4th July, early evening; Red & green

No, he definitely could not stand up against this fool. Even partially avoiding that last punch had left him off-balance enough to be dangerous. That left Jack only one option - an option he should have resorted to from the start.

His right fist flicked out in an abortive jab, while his left hand slipped under his jacket, through the gap made by a missing button. This fight would be over very quickly now.

Jack closed the distance between himself and his opponent as swiftly as he could, throwing a half-hearted right hook to cover his movement. All he needed was to get close.

And the other man stepped in close with a pathetic excuse for a right hook that Cotton easily deflected though something about it wasn't right - this wasn't how the man had been fighting.

He went for a punch of his own, a jab to the man's ribs, inside his left hand.

The fist caught him in the ribs, but Jack's left hand slashed forward in a tight arc. The short-bladed knife he now held was sharp enough to cut through flesh to the bone and that was precisely his intention. This fight was now his.

Then he was hit quite solidly by something from out of his line of sight and in an instant was on the ground, spitting out dust.

"God damn it!" Mayden cried, trying to avoid getting his legs tangled up with Jack's sprawling limbs. The result was an undignified shuffling hop forward, but he didn't care. He was too angry that he had not been quick enough to throw the other Londoner down before the knife had come into play.

Damn it! Something sharp sliced along his arm, cutting though the wool of his jacket sleeve and the linen of his shirt to the flesh of his arm. He was dimly aware that someone - Mayden? - had tackled Kirridge to the ground, but his arm was hurting badly.

He cursed the man a blue streak. Who the hell fought so bloody dirty anyway? The Captain would have to hear about this now - there was no way to keep it from him.

And Maggie was likely to kill him for being so pig-headed himself.

"Stupid bleedin' - " Mayden was scrabbling for the knife, which had somehow come out of Jack's hand when he'd thrown the older Rifleman down. "Gis that here - !"

A hasty boxing of Jack's ear provided the necessary distraction, allowing Mayden to snatch the knife away from the man's fingers. He scrambled to get clear of the little Rifleman's reach, aware that he was just as prime a target as Cotton was in that moment.

"Daft oafs, the pair've you," he said, a trifle breathlessly.

Of course by now there were some onlookers, and someone had told Maggie. She rushed into the fray, for the moment not concerned for her own safety, but worried only for Gabe's wellbeing.

"Stop it, stop! Gabe! Sam!" She glared at Mayden in shocked reproach. She did not know the other man with him, but Mayden had always seemed like a decent sort of fellow. She did not know him well, but she had thought him better than this at least. And two against one, both of those 95th fellows against her Gabe? "Just back off, damn it! Alla youse!"

"Easy, there!" The sound of his wife's voice made Cotton raise his head. He was still on his feet, and the other two weren't. Mayden was doing a fair good job of distracting Kirridge, which was something. There was a crowd gathering, too, which could only be a good thing - up to a point. A Sergeant or officer was bound to come along now.

"Ain't nothin' to fret over," he told Maggie, though he was still holding his arm. "Jus' a bit of a set-out with someone what don't like the Captain so much."

He was going to be for it now, Mayden realised. Two scraps happening within a couple of days and he being involved in both. Well. Three, if he counted the interrupted thumping that baby redcoat had gotten. Hell.

"I ain't... it's not..." he let his voice trail off, quickly acknowledging that protesting his innocence was useless. Appearances were more telling than excuses, weren't they?

Somebody in the crowd hissed a warning. "Officer comin'!"

Momentarily forgotten, Jack began discreetly crawling away.

The group of soldiers couldn't be ignored, of course; there was something going on that indicated trouble of some description. Vickery headed over.

"All right, what's going on?" he asked, looking from one face to another. Cotton was there, holding his arm for some reason, and breathing a little heavily, and Mayden was on the ground with another soldier, who looked to be trying to make a quick exit stage right.

"Stand fast, there!"

It couldn't be any other officer than the 60th's bleeding captain. Perfect. Without a word, Mayden got to his feet, painfully aware that he had not thought to chuck the knife away before the officer showed up. He couldn't do it now, either. The only thing to do was stand to attention and keep his gob shut.

The order had caused Jack to freeze, but he did not rise to his feet as Mayden had. Instead, he waited a couple of seconds before shifting over to a kneeling position, the movement slow enough to border on insolence. Like Mayden, however, he offered no reply to the captain's question.

"What has been going on here?" Vickery demanded. "And do not insult my intelligence by telling me 'nothing, sir'." He looked across at the second Rifleman of the 95th, whose response was only barely shy of being insolent. "You, sir! You stand up when an officer is addressing you."

Mayden set his jaw, unconsciously tightening his grip on the knife. Honesty was called for here but offering it meant splitting on Jack, and no good would come of that, no matter what the captain might do.

"Bit of a quarrel, sir," he said reluctantly and steadfastly resisted the urge to glare at Jack, who was belatedly coming to his feet.

(OOC - if you don't like me borrowing Maggie as I have done, sans, I'll edit!!)

It seemed it was going to be one of those stories that only came out in response to direct questions. Right.

"So, who was fighting?" He looked between the two men who had been on the ground, and Cotton, whose rifle was lying off to the side and who was still nursing his arm.

"I take it that it was something between the three of you." It was a statement and not a question and he turned to the onlookers. "Unless you were involved in this or saw anything pertinent, you will move along. Now!" He would make an exception for Maggie, who was hovering near her husband, looking worried.

Maggie had moved to her husband's side when Vickery arrived, using him as something of a shield between herself and the captain as her fire died away. She reached up to take his arm as was her habit, and only then did she notice the way he was gripping it. When she retracted her hand, there was blood on it.

"Gabe, you're bleeding!" she exclaimed.

Cotton nodded. "He had a knife, would've stuck me if... if I hadn't had a mort of help jus' then." He had come within an inch of naming names, which wouldn't have been good, and was probably going to get a good roasting for fighting anyway. No need to make matters worse.

"Don't think it's too bad, though," he added, more for Maggie's benefit than the Captain's.

What he should do is tell the truth. It was what the captain expected. But Mayden's sense of self-preservation is stronger than his desire to be honest. Were it any fellow other than Jack...

"I were, sir," he said.

"I was an' all, sir," Cotton offered, standing straight though still cradling his arm. He didn't expect that Kirridge would own up to fighting, and wouldn't go naming names, thereby risking more trouble afterwards by doing so.

The knife felt like a lead weight in his hand and he wished, again, that he'd had the forethought to chuck it away before the captain had come along. Even though, he realised, Vickery would confiscate the weapon, which meant Jack wasn't getting it back.

Should he offer it up? Mayden wasn't sure. He was not about to appear too keen to show guilt.

"Why do I get the feeling that you two weren't fighting each other?" Vickery asked rhetorically, looking towards the third Rifleman present.

"Dunno, sir," Mayden answered, feeling a trickle of dread in his stomach. He was not going to split on Jack. "There was a ba - one of them Guards boys round, coupla minutes ago. And..."

"And?" Vickery prompted.

"And I showed him off, sir," Mayden answered, after a pause in which he quickly considered the best response to make. "S'when your man came up to stop it."

Maggie's eyes widened as she noticed for the first time that Mayden was holding a knife - the knife. How could Mayden have attacked Gabe with a knife? She had obviously misjudged him completely if that's the sort of man he was. And if Gabe had now made an enemy of him... She drew closer to her husband, suddenly fearing for her own safety. She didn't like the look of that other sullen rifleman either.

If only Captain Vickery would hurry up and finish, she and Gabe could get away to the surgeon.

"Wasn' Mayden," Cotton muttered to Maggie as she pressed closer to him.

"So, you two were fighting, Cotton tried to stop it and got in a fight himself." The issue now was, which of the two had Cotton ended up with fighting?

And Mayden was holding something that looked suspiciously like a knife. The picture suddenly crystalised in Vickery's mind.

"So Cotton ends up fighting - with you, Kirridge. And Mayden here tries to break it up but is not quite quick enough to prevent you from drawing your knife. I presume that is your knife." He folded his arms. "I take a very dim view of that sort of low-down, ill-bred, underhanded behaviour."

A milling was one thing, but someone drawing a knife was another thing entirely.

"Maggie, will you please take Cotton to see a surgeon?"