shrubbery, and what was evident was low and fairly new. He looked to his left to see Cony halted as well, merely a flash of red-and-white checkered shirt between the trees. He looked to his right to see Chiswick, who was coming towards him without his horse. As Alan watched, Mollow brought up the rear, leading the animal. Chiswick waved at him and pointed, as though shoving him away, and Alan got the idea that he should turn and go south towards Cony. They carried on this silent dialogue until he determined that that was indeed what the officer intended.
They carried on south for some time until Cony waved them to a halt and motioned them down while he snuck deeper into the woods to the right, their original direction before the turn. Alan sat down behind a tree and brought his rifle up to his side, glad for a chance to get off his aching feet in the cracked and pinching shoes. Chiswick came on down to him from the north to join him.
'We're on someone's farmland,' Chiswick said softly, taking a seat near him with his rifle ready as well.
'How can you tell?'
'Stumps, for one,' Chiswick said, as though it was self-evident. 'And I ran into a rail fence and a lane heading down this way. You would have, too, in another minute. Low, sunken lane. Great place for an ambush. And there was a pasture and another fence on the other side of that.'
'Did it look occupied?' Alan asked, crouching by a sturdy bush to tie the reins of his horse so both hands would be free to use his rifle.
'Couldn't tell.' Chiswick shrugged.
'Well, is that good or bad?' Alan persisted, a little put off that he had to ask so much information. Damme, I spend nigh on two years getting the lore right at one thing, and here I am a rank amateur again! And the galling thing is, I don't know enough to even ask the right questions. He's going to think me a complete slow coach.
'No way to know until we discover it,' Chiswick said with a grin. 'If it's a Rebel farmstead, we can take what we like. Might be abandoned after the armies came through here in the summer, and we can still take what we like, loyalties be damned. On the other hand, we could run into a battalion of troops already using it.'
'In which case, we fade away like startled deer and head back to the working party,' Alan said.
'There's the truth of it,' Chiswick replied, very much on his guard from hard field experience, but reveling in danger. 'Ah, I see your man wants us.'
They rose to a crouch and headed down toward Cony, motioning Mollow to bring the other mount down to where they had waited. Mollow understood his ensign's signal and tied both horses to the same clump of brush, then came to join them so that all the party were together.
'Fence, sir.' Cony grinned as though he was at home sneaking into his squire's rabbit runs. 'They's a farm t'other side o' this fence. They's somethin' movin', too, sir. Don't sound like men. Cow, maybe.'
'Supper, maybe.' Alan grinned in return. 'And without firing one shot to attract attention.'
'Don't eat it before it's skinned, sailor,' Burgess chuckled. 'I and Mollow will scout ahead. You wait here with your man. If you hear any to-do, get back to the horses quick as a wink and head for the main road. Don't worry about us.'
Burgess pulled his rifle back to half cock and went off to the left, pointing the private dead ahead. Alan thought about cocking his own rifle, but demurred, not sure enough of himself in case there was a problem until it had presented itself in true colors.
'Smelt like a farm, though, sir,' Cony said almost in his ear, taking dangerous liberty with ship's discipline and the separation expected between a common seaman and a midshipman. 'Cain't hide that from my nose, sir.'
'We shall see directly, then,' Alan said, trying to appear stoical as a post-captain, while ready to squirm with anticpation. It was five minutes before Mollow came sneaking rough the brush to them, almost on his hands and knees.
'We're in luck, that we are,' Mollow said, showing the same lack of formality to Lewrie that he had to his own lieutenant before.
'Was it a cow?' Alan asked, still whispering.
'It's a whole damn fuckin' ark over thar,' Mollow said. 'Farm paddock an' pastures. They's a cow with two calves, coupla sheep an' two half-grown pigs. Mighty skittish, so we don't wanta spook 'em. Mighta been turned out wild. No sign o' life from the house yit. Mister Burgess is a'checkin' that out now, but we can move up. Mind ya do it quiet, now. I'll fetch the horses.'
They followed Mollow's trail through the woods until they reached a rail fence made of split pine logs stacked zigzag atop each other waist high. Mollow had very quietly taken a stretch of them down to let room for the horses to be led through. There was a dry dirt lane before them that led to a wider clearing to the left and the hint of a house and some outbuildings. In a pasture directly ahead of them, there were some animals grazing or rooting about, warily distanced to the far side of the pasture near the trees, but showing no real signs of distress.
'Put a halter on that cow, an' the little 'uns'll tag along quiet as mice, Mister Lewrie,' Cony said, taking his musket off half cock. 'Pigs might be a problem, though, sir.'
'We could pack them back on the horses once they're dead.'
'Better'n venison any day, sir,' Cony said, slinging his gun and heading off for the farmstead to the left.
Ensign Chiswick met them in the middle of the road, his rifle also now slung muzzle down and a rag wrapped around the lock to keep dirt out.
'Place looks abandoned,' he said in a normal tone of voice. 'The barn's been burned down and the house appears to have been looted. The doors and window shutters are off and the yard's full of castoffs.'
'It's not hunting, but we'll take something home for the pot,' Alan said, glad that they did not have to take aim and fire at something that would draw attention to themselves.
'And look what else I found,' Chiswick said, holding up his left hand in triumph.
It looked like a rough lump of candle wax, which made Alan wonder just what a colonial thought valuable.
'It's soap!' Chiswick chortled. 'Homemade soap. Might take the hide off you, but it'll get you clean enough for a burying.'
'I'd pass on the burying,' Alan said quickly, 'but it has been a time since I had a full bath.'
'I had noticed,' Chiswick japed, wrinkling his nose as though he thought Alan stank worse than most people did. 'There is a small creek in the place, dammed up below the barn for a stock pond. Once we get these animals rounded up, we may bathe before heading back.'
'Is that safe, way out here?' Alan asked.
'Nothing ran those animals off, so it should be. Now, how are you at roping wild pigs?'
It turned out that Alan was terrible at roping wild pigs. It was easy enough to get a rope around the neck of the mother cow, for they had not been running wild very long. Once she was led into the barnyard, her calves followed along docilely enough. The sheep could be hemmed in with much shouting and waving into a corner of fencing, where Alan could dive onto one and hold it down until a lead could be placed on it. In the barnyard they found two chickens and a rooster, which were despatched with a piece of light wood and gutted on the spot to tie them on the saddles.
The pigs, though. The pigs were devils in disguise, squealing and snorting and making mock charges at them, almost impossible to grab and fast as the wind for being built so low to the ground. A man on horseback could not keep up with their bursts of speed or match their twists and turns. Mollow was an expert with a length of rope, forming a noose at one end and throwing it in a whistling arc to settle over any target's neck to draw snug, making it look like an effortless skill. Even that did not avail over the thick necks of the pigs.
'The devil with it!' Alan gasped after his fourth trip at a dead run across the pasture. 'Why don't we… just shoot… the buggers?'
'Suppose we'll have to,' Chiswick said, panting on his knees by Lewrie. 'Hate to do it, though.'
'I
'The noise is what I meant. Look out!'
One of the pigs had raced back straight for them, evidently wanting to get his own back. He was not a wild boar with tusks to slash a man open, but he had a mean set of teeth anyway. Chiswick jumped free, but Alan could not move in time and could only roll away as the hog slammed into him at full tilt, almost knocking all the wind out of him, rooting with his snout at Alan's crotch.
'Damned if you do!' Alan cried, drawing his dirk with one hand and grabbing a forefoot with the other. He stabbed down, up, sideways, as the hog rolled him like a slopbucket around the pasture and began to squeal in pain. Alan had a chance to roll on top and get a few more strokes in with his dirk while the blood flew like a
