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| Topic Started: 26 Nov 2007, 04:44 PM (179 Views) | |
| Brendan | 26 Nov 2007, 04:44 PM Post #1 |
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The bugle had just called Fatigue, summoning the afternoon work-detail to the parade ground. Brendan was glad he had escaped being forced into the detail, for those unlucky sods had to shovel out the latrine trench. Instead, he was just returning from a leisurely visit to the guardhouse, where he had been gathering the necessary materials for the first reading lesson he had ever given. Branning, the Sergeant of the Guard, had only chuckled when Brendan told him his goal. It hardly mattered what the soft-spoken sergeant thought, because he was determined to try. Besides, if his mate ever wanted a chance at being promoted, he needed to be able to read and write. Whistling cheerfully, the Irishman ambled into the barracks and wound his way carefully past the opened sea-chests and scattered kit. By rights, he was supposed to be cleaning his own kit like the rest of the lads, but this venture took precedence over all that. It helped that his bunk was toward the end of the long building's first floor, where it was more difficult to spot him. The corporal tossed his hat onto his bunk when he reached it and flopped down onto the lumpy mattress, swinging his legs up so they were propped against the rough-hewn wooden frame. He had procured a few pages containing watch rosters and a provisions list, which would help get the lessons started. Skimming quickly through the pages before his soon-to-be pupil arrived, Brendan arranged each piece of parchment into what he thought was a sensible order. Now that he thought about it, he should have taken a blank piece and an inkwell with a quill too, but perhaps that was too messy to be used in the barracks. Maybe another day. "Bloody piece of blocky rubbish!" The corporal grumbled, rolling onto his side to pull his cartouche out from underneath him. It had been pressing painfully into his back, where he had been lying on it. Swiftly unfastening his epaulettes, he pulled off his crossbelts and tossed them carelessly aside. His sword gave a clatter as it bounced against the stone floor but he ignored it. That was better. Unless of course some half-brained idiot managed to put his foot through the cartouche. Now happily unencumbered by his kit, Brendan settled back against the old mattress and gave an experimental bounce, purely for a chuckle. Then he mellowed, finishing the task of sorting the papers in his hands. Quintin should be turning up soon, unless he'd lost his nerve. He'd be in for a proper ribbing if he had! |
 
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| Quintin | 26 Nov 2007, 04:45 PM Post #2 |
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Quintin hadn’t lost his nerve, although, surprisingly, he was in some danger of it; he ordinarily never felt nervous of anything. But this was completely different from anything he’d ever faced before. Lines on paper couldn’t hurt anyone. Actually, they could, when they were orders for punishment or the like, but that wasn’t why they frightened him. He was afraid that when Brendan began to show him what they meant, he wouldn’t understand them. That he’d sit there looking at them and they’d still mean nothing more than a bunch of random connected lines. He felt stupid. Stupid for thinking he should try, because he was too damn stupid to learn. Didn’t people who read learn when they were children? He’d be slower than a child to learn, if he could at all, he well knew; he never picked up on things quickly. Why’d he ever thought he could do it? The most he’d ever done before in the writing way was to make his X on his enlistment papers. He was sure Brendan wouldn’t laugh at him, but anyone else in the barracks might. Ware and Higgins already had laughed just at the very idea, and Quintin didn’t care to be laughed at when it came to this. He took the prospect of the lessons that Brendan had agreed to give him as seriously as he’d ever done anything in his life before. If he’d ever have a hope of promotion to a non-commissioned rank, he needed to be able to make heads or tails of the records. It was good in his mate to help him out like this, for it meant an extra four pence a day if he was promoted - half again his current wage. He shoved his tricorne lower on his head, to hide his glum expression, as he picked his way through the barracks. It was just after inspection, which could be told easy enough by the mess that was out; pieces of other marines’ kits were strewn about the bunks and sometimes on the floor, and a few men sat here and there pipe-claying or blacking different pieces of their equipment. Once Crawford’d been through the place, things changed around the barracks for a couple of days. It wasn’t all so neat and orderly without the encroaching threat of the Colour-Sergeant’s regular looksie to keep them on their toes. Most things, he reflected, you didn’t need reading and writing to figure out. Men fell into that category. Women – now it was possible that they didn’t, for Brendan had far better luck than Quintin did with them. Perhaps he’d read the secret somewhere. He moseyed along, reflecting along these and other such lines, down along the line of bunks towards his mate’s; he was moving a bit slower than he usually did, and shuffling a little, for he wasn’t at all sure he wanted to get there as quickly as possible. The apprehension that’d been hanging over him all day got thicker the nearer he got. He could practically feel himself getting duller. It was nearly enough to make him give up in frustration before he even started. However, nothing showed of his struggle except for a slight down-turn about the corners of his mouth; fortunately his slow pace meant he navigated the obstacle-course of accoutrements without mishap. "Eh then," he mumbled, dropping down to land beside Brendan. "What’s doin’?" He stared at the papers in Brendan's hands warily, rather as if they were some feral animal that might bite him unexpectedly. |
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| Brendan | 26 Nov 2007, 04:45 PM Post #3 |
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The papers were sorted to his satisfaction, so he went to work mentally composing the first lesson. It wasn't going to be easy, he knew that much. He'd never tried teaching anything not relating to musket or bayonet drill before. Hopefully he could do a proper job of it. Quintin appeared through the busy aisle between the bunks, his expression studiously blank. He wasn't scared, was he? Brendan tried unsuccessfully to keep a grin off his face, as his mate stepped carefully over the cartouche lying near the bunk. "Eh then," he mumbled, dropping down onto the bunk. "What’s doin’?" The Dorsetman's gaze was fixed on the papers in Brendan's hands and it was a temptation to wave the papers around a bit to see if Quintin's eyes would follow them. He resisted, but barely. Instead, he pulled himself into a sitting position. "Waitin' on your big head. Get a bit comfortable then, might be here for awhile." Was this as unnerving for Quintin as it was for him? Possibly. For his part, Brendan was afraid that he'd make a mess of the entire thing and make his mate stupid. It was Quintin's surest chance to get a shoulder knot. He had to do his best. In his nervousness, he forget about describing the papers in his hand and their purpose, and instead launched directly into the lesson. He shuffled the papers noisily, hoping that he didn't muck any of this up. "All right. Might's well start with letters. These funny-lookin' lines here," the corporal indicated the top-most page in his hand. He wished heartily that he'd thought to write out a list of letters beforehand, to make this easier. At least the roster he was using had the marines' names sorted by the first letter of their surnames. That was a small blessing that he was immensely grateful for now. Brendan tapped a finger on the letter A, where Abbott's name was written. "That's "A". Like apple." |
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| Quintin | 26 Nov 2007, 04:46 PM Post #4 |
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Quintin hadn’t the slightest doubt in Brendan’s ability to teach; after all, his mate knew how to read, didn’t he? And if you knew how to do something, stood to reason it couldn’t be too hard to teach it. Unless you had a stupid pupil. There was always at least one out of every bunch of recruits that just had to hold his musket upsy-down. Quintin’s eyes stayed glued on the papers with their inscrutable markings; he was glad Brendan hadn’t given them to him, as he was sure he’d have held them wrong way round. "Right-o," he answered, pulling his legs up after him til he sat cross-legged next to his mate, and craned his neck to peer at the "letters." So that he wouldn’t hold them wrong way around eventually, Quintin tried to ascertain for himself exactly what it was that made them upright. He decided at first that it was all dependent on which side of the lines of markings – they went horizontally, he saw – had things sticking out of it off a straight line, that was supposed to point towards the top, but then there were a few places where things stuck out the bottom too. Modifying that rule slightly, he decided that it was whichever side of the line that had more markings sticking up that went towards the top. Brendan pointed to the first part of the first line, his finger briefly covering one little piece of it and then removing to sit just underneath it. It was like a little tent, Quintin thought, with a cross-piece in the middle. He tried to commit the shape to memory, shutting his eyes briefly and tracing it over in his imagination. "So it’s all letters, then," he said, nodding. "That’s a lot of letters, how do you tell where one begins and another ends?" Then he stopped, and thought about what Brendan had just said. "Wait a moment," he added, frowning. "What d’you mean, A like apple? That don't make any sense. There's no sort of A sound in apple at all. A. Apple. It’s nothin' like." |
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| Brendan | 26 Nov 2007, 04:46 PM Post #5 |
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For a moment, Quintin seemed to understand it. That was good. Brendan wasn't sure he could adequately explain everything in detail, without confusing his mate - or himself. Maybe he ought to visit Corporal Grimes and pester the man with questions. "So it’s all letters, then," Quintin said, nodding. "That’s a lot of letters, how do you tell where one begins and another ends?" Then he paused and frowned. "Wait a moment. What d’you mean, A like apple? That don't make any sense. There's no sort of A sound in apple at all. A. Apple. It’s nothin' like." The corporal grinned. He'd slipped and Quintin had caught it. "Apple starts with A," he explained. "Even though it sounds different when you say it." Poor Quintin. He'd get properly confused by all this before it sank in. It had taken Brendan a long time to grasp everything himself. He hoped he could make it plain enough for his mate to understand and himself to teach. It was only the first letter of the alphabet and already he was feeling unsure. "Letters make words, see?" He indicated Abbott's name again. "They're put together in groups. There's spaces between the words to separate 'em. Like this here, it's Abbott's name. His Christian name and surname are separated by a space, so they aren't mashed together." That wasn't any better. Biting his lip, the corporal glanced down at the paper in his hand. He had to be careful how he explained things. "D'you follow all that? It's a bit much to have shoved at you, really." |
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| Quintin | 26 Nov 2007, 04:48 PM Post #6 |
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Properly confused was right. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Apple started with A, even though it didn’t sound like it? How did you tell? Did every word start with A? They definitely did not, because the starting squiggly at the beginning of each line on the paper Brendan had did not look the same as the tent with the cross-piece. He squinted at the one that his friend had tapped again. This was the duty roster? Brendan had said he’d teach him out of that. There wasn’t any marine named Apple, so why had Brendan picked Apple? Perhaps all fruit started with the letter A. He really had no idea. That made as much sense as anything else he could come up with. Then Brendan spoke up again, clarifying things a little: "Letters make words, see?" His finger touched the same spot on the paper that he had before, and Quintin squinted at it again in the hopes that something would click and he would suddenly understand. "They're put together in groups. There's spaces between the words to separate 'em. Like this here, it's Abbott's name. His Christian name and surname are separated by a space, so they aren't mashed together." He paused and then added, "D’you follow all that? It’s a bit much to have shoved at you, really." It was all still mostly a mystery, but at least now he had the germ of an idea: apple started with the same sound as Abbott. It did not sound like A, but there was a pattern here apparently. And the groupings made words, or actually, names. Out of curiousity, he scanned the rest of the document, looking for more A’s; triumphantly, he picked out the closest three more with relative ease. Quintin pointed to ‘Anderson, John’, ‘Bauer, Albert’ and ‘Felton, Avery.’ "Those are A’s as well, right?" He thought for another moment. "Abbott, Albert have gotta be, too. An’ Isaac…sounds a bit like. Lotta A’s. Ware and Watkins are A men too?" "What’s my name start with?" he asked curiously. Michael Quintin didn’t sound like A, but then again, you never knew. |
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