Work Text:
There were mornings, when simply getting out of bed was more than Bush thought he could manage. These were the grey dawns, that followed the endless nights, when the pain in his leg had kept him wakeful, or his mind tormented him with dreams of the sea. The sight, the smell, and the moods of a life he would never see again.
But these were the days when he shaved as close as he dare, viciously and purposely ignoring the shake in his hands, brought on by a shooting pain in his missing limb. His queue was tied and retied until it was as straight as ever it had been, before.
It was on the days when he woke up shaking in agony, that his best uniform was taken from its place in his redundant sea chest. It was on these mornings that he brushed it down, and straightened it to perfection. It was as the light crept in through his window that he polished the buttons to a gleaming shine, concentrating on his task, with as much vigour and enthusiasm as he could muster. It was on these days, that he studied his reflection in the mirror and wondered when he had grown old. But he would not linger on such matters, and simply checked that all looked right, and that everything was in its place.
Captain Bush always looked so perfectly turned out. Despite his infirmity, he never showed a single sign of untidiness, and the men respected that, and many of the younger ones, wondered how his queue was always so neatly and precisely tied, and how his buttons were so bright, you could see your face in them