Sleeping in his cabin the first night at sea was difficult. The candle at his bedside table threw orange patterns onto the white wainscoted walls, reminding him of the strangely huge amount of open space around his bed; there were no soft snores from nearby sleepers, and the fineness of the linen sheets was something he simply didn't equate with ( Read more... )

There was much more to it than the clothing, of course, but the expense of that alone was considerable. He had saved up a good amount of money since he was not prone to spending it on dockside attractions the way most officers did, and he found himself wondering how on Earth other officers managed it. Of course, he knew the answer, which was that ( Read more... )

The next prize taken by the Valiant was too small to confer any special promotion for Rothwell. She was a sloop, diminutive even by pirate standards, and probably best used for fishing. However, they did capture her, and with no loss of life since all of the pirates gave up at once, and so she had to be sailed back to Port Royal and turned over to ( Read more... )

It had been easier when he had not been the First Lieutenant.

There was a certain carefree adventure when he and Watts were lesser Lieutenants on the Valiant.  They were often in charge of the more exciting events, such as boarding actions, calling the alarm during the watches, 'commanding' the jollyboats, and so forth; but they did not have the ( Read more... )

Got busy this week, but naturally, I will catch up soon.

Look Ma, no long rambling rant!

Thought I'd jabber some more about what I'm writing here. Honestly, I'm not so egotistic as to assume that people even care about all this, but it's for my own mental process as this is my journal, and who knows? Someone might be curious about why I'm doing what I do.

I started this to help me understand a newly made character for roleplaying ( Read more... )

He was not yet twenty, the usual required age for taking the Lieutenant's Exam, but his captain and most of the Lieutenants on board the Valiant thought that he should take it anyway. During the years since he'd recovered from the fever, he'd worked very hard and fearlessly on everything that came his way. He had become rather proficient in the ( Read more... )

Shortly after Rothwell turned seventeen, the Lieutenants invited him to the wardroom. While he was honored to be so included amongst the officers that night, the reason for it brought him little enthusiasm: dancing.

Dancing was common on board on most nights, even though women were entirely scarce. While most of the men admitted to doing it for ( Read more... )

Though his pen was dipped with ink, it hovered over the lined log page as if willfully disobeying its duty to write. Of course the problem was really Rothwell's state of mind; namely, an odd blankness made up of a collision of countless thoughts.

His first boarding action took place that day, and he had done, according to everyone, very well. He ( Read more... )

The storm was sudden, howling into them with almost no warning, battering the great ship as if it were no bigger than a small sloop. The sails were only partway down when lines were ripped from hands, canvas roiling, waves striking the side of the hull hard enough to send sheets of saltwater as high as the top gallants.

Commands were shouted,  ( Read more... )