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Captain Tom Neville was not a man to allow standards to slip to accommodate a little discomfort. The uniform he wore gave him respect from his men, from those he met, and he gave it respect in return. Even in the muggy, bug-infested heat of North Carolina, he kept his collar starched and buttoned and his coat brushed free of mud.
In the privacy of his tent, however, he stripped down to his trousers. Bare-chested and bare-foot, scratching at the bug bites on his neck and hands, he sat at his make-shift desk to write his reports. Although he wasn't sure why he bothered. The wallpaper changed – a rebel outpost rooted out here, a complaint about a corrupt local garrison commander there – but the only information General Monroe was interested in remained the same.
'As yet, no sign of the Mathesons.'
Some days he was tempted to just scrawl 'Nope' on a scrap and sent it back through web of couriers. He hadn't yet. Captain Baker might well be able to get away with that, but not Tom Neville. Even before the Blackout he had never been good at goofy, and he cared about his position. He had two very dear reasons for that.
So, Tom wrote his detailed reports, in his most legible handwriting, and waited in vain for orders to give up and go home. His temper grew shorter with each passing day, until Jason called him 'Sir' even when they were alone together.
The tent flap opened and Smitty ducked through, arms laden with fresh uniforms, packages and a pair of freshly cobbled boots dangling from his fingers. Only a few years older than Jason, the quiet, bony young man could turn his hand to anything, from fixing his commanding officers boots to 'sourcing' a string of new horses. He never talked about his life before enlistment – never talked much at all – but he was invaluable to Tom.
'Set them over there,' Tom said, pointing with his pain. 'I'll deal with them later.'
'All of them, sir?' Smitty asked, raising his eyebrows. 'Even Ms Julia's letter?'
The weight of command suddenly seemed a lot lighter. Smitty handed over the letter and busied himself with setting the rest of the tent to rights while Tom read his wife's latest missive. After passing through uncounted hands, bags and down the front of jackets the paper smelt of BO and dust. It didn't matter. Tom could remember the smell of his wife, a distinct scent of Julia under a layer of that Givenchy perfume she hoarded. The day he couldn't remember that, he would head back to Philadelphia orders or no.
There were two letters – one for him and one for Jason.
He smoothed his creased letter out, savouring the familiar, scratchy scribble of his wife's writing. For all her prolific letter-writing, she was too impatient to make the script anything but just about legible. Tom read it through the first time as a husband, fretting over whether she'd be foolish enough to try and visit her cousin and savouring her confession of missing him. Julia was not a woman to confess weakness easily, and it touched him she made the effort to reassure him.
'No need to make the venison, Smitty,' he said absently, reaching the bottom of the letter. 'I prefer my taste of home to be at home. Tell Jason his mother wrote?'
Smitty nodded agreeably and left the tent. He would leave a suitable length of time before passing the news on to Jason. Smitty was very good at his job. Alone, Tom settled down to read the letter under the letter. It wasn't a code precisely; he just knew his wife very well. He could hear the subtle bite in her voice as she referred to the Fabers (whom she'd always disliked) and the carefully neutral tones when she mentioned the fraught atmosphere in Philadelphia.
He thought she was exaggerating – Monroe had been more volatile since Miles left, but the sudden disappearance of one of the founding Generals had given the neighbours ideas he'd needed to squash – but Julia did have a good nose for politics. She didn't seem too worried though, just wary. If things got worse, Tom trusted her to get somewhere safe.
Knuckles rapped the tent-pole outside, making the canvas ripple.
'Come in,' Tom said.
Jason ducked in. His hair was still shave down from catching lice two towns back and he looked so painfully young it made Tom's squeeze with pre-emptive fear.
'Sir? Smitty said you had a letter from -' Jason hesitated, caught between his punctilious formality and 'mom'.
'Your mother wrote,' Tom said, holding both out. Feeling better than he had in a while, he smiled. 'She is well.'
'Good to hear, sir,' Jason said, then relaxed in the face of Tom's good humour. He smiled shyly. 'Dad.'
After a rare, convivial chat with his son – instead of a tense exchange with a talented, but impatient, recruit – Tom turned his hand to drafting a letter back to Julia. He was not as skilled with a pen as she was, but his suggestion she visit their home in Boston if the atmosphere in Philadelphia got too oppressive was benign enough.