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No need to fire? What sort of brainless twit was this?

"There's always need to fire on the enemy," Jack stated firmly.

"What enemy?" Perry asked in disbelief. "You deserters or somethin'? There ain't no enemies here."

Vickery pinched the bridge of his nose. "We are not the enemy and have not been for some time," he said. "However, perhaps it is best if you leave, peaceably."

The single musket shot had distracted Tom Mayden from his book, though it had been a trial making sense of the complicated prose. He hurried to the galley and discovered one of his worst nightmares come to life.

"Rebels!" He burst out upon seen their worn long-tailed coats with the distinctive red facings. His hand went immediately for his sheathed bayonet. "Best to kill 'em, sir."

Perry looked at Vickery in disbelief. He was going to let them go? "But sir...!"

Mayden's shout confused him. "Rebels?" He stared at the strangers and then at the others. "What rebels? What's goin' on?"

Vickery stood up. "No! No killing. Not in here. This is neutral ground and you will respect that, do you understand?" He did not shout, but there was no mistaking the cold anger in his voice.

"They ain't worth protectin'," Mayden snarled, his hand still curled around the socket of his bayonet. "Lemme take 'em outside, sir. They'll get dealt with properly, you can bet on it."

The shorter rebel was staring at him, looking strange in his frozen position with one hand half-curled around his musket pan. "You're from Boston."

Mayden scowled. "Course I am. Don't matter to you, anyways, you treacherous son of a - "

"Gimme my musket," the shorter rebel snapped. "And I'll show you what matters!"

"Private!" Vickery didn't know who he was, and nor did he care right now. "If you two are going to kill each other, you may do it outside, instead of brawling in here like a bunch of heathens!"

"Boston?" Perry was thoroughly confused. "What're you doin' here then?" But now that he looked at Mayden's old fashioned red coat, and the two strangers' blue ones, it began to dawn on him. "Are you...? Y'all are Yankees? From the war?"

Outside. Mayden was only too happy to take this business outside. "Be glad to," he growled.

"You're sayin' like you're confused," the bigger rebel remarked, his grip tightening on the musket barrel as if he was ready to jerk the weapon away. "We two're Yankees, and all you lot are damned English."

"I ain't English," Perry protested, still stubbornly holding onto the musket. "I'm from Virginia. But that ain't no reason to go killin' folk, is it?"

"You're one of them," Strout scoffed, wishing he had been afforded a few extra seconds to ram ball and wadding down his musket barrel.

"No I ain't! I may be servin' in their - hey, what's it to you anyhow?" Perry demanded. "We ain't at war with them. Yet. We fight against the French!"

It was Mayden's turn to scoff. "The Frogs are helpin' that spineless pack of turncoats, don't you know?"

"Right. You, over there. You, over there. And shut up! I have had quite enough of this nonsense. You." He pointed at a random man, making sure he picked one of the Englishmen - or at least, someone on their side. "Find a surgeon. Now!"

Over there. Mayden kept one hand on his bayonet even as he reluctantly retreated to the far corner of the galley. This was stupid. Why couldn't he kill those two damned rebels and have done with it? It was that much worse to learn the two were Bostonians. Just looking at them made Mayden's stomach turn.

For their part, Strout and Leech were only too happy to draw away from the tens little group. Strout stepped carefully away from the sharp-edged sabre that one British officer still held to his neck, while Leech reclaimed his musket with a quick, powerful tug. The two of them moved to the opposite corner of the galley, where Strout hurriedly finished reloading his firelock.

"Gimme that!" Perry demanded, grabbing once again at Leech's musket. "Sir, he's reloading, sir!" he told the greenjacket officer. "Shouldn't we oughta lock 'em in the cellar or somethin'?"

The door leading outside came open abruptly and a big, bearded, soaked-wet redcoat entered, an axe in one hand. He glanced around briefly at the scene he had stumbled into before fixing his stony gaze on the greenjacket officer.

"Got some wood for the fire," Starling reported, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder. "Need a lad to carry it in."

"There's no need for that," Vickery said, looking at the Tar. "They just volunteered to help bring in some firewood." He looked at them and added warningly, "Didn't you?"

"But their muskets, sir!" Perry protested.

Good. Two volunteers. Starling nodded once. "Obliged, sir. Move, you two."

The two strangely-dressed men glowered at the greenjacket but started to sling their muskets across their backs.

Perry cast another glance at the wounded lieutenant, but he would be in capable hands with the surgeon. And so the seaman followed the dark bearded fellow and his two volunteers outside. "I'll help you keep an eye on 'em," he said, watching them warily. "So y'all are really from the continental army?"

What the hell sort of question was that? Strout scowled and hitched his musket a little higher on his shoulder.

"Course we are," he answered stiffly. "Massachusetts Line's ours."

Perry could not stop staring at the strange men from the past. "Do you know that... that we're in England of a long time future right now? Twenty hunnerd and somethin'. And that the war's over and you won?"

Both men stared at the sailor.

"Rubbish," Strout said after a long pause.