Snippet #1490170

"Duncan... listen carefully..."

"Isaac, for God's sa-"

"Not a word, Sargeant." The Captain snapped, the multitude of new orifices in his chest apparently doing nothing to cool his usual fiery demeanour. "Just. Bloody. Listen."

His features hardening with a reluctant nod, Duncan made a gesture at one of his Corporals and knelt beside the dying man.

"In my trunk you will find an envelope addressed to a 'Lady Bowervale', put my journal in it and mail it..." Jackson began, his speech broken by a fit of wet coughs "...Everything else in the box is yours, but you must mail that letter as soon as you reach camp, understood?"

Isaac Jackson let out a sigh of relief as his Sargeant nodded, though the pained expression on the lad's face brought him no joy. Disinherited by his parents and having severed all ties with his kin as he took on a new name and joined the Army, Isaac had no real family, having never found the time or the right woman to settle down with to have children of his own and eventually having gotten too old to feasibly seek either. It was strangely un-strange to think of the lowborne Scot who became his best man, his pupil and then his best friend as his only family when compared to the up-turned noses of his brothers and sisters and the outright scorn of his mother and father; in fact, if he and Duncan's positions were reversed and he were knelt beside the young man's dying body, he highly doubted he'd do as good a job at holding his tears in check as the Sargeant before him.

A small, weak but warm smile came to his face as he stared at the man before him. The man who had once fought a Bengal tiger armed only with a beyonet to protect a lost child, the man who had infiltrated a tribal camp to rescue the daughter of a Boer farmer, the man who had saved his life and the lives of his men more times than he cared to count.

The man who, under different circumstances, he may have called 'son.'

"...Duncan..." He spoke, his words becoming faint and a light-headed feeling beginning to take him "This... is a bloody silly place to die..."

The Captain's hand weakly grabbed and squeezed the Scotsman's own, a quiet chuckle escaping him as he saw the tears now silently streaming down the young man's face.

"...Don't."

And then he was silent.

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The memory faded as the clouds parted, the light of the moon radiating across the garden and revealing the figure of Duncan standing and staring into the starry night's sky, his jacket missing, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up and a bottle of something alcoholic in his hand. He had claimed fatigue to get out of the stuffy room with the magician and host of nobility, and could easily justify doing so, what with the long journey from Africa. However, actually going to sleep was another matter entirely for the scarred Scotsman.

Frankly, between the violent dreams that had plagued him since youth and the brutal memories of his own wars, the Captain found it difficult to get a good night's sleep without the aid of alcohol. Condemning him to nights of restless slumber at best, and outright insomnia the rest of the time.

Of course that's not to say he was an alcoholic; In fact, the beverage in his hand was hardly strong enough to truely affect anyone who had ever touched liquor. A going-away present, it was a drink made from cream, a healthy portion of sugar and the local 'marula' fruit, producing a light brown, milky concoction that had a flavour somewhere between chocolate and caramel. And ecstasy, if could be so bold as to remark.

A small smile came to the man's face as he read the words painted onto the bottle's label-

'With all of our love~ the Van Nataals'

A chuckle escaped him as he remembered the Boer couple, who'd been subtly sending him bottles of their product and not so subtly trying to convince him to marry their daughter ever since he'd saved the poor lass from a rather unfortunate incident involving a local tribe. A small part of him actually did mull the idea over in his head from time to time, but was never particularly vocal about it. He'd been a soldier too long; He didn't have it in him to be a quiet farmer in the colonies... That, and he was six years the girl's senior, and though she had grown to be beautiful young woman since (while apparently having not grown out her child-like infatuation of him), he still could only see that scared fifteen-year-old girl he'd rescued six years ago whenever he saw her, which put a particularly unsavoury feeling in his stomach whenever Mr. Van Nataal brought the subject up. Nevermind the talks about children.

Shaking his head of the uncomfortable thought, Duncan heard the sounds of footfalls behind him.

Turning, he spied the approaching forms of two women, though he could not tell their exact identities in the dark.

"G'devenin'" The scarred man greeted with a casual wave of his free hand "'Avin' trouble sleepin' too, eh?"