U N F O U N D
Mexico, 1866
"We're out of water."
"We're always out of fucking water."
The capitaine grinned and dropped his pack on the ground. His friend grimaced as the dust settled, and spat.
"Napoleon not sending us back yet?"
"No." the capitaine said, ruefully. "Not yet."
"Got to make his Latin Empire first, hasn't we?"
"Yes." the capitaine agreed. He bit his lip, slightly, and stared thoughtfully towards the horizon.
His friend sat and waited a moment, before shifting in his faded blue tunic. His forage cap was coming undone at the seams, and he shifted it to cover his eyes.
"If you could have anything, right now, what would it be?"
The capitaine thought, carefully. In the distance, small pockets of gunpowder smoke billowed and were carried away in the breeze. Mexicans. Guerillos from the Juarist Army harrassing the Foreign Legionnaires every mile they marched. They couldn't be chased into the jungles or villages without the legionnaires getting divided or lost.
The capitaine knew a man who'd got separated from a patrol in a village, and been garrotted. By women. They'd had to fix their bayonets to retrieve the body, and even then they'd been mobbed with stones and angry calls.
"Capitaine."
He shook his head. "An island. A quiet island. Somewhere to start again. Away from all...this."
"Ah." his friend nodded, understanding. "You want to get away from it all, Bulgakov."
"God gave us Eden in the beginning." Capitaine Bulgakov said, firmly. "He sheltered us from the evils of the world. Adam and Eve proved unworthy, but why should we be judged by their merits? Why is every man not born on an island, to make of it what he will? To be judged as an individual, and not as his ancestors were?"
Bulgakov took the offered cigarette and smoked, quietly. He watched as a legionnaire rested his Minié rifle against a low adobe wall and dozed beside it. He considered making a reprimand but decided against it. Let them rest.
"It is interesting that you should say this."
Bulgakov did not turn his head to look at his friend.
"Why is that?"
"Because my family have recently come into some fortune."
Bulgakov snorted. "Legionnaires of the Foreign Legion do not have fortunate families."
"Maybe not with your Russian imbreeding." his friend grinned.
Bulgakov laughed. "Get on with it, Heller."
"My father bought an island...a tiny affair...just east of the Caribbean. He died last year. Left it all to me. Came through in the dispatches last week."
"Fortunate." Bulgakov shrugged. Sergeant-Major Heller grinned.
There was an explosion, and the two rose. Bulgakov shouted, his voice lost in the roar of gunfire.
Beside him Sergeant-Major Heller cocked his Minié rifle and knelt, taking aim.
"That means they dealt with our sentries. Do you know any French?"
Bulgakov shouted again and the soldiers around them formed line. He pointed, shouting.
Heller shrugged. "I ought to learn it some time."
A crack and a man spun, his head a jelly-like mess. Bulgakov drew his revolver and fired in one fluid motion. It was a Colt. Not regulation, but as neat a piece as any he would ever find in Mexico, or France for that matter.
"That island of yours, Heller..." he managed, cocking his revolver against the ball of his hand.
"Yeah?"
Bulgakov grinned. "Room for one more?"
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