First Tackle : written

[contentwithoutcommand]

[David has had... three days. He's taken three days living with his sister to sort out where he is and what's going on. Which, as far as he can tell, is all very vague.

Of course, a woman like Faith can't be expected to have any sort of reckoning of points of longitude and latitude, and he doesn't have the tools required yet to shoot the sun to take his own calculations. He is most certainly not in England or the West Indies, though. Of that much, he can be certain.

The Journal is his biggest contemplation. He's watched it, these last few days. He doesn't understand most of it, but he has seen how it can used to address letters and even speeches to the general population. How the latter works, he doesn't know. Really, how it works in general is a mystery, but he understands the written form best.

There's no telling who will read what he writes as he finally takes up a pen, so he's careful with his wording. Around him are about twenty sheets on which he's practiced before committing himself to this.]

The fourth of May.

[No location, he doesn't grasp that well enough yet to make that distinction.]

To whom it may concern:

[There may be an admiral or commodore or post-captain in this strange place, but he can't be sure, so a more general heading will have to do.]

I arrived here on the first of May. After making a basic of study of the area, I proceeded to the north where I found a village. It is the only one according to local information. I established a residence and read what is provided by way of documentation. I have since collected my possessions that have arrived: my uniform, my pocketwatch, and my telescope.

My ship is lost, my crew unaccounted for, and the fleet far out of range of communication. I write this dispatch in the hope that it might be received by someone in a position to answer it.

I am, most respectfully, your servant,

D Long, commander of His Majesty's Sloop Hornet, R. N.

[The strangest dispatch he has ever written, David thinks, but it will do. It might also give him some indication if there are any brother officers here, if any of his crew or squadron have suffered the same fate.]

Comments

[greenjacketed]

...You adapt. It takes time, but I swear you do.

[contentwithoutcommand]

Christ. [It's staggering as far as he's concerned, but it's like being on a ship. A landsman will become a seaman just by being exposed to the environment, being around those familiar with it.] Eighteen-thirteen.

Remarkable. Damn remarkable.

[greenjacketed]

The only thing remarkable 'bout it is the fact that I managed to make it from oh-five to thirteen. [ hesitantly: ] If you have any questions, Commander...?

[ god. he doesn't even know if he can answer but he feels he has to offer. ]

[contentwithoutcommand]

[Questions. There are a hundred questions. But.]

I probably don't want to ask, do I? Anything I want to know, it's probably better I don't find it out this way.

[He sighed, shaking his head a little.] There's plenty I don't want to tell Faith, and that's only three years. Eight? I can't imagine.

[greenjacketed]

...Aye. I can respect that. [ and he'd try his hardest not to go back on such an assurance. ] Wait, now, how late in oh-five are we talking?

[contentwithoutcommand]

October seventeenth. I can even tell you the half-hour I last heard struck while I was sleeping.

[greenjacketed]

...Christ. Four bloody days off.

[contentwithoutcommand]

[He's going to regret asking this, probably:]

Four days off from what?

[greenjacketed]

Nothing -- [ he lies poorly. ] Just -- bloody hell, Long! The seventeenth of October? That year? I bloody well was sailin' with the navy, myself.

[contentwithoutcommand]

[And Long can spot a bad lie easily enough. But... men with secrets can respect other secrets. Or should be able to. So, he accepts the slight alteration of topic.]

Were you? What part of the world? Not the West Indies, of course. [Or he wouldn't have asked about sailing in that part of the world earlier.]

[greenjacketed]

Not far from Cape Trafalgar, on my way back home from India. Didn't start out with the navy, a'course. Took passage with the East India Company, but we got taken as a prize by the French only to have the damned frogs taken captive in turn by a pretty little thing called the Pucelle.

[contentwithoutcommand]

French privateer or French navy? [It's not really a matter of any importance, and his voice conveys that. It's just a bit of healthy curiosity.]

[greenjacketed]

Navy. Though I take it one wouldn't know so from her behaviour. The Revenant was a French seventy-four haunting the Indian Ocean. Hides herself in Mauritius, sallies out to snap up prizes, then scuttles back before she could be caught. Only we shouldn't have been snapped up in the first place. Bloody EIC captain were crooked.

[contentwithoutcommand]

Revenant. [It's repeated for the sake of memory. Even if things claim he won't remember his time here, he won't take that chance. That? Sounds like something to write to the Admiralty about stopping.]

I was worried it was Jeanne d' Arc. She broke the blockade at Brest six months after it started. One of the few ships to do that. Only a forty-four, though.

[greenjacketed]

Funny coincidence, that, given I were on the Pucelle.

[contentwithoutcommand]

Fortunes change quickly, certainly. I hope there wasn't too great a lot of life during either capture. [Well, on the side of the British and civilian, at least. French Navy men, especially? He's not too worried about.]

[greenjacketed]

It was done by the book, however crooked the book might have been. Parole was given in as much as it could be. I were only an ensign and the one bloody soldier signed on as passenger.

[contentwithoutcommand]

Lord.

Don't suppose the EIC man got what he deserved. [Most of the worst ones never did. Smugglers and traitors who could hide their tracks well enough...]

[greenjacketed]

Peculiar Cromwell was his name. The Pucelle's captain took him under charges.

[contentwithoutcommand]

[Long checks himself from expressing hope the man hangs as a traitor. It's probably not the best thing to say publicly, especially when he doesn't know the lay and attitudes of the land.]

Hopefully justice will see itself done.

[greenjacketed]

[ fret not, for richard will say it for him: ] Justice would have been well served had Captain Chase given me but ten minutes alone with the bastard.

[contentwithoutcommand]

[And that? Makes Long smile.]

If it'd been Hornet in those waters, you'd have gotten all the time you wanted with him, Major.

[greenjacketed]

Mind you, Chase is a good man. Only perhaps too good. He and his lads looked after yours truly, though I can say with utter certainty that the naval life is not for me.

[contentwithoutcommand]

Know a few men like that myself. Too good, and such. Though-- [He can't help grinning and chuckling a bit] I must admit, it's not surprising you didn't take to life at sea.

I think I'd be damned unfit for service with the army.

[greenjacketed]

How's that, eh? For as far as I can tell, being damned unfit for service seems to be about the only bloody requirement of late.