A while later – and considering my situation, it is surprising I managed to gauge the time at all – Narryck paused in his tripping and crashing through the forest, and as he did I felt a rather smoky breeze slip past us, tickling my nose and making him sneeze. In a voice that sounded suspiciously shaky, the soldier murmured, “Gods above, back t’camp a’ready! I won’er if the barracks’re empty righ’ now…?”
His question decided for me what I had not quite decided for myself – I might allow him to carry me gods-know-where, but I was certainly not going to be dragged into his camp.
In keeping with my feigned faint, I pretended to wake bit by bit, blinking owlishly as the light hit my eyes. Narryck made a sort of oh! sound, and – thank the gods! – gently set me on my feet. “I’m s’ry, Miss Slate, I picked y’up when y’fainted. I wasn’t—”
“That’s quite all right,” I interrupted, only just smiling, “it is not as though I could have gotten out of the forest otherwise – I imagine I owe you my thanks, sir?” Perhaps I could have been slightly less kind, for at the mention of thanks, his anxious frown turned to a bright smile.
“Ah, I’m certain I could find some’in’ y’could do t’thank me.” At this, I leapt immediately to the worst possible implication of his words, and my smile went out rather alike to a candle.
“Mr. Hermans, I—”
“Nah, none o’ that,” he said, although I wondered if he’d actually known what I was planning to say. His smile seemed somehow sweeter, better intentioned than Raymond’s, than Kharles. “’S Private Hermans, or Narryck. An’ besides, we should go. I want y’to meet some friends o’ mine. ‘Ere – if I carry ya, y’won’t get those pritty feet dirty in th’underbrush.” I nodded, somewhat deflated, and allowed him to sweep me back into his capable arms.
Wimbledon, I thought, without much hope of response or reply, if there were a time to intervene, I imagine – respectfully, sir – now would be it.
My heart sank as the first crunch of heavy boots through dry leaves and twigs crinkled into the air. It seemed a pitiful end to an otherwise spotless – spotless, I insisted to myself – life, and I was beginning to lament what was certain to be an untimely demise when—
“Hey! Where’re ye going?” cried a new, altogether unfamiliar voice.
There followed a rather unintelligible – and overlong – string of curses from Narryck’s upward direction.
“Well?” barked the voice again, much closer, now. “Or perhaps ye had no luck in the woods and wanted to search the flat, tree-an’-shrubbery bereft plane just beyond this stand o’ birches, where even a blind duck could see anything at all bigger’n a fly for a mile or more out.”
“That was it, ser’eant,” Narryck said, and for a man with a deep, almost gravelly voice, his words came out remarkably like the squeak of a mouse.
“I’m sure it was. An’ I s’pose ye’re keepin’ yer back t’me because the ‘brush un’er yer feet has a mind of its own and if ye move an inch, it’ll eat ye fer supper?”
“That’s abou’ it, sir,” Narryck said.
“Private ‘Ermans.”
“Yessir?”
“What’s it ye got in yer arms?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Righ’. And this nothin’, ‘Ermans…does it so happen to be a gel nothing?”
“Oh, damn it all, ser’eant, I on’y wanted t’get ‘er some grub afore she met the cap’n!” he cried.
Narryck turned half ‘round, supposedly to face the sarcastic sergeant, and the advantage of his trembling arms was more than I found it possible to resist. With what I like to imagine was a kind of graceful bounce, I half-leapt from my prison, opening my eyes just at the moment my feet touched firm ground. Narryck cursed once more, but did not dare attempt to retrieve me.
“A pretty nothin’, then,” the sergeant growled. “An’ one we have to get to the cap’n, quick-like.” He seemed to contemplate that feat for a moment, and then he stepped forward and took my hand. “Come, gel. I imagine you’ll prefer my comp’ny o’er that of some petty private.”
I did my best to sound polite as I said, “Thank you, sir. I imagine I will.”
We had gotten back on the path by then, and as the sergeant turned towards the far-off camp, he commented to the open air, “I don’t believe that bit about the kitchen an’ the food, neither. ‘Case anyone was wonderin’.”
I glanced once over my shoulder at Narryck, just in time to see his furious expression as his prize was escorted away. “Farewell, Mr. Hermans.”
Perhaps, perhaps the little wave I treated him to was a bit…much.
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Not my favorite. Be honest, skip the nitpicks, tell me something I don't know. =D
