28th June, The missing dinner plate

When Freddie came running towards his friend this time, he was pale under his tan, and the usual joyful bounding in his steps was missing. His English seemed to be missing, too, and it took several tries before he could come up with:

"Zach, Mylord's large silver plate! It is not in his tent!"

"I did not do it!" Pye's first reaction was and then. "Nor did Cotton." And then he looked at Freddie and he was more certain the boy actually did not come running with an accusation but rather, he was worried because he could not find the plate and wanted help perhaps.

"You sure you 'avent jus' misplaced it? Stored it summer else?" He asked , looking worried for his friend. "Like.. like mebbe it's in another place in his tent, or he's using it right now!... or mebbe you've wanted to wash it?"

Freddie cringed.

"He is not using it ... and I want to polish it today. I left it on the chest yesterday with the good polish cloth and the cream stuff! And now I want to do it, it is not there and the cloth is laying on the ground, and the stuff is tipped over, and ... I let it get stolen!"

He nearly wailed, close to panic.

"Calm down! If it has been stolen then we can look fer who stole it... an firs' thing to do is see t' place where you left it again. If it got any clues or anything. .. you know. Ways of discovering who the culprit was.. and where he'd gone. An' if you are absolutely sure that t' captain didn't take it to a dinner..." He hesitated. "Lets start there ok.. come." He tugged on his friend's sleeve. "And don't yer panic, until we find we can't find it.. yeah?.." He nodded comfortingly to the other.

"It might get solved sooner n' anybody sees it went missing!"

Freddie blanched even further.

"You mean telling mylord? No ... he would ... He would say I have to go!"

That seemed to frighten him more than the punishment that would undoubtedly be handed out to the thief, and which as prime suspect he was closest to at the moment. He allowed Pye to pull him towards the tent, however. Captain Torrington had left an hour ago to confer with somebody and was not expected back for another hour, so Freddie slipped in from the back and pointed to the Captain's chest of personal belongings. Next to it a broken jar with a greyish, sandy paste inside, a cloth and a square of fine leather were strewn on the ground. The jar must have been knocked over with some force, and had hit a hard patch of ground, for it had shattered with some force and send small droplets of its content flying everywhere.

"Here!" Freddie pointed unhappily

"Sandy gray...." Pye smiled brightly when he discovered that one of the broken jars contained an easily identifyable content. "Freddie... look at this.." He said moving closer to the destruction site . "See here, what does this tell you, eh?"

He looked around. "So.. whoever's taken it.. might have gotten...dirty by that.. couse there's droplets here.. there's some here.. and none here.. so something must'a blocked it.. I think.. This paste.. is it easy ter go outta the clothes?"

Freddie moved closer and took a good look. He had been so shocked by the discovery that he had run out rather blindly before.

"No, it is ... sticky. Leaves grey things if you do not do it right!"

He carefully opened the chest with his fingertips only, then sighed in relief.

"The other silver things are still here!"

"Well if it's sticky and we have men with white trousers... wot' does that tell you?" He asked happily because if he was right he could help his friend and not see him punished or discarted by an angry Torrington. This would have been completely unfair too!

"So firs'.. anything else missin'? So that we know..what we's to be looking for, more."

Freddie thought this through.

"He has spots on his trousers now. And he will try to wash it out?"

He quickly looked around the neat tent, then opened a few things, last a truly horrible porcelain tea-pot that looked like somebody with two left hands had tried to paint Torrington's name and coat of arms onto it. When he came back, the expression on his face was rather mixed.

"Everything else of big value is here. But the ... small bag with coins Mylord keeps with his writing things is gone, too."

Pye would probably remember the small purse: Torrington used it to keep small coins to tip messengers and reward small services, and Freddie was allowed to do the same whenever the Captain was not around, and to buy food and other necessities from it. There wasn't much money in it by Torrington's standarts, but for a simple soldier it was quite a prize, and Freddie had been immensely proud that he had been allowed to handle it.

"Yeah. He might wash 'em if he noticed his trousers gettin' soiled.. and that means our best bet is' firs' ter go and see if that happened and he knows and if we don't find him washing his trousers.. we look for someone with them dirty with that gray stuff and we will catch our culprit."

He followed Freddie and blinked as he learned the purse was missing too. "Well if he'm a daft thing.. he might to want to spend it all real fast.. if he's a bit less daft... then he might keep it.. but we can look fer t' purse atleast. Might be empty and discarted somewhere's unless he's really daft and is still havin' it on him. But we do have ter hurry, t' longer we wait t' greater t' chance he's got rid of evidence!"

Freddie quickly put out those few things the captain was likely to need when he returned, then pushed the entrance open to leave and do as Pye had suggested. Suddenly he stopped and frowned, however.

"Uh, when we find him... What should we do? Steal the things back or ... tell? Should we .. should we tell Cotton?"

"Well.. depends. If we steal them back. .we can't 'zactly accuse him of stealin'.. couse he won't have them any more. But if we do steal them back it means your captain don't need to know that they were gone in t' first place. But if you want him ter be punished fer stealin'... then t' captain will know... and we'll have a proper trial n'all."

He nodded slowly then shook his head when Cotton was mentioned. "Oh no. We can't tell him or get 'im involved. See... he was accused of stealin' once. Got all punished fer it too. And he was innocent! But.. they'd think and put blame on 'im right away if he said he knew something was gone..and we might have ter tell it's gone first 'fore we go looking for who stole it...could get real complicated then." He looked hesitant. "..I don't know .. what do you want rather?"

Freddie frowned.

"Vielleicht ... vielleicht we can find out who has done it first? And then say? Or do you think we should tell it to Captain Vickery?"

He hadn't known the story about Cotton, but immediately saw the point.

"Maybe.. Vielleicht." Pye nodded and straightened. "Let us see if we can find him first. If we can't find him at all, we will have to notify the captains anyway." He began towards the river, though his eyes skimmed the men's trousers of any who he had seen, close or far from them, on their way there.

"....lets hope that that paste is real hard to remove, couse then our clue would be stuck ter t' culprit fer longer..." He tapped his chin. "Did yer see anybody snooping about frequently 'fore today?"

Freddie thought hard while following his friend.

"A man from the 33. came to bring messages, and Captain Hunter's man was here. And ... there was a ... a Vagabund. Oh, and one Portuguese!"

And of course there had been any number of riflemen, or the members of the survey team that came from the Coldstream Guards. But surely nobody of their own company would steal from Captain Torrington?

"...Could see with the Portuguese first." Pye looked thoughtful at the choices. He did not want to admit that 33rd could be suspect. "Do yer know wot he looked like?" He knew though a couple, that could be thieves, that had been of the less pleasant sort. Then there was of course one sergeant, but he would have suggested looking in Freddie's own pack, if it was the case of him being around.

"..Did any of them that were here, look suspicious, or they'd been about.. when they had no business ter be?... or um..when you last left tent...was there anybody 'bout'?" He had not seen a smear on one's trousers yet. Not the sort that he thought he was looking for. There were plenty of not so clean trousers to be seen, of course.

"Could try snoopin' about..see if anybody's braggin' about money he's recently got, too."

"But we have to find it before tonight! Captain Hunter can come to dinner! Then I will need plate! And the captain will miss money when a man with a message comes!"

Freddie started to panic again.

"We do not have many time! I was here last yesterday and then nobody was here. Before dinner all the others have come and wanted to talk to the Captain. The Vagabund was this ..." He raised his hand to just above his head. "And had a beard. Dark hair."

He screwed his face up in an approximation of a half-sided paralysis and wished he had Captain Torrington's ability to just sketch people.

"Much time.." Zachary corrected Friedrich and nodded. "Well we are going to try find our culprit first. Perhaps if Vagabund was here on.. official business, he would not be stealing too. He wants our.. friendship, right?" He looked around and then began towards the river itself. They were still within the boundaries of their camp, so that they would be safe from being assumed desserters , sneaking off past the lines.

"Alright. On with looking for the right pair of pants." He said softly. "If whoever stole it means to sell it.. we oughta be faster to find him 'fore he tries. Otherwise if yer hear of any things bein' sold ter t' locals, couse it ain't going to go between men, I think, that's t' place to be." He turned to his friend. "That there man. Check him first." Seeing as the man had been by the river and was indeed washing his personals. There was the shirt, there could be more.

Freddie nodded and carefully sneaked closer to take a look. The man was whistling a jaunty march and rubbing the cloth forcefully to the rhythm. He still wore his pants, and the grass at the bank of the river made it impossible to see whether there were any spots on them, however.

"We ... can take Mylord's spyglass?", Freddie suggested doubtfully.

He squinted his eyes to see whether there was a plate - or more likely a plate-in-a-sack - somewhere, but couldn't see anything.

"Can we? ..won't 'e mind?" Though if they took it, borrowed it and found his plates, surely Torrington could not hold it against them. He smiled. "Lets.. and we'll see things closer with it.. so we don't need ter get too clode an' scare whoever might'a stole it 'fore we can make sure he did." He glanced at his friend. "We'll find it 'fore it's too late. Promise."

Freddie was not perfectly sure that the Captain wouldn't mind, but he reckoned that if they hurried, he could put the glass back before Torrington could dome back and miss it. Besides, a missing spyglass couldn't make things worse then they were, in Freddie's (in this point rather uninformed) opinion.

He dashed back to the tent and took the leather case where the expensive instrument was kept in. After a moment of heavy thinking, he decided to leave a message - after all, he really was no thief. Not anymore, anyway.

Sweating and nearly biting his tongue off, he produced: "Mylord, glas is not stolen. Pi and I need it. Important! Nosing is stolen!"
He had the definite impression that this could be said more politely, but that short epistel had taxed his writing skills to their limits, and he was rather proud that he had managed that much - Half a year ago, he wouldn't have been able to. And he had had the forethought to ask how to write 'Mylord', so that he could be sure that at least the salutation was correct. 'Captain' or 'Torrington' were beyond his skill.

Leaving the piece of paper on the middle of the drawing board, he hurried out again, clutching the case to his chest. The last couple of meters, he remembered to sneak, though, and when he reached Pye again, he didn't say anything, but opened the case and showed the glass to Pye with a grin.

"Great." Pye grinned at his friend. They had to work fast. The longer they had an officer's spyglass in possession, the more dangerous it would be. They could hardly be believed , in Pye's opinion, that their intentions were pure. They were soldiers, who would believe soldiers? He of course did not know that Freddie left a note for Torrington. How could he have?

"..Lets look at t' man firs'... " He reached into the case and took the glass out carefully. He glanced at his friend. "Want ter look firs'?"

Freddie peered through the glass, but although it certainly was better than having no glass, to him it still was the vague shape of a man, surrounded by green and a few blobs of other colours.

He shook his head and held out the glass to Pye.

"Here, you try? I can not see."

"A'right." Pye took the glass from Friedrich curious how much better these spyglasses could make things appear. He held it to his eye and quickly looked past it again and then through and grinned. If he ever found a proper French officer dead, he would try to get a chance to steal from him. This would have been perfect!

He began to describe the man to Freddie and what the other had around him. He mentioned the shoes, the bag, his trousers and any marks he was able to see then lowered the spyglass. "Next one?"

Freddie nodded, looking unhappy.

"He is not the one."

He pointed down the river.

"Vielleicht... he does not wash his clothes where we all can see him? Or vielleicht he is gone to the taberna?"