Second Night in Camp

"Yes." He looked at the paper as she began to write. "Y'know, I never sent a letter home afore. Never had anyone who cared enough to offer," he said, looking up. "Um." His voice took on a slightly more formal tone. "I'm in hopes you'm all alright. I'm sorry I couldn't say afore, but I joined the army 'cause I couldn't find any work."

He paused to watch the pen scratching across the paper.

Maggie nodded and wrote quickly, biting her lip in concentration.

He waited till she paused again. "I'm in the 60th Rifles, in Portugal, an' I'm servant to me company officer. I like it right well."

He couldn't believe that the trails left by the pen were actually words, telling folks what he'd just said to Maggie.

(OOC - I really do have to go now. Bother it.)

Maggie nodded again and smiled as she wrote the lines. That would certainly be a surprise for the Cotton family, a letter from Portugal! And after five years of no word at all. That part was actually quite sad, since they sounded like a good sort of family. She looked up enquiringly, waiting for his next lines.

Edrington was looking for Mr Sharpe. He knew that the officers from the rifle companies had been invited to dine with his own battalion's officers, and no doubt Sharpe would respond. Even if he felt as little like eating as Edrington did. But some of what he wanted to say to Sharpe could not be said in the mess, and some of the answers, if he got answers, should definitely not be shared with all and sundry, even if those sundry were commissioned officers.

He was on Bryony, the brown mare that he thought might be potentially as good a mount as Bauer, now resting and recovering from the edginess the birds had inspired. The 60th were very well organized, and he recognized without much surprise the young woman who had brought his coffee to the Head Quarters. He tipped his hat to her: "Miss Evans!" and then asked her companion, who was Vickery's servant, if he could direct him to Mr Sharpe. Which was simply a few more bivouac fires along.

Along with Cotton, Maggie hurriedly stood to her feet and wiped her ink stained hands on her apron - not that the earl was likely to notice her hands, she hoped. She had been a bit embarrassed when she had learned that he was an earl, after she'd spoken so freely with him!

"My lord," she answered with a polite nod.

"You are settling in, I hope." At least she was with young Cotton, a decent, quiet man, acting as servant to Vickery. They should make a good couple, although she stil might not be tough enough for the worst that campaigning would bring.

In the 27th's camp

It was good to sit down by his company's fire and rest his feet a bit. His pack and blanket lay a few feet away, waiting for him to settle in for the night. Not yet though. For the moment it was better to rest and listen to the men chatter.

Grogan stretched and winced as the blister on his left foot burst. He'd have to peel off his shoe and stocking to clean that. It would be devil to walk on until it closed up too. One of the lads appeared with an armful of greens and a well-skinned rabbit. Grogan grinned. It would be a good stew tonight.

"Where'd you git tha'?" Somebody snapped and Grogan sighed. Leave it to Corporal Blythe to have a go at the men for trying to make a good meal for themselves.

"S'pose he went a-huntin' for it," Grogan answered lazily, packing a pinch of tobacco into his pipe bowl. "Leave the boys ta their cookin', Blythe. 'Less yer gonna do some huntin' o' yer own to quiet yer complainin'."

Blythe was silent after that but his resentment would simmer for the rest of the night. With a shrug, Grogan used an ember from the fire to light his pipe. It was always something with Blythe.

"Hoi there, Williams," the Irishman called out abruptly. "How's yer feet bearin' up?"

Settling in! "Yes, my lord. Thank you." She looked at the colonel with cautious curiosity as Cotton pointed out the way to Lieutenant Sharpe's camp. He had seemed a decent sort of gentleman when she had met him a few days ago in Lisbon, for all that he'd made her feel nervous about the march. (How forward and familiar she had been! What had possessed her?) But discovering later that he was an earl - well that was mortifying.

The 2nd had been too far ahead to have taken part in the grisly discovery earlier that day, having instead been given the unfamiliar task of screening the march - a duty more often given to the light regiments than to heavy dragoons. George had not been particularly pleased to have received the orders given the state of his regiment but they had executed the thing well enough, he supposed, though joining the Greys had been something of a shock after the well-ordered machine that had been the 15th.

Colonel Hamilton might as well have been an absentee for as much use as he had proven to be while Major Hankin had proven himself to be every bit as unpleasant as his reputation had purported. At least Vernor and Poole were good men, if a little overwhelmed while the lieutenants had not said enough between them to warrant any kind of opinion.

Amidst the crackling of the troopers' fires and the low hum of conversation, punctuated here and there by a rumbling laugh or a curiously sweet melody, could be heard the thousand little noises associated with horses that George had grown to love so much. In the distance, wafting from other fires and tents came more human noise from tired men unwinding after a long, and for some, incredibly unpleasant day.

George had positioned himself at the mouth of his tent, a dark silhouette against the yellow triangle of light spilling from within the canvas lodge. He was comfortable in just shirtsleeves and overalls as the light breeze lapped cat-like through his hair. A little ways down the avenue of tents he thought he recognized the form of Colonel Edrington picking his way along; he had not yet had a chance to repay the man's kindness aboard the Terpischore but hoped he would have a chance of doing so, soon. Raising his glass of Scotch in silent greeting, he thought it best not to interrupt his progress but instead took a sip and a final drag off the dark cigar that had been smouldering in his other hand. The smoke curled like dancing snakes as he exhaled slowly and then snuffed the fag, the orange glow of it extinguished beneath a large, booted foot.

He sensed the presence of his new batman behind him and turned, the camp-chair creaking beneath his twisting form. "That will be all tonight, Selbie, thank you," he said with a sigh. "I shall see you first thing in the morning."

"Yes, sir," Selbie replied, ducking through the flaps of the tent to take his leave.

George watched him go in silence until he could no longer see him through the shadow and then, picking up the violin that had been laid so carefuly across his knee, he fitted it beneath his chin and drew the bow slowly, sweetly across the strings. The melody that drifted into the night was a haunting one, melancholy and beautiful all at once. The perfect, if unknowing tribute, to the unfortunate men who had found themselves on the wrong side of an unfortunate war.

Somebody was playing a violin. The sound was faint, only barely just heard above the quiet hum of the other noises of the camp. Satches of it were carried across to the General's tent as he stood just outside the doorway, taking the evening's air, and he thought that perhaps he might recognise the tune.

After the day's discovery or the murdered French he had been feeling somewhat maudlin, and little had done anything to lift his spirits. He was tired, getting used to spending the day in the saddle again after the combination of inactivity in London and then a sea-voyage and a wait in Lisbon. He was also mindful of the absence of the remaining French cavalry, of Pumphrey's information that he had passed on a few days before the march. They had found some of them, but his mind would not rest easy until all were accounted for - but then to account for them would doubtless mean discovering another scene so horrific, and to wish that fate on a man was monstrous indeed.

He walked a few paces up and down infront of the doorway of the tent, his mind mulling overcertain factors, oblivious to the sentries standing stiffly to attention and would do all the time he was out here. He wished he could talk to someone, have some confident that he could speak with freely but none of his friends were here, and he doubted if he could confide in them what he wanted to even if they were.

Cotton pointed out the 95th's bivouac, which wasn't far away. The Colonel seemed to know Maggie, though how that might be, he couldn't imagine. He didn't seem in a hurry to go, though, and that left Cotton standing awkwardly to attention.

Williams lifted his head at the sound of his name. Grogan wasn't a bad type - a sense of humour and of fairness went a long way. Not like Corporal Blythe who seemed to be modelling himself on Chapel elders - if something brought pleasure to people, then it must by definition be sinful, or against Army regulations, or - very rarely - both.

He flexed his toes and considered the question. "There's no problem with the feet, Corp - but the back, now, that has noticed that suddenly it's expected to carry a lot more than it's used to." He looked down at the large onion he had been slicing. "At least I will not have to carry this any more, although there may be others - possibly even some carrots."

Edrington sat still, considering the questions he wanted to ask Sharpe, and whether he could detach him from his men for long enough to do so. Then he became aware of the Rifleman, standing to attention, waiting fairly impatiently for him to go, so he could resume whatever had been occupying himself and Miss Evans. "Thank you," he said, and rode on in the direction indicated.

The corporal grinned. If it wasn't a man's feet to trouble him on a march, it would be his back. Especially for the unfortunate bugger who got stuck carrying the kettle around.

"There's happy burdens an' then there's unhappy ones," Grogan said airily. "Rather carry carrots an' un-yuns 'round than some other t'ings."

Somebody nearby offered a slight chuckle at that. The kettle gave a muffled pop as ingredients were added to it. Grogan craned his neck a bit to see what was going into the kettle. Apparently the answer was "everything".

"Need a hand carvin' all that up?" He asked. Helping out even in a small way was better than sitting and waiting for the stew to cook and then be served.

Cotton saluted as the officer touched his heels to his horse's flanks. Now he could relax a bit, hopefully. He sat back down, picking up his battered tin mug. "What... what've you wrote there, lass?" he asked.

Williams took a third onion from the pack and looked at it, and then at Grogan. "I'll do this. It'd make you weep, and that would not look good at all." His own eyes were already red from peeling and slicing onions, but he grinned cheerfully. "Nothing like an onion, or a few leeks, to add flavour to the dinner. Not that we'd take anything without paying for it of course. Fresh from Lisbon market these were." And they'd be lucky to find another place to sell to them, or that they could get to before those greedy buggers in the 62nd.

Wasn't that the truth, Grogan had to admit. In the firelight, he could just see the redness in Williams' eyes. Onions did tend to have that unfortunate effect.

"Of course," the corporal agreed and thought of the rabbit that somebody had caught. Soon it would be goats or chickens or other things "found" along the road. But foraging was foraging. He thought for a moment and decided to contribute to the evening's meal. "Here lads," he said, after hoisting himself up and ambling over to his pack. He'd had a bottle of ale wrapped inside an extra shirt. "For the stew," he added, knowing how else the bottle would be put to use if he didn't specify.

The final note of the air stretched into the darkness, wavering with a fading sweetness on the tip of the major's bow. It decrescendoed into a whisper and then died away completely, swallowed by the opening notes of another melody deceptively masquerading as a mere continuation of the first tune. Languishing into a silent pause, a rest, it exploded unexpectedly into a series of staccato phrases that seemed to torture the taut strings of the violin.

Closing his eyes, George bowed furiously into the Grave-Allegro assai of Tartini's G Minor Sonata. The song reminded him of home and of Frederick who had played it so beautifully the night before he had sailed from England. The breeze continued to ripple through his hair and down the neck of his shirt, blousing the pale linen away from the curve of his back as the violin continued its lament.

It was as if his fingers were divorced from his mind for he did not consciously consider the music he was playing, turning his thoughts instead to the men now under his command. They were decent enough, all things considered, but some of the troopers sat their animals very ill and the officers seemed harried and in severe need of guidance. The music came to its natural conclusion and George lowered his instrument, reaching out to polish off the liquor in his glass. He had already begun to devise a new regimen for his squadron; it was likely that he would not be a terribly popular officer among his men, but he was more concerned with their welfare than he was their affection.

When they had settled with their tea again, Maggie commented, "The colonel, you know, that one Edrington who had bought the tea and coffee from me - one of the lads said he's an earl! And I sat in his office and talked to him, as easy as I might talk to Captain Vickery or someone!" She was still staring after him when she realized that Cotton had asked her a question. "Oh, the letter. Do you want me to read it all back to you now?"

"An Earl. An' there's me, callin' him 'sir' when it should've been 'milord'," Cotton said. "You don't have to read it all back. Just what I said last. Somethin' about bein' in Portugal, I think it was." He smiled at her. "And thank you f'r offerin'. You don't know how much it means to me, lass."

With a little smile she read it back to him, the whole brief letter, and then she asked, "Anything else you want to add? And do you want to sign your name?"

"Could you add that I hope they're all in good health, and that I miss them?" Cotton asked. "And... and that it was a friend who wrote it for me, and I hope they found someone to read it for them, as well." He looked down at the tea in his mug. "Can't write me name, though. I made me mark when I 'listed."

Maggie looked up in surprise when he revealed that he could not even sign his name. But then, that was quite common amongst the soldiers she had known. Jem had been able to read and write, but that was because his father had been shopkeeper.

Cotton saw her curious look, and shrugged. "Couldn't afford any schoolin', like. Though Squire's wife tried to teach us village kids, when we was young. She did show me how to, only I was very young, and I don't 'member how, these days."