Picking your way through a military camp was hazardous at the best of times. Cooking, and the blacksmith's forge nearly setting tents afire every thiry seconds, and people leading horses through to be reshod or fitted with new tack, and everyone wandering everywhere like they'd spent the whole day just in planning how best to get in each other's way. And those bleeding guy ropes that were strung up everywhere like Mother Moran's sodding washing, just waiting to be tripped over...
Actually, come to think of it, there was more than enough washing in the way!
Murray Carwardine was twenty-something years old and was build along more or less the same lines as a bull. He also had boots that were too big, a cap that was too small, a tunic that was a hair's breadth away from being too faded a shade of black to fit regulations (it had been repaired with scrupulous neatness, and the fixings all shone, but even so) and a flintlock musket that couldn't possibly belong to him slung over his shoulder.
He pulled aside the flap of a tent. Saluted. Tugged his cap off. The hair underneath was short cropped and bristling, and a bright, alarming shade of red.
"Fixed it, sir."
