A/N: I am so very very bad at keeping to a plan. One drabble a day? What was I thinking? Thanks again to everyone who has reviewed the last few installments, you're making this posting so exciting for me! There will be some minor time leaps as we go on, but I promise, nothing Fellowes-like.
_when a bee stings_
Their first victory comes after he has been away for almost 6 months. They liberate a small town and he does not think a Frenchman has ever been so pleased to pin an English flag to a town hall wall.
There is a party - there are many parties, but he is only convinced to attend this one - and beer and wine flow. He is transported back to the stage as his men laugh and sing and trip over their feet to impress the local girls. Girls who must think them uncultured and unrefined compared to the men they have known, but who indulge them because today they are heroes.
He does not feel like celebrating. He is happy, of course, that they have succeeded - he does enjoy a job well done after all - but the cost of the victory feels too high.
The others, Captains and Commanders alike, tell him with slaps on the back and full pint glasses slid across the table, that it could have been far worse. He does not doubt them. The lists of the dead and wounded are short today but the lists still exist and that seems to be enough to keep his spirit down.
Young Jeffries spins past, a girl in his arms. She has black hair, not auburn, is tall and lithe, has green eyes not blue and yet in that moment of seeing her, he has never missed Elsie Hughes more.
He knows without doubt that were she here, she would have him fighting a smile within minutes. Has done so before and on better days only needs to smile herself and his mood lifts.
He stays a while longer, turns down the few offers to dance that come his way. His thoughts are full of her and he drinks perhaps more than he should before returning to the little inn they have procured for the few days they will remain here.
He writes to her that night, addresses it to 'Dearest Elsie' for the first time, does not say more in the letter than he has before, signs it 'Yours, Charles' and hands it to the boy at the front desk to post.
He does not worry that he has overstepped an unwritten rule, does not think tonight, that she will mind the change.
It could be the final drink he had before he left the hall, it could be the truth.
He falls asleep with a smile on his face.