26th June, A fat ox with evil will

It was midmorning, and live in camp was following its usual course, when suddenly the routine was broken by a loud yell, indicating both surprise and pain, something clattering, and the ridge of a tent in the last row suddenly disappearing from sight.

"Hey - hey! What'n the bloody hell...?" Cotton had been going about his usual morning routine when a loud yell in a familiar voice made him look round in surprise, to see that where there should have been a white canvas tent, there was only a white canvas heap, with someone struggling inside it. He dropped what he was doing to go and help the unfortunate officer.

The cause of the alarm was making its way through the camp with a group of soldier chasing it, blithely unaware of what had just occurred.

The ox didn't much care for the havoc he caused. His sole interest seemed to be to find a way out of this labyrinth of strange off-white obstacles. Well, perhaps a small bit of his mind was also concerned with loosing that obnoxious screeching human currently holding onto his tail with all his might. When he saw something like an open place amidst the white things, with only a few of these green humans standing there, he galloped right towards it.

Pye was bent over his plate, in which his breakfast was nearly finished, and he was looking at the kettle yearningly for some more. There was still some left there. A commotion did not catch his attention until the shouting became louder. At first he thought that atleast a dozen French had managed to enter the camp uninvited.

But when he grabbed for his rifle, his eyes caught movement. White, large, horse like.. nay, larger. His eyes widened. It had horns, but was no cow. Definitly male with a look that could kill. Large floppy ears and a droop of skin at the front. The animal looked massive. He leaped to his feet, but not before scooping the last bits of food from his plate and wolfing them down.

"Fast food?" He hesitated then added. "Fresh on the run?" That would be a dearly large amount of meat to be had, if this beast was brought down or under control, before it caused someone an injury!

His chick looked up curiously from where it pecked at the ground and the bread crumbs that her owner had left there for her.

He had no idea what had just happened. He had been catching up on some paperwork - everlasting and dull as ditchwater! - when something tumbled him over from behind: tent, furniture, officer and all, with something very heavy running right over the top of him. He let out a loud yell at the surprise of it, and thrashed at the heavy white canvas of his tent that was enveloping him in its folds, struck unceremoniously with him and his belongings still inside.

Edward was just returning from a morning ride, hoping to clear his head after the delightful, but rather long evening yesterday, and thought that he could do with another cup of coffee now, when he realized that the camp did not look quite the way he had left it. More specifically, Captain Vickery's tent had suffered major reconstruction. For a moment the engineer simply stared at the white heap, but when the canvas suddenly moved and emitted a muffled yell, he quickly recollected himself, swung down from his horse and went in search of the entrance.

"Captain Vickery? Are you inside there?"

"Try 'under'," Vickery said, still trying to work out the best way of getting out of the heap of canvas. Eventually he found what had originally been the bottom of one side, and crawled out from underneath, hatless, and very much flustered.

"Oh, Torrington," he said, holding out a hand. "Would you mind helping me up, please?"

The ox tore through the tents and onto the open space. A number of riflemen quickly scrambled out of the way, but one seemed a bit slower than the others, and the ox run straight towards him, head down and sharp pointy horns aimed at his target.

"Certainly!"

Edward held out a hand and helped Vickery quickly to his feet.

"I take it you did not experience a sudden urge to redecorate?"

Vickery looked ruefully down at the remains of his tent. "Certainly not. Well, not as... drastically, as that. I feel as though I have been run over by at least a squadron of dragoons. Though I think that even dragoons would not practise a ranked cavalry charge through the middle of camp."

"I have a sinking feeling that some might think it a splendid idea, just to practice, but I guess I would have seen them then, and I can assure you that there were none. There seems to be some commotion somewhere over there, though. Should we investigate? Or would you prefer to see a surgeon first?"

Concern and a sudden guilt came into his eyes.

"Forgive me, I should have asked sooner."

"Oh, I'll live. I am more bruised and shaken than anything else." He looked down at himself. "And I have no idea where my shako is - or anything else of mine, actually." He sighed. "I would rather like to see what it was that tumbled my tent, though."

"Perhaps ..."

Edward looked the collapsed tent over, then disentangled one rope.

"This should be the right one. If your shako is somewhere near the entrance, you might be able to see it."

A few quick knots, and the rope was tied to Trueno's saddle, and Edward slowly urged the horse backwards. Slowly the front of the tent was pulled upright again, until halfway vertical one of the sidelines stopped progress. Edward padded Trueno and made him stand still.

"There. Not for long, but I think we can hold it until you have rescued everything you might need."

Vickery shook his head at the Engineer's ingenuity and couldn't help chuckling. "It might be easier to get a couple of Riflemen to pitch it again," he said, and shrugged, ducking under the flap into the total disarray of his tent, hoping that he could find his shako in the mess of his gear.

It was on the ground near his overset desk and he came out a few seconds later, looking a little happier. "Ah well, I don't think I will ever set myself up as a dandy in uniform," he said, knocking out a dent and trying to straighten the green feather plume.

"Well, it might serve as a visible reminder to whomever has perpetrated this incident that you might have gotten seriously hurt."

Edward let Trueno step forward again until the front of Vickery's tent was on the ground again, then tied the reins to a peg.

"The curses seem to indicate the problem has transfered to the parade ground. Shall we?"

Vickery couldn't help chuckling at that, and shrugged. "Well, if they're on the parade ground, it's open space, at least. Let's go and see the damage." He waited until Torrington had dealt with his horse before falling in next to him and heading over to find out what was going on.

"Did you see what it was, by any chance?" he asked, after a moment.

"No, not clearly. I think I saw something pale move through the rows. It might have been another tent going down, though ..."

He fell in step besides Vickery.

"What ... "

His sentence was cut short as suddenly someone angrily screamed and several other voices rose up in some kind of discussion.

"What in..." Vickery spoke at the same moment Torrington had, and broke into a run. Whatever was going on, it wasn't good.

He was definitely going to notice the bruising in the morning; he felt somewhat stiff now, but resolutely ignored it. He had to find out what was going on and do something about stopping it.

The ox slowly turned, looking for a point to break through the ring of soldiers. One, egged on by his comerades, cautiously approached to take the rope haning from the ring in his nose. The moment he was within reach, the ox suddenly swung around his large head and clipped the man with his horns, startling him into an angry yell. That however only seemed to madden the ox. The large animal stomped once, ducked his head, and then tore right towards a small gap between the bystanders, galloping halfway over the staggering man who had come to close.

Pye had approached the group of men that attempted rather than succeeded in herding the animal in a desired direction. When the ox broke free, Pye bolted after it. It was every inch as intimidating as a horse.

Or perhaps not. Horses were just too smart. Passing one of the haystacks, meant for either seating or feeding of the animals or whatnot, he yanked a good handful of it from it and then moved on after the animal. "Here." if the beast came any closer to the tents or other camp fires, to any of the equipment, it would get bad.

The ox slowly turned his head, snorted, then stretched his neck towards the hay. He was still ready to run, and by no means under control, but he seemed to be willing to give Pye the benefit of doubt.

Pye took a careful, slow step backward. The hay was still held in one outstretched hand, infront of him.

"Come 'ere." He whispered with as calm a voice as he could master. He waited for the animal to take a bite of his hay.

The ox stretched his neck a little more, snorting irritated as the hay vanished out of his reach. Then he deigned to make two steps in Pye's direction, wrapped his long tongue around most of the strands of hay and pulled.

"Um... nice big ..oxie." Pye blinked at his hand, which held presently only very few remaining strands of hay. " Come 'ere oxie. If..if you follow me, I'll get you lots more of that what you just got. A'right?" Nice and calm. Like that." He held his hand close to his snout then inched it very carefully towards his head.

"You will calm down, won't you? " He glanced at hi own coat. As long as the ox did not mistake him for a good hefty lump of grass, all was good.

The ox munched the hay, then belligerently eyed Pye. He obviously expected more hay, and was contemplating trying the hand instead. He snorted once more, following Pye with his eyes.