15th June: It's gone

"All right, then," Terry said, shrugging. It was a puzzle, where Old Tom's sticks had got to, but he rolled his eyes at the suggestion they'd been taken by a mermaid.

"C'mon then, let's go and see if we can find one of 'em to ask." He scrambled to his feet, though he hung back a little until he saw that he wasn't going to be heading towards the Marines' messes on his own.

"We're coming with you." Well some of the boys would be, him included. The rest could go and look through the other parts of the ship if they might find the boys first.

"Oi.. Shepherds?" He called even if they crossed only a short distance. Not long after the ship echoed with pitterpatter of feet, laughter and soft 'pssst' 'shhhh!'.

That was all right, then. Terry turned with a frown as one of the others sang out behind him. Really. There was no need to let everyone know that they were after someone in particular - and they were a deal too close to the wardroom for that sort of noise to be healthy, too.

"Anyone seen eiver of the Shepherd twins, please?" he asked, once he was close enough to address the nearest Marines without attracting the attention of half the officers as well.

"...Shepherd?...Oh , them?" Gunn stopped, half way towards the companionway, where he intended to go on deck. "...Seen Shepherd by, early." He paused trying to find the right words. "Maybe on deck. Which one?" The sudden rush of boys was rather startling. But he assumed that they only wanted to go skylarking and wanted to find the two boys to invite them to join them.

"Don't know where are both." He shrugged.

Terry blinked at the Marine's strange English. "Don't matter, just want one of 'em - don't matter which," he said, even though that request would sound strange to anyone. "Please?"

"Hmm..Well, you can come and see there." He indicated the messdeck with it's many sea-chests belonging to the marines. " Seen one come in. Didn't see where he go." He frowned as a few more words sneaked into his vocabulary that were in his own tongue.

Terry looked at him nervously, unsure whether he really wanted to go into the Marines' messdeck with all those Marines in there, even to try to find whichever twin it was who was in there. "You sure?" he asked uncertainly.

"Yes. We don't bite." Gunn grinned. "And you lot too skinny to eat anyway." He indicated Button and some of his fellow followers. "Come when round.. more meat on bones. Yes? " He teased then. "Come." He decided to lead the way should the boy be more at ease because of that.

Peering into the marine's mess he turned his head about and asked, quite loud enough.

"Anybody seen the twins? This here boys want them."

"What about those two?" Johnson grumbled, newly arrived on the messdeck himself. It was always something to do with those damn twins, wasn't it? There was honestly no shaping the pair of them up.

Gunn snapped to attention, straightening at best he could, without hitting his head smack on a beam.

"Corp'ral. Think the boys want ..sky...uh..lurking.." He was not quite sure if that was the right word for it. It sounded similar, almost right. ".. with them."

"That so."

Somehow, Johnson doubted that was the full truth. He shook his head. "Seems an awful lot of effort looking for those two ruffians."

The boys looked nervously at the corporal, knowing quite well what temper the man was famed for. They did not need to be marines to know that neither. "We jus'.. really need summ'one of them to play us a tune." Tupper dared, very quietly like. "Hones truth." Little boy Green said even more timid and near silent.

"We's fair like that too." Brightwell piped in, and appeared to just as quickly duck back into the little boy crowd.

Johnson grunted. "Find the shantyman, then. Them two don't need gettin' up to more mischief."

"Won't let them into mischief, sir." Sure, he did not know a corporal was to be addressed as a corporal. There were all sirs in the navy. From a little middie up to the captain. "Jus' them be boys like us..an'.." The boy who spoke up was nudged by Tupper, who decided it was much smarter to wait for the corporal to leave and find the two boys without his permission, than to argue their case.

Their broad shouldered, linguistically challenged marine seemed quite unhelpful. But then, he was probably already thinking the same as Tupper. Poking in a bee's nest could prove fatal.

No. Not a chance. Johnson shook his head again. "Sure you won't, and I'm a bloody colonel. Clear off. The lot of you. There'll be no scheming nonsense done on my messdeck!"

"Aye, aye. Sir." Tupper nudged Green in the opposite direction of the marine's messdeck, while giving a signal for the other boys to heed the older man's order.

"But, we won't know!" Green complained, and was speedily hushed by Brightwell. "Leave it, Bobby. Terry, let's go." Tupper murmured when the boy opened his mouth again to protest and then reached for Button's shoulder to pull him after them.

From his place beside the sea-chest he shared with his brother, Thomas managed not to glance up when he heard his name mentioned. Somebody was looking for him, but it wasn't any of the other Marines. He could tell that by the pitch of the voices. Ship's boys.

Ordinarily he would have gone directly to meet them, but Corporal Johnson's untimely appearance prevented that neatly. Unlike Andrew, Thomas was in no hurry to provoke the irritable corporal's temper any more than they'd already done in recent days. So he stayed firmly put with his back braced up against the sea-chest and kept his eyes on the crossbelt plate he was polishing.

Gunn spotted one of the twins that the boys had been looking for with the corner of his eye. While seeing the boys retreat he decided that he would, once the corporal was gone, inquire about the thing that Oxley had been in such haste at finding earlier that day.

But not untill the corporal was on his way. They were bad blood to have around when trouble was about. He waited quietly, trying to show nothing more but his interest in returning to the pipeclaying of his belt and the polishing of his brass.

Instead of moving on, however, Johnson crossed to his own sea-chest, from which he produced an old rag and a little tin. A moment later he'd sat down on the closed sea-chest, shucked off his jacket, and gone to work polishing the buttons, which had gone a couple of days without such attention - an unforgivable oversight.

All the heathens of that nature, could the corporal not find the worst possible time to tidy his kit and polish his buttons? Gunn would have liked it if he was assured that the twins still had their sticks and that perhaps the third of the drummers had only mislaid them or that they indeed only slipped to the bottom of his sea-chest. This of course he could not check again, and to approach the Shepherd in the mess, was proving to be harder if he wished not to appear suspicious.

Only, why would a marine ever be suspicious approaching another marine? he was not like the boys. Daft, that he was not to consider that.

He did still need a good reason to come to the lad that was hardly one of the men. Instead of approaching him directly, he chose to sit himself down beside his chest and to take from it thread and needle and the fabric that was worn and he thought he needed stitching. He busied himself with it quite nice and quiet like.

this took him a good portion of a quarter of an hour. Then he stood. With his cloth in one hand he moved towards Thomas and cleared his throat quietly when just about there."..ey, got a needle for borrow for some minute?"

What? Needle? Thomas looked up with a slight frown. "Don't think so," he said, since the twins seldom were able to keep a hold of any sewing implements for any length of time. Still, he shifted a bit to open his sea-chest and rifle around in it. If there was a needle in here, it would be wrapped up in an old piece of shirt.

Well. There was a needle in here after all. A needle and a half-used spool of thread. Thomas shook his head. Without a doubt, his brother was up to something with it.

"Ain't much, though," the drummer admitted with a shrug. He held out the needle, after replacing the spool into the sea-chest.

"That'll do." Gunn reached out to take the needle from the lad. "..some sticks not there. You see if yours in?" He mouthed much more quietly, studying the needle quite as if he was inspecting whether it would do a good job at the task it was needed for. Of course any needle that was whole was better than one that was broken or one that was not there. Or even, if he wanted to be rather more picky, better than a needle of which the point was very dulled out.

"Quiet though." He added and gave himself a nodd.

Sticks? What did Gunn care about their sticks? Thomas' frown returned but he gave a quick search of the sea-chest anyway. Strangely enough, his drum sticks were missing. It was annoying but he wasn't concerned. Like as not his brother had spirited them away for use in some daft prank of his.

"They ain't here," Thomas announced with a shrug. It was something he'd ask Andrew about when his brother turned up again.

"Hmm.." He did not look all that concerned that his sticks were missing. Were the Shepherds in on it? "...Look here." He said, dropping his voice just a little bit more. "If you or your brother guilty of steal Oxley's sticks. You return them to him now! Or tell him." The poor lad had been nervous enough the last time he looked for them.

What the hell was Gunn on about?

"Why the hell'd we want to steal Old Tom's sticks?" Thomas demanded. "We got a pair each for our own."

He definitely needed to have a word with his brother now. Being accused of stealing anything. Gunn had to be stupid to make an accusation like that. Didn't he know what happened to lads thought to be thieves?