TD - 15th Hussars HQ

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"An officer of the day should be inside, sir." The Hussar spoke as they reached their destination.

Lieutenant Waldegrave asked the sentry at the door for the orderly officer, and, ensuring that Willoughby remained with him, he was shown into a room leading off the entrance hall. Rather an ornate building, and this room would have been grand, but there was a rough wooden table, and hard chairs, presumably replacing more delicate furniture. The orderly officer perched on the edge of the table, talking to a sergeant who had a sheaf of papers. At their entry, he stopped, looking from Waldegrave, to Willoughby and back to Waldegrave.

"How can we help you, Lieutenant?" he drawled.

"Waldegrave, Second Battalion of the 62nd Foot," Waldegrave announced himself, saluting. "I have been asked to ensure that Trooper Willoughby returns to his regiment. He has been with the 62nd for the last few days."

"Where did you find him?"

"Between Obidos and Leiria. He ... " Waldegrave hesitated. "No doubt you will have questions for him. My senior officers were concerned that he has been tardy in returning to his company now we have reached Coimbra." He nodded to Willoughby, saluted the Captain, and turned to leave.

Willoughby stood stiff at attention. Though he had come willing and had been the one leading them by the shortest way possible, he now wondered if postponing this might have been a better course of action. He had perhaps not deserted, he had gotten lost. Yet he was also late to come and report, which he could not excuse well.

"I shall send for you to recount what had happened, later." The captain had spoken, offering a nod to the lieutenant about to leave.

Then he had turned towards the trooper and repeated his name. He looked to the list. "Trooper Timothy Willoughby?"

The youth nodded.

"Presumably killed in action..."

The trooper remained motionless. It was going to be a long day and evening. And a long few days more, if luck granted him life.

Captain Pierce frowned at the trooper, then placed a clean sheet of paper in front of himself.
'Now, Trooper, I want you to tell me everything. Do not lie, do not omit'. He prepared to write things down.

Willoughby masked a frown. He did not lie, and hadn't intended. He straightened, still holding his earlier stance, eyes ahead, looking past the captain. "Where do I begin, sir?"

'Begin at the beginnning, damn it! What happened to you during the engagement? Do you think you understand now?' Suddenly exploded Pierce, scowling.

"Yes sir." He felt a chill, but willed his thoughts away but for those who would enable him to form his story.

"While we were scouting.." He looked at the captain and felt that he was best to skip the parts that the man knew of already. "We came across a scouting group of the French dragoons. We.."He had the papers on which his whole report was already written. Yet those papers were not with him, but stashed at the saddle.

"Sir..."He began before he'd even explained much of the happenings. "I have a report already written.. though I regret to say I have left it with the horse I was assigned while loosing my own in action."

Captain Pierce grunted, narrowing his eyes at Willoughby.
'So not only you loose your mounts, you also leave your reports lying around?!* Pierce raised his voice at the trooper. 'And what do you suggest? That I wait around while somebody fetches it?!'

"..Sir.. no sir." He straightened again. " I will continue.." He hesitated. He would have to request the papers to be brought any how. "Trooper Clap Kenley was first to encounter the said French troop. He had ridden ahead so that we would chase him...a part of our training.. sir." He quickly added. "He instead came running and after him the French dragoons. We've engaged. Given chase."

He hadn't liked to explain where the story had to be longer and he had to not omit details and yet he knew that he would and upon those details he then would be questioned again. And his words could be turned more than a simple yes and no, sir.

"Then they've turned and faced us. Sir. "

Pierce sighed and waved a hand at Willoughby to continue. 'Don't wait for me, by all means'

"Yes , sir." Why couldn't he just use those terms. Yes, no, right away. He took a short breath. "So each of us had engaged atleast one Frenchman. We have felled two, though we were fewer in number." He was quite sure that the captain heared that, though how large a number they had told him, he wouldn't know. He hadn't been with them since the fall after all. Neither did he know how successful they have been.

"Bayard was struck at his flank, with another Frenchman that came at us" He meant the horse and himself, " from the front and one from side. Our formation had been broken a short while before that." As was nothing too uncommon for the cavalry. Not after the first attack.

"..I..do not remember what happened after that... sir. I have woken a while later. " With his horse dying, and them both deserted.

Pierce kept looking sharply at the trooper. 'And where did you wake and what had happened next?' His voice was stern and his grey eyes cold like steel.

"I woke up.. with my leg buried under the body of Bayard. I was disoriented. The doctor has confirmed that I must've suffered a mild concussion." He had papers on that evaluation as well.

"My leg was injured." More papers to prove it. " Bayard dead." He was dying perhaps, and with his master's intervention he had only suffered a shorter time. "I have attempted to find my way back to the first Division and my regiment, sir. Right as I was able to walk. " Or limp heavily. ".. yet I had lost my bearings in the woods. I have later taken a turn in the direction from which I had come, believing that the path I have first taken was incorrect. "

He was barely able to orient himself, and when he had learned of his true error he had already seen the riflemen of the second. " The error had left me approaching the second division, though unbeknown to me. I have had the fortune.. of an encounter with a Portuguese civilian who had helped me reach the army. First the riflemen." Who could confirm his story.

Pierce did not press him on the desertion by his own troop. From what he knew they probably did not have the presence of mind to search for an unconscious trooper further afield. Yet, he did not show any of his understanding to the boy, looking even more forbidding if possible.
'So Second Division picked you up? Unlucky isn't it, for someone trying to desert.'

".. Sir. I did not attempt to desert. .. I sought to rejoin the army. ..and so succeeded." He shook his head. "I did not 'accidently' stumble upon the Second division, sir."

'Really? So you lounged about with the Second Division instead of rejoining your own regiment, and then you avoided reporting to duty once in Coimbra. Are those the actions of a man who deserves any consideration?! Do you think we need someone like you here?!'' Pierce glared at Willoughby. 'It is people like you who give English cavalry their bad name!'

Willoughby kept his gaze of a soldier - staring at nothingness. He did briefly glance at the captain and found himself regretting the action. The man was an intimidating figure.

Did the man expect him to respond with an explanation? He breathed in sharply, then slowly, silently exhaled.

"...yes, sir." He wasn't agreeing to what the captain had said. He was just confirming he had heared it.

'Nothing to say for yourself then? I do hope you shall give us a better show at the court martial, though this quiteness of yours might be usefull when they give you your number of lashes! Though, I am mistaken, forgive me. Deserters are shot!' Pierce snarled at the lad.

Willoughby flinched. "...I did not desert, sir!" He repeated defiantly.

"I could have ...avoided the army, if I so wished. I could have left it at any given moment during our march for Coimbra.. but I have not. ..sir." He was angry, though he kept his temper mostly in check. The accusation wounded him.

"I have not reported upon the arrival to Coimbra. ...sir. But that is all, that I have not done." He had spoken rashly, but the provocation.. it was his youth that should have been learnt not to respond to it. "And I would have done it today.. were I not brought in personally by lieutenant Waldegrave."

'Found your tongue, have you?' Pierce made a sign to the sergeant who present to leave the room. 'That begs the question of why were you escorted here by this Waldergrave? Presumably he is of the 62nd.' The Captain grimaced at the mention of infantry. 'Maybe you did not live the Second Division during the march, because they had you under arrest? Eh? Or were you just scared of walking all on your own?' mocked Pierce.

"No sir. I had free reign and a horse appointed to me for riding. Her name is Bella if you would like to see the claim confirmed. My papers are with her."

The accusation was serious and aware of the weight that it carried he wished to make certain the captain had known he was in no way held under arrest before Coimbra. " The only time that I was unable of free movement was, when appointed to rest in the surgeon's wagon. And this was for the sake of the healing of my injury. Sir. I had.. for a time, been appointed a place of galloper to lord Edrington also."

"...." He hesitated and realised that what he might tell the man further, would further tarnish his reputation. And it was at the worst possible moment too.

"...." But decided he needed no explanation, and hoped that perhaps the officer would forget what he had earlier suggested.

'I told you do not omit anything! And I am pretty sure that something happened to warrant the escort!' Pierce rose from the chair, dropping the pencil he was using to write evidence down.

"..As.. you have seen, sir. I have ..." It sounded even less right now, than it did earlier. And much more wrong than how logical it seemed in the morning. " Been late in coming." But that wasn't quite why he was delivered probably.

"..There is.." He felt as if a noose had wound itself around his neck and it was at last squeezing itself tighter and tighter. Breathless. It was how it was leaving him.

" An unrelated case.. sir." And left it at that.

'Well, spit it out! Or do you wish to make our Colonel look like an idiot when the the damn infantry come here waving their bloody muskets and tell us that one of our troopers is not only a deserters, but also, what, a thief? A murderer? Or maybe a lover of men?' Pierce glared walking towards Willoughby.

"No sir! None of that!" He felt frightened. Innocent could suffer as well as the guilty. Cotton had been an example of that and even now the false accusation left his reputation marred. His confidence damaged.

" ..It is the ..." He wished he needn't say it. But it was there, and the cruel accident had happened. "...accident that... had happened during the riflemen's skirmishing presentation. Sir. " Oh god. Coimbra seemed a cursed placed for the Hussar.

"They will hold a trial.. on the account of a stone that had... struck lieutenant Jaeger. An accident, though an unfortunate one. Sir." He sighed. He could not find better words for it. He braced himself for the eruption that was sure to follow.