27th May; Setting sail

Quinn had barely opened the arms locker to begin his regular inspection of the muskets and equipment stored there when he noticed the small party heading towards him. He closed the door again, though without locking it. "Corporal?" he asked, curious as to why Johnson was bringing the twins to see him.

Oxley watched the Corporal and two drummers head for'rard and shook himself as he realised that with the two of them doing whatever it was the Corporal was going to set them, and him down here, there was no drummer on duty. Damn it.

He hastily checked to see he had a pair of drumsticks, snatched up his drum and headed on deck, muttering curses under his breath as he went.

"Two volunteers for cleanin' firelocks, Sarn't," Johnson reported.

Quinn wondered under what circumstances, precisely, the two had 'volunteered' for this duty. "Thank you, Corporal," he said and turned his attention to the two miscreants. "I was wonderin' when I'd see you two down here. You've neither of you done this before, have you?"

The twins shook their heads. "No Sarn't," Thomas replied, resenting Johnson for giving them another round of punishment for their prank. Hadn't they already done enough in penance?

"So what are you down here for, then?" Quinn asked, opening the arms locker door again. The last prank they'd pulled, to his knowledge, was having one of the ship's boys stand in for them for a watch, but he was pretty sure they'd already been punished for that.

Thomas shrugged. "Dunno, Sarn't." Not that it really mattered. Neither of them were about to speak out against Johnson's judgment.

Well, that wasn't likely to be the case, Quinn knew. There wasn't, however, anything he could say about it.

"All right, lads, get your jackets off. We've got some musket locks as need cleaning. Do you know what to do, or would you like me to show you?"

It wasn't an onerous task, by any stretch of the imagination, and they could sit down while they did it - they looked mostly done in already, after all - they'd both been on double watches after the prank of the other day.

The twins obediently stripped out of their jackets and laid them aside, careful to do so in such a way they'd know which was which. Johnson had long since disappeared, apparently satisfied that they'd be put to work.

"We sorta know, Sarn't," Andrew ventured.

"Sort of." Sort of was not good enough, in Quinn's opinion, and he passed them each a musket before bringing out a wooden box with various bits of cleaning kit in it, and brought out a third musket for himself.

"First thing is to get comfortable," he said. "Best done sittin' down, this."

Comfortable. Right. The twins dropped to the deck, only too glad to sit down. Each of them reached up to take a musket. They had seen this done before, but had never done it themselves.

Quinn laid his own musket down and brought the box out. "Right, then. Firstly, you want a bit of cloth to put all the bits on - one each, so's you don't get things mixed up," Quinn said, opening the box to pass them each a piece of cloth.

The twins exchanged glances. Ordinarily, they would both be considering how to stir up mischief by swapping musket parts, but this was a little more serious than usual. Their pranks often made the targetted people mad, but they never did anything to cause actual harm.

"Are there a lotta parts, Sarn't?" Andrew asked.

"Not really, but they won't generally switch between muskets because of the way they're made. I'm not going to strip the locks right down as it takes some effort to put them back together because of the springs."

He passed them each a screwdriver. "Right, if you turn the muskets over so the lock's face down, you'll see the screws holding it on. Just remember that they're very slightly different lengths."

Musket lock face down. Right. Thomas held the screwdriver loosely in one hand and turned his musket over. He'd never really considered there was more to a musket than what he saw when it was all put together.

So the screws came out... what about the rest of it? "Will it just fall apart once these're out?"

"Shouldn't do - you generally have to ease it off, but the lock comes out as one piece." Quinn reached for another screwdriver and unscrewed the lock of the musket he had taken out, in demonstration.

That made sense, Andrew thought. It wasn't very helpful to have the lock simply crumble to pieces every time it was taken off. Or something like that. He fumbled with the screwdriver for a minute until his brother made a noise of exasperation and said "No, idiot. The other way!"

Quinn managed to hide a smile. "Right, once you've got the lock off, that's what we're interested in. We want to check it's not rusty, see, and if it is, to get it cleaned off."

Thomas already had his musket lock off. Scowling, Andrew struggling to get the screws loosened and removed from his own firelock. Why did his brother have be such a show-boat?

"Looks arrigh'," Thomas mused, turned the detached lock over carefully in his hands.

"You all right there, lad?" Quinn said, noticing the other twin's struggle with it. "Sometimes they can be a bit stiff, or screwed on a bit tight."

"Nah, Sarn't," Thomas told the older Marine. "He's just stoopid."

Andrew scowled.

"No more than yourself, I'm sure," Quinn responded, reaching over to help give the screwdriver the first twist needed to loosen the recalcitrant screw. "There."

The sergeant's coolly-offered quip helped turn Andrew's scowl to a smirk. "Thanks, Sarn't," he said gratefully, glad the troublesome screw had been forced loose.

Quinn laid the musket stock aside to show the boys the inside of the lock. "Taking it off the musket means that if there's any problems with it, it'll be easier to clean."

These particular muskets hadn't been fired in a while, being spare, and there wouldn't be any powder residue to clean off, though there might some rust spots that would need attention.

Both boys leaned forward a little to see what Quinn meant.

"So if it's got rust anywheres, or somethin', it can be scraped off?"