Surgeon's wagon, 25 May

Maria was about to go onward, when Dores tugged at her sleeve and nudged at her side. The girl glanced at her friend with a questioning look on her face and then followed the hand and the nod. Both girls turned to look at Jenny, though while Dores was convinced the address was towards them, Maria thought that it must've been a different pair of senhoras that the girl called to. She made it plain and clear that neither of them knew that lass and so why would she want to call to them anyway.

Dores rolled her eyes, and though her conviction was slowly ebbing away, leaving space for doubt, she pulled her friend on in the direction of Jenny. If they were mistaken they still needed to go that way anyhow, she reasoned. So there would be no embarrassment even if she was wrong.

Jenny moved to catch up with them. "Senhoras, por favor," she said again, waving her hand. Then she realized that she didn't know the words that she was going to need. Her Portuguese vocabulary was limited and, for the most part, practical. "Senhoras, you sell?" she asked in their language.

Maria exchanged glances with Dores. The girl did mean to ask them. Dores folded the coat further in her hands. "Not this." She answered. They both understood enough English, to be able to do business with the British soldiers, though their grammar would've been anything but perfect and their vocabulary limited.

"..What looking for?" Maria asked politely smiling at Jenny. "Cloth, dress?" She motioned with her hands towards her own attire to indicate what she had meant even if the word he had chosen might not have been the correct one.

Well that was a relief. They did speak some English. Jenny plunged immediately into her explanation. "I was hoping to buy some fabric, something rather fine and elegant if you have it, maybe a light mousseline, something that could be made up into a dress, or even ribbon or fancy trim if you have it so a simple gown could be made up finer. I know it's not the type of think you'd carry around to sell to most other camp followers, but maybe you'd be able to point me in the right direction of someone who does have that sort of thing?"

Both girls tried to follow the rush of words coming from Jenny desperately, but after perhaps the first or the second sentence or even half way into the second, they just stood there and blinked. Maria still tried , even looked as if she gave all her concentration to decifer those words. With a frown though she raised her hand, and clearly gave up on the said request.

"..not understand." She spoke with a frown and Dores agreed with a quick nod. "Slower, please?" But even at that request she did not look convinced that they'd understand any better.

Jenny smirked, inwardly chiding herself for not learning the language better. It would have been useful for situations like this, but language was not where Jenny's talents lay.

"Um... cloth for a dress, por favor," she said, starting again more slowly. "I need some fine cloth for a dress if you have it, or ribbon or... Have you got any lace? Or any fine things for dresses or for bonnets, that sort of..." She trailed off again, frowning in frustration. "Ribbon?"

"Hmm... Ribbon..might." Maria was more accustomed to hear the soldiers inquire about sewing, about the sort of fabric which was not meant to make pretty but rather to make something patched up. "Yes. Cloth for dress, yes." She looked curiously at Jenny. "How much?" If they were to go one request at a time, they might be able to more easily understand one another.

She was thinking back on the man that could speak both Portuguese as also English, and debated whether perhaps , to make things quicker, as time was always of the essence, they might request that he helps them. Though, just as she thought about it, perhaps the men that took care of him now would be very much inclined to refuse entrance.

"Oh." Jenny was not about to let the woman cut off a segment and force her to buy it unseen. "Is it fine cloth, good cloth, pretty? Bella, bonita, bom? And... do you mean to say you have ribbon? Ribbon might be cheaper than buying cloth for a whole dress, or lace if you have it, but it depends on how much it costs. How much? Quanto custa?" That at least she did know how to say.

"Bom." Dores nodded and began to explain in her English, which was poor and simple, even if atleast the sentences were mashed together in a slightly better manner. Maria observed the two girls and then held his hand. She waited for her friend to turn silent and then spoke. "Man in there can help. " She motioned towards the wagon and motioned towards Jenny. "Follow."

Jenny looked at the indicated wagon, by now completely halted and its tired horses being unhitched. Wasn't that one of the wagons that the surgeons used for carrying patients? Surely they would not have started allowing camp followers, Portuguese women, to use them as transportation or storage of goods, much less as a base for sutlering. Even Maggie after her injury had not attempted to gain a place in the surgeon's wagons while there were still injured soldiers on foot.

"In there?" she asked suspiciously.

"Yes." Maria nodded, and then to her friend's startled look she explained in Portuguese. Dores glanced at the wagon and protested, giving a fair point why they could not go there. Maria shook her head with a shrug of her shoulders, smothering the fabric of her dress smoothly with her hands. After her next sentence her plan was made clearer and though Dores had a faint protest to mention still she began to follow the younger girl.

"In there. " This time they could do it, so the opportunity was not to be missed. "Come. Is safe."

Still a bit skeptical, Jenny followed the two women to the wagon and peeked in through the open door. There was a patient lying on a mattress, his leg wrapped in bandages.

Voices outside the wagon. Calderón stirred, realising that he'd been half asleep. It was the two women he'd given his coat to for mending. Why were they back?

"Hello again," he said in Portuguese. "What brings you to return?"

"It is the English that bring us back." Maria replied merrily in Portuguese and gave a short bow. She looked apologetic also, to see that Calderón might have been sleeping just moments before they had arrived. "Do not worry, we've not come to say your coat is not mendable." She chuckled softly, but more quietly as if thinking that her loudness might make worse for those that were wounded. "Tis the lass you've just seen." Who had peeked into the wagon a moment ago.

" Could you be so kind and help us here, sir. Translate for us to this woman and from this woman to us, as what she wishes?" She made some space for Dores to pass and then decided to usher her out so that the crowded wagon would have two lasses indeed at the front, but it wouldn't be two who'd have little use of each other, or of the skill of the English tongue.

Ah. The English. Calderón nodded. "I would be happy to," he replied, hitching himself up a little higher on his nest of mattresses and sacking.

"What?" Jenny asked vaguely, looking at the speakers. Then she recognized the patient on the mattress. "Oh! Hello again. You're the man with the wounded leg." And then she smiled mirthfully, because it was obvious to all who might see him that of course his leg had been wounded.

Maria indicated the man and smiled. "Will help." She said and thanked Calderón with a small bow. "Much obliged!" She said softly, in Portuguese. "Very grateful sir." She added and then waited for Jenny to finish with what she was saying. Just as she turned quiet and perhaps a few moments later did she speak again: "Do tell us, when you should wish to rest."

She looked at Jenny and nodded, suggesting that when she was ready to speak of her request, she could. That is, when the wounded man felt the same.

"Yes, I am," Calderón replied in English. "How may I help?"

After a momentary pause, he answered Maria's remark in Portuguese, "It is hardly taxing to speak, if I am not made to walk." And he grinned.

They seemed to be waiting for her to say something. She looked at the man quizzically. Was he the husband of one of these women, or their brother? He did not seem like the haberdasher sort. How was he supposed to help with this transaction? Then she realized that of course the women had asked him to be their translator. Jenny laughed at her own foolishness.

"I'm sorry, senhor, to disturb you when you're resting... It's an utterly trifling feminine matter. I simply wanted to ask these good women if they sold ribbon. I don't know the Portuguese for ribbon and can't manage to make myself understood. Everything would be much easier if we could all understand each other, wouldn't it?" And she flashed him an apologetic and agreeable smile.

"We'll promise not to make you walk." Maria responded with a small grin of her own. She turned towards Jenny as she began to speak and tilted her head a bit. She understood a word here and there but for the most part she could only look blankly at Jenny. With the look of expectation on her face, she turned towards the good patient, waiting just as patiently for him to begin.