3rd August, interrupted dinner

(From here)



If he'd had a good arm, Kaufmann would have dragged Mittelstaedt down the stairs as quickly as possible.  As it was, he waited for him to start down the stairs and then herded him into the little dining room.

Once through the doorway, Mittelstaedt spun round. "Well?" he demanded eagerly.

"Sit down!" Kaufmann snapped. He needed to think. He eased himself back into his chair and stared at the plate in front of him, frowning, his mind elsewhere. Finally he shook his head and looked up at Mittelstaedt. "I don't know."

"What?" How could he not know after sitting there and thinking for ages -- or what felt like ages to the impatient young rifleman? "What do you mean? You don't think one of them is a deserter? Didn't you hear him cursing in English?"

Kaufmann glowered at Mittelstaedt. "I mean that I'm not ready to say I think one of them is a deserter. And neither are you. There could be other explanations."

"Like what?" Mittelstaedt wanted to know. It seemed perfectly straight forward to him and he could not understand why Kaufmann was suddenly so circumspect.

Kaufmann shrugged, then winced slightly as the movement disturbed his broken arm. "Like... maybe he's Irish and joined up with the Frogs to piss on England. Or an American. I don't know."

"So what are they so jumpy about, then?" Mittelstaedt countered.

"They're prisoners. Of course they're gonna be jumpy. You saw what happened when we took them to that barn, remember?" But Kaufmann agreed that the situation was suspicious. The one fellow had been so reluctant, even frightened, to enter the house when he saw the two riflemen. And the big Frenchman had said something to him that included the word Anglais. "What was going on when you went into the room?"

Mittelstaedt frowned, thinking. "The mouthy one was lying on the floor, like he'd fallen out when the bed got knocked over, and the tall one was standing over him, like. And the crazy one was just sitting on the other bed. An' I asked 'em about speaking English and the mouthy one said something in his Frog talk and the big one just got this scared look. And then I swear he was sizing me up."

Kaufmann snorted lightly. "Sizing you down, more like. So the mouthy one, you mean the one who took the meat?" That was the one who had been cleaning his wound when Kaufmann had gone to retrieve his jacket. And like most soldiers, he had his fair share of battle scars, but - had there been other scars on his back? Kaufmann had not been paying close attention.

"If he was on the floor, if he's the one who fell - the shouting came after the sound of the bed, didn't it?" Or had it been before?

"After, I think. Yeah, definitely after."

Kaufmann was not ready to share his suspicions with Mittelstaedt lest the younger rifleman try something rash. Instead, he said, "I think we'd better just forget about it."

"Forget about it?" Mittelstaedt was incredulous. "We've got a deserter up there! They're worse'n Frogs. And there's women in the house, and there's no lock on that door, an' there ain't none of 'em hurt so bad they can't cause trouble. Hell, those two we brought in been nothing but trouble!"

"Do you think I don't know all that?" Kaufmann snapped. "That's why we need to keep the peace. You and me are alone in this town, apart from whatever useless sods are so injured they got left behind."

"Peace? You're talkin' like we're all prisoners. We should sort this bastard out. And if the Frogs don't like it, let the Spanish 'keep the peace."

"If the Frogs don't like it? You think that big one is going to stand idly by while- ?" Kaufmann stopped. He had as good as said now that the mouthy one was his primary suspect. "Anyway, I'm not gonna go murdering prisoners based on just overhearing some shouts." Why couldn't there be an officer here or at least a sergeant to hand that responsibility over to?

"It's not murder if he's a deserter," Mittelstaedt muttered, scowling. But it seemed that Kaufmann's mind was made up on the matter. "So what do we do?"

"Nothing."

Nothing! For a moment Mittelstaedt gaped at Kaufmann, then flung himself down in the nearest chair, scowling fiercely. Do nothing. Of all the-- "They'd better not try anything," he growled. "See how that big one likes a sword in his guts."

"They're very aware that you have a sword," Kaufmann said sardonically, scooping beans into his mouth. "And that the whole Spanish army's in town. They won't try anything."