Friday morning with the Marines

"Nah," the steward replied. "I can leave the wash-tub up here 'til later. It'll take a bit foldin' up the clothes too. Thanks, though," he added with a grateful smile. It really was good to have an assistant, even for only a day.

"A'right then, if you're sure," Oxley said, getting up. "I'll bring it down to the cabin when I've got it, all right. Don't s'pose there's anythin' else needed, apart from that, is there?" He glanced over at where de Guarde was mopping out the heads, and sighed, wondering just what it was going to take to make him understand he hadn't meant to upset the boy, or anything like that, and he certainly hadn't wanted to fight him. He looked back down at Foley, ready in case there was something else to be fetched as well as the shark-skin.

Foley thought for a moment then shook his head. "Nope. That'll do, and nicely."

He bent back over the wash-tub, scrubbing intently at a stain with his fingers. If the rest of the day went like this, he and Oxley were going to have a respectable bit of free time on their hands!

"I... I meant to say," Oxley began, and paused. He rather liked Foley calling him 'boyo'; it sounded a bit more friendly than just 'boy', but he had been calling the older man by his own Christian name since they first went below, and he couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it earlier. "Me name's Tom, if you... if you like." Which sounded stupid, but he couldn't think of a better way of saying it.

And he had to go and see the carpenter, or one of his mates, as he'd offered to do.

"Cheers, Tom," Foley said, looking up. It hadn't registered that Oxley hadn't given his Christian name until just then. Even though it hadn't mattered, either.

"Better nip along now, before Mister Cartwright wonders why we're both slackin'," he added with a quick conspiratorial smirk.

"Al right. Won't be long," he said, and darted for the companionway down.

He couldn't find the carpenter, but one of his mates was down by the carpenter's store. Oxley relayed his errand, had to explain twice exactly what he wanted and who he wanted it for, and was driven near distraction by Nicholls' hemming and hawing before he finally persuaded him to part with a bit of shark-skin. It was a combination of cajoling, begging and the reasoning that it was for an officer, and the waters round here were that warm, he'd be surprised if they didn't manage to catch a shark, which would give the carpenter a thousand times more shark-skin than the little bit he wanted, that finally made him give in.

He hurried aft, to wait outside the wardroom door, where Jimmy the Greek was on sentry, which made him think about a skylarking. He hadn't been aloft in an age, he thought distractedly, wishing Foley would hurry up a bit.

Empty the wash-tub, fold up the clothes that were done, wait a few minutes for that last shirt to dry before folding it too. Foley carefully stacked the freshly-laundered clothing and headed back below-deck to the wardroom. Unsurprisingly, Oxley was already there, even if he was hovering outside the door.

"See you've got it," Foley observed as he breezed into the wardroom with barely a nod to the Marine sentry. "Good lad. No trouble from Chips, I hope?"

He was relieved to see Foley come below; he wouldn't have dared walk straight in like that. "Weren't Chips that give it me. Was his mate, Nicholls. Tried to tell me he'd get in trouble for lettin' me have a bit a half-inch square." Oxley snorted. "He allus was an old woman, afeared of his own shadow, though. Chips wouldn't've minded; I just had to persuade Nicholls 'e wouldn't." He held out his acquisition; a decent-sized piece of coarse shark-skin that would easily smooth out the rough patches and splinters in Mister Cartwright's sea-chest.

Foley had to grin at the lad's description of the difficulty he'd had while acquiring the shark-skin. Carpenter's mates were all the same.

"Well done, boyo. C'mon then. Let's get that chest cleaned up nice and repacked. Nearly time for Mister Cartwright to come back down for his letter-writin'. Can't be 'round for that."

The steward stepped carefully over his musket, which was still propped up in the cabin's doorway. Brushing the tiny table clear with only his elbow wasn't easy but he was well-used to the task. He set the stack of folded clothes down and opened up the sea-chest.

"Figure you can start on the lid, like, Tom, while I get everythin' else moved out?"

"Aye, I can do that," he said, trying to work out the best place for him to be to do it. If Foley was putting everything on the table, he'd be over there, so Oxley could stand at this end and make a start here.

What the thing really needed was painting. That'd stop the splinters easy - though maybe officers didn't have their sea-chests painted, like the lower-decks folk did?

He began rubbing at the wood inside the lid, vaguely remembering his dad saying that you should always go with the grain of the wood. Foley was busying himself shifting things out now, and Oxley spared a quick glance up at him. "Do officers have so much stuff 'cause they've got a sea-chest to themselves, or do they get their own sea-chest 'cause they've got so much stuff to put in it?" he asked, curious.

He paused a moment to consider the question. "Prolly 'cause they got so much stuff," was Foley's answer. He grinned. "Ain't thought about it much before."

That was it for the sea-chest's contents. Foley carefully set aside a cloth-wrapped bundle, the last item from the very bottom of the chest, and then he nodded. "Think that bit of shark-skin'll stand splittin' in half? Get done faster with both us workin'."

"Think so, yeah," Oxley said. "Though, I ain't got anythin' to cut it with." He held it out, running a finger cautiously over the part he'd polished so far. It seemed to be coming up smooth, anyway, which was something.

"Why do officers want so much stuff anyhow?" he asked, trying to work out how much more Mister Cartwright had than he did, and giving up after the jackets and half-a-dozen shirts, or however many it was.

"Try this," Foley said, fishing a short knife out of the folds of one of Cartwright's shirts. "Might be a bit dull though, ain't sharpened yet in a while."

He looked over the mostly-orderly piles of clothes on the table and grinned. "He's got a lot, don't he? Officers gotta be seen and noticed, Tom, 'specially ashore. They ain't so lucky's the rest of us when it comes to natural good looks. They needs lots of fancy digs and the like, before folks notice 'em."

Oxley took the knife, testing the edge with a practised thumb. "Seems sharp enough," he said, and carefully started to split his piece of shark-skin in half. "Can take it to get sharpened when we've done, if you want," he offered.

He held out the knife and one of the resulting pieces of shark-skin. "They's a bit hard to miss in them bright coats, though, officers is," he said, grinning. "All that fancy gold lace an' all. Though I'm surprised anyone can see their faces under them hats they've gotta wear."

He bent his head to carry on with rubbing down the lid of the sea-chest. It wasn't a bad day after all - it was turning out to be much better than he'd expected it to be at first. And he'd even got some sugar-candy out of it. That was a thing that wasn't likely to ever happen again.

He accepted both the knife and piece of shark-skin. "That'd be dead good of you, boyo. And too true, them coats and lace is hard to look past. But you know, their hats hides their faces 'cause most times they ain't got faces worth lookin' at." Foley smirked and went to work on the inside of the sea-chest with his piece of shark-skin.

Oxley grinned. "I ain't really thought 'bout that," he said. He'd seen the girls looking at him, a bit, when he went ashore, but he wasn't interested. They giggled too much, and blushed like anything if they saw you looking back at them. "S'pose a girl would like to look at a nice face, though."

He shrugged. "Ain't the sort of thing that bothers me, though. All them gigglin' girls." He gave an impression of a girl giggling behind her fan while fluttering her eyelashes, then pulled a face. "Don't see what all the fuss is about, really."

"That she would," Foley agreed. "Hard to understand what they think's worth fussin' over, most times, but if they're battin' their eyes at you, there's probably a reason!"

It had been awhile since he'd been ashore by himself, or been able to wander around where pretty young girls liked to gather. Lads like Oxley usually had better luck than he did anyway.

"I dunno, I really don't," Oxley said, running a finger over the area he'd been working on. "I mean, I ain't fussed about it all, really." That might change, though, but he didn't really want to think about that. He shrugged. "You got anyone... special... waitin' for you back home, Mikey?"

A face drifted up from memory. Foley checked the spot on the sea-chest he'd been scraping at and shrugged. "Nope," was his answer. "What about you?"

Oxley shook his head. "Well, there's Mum and Dad, but there ain't anyone else. And I dunno what they think about me now. I mean, I ran away from home to take the shillin' an' if I went back I'd get an earful from Mum and a good thrashin' from Dad. I didn't want to end up workin' in the dockyard all me life like him, you see."

"Ah." Foley could understand that. The face in his mind faded away again. "Dockyards ain't so bad," he mused. "Steadier work than bein' a fisherman, say. I'll agree that it's a rare lad that wants to be like his da though."

"Maybe," Oxley said, shrugging. "I didn't fancy workin' all hours of the day for, well, a few bob a week. 'Sides, you got the chance for prize money at sea, ain't you?" And it wasn't like it had been bad work, not like some folks did. It was just that Oxley had wanted to do more - and he'd always been fascinated by the Marines since he'd first seen them.

"True."

Foley thought of his own father and felt disgusted. If ever there had been a useless, dissolute bastard, it was his father. He scrubbed harder at the corner of the chest's interior and asked "What do you do with your prize money, Tom? When there's some to be shared out, anyway."

"Ain't much a lad can do with it, really. If I went home with it, Dad'd just take it off of me and I'd not see so much as a farthin' of it ever again." He scowled at the wood of the sea-chest. "So I've got what money I've got so far, all safe in me sea-chest where ain't nobody goin' to take it off me."

He looked up then. "I'm sorry, Mikey. I never meant to suggest anyone here'd do that."

"Sounds like my own da," Foley muttered. Then he shrugged. "No worries, boyo. There's always somebody who'll take your stash in a blink, if he's got a chance."

There had been several on his last ship, in fact. He'd had to turn his prize money shares over to Mister Cartwright for safe-keeping after half of it had disappeared after gun drill one morning.

"Can always ask Mister Cartwright to lock it up for you. He keeps a box just for that. Even I dunno where it's hid."