June 6 - Reporting Back

Tearing of a piece off the bit of scrap linen he'd managed to beg off the surgeon, Paol carefully re-wrapped his hand. What he had done that so disagreed with it, he had no idea, but sometime in the chaos of the early morning hours, he had managed to reopen the wound.

Hearing a familiar voice, he looked up and caught sight of Foucheaux. "No luck, then?" he called.

[From here]

Foucheaux jumped at the sound of a voice calling to him so close by. It was only Kerjean, but still. One couldn't be too careful. "What do you mean by that?" he asked evasively, trying to keep his tone light.

Paol laughed. "What d'you think? Or do you got them escaped Grasshoppers hidin' in your haversack?"

"Oh!" Foucheaux relaxed and grinned. He had almost forgotten about that part. "Nah. They're long gone, I reckon. I was just telling Lt. Goyette. But now I gotta go back and, uh, help the others." Why did he have to talk so much? Never mind. He kept walking, heading toward the woods again.

"You mean the others ain't come back with you?" He noticed then the strange discolorations on the other soldier's facings. It looked like blood. Paol's smile faded. "Foucheaux... is everythin' alright?"

"Oh aye, everything's fine," he answered quickly, now forcing his grin. "The others is just... They did another search." For the horses, but he was not going to mention horses, not at all. "We found that cornflower Sevoir who'd been knocked on the head when they was escaping, and St. Laurent sent me back to report." He noticed Kerjean looking at his jacket and he quietly cursed when he realized that some of the blood had spattered onto his facings. At least the lieutenant had not questioned him about it. "This musta been from him. He was knocked on the head, see," he repeated.

"Seviere?" That was the first piece of good news they'd had all morning. "How is he?"

"Seviere, that's him," Foucheaux said, nodding and looking at the woods with distraction. "He's fine. He's fine. Listen, I gotta go." He felt like everyone was staring at him as walked past. "I have to help the others carry... the... um... uh... damnit Kerjean, just walk with me a little faster." And here he had worried about Guillot opening his mouth.

Paol's brow creased in confusion, but he lengthened his stride until he was in step with Foucheaux. "What's goin' on?"

Foucheaux looked over his shoulder and moved closer, speaking low though there was by now hardly anyone nearby. "You gotta promise not to say anything," he began, though he knew it was an unnecessary precaution. He knew that Kerjean was the last person to open his mouth about anything at all. "I - " No. Not a good start. "One of the lads shot a stray horse. Maybe an officer's mount. It's in the woods."

"What, dead?"

"Hush! Yes!" Foucheaux looked around nervously. "And we can't let them horsemen find out. So ... we're taking care of it. Come on, you might as well come and help now that you know. Madame Why-Not is going to handle it for us."

"Madame Benveniste?" Paol asked, lowering his voice, "But how can she -- ain't it better to just stay well clear of it?"

Foucheaux took his meaning to be literal. "If we leave it there, someone'll find it and see what happened! But on the other hand... Well it's too late anyway, because she already started cutting it up." He sighed, but then gave Kerjean a hopeful grin. "And it'll disappear into our pots. Eh?"

Why was he even looking for approval from Kerjean? Kerjean was a good fellow but it really didn't matter what he thought. It was a stupid plan, but it was the only sensible one. Or it had seemed so at the time, and it was too late to change plans now.

Somewhat hesitantly, Paol smiled. "Been a while since we had fresh meat."

Now Foucheaux relaxed and grinned more genuinely. "Aye, that it has. Come on. This way. Just be careful not to get blood on you like I did."

"Aye," Paol grinned back, "You had me worryin' there. Thought you and the others had run into trouble."

"Trouble? Nah, no such luck," he scoffed, choosing not to remember the sick terror he had felt when he had approached what he feared was a mutilated body. "Some lieutenant from the 17e dragged 'em off to look for horses or sommat, and cap sent me back to report. Only it were me that ended up finding the horse." They were in the woods by now, and he looked around trying to remember the area. He called out to his co-conspirators. "Roux, Lambert? Margot, where are you?"

Paol grimaced sympathetically. "Bad luck," he remarked, referring as much to the involvement of a strange officer as to Foucheaux's ill-fated encounter with the horse. He was fully alert now, though his eyes passed over their surroundings casually enough. It was a force of habit.

"Where are they?" he echoed, lowering his voice, an unnecessary precaution as there seemed to be no one around to hear them.

"I don't know," Foucheaux answered. He had tried to pay attention to the location. It was near a certain tree pointing a certain way, and it had seemed like it would be easy to find again, but now all the trees looked the same. "Maybe they finished already and we missed 'em going back to camp." He had come over a rise in the ground when St Laurent had first sent him back. Maybe he could climb up and then backtrack. He pointed that direction. "Let's go up there and look down."

There was a skittering of leaves followed by a thud as Paol missed his footing on the slick layer of foliage covering the hill and landed heavily, flat out on the slope. With spluttering laugh, he pushed himself to his knees, checking his musket before looking to see where Foucheaux had got to. "Anythin?" he called up to him.

"What you doin', clumsy ox?" Foucheaux asked with a smile, but then he froze. "Listen! You hear that? Sounded like musket shots!"

Paol froze. At first he heard nothing, then soft and distant, but unmistakeable came the rippling bark of a musket volley. He was on his feet in a moment, scrambling up the hill after Foucheaux. At the top of the rise the sound came even clearer. It was musket fire, sure as anything. "What do we do?" he asked breathlessly.

Should they go back to alert an officer, or go to help their mates? Foucheaux hesitated only a moment. "Come on!" he exclaimed, rushing down the other side of the hill toward the sound.

Paol launched himself after Foucheaux. What the two of them could hope to accomplish, he hadn't the faintest idea. It was completely mad. But then, this was a hell of a time for things to start making sense.

His long, flailing strides brought him up quickly with Foucheaux. The ground leveled somewhat at the foot of the embankment, but continued to slope gradually downward as they crashed along their uncertain course.

The trees seemed to clear rather suddenly, replaced by a dense swathe of saplings and brush. Paol was going too fast to stop and at first his momentum carried him quite effectively, but the tangle of low growing branches caught at his feet and he went down. Brambles which he had not noticed before were suddenly everywhere, catching at his coat, trousers, pack, haversack, and no sooner had he fought free of one patch than he became entangled in another. He tried striking at the brush with his musket, which proved a most ineffective machete, but he finally managed to quite literally tear himself free and stumbled out on to the other side. "Foucheaux?" he gasped, looking around anxiously for the other man.