The purpose of drill, 1 July

Thompson had been a Corporal for a little under a month, as near as he could figure it out, but this was the first actual drill session he'd been told to take. And all things considered, he was more than a bit nervous - not of the drill, but of doing something so obviously NCO-ish when he still thought of himself as a Private before catching himself. Not only that, of course, but taking drill would put him in full view of the officers on the quarterdeck - and he was more than sure that Lieutenant Sewell was up there.

He tightened his grip on his musket, slightly annoyed about the regulation that meant the corporal in charge of a squad had to have his musket at the advance the whole time.

He had to inspect the squad first, of course. "Right. 'Ten-shun! front rank, one pace forward march!" That would give him a little room to manoeuvre, anyway. Any sailors or anybody wanting to pass either for'rard or aft could damn well use the leeward gangway for the couple of hours they were going to be up here.

He tried not to sigh audibly, and began his inspection. "A'right, Grattan, you know to make sure you've got all the brickdust off your cross-belt plate afore comin' on p'rade."

The Marines were on deck, again. Taking up space on the windward gangway at that. By the look of it, they were about to get on with their usual routine of musket drill. It was all silliness to Fingers, who watched from his perch on the larboard bowchaser. Why did the Marines need all that fancy formal drill when they always ended up shooting at the Frogs from behind the hammock nettings?

All the same, he couldn't quite stifle a laugh when one of the Marines, the one nearest him in the first rank, glanced very quickly toward him and stuck his tongue out, before facing front again equally quickly. Leave it to one of the Shepherds to find a way to cut up, especially right under his corporal's nose.

There was a stifled giggle from the direction of one of the bowchasers, and a flash of movement from that end of the front rank that caught Thompson's eye. He looked over. "Eyes front! Shepherd, if you can't keep still on parade, I will have you up on deck next watch, practisin' doin' it, got that?"

And of course it would be one of the ship's boys who'd encouraged it.He turned to address the lad in question. Fingers. Naturally. Terpsy's newest Corporal sighed. "D'you want me to ask the gunner to find you summat work to keep you from disturbin' my men?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Too bad Thompson had spotted them, or else Fingers might have pulled a face back at Shepherd. Instead, he grinned broadly despite the rebuke. "Weren't me done anythin', was it?" He answered cheerfully. "I's jus' sittin' 'ere!"

'Just sitting there...' Right. And Thompson was a mermaid! He might not be able to do anything about Fingers, but he could split him and Shepherd up. "Shepherd and Grattan, fall out and change places," he said shortly.

After all, there was no need to make it any easier for the two boys to exchange looks and faces and whatever else, was there?

Now that was just unfair! Fingers made a face and watched the changing of places without comment. It hadn't been his fault at all, for once. Adults really weren't any fun.

~

Boys, thought Ware with an internal smirk. There was no doing anything with them. He was careful to keep his eyes forward but there was a very slight smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. It hadn't taken long for Thompson to get caught out. Almost a shame that he'd dealt with the 'problem' quietly, though.

Thompson tried not to sigh. Shepherd - whichever one it was - probably wouldn't have tried it on for Corporal Johnson, but Johnson was an experienced corporal and Thompson wasn't. He'd expected it somehow, that the lads would try to see how far they could push him. They also knew not to be too obvious about it, of course.

And it was something he would have to deal with himself, naturally. They were just testing him, and if he couldn't deal with it himself, he might as well give the chevrons back now.

He had started this inspection with Grattan, and there was nothing else wrong with his turn-out. Grattan was now standing next to Vining and Thompson decided to head down the line from the other end.

And naturally Vining was the scruffiest Marine of the detachment. There were days Thompson wondered how the man hadn't ended up in some serious trouble for his turn-out before now.

Better Vining than himself, thought Ware, and he was glad for taking the extra minute or two to brush off his jacket that morning.

For his part, Vining was looking just a little pale. No doubt because of a case of nerves. First time being inspected by a new corporal and here he was, just as unkempt as ever. Stupid bugger would never learn.

"Oh, for God's sake, Vinin'," Thompson said. He knew very well how the man kept his kit, having shared a sea-chest with the man. But to pull rank just get back at him for that was... it would be beneath him. "You're a bleedin' disgrace. Do I need to put you on report or summat?"

Vining shook his head. "No, Corporal."

Thompson considered for a moment. "Right. You ain't on duty till the second dog, so you can spend the time after drill till then sortin' out your sea-chest an' kit. An' if they ain't up to scratch after that, I'll have you reportin' to the duty NCO every watch till they are, got it?"

That would last only a day. Two at the most. Then it would back to the usual sloppiness. Ware couldn't help feeling smug. He, at least, cared enough to maintain his kit properly.

From down the first rank came a very brief grunt, sounding almost like a cough. He could not see it but Ware guessed it was Shepherd. Again.

It wouldn't last, of course. It never did. And then there was a cough or something from the end of the line.

Shepherd, again? That cough sounded suspiciously like it came from where the young lad was.

"You sick'nin' for summat, Shepherd?" Thompson asked, stepping back and looking towards the youngster.

"No," came the reply. "Corporal."

Rubbish! Ware thought. The little scamp was up to something, or he was about to be. In his peripheral vision, Ware could just see Fingers, still perched on his bowchaser. It looked as though the boy was busy with an examination of the squat gun's paintwork, which made sense, since he was usually involved with maintaining the guns' blacking. Even though it made him suspicious in the same moment.

Suddenly and rather unpleasantly, Ware became conscious of a nagging itch down in his trousers. Hell. It would be a place he could not scratch without being spotted at once. Just get on with it, Corporal!

"Well, hold your noise, then," Thompson told him, moving on to the next man. Of course the lad was up to something - the Shepherds always were. The trouble would be spotting it until it was too late. Mallory's turn-out was good, as always, and he nodded, moving on.

That was better, but it still not swift enough in Ware's estimation. At this rate, he'd have to break discipline and scratch himself, and thereby get told off for it. Which was the lesser evil?

"Aye. Corporal." Trust it to a Shepherd to be just the wrong shade of subordinate, even when he was behaving. Publicly behaving, anyway.

Thompson knew that tone. Just insolent enough to be noticeable to the NCO or officer in charge and yet polite enough that the NCO couldn't pull the man up for it. And the twins had been up to something in particular, of course.

There was nothing to fault with Lakey's turn-out - Thompson would have been surprised if there was. The man had served in the Corps longer even than Sergeant Quinn. And then it was Branning.

"Who's yer tie-mate, Brannin'?" he said. "He needs to deal with them spiders-legs afore the Sergeant sees you."

Spider-legs? Branning nearly frowned. He shouldn't have any spider-legs. His hair had been retied two days ago.

"Everett," he replied and wondered how bad the spider-legs were. Bad enough, at least, to be noticeable. Damn.

"Everett, sort it out afore he's on duty again," Thompson said. "Get a new candle to do it, if you need one." Even just running an unlit candle over them should do it.

"Shepherd," he said, moving up to the drummer - whichever of the two it was. He was going to be picky here, if he could be. Just to prove he wasn't going to be a pushover.

Just jards away from the parading redcoats, or several 'voet' in Dutch, a couple of men were busy scrubbing the deck, on their knees.
One of them was the blondhaired dutch lad, to which no-one, even though the group of men had a lively conversation, spoke. And as always, he was fine with that. His English was still bad as ever, so he kept his thoughts to himself.

One of those thoughts were about the redcoated men. One of them, holding his musket in an odd, probably umcomfortable, way, walked past the line, eventually coming close to Guus himself. He stared down quickly, not wanting to caught anyone's attention. A few seconds later, he looked up carefully.
He inspected the red coats and white bandoliers of the men, the muskets, the bayonets, and just as he was wondering what the use of all this clean- and tidyness was, he suddenly felt a stroke of pain on his buttocks, and he shot forward, kicked by one of men.

"Don't stare, work, you lazy bugger!" the man said. Not that Guus understood him. He fell over the deck, letting loose of the brush, which was lauched to the general direction of the redcoats...

Standing still while the corporal got on with his inspection was no easy task. It might very well be worse for Shepherd, though Ware doubted it. He set his jaw and tried determinedly not to think about the terrible itching in his trousers.

He was on the verge of giving in when a bristle-brush came soaring lazily through the air, tumbling slowly until it bounced rather squarely off the deck and across several lads' shoes.

Immediately following it was an outburst of delighted laughter from up forrard, coming distinctly from Fingers' direction.

This was turning into a joke. Thompson knew very well that he'd laugh about it later, but right now it was no laughing matter. He closed his eye briefly and took a deep breath. "Mallory, would you pass that brush here, please?"

The man bent to pick it up and hand it over. Thompson took it and turned to the petty officer with the cleaning detail. "You'll be wantin' this," he said, slightly shortly, handing the offending item over before looking for'ard again. "Fingers, if you'm wantin' summat to do, I'll send for the gunner to give you summat, got it?"

Why was Thompson picking on him? He wasn't the one stirring things up!

"I does got sommat doin'!" Fingers replied, his eyes wide. He wouldn't still be topside with such negative attention directed his way, else.

Well, of course he did. He could stop laughing any minute now, though, as far as Thompson was concerned. The new Corporal turned back to inspecting whichever of the Shepherd twins had decided to come on parade today.

"How did you manage to get blackball on your trousers?" he asked, noticing a smear of the stuff by the lad's knee.

Springfield was only partially successful in scrubbing the smirk off his face. If this had happened aboard the flag, his corporal would have pitched a proper fit – probably at him, which even Springfield had to admit would have been a reasonable assumption. He was no end of glad to be shot of that lot. Mostly shot of them, anyway.

"Accident," Shepherd replied quickly.

A likely story. "Yours, or your brother's?" Thompson asked, unable to keep from quirking an eyebrow at the reply.