About Geometry
Title: About Geometry
Author Eglantine_br
Rating G
Word Count 790
Spoilers None
Disclaimer I do not own Mr Bush,
even less so, his imagined youth
About Geometry
His face and hands were numb with
freezing spray His arse was still on fire. Shifting his weight from
side to side, did nothing to ease his misery. Will clutched tightly
at the shrouds as the 'Hesperus'' rolled. He have to find time
somehow to scrub the blood out of his trousers. At least he knew
how best to do that. Cold water. Will grimaced. Having four sisters
was good for some things.
Far below, faint on the wind, he heard
the drums. The rest of the midshipmen were going to eat now, in the
smell of hot food, in the close warm cockpit, laughing together,
without him. Will's belly was empty and flat and shivering. It had
contracted like a fist at the sound on the wind. He was drooling too.
He swallowed, automatically.
He fancied for a moment that everyone
had forgotten him. He wanted to put his head down and weep, or sleep.
He could do neither. Perhaps the fellow mids had forgotten him, but
he was sure that Lieutenant Bradley had not. They had shown their
workings today, in preparation for inspection by the Captain on
Sunday. Bradley, after teaching all week, had found deficiencies in
Bush's geometry.
Mr Bradley had, therefore,
demonstrated the effects of force and and arc motion by
scientifically removing the skin from Will's bottom. And sent him
aloft to masthead, to miss dinner.
The long twilight drew in, Will held
on. After some time, he found a way to rest his chin, and he watched
the shadows waver across the purpling water.
He was high above the ordinary world.
The sounds below were muffled and distorted. Will did not own a
watch. And the time, passing so slowly, did not really matter. The
mast dipped and swung. He swung with it, one boy, alone in the
freezing sky.
It was star-dark, by the time he was
permitted to climb down. He usually liked the sensation of the deck
coming up, fast and faster. He usually felt an inner smile, as he
flew flew down, like a raindrop, or a glass bead on a string. But
tonight he just wanted to reach the deck without moving his broken
skin. He made it finally. He made sure to stand straight before Mr.
Bradley, and speak up when spoken to.
“Get below, Mr Bush. I expect better
from you in future.”
“Aye, Sir.”
The berthing below decks was warm and
dim. As he had expected, the food was long gone. The other midshipmen
were glad enough to see him, but they did not ask him to join their
evening games. There were no cards in sight, gambling and card-play
were forbidden, of course. But Will knew they could bet on anything,
raindrops, insects, anything. Tonight it was a breath-holding
contest. They were both pop-eyed as frogs. Will never bet. They had
stopped asking, bullying, cozening, long ago. He was poor fun.
It hurt to climb into his hammock. He
could not help a hiss escaping from his clenched mouth. He arranged
himself on his side, it felt odd to lie that way, he usually lay easy
on his back. Will grimaced at the thought.
Nothing to be done. He closed his eyes,
and composed his mind for sleep. He thought of the round earth, with
the dark covering it like a black cloth draping. He pictured black
silk, smoothed down over the land and sea, as if by a kindly hand.
This was the dark covered him, and his little home, far away now.
His mother and sisters were long asleep. Soft, the dark that covered
them, soft the smell and the sound of the leaves by the house.
Thinking of it hurt, it hurt in a place deeper than the skin of him.
Midshipmen were homesick. All of them.
It was expected of them.
It was a misery that made them equal.
It was as universal as trigonometry, or being bent over a gun. There
should be comfort, Will thought, in the fact that the sons of earls
sniffled too, missing their great estates. But it made Will feel no
better.
Best not to think of his mother, or her
cooking. Best not to picture his sisters, and the shadows of the
trees. It was an absolutely bad idea to think how she reached up now
to touch his face, how she saved him hot muffins, wrapped in a
dishcloth. It was a bad idea. Far better to think of a kindly hand,
draping the globe in darkness, and drawing the silk away to bring the
day again. Far better to think of trigonometry.
Thinking of triangles, therefore,
William Bush fell asleep.