A few years after marriage, Clarissa had finally figured out what she wanted. She had a wonderful marriage with a brave soldier, and had traveled from Gibraltar to Northern England again when the regiment did work as marines on various ships in action around England. She had borne a couple of children, and found being a mother enjoyable. Being back in Northern England as a well-off woman had allowed here to mix and mingle with her own family again and this was greatly enjoyable to her.

As it happened, General Powell figured what he wanted to do with Roland as well on the army side. While the 69th regiment, currently made up of one battalion, was planning a mission to Haiti, it was clear that Roland was not going to be a good fit for this mission, given that he was obviously a French man in a country that had committed to killing any French person that had been found in the entire area. It would be hard enough to win hearts and minds on the island without having an aristocratic French officer of the kind that had owned the people of Haiti as slaves.

But if Roland was not to go into action with the rest of the regiment, what was he to do? As it happened, there was another task that needed to be done. The army had decided that they wanted the 69th to have a second battalion, and so Roland was given a task in England to help recruit for the second battalion while the first went off to Haiti.

If Roland was not a natural recruiter, he found that the work was appreciated and that he enjoyed talking to people who were interested in joining the regiment as officers. Quite a few members of the emigre community were willing and able to join in as officers, and others were able to handle the recruitment of the regular soldiers, some of whom came in from the various militias. The promise of serving in the East Indies rather than in Haiti also drew the interest of families who wanted to buy commissions for their ne’er do-well relatives, which also helped with recruitment.

Clarissa herself enjoyed having Roland around and talking about what it took to staff a regiment. Roland himself, as a result of the recruitment of the second battalion, found himself promoted to Major, and the increased responsibility and income were welcome to both. Clarissa herself found herself corresponding with other officer’s wives about various matters related to the military, and also found this social work much to her liking, as she wondered where events would bring her in the future, and how long Roland would himself continue in active service.