Setting Sail - Berry

Edrington knew that he had said the wrong thing, the moment he had finished speaking to the midshipman. It would not be possible to explain that he had been motivated simply by compassion for Lord Paget, unable to decide how to divest himself of hat and sword. His original mischievous plan had turned against him. The matter must be resolved now, before it festered into resentment on both sides.

"Captain, I did not mean to usurp your authority here on your own deck. I hope you will accept my apology. I spoke without thinking in my enthusiasm." He glanced at Lord Paget, and added: "Perhaps it would be better if we abandoned this idea, after all."

Dwerry turned from Leat with a frown. Inwardly, he was actually pleased at Edrington's humility, but really... well, he'd much prefer them making awkward fools of themselves in the maintop then on his quarterdeck. For now.

Stiffly, he said, "Apology accepted. But by all means, my Lord, do continue."

He managed to twist the respectful form of address into something sardonic and ironic, however. So the sheer politeness of it was lost a little.

"Thank you, Captain."

He considered offering his hand, but was still trying to hold coat, sword and hat, and compromised with nodding. But if they were to climb the mast, he had to dispose of his burdens somewhere, and looked round for a suitable place. Withdrawing to his cabin would be a humiliation too far.

Dwerry thinned his lips, but nodded back. He turned abruptly into the wind, gauging just how fast they were going. This trip couldn't be over soon enough.

At that moment, Mr. Fletcher returned to the Army officers with Paget's man.

As the orderly took the officer's things from Edrington and Mr. Fletcher led the gentlemen away to begin their ascent, Leat quietly stepped up beside his captain.

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said softly. "I merely made thesuggestion as a joke - I did not seriously believe they would contemplate going up to the maintop."

Dwerry gave up on fighting back a smile - he turned inward to face Leat and grinned at him.

"Beg my pardon?" He murmured, still smirking broadly. "Hardly, Mr. Leat. This is the best thing that's happened this entire blasted trip."

He paused, eyeing the crew lounging - or actually working - in the rigging, and continued in undertone.

"Besides, its fair enough weather with no sign of change - once they're up there I doubt they'll be much in the way." The smirk had faded away simply to a pleased smile by now.

Leat did not look convince, though, and he gazed after the army officers, a frown creasing his young brow.

"But if they should come to any harm, sir..."

Dwerry snorted.

"Harm? Bah, shaking them up a bit couldn't hurt..." But his words were merely a light-hearted disguise for a sudden shoot of worry. He swallowed, watching them a moment, then shook his head.

"They'll not come to harm, not in the middle of the day." He clasped Leat's shoulder reassuringly, but then beckoned the bo'sun over and instructed him - quietly - to keep a close eye on their guests as they climbed in the rigging. The bo'sun nodded soberly and left, Dwerry straightening up and grimacing at Leat as he did so.

"More trouble than they're worth," he muttered.

Leat nodded in agreement, watching the soldiers begin the hesitant ascent.

"The sooner we land them in Lisbon the better. Soldiers aren't meant to go to sea, sir; it's not what you might call the 'natural order' of things. It only upsets them. And us."

Dwerry smiled reufully; he could only agree.

"Aye, that's true enough. I'd hoped with a sloop we'd be out of transporting the likes of them." He shook his head wearily, as he inspected the state of the Berry with a lazy, familiar eye. It was good to be above-decks again.

Soldiers should not have to travel on ships, Edrington thought angrily. He was rarely able to complete a voyage without losing his temper at least once, and although sometimes a tactical withdrawal was called for, it left a sour taste in his mouth and a desire to snarl at someone. That infernal Captain had been laughing at him!

The idea of climbing to the maintop had seemed eminently reasonable when it had first been suggested, even if he had only endorsed it to irritate Paget. But - perhaps a sense of proportion was called for. Forty foot up looked a lot less daunting than forty foot down and what had seemed to be a virtually steady platform at deck level was swaying as alarmingly as if in a violent storm. And ten years - or however long it had been - was time enough for what minimal competence he had had to fade. He managed to wipe the sweat from his brow on his shirtsleeve, and paid attention to young Fletcher's advice, given at this point to Paget, who was doing very well. He watched the midshipman make some move he could not quite analyse and pull himself over the edge of the platform, where he was helping Paget complete the climb through the hole in the top - the lubber's hole. Fortunately Fletcher had interpreted the lieutenant's order to use the futtock shrouds to apply only to himself, and was not imposing that way of ascent on his charges.

Edrington clung to the vertical ropes as the ship swung out again, and waited until the return swing to climb up further. Now, although the swoop was even more pronounced, he was confident enough to pause and look out, through the no doubt perfectly ordered array of ropes, and to admire the view. Fresh air blew away more than smells and cobwebs. He laughed quietly to himself, at himself, and reached up through the lubber's hole.

Down below Leat breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the army officers pass through the lubber's hole. He flushed slightly at the querying look directed at him by Dwerry.

"I earlier... suggested that Mr. Fletcher might take the guest up via the futtock shrouds. I am glad he did not take my advice."

Edrington offered to take his busby and place it with his own items, but Paget felt uncomfortable at accepting the service - not because he did not trust Edrington, but because he felt that doing so in this instance would be treating the lieutenant-colonel in a very cavalier fashion. He nodded his thanks, however, and fortunately Edrington's next suggestion, given in the form of an order to the midshipman, was more agreeable to them both. Though, evidently, not so to the captain.

Dwerry did not seem overly pleased at either of them, but Paget could not understand why he should be upset. It was a perfectly harmless idea, after all. Yet Edrington helped explain it somewhat with his apology. Of course - it was the peremptory command given to Fletcher, in a place where he had no business doing so. Dwerry was quite touchy, though, to be put out of sorts by it. After all, by his title in the peerage and his military rank, Edrington certainly had the right to expect obedience from a midshipman. It was not as if he was seeding mutiny by doing it.

Paget was unwilling to give up the plan because of Dwerry's ill humour. But he remained silent after Edrington had spoken, allowing the earl to speak for both of them whether he agreed perfectly or not. He nearly broke his silence when Dwerry replied to Edrington's gracious apology with nearly outright insolence in his tone, but it was Edrington's business to decide how he should be addressed. It was also Dwerry's ship, and he had the ultimate authority while they were at sea. As they prepared for the ascent by handing over their items to Paget's servant, Paget gave the captain a look of cool disdain, however, which he failed to notice as his first lieutenant was now distracting him.

He applied himself to the ropes, following Mr Fletcher's helpful suggestions as to where he ought to place his feet. Paget quickly found that divesting himself of at least his pelisse had been an excellent idea. If he had been wearing it up here, it would have acted very much like a sail to catch the wind, and presented a significant danger to his ability to remain attached to the ropes. The rolling motion of the ship was vastly increased the higher you went, which made perfect sense mathematically, but also a rather difficult climb. Fortunately the motion and the height neither frightened Paget nor upset his stomach, but it made a very difficult ascent, which required considerable care and deliberation about each step. Fletcher's advice was invaluable, but Paget's process was not very rapid.

He felt a sense of considerable accomplishment as he climbed through the lubber's hole according to Fletcher's direction, and took the midshipman's helping hand to pull himself up into the mainmast. Paget was reminded forcibly of the treehouse he had built with his brothers on the family grounds, and he could not help first grinning and then outright laughing. The fresh wind and the creaking of the rigging, and the view as he looked out over the ship below them, appealed to his sensibilities, and he spread out his arms in a boyish gesture as if he would embrace the wind. "I am the king of the mountain," he murmured with a flash of delight.

It was then that he noticed Edrington, who had nearly completed the ascent to join them. Paget offered his hand to help pull the lieutenant-colonel through the lubber's hole as Fletcher had assisted him. As Edrington came up into the maintop, Paget remarked to him, "This was certainly a capital proposal. One can easily understand the source of the British seaman's vitality and health. I feel..." Paget did not know how to define it at all.

At Leat's sigh, Dwerry shot his lieutenant a funny look, wondering what had prompted the sigh. At his explanation, Dwerry grinned, but one under control, not the manic, gleeful one of earlier.

"Up the futtock shrouds? Good thing he didn't. I'd likely have lost my commission!" He said, but his manner was so cheerful at the saying of it that it seemed to imply that he wouldn't have minded if he'd gotten to see splatted noble soldiers beforehand.

Although Dwerry sounded cheerful Leat knew his captain well enough to tell that it was an artificial cheerfulness, and glancing at his face the smile looked somewhat fixed. A deep sense of guilt clutched at the pit of his stomach.

"I'm sorry, sir; I should never have have suggested it. I should have known they'd take it as a challenge... It was irresponsible of me."

Dwerry looked seriously at his lieutenant for the first time that morning. Leat looked like he felt quite guilty, and genuinely sorry. And possibly a little nervous. Aaren sighed and went to run a hand through his hair. He caught himself when his hand bumped into his hat and swiftly lowered it.

"It's alright Leat. It really is. Its just..." he flapped a hand around as though trying to pick his words out of the air, "I can't stand the Army. Officer's are the worst. And nobility..."

He trailed off with a grimace, his voice low despite the fact the two officers themselves were well out of hearing range. Dwerry forced a grim smile, his eyes suddenly looking tired and old.

"Yes, sir." Leat decided the affirmative to be the best response, hopefully closing the subject and moving onto something else. His only experience of the aristocracey was when growing up at the family funeral parlour; his father offering catalogues of engravings to weeping, veiled women as politely as he could whilst charging them extortionate prices. That and a few admirals that had come his way; but on the whole he was not sure what he thought of the nobility. Neither here nor there, really.

Dwerry eyed Leat a moment, then shrugged mentally. It was really an appropriate line of conversation for this time and place anyhow. Straightening up (and unconsciously glancing up at Edrington and Paget), he clapped Leat on the shoulder again.

"Well, Mr. Leat, I expect you're wanting your hammock." He gestured, hinting in his casual way that Leat was relieved.

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

Leat threw his captain a salute and then, casting the army officers a last glance, headed off down below decks to his cabin, glad to finally be off the deck.

"Thank you, Sir." Edrington accepted the proferred hand and pulled himself up. He rose to his feet, tried, less than successfully, to dust at his boots with less than clear hands, and listened to Paget's enthusiasm, which eventually ran out of words. He was so deuced excitable about everything.

"The word I would use is 'alive', Sir, and with all the more fervour since it is not the other thing. And if I may suggest, a hand on one of these ropes or stanchions might help us remain in that excellent state."

"Mr Fletcher, you performed your task admirably." If I am allowed to say something to you without your Captain's permission that is, he thought tartly. "If you intend to carry out the other half of your orders, and instruct us in the arts of your profession, perhaps I might beg a few moment to gather my wits, and to admire what there is to see uninstructed."

Sails, below and beyond their perch hid much of the deck, unless he looked straight down. Or what was sometimes straight down. He stepped into the space between two of the stanchions which would hold netting during a battle, when the ship's Marines would man the tops. Here, anchored firmly he slid down so that his feet dangled over the edge of the maintop, presumably hanging among the renowned futtock-shrouds. With his arms round the stanchions, the sun on the side of his face and his shirtsleeve, he was extremely comfortable, and would be able to appreciate whatever Mr Fletcher chose to tell them.

"Have you ever been in the maintop before, Sir? I can't decide whether the Navy see it as an honour, or a treat, or an ordeal they put soldiers through. But you are right - it is exhilerating!" And he threw a genuine smile at the sight of the general, without his peacock pelisse or busby, behaving like a boy.

Edrington was precisely right; 'alive' was how Paget felt, with a heightened perception of his own energy - to quote Psalms, he rejoiced as a strong man to run a race. It was not only the wind, the height, or the motion and speed of their progress through the waves, so much clearer from up here. It was a tangible sense of memory from his boyhood; of the yachting escapades with Hobart, with Curzon's sea-yarns ringing in his young ears. The impulsive expedition to the maintop, as simple as it might seem to another, was an intense pleasure to Paget. He stood there, balancing without the least care in the world as to whether he might tumble and fall in the next moment, until Edrington's words brought him back to his senses.

Paget took hold of a stanchion with one hand, and slipped down to a sitting position near Edrington; he tossed one booted foot over the long drop beneath them, and gazed out and around them with his face alight. Above the billowing sails, he felt himself quite in the clouds, as buoyant as any bird.

Edrington reclaimed his attention, and Paget looked over at his companion; something had changed between them, the reserve that Edrington had held on deck dropped or left behind along the climb. He grinned irrepressibly at the other officer, and answered, "No, I have not; in my cruise with the Hind, the captain would never hear of such a mad caper." Paget remained quiet in thought for a few seconds before he remarked with unusual candour, "I find myself...surprised by joy." The words were those of one of the modern poets, whose name he couldn't quite recall at the moment - he knew that he had read it to Char, or she had read it to him, but literature was not something which he could absorb easily. Yet they were peculiarly appropriate to that moment.

"And you, Lord Edrington?" he asked. Fletcher was remaining quiet in the background, waiting until the two officers called him forward to administer his lecture, and Paget had already quite forgotten the young man. "What do you think of all this?" He gestured expansively, releasing the stanchion, and at that precise moment, an irregularity in the waves far below sent the mast swaying in an arc in contrast to the previous predictable, regular path; the motion was exaggerated in the maintop. Paget was forced to grab for the stanchion again or else be sent sprawling, and as he clung to it he found that he could not stop laughing.

Edrington watched almost indulgently as the other found himself caught in a fit of laughter. He allowed his own returning good humour to relax his face, and when there was a moment's pause, he said:

"It makes me think of flying like a bird, Sir. Like that," he gestured towards one of the long- winged birds that flew on a parallel course, tracing their own swoops and curvets as if in mockery of the ship. "Not that I intend to throw myself into the air, though I understand that sometimes a sailor will try." He glanced at Paget, whose tendency to wild gesticulation might lead to a similar end. "But look at the horizon. From below, we could have had no idea of the distance one might see. Even without a spyglass. But no land in sight. And only our ships."

He sat for a moment watching the bird, then stretched out an arm, holding an imaginary pistol, and trying to sight it. "I have no personal experience of naval battles, but it seems to me that the difficulties of shooting from here at the enemy must be considerable. Unless they are hellishly close, of course. There is a great deal to be said for fighting from a stable platform."

Paget wondered idly what sort of birds these were which Edrington had pointed out to him; the infamous albatross, perhaps? They rode the wind as lightly as did the sloop. He eyed them with the interest of a sportsman; it would be amusing, he thought, to take a shot at one or two. Particularly from up here, where it would be a challenge to compensate for the motion of the ship.

He glanced at Edrington, and answered, "I daresay they are, yet one could likely get accustomed to it. The first time I set foot on a ship, I found it difficult to so much as walk, and the idea of fighting stretched the imagination. Even with the amplification up here, it must be possible."

Paget pointed upwards at the birds again. "Do you fancy a little shooting to test the hypothesis?" he asked.

Edrington held out his hand, still forming an imaginary pistol. "With this weapon, I might shoot any number of birds, Sir."

He thought about it. A shooting competition could be amusing, as a pastime. It might also be useful in honing skills which he exercised too little. "We could perhaps return on another occasion, with approprate weapons - if the Captain is prepared to lend us Mr Fletcher again. Although if that is the legendary albatross, it might not be - politic to shoot it. Sailors can be quite archaic at times." He grinned. "And I suppose it would not be politic to ask if we might fire at our companion - a more reasonable target for effective beginners."

((OOC: Tsk tsk, the pair fo you. Planning on shooting what could possibly be an albatross. xDD))

Dwerry paced his quarterdeck, a small part of him still relishing the feeling of it. The feeling of command. As he paced, though, he kept a close eye on the goings-on of his sloop. Nothing was going wrong at the moment, but you never knew... that, and he didn't feel all that comfortable with the two men up on the maintop.

At least the boys are staying away from them, he thought, pausing to watch the small collection of ships' boys who had managed to escape into the rigging. They were, of course, staying up and around the foretop, not wanting to be spotted by an officers. Dwerry allowed himself a small smile - they didn't realize just what sort of view he had, from this angle. But he didn't do anything.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of the Sparrow, a familiar sight now after the patrols run together. Bolitho had had to sail to England too, but not to pick up irritating landlubbers. He'd gotten a new lieutenant. ^{((OOC: Someone correct if I'm wrong on this... x.x))} He watched the other sloop for a few minutes, feeling rather envious of Bolitho. He didn't have two Army officers gallivanting about in his rigging.