own glass with a smile. "If I may enquire, how are you finding things with us? I hope the change isn't too disquieting after the company of a Line Regiment." He thought Torrington had come to them from a line regiment, but wasn't quite sure whether that was indeed the case. And if he was wrong, well, the Engineer would put him straight.

"Worse, the militia! I came straight from the homeland. And I have nothing to complain about: The company is excellent, the service and food, too, I have the most intelligent helpers for years and am allowed to blow up things, map things and build things all in the course of one week - the only thing missing is a bootmaker, and considering that it takes half a year to get boots from Hoby's nowadays, even that is not much of a difference!"

"I have known some Militia officers who think that war merely means moving your men around like prettily-coloured chess-pieces on a board and that battle is as clean and pretty as a game of chess. Or that it should look exactly as it is portrayed in paintings: all flags and gaiety."

He shook his head. "I wonder if half the officers in the Army get their boots made at Hoby's; I have already written to them to request another two pair, on the chance that I may get one pair before I am quite down to the soles of my feet."

Edward laughed in that self-deprecating way he sometimes had.

"You must think me a poor creature, but not only are my boots made at Hoby's, but I also have never seen battle, only the maps of some, and these, too, are clean, and simple, and if the map-maker knows his trade, pretty."

He played with his cuff, picking off invisible specks of dust.

"I'm afraid, if the alarm calling to battle would sound tomorrow, I wouldn't even really know what to do. In theory, as long as it is not a siege or cannon need to be placed during the fight, I'm only needed to prepare the ground before the actual fighting takes place. - But I would guess that in a real fight simply waiting until all is over is not an option."

He looked uncomfortable now, a bit abashed, a bit resentful, and trying to hide it all under a haughty aloofness he had otherwise given up around Vickery. His pride was doing heavy battle with his common sense, which required him to know how he would be most helpful in a fight.

"If it were not for the Engineers, then all our battles would be the big set-piece things... like Ramillies or Blenheim. You are the people who tell us where to put the saps and trenches for siege-work," Vickery pointed out. "Or plant explosives to blow bridges and such-like up," he added. "I think, when it comes down to it, that quite a few officers do not know what to do in a pitched battle. Those officers with Regiments can at least direct their men, at whatever level."

He leant his forearms against the table and steepled his fingers, resting his forefingers against his lips for a moment while he thought. "I daresay, were you to come under direct attack, you would be able to defend yourself," he said after a moment. "I think the best service that you could render me is to help me press the enemy where they are weakest - you possibly have an eye for the ground that I do not, although I know how to make the best use of my men when there."