Rebuilding the Ruins; 26th June 1809

Freddie nodded, settled for touching his forelock this time, turned and ran.

He was thinking of Cotton and Pye himself - had already wondered why not one of them had showed up - but he didn't want to keep Vickery waiting. He would ask the first soldier who didn't look as if he had something else to do, he decided, dashing full speed around a tent to where he believed to hear people talking.

It had taken a while, but they had finally been able to return the ox to the herd and persuade him to stay there. Cotton had then headed down to the stream to wash his hands and face and refill his canteen. He was returning to camp to find his jacket and see to his actual duties when he was very nearly run down by a very excitable young Rifleman Rottländer.

"Halloa, mate, what's set your coat-tails on fire?" he asked once he'd recovered his breath.

"Oh, He..., uh, Cotton! It is good that I find you! Are you doing something important or can you help me? Pitch up the Captain's tent?"

Freddie was slightly out of breath himself, but that only made him talk faster. He was quite proud that he had remembered not to say 'Herr Cotton', though.

"Pitch...?" Cotton said, a look of confusion appearing on his tanned face. As far as he knew, the Captain's tent was just fine. He shrugged. "Ain't got anythin' I need to be doin', not right now. Need to get the Captain's sword off him to give it a rub-down, but that's about it - an' get dinner goin', too."

Freddie immediatly saw a basis for negotiations.

"If you help, I make dinner. I have splendid fishs!"

Cotton chuckled. "I'd help anyhow, no need to bribe me with fish! Come on, then."

He paused in mid-stride. "Whose tent did you say?" 'The Captain' could refer to either one of two officers, to Cotton's mind: Captain Vickery, or Captain Torrington. And quite why either of them needed a tent pitched that was already standing was totally beyond Cotton.

"Oh sir," Maggie said in dismay, approaching the captain with a white garment in her hands. "I'd just hung this up to dry for you, and look." It was one of Captain Vickery's shirts, now imprinted with an enormous hoof and stained by grass and mud. "That's as big as my head, it is. Look, Gabe. Oh the poor tent! Captain, were you inside?"

"Oh dear," Vickery said, getting to his feet as Maggie came up to him, holding piece of white cloth that turned out, on closer inspection, to be a wet shirt. And from Maggie's dismayed look, it would appear to be one of his shirts... with green and brown smears down it, not to mention the print of a rather large cloven hoof.

He nodded. "Indeed I was, Mrs Cotton. I was bundled up most unceremoniously with what felt like the whole of the Company trying to dance a hornpipe on top of me. Luckily it did not last for very long."

Luckily, Freddie was saved from answering that question because they actually reached the area of disaster.

When he saw Maggie, however, he made a formal little bow, broadly grinning.

"Guten Tag, Frau Cotton!"

"I don't... Oh." Cotton was momentarily taken aback by the absence of Captain Vickery's tent, and the two distinct piles of his gear, as well as the heap of canvas laid to one side.

"Hmm. You say it went right over the top of you, sir?" he said, turning to take a better look at his Captain, who nodded ruefully.

"Ouch," he said feelingly. "You'm bleedin' lucky you come out all in one piece, sir!"

"I shall probably be quite stiff in the morning, Cotton," Vickery retorted. "Do mind your language," he added mildly in reproof, noticing Maggie standing nearby. "I'm quite sure Maggie doesn't like to hear you swear." Not that Cotton habitually used that sort of language.

Cotton shrugged apologetically at Maggie before turning to Rottländer. "All right, I think the best thing would be to have a proper look at the tent before pitchin' it, see if it's damaged at all - an' that includes the poles an' all, too."

Maggie would have had to resist the urge to laugh in another situation. Gabe's language did not bother her in the least, as long as it was not directed at her. But the gravity of Captain Vickery's close escape was still forefront in her mind.

"You mighta been killed, sir," she said in awe. "Them hooves... Look at that, Freddie." She acknowledged his greeting and handed him the shirt, pointing out the hoof mark. "Did you already get everything out of the tent?"

Freddie took the shirt with large eyes and shook it out.

"Uh, that is ... "

He held his hand next to it for comparison.

"That is ... really, really big! Gigantisch!"

He stared in awe at the hooveprint for a moment longer, then remembered that Cotton had talked to him, too, and handed the shirt back to Maggie with a small, commiserating smile.

"Yes, H ... Cotton. Here. I hold the ... posts? And you look at them!"

"Yes... Well, it felt as though it went right over me, though it happened so fast that I can't be completely sure. And I was rather bundled up in my tent at the time, too." Vickery decided that he would prefer not to think how close he had come to possibly being killed; coming that close to death twice in one month was as much as anyone could take.

He might borrow Joe Cavender's lucky rabbit's foot, at this rate.

Cotton had been about to suggest looking at the tent before trying to pitch it again, but maybe any damage would be clearer if they were to re-pitch it? It would certainly save time, if it turned out that it hadn't been damaged.

"Let's have a look at the poles first," he decided. "If they'm all right, we'll see about pitchin' it again."

Freddie immediately jumped over the canvas to pick up the first of the poles, nearly braining himself with it in his enthusiasm to turn it upright so that it could be inspected from all sides. He twirled it slowly around on its point.

"This looks good, isn't it?"

He glanced at Cotton and leaned on the pole to test it with his weight.

Cotton looked up from examining the other upright. "Looks to me like he ran into the pole an' brung the tent down that way, rather'n rippin' it up somehow - though we won't know for sure without lookin' at the canvas. Would you give us a hand with it, Friedrich?"

He laid the pole aside and turned to pull the canvas out straight to have a proper look at what he could see of it.

Freddie carefully laid down his pole, then took the edge of the heavy fabric and leaned back with much of his weight to stretch it out. When he saw what was on the canvas, he giggled.

"Oh, look, Cotton! The ox ran direct over it!"

He wrestled the edge of the canvas under his elbow, held it that way and with his now freed hand reached out to rub over one muddy print.

"Vielleicht it can be cleaned with a ... a ... Bürste!"

He started to mimick brushing something out, but the canvas began to slip from under his arm and he had to hurriedly abandon his 'translations' to snatch it again.

"Can you see a hole?"

Cotton examined the canvas with a critical eye. "Don't think there're any holes - leastways, not on this side. Shall we try puttin' it up? We'll see prop'ly, then." He began tugging at the canvas again to lay it out ready to insert the poles.

"Really, a man don't expect to have to pitch a tent more'n once in a place."

Freddie helped as best as he could, though he had not quite Cotton's experience. But what he lacked in practice, he made up in speed ...

"We can put a kettle with water over it ... Either the Captain becomes wet or the tent becomes clean", he quipped.

Cotton couldn't help glancing in the Captain's direction, to see him shaking his head, smiling broadly.

"Dunno as I'd want to try that, just in case it's the Captain as gets wet," he said, trying not to grin himself at the picture thus conjured up. "Here, ridge pole goes in now - would you help with that? Try not to get your shoes all over the canvas; it don't need to get any grubbier than it is already."

Freddie leaped into action again, hopping straight over the corner of the canvas. Once more, he was more like an eager puppy dancing around his master than a hardened soldier, but he managed to be on the right side of the tent (without trotting on the canvas), ready to hoist it up.

"Ready when you are!"

Cotton looked around. He needed someone else to hold the other upright while he knocked the pegs in, but there was no way he could ask the Captain.

"Maggie, would you hold this for me, once we get it upright?" he said, looking at his wife.

"Of course," she said, looking up from her examination of the captain's things. She grinned at her husband. "Or I can do the pegs. You know I like to give 'em a good thumping."

"Aye, I know." He grinned at her as he handed over the mallet, which he'd found put with the undamaged possessions Rottlaender had removed from the deflated tent. "You thump 'em as much as you like an' if you need a rest, I'll finish 'em off for you, how's that sound?"

He pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. He really was lucky to have her for his wife - there were still days he had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn't imagining it all.

She giggled and took the mallet, then stretched out the line and positioned the first peg. "All right here?"