“You seem perturbed,” Patrick O’Connell said to Chad that night as they ate in the mess hall. “A waste of good food, you are. Missing the French siege diet and Ottoman spice?” He held up a beer-braised sausage on a fork, and a strand of onion dripped juice on to his arm. The Irishman licked his hairy wrist.
“And you seem to have lost any refinement you may have gained in our travels.”
But Chad was relieved that Patrick’s humor had returned, especially since Paris. Patrick had always been more of a doer than a traveler or thinker, and he was happiest in his workshop.
“You’re grumpy tonight.”
Chadwick shrugged.
“There’s the difference between us, my friend. I don’t let gun problems ruin my appetite.” His eyebrow wiggle confirmed the double entendre. “Not that I have any.”
“You’re stret
