Humble Beginnings

"Davies?"

"Yes?"

"That seaman needs to be disciplined again. Can you get it taken care of for me? I've got more important things to attend to right now."

"Oh, of course. Consider it done." Another task too insignificant for the other officers dumped onto his lap. The neverending joy of the fourth mate's life. He turned to the steward at his side, sighing through his nose. "Come on then, Lanke. Let's go find him."

It didn't take long to find the seaman, he was strung up in his hammock with arms crossed and a scowl on his face. The steward was surprised to see how young he was, roughly the same age as himself, only twelve or thirteen years.

"What's happened this time?" Davies asked.

The seaman blew a raspberry. "I don't see why I'm in trouble for this! I thought I was just doin' my duty."

Davies cocked his head to the side. "What duty...?"

"Midshipmen are supposed to be good at navigation, aren't they? All I did was borrow the captain's spyglass to take a look at the nearby coastline! I was gonna put it back!" The steward was intrigued. This misbehaved seaman seemed more similar to himself than he initially assumed.

Davies sighed. "You aren't a midshipman yet, Milroy. A seaman, especially an inexperienced one such as yourself, does not hold the authority to make navigation decisions."

"Hmph. I just wanted to get some practice, is all." Milroy's previously explosive voice faded down into a mumble. What an intriguing boy, Lanke found himself thinking.

"Even besides that, stealing the captain's property is a serious offense. How much is being docked off your pay for that?"

"One pound."

"Hm, you should consider yourself lucky. Some captains may nullify a man's salary completely for doing something like that. I suppose he's letting you off easy because you're still young."

"Whatever."

"Come on, Milroy." Davies said, growing exasperated. "If you really do want to be a midshipman one day, you can't keep this streak up. You've got to straighten yourself out a bit. Can you do that for me?"

"No promises."

Davies sighed. That was the best he was going to get from him, it seemed. "Alright, then. I'm going to rest for a little bit. Lanke, you're free for the rest of the evening to do what you'd like."

"Thank you, sir."

The officer walked off to his quarters, leaving the two young boys alone. Lanke nearly wanted to walk off too, but something about the seaman interested him. He decided to try making conversation with him. "...I want to be a midshipman too."

"Really?" Milroy propped himself up a bit in his hammock to get a better look at him.

"Yeah. And Mr. Davies is right, you know."

"How would you know?"

"My whole family is involved with the Company, so I've learnt a lot about it over the years. But I think anyone can tell you to avoid doing something stupid like stealing the captain's things if you want to get promoted. Ever heard of something called common sense?" Lanke couldn't resist giving him a light tease, a smile forming on his face.

"Hehe, that was pretty stupid of me, wasn't it? What was I thinking?"

Lanke snickered and lowered his voice slightly. "What was the look on his face when he found out?"

"Oh, terrifying! I thought he was gonna kill me right then and there. But I must admit, not even the angriest I've seen an officer get at me before."

"What?? What else have you done to piss them off?"

"Loads— one time one of 'em even threatened to have me keelhauled!"

"No, you're lying!"

"It's true— but oh, I think I'm too tired to recount all of my misadventures to you right now. Had a busy day, you know." Milroy yawned dramatically. "Why don't you come find me when you've got the free time tomorrow and I'll tell you about it then?"

"..Alright." Lanke sighed disappointedly. "Can I get your name? Your first name, I mean."

"Peter. But friends can call me Pete. And you?"

"Thomas."

"Nice to meet you, Thomas." Pete held his hand out for Tom to shake it.

Tom took it. "Nice to meet you too."

Just as the strange little seaman had asked of him, Tom used his free time the following day tracking him down on the ship. He found him rather quickly, sitting on one of the benches with a large pile of rope at his side.

"Hey there!"

"Oy, you showed up! I figured a proper steward boy like you would be above spending your time with a scrappy seaman like me." Pete said as he worked his fingers on the rope.

"What? No, of course not. Wh... What are you doing? You're ruining the rope!" Tom pointed at Pete's hands as they were working to untwist the braids of the rope.

"No I'm not, I'm just splicing 'em! You know, weaving the strands of two ropes together to connect them?"

"...Oh. No, I didn't know about that."

"It's something you gotta know how to do if you want to be a midshipman."

Tom's shoulders sagged. "I didn't realize. To be honest, I don't really know the first thing about the, well, sailing part about this career." He sat down on the bench beside Pete. "I know about the hierarchy and politics from front to back thanks to my family talking about it all the time, but I can only tie a few basic knots, and I've never even held a compass in my hands before. All I'm doing in this position is Mr. Davies' chores."

"That's alright. I can teach you some of the more practical things, if you'd like, at least how to splice some rope."

"Oh, would you?"

"Yeah, of course! But you'll have to sit through all of my stories too."

"You say that like it's a bad thing!"

The boys spent the remainder of Tom's break splicing ropes, while Pete told of his many misadventures and Tom listened. There was definitely an extent of exaggeration to each story he told, and Tom suspected some of them were fabricated entirely. He didn't really mind that though, as he found Pete to be quite a good storyteller, the kind that knew which parts to emphasize, the kind that knew how long to pause whenever a shocking piece of the story had been revealed, the kind that showed some of his personality by the way he told things. And oh what a personality he had. Prone to mischief yet dedicated to his future aspirations of becoming an officer. An outgoing, teasing jokester, but also a sensitive young boy who kept his private life close to his chest.

Tom wanted to know more about him, and for once, the opposite seemed to be true too. Pete asked Tom to tell stories of his own, and went on to prove that he was an excellent listener too, asking questions about finer details to show he was truly engaged, reacting strongly when Tom had expected him to. Every day after that first one they spent together, they talked to each other. About anything and everything that was on their minds. They had grown nearly inseparable by the voyage's end, which proved to be quite troublesome for their mothers when it came time to leave port. A flurry of letters traveled between them afterwards, hoping that they once again would end up on the same ship and yearning for the time that both of them would become midshipmen.

Somehow Tom had found a friend in that mischievous little seaman who stole the captain's spyglass. And somehow, he was perhaps the most genuine friend he had made in a long time.