Light duties and men

"It was near thirty years ago," Quinn said. "I don't dream of it any more, not really, though I did for a long time. But after Athena I went to a different ship, more like Terpsy, and things got better."

He took the next musket out. "Corporal Johnson's not cruel. He's got a temper on him, certainly, and is easily riled, but he doesn't have a cruel streak. There are people in the world who know how to hurt, and like doing it, but he ain't one of them. It might have been worse than usual if he was still in a temper, but he wouldn't deliberately hurt you like some folks would."

He held the musket to allow De Guarde to see it. "What was it you said to him, anyway?"

He scowled, for he disagreed with Quinn. Though perhaps the Corporal was indeed doing the trashing with his anger unchecked, which alas did not change his present predicament.

"..I.." He looked down at the musket. No rust but there was this time also no spark. "This one sir. She isn't right." He pointed to the musket:" She's clean, n' smooth, but she's got no good spark."

And as the distraction passed he wondered back to his words. Now, with this man to repeat them, felt worst wrong. "..It wasn't for my words, that I got in trouble. Sergeant."

"I would have thought Marines no more gullible that the average sailor - you have been to the same places, seen the same things. Sailors do, I think, genuinely believe in mermaids and sea-serpents, and at the same time both that killing an albatross brings bad luck, while a pouch made of albatross skin wards off evil." Edrington grinned. "But sailors - even officers - do like to deceive simple landsmen."

He checked the number. "Everett's. Needs a new flint. Shouldn't take above a moment to change. Would you put it with Beech's and Lakey's for me?"

"No. You both said some things that maybe you shouldn't have said, and you did something you shouldn't have done. But if Johnson had hit you, he'd have been flogged in front of the entire crew, and he knew it, so he didn't."

He looked at the rack. "Only two more on this rack, then we can do some of the spares. Unless you want to do all the ones belonging to the Marines first, and leave all the spares till later?"

"If summat's so outlandish you can't even try to believe t, they still reckon we will." He indicated his jacket. "There's them sailors, and us Marines, and we don't usually mix, or get together off-duty. We'm supposed to keep them in order, after all, so why would they want us?"

He grinned. "And sure there's mermaids. They like to sit in the sunshine, combin' their long hair. But they'm bad news if you takes a fancy to one of 'em. Haven't seen a sea-serpent, though. Mebbe they was out visitin', that voyage."

"Aye, certainly." He took the musket and placed it with the others. He still walked stiffly, but ignored it for the better of his task. As he turned again to Quinn he looked not too happy.

"Still.. he had insulted me dearly." His trust was extending, though perhaps he should watch what he was saying. This was a man that would side with marines, not with the little young middies that knew not the muzzle from the butt of a musket (Ok, fine they did.)

"Yet the ... he was not punished for his cruel words and instead rewarded with the permission to strike me and be not flogged for it." Indignantly he looked at Quinn.

The question distracted him for a moment and he looked from the spares to the guns that belonged to the Marines. "..I'll do what you see better, sergeant. I've no preference to either."

"You said something to insult him first, though. He does not go around insulting folk just because they're there, after all. And if he had hit you back, when you struck him, he would have been punished for it, and rightly so. But as it was, he's one of those charged with discipline in this ship, as I am, and the bosun and his mates. Would you have preferred to have the bosun cane you, and know that someone else knew about it?"

He took one of the last two muskets from the current rack, and held it out.

"..Everybody will know if they don't already." He answered stiffly and saw to the musket. It was again as proper as the most others. No rust, clean spark, smooth lock. He motioned for it to be taken with the growing number of those that passed their examination.

"He's said he would have thrown....thrown me overboard! Is that alright to be said here?" His deep loathing for the corporal was clear at how fierce his eyes turned to be, and how animated and angry his face. "He interfered with my duties n' then he provoked me.. till... till I did strike him." He bit on his lip.

He suddenly wished that the corporal would have land a hit on him,.. which could actually be done. The man was of a fiercer temper, was he not? And he was angered by the boy before. It would be a matter of time that he could get to him and then.. Get him in trouble. A new objective. A fine one at that. But there was one more important thing to consider. And that was Mr. Yates's prevention of him getting his grog. "Sergeant.. might you have somethin' fer drink. All t' work n'..yesterday.. it has run my mouth quite dry."

No, it seemed the boy was going to be the wronged party no matter what. "Seems you said some harsh things to him as well, or it wouldn't have happened that he said that." He would have to tell Johnson to keep away from the lad.

Realising he'd been asked a question, he said, "You've had your grog earlier, but the scuttlebutt's there for anyone else needin' to wet their mouths. Up on the gundeck, and for'ard, there. Bring some back, if you like."

"..I did.. but none of 'em warranted ter call me ...the unmentionable words." He frowned , for he did know that his own has been very unkind towrds Johnson and towards the marines that might've angered even Quinn if he heard of the insults.

He was disappointed with the offered suggestion. Water was not on his mind, for he wished for grog and the alcohol that it contained, not the water that it held. He wondered in part if Fletcher still held onto his own glass of grog or if he had drunk or shared it with others.

"I hadn't had mine."

"No? Well, go and get a mug of water anyway, and bring it back here."

He was not going to have a drunk middy on his hands, but the welts from the cane were probably hurting, and more so if he had missed his grog issue. He didn't have any grog to hand, but he did have some rum, for times like this.

Midshipman Peter Yates wrote:"Shooting is probably best," Peter suggested. "A big enough target at any event. Or use a boarding axe and fell him that way." He smiled up to take the sting from his words. "Do midshipmen ever have target practice - with pistols or muskets, I mean, rather than exercising the big guns."

Branning shook his head and slipped the hat back on. "Jus' a small scratch innit," he said and fell silent again to listen. Mister Yates had a point about facing off against larger men. So too did Barrow. The big Marine grinned.

"Well sar, if ya get inta bad spot inna fight, jus' give a holler an' I'll come knock 'em all over the head fer ya," he said and grinned again. "It'd take more'n a boardin' axe t'take me outta a little scrap, sar!"

"..Aye, sergeant." He paused and glanced to the muskets at first:".. I will be back quickly." He spoke and he turned on his heel. His hands were held to his back, for he was ashamed of how his breeches must've by then looked. He decided to go to the middie's berth first and there to change his breeches so that they would be properly clean. And fetch a glass, a mug in which he could get himself water back.

So first came the uncomfortable passage to his berth, where he unlocked his chest and from it, with great effort, he took a pair of breeches. He peeled his present off with quite a few grunts and even a soft whimper. Dabbing at his skin with a cloth, he breathed in harshly each time. And finally then the new fabric was to greet his rump, and feel less sticky to it.

Second he went to fetch water. With the pain renewed, he looked stiff as he took a mug of it. Stiff and unhappy even as he began his walk back.

Quinn watched him go, walking carefully. There was some good in him, the Sergeant was sure, only it was buried so far down under all the wrong ideas he'd learned - had bullied into him - that it would be hard to bring it out. He made his mind up to speak with Mister Leat about the lad.

He shook his head. He couldn't quite believe he was willing to put himself out on behalf of a Naval midshipman. If it were a Marine ensign, or even a recruit, he wouldn't think twice about it.

He wondered just what harsh words had passed between the lad and Johnson.

With the sound of footsteps, slow yet even, the boy returned. He carried his mug in his hands, and had actually drank a small portion from it, though with outmost displeasure and distaste. He did not show that to the sergeant as he approached him, and instead nodded a curt greeting again.

"Sergeant." He spoke and looked mighty more presentable with the fresh pair of white breeches, without a speck seen on them at the moment. "..back I am." He looked at his mug again. Just water, which would soon become undrinkable, just give it time.

"That's better. Got your mug there?" He looked at the level of water in it before taking a bottle of rum from the shelf in the arms locker. "Medicinal purposes only, understand?" He added enough rum to the water to make a proper three-water grog, before putting the bottle away.

"No more than is good for you, and then we'll get on with what we're doing, all right?"

The boy gazed startled at the bottle at first, but it took no wise man to see how highly Quinn has grown in his books when he poured some of it's contents into his mug. His eyes gained a cheerful disposition, and a smile crept onto his face right of it's own. It was by far the broadest smile when the boy found himself drinking from his mug.

"Thank you sergeant!" he spoke with the most cheerful tone the youth could master, and felt slightly ashamed for it, yet no less honest. " Yu'um by far a better doctor than that sawbones!" He chirped. He'll get that ration from Fletcher later and perhaps even Dunnock. The boy just didn't look to have a temper for a fight, but more a sense to want to avoid it!

Once the mug was empty, the boy seemed shy, as if wanting to tempt it luck and ask for more, but not quite sure if it were proper. It felt good to have drunk that. And it warmed him rightly better. "Sergeant.."he began.

"Um...can I um..."He adjusted his coat:".jus'.. one more fer t' pain. Please."

"No. We don't want you gettin' drunk and getting in any more trouble, do we? And we've got a job to finish as well."

It seemed the lad had some need for alcohol. If he'd got into the habit of drinking to dull the pain of being bullied, or worse, it was no wonder he had turned out the way he had.

"Come on, then. Last one on this rack, and then there's the spares to start on, and you'll see the difference between the ones that are looked after properly and the ones that are treated slap-dash."

"Aye." He looked somewhat forlorn, gazing in the direction of the bottle. With a small sigh he wiped the thought from his mind. One couldn't push luck too far, it was a gift already that he'd gotten any. Be glad for that!

He placed the empty mug down and walked back to Quinn's side, looking at the musket. The last of the bunch it had indeed still kept to standards. He noted that and added, that it could go to the ones that were in no need of fixing. Then he turned to the rack where the spare ones were to be held." Who cleans those?" He asked, enjoying the warm sensation.

"Depends. Sometimes I get a couple of sailors that the master-at-arms sends along, sometimes I have to get my Marines to do them. If one of my Marines can't keep his own musket up to standards after being told about it, I give him one or two of these to do as well. There are times when I get all the Marines to take all of them topside and go over them, but even then they don't stay looked after properly."

He looked at the lad. "First, we have to put these ones away, and then we'll have room to look at the others."

"Alright." So they were the muskets that nobody would delight in getting, but they were useful if the ones in use were going to fault.

"I'll pass them to you, and you can then put them in... or ought we do it the other way around?" The duty of helping had actually kept him out of trouble, as was probably the intention and he had him be useful instead of a problem.
Still as long as he was enjoying it, he was not bothered by the given task, and the darker interior served beautifully to his heightened sensitivity to light. A match made in....fairer heaven.

".. forgive me fer my ignorance, but.... what are the tasks of a sergeant?.. I mean, yer duty here seems ter be to make sure all t' weapons are well n' right. N' ye can have the privates in trouble if they are not. Bu'.. that isn't all, no?"

(ooc - now this one is going riding. Shall be back soon! Bye bye!)

Peter smiled at him. "Thank you, Branning," he said. "I will fight alongside you - you hit them over the head, and I'll stab them in the ... in the stomach." He looked up as a cloud blotted out the sun for a moment - white clouds scudding like ships or sheep across the blue. From here, looking south, he could see the darker edge of more clouds gathering.

"Well, if you pass them to me, I'll put them away. Just keep those three out till last, so I can get to them easier when they're wanted."

It was nice to have a helper, and Quinn was pleased the De Guarde had volunteered to help, before he even knew what the job was. There was definitely something good in the boy.

"What do I do? Well, my duties are shared with Corporal Johnson, and we set the sentries, and relieve those men on sentry already. And we check the sentries to make sure there aren't any problems. And we take drill and musketry sessions, and sort out any problems the men have. And we look after the weapons. And sometimes we inspect the Marines' part of the messdeck to make sure it's clean and tidy."

(OOC - have fun riding!)

"Do you like being a sergeant ?" It made the profession of the man so much clearer. He smiled. He passed Quinn the first musket and waited for the man to take it, before he reached for another. They were each quite heavy, but he did not mind. He felt important even if passing only the weapons that would someday perhaps save a man's life, assure them a prize ship or shoot one of the Frogs and send them over board, but now he was no more than a mere helper in their move.

He did carry each with care, careful not to drop it. It wouldn't do if a musket would clutter to the ground even if it may not get damaged that way. "Here, another one, sergeant." And then he hesitated:" Is there anything shorter that I may call you?"

"I like it well enough, yes. And thank you for your help." He took the musket and put it away before reaching to take the next one. "The men shorten the word to sar'nt, which is quicker to say, certainly."