15th June: It's gone

( EDIT: Made a change, but if it's not agreed that it could be this date, I can change again. - Could be a latter June as well, but I did not want to go too far ahead. The date can be changed into another, later morning, if it would be thus desired.)

They were gone. They must've disappeared sometime during the late night, early morning but, when the next boy was to come to pick his own up and to take his station with the drum, they were no longer there. Nor was the pair, belonging to the other lad. In the end it was discovered that all but one pair remained. The pair, that the last of the Drummers on duty had.

Who had taken them? Did the boys misplace their dearest possessions? The latter was highly unlikely. The drummers such as the Shepherds and Oxley were many things, but they were not the sort of boys who would loose their sticks or drums. Of course the latter were not gone, but the sticks. Lost, disappeared as if they had never been there. There was no mess left behind. Nothing to indicate the thief! Careless? No, surely not.

But why were they gone then and where had they gone to?

Oxley was rifling through the sea-chest he shared with an older Marine in increasing desperation. If he didn't get up on deck pretty sharpish, he was going to be for it.

But he couldn't without his sticks - and they were nowhere to be found.

He pulled everything out of the sea-chest, now barely a breath away from a major panic. Nothing.

"I 'ope you's goin' to put all that there stuff back," Grattan said, looking over from his mess-table. Oxley shrugged, distracted, and began cramming it all back in, any-old-how.

There was only one thing he could do. Head up on deck and borrow Sticks' sticks off him. There was no time to look through the twins' stuff for Young Tom's.

But who would take his sticks, and leave everything else practically untouched?

"Lost something?" The boy was making a big mess out of things. He looked readily uncaring whether the things would be put back in good or bad order. He leaned back, observing Oxley with some curiosity.

"Oy.. you forgot this." He said, adding something in his own tongue and reaching beside the seachest, lifting up a single card which must have escaped the rest of the deck. It did not look like he was looking for that though. Not so close to going on duty.

"What's goin' on here?" Allen inquired as he approached. Peering around Gunn, he saw Oxley rummaging around in his sea chest, tossing things out and stuffing them back in. The lad seemed rather flustered about it too. Clearly he was looking for something.

"D'you need some help there Oxley?" he offered.

Oxley grunted as he heard a voice behind him, and emerged for just long enough to see who was talking to him. "Me sticks've disappeared. You seen 'em anwhere about?" he said, and gave up, pulling everything out in a frantic attempt to see if they'd ended up somewhere at the bottom of the sea-chest.

No luck.

"Where in the bloody hell are they?" he said, sitting back on his heels and looking around in dismay.

"Remember where you last left them?" Gunn was trying to be helpful, though he wondered why the boy would loose something as important to him and his duty. "You sure you put it there?" He indicated the sea chest struggling over the correct way of saying his words.

"No, I ain't seen any sticks about anywhere." Allen shook his head. Well, that certainly explained why the lad was looking so upset. But that did not seem like Oxley to misplace his sticks, considering how vital they were to a drummer boy. Then again, maybe he had not lost them. Maybe they had been taken.

"Don't think someone stole 'em, do you?"

"O' course I'm sure I put 'em there," Oxley said, distractedly. "I need to know where they's at, so's I can get 'em in a hurry. I need 'em to do me duty, don't I?" He frowned, considering Allen's words. "Stole... why would anyone pinch me sticks? Nobody else's got any use for 'em, after all." It was a horribly disquieting thought, that someone else might have gone into his sea-chest, apart from Mallory, who shared it with him.

"I bloody hope they ain't," he said, looking around him before beginning to collect up his kit and Mallory's, to cram back in again. He hoped he would get a chance to sort it out and put it back more tidily before Mallory found the mess. He was likely to get a clip around the ear if not.

Though he was likely to get more than a clip around the ear if he didn't get up on deck sharpish, sticks or no sticks.

"We'll ask about, buachaill?" He waved a hand at him. " You go up before you get in trouble for it. "He glanced towards Allen. "Who know they there?" He indicated the chest. "Why take them? Bob?...eh cleas.. " He hesitated. "Prank? For prank?" He looked towards Oxley, to see if he was already gone or still lingering behind, wanting to see where his sticks where.

"Stop that. I'll sort, you go up." He pointed towards the companionway and there onwards to the deck where the other drummer was waiting for Oxley to come.

"The boy might just have misplaced them. Young pups, don't know where there head's stuck to. Wouldn't be surprised if they didn't remember where they've left there things at."It was one of the other marines, come from above to fetch a thing from his sea chest.

He paused and looked towards Gunn. "Would you? Thanks. It'd be... real good of you."

He sighed and scowled at the new arrival. "I allus know where me stuff is, Grattan. I mean, me sticks is about as important to me as... as... as your musket is to you."

He couldn't hang around arguing, he was very nearly late. And Tom Shepherd wouldn't thank him for that at all.

He found his hat and crammed in on his head.

"I'll sort it out prop'ly when I get off duty, mate," he said to Gunn, before heading up the companionway to take over as duty drummer.

Thompson still wasn't used to the stripes on his arm, and the way things went a bit quiet when he came into the berthdeck. He was in time to see Oxley hurrying topside, and frowned at the open sea-chest with its contents left all over the deck.

And he'd thought Vining was bad!

"What's goin' on here, lads?" he asked, addressing the gathered Marines at large.

"Jus' a bit of a mess, corp'ral." Gunn said, as he began to gather the scattered contents under his arm. "Nothin' else." He added and dropped his gaze , casting a quick glance at the contents of the sea chest. It did not appear as though the sticks were in there. He ought to have believed the child, but he had gone and looked himself. Nothing of the sort. He stood straight, and after an unpleasant thump of his head on the beam above, and a curse in colourful Irish, he stopped to stand as quiet as a mouse, and clearly apologetic of the earlier outburst. But it was hard to get used to the fact that Thompson was a corporal now!

And the fact that Gunn was standing to attention simply because Thompson was there and now wearing a corporal's stripes made the newly-promoted NCO feel rather uncomfortable.

"Stand easy, Gunn," he said. The words sounded strange... No, it wasn't the words themselves that were strange - he'd heard them himself often enough, after all. It was the fact that he was the one saying them.

It looked as though Gunn had been about to start tidying up and a few days ago he would have offered to help. Only things had changed now, and he wasn't sure that would be entirely appropriate.

"Carry on," he said, after a slightly awkward pause, and turned to head to his own mess-table.

"yes, corp'ral." Thompson wore the stripes and that changed the way he would have been addressed and treated. There'd probably be noone to dare quarrel with him now, or go as far as to dare strike him. Gunn relaxed and observed as Thompson moved to leave. He'd done his homework and sewn on his marks of recognition. It was much easier now for the rest. There was no second guessing and wondering if the rumours were or were not correct. It was glaringly obvious, and needed but a glance at Thompson's sleeve to make a positive confirmation.

Gunn knelt beside the sea chest and , for once, began to make atleast the slightest of order with the shirt he was folding to return into its box. He tended to it on his knee however, which was a rather bad way to begin with. There. Some order. He dropped the shirt into the sea chest and turned to the next garment. He gave it a slight shake, a bit of a jerk, but nothing wooden came tumbling out of it. That bit of fabric followed the same path as the shirt.

He collected some of the remaining clutter and tried to make an orderly mess of it. Succeeding in some part of it not being so much of a mess, but nowhere near perfect. Oxley needed it in anyway, not all neat and tidy like it was ready for inspection. Right?

Thompson let out a stream of breath that wasn't quite a sigh. It was definitely going to take a while to get used to being called 'Corporal'. He glanced at Gunn, who was stuffing things back into the wooden trunk any-old-how, and nearly opened his mouth to tell him to put them away tidily.

He left the words unspoken, though. A few days ago, it would have been nothing but a friendly word. Now, though, it would be an order. And he wasn't comfortable with giving orders.

Maybe there was another way he could say it, though. It was worth a try. "Jus' a friendly word, there, Jem. Try puttin' them things back neatly - it'll save bother later on."

Gunn would have taken it as a friendly banter any other day, but with Thompson's promotion it sounded near as an order as if he had said it in the correct fashion. Well, if he had to. He did sigh even if he was taking the things out of the sea chest again obediently. He took everything out this time, however. Just to be on the safe side of not finding the sticks.

Well, they weren't there when the clutter was taken out. Nor were they there when he sorted them much more attentively as before. Now if he put the heavier things inside first, they'd not wrinkle the shirts. Right? Theory was supporting that claim. He glanced at Thompson. It was uncomfortable to be watched at work, knowing full well he was not a tidy sort of person.

He made it a redoubled effort though. The things that could neither fold, wrinkle or stain, were placed into the sea chest first. He hoped Oxley and his sea chest mate would appreciate the additional effort he was putting into it! And it was not even his own chest! But Thompson would not inspect those, surely.

Next was the shirt. This time it was stretched on one of the other sea chests. Attempt nr. 1. The shirt looked like an equally mess bundle of cloth. Attempt nr. 2 ... it appeared somewhat better all till it half slipped in his hand and all attempts to correct the finished resulted in a worse shape yet again. "..How tidy, corp'ral?" He dared ask, once finding the right English word for it.

Thompson had bent to find his sewing kit, and looked up as Gunn called across to him. "I don't mind, just so long as you don't throw things in any which way," he said. It seemed that Gunn had taken his words as an order, despite his attempt to make them just a friendly word of advice.

Ah well; maybe it was for the best.

How the devil was he supposed to stay on easy terms with these men? He couldn't be too friendly, not the way he had been, but he didn't want to be isolated, separate from them, either. There must be some sort of middle path between the two, but he was damned if he could work it out.

He wasn't going to watch Gunn work. If his words had been taken as an order, then they'd be followed that way, wouldn't they? Besides, he had better things to do that watch another Marine tidy up a sea-chest - and that Marine wouldn't appreciate the scrutiny, either.

Allen glanced at Gunn as he replaced the items back into Oxley's sea chest. He could tell by the looks on both his and Thompson's faces that this new promotion was going to take all of them a while to adjust to it. But even so, Allen was still mighty glad that Thompson had gotten a well-deserved promotion. He had been wanting to congratulate him on it, but had not seen Thompson until now. Well, this would be as good a time as any, he thought, walking over to Thompson.

"I hope you don' mind, corp'ral, but I jus' wanted t' congrat'late you on your promotion," Allen said, with a grin.

Done. Sure, they did not look perfect, they had seen better days but that was so much as Gunn would do. He'd done less for his own kit and it survived. He closed the lid on the sea-chest and dusted his hands on his sides. They weren't dirty, but it was the force of habit.

He looked up as Allen congratulated Thompson. Gunn felt daft. He ought to have done so too, and he was meaning to, he'd only got distracted by Oxley's trouble and his mess of a sea-chest and...

Bad excuses, all of them. "Wot' Allen say." He said with a nod and a smile. "Congra..Con..... Good on you. It's good."

He'd gone back to minding his own business, but looked up as Allen approached. He grinned, a little self-consciously, at the other Marine's words. "I, um, I... Thanks mate. And thanks to you an' all, Gunn."

"It's goin' to take some gettin' used to, I'll say that," he said, giving the stripes on his sleeve a shy but proud look. He looked back up, glancing between Allen and Gunn. "Hey - either of you know what Oxley was lookin' for, that he had all his things out all over the place?"

"Uh.." The best moment to pretend that his English was indeed so lousy that he did not understand the question. He gave himself the best look of befuddlement and then asked a more quiet. "What?" It was buying some time. He did not want to see Oxley in trouble. The young lad was a cheeky thing, but he was a good lad and did not deserve the scrunity or even the scolding of his superiors for mislaying or loosing his sticks.

He looked at Thompson, blinked and gave an uncommitted shrug.

"Er...I don' quite know what he was lookin' fer, corp'ral," Allen said, scratching his chin in what he hoped was a confused and not a nervous manner, "Must've been somethin' important, though."

He tried not to look at Gunn, afraid that might give them both away if he did. The Irish Marine knew bloody well what Oxley had been looking for and Allen knew the man could understand enough English to know what Thompson had been asking him. Clearly they were both on the same page in not wanting to get Oxley in trouble. Even though it was Thompson they were speaking with, he was now a corporal and would have to call the lad on it if he knew that the drummer had lost his sticks.

Thompson knew well enough what was going on. It had been foolish of him to think that the game would never be applied to him, of course, not now he'd been promoted. He had his duty to observe, and obviously the two Marines knew - or thought they knew - that Thompson's duty would lead to getting the lad into trouble. Which was something Thompson did not want to do.

He was not looking forward to the first time he would have to report a fellow Marine, and was not daft enough to think that he'd manage to get away without doing so. But if there was something he could do to help, without having to get the lad in trouble... Thompson was willing to bend the rules to some extent, for lads like Oxley, decent, hard-working fellows.

'Something important'. Oxley was a drummer. There was only one major thing of importance that a drummer would empty out a whole sea-chest for.

"Mislaid his sticks, has he?" Thompson said, deliberately not using the word 'lost' because that would mean he would have to report the lad. Mislaid, on the other hand... anyone could mislay equipment. The problem was finding it again before anyone in authority noticed.

And 'anyone in authority' now included Thompson himself. Damn. Well... If he didn't see people looking for Oxley's drumsticks, he couldn't do anything about their disappearance, could he?

He winked at Allen. "I think I need better light to do this here sewin'," he said. "I'll be up on the foc'sle if anyone needs me." He began gathering his things together.

"Uh?.. Not know ,corp'ral. " James Gunn looked away from the marine. He clearly did not trust his expression not to betray him. It was hard. While he was very glad for George's promotion, it was still rather confusing. Could he act towards him as before, or was he now as any of the corporals, sergeants or even higher.

He could not be expected to bend the rules for his mates, but at the same time did this mean he was not to be trusted at all with things such as the missing sticks. "But.. sur'ly him could not be that sort." He relaxed seeing Thompson turn, and suggest he might be going upstairs.

"Good day, corp'ral." He uttered with a relieved grin. Perhaps Thompson knew, but his lack of persistence to find out, meant he was still the good guy. Fair lad.