A/N: Taking place after Horatio joins Justinian, but before Simpson arrives.
Horatio was shivering, but he wasn't cold. He and Archie were up on the poop, Archie watching for signals, Horatio, learning to do the same. The other mid was rattling away, as usual, pointing out each of the flag lockers, and what flag it held, and what it meant. Horatio wanted to pay attention, but kept being distracted by Archie's mobile lips, wildly gesticulating hands, even the way the boy wore the uniform, looking so effortlessly like an officer, so trim and naval, while Horatio still felt as if he'd ended up in fancy dress by mistake. He had never had a particular friend before, and Horatio was quite proud of the one he almost had now.
"Look, Hornblower!" Archie was pointing across the water to where another great hulk had hoisted flags. "That's our number, on the Arethusa." Kennedy flew into action, muttering as the mid consulted the signal book and pulled flags, then shouting for a sailor to come hoist the chosen selection from the mainmast. Horatio remembered that the red and white flag in the shape of an isosceles triangle meant an answer, but couldn't make sense of the other three.
"Mr. Reilly!" Kennedy's voice cracked out, startlingly loud. One of the little volunteers ran over. "Find Lieutenant Eccleston. Tell him there's a message coming in from Arethusa." The little boy knuckled and scurried off like a blue-coated rat, to Horatio about as welcome. He always felt twice as awkward around the youngest of the ship's complement. Even the tiniest, whose ginger-crowned head barely passed his waist, had more experience, and confidence, than he did.
"Here, Horatio." Archie pushed the little code book into his hands, pointing to where someone had hand-lettered in a list of names and numbers. He recognized several as being nearby ships, stuck together on anchor until sufficient men and supplies were found to crew them. "We've sent acknowledgment to Arethusa, now we wait to see what they have to say. Supper invitation, I expect, this time of day."
In due course, the other ship pulled the flags down, and sent up a new hoist. As soon as it started up, Archie looked over at him, challenging. Horatio flushed, and had to scramble to remember the numbers associated with the flags, and then hunt down the proper code. By the time he had come up with 'Rendezvous', Kennedy was calling their men to dip the flags in acknowledgment.
"You're going to have to be much faster than that, Mr. Hornblower. Fast signals can make all the difference in the line of battle, and it's us mids in charge of them."
Horatio was annoyed by the boy's officious air. Sailing knowledge was one thing, but even he knew that most of the fleet had been rotting off Spithead for a decade. Yet Archie was talking like a seasoned war veteran. He didn't want to quarrel though, so he just nodded, and tried to look serious. When the third hoist went up, Horatio couldn't make it out at all, the combinations weren't in the book, and he was about to give up and ask Kennedy when Mr. Eccleston arrived on deck. Archie hustled over, immediately. "The Arethusa's wardroom is requesting our first lieutenant, sir."
"Any word on the captain?"
"No, sir."
"Very well. Mr. Hornblower!" Horatio tried not to jump. "Send my compliments, and order the cutter."
"Aye, aye, sir!"
Luckily, he remembered without having to consult the book that the red flag with the white cross meant 'affirmative' and handed it over to the the seaman to be hoisted. He felt a vague sense of disappointment, that his first participation in a naval communication would be something so prosaic as arranging supper. Still, there was a burst of activity now, the preparing of the little boat, and sending off of the lieutenant, which he had not seen before. Soon enough watch was over, and he could go below to his own meal, crammed together next to Kennedy, trying to hide how little he liked the food and drink, and how much the company. Well, some of the company.
As the midshipmen grew louder, and began to sing, it was much less convivial. But when he got up, Kennedy grabbed his hand, and whispered in his ear to meet him in the sail locker. This mysterious offer was intriguing enough that he didn't even mind that he went the wrong way twice getting down to the orlop, and arrived in the right place sometime after Kennedy, who was sitting on a crate outside the bosun's storeroom, grinning, when he got there.
"It's in use, but here is just as good." Archie patted the top of the box, and Horatio hopped up, only to immediately have something soft pressed into his hands. "For you." The packet was a series of miniature quilts, each no larger than his palm, fabric cunningly pieced together to match the signal flags. One had been torn and carefully mended, several had stains, and one was lost completely, and replaced with a bit of drawn-on sailcloth. He glanced up to catch a fond, thoughtful expression on his friend's face.
"Toy flags?"
"Practice! My sister Anne made them for me." One brown, marked finger ran over them, fingering the little stitches. "A few years ago, now, of course. Don't need them anymore, it's all up here." The finger now tapped a tow-headed temple. "Mostly anyway. Here, you'll want these." Archie handed over a couple worn out pages, on which a list of letters and phrases had been written in the mid's cramped, but highly readable hand.
Horatio puzzled over the missing numerals. "What do these letters mean, I thought the flags were numbered."
"Of course they are, but I couldn't write the codes down correctly, could I? What if these papers had fallen into enemy hands?"
The boy's patronizing tone made Horatio flush. It hardly seemed likely they would be boarded by the French just off Portsmouth, or that midshipman's chests would be ransacked if they did. "Oh yes, that makes sense. What is the code?"
"K is one, Kennedy, you see, started with myself. It goes on from there, L, is two, and so on." Horatio was tempted to point out that Archie's simple substitution cipher would hardly fool an enemy spy. It was just the sort of observation that had put paid to other new friendships, though, and wiser now, he held his tongue. Horatio did resolve to be very careful with the little scraps of paper, just in case.
They ended up spending quite a merry hour together, almost as merry as the occupants of the sail locker. Better perhaps, since from the sound of it, Horatio was occasionally convinced a man was being murdered in there. Archie didn't pay it any mind though, beyond a grin now and then, blithely setting out flags, and quizzing him on their meanings, equally gleeful whether he answered correctly or no.
By the time the bell sounded to prepare for watch, he was right more often than not. Unlike knots and sails and pulleys, this was something he was good at. He enjoyed the surprise in Kennedy's eyes as he deciphered a final, complicated hoist, and the warm, strong hand clapping his shoulder as they got up to leave. At this moment, at least, he felt Mr. Midshipman Hornblower might have a place in His Majesty's navy after all.