Sur L'bord de L'eau

"We were farmers. Flax mostly. You?"

He grinned a bit ruefully. "My papa mended clocks. Still does, I guess! Though that was too clever for me. I never could manage it, never was good at much of anything. Don't know what I woulda done if I hadn't got conscripted." His grin vanished. "Don't know what I'll do now, anyway." One certainly could not repair clocks if one was blind.

"Clocks? Merde..." Paol sounded slightly awed, as if Charcot had said his father went about turning water into wine for a living. "But you're from a proper town, ain't you? There's always work in towns." At least that's what Erwan had always said. And Erwan had known everything. Except how to read the writing on the wall.

"Besides," Paol added, "You'll be good as new by then. This'll all be a story to tell your sisters."

"I hope so." He did not sound convinced. But to cheer himself up, he said "If you come with me, we can tell them all about it together. It's probably closer to La Rochelle than your home is. Or Rochefort."

"Probably." He smiled. "Reckon I'll leave the telling to you, though. Never was any good at that sort of thing, myself."

"Well I won't have seen any of it," Charcot countered. "Heh, reckon I can tell him how things sound, and smell, but you'd have to fill in the rest. Maybe you can set up a flax farm outside of town, and I'll come and turn your flax into linen. With spinning, or however it's done. I guess spinning is women's work, but maybe it's something I could do even if I can't see. And my papa can make some kind of clockwork spinning wheel that does the work for me."

"He can do that?" Paol asked with undisguised amazement.

Charcot shrugged. "I dunno! Clock gears go around, spinning wheels go around... Don't seem that much different."

Paol shook his head. It all seemed impossibly clever. "Dunno nothin' 'bout that. Me mother and sisters always used a gwerzhid -- ah, hell.... what d'you call 'em? For spinning by hand?"

"Spindle, maybe? It's round and pointy?"

"Aye, that's it. Could always come north with me, and me sisters could teach it to you. They were always at it. I think they could do it in their sleep."

"They pretty, your sisters?"

He laughed, but had to think for a moment. "Aye, I suppose. Married, though. 'Cept for little Elena. Though... Christ, she'd be not so much younger than you by now." Or would have been.

It was a weak spot, a much mended crack which was easily reopened. And through the crack slipped the grim reality which he had been struggling to keep at arm's length.

"Maybe you can bring her then," he said with a small grin.

Paol swallowed, hard. "You'd like her. Mathilde reminds me of her a bit."

His smile grew then. "Mathilde's funny. Is your sister that young though? Mathilde's just a little girl."

"No, I mean.... just that she reminds me of how Elena was. You know? Before I left home."

"Oh, right. Been years since I saw my family too. Maybe my sisters have got married. Maybe even had babies!" He did not look pleased with the idea. "I hope not though. At least not all of them, since I already promised you at least one." He grinned again. "Maybe Lise, the next one older than me. She's clever, which ain't fair. What good's cleverness to a girl? But I bet you could teach her to talk some of your Breton."

Sweet Christ, what would a clever girl want with him? Or any girl, for that matter. Especially a young thing like that. But it was talk, he reminded himself firmly. Just talk. And he needed to pull himself together before he made things worse.

The last comment, at least, brought a faint smile to his face. "Dunno 'bout that. Maybe she could teach me to speak proper French, though."

"Maybe. She's always talkin' herself anyway, so she'd speak enough French for the both of you."

Paol almost laughed. Poor Lise. "Sounds like me sister, Ana."

They had reached the outskirts of the area where the prisoners were being kept, and taking Charcot's arm, Paol guided him through the press of bodies, those returning and those being called up to form another party, to a quieter patch of ground. "You can sit now; we're back."

"Oh good. I gotta take off my boots." He had been walking in contained puddles for the duration of their march, his boots having been swamped by the river. "Maybe I'll find crayfish in 'em." He sat down to perform the task. But first he wanted to put on his shirt, or else it would get dirty lying on the ground. His shirt was still a damp wad, and he realized after a moment of futility that he was trying to put it on sideways.

He managed a soft, weary laugh. "If you had grilh-dour in your boots, I think you'd know. Here--" Dropping to his knees, he tugged the shirt so that the arms were roughly in the right places, then sagged back onto the ground. He ought to have begun bandaging his arm. Or at least put on his own shirt. But he simply sat there, hugging the bundle of clothing to his chest.

Charcot wormed his way through the shirt, and his head emerged with his eye bandage pulled down over his nose. He adjusted it and grinned, weary himself. "Thanks, Paol."

Charcot's voice seemed to pull his thoughts back from wherever they had started to drift and, reluctantly, Paol loosened his hold on the bundle and, setting it aside, began to disentangle the strips of linen. This time he was determined not to wince, at least not audibly, but dressing the burns did not hurt nearly as much as debriding them of the shirt had.

"You alright here for a minute?" he asked, tying off the last bandage on his leg. "I was goin' to see if I can talk to that sergeant. See if he knows anythin'."