ADVENT CALENDAR DAY 9 (Fic): Warships of Letters - Part Deux
Title: Warships of Letters - Part Deux
Author: heather_mist
Word Count: about 2,000
Rating: PG for mildly salacious flirting
Spoilers: none really
Author’s Notes
My offering for the 9th day of the Calendar is more of the correspondence between some of our favourite ships, which was started last year - and can be found here:
Warships of Letters
For anyone who doesn’t know, the inspiration for all this was a delightful little BBC Radio 4 series called ‘Warhorses of Letters’ - a comedy drama about ‘The romantic correspondence between two of history's most important horses: Napoleon's mount Marengo and the Duke of Wellington's own Copenhagen’ which ran last year (and so far has not been updated - sob!).
Once more may I ask you to read Desaix’s correspondence is as bad a French accent as you can manage? It would be terribly helpful!
Oh - and you should know that a certain amount of artistic licence has had to be employed as the real Desaix foundered in 1802 - but what’s a few years between friends?!
Hello again.
When last we met we were following the extraordinary correspondence between the Sloop Sophie (14 guns) of His Majesty’s Royal Navy and the Desaix (74 guns) a Ship of the Line of Napoleon’s French Navy. In the first packet of these letters, published last Advent, we saw the joyful beginning of an attachment for these two ships, as unlike each other as two ships could be while still possessing a hull and sails. They concluded abruptly with the news that Desaix was having her bottom scraped in an attempt to gain some extra speed. This second packet of letters, found hidden in a locked shot-locker box languishing in Shotts, reveals an extraordinary, some might even say surprising, new development….
The year is April 1805
Dear Desaix,
I am so annoyed I could spit my oakum! He’s taking her to India!! Oh, the Mediterranean was good enough for me, but oh no, she has to be taken to India, the cow. And everyone says he prefers her to me - that she is his one true love…
I’m so, so miserable.
Sophie.
PS. Where are you berthed now? It seems like ages since we last corresponded… (sad face)
Sophie Cherie,
It is, as you say, ages since last we corresponded and that is because I was waiting for you to reply to my last letter. Nothing for months and then this quite extraordinary diatribe! What is amiss sweetheart, what, and who, has got your boomkins knotted up so? Who is taking who to India? Please be so good as to explain for I am - I was going to say ‘All at Sea’ but at present I am laid up En Ordinaire (the French for Ordinary, you know?) so clearly I am not at sea at all. In passing, I must say I object to the term ‘Ordinary’ for I do not believe there is anything ordinary about me, nor indeed any other Ship-of-War. Write back soon, my precious Sophie, for you grief concerns me greatly.
With all my love,
Desaix
Darling D,
Of course there is nothing ordinary about you! You are, and always have been the most gorgeous ship in the whole of the Mediterranean!! My futtocks get all shroudy just thinking about you! But I disagree about other ships - some ships in the Navy are very ordinary indeed, despite their showing away with pretentiously large mainmasts, the creatures. To explain: my former captain, ‘Lucky’ Jack Aubrey, is taking his new ship Surprise to India with him. They are going to be away together for months. Months and months and months and it is so not fair! I would have loved to go to India! But no, he’s taking her instead.
Kiss kiss
S
PS - if you are laid up in so-not-ordinary does that mean you are retired now? I did not think you were as old as all that…
Sweet Sophie,
Of course I am not old, like many others of my generation I am in my prime! But I am told I am now far too valuable an asset to be trundled about on a daily basis and so am to be kept for special occasions, when it is necessary to bring out the big guns you know? While it is flattering to be so acclaimed, I confess I would far rather be in the thick of things on a daily basis; for I am sure you would agree there can be no more glorious thing for a Ship-of-War than to go down with all guns blazing!
Now cherie, as to your woes - you must be sensible. I know you were fond of your Captain Aubrey (are you quite sure he was not descended from French lines himself? His name is so very French…) and you and he had a great deal of fun when you were together, and naturellement you think back with longing to those exciting times, but it is in the nature of things that we all move on. My own dear captain from that time, Christy-Palliere, is ashore now, he is here in Toulon and sails nothing more than a desk (even though I am just sitting here, waiting, twiddling my capstan bars…), and you yourself have had quite a few other Captains since your Captain Aubrey. You seemed quite happy with them, so why should you care if he has a new command? Perhaps you have just a little bit of the jalousie - the French for jealousy?
As ever, I embrace you to each side and nuzzle your bowsprit, always wishing that our hawses may cross once more.
Desaix
PS - I think I know this Surprise you speak of - I first knew her as Unité before she was captured by your Royal Navy. I think you would like her if you got to know her; she is a very sweet sailor on a bowline and from what I remember she has an enviously bluff bow and some lovely lines… On second thoughts, do not get to know her: you might prefer her to me!
OMG!!!
She’s French? SHE’S FRENCH?!! I might have bloody known it!!!
Sorry. I know you are French too, but it’s different with you, you are a French ship in the French Navy, and everything is perfectly above board with that, but to go about pretending to be this crack British frigate when what you are is actually French is just Not On. Actually, she’s not crack at all; she is actually what is known as a jackass frigate (I won’t be a bitch and say ‘how appropriate’, but really - isn’t it?) OMG she could be a spy! Is she a spy? That’s the thing about spies they don’t always look like spies. Look if she is a spy, you must tell me so I can warn Captain Aubrey somehow. I can’t believe he prefers her to me…
I am distraught!
S
x
Sophie,
Calm yourself. Of course Surprise is not a spy. You have been reading too many novels; Ships are Not Spies, and sometimes even people who seem to be spies are nothing of the sort. Why, I have it on very good authority that the strange looking doctor your Captain Aubrey sailed with was very nearly taken for a spy a few years back and I am sure you would agree that anyone less like a spy would be impossible (the French for ‘impossible’, you know?) to imagine!
As for her being French, may I remind you that you yourself were originally Spanish? Surprise is as English now as you are. This jalousie does you no credit. Yes, your Captain Aubrey is with Surprise now but that does not mean he does not look on his time with you without affection, that you mean nothing to him - after all, you were his first command, and they do say you never forget your first…
Your own,
Desaix
Ma Chére Unité,
Or perhaps, more appropriately, I should call you Surprise these days, for that is the name you go by now, is it not? I hope you remain as well and as sweet-sailing as you were when last we were in company together so long ago (Ooh la la - such lovely lines, I do not remember ever seeing the like before or since!) I hope too that your memories of me are as fond as mine are of you - just thinking about that wonderful mainmast of yours is enough to make my own spring!
Une petite oiseau tells me that you are about to embark on an exotic voyage with a new captain, for which I congratulate you most heartily. You will not take it amiss from such an old friend as I if I tell you that the little bird who told me this is a previous command of your Captain Aubrey and she is a very jealous little bird indeed. If you should encounter her, may I beg you to be very kind and understanding? I am so very fond of la Sophie, such a brave little sloop, trés courageux, you know? But jealous, oh so jealous! Out of affection for you both I should not like there to be any difficulties between you over a mere man, no matter how excellent a Seaman he may be.
I wish you the most bonne of bonne chances chérie, and embrace you à larboard et starboard in our old ways.
With love and affection.
Desaix
PS I am laid up in Toulon at present and very bored. I would invite you to visit the next time you’re passing, but perhaps under the circumstances it would not be the best idea in the world? I should not like to have to fire upon you; you might think I had completely forgotten my manners…!
Desaix!
Good heavens your letter was such a - d’you know I was going to say ‘surprise’ but that was too close to a clench for comfort and I leave such things to my Captain (he dotes on ‘em, bless him…)! But nevertheless to hear from you after all these years was the most complete thing. How are your knees? Mine suffer cruelly, but some new-fangled diagonal braces have set me up amazingly, I can thoroughly recommend them.
Now, as to your hint about the situation vis-à-vis Sophie: I had already heard rumours of how the wind was blowing from that quarter, and your letter merely confirmed them. I doubt our paths will cross, but if we do, I shall take no notice of any missish-ness on her part, the silly girl. It’s not even as if he left her for me - it is common knowledge in the Fleet that he was with Lively (admittedly only a brief dalliance, no serious intent) and Polychrest before me. Although poor old Poly, what with her lack of proper bottom, saggy ways and her perpetual to-ing and fro-ing so that a chap could never know quite where he was with her at any minute - well that was never going to be a permanent thing: she had ‘transitional ship’ written all over her…
I am sorry to hear you are laid up in Toulon, and I would be very happy to visit you but for the fact, as you say, we are currently on opposing sides in this damnable war. Of course I remember sailing in company with you - and with the fondest affection too, but I had quite forgot what an incorrigible flirt you are! Honestly, my mainmast isn’t as big as all that - well, not really… (wink) And now, to India I go! I shall send you a postcard from there, always assuming they have been invented by then.
Love
Surprise
PS I had also quite forgot à larboard et starboard embracing, the Royal Navy much prefers a firm shake of the sails, but sometimes the old ways are the best ways, so - a kiss to the left and then one to the right and it’s toodle-pip for now, old bean!
Dear Sophie,
Look, I appreciate that under the circumstances I may be the last frigate you want to hear from at the moment, but I thought I would set the record straight and tell you that even though Jack Aubrey is with me now (and honestly we didn’t choose for that to happen, it was just one of those things - blame the War) you have nothing to be jealous about. He still speaks of you very often - indeed, the name ‘Sophie’ seems to drop from his lips on a daily, if not hourly basis and always with the deepest love and warmth - I might even say passion. I had assumed it was some girlfriend of his, but evidently I was mistaken, he clearly retains a great deal of affection for you. If anyone should be jealous it should be me, I have never heard a captain speak in such honeyed tones about a previous command as he does of his Sophie!
Anyway, I thought you’d want to know… Right, I’ve got to go - I’m having my hold re-stowed. Apparently Captain A prefers to have me more by the stern… but I’m sure I don’t need to tell you anything about his ways!
Best,
Surprise
PS I don’t suppose you fancy corresponding do you? Because, well … look, you know you have quite the sweetest little quarterdeck in the Med, don’t you? And I do think you are most awfully pretty. Just a thought….
Here the letters end. We have heard there may be more secreted in a secret compartment of a portable secrétaire which once belonged to a third Junior Under-Secretary at the Admiralty. We can but hope…
Author: heather_mist
Word Count: about 2,000
Rating: PG for mildly salacious flirting
Spoilers: none really
Author’s Notes
My offering for the 9th day of the Calendar is more of the correspondence between some of our favourite ships, which was started last year - and can be found here:
Warships of Letters
For anyone who doesn’t know, the inspiration for all this was a delightful little BBC Radio 4 series called ‘Warhorses of Letters’ - a comedy drama about ‘The romantic correspondence between two of history's most important horses: Napoleon's mount Marengo and the Duke of Wellington's own Copenhagen’ which ran last year (and so far has not been updated - sob!).
Once more may I ask you to read Desaix’s correspondence is as bad a French accent as you can manage? It would be terribly helpful!
Oh - and you should know that a certain amount of artistic licence has had to be employed as the real Desaix foundered in 1802 - but what’s a few years between friends?!
Hello again.
When last we met we were following the extraordinary correspondence between the Sloop Sophie (14 guns) of His Majesty’s Royal Navy and the Desaix (74 guns) a Ship of the Line of Napoleon’s French Navy. In the first packet of these letters, published last Advent, we saw the joyful beginning of an attachment for these two ships, as unlike each other as two ships could be while still possessing a hull and sails. They concluded abruptly with the news that Desaix was having her bottom scraped in an attempt to gain some extra speed. This second packet of letters, found hidden in a locked shot-locker box languishing in Shotts, reveals an extraordinary, some might even say surprising, new development….
The year is April 1805
Dear Desaix,
I am so annoyed I could spit my oakum! He’s taking her to India!! Oh, the Mediterranean was good enough for me, but oh no, she has to be taken to India, the cow. And everyone says he prefers her to me - that she is his one true love…
I’m so, so miserable.
Sophie.
PS. Where are you berthed now? It seems like ages since we last corresponded… (sad face)
Sophie Cherie,
It is, as you say, ages since last we corresponded and that is because I was waiting for you to reply to my last letter. Nothing for months and then this quite extraordinary diatribe! What is amiss sweetheart, what, and who, has got your boomkins knotted up so? Who is taking who to India? Please be so good as to explain for I am - I was going to say ‘All at Sea’ but at present I am laid up En Ordinaire (the French for Ordinary, you know?) so clearly I am not at sea at all. In passing, I must say I object to the term ‘Ordinary’ for I do not believe there is anything ordinary about me, nor indeed any other Ship-of-War. Write back soon, my precious Sophie, for you grief concerns me greatly.
With all my love,
Desaix
Darling D,
Of course there is nothing ordinary about you! You are, and always have been the most gorgeous ship in the whole of the Mediterranean!! My futtocks get all shroudy just thinking about you! But I disagree about other ships - some ships in the Navy are very ordinary indeed, despite their showing away with pretentiously large mainmasts, the creatures. To explain: my former captain, ‘Lucky’ Jack Aubrey, is taking his new ship Surprise to India with him. They are going to be away together for months. Months and months and months and it is so not fair! I would have loved to go to India! But no, he’s taking her instead.
Kiss kiss
S
PS - if you are laid up in so-not-ordinary does that mean you are retired now? I did not think you were as old as all that…
Sweet Sophie,
Of course I am not old, like many others of my generation I am in my prime! But I am told I am now far too valuable an asset to be trundled about on a daily basis and so am to be kept for special occasions, when it is necessary to bring out the big guns you know? While it is flattering to be so acclaimed, I confess I would far rather be in the thick of things on a daily basis; for I am sure you would agree there can be no more glorious thing for a Ship-of-War than to go down with all guns blazing!
Now cherie, as to your woes - you must be sensible. I know you were fond of your Captain Aubrey (are you quite sure he was not descended from French lines himself? His name is so very French…) and you and he had a great deal of fun when you were together, and naturellement you think back with longing to those exciting times, but it is in the nature of things that we all move on. My own dear captain from that time, Christy-Palliere, is ashore now, he is here in Toulon and sails nothing more than a desk (even though I am just sitting here, waiting, twiddling my capstan bars…), and you yourself have had quite a few other Captains since your Captain Aubrey. You seemed quite happy with them, so why should you care if he has a new command? Perhaps you have just a little bit of the jalousie - the French for jealousy?
As ever, I embrace you to each side and nuzzle your bowsprit, always wishing that our hawses may cross once more.
Desaix
PS - I think I know this Surprise you speak of - I first knew her as Unité before she was captured by your Royal Navy. I think you would like her if you got to know her; she is a very sweet sailor on a bowline and from what I remember she has an enviously bluff bow and some lovely lines… On second thoughts, do not get to know her: you might prefer her to me!
OMG!!!
She’s French? SHE’S FRENCH?!! I might have bloody known it!!!
Sorry. I know you are French too, but it’s different with you, you are a French ship in the French Navy, and everything is perfectly above board with that, but to go about pretending to be this crack British frigate when what you are is actually French is just Not On. Actually, she’s not crack at all; she is actually what is known as a jackass frigate (I won’t be a bitch and say ‘how appropriate’, but really - isn’t it?) OMG she could be a spy! Is she a spy? That’s the thing about spies they don’t always look like spies. Look if she is a spy, you must tell me so I can warn Captain Aubrey somehow. I can’t believe he prefers her to me…
I am distraught!
S
x
Sophie,
Calm yourself. Of course Surprise is not a spy. You have been reading too many novels; Ships are Not Spies, and sometimes even people who seem to be spies are nothing of the sort. Why, I have it on very good authority that the strange looking doctor your Captain Aubrey sailed with was very nearly taken for a spy a few years back and I am sure you would agree that anyone less like a spy would be impossible (the French for ‘impossible’, you know?) to imagine!
As for her being French, may I remind you that you yourself were originally Spanish? Surprise is as English now as you are. This jalousie does you no credit. Yes, your Captain Aubrey is with Surprise now but that does not mean he does not look on his time with you without affection, that you mean nothing to him - after all, you were his first command, and they do say you never forget your first…
Your own,
Desaix
Ma Chére Unité,
Or perhaps, more appropriately, I should call you Surprise these days, for that is the name you go by now, is it not? I hope you remain as well and as sweet-sailing as you were when last we were in company together so long ago (Ooh la la - such lovely lines, I do not remember ever seeing the like before or since!) I hope too that your memories of me are as fond as mine are of you - just thinking about that wonderful mainmast of yours is enough to make my own spring!
Une petite oiseau tells me that you are about to embark on an exotic voyage with a new captain, for which I congratulate you most heartily. You will not take it amiss from such an old friend as I if I tell you that the little bird who told me this is a previous command of your Captain Aubrey and she is a very jealous little bird indeed. If you should encounter her, may I beg you to be very kind and understanding? I am so very fond of la Sophie, such a brave little sloop, trés courageux, you know? But jealous, oh so jealous! Out of affection for you both I should not like there to be any difficulties between you over a mere man, no matter how excellent a Seaman he may be.
I wish you the most bonne of bonne chances chérie, and embrace you à larboard et starboard in our old ways.
With love and affection.
Desaix
PS I am laid up in Toulon at present and very bored. I would invite you to visit the next time you’re passing, but perhaps under the circumstances it would not be the best idea in the world? I should not like to have to fire upon you; you might think I had completely forgotten my manners…!
Desaix!
Good heavens your letter was such a - d’you know I was going to say ‘surprise’ but that was too close to a clench for comfort and I leave such things to my Captain (he dotes on ‘em, bless him…)! But nevertheless to hear from you after all these years was the most complete thing. How are your knees? Mine suffer cruelly, but some new-fangled diagonal braces have set me up amazingly, I can thoroughly recommend them.
Now, as to your hint about the situation vis-à-vis Sophie: I had already heard rumours of how the wind was blowing from that quarter, and your letter merely confirmed them. I doubt our paths will cross, but if we do, I shall take no notice of any missish-ness on her part, the silly girl. It’s not even as if he left her for me - it is common knowledge in the Fleet that he was with Lively (admittedly only a brief dalliance, no serious intent) and Polychrest before me. Although poor old Poly, what with her lack of proper bottom, saggy ways and her perpetual to-ing and fro-ing so that a chap could never know quite where he was with her at any minute - well that was never going to be a permanent thing: she had ‘transitional ship’ written all over her…
I am sorry to hear you are laid up in Toulon, and I would be very happy to visit you but for the fact, as you say, we are currently on opposing sides in this damnable war. Of course I remember sailing in company with you - and with the fondest affection too, but I had quite forgot what an incorrigible flirt you are! Honestly, my mainmast isn’t as big as all that - well, not really… (wink) And now, to India I go! I shall send you a postcard from there, always assuming they have been invented by then.
Love
Surprise
PS I had also quite forgot à larboard et starboard embracing, the Royal Navy much prefers a firm shake of the sails, but sometimes the old ways are the best ways, so - a kiss to the left and then one to the right and it’s toodle-pip for now, old bean!
Dear Sophie,
Look, I appreciate that under the circumstances I may be the last frigate you want to hear from at the moment, but I thought I would set the record straight and tell you that even though Jack Aubrey is with me now (and honestly we didn’t choose for that to happen, it was just one of those things - blame the War) you have nothing to be jealous about. He still speaks of you very often - indeed, the name ‘Sophie’ seems to drop from his lips on a daily, if not hourly basis and always with the deepest love and warmth - I might even say passion. I had assumed it was some girlfriend of his, but evidently I was mistaken, he clearly retains a great deal of affection for you. If anyone should be jealous it should be me, I have never heard a captain speak in such honeyed tones about a previous command as he does of his Sophie!
Anyway, I thought you’d want to know… Right, I’ve got to go - I’m having my hold re-stowed. Apparently Captain A prefers to have me more by the stern… but I’m sure I don’t need to tell you anything about his ways!
Best,
Surprise
PS I don’t suppose you fancy corresponding do you? Because, well … look, you know you have quite the sweetest little quarterdeck in the Med, don’t you? And I do think you are most awfully pretty. Just a thought….
Here the letters end. We have heard there may be more secreted in a secret compartment of a portable secrétaire which once belonged to a third Junior Under-Secretary at the Admiralty. We can but hope…