Friday morning with the Marines

Ask the officer...? He was in far too much awe of Mister Cartwright to do that, even after talking with him earlier. "I couldn't," he said, before looking up. "Well, maybe... if you're sure he wouldn't mind? 'Cause I wouldn't want to be any trouble to him." Not after last night and this morning he didn't, anyway. And he had seemed friendly enough earlier.

Although, if Mister Cartwright though he was being any trouble, Oxley didn't know what he'd do, and he didn't particularly want to find out, either.

The steward offered a slight smile. "He keeps mine locked up, since our last ship. Some light-fingered sod made off with half my share. I ain't kept it on the messdeck since."

Oxley pulled a face. "I will ask him, then. Did they ever find out who it was who nicked yours?"

Thieves. Nobody liked thieves aboard ship, and nobody had any sympathy with them if they were caught. He couldn't imagine what he'd do if anybody helped themselves to his money.

"No, but I figure I know who it was." Foley shook his head. It didn't matter now, anyway. He rocked back on his heels and ran his palm over his side of the freshly-sanded chest. Not bad at all.

"How's your half doing?"

"Seems all right," Oxley said, looking critically at the wood he'd just been working on. "Hope you got the bastard back for it, good'n proper." He shrugged. "I don't much like seein' the cat, but when it's a thief, they deserve every stroke they get, the bleedin' sods."

"Dunno for sure who did it, but I'll wager the lads figured it out and dealt with him. They usually end up gettin' found out anyway."

The steward skimmed his finger over patch of wood he'd just finished scrubbing and nodded slowly. "This'll do for now. Got the worst of it smoothed down. What d'you say to a rest for a bit, once everythin's settled back in?"

Oxley looked up, surprised by the suggestion. Though, on second thought, maybe he shouldn't be surprised. Foley usually managed to do by himself the things that they'd both been doing today, even if he didn't usually do in one day everything they'd done between them so far.

"Won't Mister Cartwright mind?" He was still conscious that this was really supposed to be a punishment duty for him.

He gave the area he'd been working on a final rub. "I'll give you a hand with puttin' everythin' back, if you want, Mikey," he offered, glancing towards the pile of things the older man had taken out of the chest earlier.

"Nope." Foley set the piece of shark-skin aside and flexed his fingers. "That'd be fine if you did. Plenty enough to move back, there is."

"Well, if you're sure he won't," Oxley said. He looked at the pile and grinned. "Never knew one person could have so much stuff," he said, wondering how it all fit in and why he needed it all in the first place.

"Aye. Enough to make a lad jealous, this." Foley lifted part of the pile off the table and passed it to Oxley. "Don't even need all of it!"

On the left side, trousers and shirts. Then everything else on the right. Coats went on top.

"Wouldn't mind havin' half this much to fill my own sea-chest, though."

"Me, too," Oxley said taking the pile and looking at it. "Looks like he's got summat like one pair of trousers for every day of the week, if not for a month." He stowed them carefully in the chest, making sure they stayed nice and weren't going to get all crumpled up.

"That he does," Foley agreed, after pausing a moment to take a mental count of the folded-up trousers. It was certainly an accurate statement. "Sometimes he'll go and work like one of the lads, y'know. Part of why he's got so much, I think. Not like some other officers, him."

Oxley's eyes widened at that. "He seems real nice. Well, I reckon he can be scary when he wants to be. Officers are good at that. But I never seen one joinin' in to help afore."

From what Foley said, Cartwright was as different from Brandeson as chalk was from cheese - and he knew which of the two officers he preferred, too, even if Brandeson probably wouldn't have cared he'd had a fight.

Oh yes, he certainly could. Foley remembered when he and that gunner's mate had been caught fighting. He would've been happy to crawl into a hole and die right there.

"Guess he was raised up proper that way," Foley said. "Good for the lads though, I think."

He set a stack of shirts carefully into the chest and glanced at the remaining clutter on the table. An extra pair of shoes, a couple folded neckcloths, gloves, and Cartwright's coats. It was short work moving those over to their proper places.

"Pull up a plank," he said once he was done, propping himself up against the table. "How's your wrist holdin' up?"

He pulled back his jacket and shirt sleeves so Foley could see the bandage a bit better.

"It's all right. He only twisted it, a bit. Didn't sprain it or nothin' like that, though that was maybe only 'cause I... well, kicked him to make him let go. Mister Crozier wanted me to have the bandage on for a couple of days, just to make sure it was goin' to be all right. Just has a little bit of an ache if I move it wrong, that's all."

"Good news, that." He didn't want the lad's wrist to be re-injured by anything as trivial as a punishment detail. Besides, what better time to break from chores than now?

"Mister Crozier's a good sawbones, what I hear."

"Aye, I think he is. Though why they have to go pokin' and proddin' at you when they can see it hurts is beyond me. And they ask all sorts of questions too - far too many of 'em, usu'lly, and all."

He pulled his sleeves down again and shrugged ruefully. "Why do folks always know you've bin in a fight, and always want to make you say you have, when they know that you know you'll get in trouble if you do?"

"They don't call 'em sawbones for nothin', I guess. If it don't hurt before, it'll sure hurt after they're done!" Foley shrugged. Then he smirked. "I'd guess that it's 'cause most folks have done the same themselves, least once before. Even officers!"

Oxley frowned, trying to imagine two officers having a scrap before giving up and shaking his head. "Most folks I know don't go and set out to have a scrap. I know I didn't. And it don't seem fair to get in trouble for summat you never meant to happen. 'Cause usu'lly, it's either fight or have folks thinkin' you're a coward. Which I ain't."

And it wasn't as though he hadn't fought before on his previous ship, against a boy who was much bigger than he was. Oxley had never been able to tolerate bullies, which was the only reason he'd ever fought back then.

"Most folks don't," Foley agreed. "Lookit this way, though. Ain't always that a lad has to fight to prove he's no coward. It's easier to fight than walk away. Walk away, mind, not run."

"Don't allus work, I should think. 'Cause it's when you turn round that folks think the worst of you. Or try to jump you, which just leads to all sorts of trouble." Though maybe there was some merit in Foley's suggestion. Oxley nodded thoughtfully. "Could be worth tryin', if you get a chance to. 'Cause he went for me this time, and I couldn't've walked off if I'd tried, without fightin' free of him first."

"It don't hurt to try somethin', least once," Foley said with a slight nod. "Half the fun of life, that."

He pushed away from the table and looked appraisingly around the cabin. There wasn't much else pressing that needed to be done. He could get used to having an assistant.

"Probably have to clear out in a bit," he added. " 'Tenant'll be down for letter-writin' and such. Usually wants a bit of tea with it, and not to be bothered 'til he's done."

"Mebbe," Oxley said thoughtfully, before looking around the cabin himself. "So if Mister Cartwright's goin' to want us to clear out, what d'you usu'lly do when he's in here?"

Taking a rest, as Foley had suggested earlier, didn't seem right, somehow. The sort of punishment details he'd experienced before had kept his nose to the grindstone till he was about ready to drop, even if it was just make-work that he was doing. This was... different, in a pleasant sort of way.

"Get his tea, right after he comes down, then it's off to look after me own kit," Foley answered. "Have to keep up with that too!"

He grinned and realised that the drummer wasn't having half as rough a time of it as that Tar De Guarde was. At least not in the conventional sense. The thought of it amused him.

"I... think you'd best do his tea, Mikey. I ain't so good at that sort of thing." Oxley shrugged a little as he spoke. It wasn't really the sort of thing you learned, how to make tea. It wasn't that the men never had tea, as such, but that those who had it tended to make their own, or get their mates to do it, and Oxley didn't really drink the stuff.

And he remembered with a slight sinking feeling Mister Cartwright's words earlier: "He'll be taking charge of you today when I'm unable." What if Mister Cartwright had things for him to do, that weren't so easy as what he'd helped Foley with. And if so, they certainly wouldn't be so pleasant; you couldn't talk to an officer the same way you could with another Private, even if the other Private was the officer's steward.

And it had been a pretty nice day, so far. It was only right it stopped being so nice - de Guarde had had some proper dirty chores to do, unlike Oxley.