Marines Aloft, 21st July

"I got no idea. We're cruisin' these waters an' we know there's bin a French ship around here - prob'ly still is a French ship around here, though. We need to get close enough to see flags an' then Captain Bolitho can make our number an' we'll see."

MacTavish was one of the talkative members of the detachment, but up here it would serve to distract the younger lads from their nerves and the height. Thompson had no mind to shut him up until it became necessary.

Terrelly was hugging the mast again, fingers white and breathing laboured, but otherwise seemed in a pretty good shape. At least he seemed to be in no danger of suddenly panicking and jumping to an untimely death.

MacTavish grinned. "'T would be nice, having a large fat price! Sad for that French lad, I suppose, but at least he would get company!"

Speaking of 'that French lad', young Aurelien Vachot had appeared on deck from below to catch some fresh air and both check the horizon and watch the crew in action. They had given him pretty much the run of the ship except of course for the magazine and weapons locker. He was but one man among a few hundred, it wasn't like he could do much harm. Besides, Aurelien had given his parole and he was a young man of honor. He owed his life to the English rescuing him from a stormy sea, he would not have last much longer when they spotted him.

He was back in his French aspirant uniform, such as it was, since it was dried out by then from his watery adventure of a few days earlier. By now, he was recognized by all of the crew and at least accepted by the majority, though there would no doubt always be some who hated the French and thus him. He understood, it was war. Well, it did seem that the natural state of things between the English and French was a perpetual state of war from what he understood about the history between the two powers. Though being a patriot, he personally held nothing against the English. Besides had either the Spanish or Portuguese found him, well, again he'd be dead then.

The young man paused and looked upward into the rigging. Some of the marines were climbing, probably a drill of some kind for afterall it was not the place of marines to work the sails. It brought back memories of his first few times up there, a bit intimidating at the outset though he got used to it. An aspirant afterall was supposed to be able to do a little of almost everything on board a ship. It prepared them to be an officer. Of course, given his situation, he had to wonder if he ever would attain that goal now, being held as prisoner of the Royal Navy, France's sworn enemies.

"Terelly, the mast don't need your help to stay up - an' if it did, we'd all be in trouble," Thompson said, noticing the younger Marine's grim-looking position clasping the sturdy pine of the mast. "Nothin's goin' to happen to you if you leave go of it, you know," he added, swaying easily with the motion of the ship, which was more exaggerated up here, of course, but was still nothing to be concerned about.

He had absolutely no idea that his recent promotion and current initiative were under discussion on the quarterdeck as he made sure his men were out of the way of the hurrying seamen.

"We'll 'ave ter go down." Whyte answered absentmindedly. He was not looking forward to the prospect of having to look down as not to scramble blindly for the next bit of rope. He shifted closer to the mast as well, though he was actually trying to find a safe spot to continue sitting down. More floor he covered, lesser the chance he'd tip over or fall.

"Quite right, that man," Thompson said. "Goin' down's easy - I bin doin' it all day an' I'm perfectly all right." He turned to give the lad an encouraging smile, and saw him sitting down. "Come on, stand up - you'll make us look bad to the sailors," he added, and pointed out to the horizon. "Keep your eyes on the horizon, you'll be fine. Jus' like gettin' your sea-legs for the first time."

Whyte gulped, but slowly got up only to shift to the mast as closely as Terelly. He looked pale and gave the other boy a half hearted, forced really, smile. "...Keepin' it up together." He meant the mast. He was standing. There! He was also terrified and thought that the seaman were all total idiots for ever deciding to climb this high and that they survived only by pure luck and not because they actually were skilled.

"We ain't comin' down .. if there's fightin?" He asked and was quite undecided whether coming down was better than staying up while the battle raged.

"Well, you can stay up here and fight up here if you want," Thompson said. They would have to go back down eventually, of course, but they knew what they were doing with the muskets, at least. "You just need to be careful not to put any holes in our sails."

He had been planning to show them all that sort of thing this afternoon until the interruption of seeing the enemy ship - if she were, indeed, an enemy ship.

Terelly didn't let go of the mast at first - he just made sure his hands weren't so plainly visible to the corporal. Fighting up here? Was Whyte mad? He could see that when all was nice and pleasant and the sea calm, one could get up here and perhaps even enjoy it. But when there were bullets and fighting? He would fall over the side, or through that large hole in the floor, or get shot in the back getting up or down!

After some deliberation, he very cautiously robbed forward, hands and knees on the floor, and nearly his belly as well, and peered down towards the deck. But after one good look, he immediately scuttled backwards, back to his safe mast. It was much much too far to jump down, and the shroudlines looked tiny from this perspective, and there was just no way he was going down there!

"Ain't no need to go doin' that, Terelly," Thompson said, noticing. "Come on, stand up. The top's as sturdy as the deck plankin' an' nobody ain't fallen through that yet!" He grinned. "I bin a sharpshooter since I was a lad of Whyte's age, an' had me station in the top more often than not. Ain't nothin' happened to me."

Whatever the corporal said, there was no way the planking up here was as sturdy as the deck! But the bit around the mast was starting to feel familiar, and so when he reached it, Terelly voluntarily stood up again.

MacTavish, still entirely careless of the height and any other obstacles, looked up keenly from checking the flint of his musket.

"How did ye become one, Corp? Is there something where a body can volunteer?"

"To be a sharpshooter, MacTavish?" Thompson said, checking whether he'd understood the question properly. "You show you're a good shot with that there musket, that's what. Then you have a word with your section corporal and he has a word with the Sergeant and if the officer's agreeable to it, your station at Quarters gets changed from whatever it is now to up aloft."

MacTavish was maybe not the best shot of the complement, but he was no mean one, and false (or indeed any kind of) modesty was not his biggest sin either. So he saluted smartly and asked in the crispest tone he could manage (and very much struggling to keep a broad grin away from what he thought was a 'proper' face for this):

"Permission to blow the heads off several Frogs, Sir, to proof that I can do it?"

"I'm a Corporal, not an officer, MacTavish," Thompson said chidingly. "You take your usual station this time, an' I'll see what Sar'nt Quinn an' Mister Sewell have to say about you shiftin' your station later on. We don't want to muck up the First Luff's quarter bill without warnin' him, do we?"

A seaman wearing a grey and blue striped shirt peered down at the Marines from his perch on the shrouds above. "Augh-augh," he said, "what's a' this'n, thou's a' inna whum, seems!"

"What in...?" Thompson peered up at the Tar silhouetted against the sky a little above them. "I ain't an officer any more'n Rutland or Boyles is," he said. Both the two named were petty officers, men who could be disrated by the Captain if they somehwo displeased him.

Thompson's rank, new though it was, could only be taken from him by order of a full court-martial. If his Division agreed it would stand once they learned about it, that was.

"Na, what's a' this'n", MacTavish parroted back to the sailor, rather uhappy that his successful negotiations were cut short. "Dinnae yer Ma tell ye to keep yer mouth shut 'til yer eyes could catch up? It's a pri-vate conversation!"

MacShemine lifted an eyebrow. "Tit," he said, shaking his head. "Private nothin-lek. Ye bohs is nubbot a pair've hurns, way yer ding-dongin'. Nip off back t'deck, whyn't thee, so the leks o' us can ready the top?"

Whatever that meant, Thompson didn't think it sounded complimentary. "Cheese it," he said, and turned to the Marines in the top. "Right, lads, Terelly's goin' down the lee shrouds an' Whyte's goin' down the weather shrouds, with the same folks as brought 'em up, got it?"

"Take yer ding-donging yerself, ye ...", MacTavish growled, glaring at the sailor, looking very ready to go off at the slightest provocation despite Thompson's orders.

Terrelly, sensing that the air up here might soon be more explosive then enemy snipers alone could make it, and greatly preferring to get down in his own time and not having to hurry, took a few very deep breaths to calm himself and cautiously approached the hole on his knees again.

"MacTavish! I ain't tellin' you again," Thompson said, and sighed, crossing to the lubber's hole. He far preferred using the futtock shrouds than doing things this way, but here and now was not the time to show the youngsters that way of climbing the rigging.

"Let me go first, Terelly," he said. "An' then you follow me, all right?" That would put him slightly lower than the inexperienced Marine, and able to guide his feet if necessary, as well as to reassure him.

MacTavish waited until the corporal's back was turned before glaring up to the sailors a last time. then he pointedly turned his back and held out a hand to Whyte.

"Come on, man. Soon ye'll be down on the nice cozy deck again."

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Terrelly nodded jerkily. He was pretty pale and still nearly broke his nails off by gripping the edge of the hole so firmly, but he seemed to have accepted that he would be going down now.

"All ... all right."

"It's easy. You just do exactly what you did comin' up, got it?" Thompson said encouragingly. "Let me get down a bit first and then you follow me. Gives us a bit of room to work with."

He wriggled down the hole onto the shrouds before calling up, "Come on, then!"

Terrelly groped around until MacTavish held out a hand. Then the younger marine grabbed it firmly, turned and very cautiously scuddled sideways until he could stick one foot through the hole. He didn't immediately find a foothold in the shrouds and had to fish for it, but the other marine provided a reassuring counterweight. When he finally had found one and had followed up with his other foot, he had to take a few deep breaths before he found the nerve to let go of the hand and entrust his full weight to the ropes.

"What now, Corporal?", he asked, his voice shaking minutely, mostly to hear the reassuring presence of somebody below him.

"Same's we did to come up here," Thompson said calmly. "One hand or foot at a time an' feel for the ratlines with your foot. Once you found it, that's when you shift your weight to it - an' I'll help if you look like you can't find it."

He didn't tell the other man not to look down; it was one of the most counter-productive pieces of advice Thompson knew. Almost immediately someone was told not to look down, it would be the first thing they did.

"Jus' keep your eyes on the shrouds, or look up," he said instead. "An' try not to kick me in the face," he added, grinning, so the younger Marine could hear the humour in his voice.