Ruddy Norah
I write like
James Joyce
I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!
Well I'm jiggered. The passage in question was:
Archie always liked the morning watch. Although what he was supposed to be watching for was debatable. No enemy ships were likely to be coming round St. Helen’s point - there was no war to force them into so bold a move - and pirates were as rare on the Solent as hen’s teeth. Maybe his chief role was to prevent desertion, although why men would desert this ship, the Lord alone knew. Like a floating Hogarth caricature, Justinian .
The pale orange sun was struggling to breast the horizon, fighting against scudding clouds against a fiery backdrop, like a Drury Lane representation of the Fire of London. It’ll rain today. Sheets of it. He drew his cloak tighter around him, remembering many a watch standing looking at the sky, wondering if the weather would be fair or foul. Despite the rain, and the piercing hail which had peppered them on deck this winter, this was a much fairer season that summer and autumn had proved.
The cloud of cruelty had departed the ship two weeks since and the light of freedom had dawned. How pleasant to walk in the warmth of knowing you’d not be taken against your will this night.
Archie drew a satisfied breath, the first hint of rain brushing his cheeks.
~~~
When he first wakes, Archie thinks he’s back on that little jolly boat. Shivering with cold, drifting into a tidal estuary and towards unwelcoming French arms. The touch of a boot against his reminds him he isn’t alone; nor is his head sore. He remembers, and is grateful.
And there’s Horatio, brave gallant Horatio being a captain to the men and a protector to the lady. The thin rays of the rising sun add an auburn tint to his curls, those lovely curls which have danced over Archie’s face - how many times now? - as they’ve taken the first few steps in what was still a tentative courtship. As he holds you, Kittie Cobham, it’s in the style of the preux chevalier. When I’m in his arms, he’s all awkward corners and self-conscious lust.
A voice - Styles, he thinks, Styles always had the sharpest sight - cuts into Archie’s thoughts, crying the sail on the horizon. As the sun climbs by gentle degrees over the sea, the ship moves from hull down to clear as a bell. No-one needs the obvious statements that it’s the Indy. The bloody glorious, long feared and almost forgotten Indy.
“We’re home, lads.”
Archie isn’t sure who says it and cares less. The Indy hasn’t been his home in a long time. His home is anywhere his preux chevalier is.