July 23, 1809: The message arrives

Torrington, usually a light sleeper but right now nearly drugged by a combination of wine, exhaustion and depleted adrenaline, tried to whisk the fly that was on his face away. Unfortuunately in combination with the wet ink, it not only destroyed Willoughby's artistic endeavour, it also left a broad smear that covered the engineer's cheek and part of his nose.

Willoughby sighed. "Oi.. none of that. You're ruining it." He whispered and pouted. His beautiful work had been ruined on the side where the hand had smeared the ink further. But there was something to remedy it!

He began to draw little lines along the bigger one then made a cross and something he remembered seeing on the map. It may have made Torrington's cheek appear like a map... or just made it look worse. Still, he tried to draw a lake and even mountains and then leaned closer to blow air on the ink, trying to dry it quicker than Torrington would try to swat at it again.

The air in combination with the wetness was not agreeable, and Torrington turned his head and burried his face in his arms - ruining his cravat and collar along the way and reducing Peggy's spacious cavern to a rather narrow hollow.

Willoughby sighed and simply gave up. He just hoped that the ink could be washed out of clothes because it seemed that some were certainly getting stained.

It did not take long that the youth shuffled away with his ink well then after a few moments closer again without it. He nudged Torrington back a bit trying to make him lie down comfortably enough that he might not wake up with his back broken or his face burnt. "Eaasy.." He whispered. Easy now." He thought to cover him with something too. After all, poor Torrington would be cold! Of course, his drunken mind did not make enough sense to decide to bring Torrington inside where he would be neither cold nor uncomfortable!

He tugged at his pelisse thoughtfully. Maybe he could make him warm with that! Yes, brilliant idea! Hussars could get warm with that, so others could too!

The engineer grumbled something and shifted, managing to roll in on himself, then shifted again, trying to find a comfortable position. He seemed to be slowly waking up, though.

Willoughby slid his pelisse from his shoulder and then covered torrington carefully with it even as he squirmed and shifted to get more comfotable on the floor.

Humming softly to himself he saw little chick chirp unhappily as she tried to scamper into a comfortable position agan and when finally managing to get to her feet went to scramble right back into the warmth.

Satisfied and not really giving it a second glance, not even to see if Torrington was now awake or not, Willoughby picked the ink well and stumbled back towards the Tent.

He was quite deaf to anything about him as he ducked back in, and even more as he sat on the cot. There he hummed a little more, while painting on his own cheeks. He made three streaks on one, three on the other almost as if making whiskers of a cat then a small spot on the tip of his nose. It was probably quite lopsided as he had no mirror to go by.

Grinning at Vickery, as if only then aware that he was there he said a soft. "Night night!" He wiped his hand on the floor and left the ink well on the chair then stretched onto the bed, pulling the covers over himself. "Good night!" He said all merrily again, probably meant for Vickery this time and then nuzzled his way into bed, sighing one more time as if to announce that he would sleep. The mumble barely audible was. "...Captain Torrn'ton'sleep'nground'bu'warm..."

With the distraction that pushed him around gone, a position no more uncomfortable than his field bed, and comfortably warm, Torrington quickly settled down again. Soon he was peacefully sleeping again, curled around Peggie. It was probably the most undignified he had ever slept, but with the warm fire at his back and the soft pelisse around his middle, the wine and the exhaustion, it was the best sleep he had had in a long time.