__ June: Disagreements

Bastien's eyebrows were lodged in a smirk, but he was silent, indicating with a small bow and a step back that Duuring should address Jarreau.

Oops.
Duuring looked from officer to officer, feeling very uncomfortable. He knew this was going to come back to bite him later.
He took a breath and addressed the dark shadow, hoping that this was indeed Jarreau.

"Sir, my captain has sent to me to...to..." Duuring was struggling with his not-so-good French," To ask why our battalion has found itself without support on their...our flank. Well, he actually sent a sergeant, but he's missing, and so are two other soldats and..." Duuring realized he was once again saying too much.

"Sir." he muttered as a way of finishing the message.

For a moment, it looked as if Bastien might smirk even more, but then his face blanked out and with a carefully neutral tone, asked:

"Where is your battalion located at the moment?"

Jarreau glanced sharply at the other lieutenant. Damn the man. If the the 17e and the 2e's flanks were both uncovered, then it was plain enough where the problem lay. And it would be his company. On top of everything else. Christ. This was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

Jarreau was seething. But whatever the motives behind it, to the purpose of fixing the problem, Prayon's was a legitimate question and Jarreau could do nothing but bite his tongue.

Bastien waited silently, his posture giving nothing away but strict professionalism. Only the way his skin stretched white over his knuckles showed that he held his pistol in a far tighter grip than necessary and was not quite as confident as he appeared to be. There was no hint of glee or anything similar in his eyes, though, rather a kind of impersonal calculation, as if he was already running through possibilities and ways to fix them.

Even in the dark Duuring could see there was something odd about the two French officers. Both stood rather uneasy, looking like they expected bad news, like something had gone wrong. Well, obviously something had gone wrong; flanks had been uncovered, which meant heads were going to roll.
Just officers heads though. There were times Duuring was glad being a low corporal.

"We are some three, maybe fourhundred upstream, sir. The grenadier, 1st and 2nd company, our junior major commanding. But it was my captain who sent me." he reported. He tried to remember the name of their always-happy major, but he couldn't think of it. Damn his memory.

"Upstreams?"

Prayon for a moment looked completely stunned, then pointed in the direction of the camp. In a carefully blank voice, he asked:

"You mean this direction? ... Aufwärts?"

Because then the Dutch would be even further back than Jarreau's men.

Duuring tried to remember what way he had come from, and pointed at direction a little more away from the camp then the officer was.
Though, honestly, he wasn't sure where the half-battalion was exactly - but he knew they had not been on their proper position

He had overheard something between two of his company officers, and tried to remember and translate it at the same time
"The battalion is not on it's...proper position, because we were afraid to be too far up with uncovered flanks, Monsewer."

Jarreau cursed softly. What a mess.

He opened his mouth to form a question, but the sound of someone approaching from the direction of their camp forestalled him.

*

As quickly as he might without breaking his neck -- Bielieux might not have managed that, but the boy had done a number on his ankle on the way out -- Gauvin hurried back toward the picquet line. He thought he could hear voices up ahead and as he drew nearer he began to make out the outlines of individual figures. A whole hell of a lot of them.

Somewhat uncertainly he called out, "Lieutenant?"

When the new voice called out, Prayon half turned his head in this direction, but he did not seem to recognize the voice and never completely took his eyes off the Dutch.

"If somebody else is coming to complain about the geography, I'm going to write a letter to M. le Marechal, suggesting that we lure the enemy in here!", he announced to the world as a whole.

Recognizing the voice, Gauvin cursed. How had he managed to hit upon the 17e's picquets? Then came a low, sharp laugh and his own officer's voice answered, "Here, Gauvin."

Covering the remaining distance, he was able to see more fully the number of men present and gave an appreciative whistle. "Ain't this cozy..." Mad was more like, he thought, stifling a grin. The two officers must have been in a right state with this mess.

"Gauvin, report," the lieutenant snapped.

"Captain said our line's too far back, sir. S'posed to be more like..." he thought for a moment, then carefully repeated the figure which the captain had told him.

In a flat, expressionless voice, Jarreau repeated the number.

"That's what he said, sir."

"Does that correspond to your position?" the lieutenant asked, turning back to Prayon.

Bastion looked a bit irritated, but after a moment of hesitation, he answered:

"It certainly is closer, but we are about a hundred feet further up still."

He was about to add something else when a new voice, youthful and rather timid, called softly:

"Lieutenant? Are you here somewhere?"

"Here--" Jarreau began, recognizing the voice. Then he recalled where he recognized it from and quickly shut his mouth, privately glad of the darkness which obscured the dark flush suffusing his cheeks. The young sous-lieutenant would be referring to Prayon, not himself.

Prayon raised an eyebrow, but instead of debatting, he simply added his own voice to Jarreau's.

"Over here!"
------
DeChagney fought free of the bushes and looked around, slightly confused that what he was seeing were mostly white uniforms, but when he spotted the two lieutenants, he squared his slim shoulders, saluted and reported:

"The colonel's c...c...compliments, Sir, and will you please move the p...piquet line in whatever way necessary to c...close the gaps quickly and desire your counterparts t...t...to do the same, o...on his authority, if necessary. H...he says to p...please delay all o...o...offended sensibilities u...until the e...enemy can no longer s...slip through our lines."

Prayon shot Jarreau a quick, irritated glance, then told a startled DeChagney:

"If we both move the appropriate side by half the distance between them, that should do it, shouldn't it?"

Jarreau's face twisted in a mixture of confusion and irritation. What the devil was Prayon asking DeChagney for? The boy had only just arrived. "That'll do it. Or near enough," he responded, then turning to the Dutch patrol, "Caporal? Take your lads and make your way back to your officer. Let him know the new position of the line."

DeChagney, who had not the slighest idea what was going on, and only could surmise that the lieutenant was testing him, sputtered and tried to think through all the possible implications. He wasn't sure whether he should be glad that Jarreau supplied the correct answer or whether he was supposed to have been faster, which only added to his confusion, and all this made the young sous stutter even more; he was barely understandable, when he asked Prayon whether he should go back and tell their own piquets to move.

He was even more confused when Prayon told him calmly - and that was strange, because the lieutenant was never calm when he could get away with a joke instead - and with very precise diction:

"Please inquire first whether M. Jarreau has any further need of our presence here?"

DeChagney turned obediently - and more out of reflex than anything else - but when he opened his mouth, no words came out.

Duuring had given up on following the quick discussion in French, and simply waited, as rankers often do, until someone would bother giving him orders.

The line-lieutenant suddenly turned at him and spoke in, thankfully, simple French, and the corporal had almost no problem understanding him. He saluted, bringing his shouldered muskets up to his chest and slapped his left arm to his chest.

"Oui, Mon Luitenant!"

He quickly reorganized his men and marched, or better said, walked off with them. He had actually no idea how the position of the French had changed, but he was sure he would come up with a decent answer when he reached his captain.

Oh for-- "Leave the boy out of it," Jarreau snapped, rounding on Prayon. "We are finished here, yes?"

Poor DeChagney now was completely lost and glanced helplessly at his lieutenant, who placed a hand on his shoulder and shot angrily back at his counterpart:

"No, unless you have further things to criticize?"

It seemed that Prayon, had reached the stage where his anger outweighed his notions of proper conduct towards a challenged opponent.

"Go to the devil," Jarreau retorted flatly.

His own men, when he turned back to them, he found regarding the outlying darkness with such deliberate intensity that it was obvious where their gazes had been directed the instant before. Of course. And he could only imagine what DeChagney must think of him after this. Not, he told himself rather more firmly than ought to have been necessary, that he gave a damn. But there was no fixing this particular mess. The picquet line, however -- that he could do something about.