William Bush Alphabet Soup
For those of you who are ahead of me in the timezones, I'm posting this a bit early. Also, I have to work tomorrow (boo, hiss!) so I wanted to make sure the entry post got started before I have to go manage the museum all day. There are also some random unclaimed letters, so if you're feeling inspired to fill them in over the course of the day, I
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by Lokei
His sisters tossed it about as carelessly as a child’s toy, often with the sweet endearments of childhood attached. It didn’t matter whether they sprinkled it through their wholesome conversation on his infrequent visits, or whether it peppered their chatty letters, which they would store up for weeks and apparently mail all at once so that months of no word at all would be broken by a mail packet several inches thick that was the envy of many a homesick middie. Though he was not a great reader, nor they particularly accomplished correspondents, he took great pleasure in sitting in a sunny patch of quarterdeck to read them. And though he took care never to let his attention stray too far from the activity on deck, his lips occasionally quirked as he ran across a particularly entertaining story, only to vanish when it was necessary to employ his quarterdeck bellow, and become the fearsome Mr. Bush once more.
And he was good at it, and knew it. Mr. Bush was a proper sailor, respected, admired, and occasionally feared by the common sailor, the rawest wet-behind-the-ears recruit, and even the old salt. He had sailed with some of the best, and his fellow officers were perfectly happy to give him the honors he had earned, however uncomfortable he was to receive them. Some ships, some berths, had been worse than others in that respect-even the merest casual mention of Renown or its officers could make his temper as short as his captain’s-the effusive praise he had been given by the unlamented Captain Sawyer had been too pointed to be at all honest. It had taken him not long at all to see that he was being raised so that others might perceive themselves lowered, and Bush stood with that not one whit. If he was to be at the mercy of the mercurial tempers of both winds and captains, Bush greatly preferred the captain of the present.
There was no doubt that Captain Hornblower set the tone for the rest of the ship: if he called his first lieutenant “Mr. Bush” without fail, despite their long service together, and addressed the other officers with equal formality, then that formality carried over to the relationships between the lieutenants as well, as it should. Bush rather approved: too lax behavior among the lower ranks of officers could lead to sloppiness in the men, and by extension poor performance in times of dire need. For the sake of one of Hornblower’s brilliant plans carried out with mechanical precision, Bush was willing to “Mister” whomever the captain pleased.
But at the end of the day, at the end of a good day, a truly good one, there was nothing in the world which Bush liked better-not pineapples, not a stiff breeze after a calm, not fresh orders from the Admiralty, nor a fine meal with mustard and ale-nothing in the world he liked better than to bring the captain his evening report and have Hornblower look up at him with the slightest hint of a smile. On such a day the captain would loosen his cuffs and cravat, lean back in his chair, and say, “Come in-and do shut the door, William.”
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Last sentence is the best, of course. :)
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I am so enjoying all the fic. Thank you so very very much for organizing all the fun.
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So it's not only Hornblower who acts a part, hmmm?
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