On the Gundeck

"They'll see it, I know they will. They wouldn't know who to give promotions to, if they didn't watch folks. Like... if the captain of the maintop or someone gets done, how would they know who to give that job and rank to, if they wasn't watchin' folks? You do your level best, and they'll see it. Sure as eggs is eggs, they will."

It couldn't be easy for him, Oxley knew that, though he had no real idea of how hard it must be. "Y'know, folks'll respec' you for tryin' to be the best, they really will. It shows 'em you've got a bit of pride, and pride's really the one thing everybody needs. A bit of pride in yourself, and your division and in Terpsy. We've got a good captain and good officers."

And it hadn't been so long that the Marines had had a real bad officer, but even since Mister Cartwright had come aboard, Oxley was sure folks could see the change in the Marines; they were more proud of themselves and their officer now than they'd been when it had been Mister Brandeson in charge.

"You just... learn everythin' you can. Folks'll want to teach you and want you to do real good." He shrugged. "It's all part of it, y'see. Part of bein' a Terpsy, I mean."

"Bein' loyal ter her, through good n' bad, eh?" He smiled, for Chase might've had reason to doubt Terpsy for when the officers permitted him to be flogged when they believed him innocent. The boy thought that he might've been deserving still, but was perhaps beginning to be convinced that he may have misjudged him. Appearances were not always what they seemed.

"Bein' proud of bein' a Terpsy n' servin' 'ere.. in t' navy." He murmured to himself. And not to disappoint his parents in leaving the service for petty things.. though perhaps Confidence could not have been considered a petty one. But no matter, he'd been through it and was here now! No need to dwell on past experiences.

"Pride..'s a word I've heard spoken a lot 'ere. .." Even by Crozier, well Crozier was trying to teach him something too. They all were. How odd, that.

"I guess there mus' be a wee bit of truth in it after all." He smiled at Oxley. " though. oy, I had me pride.. in wot' I was.., wot' had me plant that bruise on ye eye.. n' there wos pride that had you do the same." He'd given the youth a grin. Wasn't the right kind of pride exactly, but ah well!

He nodded. "Bad things happen, and things happen sometimes that you can't do anythin' about, but when you've got folks around you that you can be proud of, and that can be proud of you, well, that's all part of it. Like... the first time I went up to the maintop and managed to use the futtock shrouds, I was as proud of that as anythin', and the other lads couldn't stop grinnin' for a week."

He frowned and scratched his head, thinking. "I think... I think it's a different sort of pride, somehow. What you had when you come here, I mean. We can be proud of each other, 'stead of bein' so proud of ourselves that we have to look down on other people." He shrugged. "Dunno if I can 'splain it quite right, though. Sorry."

"Yer mean t' say I was .. full of meself, is it?" He asked, trying so to understand what the older lad meant. Bad things did happen, always would. There were fewer to happen here, on ship. Atleast what the honour of lasses was concerned, couldn't happen even if the men had wanted it. Though he felt that the Terpsy's crew might not deserve the insinuation that they were such brutes either. Not by what he had learnt.

"Yes, a bit. And it seemed like you had to put folks down - make sure they weren't so good as you - so you could feel proud of yourself. I've seen other folks like it, and nobody like 'em much. But you ain't the same as you was when you come aboard, so folks like you a bit better than they used to, I think." He hoped de Guarde wouldn't take his words the wrong way; he was trying to explain something that he felt he didn't have all the right words for.

De Guarde nodded. "I have.." He wasn't sure if he wished to share that with Oxley. It had felt rather personal to admit to it. And it was something that men and even more so, officers, wished to hide.

"It wasn't 'zactly t' reason, why I did as I did." He said instead and considered how he could phrase it. "See.. um. part o' it mus've been pride. ...I do sure have uh.. too much of it but.." He shrugged sighing. How could he explain it without admitting to something that might make him less in Oxley's eyes.

"I had wanted ter establish me possition.. summat. Like.. not ter have any think they could play a fool o' me jus' cos i was new 'ere." And he didn't want to stand at the end of the ladder again, that was true.

Ah. Well, that made sense. He nodded. "Well, you're gettin' to know Terpsy's ways a bit better now, ain't you? And I know you've bin talkin' to Thompson, and Cob Chase and some of the others. Do you like us any better, now? Or would you prefer to be back on your old ship?"

"...I am glad to be here." He smiled. "Though I have liked my station and ranking of my old ship.. and the lack of fear that I might be disrated." Which held its reason of course.

"But... the marine I could have had for friend there, had died sooner than I got the chance." He probably would not have been friends with the man, come the end of battle, even if he had survived. "So...I'll stick to your 'kickin' n' punchin' kind here." He gave Oxley a lopsided grin.

"I do like you better than on the day I have come, though there are certain few.. that I am quite wary about. Ow which..there is a thing I have not yet learnt and which makes me less at ease knowing that such a person may still roam the ship unheeded. Yet!" He added with a small wave of his hand.

"If you ask whether my opinion has changed,.. I hope that our conversation being so in existence and at fairly good terms is an answer enough." He smiled more kind.

Well, of course he'd prefer to be a middy, Oxley thought. He wondered if de Guarde would be re-rated, and whether he would stay the way he was now, or turn back into the bullying sort of person he'd been. He decided he'd prefer de Guarde to stay as a sailor if it meant he'd stay the sort of person who didn't try pushing you around. Though, admittedly, he had very little weight to throw around now he didn't have the authority of a middy's coat.

"I don't gen'rally kick or punch," he said. "Only, I thought you was goin' to sprain me wrist and I had to stop you doin' that, somehow." He hadn't kicked as hard as he could have done, and he had been barefoot at the time as well.

He wondered who'd tried throwing the boy overboard. If they were found, they'd be court-martialled and hanged, he knew that much. Maybe it was better they weren't found - especially if de Guarde didn't go back to being the bullying sort of boy he'd been.

He nodded at de Guarde's last words. "You're a lot nicer now, that's for sure," he said. Maybe he was nice enough to apologise to Johnny, even, though it took a lot of courage to apologise to anyone. Oxley knew that. Maybe de Guarde wasn't ready for that just yet.

"Well, ye do know how t' fight.. t' win, I can tell you that." Though
he remembered a place he had never wished to have knees or any other
thing strike so that it would hurt. It had hurt something dreadful.

It was a compliment what he'd said, for he knew he had played dirty
himself, near sprained a wrist, left a bruise here and there, Johnny
could attest to it.

There was something of a change in him though. It wasn't just that he
wasn't able to do much but shout and wave his hands and still nobody
would listen. Though the later had made him a lot more timid around the
sailors. They were twice his size and strong, and even if Chase was
someone to whom he could go running - something he didn't like to think
of - he was also someone who could decide whether he wanted to stop his
peers or not.

De Guarde did change,for he'd talked with those that before he
despised. He'd made friends and had found he was not with the topman
solely to use him for his protection. He was certainly not talking with
Thompson to use him. No, .. the conviction with which he thought that,
somewhat frightened him.

Shaken from his thoughts, he blinked as Oxley had said something to him. What was it? Ah!

"Thanks." He paused: "I think." He added then looked at Oxley with a
serious look on his face: "...how many of t' crew's ol' crew. .n' how
many did you aquire soon before I came 'ere?" He asked, his mind
elsewhere.

"I've allus had to know how to fight, pretty much," Oxley said, shrugging.

He thought the younger boy was much better than he had been. He was learning to listen and talk with people, at least, and to not think that they had to do what he wanted. Probably because folks didn't have to do what he wanted now, so if they didn't want to do it, they didn't.

"Was a compliment. Well, it was s'posed to be," the drummer said, and looked at the lad curiously. "We got a bunch of men from Tonnant a few weeks afore you come on board. Though what that's got to do with anythin', I don't know."

"..No, I wos' just wonderin'. What kin' of ship was Tonnant?" He asked, if Oxley could know more than he did. "I .. I mean nothin' by it, jus' thinkin'. Yer know."

He shrugged his shoulders just a little, and was glad he had been given an honest compliment rather than a taunt.

"She's a second-rate, I think. Ninety-eight guns. That's big - real big. Dunno what she's like to serve on, though. I think she've got a good captain an' all, though I don't really know much about it all." Why de Guarde was asking, he didn't know, but he'd do his level best to answer the younger boy's questions, if he could

"N' t' men that came from them. I know you couldn't have seen them much, or well.. yer' a marine drummer, n' them are Tars so.. that I understand. But of what you did see, if yer did... wot' were they like?"

What did he want to know, really? He had a hunch, but then he could also be very wrong about what he was thinking. Just because the men were new, didn't really mean anything. Was he just trying to find who wanted to do him in? Perhaps to figure out if the assault had something to do with mal intent, opportunity, a type of temperament of the man and his predisposition, a personal agenda or.. was he just beating his brain, because he was too young to understand otherwise.

"Seemed nice enough to me, like. Decent fellers, hard-workin' able seamen - though Heaven knows how we got able seamen from a line-of-battle ship. They usu'lly try to palm off their landsmen and that sort of thing."

He wondered again why it mattered to de Guarde that they had men recently arrived from another ship. A direct question probably wouldn't get answered, and he sighed.

"Ah.. decent.. ones then." That didn't quite help. If they were alright, they could be as well as any that he messed with. Which would not make it any easier to try and come with a face or a name to suggest. Not that he could come to the captain accusing a man. First and foremost, he would not be believed, and second... well, he would need evidence and that was as hard to get as touching the moon itself.

"Um.. don't think I'um tryin' t' get any in trouble or summat... I jus' wont ter know....though, well fer...."He couldn't explain just yet, and he hoped Oxley did not think he was reverting to his old habits, for he was not. And they were still waiting, so he could find time to think aloud, with someone to listen.

".. are there any that yer know.. that are like Shriver.. yer know, bad temper, or summat?"

He shrugged, again. "I dunno. I... don't want you to be askin' me to get folks in trouble, 'cause I won't." Whatever de Guarde;s intentions, Oxley needed reassurance that the lad would not be trying to get anyone in trouble and that he didn't mean anything bad towards anyone.

"I dun' mean ter get anyone in trouble tha' innocent. N'... I doubt I'd find anyone who's not." He looked at Oxley seriously. " I know yer think that It'd be enough that I be told, this and this man's acting up, and I'd be saying he did it...well, that woulda been so, when I first came.."

He sighed. He knew that his past actions spoke rather against him, to be worthy of trust.

"Lessay, I'm jus' thinkin'. Alright? ..N' I won't be callin' no names, unless I'd have been fully sure it was them. Catchin' them with their hand in t' jar. Which I know I won't be. N' even so... I .... I promise."

"'S all right, then. Don't think Seward likes you much. And I'd stay away from Kerr, if I was you. He's a bit like Shriver; don't like nobody very much, and us young'uns least of all. Think he's in the opposite watch to you an' Chase, though."

And whatever he was thinking about, Oxley hoped he'd get a second opinion before doing anything stupid.

"Aye, I know 'bout Seward. He's made his displeasure quite known. 'bout me n' bout our groom. Didn't like him comin' down ter want t' eat with us." And he had held him perhaps as a suspect, but perhaps the most obvious were the ones innocent. Kerr, the name didn't ring a bell. But whoever it was, would have to have a friend. Someone who would take the hands while he took his feet. If Kerr had no friends as Shriver and nobody wanting to work with him beyond duty, then he also couldn't be one.

"This Kerr..why he got summat against young'uns?" And that wasn't an indication either. Young powder monkeys were a good deal a different thing than young midshipmen. And there was the reason, he had to figure out too. The why.

".Tom I.."He started. "..would yer lend me yer brain' a little. ..is all jus' us ponderin' n' thinkin' ,ok. Just tryin' ter make sense. .. like a game. Would yer play it. No names.. n' I promise I won't be runnin' of pointin' fingers either."

"I dunno. Some folks just don't like kids, that's all." He cocked his head to one side to look at de Guarde. "What d'you want help with, then? And it won't mean we'd get in trouble, does it? 'Cause after yesterday, I ain't riskin' doing nothing that'll mean trouble. Not for some time, anyway."

"No, no trouble. I don't want t' heave any more smellies ter do if I can help it either. Not fer a good while, I'd hope." He smiled, hoping that it meant that Oxley would be willing to help with the thinking. He'd ask Thompson later too. But now two heads did think better than one, and different kind of heads from different ages did so too.

"So.. would that be of agreement?"

"So long as it don't mean trouble, that's fine by me. What d'you want me to think 'bout, then?"

This was making him really curious now, which was probably what de Guarde intended.

"Well, les' start from t' beginnin'. N' since yer of t' ship n' yer ..uh..rather outspoken. " He grinned, for it might be the only time when a running tongue might help even if it would demand much of his own control , should, what he'd hear, not be something he'd have wanted to hear.

"....well that will help us, I think."

He nodded again. " Firs'.. lemme see. Ok. We know wot' happened. A middie ."Referring to himself more in a third person." Has found himself in the water. For the moment les' say that t' middie did remember right n' it wasn't his.. uh.. 'affected' state that did him in. Yer followin' me so far?"

Oxley nodded. "You're talkin' about... about the night you come aboard, ain't you?" he said. Everyone had heard about what had happened that night, he thought, or some version of it, anyway.