Day Trip

De Guarde placed a hand to his ribs and gave Oxley a proper smack over the head, before snatching the hat of it. "Look 'ere. Somebody left a coat lying about." He indicated one of the hammocks. "I'll be wearing read in an instant, I will." He narrowed his eyes on Oxley. "What we can do of ocurse. Us Tars. Change from one clothes ter t' other, while you're bound only ter red!"

The boy was watching them intently. They looked so real in their acting! So genuine. Even a few of the other tourists turned to listen to them, though a few murmured that, these two had no idea what they were talking about and would need to have a look in their history books a bit more intently.

Then there were a few who raised their cameras and a flash of flight blinked in their way. Several of them.

"You Navy fellows are all bloody mad," Sam retorted, shaking his head in resignation. "Don't be mindin' half what this lot says, they wouldn't know their foot from their nose," he added with a glance at the gawking strangers around them.

"You're not a Navy man?" A man asked.

Sam shook his head again. "Nope! I'm a Rifleman, me. The grand old Ninety-Fifth's mine. No totterin' around at sea for us greenjackets, no sir!"

"He's t' one mad. Sayin' he ain't of a ship. Ought to be ashamed saying something like that." De Guarde grinned.

"95th?.. Like from Sharpe?" One of the younger men asked. A woman looked curiously at Mayden. "Like from the tv series and the books?" She asked. De Guarde blinked: "What on earth are they talking about?"

"Mathew de Guarde!" Thompson had heard the commotion and moved aft. His eyes widened a little at the flashes and he touched his hat to the woman. Despite her outlandish clothes, she didn't look like the doxies he was used to seeing aboard ships when they were in port. "Please mind me young frien' here. He's just joshin' with you, that's all. You can stop teasin' 'em, lad. You know the way of things right enough, which these folks don't, so why don't you tell 'em prop'ly. An' while you'm at it, give Oxley his hat back."

Both of Mayden's eyebrows went up. "How d'you lot know of Mister Sharpe?"

He froze a bit as his name was called, but the moment that he saw who it was, he was grinning again, only unsettled by the flashes which did not show any storm coming by. It was so strange. There was no lightning, nothing to indicate that there should be such a source of light, and yet he could see them coming from these small boxes. THe point of which he couldn't see either. Why would you hold something you couldn't see through to your face. Or if you could, what point did you have for a spy glass, in the bowels of the ship?

"..He can have that one ." He indicated to one of the hammocks. "It will fit him better than me." And he was, already making his way to get the coat (um, they are those there, are they?) for himself. "I don't lie... I jus' dun tell t' truth, honest!"

++

"Sharpe? ..Oh, he's a character in the books. Didn't you read any of those? He's an officer.. in the 95th, that's the same as you there. He's got a motley lot of men, and always acts in defiance, saves lasses, or such!.. And most young boys that are his fans die.... in those stories too." The woman nodded, with a smile.

Books? Young boys dying? What the devil...?

"I can't read, of course," Mayden said, struggling to contain his rising disbelief. "I'm of the Ninety-Fifth, aye, but we ain't any sorta wild pack of rogues. Proper deadly fightin' men, more like!"

He pointed toward Newbury, who was unconsciously gawking at a girl wearing what looked like a short band of cloth around her chest. "Like him there, 'cept he's of the Sixtieth."

Throughout all of this, Branning had been intently studying the poster propped against a low-slung hammock. He knew enough about reading to recognise numbers - they were easier to spot than letters, weren't they - but beyond that the neat lines of print were nothing more than gibberish to him.

He gave up trying to figure out what the numbers meant and turned his attention to the pieces of kit lying haphazardly inside the hammock. "What sorta daft 'scuse for a hat's this?" He asked, picking up one of the round hats. "It's got no plume on it or nothin'."

"Them jackets is a bit bright an' all," Thompson said, noticing and comparing the sleeve of his own jacket with the red coat lying over the hammock. "Sea-chest looks as though Vinin's bin at it an' all," he added, noticing the open sea-chest on the deck, with a shirt spread over it and other items of kit on view.

"Aye," Branning agreed, setting the plumeless hat down again. "Dunno what sorta lads live 'board of here, but they don't know first thing 'bout keeping their kit tidy."

"Say," Tom Mayden said abruptly. "What's them two posters all about, then?"

De Guarde had gone all the way over to the hammock and snatched the all too red coat, lifting it up and pulling it over his shoulders to the shock of the 'modern' spectators.

"... This'un will fade, jus' you let me wear it on deck." He said unfazed, and followed Mayden's gaze.

"Well in the book you are, There's Perkins, Sharpe, Hagman, ..hm, those sort of people, that have different adventures, and are often away from the army, doing secret sort of missions.. or just getting lost. " The girl said with a shrug.

"We don't get lost," Mayden burst out, indignantly. "Get left behind, sure - but that was the Retreat, weren't it? Lots of lads got left behind then and most of 'em for permanent."

"Mister Evans," Chase said, striving to contain his excitement. "Come 'way aft, the cap'n's cabin's layin' open, and no sentries at it!"

The two seamen scampered aft, unable to resist such a temptation.

No sentries? Unheard of! This was the strangest visit to another ship that Thompson had ever known. He almost followed the two seamen, but de Guarde and Oxley needed watching to make sure they didn't get up to anything. He turned to see Oxley eyeing up a drum that had been left by the ship's side and grabbed his collar before he could do anything. The lad's hands had already moved towards the drumsticks tucked into his crossbelt.

De Guarde noticed What Oxley was looking at and how Thompson had stopped him. Giving a wink at the boy, it was his turn to snatch at the drum, to get it for his friend.

++

"But Sharpe unwillingly admits he is lost in one of the books, If I remember right. And he was lost!" The girl insisted, startled as a pair of Tars went off.

Mayden shook his head, emphatically. "He ain't. Never. An' I oughta know, shouldn't I, bein' that he's my officer. Been with him since before the Retreat and all!"

"Mathew de Guarde! You let that alone, you hear me?" Thompson said, even as Oxley tried to twist out of his grasp. "You two boys is anglin' to end up in the bilboes, ain't you?"

"Boys," Tom Mayden said disdainfully. "There's never any dealin' with 'em. 'Specially not drummer boys."

Oxley glared at the other man in the old-fashioned coat with its white facings. Folks never understood about having fun, once they were all grown-up. "Was only goin' to beat f'r the officers' dinner," he said, slightly sulkily. "Wasn't goin' to hurt anyone, doin' that."

"Hmph," Tom Mayden said. "S'posing that's even so, you'd not be so easy 'bout it if you was to know them devilish twins. Let either of them lay hold of a drum 'board of a different ship and they'd have the whole place in an uproar."

"They din't come with us, did they?" Oxley said, reaching for Thompson's hand to try to loosen the older man's grip on his collar. "An' I ain't so daft as to go an' beat to Quarters, not with kids around!"

Mayden lifted an eyebrow. "You know the twins, do you?"

"If they'm the ones I'm thinkin' of, yes, we do," Thompson said, ignoring Oxley's attempts to free himself. "An' you'm right, they would get up to summat right roaratorious. Best that they ain't here." He frowned a little. "Though, thinkin' on it, mebbe we don't know the same lads. You ain't from the same Corps as us, are you?"

At that, Mayden brushed his hands purposefully over his white facings. "The Corps I know don't have any sorta royal high-muckity-nothin' 'tached to it, if that's what you mean."