27th May, morning; with wagons

Pye looked attentive of the kestrel, which continued to fly above, but seemed to have a purpose at where it was going. He knew mice could hide in food, in houses even. But it wasn't necessary that they did. They could even be in a field full of wheat. "Um... that there's food over there, for it?" He asked. "N' that it spotted it and now it is ready ter attack at any time." He added not too convinced that Cotton might've wanted to hear that. "Maybe... maybe there's a house there... which has.. food which t' mice eat.. n' so.. or maybe there's chicks.. does it eat chicks?" He looked concerned at that mention and quickly turned in the direction of where they had left Newbury and little Peggy Pye.

"Might do, but they don't hunt where there's people, so your chick's safe." He grinned. "What I'm gettin' at, is 'cause it don't hunt where there's people, there's nobody over in that direction. If there was Frogs there, you wouldn't see a hawk huntin' near 'em. You might see other birds startle up, 'specially if there was a party out scoutin' or patrollin', but you wouldn't see a hawk. People scare the little mice an' rabbits off, see, so there wouldn't be any dinner for it where people are."

"Oh. So... we're safe ter assume that there's none of the Frogs there, because of the bird... and because its hunting and ..." Pye's face cleared and he smiled. It wasn't just because it had all became clearer but also because his chick would not need to fear the attack of that hawk. He'd have shot it out of the sky himself, if he could aim well enough and if the bird had done something like that.

"But... doesn't the gentry own.. these birds?"

"Aye, jus' that." He shook his head. "No, these are wild - there're wild hawks back home, too. Can't stop 'em huntin' when they'm wild, after all. Where I lived, Squire used to go huntin' foxes, or pheasants, that sort of thing. Sometimes he'd go hare-coursin'. Wasn't really interestin' in huntin' with hawks, though I dessay some gennlemen do that more." He grinned. "They don't own the rabbits round here, neither, so we'm all right to go huntin' them ourselves."

"N' for chickens they's generally quite all.. a wanting to cause trouble about that, even if you only see one in an abandoned town n' she'll starve anyway or be taken up by them dogs.. or she's a wild one as nobody owns her." What Cotton had said sounded interesting to the young lad, it also put a few things in a better perspective as it was personal, something the other man had experienced rather than just knew in theory. He'd seen the Squire hunt all those animals, and knew that some gentry hunted with hawks.

"..The provosts are t'... worse evil you got, after some sergeants." He murmured and smiled then pointed in the direction. "But.. are we goin' there now? 'fore the army leaves us behin'!"

"

"Don't talk about them - no need to spoil a lovely day like today is, after all," Cotton said. "An' we'd best get on with what we'm doin'. Whatever it is we'm doin' anyhow." Even thinking about provosts couldn't dampen his spirits, not really.

"Right. We were going ahead to those bushes, to scout. Practice scouting, i think. And if Newbury is to whistle.. we'd have to listen and do as his command is given. That is, we have to listen carefully for him." He nodded agreeing with the rifleman that it was better to forget the provosts altogether. A day was better not to be spoiled by the men who rare few liked, and most despised. The men who hung people, and who nearly got an innocent man punished for something he hadn't done.

So, to stop his thought at that, he turned towards the direction he'd been interesting in earlier, and made a first step before turning around to Cotton."What's the rules here?"

"Scoutin'... Notice things, like the hawk, that'll warn you of where the French are an' what they might be doin'. If there's cavalry, you'll smell 'em afore you'll see 'em - all saddle-rot and sores, they are - never treat their horses right, the Frogs don't. If you see vultures, there'll be summat dead, or near dead. It might be a body or it might just be a dead rabbit or summat, though the bigger it is, the more vultures there are, usu'lly. There's other things, too - small birds fly up when startled, things like that."

Stinking horses or a stench that could relate to them, and he could suspect cavalry was near. The more vultures would be about flying, the more dead or the bigger the dead were to be. It could be horses then too and if it stank like saddle sores, and had vultures about it could be a French horse that got killed or died.

"'s scoutin' all about looking around and trying to read the trees and the animals for what message they are sending then?" He asked smiling. "..like here.., where we walked. The grass is torn 'bit and mushed up so it looks somebody was threading to it, and there's a print of a foot.. where the mud had been soft and it let me sink in a bit." He pointed to the spot in the ground. "You've told me about the birds and.. that if they scare, there must be something that they scared by. But that not every sound in the woods means the enemy, and sometimes things just happen. Like a branch falling, or a twig snapping. So... I have to have proper judgement, like when we was on picquet duty." He concluded with a grin.

"Aye, that's it. Wait there a moment," he said and walked away a few paces, circling to come back to the lad. "No better time to learn a bit o' trackin' than now. See if you can see where I walked - me footprints, I mean."

"Well um." He could cheat and since he had seen where Cotton had walked, just point to it directly. But he could also take a good lesson from it, by looking at the ground and imagining that he had not seen Cotton walk there earlier. He chose the second option and walked a few paces forward. Then he knelt down. He studied the grass. It was laid in a bit just where a foot print was freshly seen. The grass was slowly relaxing back into its form, or would be in a few moments, but for now it was left most laid in.

He followed the first foot step trying to make out which direction it could have gone without remembering back on Cotton's steps. He actually looked at his own shoe and foot, raised it then placed it beside the one he'd found. ".. That direction." He pointed and made a few steps forward. "Couse the grass'd go down like this.. like me shoe."

"That's right." He bent to pick a blade of grass. "See, grass has got two colours. If you can see the underside, which is brighter than the top, you've got to ask yourself what disturbed it. And is the grass broken, or just bent so you can see it. It's easiest to see when there's dew on the ground, 'cause where there's footprints, they won't have dew in 'em, unless they were made the night before."

Pye knelt closer to the grass, saw what Cotton was pointing to and nodded. "I see. But what if it's a bear. They have big feet... like some of our men." he laughed softly. " What if it was just a bear goin' about his business?" Though, he did walk on all fours and not in marching order, Pye was reminded. He didn't remember seeing any bears before, but at least of the descriptions that he heard on them he reckoned they looked and walked like that.

"Hmm. How old can the tracks be that you can still know n' pick them off for what they are? Can you... say how old they were too? Like.. 'least semi exact?"

"Never tracked a bear. Don't think they walk like us, not unless they'm tame, y'know, like dancin' bears. And for the age of the tracks... if the grass is broken, it'll start dyin', and that'll show how old the track is. Or it'll start springin' back up, a bit. The fainter the track, us'lly, the older it is. New tracks are easy to follow. But a track that's more'n two, three days old, that gets much harder to do."

"Ah, I see." He smiled. "But what if you's not walking on grass. Like on roads. It isn't as easy to see tracks there.. unless it's a real muddy road, or one made by wagons, isn't it?" He glanced at the army and saw where the wheels had cut deep lines into the softened earth.

"Is there a way to know when it's a Frenchy.. and when it's our own or a Portuguese?" He might as well have looked like a child in school, but the obedient type who listened with his mouth slightly agape and all ears.

"Roads are one thing, but when we'm trackin, we ain't usu'lly on roads - well, they ain't good out here. I 'member last year spending a bit o' time, jus' before the 60th got sent back to Lisbon, we was at a place in Spain called Salamanca, which is a town in a huge plain. No roads there, they ain't needed, 'cause the land's so flat. All apart from two hills and a bit of a ridge." He shrugged. "Only way of bein' able to tell who it is is if you find a few threads of cloth or summat - only, the French ain't the only ones who wear blue."

"We have.. .. we have our cavalry who wears blue too." The Rifleman nodded, remembering seeing the 15th Hussars before. " ..We have others?" Now he had to think more, and of course he did come up with several others whose uniforms had been blue and could leave a mark suggesting it was French, when it wasn't.

"What about those other colours. I remember seeing the French cavalry who don't wear blue .. and then, the Portuguese even, mistook us for their enemy. Right up there, near shootin' Newbury, n' then you and Vickery came. N' they did look like they were debating on it. What they'd do. Saw it." Up close. "Are there French that look like us?"

"Well, the Artillery wear blue, an' the Engineer officers - though I ain't seen so many of them. I got a feelin' the Portuguese wear blue, too, though it ain't the same colour blue as the French. An' o' course, some of their cavalry wear green like us. Dragoons, though, I think - they got cuirasses over the top, though - big breastplates, that is. An' helmets with long plumes in." He gave a wry grin. "Far too fancy, them cavalry sorts are, if you ask me."

"..think they can be as fancy as... they have horses to carry it all for them. Just imagine what a bother it would be wearing all that weight on you, just to look nice. We've got our uniforms.. don't need half the pomp ter look proper... and we are able ter walk.. twice ..well lots more than they could ever in theirs." He looked thoughtful. "...Green..., that sure doesn't sound promising for our future encounters does it?.." He motioned for Cotton to follow. "... Do you think the Portuguese are followin' us.. from ..'round 'ere?.. watching us, just?"

"Probably, though we'm close enough to the rest of the Division that they'll know we ain't French. And, well, we'm the only infantry regiment I know of that wears green with red facin's, so we ain't goin' to get mixed up with them. The coats ain't cut the same, an' we ain't got the same hats, neither." He shrugged and followed Pye, slinging his rifle on his shoulder. "Couldn't do with all the stuff they've got. I'd rather carry me own kit on me own back - ain't no call to treat a horse the way they do, neither."

He paused, watching as the kestrel finally folded its wings, diving out of the blue sky to catch its dinner.

"..Horses are ..awful things." Pye had come to feel more at ease around them, so his words did not sound as convinced as they would have been days before. "I just don't see how they feel comfortable to ride them, for long, or fast. It's an awful, painful sort of life, really." he said it as if he had years of experience in the wield, and not just a sore self, once in a time, to speak of.

"..'specially the riding... real makes me wonder." He shook his head. "Why do they put up with it.." He noticed the dive, and was quiet, but just as the bird disappeared from view, so it did not reappear a while, which could only mean it had been successful.

"If only we could pounce on them rabbits like that..., we'd never be without." He murmured and grinned.

"Well, don't forget, them trousers isn't the sort you'd wear if you was ridin' all the time. The captain wear proper overalls, with leather inside the legs, which means it don't rub for him where it did for you. 'Sides, most officers've bin ridin' since they was first in breeches, don't forget." He adjusted his rifle. "Horses ain't so bad. We had 'em on the farm - Suffolk Punches, they were, an' they was gentle as anythin'. I 'member Mal leadin' 'em, when he could barely reach their shoulders."

He chuckled. "Be nice to be a hawk an' see everythin' the way they see it, I think."

"You ever rode them then?.. Don't think leather even helps you all that much. They buck n' hop n' thrust all wierd n' wild like. You barely hold onto them. Don't know what the secret is... with them officers, but it has to be a secret to it all. Can't be that they can just bear pain better. They don't even look all that uncomfortable.." He smiled fondly. "...it'd be nice to see all that and able to report.. but if we had wings. wouldn't we lack fingers? Awful hard to fire a rifle without those."

"I can sit on a horse, sure - me elder brother was a stable-hand, up at the big house, an' there was times I'd go an' help. They learned me a bit, but I never did it enough to be properly comfortable with it, the way the Captain is." He laughed at the idea of a bird trying to fire a rifle. "Reckon you'd burn your feathers, doin' that. Wouldn't be a Rifleman if I was a hawk now, would I? Though I like bein' what I am well enough. It's a good life, this, after all."

"It is. you've got yer pay, n' yer rifle, friends n' family." Pye smiled warmly. "All that counts. Don't need wings to soar. Not you, Gabe. Yer soarin' like a bird with a big smile on your face jus' on t' wings o'..well.. love like, to Maggie. Makes you right lift of the ground when you think of her." He paused and looked innocent as he looked about, kneeling by the bush where he had, a good while ago, seen the rabbit disappear. "If I may be so bold to say.. that is." He added mischeviously and chuckled.