Henri and Jules

Henri and Jules

fiction
edward w pritchard

See April blog for other stories on Henri and Jules

Today on this small mission in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars Jules was commanding a small group of soldiers and one of them was his friend Henri.

Jules was surprised and shocked by the behavior of his friend Henri in the battle with the pirates and he knew just how to respond. Treating his friend Henri who was brooding after the fight like he would treat one of his lady friends after a morning after argument he gave the big Basque soldier space and time to calm down and ordered the others soldiers to do likewise.

Jules had fought for over a year with Henri often side by side and knew him to be a devoted soldier and fearless but had never before today saw his friend act in a savage or fiendish way.

The pirates were along the coast of Southern France in 1795 and were preying on shipping and merchants both French and Italian and through bribery their hide out had been betrayed to the French army and Jules was commanding a small group of regular French soldiers sent to destroy them. Destroy them meant to kill them and there was nothing unusual about that. The French would kill the pirates or the pirates would kill the French detachment.

Jules had more than once watched a fellow soldiers steal food or supplies from Henri and Henri not get up from smoking his pipe to confront him. This was very unusual for a basque, which is what Henri was. Likewise because of his size, someone who needed to fight was always challenging Henri and Henri would routinely apologize and maybe even buy the challenger a drink.

Today however when Jules command came on the pirates by surprise there were two dozen children less than 10 years old in cages along the beach of the Mediterranean Sea and Henri snapped. His ferocity against the pirates had astonished the French veterans and especially Jules. After the pirates were destroyed and Henri had done the bulk of that; Henri spent several hours caring for the children and arranging for their safety.

Now about 6 hours after the battle with the pirates Jules approached Henri who was sitting on the beach staring back toward his home in Spain and Jules handed Henri a small plate of food and a drink. Taking a wet rag which he had wet in the sea, Jules delicately wiped some of the blood from his friend's face and then handed him the rag to complete the task.