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sga_flashficA Circumstantial Narrative of The Loss of the Brig Atalanta
Summary: Because I couldn't resist the urge to put John and Rodney on a boat (to say nothing of the...never mind) in the eighteenth century. It's a ripping yarn.
PG for explosions, nautical language, and occasional mild innuendo. So AU as to be essentially spoiler-free. Written for the sga_flashfic pirates/criminals/whatever challenge.
5,500 words.
With many thanks to Amy for beta.
I took ship at Boston in April of 1707 on the brig Atalanta, 120 tons, bearing ten guns and a crew of fourteen, bound for London. She sailed first to Charles-town, rather than taking the direct crossing, but I reasoned that, as I had made the acquaintance of her captain during my time in Boston, it were better to take passage on a roundabout voyage in the company of a familiar face than a more direct route with strangers. Captain S-- was a Yankee seaman of goodly height, sound bearing, and taciturn demeanor. Friends assured me that he was a reliable sailor. For myself, I knew him as a capable and intelligent man; we had met following one of my lectures at the college, on the subject of the calculation of the Longitude, and had spent many nights since engaged in various examinations of the heavens, sharing a mutual interest in astronomy and the movements of the spheres.
*******
"You can't really think that's feasible aboard ship."
"Well, of course it is, given an accurate chronometer, which most of them aren't. But if you get the declination right, you could make a basic calculation based on the angle of -- "
"You're not taking the magnetic variance into account."
"Excuse me, I am doing nothing but taking the magnetic variance into account. Which of us is a Fellow of the Royal Society, thank you very much? Huh?"
"I thought they kicked you out."
"They did not, as you so quaintly put it, kick me out! They merely suggested that I accept Mr. Willard's very generous offer to lecture here."
"Uh-huh. If they liked you, Rodney, they'd have sent you to Paris. Or, hell, Madras. Not Boston."
"Harvard is a very distinguished institution. The American colonies are becoming very sophisticated. Just the place for a cultured person like myself to take a -- sabbatical. And you know perfectly well that Smythe's latest letter says Newton seems much calmer. Smythe thinks I could return any time I like. As long as I'm discreet."
"You, discreet?"
"I can be discreet."
"Maybe if you hadn't called him a, what was it, pompous lying ass?"
"Look, I know perfectly well what Leibniz was doing, I spent two years in Hanover. And then this mad bastard comes along -- "
*******
Thus I embarked on the Atalanta with no misgivings whatsoever, noting only that the weather was fair and the tides advantageous for our departure. I was lodged in the passenger cabin which, while snug, was adequately sized to permit me to unpack the various scientific instruments with which I planned to make astronomical observations while at sea. Shortly I was joined by Captain S--, who inquired after my well-being, then excused himself to tend to the ship. Owing to his long stay in Boston the preceeding winter while refitting the ship he had to bring on a number of new sailors, making this journey down the coast a shakedown cruize for both the ship and her crew.
We left the harbor and I soon found myself terribly ill. Oh, the miseries of seasickness, which lie in wait for the unwary traveler! How awful they are I cannot tell! Indeed, it is the strongest argument against travel that I know, that if Almighty God had meant men to go upon the sea, He should not have given us such querulous stomachs.
*******
"You're going to be fine."
"I am not. I am never going to be fine again. My humours are unbalanced."
"You just need a little plain food. Maybe some nice salt beef. Or a biscuit."
"The mere thought makes me -- "
"Let's get you over to the rail."
*******
By and by I made my way on deck, where, despite the damp, the air was fresh and clean. Captain S--, seeing my misery, advised me to take some biscuit and water and to gaze upon the horizon, that I might settle my stomach. The pitching of the small vessel exceeded that of the larger ship upon which I had come, two years earlier, to the colonies, but on this voyage I was permitted the liberty of the deck, which made my adjustment to the motion noticeably easier. After a time I had acclimated myself, and by the evening bell I was prepared to partake of a little sherry and a boiled egg in the captain's cabin.
Over the following days I established a pleasant routine, waking at seven bells, breakfasting with Captain S--, often upon fresh fish caught by the cook, then spending the remainder of the day in study. I concluded that there were many advantages to the shipboard life, not least of which were the opportunities for quiet contemplation. My conversations with the captain on matters philosophic and mathematical enlivened the evenings, and I considered my choice to journey in his company well-founded.
We were five days down the coast, Captain S-- very pleased with the trim of his craft, when, just south of Cape Hatteras, we sighted two sloops, which came about as we watched and moved toward us. The captain, reckoning they were fishing vessels but not wanting to chance their motives, called to the mate to set course further out to sea, fearing they were raiders who sought to drive his ship upon the Diamond Shoals, a great hazard to navigation in those waters. As they came closer and we saw they flew no flag, nor responded to any hail, the captain's suspicions were confirmed. We laid on a great press of sail but the Atalanta was heavy-laden with supplies. Though we cast many of these overboard, still the sloops gained.
Taking over the supervision of the guns even as Captain S-- oversaw the sailing of the vessel -- for who better than an expert in mathematics to address basic problems of force and velocity? -- I fired no less than five times upon our opponents as they came into range. Yet ultimately, to our great unhappiness, the captain had no choice but to wreck his ship or permit her capture. He ordered that the raiders be allowed to board.
*******
"I don't have any choice, McKay."
"But they're pirates! I read the broadsides! I know what pirates do! Fates worse than death! Horrible suffering! Matches under our fingernails!"
"We're going to run aground if we don't come about! Put out your match and get out of the way."
"Tortures unimaginable! Look, they have torches, they're probably getting the matches ready right now."
"McKay, we all have matches lit! We've been firing our bedamned guns all afternoon! Now stop telling me how to run my ship and hold your fire, or the pirates will be the least of your worries."
"But what if they -- "
"Johnson, Hedges, take Mr. McKay below! Now!"
*******
The Atalanta's crew and I, her sole passenger, assembled on the deck to witness as Captain S-- surrendered his sword. He faced the pirate captain bravely, offering his parole if the other would only put us all ashore at some civilized location. The pirate captain, Kolia, a grim-visaged man, laughed and told Captain S-- that he knew his men had no interest in going ashore, as most of them were already in the pirate's employ. At this Captain S-- became angry, looking from face to face within the crowd and declaring this a most foul betrayal. Here several sailors denied all knowledge of the plot and asked to be put ashore with Captain S--. The pirate refused, saying that he had a mind to bear us all away with him.
I protested these plans, despite Captain S--'s attempts to quiet me, and finally the pirate captain shouted that Captain S-- and I should be marooned in the Atalanta's boat, as he had no interest in listening to me complain further. I believe he thought he could not risk killing us in front of the men, some of whom would no doubt have protested, and was inclined to see this as a victory, albeit small. The pirate captain refused us provisions, but as our hands were bound behind us and the boat lowered into the water, one of the Atalantas slipped a small package beneath one seat.
Thus Captain S-- and I were cast adrift in the Atlantic in an open boat, lacking oars, sail, and all instruments of navigation. I will admit that at this moment I indulged myself, and it was fully fifteen minutes before I was again fit company.
*******
"Would you stop blubbering?"
"I am not blubbering. I am coming to terms with my own mortality. And your mortality. And--"
"Why don't you come over here instead?"
"Captain, this is hardly the time for -- "
"I have a knife, Rodney. A knife. But I can't get at it with my wrists tied like this."
*******
The captain waited until the sloops and their prize were well out of sight before informing me that he had retained a knife, tucked into his breeches at the small of his back. After no small effort I was able to retrieve it and we removed our bindings. Captain S-- then went to work removing a plank from the side of the boat, which he proposed to rig as a mast. Meanwhile I unwrapped the package left us by the sailor, which proved to contain a quantity of ship's biscuit. I said that it was a shame the sailor had not seen fit to provide us also with some fresh water, or a portion of the dried fruit which I had brought with me, being unable to tolerate the lime juice which is normally used to stave off scurvy on long voyages, and Captain S-- remarked that I ought instead to praise God we had not been slain by the pirates. He then strongly requested that I aid him in splitting the plank, which was of plain deal and separated readily when we cut into it with his knife.
Captain S-- taking this rudimentary mast, fixed it upright to one of the seats using the ropes with which we had been bound. He rigged the other half of the plank as a cross-piece and, demanding of me my shirt, secured both that garment and his own to it. He informed me that, should our shirts fail to serve as sufficient sails, I must expect to surrender my breeches to the cause.
We spent all this day and most of the next running before the wind, inasmuch as we could given the rudimentary nature of our sail. Captain S-- had a mind to sail up the Sound to Bath, which I thought very optimistic. I busied myself making improvements to the boat, and by the second evening had fashioned a simple rudder from the second of the boat's seats, using the captain's knife. This improved our craft's navigability considerably, though it left us sitting in the bilge-water. We spent that night on a beach at the mouth of a small creek, which provided both fresh water and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of moskitos. I reclaimed my shirt from the mast and we built a small, smoky fire before settling in for the night, getting what sleep we might despite the drone of the insects and their incessant stinging.
*******
"I can't believe people live on this continent. Back in the civilized world, the birds are larger than the insects."
"I thought the colonies were, how did you put it, increasingly sophisticated?"
"As hard as it may be for you to believe, Captain, I am occasionally mistaken. But I am not afraid to admit it, and yes, clearly, I was completely, utterly, totally in error."
"I have no difficulty believing that."
"Good. Because I -- wait, what?"
*******
Another day and night passed, the day occupied with tacking back and forth across the Sound and the night with moskitos and my concern that we not alert the Indians to our presence. Captain S--, survivor of not a few shipwrecks, indicated that he was more afraid of recapture by the pirates than encounters with the natives. As our later experience would show, he was correct in supposing that the barbarism of the former vastly exceeded the savagery of the latter.
At midday on the fourth day of our ordeal we sighted smoke through the trees, and presently came upon the settlement of Bath, an unimpressive collection of hovels and tobacco-drying sheds. Captain S-- remarked that next to the wild shores which had so late been our only view it seemed to him a metropolis, but I labored under no such delusion.
Using some small coins which Captain S-- had secreted about his person, we were able to secure provisions, and the captain arranged at the yard for the refitting of our boat since, as he pointed out, we might better continue to Charles-town, where he could draw on his line of credit, than return up the coast to Virginia, where neither of us had any but the most rudimentary acquaintance. We rested in Bath three days and would have remained longer, but that Captain S-- noted in the storehouse of the chandler several articles which he swore had, when last he saw them, been stowed in the hold of the Atalanta. By this we knew that our antagonists had preceeded us and might still be in the area, despite their captain's claim that they were bound for points south.
*******
"My God, they're in league with the pirates!"
"Rodney, calm down. Look, this isn't unusual around here. There's not a lot of direct trade, so people tend to take what they can get. It's -- almost universal."
"None of which makes it right for them to throw in their lot with a bunch of wicked ship-stealing villains who think it's funny to put lit matches under people's fingernails!"
"The only person I saw waving around a lit match is right here in front of me."
"Oh, fine. Very well. Go on, go buy your own coat from that thief."
"At least I know it's going to fit."
*******
We ran down the Sound with the current and the tide, coming out more rapidly and without so much of the time-consuming tacking which had made our journey upriver so onerous. My state was made much more comfortable by the return of my shirt, as well as the provisions which Captain S-- had purchased for us from the criminal citizens of Bath. The captain asked that I cease to discuss the ludicrous prices we were charged for articles which, i'faith, we both knew full well had been taken from his own ship. I will but note that the town is a den of pirates and villains, whose wickedness cannot be overstated.
Our progress in the small boat did not come close to equalling our speed in the Atalanta, which I could tell was a trial to the captain. He remarked to me that this was not the longest journey he had made in an open boat, and hardly the longest journey he had heard of a mariner making in an open boat, but it was certainly the longest journey he would ever make in an open boat with a natural philosopher of my distinction. I replied that I was as glad of his company as he was of mine, and there matters rested, both of us confident in our mutual regard.
Most nights we took to the shore in search of shelter, Captain S-- being unwilling to chance that a squall, coming upon us suddenly, should swamp our vessel. We were, one night, awakened by a party of indigenes, who entered our camp and, awakening us, spoke with the captain in the hybrid tongue which is prevalent on these shores.
*******
"Captain, they're -- "
"Old friends, Rodney. Look, just take the pipe."
"I can't believe I'm sitting in a swamp, in the middle of the night, smoking with a bunch of savages."
"The smoke keeps the moskitos away, too. Great thing, tobacco."
"Is that a -- that's not a woman? In this wilderness, at this time of night?"
"Rodney, she's a respected leader among her people. And it's not nice to refer to someone's home as a wilderness. Stand up and I'll introduce you."
*******
The captain being known to some other members of their race -- a connexion which I am entirely unable to understand, despite his efforts to explain it -- they provided us with provisions in return for his remaining coinage. Their rate of exchange was entirely more favorable than that offered by the traders of Bath.
When, at long last, Charles-town Harbor came into view, Captain S-- and I were both enthusiastic about resuming the pleasant trappings of civilization. We tracked down Rothenberg, the captain's banker, and, after securing funds, swiftly found ourselves ensconced at the captain's usual lodgings in Broad Street. Here we bathed and barbered and dined, restoring ourselves to some semblance of humanity, even if our hollowed faces and the deep sun-tanning of our skins made it clear that we had spent many days on the open water.
*******
"Mrs. Beecher says she'll bring up a couple of chickens and some hot biscuits and vegetables. And a pie."
"Oh, praise be to Almighty God. Clearly I have died and gone to Heaven."
"Amen."
"The only problem is that I'll have to get out of this bath to eat."
"I'll bring you a plate."
"Dear Lord. I perished upon the waters, this is the afterlife, and I have clearly been forgiven all my sins."
"I wouldn't count on it."
*******
The following morning Captain S-- resolved to contact the commander of His Majesty's Navy in the region, Commodore C--, with whom he had some past commerce, and discuss with him the feasibility of reclaiming the Atalanta from Kolia and his men. Captain S-- returned from this interview much distressed, having found the commodore uninterested in preparing a sortie against the pirates. He suspected that the commodore was, like the governor, receiving goods from the pirates in exchange for turning a blind eye to their activities. In light of this I suggested that the obvious next step would be to return to Boston and contact his insurers, but Captain S-- told me that he wanted to mount a private rescue party to recapture the lost Atalanta.
*******
"Are you mad? This is what you have insurance for!"
"That's not the point. There are some losses insurance won't cover."
"What? This is hardly a matter of honor. And even if it were, I'd thank you to remember which of us was ready to go down fighting!"
"We are not having this conversation. No -- I'm leaving. I'll be back late."
*******
I informed the captain that I thought his bravery rather outweighed his wisdom in this matter. His response was not couched in the terms gentlemen should use to one another, but considering the considerable strain under which Captain S-- found himself, I let the matter lie. He returned to our rooms late that night, and though we did not speak of the matter again, I knew that he spent many hours at the docks and in the coffee-houses, speaking with sailors and various other persons such as one finds in these establishments. For my part, I accepted an invitation to deliver a series of lectures on the differential method, and my time was much occupied in preparing my notes.
Fully three weeks had passed when Captain S-- returned very early one morning with news that he had secured a sloop and would be sailing with it at the change of the tide. The governor's wife had, he said, equipped him with arms and a vessel sufficient to permit him conduct his raid.
*******
"There's no way you're going without me."
"I'm leaving on the tide. And you have your lectures. Which certainly seem to keep you busy. I'm sure that when you've discharged your obligation to your subscribers you'll have no trouble getting passage on some suitable vessel."
"I do not want passage on some suitable vessel!"
*******
I prevailed upon Captain S-- to make me part of his company, for, though I thought little of his odds of prevailing with my aid, I thought still less of his chances without it. After no little argument he admitted that he would be glad of my assistance. I packed my few belongings and sent a boy to apologise to the rector for my abrupt departure -- the third of my lectures had been scheduled for that evening -- then followed Captain S-- to the docks.
This sloop was nothing like as tidy a ship as the lamented Atalanta, and her crew as mixed a lot as I have ever encountered. The mate, an exceptionally tall man introduced to me as Mr. Decks, wore a large scimitar and a brace of pistols even on the quayside of Charles-town's peaceable harbor. For all his fearsome aspect he was civil as he made known to me the remainder of the crew. There were a dozen men, all of whom, I was told, had served with Captain S-- in the past. Two wore caps of the kind common in His Majesty's Navy, but missing the ribbands which would have declared their ships, and I did not inquire as to their previous employment.
Finally we were joined by the last member of our party, a boy dressed in a hat and a long cape, who paused to speak to Mr. Decks, at the helm, before taking shelter in a corner of the cabin, where he stayed despite my warning that he would indubitably become seasick. As I made my very sensible recommendations regarding the advisability of simple foods and fresh air, I realized the stranger was, in fact, known to me. I immediately sought the captain's counsel.
*******
"But Captain! That's -- "
"Yes. I'm aware."
"What is that -- she -- what -- why? And in trousers! And giving direction to the helm! It's not respectable. She'll be discovered!"
"Certainly, if you keep shouting like this."
"I am not shouting!"
"McKay. You elected to come on this expedition. I agreed, subject to your agreement not to make an ass of yourself in front of my crew. Either you hold to that agreement, or I put you ashore. Without Teyla and her people, we have no hope of success. She is a proud and honorable lady, and you will treat her with --"
"Who goes about in scandalous -- "
"Who has agreed to this deception to help her people. And us."
"But surely it would be better to have some -- some chief from among her people."
"She is a chief among her people. It's a meritocracy, Rodney. I'd have thought a Fellow of the Royal Society would be more progressive."
"Clearly you haven't dined at Arundel House as often as I have. And that Mr. Decks. He looks so -- "
"Effective?"
"Er, yes. That's one way of putting it. I think he scares your sailors."
"Good."
*******
We cast off and raised sail, tacking out of the harbor and sailing south. I was skeptical, I will admit, that it would be possible to recapture the Atalanta with fourteen sailors, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a seasick Indian chieftainess. But when, as we conferred with that lady and Mr. Decks after dinner, I said as much to the captain, he gave me a grim look and said that he had too much staked on the deed to fail.
He had some slim evidence of the Atalanta's whereabouts. A Yankee merchantman had limped into Charles-town Harbor the week before, all her pumps going and a patch in her hull at the waterline where a ball had caught her. Her second mate, said Captain S--, told the crowd that gathered at the coffee-house of a pair of sloops and a brig that came upon them in darkness and dogged them for two days. On the second evening the pursuers closed with the merchantman, which escaped only after a lucky shot knocked the mainmast off one of the sloops, which canted over hard such that two of her guns broke loose and began rolling across the deck. In the confusion and darkness the merchant ship had snuck away, water rising in the well and all hands pumping.
From another sailor, Captain S-- had word of the Atalanta, seen at anchor north of San Agustin not ten days before. One of the sloops which had captured her was careened on the beach nearby, missing a mast. The whereabouts of the other were unknown, but it was almost surely nearby. Taking this news together with the report of the merchantman, Captain S-- believed it might be possible to surprise the pirates as they repaired their ship and recapture the Atalanta.
We would be joined in our attack by the band of indigenes led by the lady who accompanied us, they having suffered considerable depredations at the hands of our mutual foe and welcoming the chance to strike at him. She traveled south with us while her comrades returned in their own vessel, that she might guide her people to the attack once we were positioned.
*******
"That's it? That's your plan? You're joking."
"That's the plan. More or less."
"I cannot believe this. You don't even know where this place is. How much had this informant of yours been drinking?"
"He'd been drinking coffee, Rodney. It was a coffee-house."
"Did you at least lay in enough powder?"
"How much is enough? There are six barrels belowdecks."
"Oh. Well, that should be sufficient. Because it's going to take a hell of an explosion to distract them long enough for you to steal your boat back."
"I was thinking a series of explosions. And it's a ship, not a boat. Boats are the little ones we tie to the ship."
"Your nauticalisms are irrelevant. A series of explosions?"
"You give me a series of explosions, I'll let you have a lit match again. If you promise to be responsible with it."
*******
Days passed, two of them spent sailing slowly through an almost completely enveloping fog, before the captain, peering through his glass, announced that he saw a ship at anchor and the hulk of another drawn up on the beach. We turned back northward and took shelter in a cove, setting our anchor and waiting until nightfall. The captain, Mr. Decks, and the lady took to the boat and rowed back toward the vessels. I waited in the sloop in no small anxiety until their return.
Just before dawn Mr. Decks and the captain returned, the third in their party having absented herself. The captain instructed me to prepare a half-dozen bombs, to be used to spread confusion during the attack. We would leave before sunset, traveling in two boats, and the explosions would serve to signal the natives, who would then commence their raid.
I spent the day in the magazine, packing powder and readying my fuses, then wrapped my product in oilcloth and loaded it onto the larger of our boats. A small crew remained aboard the sloop, and would take her out to deeper water and wait for us as, it was hoped, we would depart in the Atalanta, preferably in the company of those men who had been aboard her at her capture but had no loyalty to the pirates. The remainder of us climbed into the boats and set off.
*******
"Oh God. All right. When the first charge goes, I want you to count to fifty, light the fuse, and when you're sure it's caught, run like all hell is after you. Because it will be."
"And then Mr. Decks does the same, and you'll get the fourth, and we go around again?"
"Correct. Assuming I survive the first explosion."
"I'm going to assume that, yes."
"If any of us manage not to die horribly, we rendezvous back at the boat. And then we go die horribly taking the Atalanta."
*******
How to describe the attack on the pirates? My nervousness as Captain S--, Mr. Decks, and myself placed the charges outside the pirate camp? The fantastic concussions of the explosions? The bloodcurdling shrieks as the natives bounded into the camp, tomahawks at the ready? The lady who led them disappearing from sight beneath the press of pirates, then arising victorious from the fray, bespattered cutlass in hand? Our bloody fight for the Atalanta? The cheers of the prisoners belowdecks as Mr. Decks liberated them? The gory wound to the head taken by Captain S-- as he faced the pirate captain? The report of my pistol and the blood spurting from Captain Kolia's chest? All these remain in my memory not as a single coherent narrative but as scenes of darkness and flame, filling me with terror even as I recount them.
An I recovered my senses, I realized we were headed out to sea, the awful screams and fire of the pirate camp disappearing behind us, the natives claiming, or reclaiming, their prizes and retreating into the wilderness even as we claimed the Atalanta and retreated to the open water.
*******
"I'm fine. Head wounds always bleed like that."
"I still think you ought to sit down."
"The captain doesn't sit down on deck, McKay. You should go below and find a clean shirt. You're covered in blood."
"Mostly yours."
"Very well, you should go below, find a clean shirt, and bring me a drink, because I've lost a lot of blood."
"You can't sit down in front of the crew, but you can drink in front of them?"
"They're sailors. I'd have a problem if I didn't drink in front of them."
*******
Captain S--, his head wrapped in bandages, ordered us to stand well off the coast, in hopes of avoiding that pirate sloop still patrolling those waters. For my own part, after a restorative glass of grog, I took to my hammock, resolving to put a good night's sleep between myself and my late exertions. We rendezvoused at dawn with our sloop, though I did not know it until awakening several hours later. The captain pronounced himself well-pleased with the night's work, though disgusted at the use the pirates had made of his ship.
Our return to Charles-town was marked by few. The captain spent most of the following days on board, overseeing a thorough cleaning of his vessel. Mr. Decks and the sloop departed for points south, but not before Captain S-- and myself had treated him to a fine meal prepared by our landlady. He pronounced himself well-satisfied and was also pleased, I believe, with the purse the captain slipped him at the conclusion of our meal. For my part, I was most grateful to return to our lodgings. When the captain had concluded his work, I had every confidence that we would proceed to London, as we had originally planned.
It was not until the captain's banker, accompanied by the governor's wife, appeared in the small parlor of our rooming house that I began to suspect that Captain S--'s desire to recover the Atalanta had not simply been the urge of a sea-captain to regain his command of the waves. For, in response to the banker's query, Captain S-- produced a small leather-bound box. The governor's wife commended his work, and he replied that he was merely relieved the pirates had not found it during the time they possessed the ship. The box was removed discreetly by our visitors, and the captain announced that he was prepared to depart at my convenience, as his business in Charles-town was now concluded.
*******
"That woman scares me."
"Who, Elizabeth?"
"You refer to the governor's wife by her given name, and you don't see any reason why I should worry."
"It's not like we're having an affair. We just -- work together, from time to time."
"You work with the wife of the governor. The governor you think is being bought off by -- "
"Quiet, now. This house is full of people, McKay."
"You don't think there's anything odd about this whole arrangement? You'd expect the man's wife to be -- "
"Discreet, if she felt the need to counter his activities. Very discreet. Which is what I expect you to be."
"Oh. Yes. I can -- do that. But why you?"
"Because I have a Fellow of the Royal Society at my beck and call. Obviously. Come on, I want to finish packing."
*******
We sailed for London early that fall, crossing the North Atlantic before the ice set in, and it was with some pleasure that I opened the door of my London house, full three years after I had left it, and welcomed Captain S-- across my threshold.
Notes: Someone over at Making Light suggested that what we really need isn't International Talk Like A Pirate Day, it's International Talk Like Dr. Stephen Maturin Day. Oh, God, yes please. I'm no O'Brien, and I couldn't quite imagine John and Rodney in His Majesty's Navy, so I ended up with this. I owe much to various primary accounts of nautical disasters and piracy, particularly Huntress' Narratives of Shipwrecks and Disasters, 1586-1860 (Iowa State University Press, Ames, 1974), which is a really cheery read except for all the death, destruction, explosions, loss of property, and urine-drinking. Secondary sources about pirates tend to be pretty weird, too: I am still giggling about the one which argued that, "...pirates show what it means to live in a permanently actualizing process of individualisation and liberation."
Summary: Because I couldn't resist the urge to put John and Rodney on a boat (to say nothing of the...never mind) in the eighteenth century. It's a ripping yarn.
PG for explosions, nautical language, and occasional mild innuendo. So AU as to be essentially spoiler-free. Written for the sga_flashfic pirates/criminals/whatever challenge.
5,500 words.
With many thanks to Amy for beta.
I took ship at Boston in April of 1707 on the brig Atalanta, 120 tons, bearing ten guns and a crew of fourteen, bound for London. She sailed first to Charles-town, rather than taking the direct crossing, but I reasoned that, as I had made the acquaintance of her captain during my time in Boston, it were better to take passage on a roundabout voyage in the company of a familiar face than a more direct route with strangers. Captain S-- was a Yankee seaman of goodly height, sound bearing, and taciturn demeanor. Friends assured me that he was a reliable sailor. For myself, I knew him as a capable and intelligent man; we had met following one of my lectures at the college, on the subject of the calculation of the Longitude, and had spent many nights since engaged in various examinations of the heavens, sharing a mutual interest in astronomy and the movements of the spheres.
"You can't really think that's feasible aboard ship."
"Well, of course it is, given an accurate chronometer, which most of them aren't. But if you get the declination right, you could make a basic calculation based on the angle of -- "
"You're not taking the magnetic variance into account."
"Excuse me, I am doing nothing but taking the magnetic variance into account. Which of us is a Fellow of the Royal Society, thank you very much? Huh?"
"I thought they kicked you out."
"They did not, as you so quaintly put it, kick me out! They merely suggested that I accept Mr. Willard's very generous offer to lecture here."
"Uh-huh. If they liked you, Rodney, they'd have sent you to Paris. Or, hell, Madras. Not Boston."
"Harvard is a very distinguished institution. The American colonies are becoming very sophisticated. Just the place for a cultured person like myself to take a -- sabbatical. And you know perfectly well that Smythe's latest letter says Newton seems much calmer. Smythe thinks I could return any time I like. As long as I'm discreet."
"You, discreet?"
"I can be discreet."
"Maybe if you hadn't called him a, what was it, pompous lying ass?"
"Look, I know perfectly well what Leibniz was doing, I spent two years in Hanover. And then this mad bastard comes along -- "
Thus I embarked on the Atalanta with no misgivings whatsoever, noting only that the weather was fair and the tides advantageous for our departure. I was lodged in the passenger cabin which, while snug, was adequately sized to permit me to unpack the various scientific instruments with which I planned to make astronomical observations while at sea. Shortly I was joined by Captain S--, who inquired after my well-being, then excused himself to tend to the ship. Owing to his long stay in Boston the preceeding winter while refitting the ship he had to bring on a number of new sailors, making this journey down the coast a shakedown cruize for both the ship and her crew.
We left the harbor and I soon found myself terribly ill. Oh, the miseries of seasickness, which lie in wait for the unwary traveler! How awful they are I cannot tell! Indeed, it is the strongest argument against travel that I know, that if Almighty God had meant men to go upon the sea, He should not have given us such querulous stomachs.
"You're going to be fine."
"I am not. I am never going to be fine again. My humours are unbalanced."
"You just need a little plain food. Maybe some nice salt beef. Or a biscuit."
"The mere thought makes me -- "
"Let's get you over to the rail."
By and by I made my way on deck, where, despite the damp, the air was fresh and clean. Captain S--, seeing my misery, advised me to take some biscuit and water and to gaze upon the horizon, that I might settle my stomach. The pitching of the small vessel exceeded that of the larger ship upon which I had come, two years earlier, to the colonies, but on this voyage I was permitted the liberty of the deck, which made my adjustment to the motion noticeably easier. After a time I had acclimated myself, and by the evening bell I was prepared to partake of a little sherry and a boiled egg in the captain's cabin.
Over the following days I established a pleasant routine, waking at seven bells, breakfasting with Captain S--, often upon fresh fish caught by the cook, then spending the remainder of the day in study. I concluded that there were many advantages to the shipboard life, not least of which were the opportunities for quiet contemplation. My conversations with the captain on matters philosophic and mathematical enlivened the evenings, and I considered my choice to journey in his company well-founded.
We were five days down the coast, Captain S-- very pleased with the trim of his craft, when, just south of Cape Hatteras, we sighted two sloops, which came about as we watched and moved toward us. The captain, reckoning they were fishing vessels but not wanting to chance their motives, called to the mate to set course further out to sea, fearing they were raiders who sought to drive his ship upon the Diamond Shoals, a great hazard to navigation in those waters. As they came closer and we saw they flew no flag, nor responded to any hail, the captain's suspicions were confirmed. We laid on a great press of sail but the Atalanta was heavy-laden with supplies. Though we cast many of these overboard, still the sloops gained.
Taking over the supervision of the guns even as Captain S-- oversaw the sailing of the vessel -- for who better than an expert in mathematics to address basic problems of force and velocity? -- I fired no less than five times upon our opponents as they came into range. Yet ultimately, to our great unhappiness, the captain had no choice but to wreck his ship or permit her capture. He ordered that the raiders be allowed to board.
"I don't have any choice, McKay."
"But they're pirates! I read the broadsides! I know what pirates do! Fates worse than death! Horrible suffering! Matches under our fingernails!"
"We're going to run aground if we don't come about! Put out your match and get out of the way."
"Tortures unimaginable! Look, they have torches, they're probably getting the matches ready right now."
"McKay, we all have matches lit! We've been firing our bedamned guns all afternoon! Now stop telling me how to run my ship and hold your fire, or the pirates will be the least of your worries."
"But what if they -- "
"Johnson, Hedges, take Mr. McKay below! Now!"
The Atalanta's crew and I, her sole passenger, assembled on the deck to witness as Captain S-- surrendered his sword. He faced the pirate captain bravely, offering his parole if the other would only put us all ashore at some civilized location. The pirate captain, Kolia, a grim-visaged man, laughed and told Captain S-- that he knew his men had no interest in going ashore, as most of them were already in the pirate's employ. At this Captain S-- became angry, looking from face to face within the crowd and declaring this a most foul betrayal. Here several sailors denied all knowledge of the plot and asked to be put ashore with Captain S--. The pirate refused, saying that he had a mind to bear us all away with him.
I protested these plans, despite Captain S--'s attempts to quiet me, and finally the pirate captain shouted that Captain S-- and I should be marooned in the Atalanta's boat, as he had no interest in listening to me complain further. I believe he thought he could not risk killing us in front of the men, some of whom would no doubt have protested, and was inclined to see this as a victory, albeit small. The pirate captain refused us provisions, but as our hands were bound behind us and the boat lowered into the water, one of the Atalantas slipped a small package beneath one seat.
Thus Captain S-- and I were cast adrift in the Atlantic in an open boat, lacking oars, sail, and all instruments of navigation. I will admit that at this moment I indulged myself, and it was fully fifteen minutes before I was again fit company.
"Would you stop blubbering?"
"I am not blubbering. I am coming to terms with my own mortality. And your mortality. And--"
"Why don't you come over here instead?"
"Captain, this is hardly the time for -- "
"I have a knife, Rodney. A knife. But I can't get at it with my wrists tied like this."
The captain waited until the sloops and their prize were well out of sight before informing me that he had retained a knife, tucked into his breeches at the small of his back. After no small effort I was able to retrieve it and we removed our bindings. Captain S-- then went to work removing a plank from the side of the boat, which he proposed to rig as a mast. Meanwhile I unwrapped the package left us by the sailor, which proved to contain a quantity of ship's biscuit. I said that it was a shame the sailor had not seen fit to provide us also with some fresh water, or a portion of the dried fruit which I had brought with me, being unable to tolerate the lime juice which is normally used to stave off scurvy on long voyages, and Captain S-- remarked that I ought instead to praise God we had not been slain by the pirates. He then strongly requested that I aid him in splitting the plank, which was of plain deal and separated readily when we cut into it with his knife.
Captain S-- taking this rudimentary mast, fixed it upright to one of the seats using the ropes with which we had been bound. He rigged the other half of the plank as a cross-piece and, demanding of me my shirt, secured both that garment and his own to it. He informed me that, should our shirts fail to serve as sufficient sails, I must expect to surrender my breeches to the cause.
We spent all this day and most of the next running before the wind, inasmuch as we could given the rudimentary nature of our sail. Captain S-- had a mind to sail up the Sound to Bath, which I thought very optimistic. I busied myself making improvements to the boat, and by the second evening had fashioned a simple rudder from the second of the boat's seats, using the captain's knife. This improved our craft's navigability considerably, though it left us sitting in the bilge-water. We spent that night on a beach at the mouth of a small creek, which provided both fresh water and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of moskitos. I reclaimed my shirt from the mast and we built a small, smoky fire before settling in for the night, getting what sleep we might despite the drone of the insects and their incessant stinging.
"I can't believe people live on this continent. Back in the civilized world, the birds are larger than the insects."
"I thought the colonies were, how did you put it, increasingly sophisticated?"
"As hard as it may be for you to believe, Captain, I am occasionally mistaken. But I am not afraid to admit it, and yes, clearly, I was completely, utterly, totally in error."
"I have no difficulty believing that."
"Good. Because I -- wait, what?"
Another day and night passed, the day occupied with tacking back and forth across the Sound and the night with moskitos and my concern that we not alert the Indians to our presence. Captain S--, survivor of not a few shipwrecks, indicated that he was more afraid of recapture by the pirates than encounters with the natives. As our later experience would show, he was correct in supposing that the barbarism of the former vastly exceeded the savagery of the latter.
At midday on the fourth day of our ordeal we sighted smoke through the trees, and presently came upon the settlement of Bath, an unimpressive collection of hovels and tobacco-drying sheds. Captain S-- remarked that next to the wild shores which had so late been our only view it seemed to him a metropolis, but I labored under no such delusion.
Using some small coins which Captain S-- had secreted about his person, we were able to secure provisions, and the captain arranged at the yard for the refitting of our boat since, as he pointed out, we might better continue to Charles-town, where he could draw on his line of credit, than return up the coast to Virginia, where neither of us had any but the most rudimentary acquaintance. We rested in Bath three days and would have remained longer, but that Captain S-- noted in the storehouse of the chandler several articles which he swore had, when last he saw them, been stowed in the hold of the Atalanta. By this we knew that our antagonists had preceeded us and might still be in the area, despite their captain's claim that they were bound for points south.
"My God, they're in league with the pirates!"
"Rodney, calm down. Look, this isn't unusual around here. There's not a lot of direct trade, so people tend to take what they can get. It's -- almost universal."
"None of which makes it right for them to throw in their lot with a bunch of wicked ship-stealing villains who think it's funny to put lit matches under people's fingernails!"
"The only person I saw waving around a lit match is right here in front of me."
"Oh, fine. Very well. Go on, go buy your own coat from that thief."
"At least I know it's going to fit."
We ran down the Sound with the current and the tide, coming out more rapidly and without so much of the time-consuming tacking which had made our journey upriver so onerous. My state was made much more comfortable by the return of my shirt, as well as the provisions which Captain S-- had purchased for us from the criminal citizens of Bath. The captain asked that I cease to discuss the ludicrous prices we were charged for articles which, i'faith, we both knew full well had been taken from his own ship. I will but note that the town is a den of pirates and villains, whose wickedness cannot be overstated.
Our progress in the small boat did not come close to equalling our speed in the Atalanta, which I could tell was a trial to the captain. He remarked to me that this was not the longest journey he had made in an open boat, and hardly the longest journey he had heard of a mariner making in an open boat, but it was certainly the longest journey he would ever make in an open boat with a natural philosopher of my distinction. I replied that I was as glad of his company as he was of mine, and there matters rested, both of us confident in our mutual regard.
Most nights we took to the shore in search of shelter, Captain S-- being unwilling to chance that a squall, coming upon us suddenly, should swamp our vessel. We were, one night, awakened by a party of indigenes, who entered our camp and, awakening us, spoke with the captain in the hybrid tongue which is prevalent on these shores.
"Captain, they're -- "
"Old friends, Rodney. Look, just take the pipe."
"I can't believe I'm sitting in a swamp, in the middle of the night, smoking with a bunch of savages."
"The smoke keeps the moskitos away, too. Great thing, tobacco."
"Is that a -- that's not a woman? In this wilderness, at this time of night?"
"Rodney, she's a respected leader among her people. And it's not nice to refer to someone's home as a wilderness. Stand up and I'll introduce you."
The captain being known to some other members of their race -- a connexion which I am entirely unable to understand, despite his efforts to explain it -- they provided us with provisions in return for his remaining coinage. Their rate of exchange was entirely more favorable than that offered by the traders of Bath.
When, at long last, Charles-town Harbor came into view, Captain S-- and I were both enthusiastic about resuming the pleasant trappings of civilization. We tracked down Rothenberg, the captain's banker, and, after securing funds, swiftly found ourselves ensconced at the captain's usual lodgings in Broad Street. Here we bathed and barbered and dined, restoring ourselves to some semblance of humanity, even if our hollowed faces and the deep sun-tanning of our skins made it clear that we had spent many days on the open water.
"Mrs. Beecher says she'll bring up a couple of chickens and some hot biscuits and vegetables. And a pie."
"Oh, praise be to Almighty God. Clearly I have died and gone to Heaven."
"Amen."
"The only problem is that I'll have to get out of this bath to eat."
"I'll bring you a plate."
"Dear Lord. I perished upon the waters, this is the afterlife, and I have clearly been forgiven all my sins."
"I wouldn't count on it."
The following morning Captain S-- resolved to contact the commander of His Majesty's Navy in the region, Commodore C--, with whom he had some past commerce, and discuss with him the feasibility of reclaiming the Atalanta from Kolia and his men. Captain S-- returned from this interview much distressed, having found the commodore uninterested in preparing a sortie against the pirates. He suspected that the commodore was, like the governor, receiving goods from the pirates in exchange for turning a blind eye to their activities. In light of this I suggested that the obvious next step would be to return to Boston and contact his insurers, but Captain S-- told me that he wanted to mount a private rescue party to recapture the lost Atalanta.
"Are you mad? This is what you have insurance for!"
"That's not the point. There are some losses insurance won't cover."
"What? This is hardly a matter of honor. And even if it were, I'd thank you to remember which of us was ready to go down fighting!"
"We are not having this conversation. No -- I'm leaving. I'll be back late."
I informed the captain that I thought his bravery rather outweighed his wisdom in this matter. His response was not couched in the terms gentlemen should use to one another, but considering the considerable strain under which Captain S-- found himself, I let the matter lie. He returned to our rooms late that night, and though we did not speak of the matter again, I knew that he spent many hours at the docks and in the coffee-houses, speaking with sailors and various other persons such as one finds in these establishments. For my part, I accepted an invitation to deliver a series of lectures on the differential method, and my time was much occupied in preparing my notes.
Fully three weeks had passed when Captain S-- returned very early one morning with news that he had secured a sloop and would be sailing with it at the change of the tide. The governor's wife had, he said, equipped him with arms and a vessel sufficient to permit him conduct his raid.
"There's no way you're going without me."
"I'm leaving on the tide. And you have your lectures. Which certainly seem to keep you busy. I'm sure that when you've discharged your obligation to your subscribers you'll have no trouble getting passage on some suitable vessel."
"I do not want passage on some suitable vessel!"
I prevailed upon Captain S-- to make me part of his company, for, though I thought little of his odds of prevailing with my aid, I thought still less of his chances without it. After no little argument he admitted that he would be glad of my assistance. I packed my few belongings and sent a boy to apologise to the rector for my abrupt departure -- the third of my lectures had been scheduled for that evening -- then followed Captain S-- to the docks.
This sloop was nothing like as tidy a ship as the lamented Atalanta, and her crew as mixed a lot as I have ever encountered. The mate, an exceptionally tall man introduced to me as Mr. Decks, wore a large scimitar and a brace of pistols even on the quayside of Charles-town's peaceable harbor. For all his fearsome aspect he was civil as he made known to me the remainder of the crew. There were a dozen men, all of whom, I was told, had served with Captain S-- in the past. Two wore caps of the kind common in His Majesty's Navy, but missing the ribbands which would have declared their ships, and I did not inquire as to their previous employment.
Finally we were joined by the last member of our party, a boy dressed in a hat and a long cape, who paused to speak to Mr. Decks, at the helm, before taking shelter in a corner of the cabin, where he stayed despite my warning that he would indubitably become seasick. As I made my very sensible recommendations regarding the advisability of simple foods and fresh air, I realized the stranger was, in fact, known to me. I immediately sought the captain's counsel.
"But Captain! That's -- "
"Yes. I'm aware."
"What is that -- she -- what -- why? And in trousers! And giving direction to the helm! It's not respectable. She'll be discovered!"
"Certainly, if you keep shouting like this."
"I am not shouting!"
"McKay. You elected to come on this expedition. I agreed, subject to your agreement not to make an ass of yourself in front of my crew. Either you hold to that agreement, or I put you ashore. Without Teyla and her people, we have no hope of success. She is a proud and honorable lady, and you will treat her with --"
"Who goes about in scandalous -- "
"Who has agreed to this deception to help her people. And us."
"But surely it would be better to have some -- some chief from among her people."
"She is a chief among her people. It's a meritocracy, Rodney. I'd have thought a Fellow of the Royal Society would be more progressive."
"Clearly you haven't dined at Arundel House as often as I have. And that Mr. Decks. He looks so -- "
"Effective?"
"Er, yes. That's one way of putting it. I think he scares your sailors."
"Good."
We cast off and raised sail, tacking out of the harbor and sailing south. I was skeptical, I will admit, that it would be possible to recapture the Atalanta with fourteen sailors, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a seasick Indian chieftainess. But when, as we conferred with that lady and Mr. Decks after dinner, I said as much to the captain, he gave me a grim look and said that he had too much staked on the deed to fail.
He had some slim evidence of the Atalanta's whereabouts. A Yankee merchantman had limped into Charles-town Harbor the week before, all her pumps going and a patch in her hull at the waterline where a ball had caught her. Her second mate, said Captain S--, told the crowd that gathered at the coffee-house of a pair of sloops and a brig that came upon them in darkness and dogged them for two days. On the second evening the pursuers closed with the merchantman, which escaped only after a lucky shot knocked the mainmast off one of the sloops, which canted over hard such that two of her guns broke loose and began rolling across the deck. In the confusion and darkness the merchant ship had snuck away, water rising in the well and all hands pumping.
From another sailor, Captain S-- had word of the Atalanta, seen at anchor north of San Agustin not ten days before. One of the sloops which had captured her was careened on the beach nearby, missing a mast. The whereabouts of the other were unknown, but it was almost surely nearby. Taking this news together with the report of the merchantman, Captain S-- believed it might be possible to surprise the pirates as they repaired their ship and recapture the Atalanta.
We would be joined in our attack by the band of indigenes led by the lady who accompanied us, they having suffered considerable depredations at the hands of our mutual foe and welcoming the chance to strike at him. She traveled south with us while her comrades returned in their own vessel, that she might guide her people to the attack once we were positioned.
"That's it? That's your plan? You're joking."
"That's the plan. More or less."
"I cannot believe this. You don't even know where this place is. How much had this informant of yours been drinking?"
"He'd been drinking coffee, Rodney. It was a coffee-house."
"Did you at least lay in enough powder?"
"How much is enough? There are six barrels belowdecks."
"Oh. Well, that should be sufficient. Because it's going to take a hell of an explosion to distract them long enough for you to steal your boat back."
"I was thinking a series of explosions. And it's a ship, not a boat. Boats are the little ones we tie to the ship."
"Your nauticalisms are irrelevant. A series of explosions?"
"You give me a series of explosions, I'll let you have a lit match again. If you promise to be responsible with it."
Days passed, two of them spent sailing slowly through an almost completely enveloping fog, before the captain, peering through his glass, announced that he saw a ship at anchor and the hulk of another drawn up on the beach. We turned back northward and took shelter in a cove, setting our anchor and waiting until nightfall. The captain, Mr. Decks, and the lady took to the boat and rowed back toward the vessels. I waited in the sloop in no small anxiety until their return.
Just before dawn Mr. Decks and the captain returned, the third in their party having absented herself. The captain instructed me to prepare a half-dozen bombs, to be used to spread confusion during the attack. We would leave before sunset, traveling in two boats, and the explosions would serve to signal the natives, who would then commence their raid.
I spent the day in the magazine, packing powder and readying my fuses, then wrapped my product in oilcloth and loaded it onto the larger of our boats. A small crew remained aboard the sloop, and would take her out to deeper water and wait for us as, it was hoped, we would depart in the Atalanta, preferably in the company of those men who had been aboard her at her capture but had no loyalty to the pirates. The remainder of us climbed into the boats and set off.
"Oh God. All right. When the first charge goes, I want you to count to fifty, light the fuse, and when you're sure it's caught, run like all hell is after you. Because it will be."
"And then Mr. Decks does the same, and you'll get the fourth, and we go around again?"
"Correct. Assuming I survive the first explosion."
"I'm going to assume that, yes."
"If any of us manage not to die horribly, we rendezvous back at the boat. And then we go die horribly taking the Atalanta."
How to describe the attack on the pirates? My nervousness as Captain S--, Mr. Decks, and myself placed the charges outside the pirate camp? The fantastic concussions of the explosions? The bloodcurdling shrieks as the natives bounded into the camp, tomahawks at the ready? The lady who led them disappearing from sight beneath the press of pirates, then arising victorious from the fray, bespattered cutlass in hand? Our bloody fight for the Atalanta? The cheers of the prisoners belowdecks as Mr. Decks liberated them? The gory wound to the head taken by Captain S-- as he faced the pirate captain? The report of my pistol and the blood spurting from Captain Kolia's chest? All these remain in my memory not as a single coherent narrative but as scenes of darkness and flame, filling me with terror even as I recount them.
An I recovered my senses, I realized we were headed out to sea, the awful screams and fire of the pirate camp disappearing behind us, the natives claiming, or reclaiming, their prizes and retreating into the wilderness even as we claimed the Atalanta and retreated to the open water.
"I'm fine. Head wounds always bleed like that."
"I still think you ought to sit down."
"The captain doesn't sit down on deck, McKay. You should go below and find a clean shirt. You're covered in blood."
"Mostly yours."
"Very well, you should go below, find a clean shirt, and bring me a drink, because I've lost a lot of blood."
"You can't sit down in front of the crew, but you can drink in front of them?"
"They're sailors. I'd have a problem if I didn't drink in front of them."
Captain S--, his head wrapped in bandages, ordered us to stand well off the coast, in hopes of avoiding that pirate sloop still patrolling those waters. For my own part, after a restorative glass of grog, I took to my hammock, resolving to put a good night's sleep between myself and my late exertions. We rendezvoused at dawn with our sloop, though I did not know it until awakening several hours later. The captain pronounced himself well-pleased with the night's work, though disgusted at the use the pirates had made of his ship.
Our return to Charles-town was marked by few. The captain spent most of the following days on board, overseeing a thorough cleaning of his vessel. Mr. Decks and the sloop departed for points south, but not before Captain S-- and myself had treated him to a fine meal prepared by our landlady. He pronounced himself well-satisfied and was also pleased, I believe, with the purse the captain slipped him at the conclusion of our meal. For my part, I was most grateful to return to our lodgings. When the captain had concluded his work, I had every confidence that we would proceed to London, as we had originally planned.
It was not until the captain's banker, accompanied by the governor's wife, appeared in the small parlor of our rooming house that I began to suspect that Captain S--'s desire to recover the Atalanta had not simply been the urge of a sea-captain to regain his command of the waves. For, in response to the banker's query, Captain S-- produced a small leather-bound box. The governor's wife commended his work, and he replied that he was merely relieved the pirates had not found it during the time they possessed the ship. The box was removed discreetly by our visitors, and the captain announced that he was prepared to depart at my convenience, as his business in Charles-town was now concluded.
"That woman scares me."
"Who, Elizabeth?"
"You refer to the governor's wife by her given name, and you don't see any reason why I should worry."
"It's not like we're having an affair. We just -- work together, from time to time."
"You work with the wife of the governor. The governor you think is being bought off by -- "
"Quiet, now. This house is full of people, McKay."
"You don't think there's anything odd about this whole arrangement? You'd expect the man's wife to be -- "
"Discreet, if she felt the need to counter his activities. Very discreet. Which is what I expect you to be."
"Oh. Yes. I can -- do that. But why you?"
"Because I have a Fellow of the Royal Society at my beck and call. Obviously. Come on, I want to finish packing."
We sailed for London early that fall, crossing the North Atlantic before the ice set in, and it was with some pleasure that I opened the door of my London house, full three years after I had left it, and welcomed Captain S-- across my threshold.
Notes: Someone over at Making Light suggested that what we really need isn't International Talk Like A Pirate Day, it's International Talk Like Dr. Stephen Maturin Day. Oh, God, yes please. I'm no O'Brien, and I couldn't quite imagine John and Rodney in His Majesty's Navy, so I ended up with this. I owe much to various primary accounts of nautical disasters and piracy, particularly Huntress' Narratives of Shipwrecks and Disasters, 1586-1860 (Iowa State University Press, Ames, 1974), which is a really cheery read except for all the death, destruction, explosions, loss of property, and urine-drinking. Secondary sources about pirates tend to be pretty weird, too: I am still giggling about the one which argued that, "...pirates show what it means to live in a permanently actualizing process of individualisation and liberation."
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-11 12:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-12 03:58 pm (UTC)