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

[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.

[contentwithoutcommand]

Because I'm a man of the Navy, and I love the sea. I could adapt to the life, I think, but I'd never enjoy it. Wouldn't matter to them, of course, but it'd make a hell of a difference to me.

[greenjacketed]

It ain't terrible. You'd have rank, at least. [ ... ] But I suppose sailorin' is in your blood or summat.

[contentwithoutcommand]

Just like you'd learn, if you had to, to be a sailor. Any man can learn to hand, reef, and steer. But... [He shrugs his shoulders, flashing a grin.]

We've got our paths, don't we? Probably too old to learn new professions well at this point.

[greenjacketed]

[ bluntly: ] Heaven help me when the war ends.

[contentwithoutcommand]

I'll drink to that, Major. I don't relish it, when peace comes again.

[greenjacketed]

[ he raises his glass. ] Christ...well? You have until eighteen-thirteen, at the very bloody least.

[contentwithoutcommand]

[David lifts his glass and drinks. Before pointing out what is simple fact to him:]

Provided I live to see that long, of course.

[greenjacketed]

Provided so. [ but sharpe adds one thought before he drinks: ] Though, my lads have a thing they like to say. Lord knows where they learned it. Nil desperandum, Long. Nil bloody desperandum.

[ and so exists the sum total of sharpe's latn. ]

[contentwithoutcommand]

Nil desperandum. [He drinks to that sentiment.]

Doesn't do any good to worry about it, does it?

[greenjacketed]

It does not. [ another drink. and sharpe realizes only too late that he's learned a great deal about david and hasn't offered much of himself. even beyond what the man has shared, faith has shared plenty on top of it.

so sharpe tries to awkwardly pin a new fact to his person: ] South Essex, by the by. My regiment. I failed to say it, earlier-like.

[contentwithoutcommand]

South Essex. I was curious when you mentioned the Rifles. Heard of 'em but never got to meet a man of them yet.