27th May; Setting sail

"You don't scrape. It'll damage the metal and then the lock'll be near useless," Quinn said, and produced a tin of brickdust. "Bit of that and a rag - like polishing brass, except you only do it where it's needed."

He wasn't going to leave the boys to do it unsupervised, besides which it was rather relaxing cleaning muskets. And wasn't something he did every day any more, anyway.

He dipped a bit of rag into the brickdust and started rubbing at the lock he was holding, to demonstrate.

No scraping. Even he knew that. Thomas shook his head and leaned forward to grab a couple rags from the box. They'd each need one of these to use with the brick-dust.

"What if it don't have any rust or anythin' on it?"

"Let me see," Quinn said, holding his hand out for the lock in question. "There's plenty that have. This one, to start with." He indicated the lock he was holding.

Ah. Thomas craned his neck a bit to see properly. "They all like that?"

Quinn shook his head. "Not all. The trouble is, you don't know which ones are like it without looking at all of them. The ones we are looking at are spare muskets that anybody may use, and they often don't get cleaned properly when they're finished with."

"So they could all be bad?" Andrew had finally gotten the lock off his musket and was peering intently at it.

"They could be," Quinn agreed. "There's no way of knowing without checking them all over."

He kept to himself the thought that he was not going to have the lads here checking over every single spare musket. He doubted they deserved that sort of punishment; the only thing that he could think of that they might be punished for was their prank of the other day - and they'd already been punished for that. Two muskets, maybe three, each, and then he would send them on their way. And he would have to find Corporal Johnson and tell him to ease up on them a bit.

That was a good point. Andrew turned the lock over in his hands, checking it thoroughly. He looked up when Quinn finished speaking and tried not to look eager. "Do all of 'em need lookin' over?"

"Yes, though we won't get through them all today."

The boy couldn't quite hide an eager look, and Quinn smiled at him. "You'd get pretty bored of these before you'd done half of them. If you like doing it so much, you don't have to wait for Corporal Johnson to tell you to come down here in future."

Though if the two lads did volunteer, it would probably put Johnson into a bad mood for the rest of the day, once he'd realised he could no longer use this as a punishment for the two lads.

Really? Andrew glanced at his brother, only to shrug when he saw that Thomas was absorbed with a study of the finer working parts of the lock in his hands.

"That for sure, Sarn't?" If nothing else, it would be something different to do. At least for a while.

"One volunteer is worth three pressed men," Quinn replied. "The company wouldn't go amiss, either." And if they were gainfully occupied here, they wouldn't be off plotting mischief elsewhere, which would be an added bonus.

Andrew grinned. That was good enough for him. It wouldn't be too many more years before he could be a proper Marine anyway. Might as well learn what he could now.

"What's what in this, Sarn't?" Thomas asked.

"Right, this here's the mainspring," Quinn said, indicating the big piece of hair-pin-shaped metal. "And this is what fires it - the trigger presses here when pulled and releases the sear to allow the flint to fall."

They were good lads, if a little too inclined to playing pranks. Still, there wasn't an ounce of malice in either of them, which was all to the good.

It was actually pretty simple, once it was explained. He'd always thought there was something complicated about it.

"Does it break often?"

Quinn shook his head. "They're pretty simple to look after, lad. Well cared for, they can last years. When I was a lad, I knew a sergeant who still used a firelock from General Wolfe's day. Usually one of the first things to go wrong with a firelock will be that the mainspring will crack, just here." He tapped the tight curve of the strong spring. "And when that happens, the flint doesn't have enough force to create a spark. It might not even have enough force to open the frizzen. The only thing to do then is to get a new spring made. That's why we store them with the frizzen open and the flint lowered, as though it's just been fired."

General Wolfe. That had been a hundred years ago. If not more. The twins gaped at Sergeant Quinn. He couldn't be that old. Could he?

(OOC: Ouch. I had no idea my muse had been quite as bad as this, letting threads go for nearly three months without an answer.)

Quinn noticed the twins' astounded expressions and chuckled. "The Battle of Quebec was fought in 1759, and I don't think my old sergeant was actually there. Or if he was, he was about your age at the time. I never did understand why he wanted to use a Long Land pattern - they were about a foot and a half, maybe two feet, longer than these here Sea Service muskets we've got."

Both twins were shaking their heads. Sergeant Quinn's story defied belief.

"That'd be too long for workin' 'board ship, ain't it?" Thomas asked. It had to be. Over a foot longer than a Sea Service musket. He couldn't imagine how such a long weapon could be any use at sea.

"Aye, it is, properly," Quinn said. "Gives extra reach in a fight though - more like a boardin' pike. But the reason we've got the Sea Service pattern is because they're shorter, easier to use 'tween decks. Easier and quicker to load as well." He looked between them. "Have you ever fired a musket?" he asked, a ghost of an idea forming.

Both were again shaking their heads.

"Not ever been 'llowed near muskets, Sarn't," Andrew replied.

" 'Fore now, anyways," Thomas added.

Well, that made sense, of course. Quinn looked between them. "How old are you now? Fourteen? Fifteen? It's about time you learned to fire."

He would have to have to have a word with Lieutenant Cartwright to see if he could give the twins - and Oxley - some instruction and firing experience. They might not want to give up the drumming, and they didn't have to, even when they turned eighteen, but if they could use a musket, that would give them three more potential muskets when they went into action, and that could only be good.