25th May Coming early

".. They aren't jus' t' rear of the army though are they?" He was quick to dispell that thought. If they had been the last part, would there not still be many more tracks of those that came before them and they could not have been an attempt to distract and confuse the enemy. There were far too few and only a fool would've thought that the whole army had gone that way.

"Hurt?.. that'd slow 'em down!" He exclaimed and gazed ahead. "N'less they'd have just left him behind." He stared up ahead but could not notice a soul moving.

"Don't think he's hurt serious, though," Cotton said. "Ain't enough blood. Unless I've missed summat, which'd be easy enough in all this mud." He frowned. "They ain't with the main body of the army, an' yet they ain't deserters, neither. Deserters'd go in the other direction, wouldn't they. Think these tracks are too fresh to be from anyone who'd bin with the main part of their army."

He shrugged, scanning the ground for any more signs from the injured man.

"He ain't hurt bad 'nuff to stop movin'."

None of the Frogs had stopped. Newbury picked his way forward, moving carefully on a line roughly parallel to the Frenchmen's trail. It was impossible to tell which tracks belonged to who, such was the state of the ground.

"Mind your footin'," he warned, pausing to study a spot where someone had fallen.

"..We gotten a lot of them prisoners left behind in..." He couldn't remember the name of the town that they'd last been, or was it even further back than that. Oporto? Was it there or were they sent there?

"...well before. So mebbe... if they're not deserters, n' they're not the main army... n' they are French then could any have..." Was it even possible for any men to escape captivity and guard of the other red coated men. But it did not fit either. If they had been those who had escaped, then how would they've had an officer with them. He knew that officers and common soldiers did not stay in the same accommodations!

Pye stepped carefully over the area that was more precarious and continued , following the other two riflemen in quick yet carefully placed steps. Ahead of them there was a soft rustle to be heard and then there was the usual silence, mixed with the soft tapping of the rain drops fallen from the sky and other moist leafs.

"Oporto," Cotton supplied helpfully. Being batman to the company officer had its uses, after all. "Escaped prisoners? Could be, I s'pose." He broke off and held his hand up for silence, trying to work out if the rustling sound was caused by some animal, or something else altogether.

It stopped and he frowned. That just didn't sound right. He steadied his rifle, his hand on the flint ready to pull it back so he could fire, if it became necessary.

Were they the trackers, or the tracked? Newbury tightened his grip on his rifle and shifted casually sideways, giving Cotton and Pye better fields of fire if need be. And he listened. He was not a woodsman or anything like, but he knew tolerably well what it sounded like when a man moved through underbrush.

"Think it's too small for a Frog," he muttered.

The sound did not repeat itself for a while leaving the men to their own speculations. Pye held his rifle leveled at the direction, to their left. He waited but even as he listened there was nothing more to add and reveal its source. Something moved rather close to their left.

Then suddenly something seemed to have been thrown, or perhaps it leaped right across and landed on his foot. Another thing had landed flat between the two riflemen, the rustling rather consistent this time.

Pye jumped in surprise, and stumbled back. The added weight of his shoe was relieved as the ... creature hopped from it onto the muddy path. There were two ...

... frogs that had both landed in their path, perhaps rather pleased and happy to enjoy the wet weather that kept their skin nicely moist, with puddles too many to chose from.

Cotton burst out laughing. A bunch of Riflemen on the alert just because of a couple of frogs.

"When I heard we was goin' after some Frogs, that ain't the sort of thing I had in mind," he said once he'd managed to stop laughing.

Oh for - ! Newbury lowered his rifle and laughed, shaking his head ruefully. "Ain't quite what we was after, sure."

One of the frogs hopped closer to him and gave a gravelly ribbit.

Pye too had laughed, though his was a very quiet sort, which soon turned into a grin. "..We should use these as bait fer the Frogs." He pointed at the other, somewhat larger animal which hopped closer to the first and gave a deeper ribbit in response.

"They wouldn't be able to resist them.. n' their meat!" Pye, as quite often, would first have thought about food, especially as it wasn't a real Frog coming their way. Ahead of them a silhuette was barely seen for more than a moment and then it was gone just as quick.

"You might stop thinkin' about food all the time, Zack, " Cotton said, and grinned. "Seems that one's taken a fancy to you, Joe. Reckon if you kiss it that it'll turn into a beautiful girl?" Which wasn't quite how the stories worked, but who cared about a little thing like that?

Newbury smirked and knelt down, holding out an empty palm to the frog, which hopped into it after a moment's consideration. "Maybe," he said. "Or maybe it'll turn into a nice fresh roast. That'd be better. Could do with some decent scoff, can't we?"

Besides, he thought, what use did he have for a frog that turned into a princess? He lifted the little creature and settled it onto the shallow curve of the top of his bread-bag. If it stayed there long enough, maybe it would bring them good luck?

"Can't help Gape. I'm still growin'." Pye answered apologetically and smiled. "An empty bag won't stand up on its own.. a full one will anyway!" He added surprising in the sense that he'd made a comparison - of deeper thinking too - in a way of symbolism. A bag, being a man and a bag. And both, if empty were not going to stand, a man if hungry a bag trully and simply if it had no grain to contain. While both would, if full, be able of course to do the opposite.

The frog seemed rather tame with Newbury and the other frog seemed to be interested in what the first one was doing so it hopped closer and stared at Newbury with its large wet , eyes. It hopped so that it would turn and be able to look at the two riflemen still there. Feeling safe - and possibly naively so - it stood its ground, ribbing a call to the first frog.

"You two are both mad," Cotton declared, watching the proceedings. "Shame they can'tt tell us if a bunch of Fro... Frenchmen passed this way a while ago." He looked at the bush and grinned, reaching out to pull a few threads loose from where they'd snagged on a twig. "Or mebbe they can. Looks blue to me - the sort of blue the French wear." He held them out for Newbury and Pye to inspect, once they'd stopped fussing over the frogs.

Maybe the frog truly was lucky. Newbury looked at the threads Cotton was holding out and grinned. "Looks it, sure. Better keep after 'em. Who knows, we might start findin' bigger parts of 'em as we go along."

"Bigger parts?" Pye arched a brow, turning away from the frog. The chick chirped near silently in his bread bag in answer to the frog's ribbeting , but was silent quite soon, as if bored of the strange sounds.

"Sure don't want to find a leg or an arm. Separate from their bodies..." He made a face. "The Portuguese know we're English.... don't they?" He looked at their coats. "N' we ain't mad!" He looked around, and reached down to fetch a larger stick with which he poked at the ground. In the distance a shot rang out, stirring a flock of birds from a few trees.

"Wonder who's firin'... amd at what," Cotton said. "Leastwise, we know we'm on the right trail." He discarded the shreds of cloth and grinned at Pye. "Don't be so worried. I don't think there's any danger of that sort of thing happenin'. Joe, put that thing down, we've got a diff'rent sort of Frog to go lookin' for."

"Bigger parts. Could be an arm or leg. Or maybe a whole jacket..." Newbury had started to chuckle, but the dull pop of a musket firing from somewhere ahead of them brought a sharp end to his mirth. That was the answer to the question of whether the Frogs' weapons were any use, wasn't it?

"Aye." He lifted the little frog off his bread bag and set it back on the ground. There was no time to waste dallying around now.

The frog watched Newbury for a short while and then turned and hopped away , followed closely by its smaller counterpart. Pye adjusted his grip on the rifle. "... Maybe they met up with.. resistance from the..locals?" He waited for the other two riflemen to move, so that he could follow. It wasn't that he wanted to stay behind them or be safer that way, but rather because he believed it was either of them that would make the decision, that could make it. He was only a pupil, a boy learning how to be a rifleman. But he was far from one equal to them. So as one learning he did as he was told, as he was shown.

No more shots were heard since. The source must've been far enough that any cries would not have carried to them. If there were cries of pain at all. If the French encountered a civilian and shot him dead, then there would be no fireing. If they had decided to kill their prisoner, who might've fooled them, then again there would have been no more hope for Hunter.

"Might've found summat to shoot for dinner," Cotton said. It didn't sound as though the shot had been returned, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. "Might not be them at all. Came from the same direction as these tracks go in, though, so it most likely is them."

Newbury had stopped listening to his companions. Only one shot. It could mean anything. Nothing else to do but follow the track and find out. He moved up the slope without a word, alert for any other signs of French passage.

"Could be." Then Pye looked after Newbury. "See anything?" He asked, and then moved up the slop a bit. He glanced around them and so no living soul. Not yet at least. The sound of the river was stronger now, and still ran to their left.

Pye descended, and moved to follow the path, his rifle clutched in hand. He glanced left and right. Found no track leaving the path then stopped and looked over his shoulder at the two men. He grinned and made a few more steps, listened and stopped. A broken twig. The men slowed. Must've paused, then continued.

He waited. "Hope they killed rabbit. Could take that home." The path was open enough that no ambush could be set. Not by the French, nor Portuguese. Further ahead of them there were trees again, and those trees were covering enough ground, that the French could not be seen but their presence was felt. And a few birds flying of in the distance could just have indicated their presence there too.

"Well, if they'm firin' at rabbits, they don't know we'm around, followin' 'em, do they," Cotton pointed out. "That'll make 'em careless, though we can't be. They won't be wastin' ammunition on rabbits if they ain't got cartridges to reload their muskets with, after all." He watched the birds rise into the air, startled up by the presence of something nearby that shouldn't be there. "They'm over there, where them birds just went up from," he said. "Birds don't fly up like that for no reason. They'll wait till folks are close under them afore startlin', see."

He'd noticed the birds too, but that wasn't what had his attention. Water. There was a stream close by. It was not the sound that gave it away, but rather the slight damp smell in the air. Newbury knew instinctively how to recognise when he was near water. How many times had he slipped down to the river at night as a boy?

"Somethin' ain't right," he said, frowning.

No, it wasn't. Cotton was glad it wasn't just his imagination... though he couldn't quite put a finger on what was wrong. He stopped still to listen - that was one problem with all the equipment they carried; occasionally it hid things you really needed to be able to hear.

"It's too quiet," he said, keeping his voice low. Sound always carried better when you were near water.