Pombal

"All's well, Edrington?" Wellesley enquired, reigning Hercules in. His eyes quickly searched over the colonel's body, automatically checking for any wounds; yet thankfully it seemed that the blood splattered across Edrington's coat and face was not in fact his own.

Edrington saluted and nodded. "The town is ours - we have rather a lot of prisoners - some of mine are helping the Greys in rounding them up. I was just contemplating the problems of looters - we have already found one Inniskilling with a couple of chickens clucking in his pack. And stealing from the French dead - half of what is disappearing into the men's packs was stolen from the people of Pombal in the first place. Anything the French didn't take, our men are making off with anyway, even if it was nailed down. They seem to think that the Portuguese should be happy that we drove the French out of their town." He frowned. "Unless we are going to hang and flog half of the men - and some of the officers..."

There was not much space within the the town, and Firebird ended up practically pressed side by side with Sander's horse. He nodded to Hunter but his attention was obviously riveted on the General and Edrington. Hunter glanced around; although the fight was over he was not quite ready to let down his guard. His hand mechanically felt for the sabre, the movement of the scabbard attracting Sanders' attention. The man glanced down out of instinct, but his gaze was caught by interest.
'That it is an interesting sabre, Hunter', Sanders studied the guardless weapon.
'It is a souvenir of my previous service' said Hunter curtly, indicating with his tone that he did not wish to discuss the matter further.
Sanders turned his attention back to the senior officers, just in time for them both to hear Edrington's remarks on the looting.

The looting manners of the British army seemed to have offended everyone, including Wolf. He poked his head out of George's hair staring at the men in front with narrowed eyes then bumped its head against George's jaw, as if to say 'Officers? Yes, they are very suspicous, now go deal with them'. Then turning around and disdainfully presenting everyone with his rump, he amused himself by playing with George's hair. George promised himself that even if all the barbers in Coimbra were dead he'd dig one up and make him cut his hair. The cat played; George fumed; commanding officers talked. Wolf tugged at a strand forcefully, Geroge started planning revenge on Fernao, scowling. Firebird snorted, George felt like stomping around and shouting 'I hate you all' and thought of horse sausage.

After parting with Wellesley, Edrington continued his ride through the town. Order was being restored, although without searching every damned soldier...

But one man was not even trying to hide his plundering. "Willoughby!" he called.

He lifted his head and turned to follow the direction of sound. He hesited a moment and then , seated on Bella's back, he spurred her towards Lord Edrington.

"Sir." He saluted stoically.

Edrington looked up and down at the young Hussar. He had seen him in the town, and felt sickened.

"I see you have a sword, and a musket. You have heard, often enough, the rules against looting - theft and plundering the dead. So ... Your explanation is..."

"Saving the army some money.." He answered shortly. "Sir."

He had seen other soldiers do worse in thieving from the dead, and some have gone to take what could have robbed dignity of these men, not just their earthly posessions.

"Stealing," Edrington said. "And what else did you take? For God's sake, Willoughby, don't you even understand what's wrong about it? If every soldier just could help himself to anything he wanted... You are as bad as those women who come onto battlefields after the fighting is over."

"I would have been here sooner, were I permitted, sir." He answered formally."..Powder sir." He added.

He hadn't said a thing for a few moments, permitting the silence to stretch before adding:" I found artefacts that had belonged to the portuguese...and left them there, sir." He hadn't gone for the chickens either, or anything that he was more sure to belong to the villagers than the French. And even then, his prime objective had been the weapon, no more. Men took cannons from the enemy, if they were able to get a hold of them before they were destroyed. Muskets were just smaller.

"You were searching their pockets, Willoughby, their packs. What for? Money, any small items that you could conceal? What did you find?" Edrington's tone spoke his disgust. Most of the soldiers who stole knew no better, had never had anything better taught to them, and had no other means of lightening the burden of their poverty. None of that applied to Willoughby, who had ridden round the battlefield, after the event, searching for something he liked the look of...

Lord Edrington had been the last man he wished to see when he entered the town. He was the man who knew his grandfather and knew who he was and in that he felt as a scolding father when he spoke his mind.

" Sir.." He began, debating what he could say. He too felt ashamed of what he had gone and done, though it seemed like a fairly good idea when he first began. But he refused to lie as condemning as the act could be. Slowly he reached into his coat and revealed a small array of coin and a piece of what might've been a ration of food given few hours ago and stored for later.

"..French coin, sir." He shrugged. He knew better, did he? When he refused to ask his grandfather for aid, or speak with him. He was as poor as the others in the present situation. That was all. He did not steal the pretty jewelery, take Portuguese treasures, not even a more private of things, just the weapon, some food and those few coins, which might have turned to supply himself only more to fight with. He did not seek excuses though, and rather remained silent with a bowed head.

"You can search me sir. You will find, no more."

Edrington raised an eyebrow. "I will not search you," he said. "I will accept, since you were brought up as a gentleman, that you are telling me the truth. But next time you are on a battlefield, you might ask yourself whether going through a corpse's pockets and pack is proper behaviour." He shook his head. "I do not think your behaviour is less culpable because you rejected those things already stolen from the villagers. You presumably just left them for the next British thief to find."

"If you mean, for the villagers to find it.. then yes, sir." He hadn't lied, and he was still glad and in slight, honoured, that Lord Edrington had indeed believed the same.

"Though.. yes sir." He then added, somberly."...It is not." It wasn't a proper behavour nor less culpable as the colonel said. He wished to add, yet knew not what, so instead of making himself a fool, he sat straight and respectful, as a trooper awaiting either judgement or orders.

"The villagers - most of them - will probably not come back until we have gone. They took refuge from the French - I do not think that the behaviour of some of our men is going to entice them back..."

Edrington looked round. "We should bury the dead - ours and the French. I have parties out collecting them, and ... I am having anything looted by the Frogs taken to the Church. It will be better there than left strewn about the streets. Go and help, and next time, for God's sake think before you start filling your pockets..."

He then added: "I don't know how the cavalry do it, but in the infantry we do not favour the idea of the line having a variety of weapons, even if they take the same calibre of shot. You will almost certainly have to trade what you have taken for the standard weapons when you are back with the 15th. In the meantime..."

"Yes, sir. " He hesitated, and a smile blossomed on his face. Did he hear it right. He was permitted to keep his weapons till he could replace, exchange them for the right kind! The gratitude that was seen then on his features could have been as well for the man to grant him something much more precious and worthy. But to him, this permission may just have been that. "Thank you, sir. I will go and help collect the French loot and bring it to the Church." And then, was there a need, also help bring the bodies to where they could be burried.
Several at least could be carried on Bella's back as opposed to one per two men.

"Is there anything else, you need me to deliever, while still here sir?" He added, his hand wavering in mid air, ready to offer a prim and proud salute, before he would , when dismissed, be riding away to make use of himself and his horse.

"Thank you... Oh, any food - alive or dead, should be included, and put in the church. The people will need to eat once they get back, and it's certain that the French foraged round here... At least we have the Commissariat with us on this march, so the men will not go short."

Wellesley was very strict on theft from the native population - looting, plundering, whatever you called it. They were allies, and Edrington had seen how ill-disciplined behaviour by the British troops on the retreat to Corunna had soured their relationships with the Spanish.

"Yes sir! " He nodded sharply.

He had to wait then to be dismissed, but already there was spirit and purpose on the youth's face. Help and respect the dead and the living. The blade that Edrington had seen, and the musket with its powder, that was all the youth needed or wanted. All else was to be given or returned to those who lived in that village so that they would be able to rebuild their lives sooner rather than later.

"Carry on, Willoughby." Edrington received his salute, then turned Bauer away. Willoughby should keep out of trouble now, and it was to be hoped that he would remember that - at least he hadn't tried to justify himself by the schoolboy argument that everyone else was at it... And with the instruction to turn it in to the 15th, the question of looting the sword and musket was turned into one of being issued with enemy weapons taken in battle...

Once their ways parted Willoughby's spirits were high. Dampened perhaps quickly by the sight of the dead and dying, they still carried the purpose with which he had come to load the men upon his horse, and have them carried to where the bodies were collected for the burial. There he had taken what they had looted and rode with it to the church, where again it was carried inside, just to return and repeat the whole process all over again.

He collected the food, the good stolen, the coins and jewelery of which all was carried dutifully to where it was collected separately pile by pile. food was left to one side, the coins and jewelery in the other, and those other artefacts of differen values were gathered more to the centre.

Bella neighed annoyed at the work she was to do, and at the scend of death amongst which she threaded. Yet she was urged onward. Having a horse helped with the transport and speed thereof. Still every so often he saw a child or a stray civilian, wandering about the dead in search of those French that remained alive yet unable to flee. He had found one of the injured amongst the dead and saw that but were he any slower the man, as terrified as he'd been, was to be gutted like an animal, by those seeking out revenge.

The injured man was brought to where the living prisoners were collected and slowly eased from his horse, taking much of the man's weight on the way down. A morbid business, cleaning after a fight.

[OOC: Belated entry from last night that didn't make it. Please mentally insert several posts back.]

At Edrington's words Wellesley's expression immediately darkned. He would not have though by the looks of things that the villagers would have had much to loot, and that what there had been must have been taken off with the French that escaped...

"Get the men back under control as soon as you can, Edrington. Take any spirits and anything you find of value to the church and put a guard the door."

He looked around him at the battered and bloodied streets. The looting had not started badly, and that may yet mean that if they moved quickly order could be re-established before it got any worse.

"Sanders, bring up the 33rd and use them to get things under control again. Arrest five men now, and start gathering timber for a gallows."

He may not need to use it, but the threat would be uyseful.

"Hunter, stay with his Lordship and assist him in organising work parties to collect the dead and wounded. Brandon, with me if you please. We shall rendez-vous in two hours at the church."

Once certain that everyone was satisfied with the orders, Wellesley and Brandon departed at a trot, headiong for where the Greys were bringing their prisoners in over on the other side of the village.

[OOC: Thank you. Play resumed.]

[Also belated: Edrington watched as his own men restored order, following his orders, and thought what they did not want was the 33rd, with just the same number of thieves and scoundrels as any other regiment - even if you did not count Hakeswill - coming in to make sure of their pickings, and working off grudges and spite against the 62nd and the 27th, not to mention his Riflemen. But the erection of the gallows should concentrate the minds of those guilty of stealing from the poor bloody villagers.]

George followed Edrington around obediently. Thankfully after some time, the kitten subsided back into sleep, so the scowl on George's face straightened out into his normal facial expression. He was glad of the fact that he was involved with the dead and wounded not the gallows. He understood and appreciated the reasons for constructing them and yet he could never fully be comfortable with them. He was always reminded of his first 'service'. One of the men stolen food from a villager, but the commander found out and took the flat part of his blade to the man's rear in front of everyone: he did not steal again.
As they went about their business, there was a small scraggly horse bleeding out from several bullet holes: seems like someone used her as a cover. Firebird whinnied pitifully, sensing the agony of her own. George pulled out a pistol and dismounting shot the poor animal.
'Bloody bastards' he swore viciously.

[OOC: is aware of the 'no assaulting' rule and the incident did not take place in the English army].

When he was returning to the wherabouts of the church he caught sight of the gallows being built. No less merry a thought than the one they were harbouring at having to find amongst the dead a face they knew, or burry even those that were of their kin.

He shook his head and felt a fool for his earlier transgression and realised just how fortunate he was, that it was no other but Lord Edrington who saw him and brought him to his senses before he would have a date with something like the timber built stage over there.

He heared a shot from a distance and wondered if it were that of foe or of a friend, and saw some men stirr, but most return to their work. Bodies were continuously lifted and carried to a single spot where there were the British to one side, and the French to the other. And there were a few men seen further ahead that were digging into the earth to make graves for the dead. Sweaty and dirty, they looked no more like soldiers as those who still went through town.

Order was beginning to be restored, and more men seeing the gallows were quick to rethink their intentions, while the stores of the church was filling.

"..Another set." The youth saluted to the guard and halded his horse, placing down the loot he had found, while working just one street. "Food's in these." And two men joined to unload and carry what the men brought , and distribute it as it was earlier decided. Patiently the rider waited, rubbing the nose of his horse with the flat of his hand.

Posted due to my misunderstanding. Apologies to Capt Hunter...

Lieutenant Waldegrave walked back through the town, where work parties of soldiers from the two regiments collected the dead, and others carried the wounded away to the army surgeons, stationed behind the 33rd. Under the supervision of officers, the dead and wounded Frenchmen were being relieved of their plunder - small pickings, from such a poor town, but someone's pig had been slaughtered to make that side of pork... He scowled, aware that there were probably British soldiers, unsupervised, filling their own packs. But the sight of the gallows, erected in the main square, showed that order would be restored.

The whole of the left side of his body, from hip to shoulder, felt like one solid bruise, from where Acorn had thrown him after the horse was shot. But he had survived his first battle, and, he thought, he had not disgraced himself.