26 May; With the baggage

"I'll poke it with a stick if it don't hurry the pace up a bit," he muttered, and blinked at Pye's question before chuckling. "Best not to get in trouble if'n you can help. This ain't the worst or what the Cap'n can do, this ain't. We had a couple of lads try to make off durin' the fightin' at Rolica, last year. Didn't get far, o' course an' the Captain - he was only a Lieutenant back then - made 'em stand at the latrines for two hours, with each of 'em wearin' a woman's cap. They never done that again." He grinned. "What you want to do it stick with your mates. Learn to read the ground - which you'm doin', an' pretty good, from what I seen yesterday. Learn the bugle calls an' know where you'm supposed to be for each of the orders."

"Isn't bad if you consider wot' they do in t' rest of the army." Pye countered with a grin. "Not pleasant, but not painful much either." He chuckled at the image of the poor lads who got to present themselves in that place. Well, at least they weren't hanged, shot or flogged.

His smile widened at the small bit of recognition of his efforts. He did still think he knew very little and had so much to learn to be a proper rifleman, but he did try and he observed just as he was told, and sought to find signs which might be of use. Even now, that he was with the wagon, except that the signs were often a glimmer or a reflection of light, caught on a discarted treasure. But, it was still a good practice!

"..could ye... 'splain the bugle calls for me?...'least some of the mos' standard ones. So I have somewhere to start." Others he could learn along the way, just as long as he had someone to observe and follow suit. Just like Cotton and Newbury for example.

That was true... He didn't want to think about what the rest of the army would have done to him and Newbury though, and seized on the change of subject.

"They mostly sound like what they say. I mean, if you know what they sound like an' what they mean, you can hear the words in them. Like... I have discovered the enemy goes like..." he whistled a short series of notes. "Sounds louder on the bugle, o' course."

Pye listened carefully. Note after note, and wondered where the words came in. "Um... Can you repeat it?" He asked not very happy that he had neither found sense in the sounds, or could have remembered him the first time around. "Each sound means a word?"

No, what Cotton earlier did, reminded him more of a bird whistling away. It was quieter than a bugle, but he couldn't have expected Cotton to make the very same sound. He had no bugle and he was human.

"Each note is a word, an' all together it means, I have discovered the enemy," he repeated, rephrasing his words a little to make it easier, before whistling the notes again.

This was worse than trying to learn to read, not that he'd ever tried the latter. Didn't think it was needed or useful, most didn't know it either. "...So.. if I was ..wantin' to tell you something,.. n' be a while from you n' didn't want the enemy to know I was there.. or what I was sayin'.. I could jus' whistle it over.. and you'd understand 'zactly ..like we talk now, what I meant to say?" Maybe just following his partner would do just fine. When he got one, and till then just following Cotton and Newbury or whoever he was assigned to.

"Aye... We done that afore. Ain't so easy if the enemy's a Sergeant, or an officer of our lot though. An' if you hear the bugle playin' that, you know there's Frogs around. Easy enough, when you know how. You'll pick it up quick enough, there ain't any rush to learn it all now this minute."

"It is 'fore I get in the field with you... isn't it?" Pye answered. He'd try to learn of course. "Mebbe.. you could teach me some every day.. n' then you would ask me .. uh to tell what they meant in the evening? You tell 'em in the mornin' , maybe? N' I in the evening." He asked and looked very eager to know, fast.

He glanced at Willow. The animal at least behaved and walked, even if not all that eagerly.

"Could do that, though it'll have to be more'n just in the mornin'." He grinned. "Can you whistle? 'Cause that'd be the quickest way of learnin' 'em - me tellin' you what each one means, an' whistlin' it, and then you whistle it back, an' tell me. And then I can give you the name, an' you've got to whistle it, or I can whistle it an' you've got to tell me what it is." He gave an apologetic half-shrug. "Din't mean to run on so, neither. Sorry 'bout that."

Pye laughed softly at Cotton, who'd gone on and one without even letting him answer his first question. It was amusing, not bad. The lad grinned, shook his head, placed his hand at the handle of his bayonet sword and chuckled.

"Ter answer your first question. Yeah, I can whistle." Some things had been essential to learn even before, which was good. " An' I will gladly do whichever of the ways to learn them you suggested. Jus' you tell me beforehand, which one it is. So there won't be no silence couse I'd be waiting for you to do something or you for me."

He waited. "You didn't run on.. Gabe, it was quite ok." The lad smiled. "..so, will uh.. will you teach me? Oh'um.. maybe we can start tomorrow, or today, jus' not right after t' food n'all. .." He had plans for then. "Is your call, whenever." He had no place to be, or people to meet except if he'd have gone see the 33rd, but if he was to be learning, he would choose not to, anyway.

"Try learnin' this," Cotton said, and whistled the same few notes again. "I reckon it's the quickest way to learn it, after all." Pye was a good sort of lad, he thought, enthusiastic and quick to learn. "I don't us'lly run on like that, y'know. Sorry."

"It's no problem , Gabe. I'd rather you say somethin' more n' one time.. than be all silent and expect me to read what you're thinking." He paused, recalling the whistle that Cotton had just made then pursed his lips. He whistled the notes, a bit more awkwardly but correctly. "This... this you said means... I have discovered the enemy, right?" He whistled it again, just to make certain he'd done it correctly the first time and that if he had, it wasn't just him being lucky.

"Like this, right?"

"Yes, that's right. Now supposin' the enemy was on horses, you'd hear this." And he whistled another few notes. "Means, the enemy is cavalry, that. You try it."

"Cavalry." Pye paused, repeated the tune in his mind and then repeated it in a similar whistle. He did it twice, then paused and spoke: "The enemy is cavalry." And then he repeated the first, not missing a note. "And this is, discovered the enemy." He nodded , a grin spreading across his face, his eyes bright, and the lad certainly very proud. " So there's a different tune for the regiment of foot, isn't it?...is there one for skirmishers too?" He asked turning about to look straight at Cotton. ".. or the .. uh heavy n' light cavalry?"

"No, there's one for infantry and one for cavalry, but not for the skirmishers or for the diff'rent sorts of cavalry - proper information comes back later. You got the tunes right, though. Try this'n." He whistled something else, a short series of notes. "Means skirmish order - spread out into pairs."

"Ah, I see." That meant he needn't worry about having to learn the signal for each and every sort of enemy, which was good. With too much information he might've just stood there and stared and counted on his fingers which tune was heard, and which it was already and what it meant. Even so, he could worry about forgetting, though if he repeated it in his mind every evening and during the march when he was on his own, maybe whistle it to his chick, he could learn it by ear and heart.

"Do they ever have you spread out in... more than pairs?" He asked, then as ordered, repeated the whistle. Short notes. They worked, if he heard them a moment before doing them. "Skirmish order - spread out in pairs." He repeated for himself. "Got it. I think."