"More mules are coming," the Rifleman said in laconic, but fluent Spanish. It had been nearly six years since the Rifleman had last used the language regularly, yet thirty-eight days on a Spanish ship had brought his fluency back. He turned again to the Lieutenant. "Why can't we walk to the house?"
"It's all of five miles, sir, uphill, and very steep." The Lieutenant pointed to the hillside above the trees where a narrow road could just be seen zig-zagging perilously up the flax-covered slope. "You really are best advised to wait for the mules, sir."
The tall Rifle officer made a grunting noise, which the young Lieutenant took for acceptance of his wise advice. Emboldened, the Lieutenant took a step closer to the Rifleman. "Sir?"
"What?"
"I just wondered." The Lieutenant, overwhelmed by the Rifleman's scowl, stepped back. "Nothing, sir. It doesn't signify."
"For God's sake, boy, speak up! I won't bite you."
"It was my father, sir. He often spoke of you and I wondered if you might recall him? He was at Salamanca, sir. Hardacre? Captain Roland Hardacre?"
"No."
"He died at San Sebastian?" Lieutenant Hardacre added pathetically, as though that last detail might revive his father's image in the Rifleman's memory.
The Rifleman made another grunting noise that might have been translated as sympathy, but was in fact the inadequate sound of a man who never knew how to react properly to such revelations. So many men had died, so many widows still wept and so many children would be forever fatherless that the Rifleman doubted there was a sufficiency of pity for all the war's doings. "I didn't know him, Lieutenant, I'm sorry."