25th May Coming early

"I dunno. It just ain't pretty, seein' what they do. I'm glad they ain't fightin' us, that's what," Cotton said. "Blow it, I think I want to see what's bin goin' on. Did they meet anyone an' then go off with 'em? Might have to ask the Captain if I can have a look. Me not bein' a Sergeant or officer or whatever. Can't go off on me own, now, can I?"

"No." He looked on." Can Newbury?" There was a hesitant pause." ..We better get a note.. from Vickery fer him, else he could get in trouble, wandering off like that." He straightened up a little. "We've found food of them..lots of it, so they ...probably wanted to join the army. Else.. why collect so much as .. as if headin' of on a long march.. if they meant ter jus' go on a meetin'."

"Newbury's off trackin', like we was. He'll be all right. It's the fact I want to find out what was goin' on here first that might be a bit of a problem." Lots of food, too... now it was getting to be an interesting puzzle.

"What are you going to do?" Pye asked as he walked to where he saw something reflecting light. It was a Portuguese type of weapon. A pistol rather than a musket, which confirmed how few weapons the French had. "They's armed like they was pickin' what they could on their way." He scowled. "Wos armed better when I..." He turned silent and held his find up. "That's what that man had. Isn't fired, n' its ramrod s' still in the barrel."

"Armed better when...?" Cotton accepted Pye's self-interruption. "I'll be right back. Just want to ask the Captain summat. Back in a minute."

Pye nodded , and watched as Cotton turned on his heel and left to find and talk to the captain. While he was alone he knelt beside one of the bodies, and poked around at their makeshift bag. They didn't carry the standard packs of the French army. He looked thoughtful and went to see if they carried anything else, perhaps utensils, money, something of worth and found that the man was pretty stripped of possessions. All he did have looked to be recent, rough and of not so great a value. Probably it was obtained in that house.

Cotton found the Captain and told him of his suspicions, letting him know that Newbury had gone ahead because they'd found some tracks leading away from the place. Some of the others had got to work starting to bury the dead.

"Here, c'mon, Pye. You don't want to get stuck doin' that. Let's go and see if we can work out what's bin happenin' here."

Pye stood up the moment he was cold and joined Cotton with a quick nod. " They dun' have much on them. Either they'd allready been stolen from or.." He shrugged uncertain. "What did you see?" Because of course, in his mind Cotton would know and see much more, might've found a detail that would reveal the whole story. He'd see an indent in the ground, and Pye was convinced, he'd know the age of the person who made it or atleast he'd know a lot about it.

"I'm lookin' fr where the horse come from, an' if it was ridden here or not. And, well, if there's signs that it was standin' waitin' a time or if they went off right away. 'Cause those men didn't have a horse with them, so if that horse was waitin' a while, it'll show they was expected. And, well, I want to know what happened - it'll help the officer decide on what to do, as well."

"Ah." Pye listened attentively to each word spoken by the man and nodded a few times. There was some earth thrown up ahead as if the horse had run for a time, there was a bit where perhaps its rider had leaped onto its back. But in a further circle, they'd probably have seen tracks going and disappearing, suggesting an animal that wandered, but still loyally followed its rider.

"Well, we know they didn't come from the same way we did," Cotton said. "Think we might want to start lookin' where they headed to, if you see what I mean. Follow Joe a bit, see if we can see if they went the same way they came from. If that makes sense. Or did the horse come from somewhere else ag'in?"

He crouched to study the ground. "Hmm. Think the horse come here... Look, you can see where it was waitin' a bit. See where the grass has bin cropped just here? An' all the hoof-prints all on top of each other?"

Pye nodded as he knelt beside the tracks. He studied them and saw how grass was a little bent here and there, how earth showed signs of pressure against it. "It was much lighter than when it left." He murmured and looked up hopeful that that was of some use.

"Aye, it was. So it either come here carryin' one man, or the man was walkin' next to it. Take another look an' see if you tell me which."

Pye struggled to see any marks beside the hooves but there were none. " It had to carry a man..." Or it could've come on its own, but he did not think that logical. He thought of the horse which attracted the riflemen's attention earlier. That horse did come on its own, and lead them towards the house. He didn't know if horses did that, but he could try. "Well.. is no man walking along the side of this horse, because there's no tracks leading it. So.. it either had to have come with a rider or on its own!..Can three men even fit on a horse, Gabe?"

"I think so, too. We can allus go up the path a bit, where the marks'll be a bit clearer. C'mon, here. We might even meet up with Joe Newbury again - his tracks'll be easy enough to follow, of course, comin' after theirn." He stood up and led Pye a short distance along the track.

Bad bad bad. He should've known he'd run into some form of trouble after going off by himself. Why couldn't he ever think before doing something stupid like this? Newbury stared at the grim-faced group of Portuguese men approaching him and tried to remember the few odds words he'd heard constantly in Lisbon.

"English... ah... friend?" No, that wasn't helping. He'd never been good at languages anyway. They didn't seem to understand his half-panicked babble either. This was a problem.

Solution? Run away. Which he did.

There was shouting coming from up ahead, and Cotton looked up in alarm. "Pye! Forget them tracks - we'll get back to 'em in a bit. Sounds like Joe's run into a spot of bother. Come on!" He broke into a run to try to get to Newbury before something serious happened to him.

Pye jumped over the tracks and broke off into a run. He held his musket so that it was ready to fire, and not pointed right at the back of Cotton who was up ahead of him. Whatever was going on up ahead, the sounds came from the direction in which Newbury had gone earlier. It could mean only one thing.

He sped up a bit , leaping over stone and a log, ducking under a branch. His choice of a path wasn't fully deliberate, but at best that he could see, he chose the one, which would have gotten him ahead quicker.

Cotton held his rifle at the trail, ready to bring it up to fire if necessary. Had they just been led into a nest of Frenchmen? He cursed himself roundly for letting Newbury go off on his own. Thankfully, some of the other Riflemen had heard the shouting too and were running after them, trying to catch them up.

He wasn't going to make it very far in this damned hill-infested country. Not with the gash in his side deciding it was going to burn with pain. Newbury tried to stretch his legs out just a little more to make it up to the crest of one of the hills, succeeding only in tripping, and fell flat on his face.

Get up, you idiot. His shoes scrabbled at the ground and he managed to propel himself over the top of the hill. He wasn't lucky enough to regain his footing, however. A musket shot from behind him, a wide miss, made him scramble just a little too wildly. Newbury cursed when the hammer of his rifle ground into his arm as he tumbled down the other side of the hill in a useless tangle of limbs and kit.

"Shots fired!" Pye exclaimed. He ducked again. He heard something land on the floor, heard something crack, something break and then more indications that something ahead of them was trying to get away.

He started for the hill exerting all the strength he had in climbing it quickly. He pushed, felt the ground under him slipping, so that he just shoved himself up quicker, pressing a knee into the mud once, to gain some footing.

Blow it. How could he have been so stupid as to let Newbury get that far ahead without any back-up? He was finding it hard to draw breath now, and the stony hillside wasn't helping matters at all. Dammit all, They were supposed to be a safe distance from the blasted Frogs, making sure they were actually on their way out. Why on earth did Newbury have to run into trouble out there on his own?

He was gasping for breath by the time he topped the next rise, to see Newbury sprawling on the stony hillside. His heart leapt into his mouth. If he was dead, it was all Cotton's fault.

He momentarily closed his eyes in relief as he saw the distant figure try to regain its feet.

The tumbling roll down the hill left him aching all over, but he had to get out of there. Newbury managed somehow to heave himself up to his knees. Get up and run. Bloody idiot. He'd really stepped in it this time, hadn't he? He pushed himself up to his feet, took two short, wobbly steps, and tumbled forward again. What the hell was wrong with him?

Behind him, his Portuguese pursuers had crested the hill. Crazy bastards. Newbury used the butt of his rifle to keep himself rolling, hoping at least to throw off their aim. If he couldn't run...

Pye saw that there was someone following Newbury. They appeared at top of the hill. Below them he saw Newbury. He had to be in some amount of pain by the looks of it. He couldn't get away in time, not with him being injured and hurt and these people so numerous.

Pye knelt on one knee bringing his rifle to his shoulder. He leveled the weapon at one of the persecutors. He breathed in, steadied himself and moved his finger to pull the trigger.

"No! Don't... They ain't Frogs!" Cotton gasped out, seeing what Pye was about. "It'll only make things worse!" He pushed the muzzle of the other man's rifle up, and held his own over his head in both hands, hoping desperately that the Portuguese would see he meant them no harm, before they did anything to Newbury.

"Ingleses!" he shouted, even though he could well not be close enough for them to hear him. This was one time when he needed to be wearing red. "Nós somos Ingleses! Amigos! Don't bloody hurt him, you bastards! Ingleses!" He thrust his rifle at Pye. "Stay here!" he said and scrambled down the hillside towards Newbury and his pursuers. "Newbury... you... damn fool," he said, talking mostly to himself, before deciding he should really save his breath.