7th day, dawn. Surgeons

"...I've hardly meant it, sir. " He looked offended, but yet still made no attempt to stend and react more to the insult. Not with the man being a doctor. The last he needed was to be badly injured and be told to wait just because the surgeon was on the wrong page with him.

"Though I cannot promise you to write now, the wagon's far too unsteady and jittery. unless you wish to not be able to read what is written of course." He suspected that the doctor was more sour about the fact he had been disobeyed before. He glanced towards the flap and where Bella was sure to be found, tagging along at a present and comfortable pace.

Rob, who had already almost cut himself once, was fully aware of the dangers of a wagon on the move. "There's plenty more work that don't require ye ter be writing, lad." This time it was a promise, too.

Carefully he checked the last hole, and considered the instrument. Should he try and carve something into it? He'd done that before, of course, and it wouldn't be anything too complicated, if the jolting was to continue unabated...It might earn a little more, carved.

Slowly he smoothed down the mouth peice, planning his next slice.

"Yon bella looks pleased with a break, lad?" No harm in a little polite conversation, at the least.

"She is. Though a horse with a trooper usually has little trouble to carry him, considering our rations." He grinned at Sinclair."'tis.... those other men.. the.... officers that may have horses wishing that they did have a proper break." They were plump men if nothing more.

"But she might as well be glad for a light walk behind the wagon yes,.. certainly not needing to run up and down the file to report or carry a message or such to the men. " He shook his head lightly. "Oughn't get spoiled too much. Else she will not wish to move once I mount her again."

"Indeed, yer officers aren't given ter abstinance, are they, now?" it was an observation quietly given though, mindfull of the man sleeping in the bunk.

Carefully he set about wending a path along the base of the flute, planning on some simple vines. "If ye get better at this rate, lad, then she won't be behind us fer more than a couple of days, dinna fear."

A sharp jolt sent him danger of loosing his thumb., and he fished one handed for his kercheif. "May that be a lesson not ter place yer hand on t'wrong side of a blade, lad." he grumbled, ruefully, cursing under his breath and wrapping the cloth tight.

"Sir. I wouldn't have dreamt of playing with a knife while on a tumbling and tattering ol' wagon." He smirked. "But I'll sure take your advice into account." A few days more compared to more than that was a fine set of news, though he'd wished that it was but a day or less that his leg would need rest.

Wouldn't mind if the doctor had told him he was as right as day, the very same day. He glanced at the leg:"...A couple of days.. means two, including this one, sir?" If there were any French waiting, even a day might play a difference between being there and missing it altogether.

Rob grumbled dourly, and decided to suck the blood out instead. no point in having to wash yet another cloth. Wasn't dirty yet, surely?
"Aye lad, because yer just a perfect wee lad, ain't ye now? Who ain't done nothing gainst orders in yer life, I'm betting?"

He was talking round his thumb, probably just as well, too, that the next few curses weren't exactly clear. They were the ones his father, an inveterate curser, had blushed to hear, on his good days.

"A couple of days, laddie, is my way of saying I'll let ye out in less than a week, if yer good and don't do anything on't." He cast a knowing eye over the ankle, "Though with luck ye'll be allowed ter hobble out termorrow night, without me having ter chase ye round t'camp."

"I do follow orders sir. After all, I'm a trooper, not an officer givin' em." He grinned as he observed the injured thumb and how it was sucked, and in this manner the surgeon reminded him of a child who had just cut his finger on a thorny bush and was now suckling at is, or perhaps a toddler using it to calm himself as all babies did. Not that he had seen many.

"..N' I did follow yours sir." Not fully at all, and perhaps not... well certainly to a small extent he did, which proved not to be enough.

"Hobble out tomorrow sir?" He then said and looked to be smiling from ear to ear:" Splendid sir. I will be permitted to ride then too, surely? And fight sir, with care to my leg, I shall to?" The questions poured out of him.

Rob carefully removed his thumb, then thrust it back in as it started bleeding again. If his orders had been followed, then they wouldn't be having this conversation.
"Ye may have followed one, very very small order, lad, and that only because there was a meal involved." but he wasn't angry, merely frustrated, and the eager questions, the smile on the lads face, tamped the frustration as well, preventing his dry comment about things not changing, no matter how often the question was asked.

"Hobble out termorrer even, lad, I said. Hobbling out at the end of a restful day ain't t'same as riding and fighting all day."

"..Nay sir. I followed your order before too.." He looked innocent at the surgeon and turned to look at his thumb again. The silly man had gotten it cut, if he were not careful they might have a surgeon with only one thumb.. or even a surgeon whose fingers were cut short so that he wouldn't be able to hold the kind of knives that were used in the medical world. However they were called, the youth mused.

"...true sir." He frowned. " Could you not do something with the ankle that would have it heal faster sir? You're the doctor. Surely you know some tricks of the trade!"

Rob eyed him balefully, deciding his thumb was probably well enough to continue- making sure there wouldn't be a repeat performance. Slowly he chipped away at the vine.

"Ter be sure, lad, if it's that much of a problem I'll chop it off fer ye- with this little knife, too." he hefted the small carving knife he favoured, not suited at all for a clean cut through flesh and bone.

Willoughby blinked:" .... Sir.." He studied the knife and hunched his shoulders slightly at the thought:"... I'd rather pass on that." He spoke more subtly than before:" I really think I'd rather pass on that offer." He spoke subtly and shook his head inching his leg a bit away from Sinclair just to be sure. Wasn't pleasant to have those knives anywhere close. The French one was threatening enough!

"Are ye sure, lad? I'd let ye keep the foot afterwords, if ye wanted. Make a nice story, so it would."
he twisted the flute to start moving up towards the mouthpeice, "Course, if ye do damage it more, I may have ter. Then ye willna be riding yon Bella, will ye."

Ah, the effect one could have by wacing an almost harmless knife around.

The young Hussar looked visibly shaken. What kind of humour this was, that the man was trying to bless him with. Carry his leg as if it were a trinket. Wasn't funny when you needed those legs to ride, walk, run, and even to fight.

He hmphed and cast a suspicious and distrustful look at the knife shaking his head:" I'm quite sure sir. Fully sure, that I would prefer my leg be kept in one piece and attached to myself. Ankle and foot along with it." He looked rather distraught when it was suggested he wouldn't be able to ride Bella again.

"Sir, please. Do not call bad luck.. if it is not yet present! It is just a swollen ankle, that happened to swell more as I stumbled down the slope!"

Rob blew away some shavings unconcernedly, not even looking up. "But why were ye stumbling down t'slope in t'first palce, lad?"

He looked so worried, concerned about his foot being whipped off at a moments notice, that Rob was hard put not to laugh. Instead he made assiduous inroads into the flute, though more slowly than before so as not to restart the bleeding.
A part of him had missed anyone with a sense of humour for the last few days. It seemed as if noone here thought any of his dry comments at all funny. And he was in no way sure that this lad was an exception.

"Well sir... We were going there, so that we would catch ourselves some dinner. Shot ourselves a rabbit.. and thought there was another plumper one at the top of the slope. I was careful of my foot of course, but the rabbit did really look so plump it would have been a crime that we would miss it." He remembered that rabbit turning out to be a busby of one of them men. Too bad. If it were a rabbit they'd have more to celebrate than the usual type of rations.

" Would've even gotten you a leg, sir. A proper rabbit's leg, not my own, if we had gotten it." He grinned in turn.

"ye did yerself in fer a few days fer a rabbit, lad? D'ye not like fish? could have not waited fer another man ter get it?"

His work was almost done now, a small cut on his thumb little more than a memory to join the others, and he was eager to test the instrument., but he shared the lads grin. A rabbits leg would have been nice, aye, but he could get himself one if he wanted, indeed was pretty sure he had at least one hanging about, if not here then gathering either dust or damage back home. He wasn't sure if he was pleased the children would have one or not.

"of course, if ye'd brought me t'rabbit, I'd have taken it's leg off so's ye could move it...something people always seem ter forget ter be doing."

"Sir. Do not blame the rabbit for my furthered injury. But the French. If it were a rabbit, we'd be walking down at a slowest pace we could. But the French had forced her to attempt running. The rabbit is quite the innocent party in this." He stretched out a little more.

"Though, if it does help sir.. they've been generous enough to carry me back up. So I didn't hurt my leg more after." He smirked. He found it amusing now, for the French failed to take them prisoner, but at the time it was all but unnerving.

"Can't blame me for wishing to stretch my legs some, sir and dry my pelisse. With it being all wet from the other evening."

"While I can't blame ye, lad, I'll grumble all I like." but he said it with a good natured smile, and met the lads eye in a way that showed he wasn't upset, really.

"Though tis a good thing ye didna hurt yer leg after ye'd already hurt it. That's something ter be gratefully fer, nay doubt." There was irony in there, he was sure, but the instrument under his hands was ready now, and he put it to his lips gently, running through a sort of scale. Not as rich a sound as he would have liked, but weather the wood a bit and there may well be some changes... and thankfully not as breathy as the last one he'd tried.

"Well then sir. Grumble as much as your heart wishes. I'll ask only that you grumble more silent." He answered with a bemused tone. The surgeon was quite a character and as long as he came no closer with that knife of his to his leg, he was very much a pleasant and entertaining man.

"A fine tuning sir. " He murmured. He noted some of the setbacks to the instrument the man had made, but with craftmanship that was given to it and the contiditions in which it was made, who could wish for more. "Have you a heart to play something sir?" Or did the sleeping officer object or would, were he to be awaken to the fiddle of the made flute.

"Grumble more silent, lad?" and how was that supposed to work, then? he refrained from mentioning the tunign of the flute. it would do, but it wouldn't be winning many prizes, yet, at least.

"I'll flick ye a tune, lad, if yer good, but ye'll have ter answer to anyone who gets annoyed by it." And he'd have to work out what song he'd be playing for the lad, as well.

"As long as it is not an officer that is annoyed by it, I shall be glad to take the blame." He grinned, for he did not worry that many a man would come and curse them for the sounds that they were making and even so it wouldn't be him that played.

He yawned and felt that he'd slept well enough, but could spare a few even now. Not quite like his neighbour who was soon to be snoring loud enough to wake the dead.
"Any tune you find to heart sir, would be most welcome." He touched a hand to his bound ankle and only hoped that what was tied beneath that cloth was doing better and growing less in size rather than more. The bandage sure felt tight enough for it.

"Well then, we shall just ahve ter hope no officer takes too much exception ter me skawking." he fingered the flute for a couple of seconds, trying to work out what would be the best for a first hoot.

His eyes roved to the patient bella, and he absently warned, "ye'll not be fingering yer ankle, lad, till I take off yon bandage this even, fer a re-wrap." no need to mention how much tighter it would be, either.

Gently he put the flute to his mouth and blew a couple of notes, mind still undecided, but knowing there'd have to be at least one slower tune fingered, just to get the feel, afore he moved onto his more welcomed dances and such.

"Can't help sir, if it itches." Once he laid his hand back to his side he tilted his head three quarters in the surgeon's direction and listened to the first notes that were released from the instrument. He adjusted his seating and leg, so that the rattle and tilt of the wagon would not shake him from his seat and leaned forward to ease the blanket around his foot in a better and more secure position.

Then he was leaning back again and waiting for the test run to be done, and a cheerful melody be played.

"ye coulda washed, lad." but it was no more than a mutter as hi sfingers slowly found their way around, gently coaxing an old lullaby out of the flute.

"Ye'd better not try and dance ter this, lad." he teased, setting his mouth firmly against the wood again and setting off upon a reel, variation following variation as surely as if he had never left off playing.

It was a particular favourite with his friends, and they'd paractised for days to his tune just to get the steps right, agonising over the girls they'd been eyeing up. To him, rarely dancing, though he knew the steps well enough, it always brought back a shadow of the joy of long evenings, dry grass and boys learning their way in the world. he struck a couple of wrong notes, and skipped the penultimate variation to sink back into the original, turning it into his own little varie.

"Did do so.. 'jus' ..about a day and a night ago." And then he was quiet, having a small bemused smirk on his face at the warning that he were not to dance. He first made himself look as if he was standing to do so just then. Then with a shake of his head just tapped his uninjured foot very soft against the floor.

With as young as the flute was, it did manage to produce a melody that caught the ear, and had the young Hussar nod in rythme of the tune. So slight that it was perhaps barely noticable, but still done.