Topside, 23rd May, Mid-Morning

That did take Fletcher somewhat aback. He opened his mouth to deny it, but the words would not come, crippled by an acute embarrassment, so he shut it again and turned a bright pink. Why did Oxley have to go and ruin the conversation by saying such an awful thing? At that moment he wished the deck would open up and swallow him.

Why'd he have to go and say something like that? He turned to look for'rard, embarrassed himself at having said what he had.

"'M sorry, sir," he mumbled, rubbing at the offending spot on his cross-belt.

"No, no it's alright, it's..." Fletcher mumbled, desperately trying to think of a way to change the subject. "This rain is wretched. Do you suppose it'll ever stop?"

"It'd better, sir, else we'll have another Flood. We'll be all right if it does, though, bein' on a ship all ready." He tipped his hat back and looked up at the towering mainmast. There were a couple of sailors up on the t'gallant yard, doing something.

"D'you like goin' aloft, sir?" he asked, bringing his gaze down to the young midshipman again.

Again, Fletcher went for the non-commital stance.

"It's alright," he said.

"Well, sir, would you... would you like to go up, now?" Oxley asked. He gave a half-shrug. "It's... it's all right if you don't, sir, of course."

It had been raining for some time now, and Fletcher studied the masts, wrinkling his nose with some misgiving. He had never been up before in the wet, and few enough times in the dry.

"It may not be a good idea," he said.

Oxley nodded. "Fair enough, sir. Though you'll have to do it eventually, and we're at anchor right now." He remembered something, and bent to release the tension of the skin on his drum. "So... you got any brothers or sisters, sir?" he asked, straightening up again, realising just how little he know about any of the young gentlemen.

Fletcher mulled over the prospect of going aloft in the wet on the high seas in a gale; it was not something he looked forward to.

"No," he said in reply to Oxley's inquiry. "No, I've never had. It is just me - and grandfather."

"Sounds... sounds a bit of a dull sort of life, if there was only the two of you, sir," Oxley said. "Though... You must've gone to school, or summat like that, afore comin' here, didn't you, sir?"

"Oh yes, I went to school," Fletcher said slightly contemptuously, as he was certain Oxley was stating the obvious. "Everybody goes to school."

Oxley shrugged. "I didn't, sir."

It was just one more example of the differences between them... 'everybody' in Mister Fletcher's world went to school... In Oxley's circle of friends, nobody had.

Fletcher stared in surprise.

"Really?"

"Really truly, sir." He shrugged; it wasn't anything to be ashamed of, after all. "I was s'posed to go into me Dad's trade in the Dockyard, only he... It was borin' as... as anythin' an' he never noticed if I showed up or not. And I was about your age when I took the shillin' - joined the Marines, I mean, sir. Bin a Marine for four years now."

"And do you like it?" That this boy had actually chosen his own career was something that struck a chord with Simon - Peter had left to choose his own career too, so it seemed that it was something that other boys could and did do. Every boy except Simon Fletcher, it would seem.

"It's all right, sir. If I hadn't run away though, I'd've been stuck doin' the same thing all the time like Dad. At least at sea, it's diff'rent an' you don't end up doin' the same thing all the time." He looked at the midshipman, curiously. "So... so, d'you like it, sir? An' why'd you join the Navy?"

Simon, as ever, answered honestly.

"I don't know - I was told to."

Oxley hadn't expected that, and he looked at the younger boy frankly. "Told to... you mean, like you was pressed, sir?"

He always thought the young gentlemen chose to go to sea; he'd never considered that they might get told that's what they were going to do for a living.

Simon supposed it could in a way be described as being pressed, as he had as little choice in the matter as the men who came aboard having been caught, but that would sound unnecessarily cruel - not to mention it would be stretching the truth. He shook his head.

"No; grandfather said I must go to sea, and so I had to go."

"It ain't so bad, really, sir," Oxley said, comfortingly. "Mum allus used to say that life's what you make of it." Not that Mister Fletcher had really been complaining about it, so much as explaining why he was here.

He changed the subject a little. "Must be nice to be able to read, sir."

Perhaps, Fletcher thought in response to Oxley's frist remark. But Oxley did not have the Admiral Sir Gregory Rothschild as his grandfather. Lucky Oxley.

"Well, it means that you can read books, so it is nice."

"It must be nice, sir," he said.

He put a hand up to adjust his stock; he really didn't like the thing. "Um, beg pardon, sir," he said, reaching round to unfasten it before pulling it off. "Oh, that's much better."

Simon was not usually one to compare his own lot with that of the lower classes, but with the conversation so far today he looked at the the relieved expression on the drummer boy's face and felt heartily glad that his lot as a Midshipman did not include the wearing of a stock.

"You're real lucky, you know, sir," Oxley said. "I mean, you can read and you're learnin' to be an officer, an' all. Most I can hope for, really, is corp'ral when I get a bit older."

"You don't think you'll make sergeant? That's a rather poor outlook of things."