11 June; Watered down

The worst part of a flogging was not the actual punishment but the dealing with having a flayed back for days afterward. Every movement caused the open furrows to twist or pinch, which sent renewed flashes of pain through his back. The dressing that had been placed on his back felt heavy, so the furrows had probably been bleeding. Damn.

Chase hunched his shoulders as much as he could anyway and ignored the pain such motion caused. What he wanted most right then was a tot, but of course being on sick-list meant no grog issue. It was a hell of a thing to deny a lad, who'd just had his pride dented. If he'd been able to lay Seward out flat, this would be easier to bear. Next time he would, for sure.

Assuming of course Seward was stupid enough to be caught out alone. Ever since the sawbones had turned them both back to the messdeck, Chase had noted that Seward went nowhere without one of his mates. Who was the coward now? The foretopman nudged a finger against his tin mug, which was filled with water from the scuttlebutt, and pondered the likelihood of sneaking even half a tot from one of his own mates. Slim chance, though.

He grimaced and swallowed down some of the water. It was definitely not anywhere near as comforting as a good bit of grog.

Terry had managed to keep hold of his tot, and now he headed towards Cob Chase's messtable, hoping he would find the older sailor there. He wasn't exactly sure why the foretopman had been fighting Seward, but he had been, and that raised him a lot in Terry's estimation - though the topman was one of the best sailors Terry knew of. Well, maybe after Tide Evans.

Not that he'd really had much to do with Chase, of course.

"'Ere, mister," he said, trying not attract the attention of everyone else seated at the hanging table. He held his battered tankard to his chest, just in case someone jogged him, or tried to snatch it away.

Nat Kelly leaned over, peering at the tankard with open curiosity. "What you got there?"

"On'y me grog ration," Terry said, somewhat defensively. He wasn't sure why, but he felt sort of responsible for Chase's being flogged, and there was precious little he do about that. "'Ere, Cob?" he said, trying to get the topman's attention.

The mention of 'grog' caught Chase's notice quite fully, as he had not been listening closely to anything that was said previously. "Button," he greeted, wondering what would have brought the boy over this way.

He acknowledged Kelly with a short nod and tried not to be suspicious of the other sailor's close focus on the tankard Button was holding. If Kelly tried anything, he'd get a clout and damn the consequences.

Terry nervously shoved his way in until he was standing next to Chase. "'Ere," he said for a third time, and shoved his mug at the sailor before he could think himself out of it, or anyone else could snatch his mug away. "'S for you."

What? Chase stared at the boy for a long moment before reaching out to accept the tankard. That was certainly unexpected. Unexpected but more than welcome.

"Thanks," he said, remembering however belatedly to acknowledge the kindness. Button was a good lad, without a doubt, and Chase felt more justified than before in having dealt with Seward as he had. Even partially.

He didn't know why Chase and Seward had been fighting, exactly, but he didn't like Seward and was pretty sure that the sailor didn't like him, and Seward had been mean to him - and he was sure, now, absolutely sure that it was Seward who'd thrown Buckles over the side that night. And anyway, it had to hurt, being flogged - Terry still couldn't watch it and had to look away almost from the start. And Cob Chase was nice, which Seward definitely wasn't.

"'S all right," he said, and hesitated. "I... I'm sorry you was stopped," he said after a moment. "Wish you'd done him in proper."

"Don't we all," Nat muttered. "Mind you, it'd take more'n a beating to knock sense into that one. Rocks for brains, him."

"Rocks for brains? That sounds like Cob," Billy said, sidling up next to them. He had already finished his grog, but he realized belatedly that he ought to have saved some for Chase. "Here, you oughta ask Methody James - " He paused, eyeing young Button. "To read you from the Good Book. He read to me a couple a times when I were hove to. Done a world of good too. God bless them Methodies, eh?" (And their unwanted grog rations.)

"Weren't talkin' 'bout Chase," Nat protested, giving Billy's arm a jab with his elbow. Reading from the Good Book? He glanced doubtfully at the other sailor. What the devil would a lad want with -- Oh. Nat grinned suddenly. "What, really? For free?"

"Not for the likes of you," Billy answered, elbowing him back.

"Wassa point of that?" Terry asked. It was bad enough listening to the Captain reading it on a Sunday without having to put up with it in the week too.

"Izzit all right, Cob?" he asked, addressing that sailor a little nervously - he wasn't an officer, but he was older than Terry and might prefer the boys to call him 'Mister Chase'.

He wished he'd done for Seward properly too, but there was always next time. Chase simply shrugged and refrained from commenting on that. He wasn't sure about going crawling to anyone of Methody James' sort for free grog, either. Not if it meant enduring that fool's preaching.

"It's fine," he told Button and helped himself to a mouthful of the drink. "Thanks, mate."

"Wish I could 'elp a bit more," Terry said wistfully, though quite how he could help, he had no idea. As though someone like Cob Chase - funny, likeable, strong Cob Chase - needed his, Terry Button's, help in any way.

More? Chase wondered at that, briefly, before shrugging slightly. The lad could help most by keeping strictly to his duties and staying well away from Jonny Seward.

"Best to stay near the officers," the topman said simply. "That'd be plenny help."

Terry wasn't sure how Mister Leat would take it if he hung around the wardroom all day - he wasn't sure how he would take it, either. And Mister Bush would probably scowl at him all the time.

"I never did nuffin'," he muttered. "Well, never bleedin' meant to do nuffin'."

"S'that, then?" Chase wasn't entirely sure what the lad was talking about. He set the tankard down on the table and looked curiously at Button. Up to now he had assumed that Seward was after the boy simply for that reason; Button was a boy, and everyone knew Seward went out of his way to chase the ship's boys around.

Oh shit. Had he just said that out loud?

"I meaned... I meaned I never did nuffin' to make no-one mad at me," he said hastily. "Or anyone else," he added, a bit more quietly. Only Seward had picked on Buckles, and him, for no reason that Terry could see - and he hadn't told anyone what he'd told Mister Evans, apart from the First Luff and the Captain... and Buckles when he'd had to.

That wasn't quite enough to put Chase off, but he wasn't so stupid as to press a topic that was this sort of delicate. Especially not in his own mess. So he shrugged, gingerly, and said, "Aye, well, buggers like Seward don't hardly need reasons to be bullies."

Terry nodded; he'd had plenty of experience of bullies in his short life. Only most of the ones who'd picked on him had not only been adults, but they'd had some sort of status - from the overseer in the foundling home to the purser here on Terpsy.

He looked up at Chase, with a frown. "Why're some folks so mean, though? You ain't."

The question nearly drew a smile to his face, but he couldn't quite muster one. "S'pose it's 'cause of how some folks is brung up," he answered. "Or it's just how some folks are."

"Aye," Chicken Dyer added. "Then there's folk like Seward, who gets dropped on their heads when they's nippers, which makes 'em off-tempered and all."

Terry's gaze shifted to Chicken's round face with its habitual good-natured expression. "Is that what makes folks mean, if they's dropped on their heads?" he asked. It sounded like a perfectly reasonable explanation, even if he couldn't imagine men like Seward ever being nippers

"Aye," Dyer replied with a nod. "Addles the brains, don't it? 'Splains everythin', it does."

Chase took another drink from Button's tankard. "Then there's lads what're just born bad. Or barkin'."

"That's Kelly, then," said Dyer.

His mate was shaking his head, however. "It don't matter. Point bein', there's no good come of bein' mean if you ain't made that way. An' you knows what Seward's like, so you can keep well clear of him."

"Ain't so easy to keep clear of folks if they don't want to be kept clear of," Terry pointed out, tentatively reaching out to the bread-barge for a bit of biscuit.