For Forty Weeks the Sunbird Flew: An Airman's Tale

Chapter 2: The First Day

The day had been long and, even though he hadn't done much of the actual work, tough. There was a great deal of things that needed constant maintenance on a ship like this it seemed, doubly so when considering how long she'd been flying in the frontlines of the seemingly endless skirmishes that wracked the continent. Archer had spent most of his time doing little more than simply handing tools and parts as Lawrence called for them, taking away what wasn't needed and filing it back away. He felt as though he hadn't really done any work and confessed as much to Lawrence, but his boss had just smiled at him.

"Trust me, it helps. It doesn't seem like much, but across the last six hours how many times have I asked you to grab something, or put something away, or even just hold something in place? A hundred times? A hundred and fifty? That'd probably have meant another hour or so of work for me. You might not have done much mechanical work today, but we all start somewhere. Still, I'd rather you got to know the tools first and pick up a thing or two as you go before starting on anything complex."

That had settled his nerves a little, as had the easy smile that the raven-haired man had flashed him, but he still felt a little overwhelmed by the fact that soon enough it would be him led under engines and replacing rusting sections of walkways and the like.

He forced himself to not get lost in his own head, since that had never worked out well for him before. Besides, he'd only been aboard for what, six, seven hours? He'd learn, just as he always did. Lawrence seemed like he'd be a good teacher, even if the time spent working was mostly silent. He'd found that the man wasn't one to fill the air with endless small talk or verbose statements, just the occasional question about if he knew what some tool was, or how to correctly apply something. Usually the answer was no, but Lawrence didn't seem to mind. The silence seemed to be something Lawrence appreciated, and he had let such feelings be known in no uncertain terms.

"You're pretty quiet on shift."

"I can-"

"Don't worry, that wasn't a complaint. The opposite, actually. I'm not much of a 'people person' whilst I'm on shift so I'm glad you're able to keep yourself busy and not endlessly talk."

Archer didn't feel particularly busy, but he kept that to himself. He waited for Lawrence to continue, sensing that the man wasn't quite finished.

"Nothing like the twins, God rest them both. I couldn't keep them quiet for love nor money."

That was the second time today someone had mentioned these twins he seemed to have replaced, but there was a distance in the engineer's tone that told the young man to let sleeping dogs lie for now. He'd have five years to ask, after all.

"Well, that seems to be all I can do here. I don't want to put you off of this job on your first day, but we'll be completely out of spare parts soon enough. Ach, none of that for now; I promised to show you around the ship, did I not?"

Archer nodded, and Lawrence smiled in return.

"Alright then. I'll show you deckside, since you'll see the rest of the ship in the coming days of work anyway."

"Sounds good, Mr Walker. Lead on."

The man rolled his eyes a little at the formality, but Archer couldn't help it. He'd been raised on an estate his whole life, and now he was expected to ignore formalities all of a sudden? He might be able to avoid using 'Sir' where it wasn't warranted, but at the very least he needed to be able to use some form of honourific to not feel completely disrespectful. Just calling the man by his first name seemed too informal, but he knew eventually he'd get comfortable enough to cross that boundary. Probably.