Kitchen-work

"Gohhh," Evans said, his mouth stuffed with butter-coated bread, as he watched the Marine fiddle with the kettle. He'd never seen the like. "Dee, blees."

Now Perry was talking about something that belonged to a fellow called Pete. Evans swallowed most of the bread and asked, "Flat pie?"

"Aye, a hot, flat pie with sauce from tomatoes and such. You've ate tomatoes, aye? They ain't poison like what some folks'll tell you. Fix us one a them, lad! But hey," Perry said, suddenly leaning closer, "Do they really make whale sausages in the south seas?"

"Never heard of such a thing. A hot flat pie? Ain't nacheral." Evans shook his head. "But whale sausages? Them I heard of. Bit heavy on the stummich though. Whale ain't really somethin' that's good for eatin'."

"If you're cookin', you have to have the stove on," Oxley said, shrugging. "Well, the oven, anyhow." He grinned and dug around in the ice-bx, eventually bringing out three individual pizzas. "They need heatin', though," he said, and looked at the plastic wrap round each of them.

"Dunno that that'll be any for eatin'," he said. "And it'll be too hard to get it off 'em when they'm hot." He pulled the wrap off and found some sort of flat tin tray to put them on, slipping them into the oven before looking at the dials on the stove and turning one that looked like it was marked to mean the oven.

This whole thing would be so much easier if he could read.

"You hafta have the stove on what?" Perry asked. "On board? It's right here, ain't it?"

"Never seen the like," Evans said, watching the Marine intently. The boy certainly seemed to know his way around this strange sort of kitchen.

Curious now, he moved closer to the galley stove and peered at the little helms on it. "Daftest galley stove ever."

"Works though," Oxley said as the kettle clicked off. "You wantin' tea?" he asked, sliding the tray of pizzas into the oven... though he had no idea how long they needed to be in there for. He closed the door and grinned at Evans. "This whole place is a bit daft like. Nice though. An' there ain't any real work to be thinkin' 'bout, neither."

There was a thunderous crash outside the door and a moment later, a bewildered red-coat came stumbling in. "If this place ain't half daft," he cried, "I dunno what is!"

Shaking his head, he swiped at his mud-splattered coat. "This'll never come white agin, neither," he grumbled before realising there were others in the kitchen. "Hoi. You lot. Where can a lad find a brush an' soap?"

Oxley blinked at the newcomer. "Who... Dunno you from Terpsy, do I?" he said, privately thinking the uniform looked rather old-fashioned. "Soap..." He pointed to the sink, where there was a cake of soap sitting in the soap-dish on the side. "Dunno 'bout a brush, though. Sorry."

" 'Bliged," he said, heading for the soap dish. Of course there wouldn't be a brush handy, though. That'd be too much to ask, wouldn't it?

"Name's Mayden," he added as he shrugged out of his coat.

"What you bin doin' out there anyhow?" Oxley wanted to know, hunting around for a brush he could offer the other man. "You can put that over the back of a chair in here... or, well, there's a fire in t'other room. An' I'm doin' tea for folks, if you wants one."

"I was tryin' to dig in behind a breastwork," Mayden answered. "S'why I'm all a-covered in filth. Then there was a ball 'sploded just on the leeward side of it, an' next thing I knows, I'm near to some terrible noisy road."

He shrugged and dumped his dirty coat into the sink. "Ain't puttin' this no-place, 'til it's set to rights. Won't say no to a bit of tea though."

Evans sneaked another wafer from the packet. "Been a good while since I seen a rig like your'n. Kep' it for working parties, did you?"

"It ain't so bad as all that," Oxley said. "Honest, it ain't." He couldn't help giving the newcomer's queue a curious glance now and then; it looked strangely different from Thompson's, somehow. "I think I might know where there's a brush you can use," he said, darting off to go and have a look, returning a few moments later. "Here y'are." He held it out, and looked at the red coat in the sink. "Must take a awful lot of work t'keep them white facin's clean."

"Ain't it," Mayden muttered to himself, setting to work scrubbing at his coat's facings with the soap. "This ain't for no workin' party neither. Only coat I got, this is. 'Side of my off-watch jacket, anyways."

He glanced over his shoulder when the boy returned with a brush. "Cheers, fella. Never-endin' job, sure. 'Specially when almost everythin' is white." Mayden gestured at his small-clothes and grinned.

Oxley looked ruefully down at his own grubby trousers, that had been white once. Well, they still were mostly white, he supposed. "Dunno why they thought it was a good idea, like," he said in agreement. He gave the man's old-fashioned clothes another quick glance. "What regiment're you with, then?" he asked, curious.

With a chuckle, Mayden shook his head. "S'posed to be so we look sharp. Only thing easy to look after is the shoes," he replied. Then he glanced askance at the boy, his mud-spattered eyebrows curving upwards. " 'What regiment'? The Corps, naturally. What'd you think?"

"Ain't that allus the way?" Oxley said and then blinked and touched the dark blue cuff of his own red jacket. "The Corps?" That made no sense at all. "We got blue facin's. See." He showed his jacket sleeve - as though the man couldn't see what was right in front of him.

Billy poked his head into the kitchen and looked around. "Anyone seen the new surgeon?" He paused and sniffed the air tentatively. "Eh, you bakin' them Pete's pies? Got any to share?"

Oxley turned to see who was asking. "Nope, I ain't. An' there might be, if you ain't so hungry you'll scoff the lot. Got to leave some for the rest of us, ain't you?"

Blue facings? Mayden rolled his eyes. The only coats with blue facings belonged to the Army. "No they ain't," he replied. "Ain't been any colour other than white, since the Corps was formed."

Evans, shaking his head, ignored the redcoats. His attention was held by the strange contraption the boy had said to be a galley stove.

"We bin Royal M'rines since... Well, for 'bout six seven years now. I 'member the old facin's though. Never wore 'em meself, o' course." How could the other man not know that?

Mayden shook his head again. "Nah, we ain't royal. Only been a Corps to our own 'bout twenny years."

Oxley folded his arms across his chest. "I know what Corps I 'listed in and it was the Royal M'rines, sure 'nough." Was he stupid or something?

"I knows it weren't no Corps of Royal nothin', when I took the shillin'," was Mayden's response. "An' I knows I near to got my head kicked in, when word got out 'bout it."

"Hoi," Evans burst out. "The stove's smellin'!"

Oh... dammit! So it was... Oxley hastily turned to pull the oven door open and nearly burned himself on the tray of pizzas. He hastily stuck his thumb in his mouth to cool it off and looked for a cloth or something to protect his other hand so he could pull the tray out.

"Well, they's Royal now," he mumbled, finally locating a tea-towel and folding it up before pulling the tray out and dumping it on the unlit hob. "Here. Sorry they's a bit black, like." He flipped the oven off and took his thumb out of his mouth to have a proper look at it. "That bloody hurts!"