4th August, early morning; All is not well

Charcot was not leaving without his coffee.  It was still in his hand as he followed Paol, but he turned his head longingly to where he knew their plates of food were.  Still, he knew better than to protest at a moment like this, and he hurried after his guide silently.

"Most of the English here are wounded, Señora," the officer explained. A light frown was now on his face. "How many Englishmen were here?"

"Two men.  One was wounded, but they could walk, so they left.  My neighbor Doña Pollonia has one who has lost his leg, poor soul, and I'm sure he will die.  He did not leave."

They were at the stairs and he could hear more clearly now. The man, whoever he was, was speaking Spanish -- of course he was speaking Spanish, Paol realized belatedly, what the devil else would he speak to the woman?

He kept moving, leading Charcot as quickly as he dared, up the stairs, down the hall and finally into the small room. "Wake up. We got company," he told Bright.

"Who was that?" Charcot whispered.  "Did you see him?"

"I don't know. I couldn't see into the hall."

Charcot hurriedly downed the rest of his coffee, just in case the intruder - or Bright - might try to come and take it away from him.

This was obviously news that the officer had not expected to hear. "Was this very long ago?" He asked, wondering if the bare-chested man he'd encountered earlier had gone into another house after all.

~



Bright groaned but did not open his eyes. What was it with the interruptions this morning? "Tell them we're not in, then. They'll go away."

"Who saw you outside? Did you speak to anyone?" Paol demanded, ignoring the suggestion.

The old woman shook her head.  "Just this morning.  We went to say goodbye to our good officers, and the English were gone when we returned.  They didn't even say goodbye, poor boys!  And now who will protect us when the French come again?"  She gave the officer a challenging stare.

That made sense then, perhaps. He must have come to the wrong house. "I see. Please accept my apologies for disturbing you, Señora," he said, reaching up to touch the peak of his shako in parting salute. He made no reassurances about protection from the French, because he knew all too well the folly of telling lies of that sort.

~



What? Oh. Christ. "Some officer hailed me while I was out, sure. But I got clear of him soon enough. Who's gonna quarrel with a wounded swaddie who just wants to know what all the commotion's for, 'cause it's disturbing his mates?"

It had been a good enough story for having been concocted on the spot, Bright thought.

"What about the French?" she persisted.  "One of them had a knife this morning!  Though he's not the one who stole food yesterday.  Oh, he dropped the knife soon enough.  But who's to guard them now the soldiers are all leaving?"

These protests stopped his departure rather neatly.

"You have French prisoners here?" This was something he had not known about at all. It presented new difficulties that could not be so easily brushed aside, damn it.

"Yes, Señor, three.  They're injured, and I didn't mind so much when the English were here, but I have my niece to think of, and we're alone in the house until my son comes home!"  She opened the door wider.  "Come in and take some coffee.  Manuela!  Coffee!  It's an English officer."

An officer. Paol opened his mouth to reply, but the sound of a heavier tread downstairs stopped him. Without a word, he slipped through the door and back down the hall, reaching the stairs just in time to see something scarlet move past the bottom landing. 

"Was he English?" he asked, thrusting back into the room, his face dark, "The officer you spoke with, was he English?"

Above all else, the prospect of coffee was what enticed the young officer inside. He had had little sleep and even less food in the past several days, which made any offer of hospitality more than welcome.

"Thank you," he said as he followed the old woman into the house. "I'm sure your Frenchmen will be little trouble. I would hazard that they are perhaps more frightened of you than you are of them."

~



Bright made a noise of derision. "No, he was Russian. Of course he was English. There's plenty of British wounded here in this miserable shit of a town too, you know."

"Aye, well now there's one in the damn kitchen," Paol fired back angrily. Of all the stupid, thoughtless things to do!

"So what? He's down there and we're not," was Bright's retort.

"Come in and sit down," the woman said, offering the officer a chair.  "Ah, well, they have not been very bad, our three Frenchmen.  One of them was yelling last night, but perhaps it was a nightmare.  Ah, they did not finish their breakfast!" she exclaimed in surprise, seeing the plates and one cup still full of coffee.  "Ah well, one of them is still asleep and he will be hungry when he wakes.  Will you try some of my niece's tortilla?"  She indicated Manuela, who had just entered the room with a cup of coffee.

"An officer?" Charcot repeated, still speaking quietly as though they were in hiding upstairs.  "Not just one of those greenjackets back again?"

"Redcoat. I couldn't see his rank."

This was rather more than he had expected by the initial offer of coffee but he was not about to object. "Thank you," he said again, lowering himself carefully into the chair - otherwise, he was likely to simply drop into it, which would not do. The steaming cup of coffee felt like heaven just to hold. It probably tasted just as good.

"If they are resting, I should think it best not to trouble them," he added.

~



"It's just a lieutenant."

Manuela smiled and brought him his own plate with a slice of her tortilla.

"She is a good girl, such a pretty girl, and a good cook," the old woman said, sitting next to him and appropriating the prisoners' abandoned food and coffee for herself.  "Her name is Manuela.  What is your name, Señor?"

Just a lieutenant? "What the hell were you thinking?"

Charcot was still confused.  "Didn't the soldiers - those riflemen - tell him you were English?"  He still believed that the two men had taken Bright away for execution, and he did not know what had happened to stop them.  "Did he send them off on some other errand?"  Then he gasped.  "Was he someone you know?"  His mind immediately jumped to the cuckolded sergeant Bright had mentioned before, though he was not an officer and had even been demoted.