STO'B 6

Author's Note|First Post|Previous|Next

Prizes, riches, and glory, all for the taking; but first he had to get to sea. "I'll head right down to her, set out to sea immediately," he said, tossing his things into his chest and hauling it down to the ground floor. He paid his bill, using his last farthing to do so, and started to carry his chest out the door, but, "why am I doing this?" he asked himself. "I can send a sailor for it." He quickly arranged to leave the chest behind the bar, then dashed down to the harbor.

At the harbor he hailed a boat to take him out to his sloop. "Hurry up!" he said to the boatkeeper, but when the Badger came into view around the stern of the 84-gun Lion, he suddenly sat back. "Christ," he said under his breath, "my epaulettes!"

"What?" asked the boatkeeper.

"Turn back, turn back!," Philip cried. "Quickly!"

The boatkeeper churned his oars, spinning the boat, and once he had settled them on their new course he said, "you still gots to pay, you know."

"Pay!?"

"Yes," said the boatkeeper, resting his oars. "You gots to pay. You know, money? This ain't free, unless you wants to get off right here."

"No, no," said Philip, who could not swim, "no, no. Well, well, damn the epaulettes," he said after a moment. He pulled off his coat, earning a broad stare from the boatkeeper, and folded it under his arm so the epaulettes - the lieutenant's epaulettes - didn't show. "Right. Larboard side," he said, and the boatkeeper set to his oars again.

On board the Badger, waiting for their new commander, the lieutenant stood by the master on the quarterdeck. Commander - now Captain - Somer's servant and cox'n had cleared out all of his possessions over 24 hours ago, and they were discussing the continued absence of his replacement. "Very strange, Mr South," said the lieutenant. "Very strange. Don't understand why we haven't seen him yet."

The master shook his head. "Unnatural," he replied in a thick voice. "Seems to me a commander'd want to be aboard his vessel, 'specially if it's 'is first command." He sneezed, then blew his nose into a handkerchief and went on, "all of the water is aboard, and the powder, but we're still waiting on the coal. Bloody lighter was supposed to be here in the mornin' watch, beggin' your pardon."

"Yes, well," the lieutenant left his sentence dangling. How might he separate himself from the master, and more importantly, the master's cold, without being rudely obvious?

The master sneezed again, again blowing his nose into his handkerchief. "You suppose that's him now?" he asked.

"The little boat that's spinning in circles?" Lieutenant Grey put his telescope to his eye. "With the lieutenant who's pulling off his coat? I doubt it. But he does look like he's coming here, whoever he is. What boat!" he hailed, "what boat is that?"

"Badger!" replied the boatkeeper, indicating that Badger's commanding officer was aboard, and his words set in motion a flurry of activity on board the Badger herself: the bosun's pipe shrilled; men ran to their stations for receiving their new commander in all of his glory; side boys found their little white gloves and scrambled to don them, and to run manropes out at the same time; the marines hustled into their scarlet coats while their sergeant inspected and shoved them into position; the lieutenant hurriedly looked over the spotless decks, lest some stain had appeared in the past 20 minutes; the master scanned his rigging, looking for imperfections that he had missed on his first three inspections; and the engineer hurried from the head, pulling up his breeches as his did so.

Badger was ready for her commander.

Author's Note|First Post|Previous|Next