flavour of the day and strawberry
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: The Harder They Fall
Rating: G
Challenge: FOTD: gung-ho, Strawberry #28: waves
Toppings/Extras: none
Wordcount: 2,345
Summary: Another day, another sea battle and plenty more mishaps.
Notes: What a lovely flavour of the day! Gung-ho: Wholeheartedly enthusiastic and loyal; eager; zealous. This scenario will possibly be used to open the novel (once rough draftish writing is fine-tuned), so any feedback would be appreciated! Thank you!
It was a fine day for a sea battle: the sea and the sky were equally brilliant spheres of blue and the Caribbean sun blitzed down upon the blazing cotton sails of the two vessels. From the deck of the Truthseeker, back ramrod straight, an English gentleman eyed the enemy ship-a pirate vessel, la Cirque.
“Tell the fellow at the helm to tread carefully,” he murmured to either of his flanking men-he did not specify. To one side of him stood Mr Isaac Prowse, his bodyguard of sorts and general aide. On the other was Lieutenant Milligan, who was in charge of the soldiers on board the vessel. “This reef is particularly tricky.”
Both vessels were south of the crescent-shaped island of Grand Bahama; the sea was paler there, shallower, peppered with sand-spits and haunted by the presence of the jagged reef just beneath the surface. The crew of la Cirque were known locally as the ‘Bahama Reef Pirates’ because grounding merchant ships on reefs such as this one was what they did best; but Lord Ashdown and his vessel were shepherding them out of their comfort zone.
Prowse-a tall man with chestnut hair slicked from his watchful eyes and a craggy, square-jawed face-stepped away silently and left towards the helm. Ashdown continued to gaze at la Cirque as though enjoying the view of a pleasant sunset.
“Not very clever,” Ashdown murmured as la Cirque began to turn sharply in the ocean, clearly hoping to line up its side with the Truthseeker and send a barrage of shots their way-it seemed they were sick of the pursuit. However, they had chosen a bad place to stage their attack. This was typical of his adversary-Captain Jacob Graham had a cavalier attitude to just about everything.
Ghostlike, Prowse appeared at his side just as he detected the slightest judders of their own hull scraping a particularly near reef. Ashdown’s brow furrowed ever so slightly. There was a sudden deep grinding noise-but it was not from their vessel.
La Cirque had been unable to complete its turn. It was grounded against the protruding reef, hull scraping into silty sand on the other side.
“Excellent,” Lieutenant Milligan said from Ashdown’s side, smiling a little maliciously-the soldiers on board were loading the cannons obediently and pushing them through the slots, the sun sending blinding gleams reflecting from their heartily polished sides. On board la Cirque, Ashdown could make out the scurrying men. He glanced along the deck at his own men getting ready to deliver the final blow.
The self-congratulatory feeling was short-lived, which Ashdown seemed to have suspected: there was a sudden shrieking whine, a series of crunches and then the entire deck jerked beneath their polished boots.
Bollocks, Ashdown thought, though he would never say such a thing out loud.
They were grounded-and still in range of some of the pirate vessel’s cannons. The ships were alongside one another and just about overlapping; the front of la Cirque and the rear of the Truthseeker were in line to fire. Milligan was instantly rushing among his men, whiskers trembling as he bellowed. Ashdown’s reaction was as serene as always.
“It seems we are caught in a cleft stick,” he mused. Next to him, Prowse raised his eyebrows slightly. The pirates were loading their cannons with shots; the battlefield had now become immobile but that didn’t mean they couldn’t see it out. The fashionably pale lord, bewigged and slender in build, examined the situation for a moment longer as Milligan reappeared at his side.
“Ready for orders to fire, sir!” he snapped out in typical military fashion. Ashdown’s wheat-brown eyebrows flicked upwards a fraction and he turned to face the man.
“Hold fire,” he said. Behind him, the pirates were nearly done loading. The lieutenant spluttered and seemed about to interrupt when Ashdown repeated himself with sudden throat-grabbing steel in his refined voice: “Hold fire, Lieutenant.”
A brief cry cut across the ocean air and then the cannons on la Cirque fired. With a toothless whistle and a thunder of splintery blasts, the cannonballs bit holes into the Truthseeker and sent large chunks of banister, hull and general timber flying. The red-coated men scattered across the deck and towards the prow of the ship-where Ashdown, Prowse and Milligan were stood, avoiding the blasts.
The pirates on la Cirque were dragging the used cannons away to the opposite side of the deck and replacing them with ones from the side not facing the Truthseeker-already loaded in the interim. Next to the lord, Prowse tensed.
“Sir…”
“We are out of range here, Mr Prowse,” Ashdown’s voice ran over his smoothly. True, the men stood at the prow were far out of the limited range of la Cirque’s shots, but the rear hull of the Truthseeker was being utterly obliterated.
Then, the sound drifting over the cutting zephyrs of the sea, there was a long, painful, creaking groan from the opposing vessel, like the dying groans of some enormous sea beast. This followed by another cry from the pirate crew and another round of blasts from their black cannons.
As they fired, the weighty cannons shot back across the deck once more. There was another long groan from la Cirque as she-slowly but surely-began to keel backwards. The pitch of the pirates’ cries changed audibly.
Magnificently, gloriously slowly, la Cirque-caught on the reef-began leaning away from them. Cannons, craters and crewmen alike slid across the deck, only feeding more weight to the momentum. It finally rolled onto its side with a ripping crackle from the snapping mast, sending bouncing ripples racing over the shallow, turquoise water, waves engulfing some of the closer sand spits. Its barnacle-crusted belly, black and streaming with water, was presented to them as it finally crashed onto its side.
“Good grief,” Ashdown muttered.
There were a few jeers on board the Truthseeker but most men watched in silence. What next? seemed to be everyone’s thought.
“I doubt that killed most of them, sir,” Milligan said after a pause. Ashdown nodded curtly.
“I am quite sure if it, Lieutenant,” he responded. La Cirque was not far away, perhaps one-hundred and fifty feet. “It would be to our advantage to take Captain Graham alive, in any case. He is worth more that way.” Silvery blue eyes calmly searching the stilling sea, he nodded. “Prepare a dinghy and send some of your men over. Mr Prowse-,” instantly dismissing Milligan, he turned to his aide, “-go to retrieve the captain, if you will.”
“Sir,” Prowse responded politely, pulling off his leather gloves. The Truthseeker gave a sudden creak and all of the men on board momentarily hesitated.
“I will be in the captain’s cabin,” Ashdown said tartly, before turning to heel, striding across the deck and letting himself into said cabin. Nobody was sure why he felt the need to close the door behind him, or indeed even use the door; the walls surrounding the door had been decimated by the earlier cannon shots.
Prowse turned and strode away to the dinghy being filled with red-coated soldiers, reaching under his camel-coloured coat to pull a dainty, ivory-handled throwing knife from the straps of a large bandolier belt that he wore, crossing his torso from one shoulder to the opposite hip.
-----
Captain Jacob Graham blinked a few times in an attempt to retrieve full function of his throbbing mind. After a short while, he decided that he was in good enough a state to begin working out where he was. Sitting up, the pirate captain ran a hand through his messy, tumbling hair and glanced around.
He was somehow in the brig of la Cirque-actually, he was on the wall of the brig of la Cirque. His guess was that he had fallen through the grid hatch when the vessel had keeled over.
“My ship!” he sudden exclaimed, crashing to his feet with some wet slaps from his clothes and a few splatters from the layer of seawater collecting in the barrel-shaped under-decks of la Cirque. Splashing across the splintered wood, he heaved himself up the vertical floor and managed to drag himself out onto the deck.
The sun beat down onto the fallen ship and he heard a gull give an indifferent squawk from somewhere far off. Graham clambered over the edge of the rail and fell down the slippery deck, which was lying at a steep angle, landing with a splash in the water. A few moments of wading brought him to a sand spit which he stood upon, gazing critically at his vessel.
“Bugger it,” he sighed.
Some way behind him was Grand Bahama Island’s emerald-bright tropical forestry. Graham couldn’t help but wonder how long he’d been in the brig for-there weren’t many of his crew around, and the ones that were around looked rather unhelpful and dead. He assumed that they had made for the shore: Ashdown’s men would be coming to clean up soon. He should probably make his own way-
A knife thudded into the deck in front of him, flying clean over his left shoulder. He knew that the miss was on purpose, because the man that had doubtlessly thrown the knife did not miss.
This day was just getting worse and worse.
“Look what yer’ve done to me bloody ship!” he exclaimed, spinning around to face Isaac Prowse. The gentleman’s assistant surveyed him steadily through dark eyes.
“You did that yourself,” he responded with a hint of a smirk.
Graham considered for a few moments and then spotted something just under the two inches of water next to his foot-one of the many swords they kept on board. This one was a cutlass, a little heavy on the defence for the situation, but who was he to argue with Fate? He reached down, snatched it up and merrily ran for it.
“Oh, for God’s sake…”
Determinedly, Prowse plunged after him-the footing was unstable, with the sand spits constantly plunging in and out of the deeper ocean, meaning he had to keep an eye on the ground. It didn’t help that everything that had been on the deck of la Cirque had fallen into the ocean at his feet, meaning he was crunching over a slew of bottles, weapons, buckets, barrels and every kind of miscellaneous object. He even had to wind his way around the cannons that had caused the vessel’s demise, embedded nose-first into the sand in most cases. The deck stretched up like an angled wall to one side of him, blocking his view of the Truthseeker.
With a jumping leap, Graham spun back to face him, slashing his sword.
“Not goin’ ter fight, Prowse?” he called jauntily. He held both his arms open and grinned broadly, skipping backwards. “That’s our usual game, innit? A bit o’ sparrin’, a bit o’ banter…”
“You,” Prowse said, “are nothing more than a royal pain in the arse.”
“Aw, a bit swordplay never hurt anybody,” Graham said, before hesitating. “Well, prob’ly some people, but yer know what I mean…”
Glancing through the water, Prowse discovered a likely sword and plucked it out from beneath the salty-warm waves, testing its weight slightly. He was always far more at home with his knives than large, ungainly swords-but one did not succeed as a bodyguard without some skill with a sword.
“After I cut your arm off,” Prowse said stoically, “you will come quietly. Agreed?”
“Can’t really imagine meself bein’ that quiet with me arm bleedin’ out, but I’ll give it a try,” Graham said brightly.
Closing the distance between them with a few deft strides, kicking foamy laps of water with every step in his black oilskin boots and raising his sword, the two men were just about ready to begin their duel when-
There was another deep, resounding, dying sea-monster sound that raced to them across the clear sea. Having passed the overturned shell of la Cirque, the two men had a very clear view. As they watched, the Truthseeker creaked, wobbled, and finally fell, landing with a dull splatter and a crunch.
“Christ,” Prowse muttered, and suddenly became aware of the sound of splashing.
He turned in time to see Jacob Graham beating a hasty retreat, arms flapping as he raced for the shore of Grand Bahama Island. After looking from the flailing figure back to the still-crackling ship, Prowse heaved a sigh and flung his sword into the water.
Might as well make this count, he thought, and pulled out another throwing-knife from the many attached to his bandolier belt. Holding it by the flashing blade between finger and thumb, he aimed very briefly and hurled it as fast as he could, whipping his arm down in a severe arc from over his shoulder to under it. He had been ordered not to kill Graham, so with great reluctance he aimed for the arm.
Not even that disappointing blow landed, because as he threw it Jacob Graham vanished with a splash and a surprised shout. It seemed he had run out of sand spit. The knife flew directly through the spot his arm would have been, flew still further, and then was lost to the ocean.
I hope you drown, Prowse thought bad-temperedly. Then he turned back towards the Truthseeker.
-----
Lord Ashdown was quite glad that nobody had been in the office with him because it would have been far too undignified for someone to have seen him being thrown across the room like a doll and tangled amongst the furniture. After steadying his wig, he pushed a wicker chair off of himself and carefully got to his feet.
Padding carefully across the floor-which had once been a wall-and avoiding standing on a portrait of his wife, watching interestedly as the curtains on the windows above his head flapped towards him like banners, he arrived at one of the holes that la Cirque had blasted into his cabin and stared down at the ocean.
“Not again,” he sighed quietly to himself.
Title: The Harder They Fall
Rating: G
Challenge: FOTD: gung-ho, Strawberry #28: waves
Toppings/Extras: none
Wordcount: 2,345
Summary: Another day, another sea battle and plenty more mishaps.
Notes: What a lovely flavour of the day! Gung-ho: Wholeheartedly enthusiastic and loyal; eager; zealous. This scenario will possibly be used to open the novel (once rough draftish writing is fine-tuned), so any feedback would be appreciated! Thank you!
It was a fine day for a sea battle: the sea and the sky were equally brilliant spheres of blue and the Caribbean sun blitzed down upon the blazing cotton sails of the two vessels. From the deck of the Truthseeker, back ramrod straight, an English gentleman eyed the enemy ship-a pirate vessel, la Cirque.
“Tell the fellow at the helm to tread carefully,” he murmured to either of his flanking men-he did not specify. To one side of him stood Mr Isaac Prowse, his bodyguard of sorts and general aide. On the other was Lieutenant Milligan, who was in charge of the soldiers on board the vessel. “This reef is particularly tricky.”
Both vessels were south of the crescent-shaped island of Grand Bahama; the sea was paler there, shallower, peppered with sand-spits and haunted by the presence of the jagged reef just beneath the surface. The crew of la Cirque were known locally as the ‘Bahama Reef Pirates’ because grounding merchant ships on reefs such as this one was what they did best; but Lord Ashdown and his vessel were shepherding them out of their comfort zone.
Prowse-a tall man with chestnut hair slicked from his watchful eyes and a craggy, square-jawed face-stepped away silently and left towards the helm. Ashdown continued to gaze at la Cirque as though enjoying the view of a pleasant sunset.
“Not very clever,” Ashdown murmured as la Cirque began to turn sharply in the ocean, clearly hoping to line up its side with the Truthseeker and send a barrage of shots their way-it seemed they were sick of the pursuit. However, they had chosen a bad place to stage their attack. This was typical of his adversary-Captain Jacob Graham had a cavalier attitude to just about everything.
Ghostlike, Prowse appeared at his side just as he detected the slightest judders of their own hull scraping a particularly near reef. Ashdown’s brow furrowed ever so slightly. There was a sudden deep grinding noise-but it was not from their vessel.
La Cirque had been unable to complete its turn. It was grounded against the protruding reef, hull scraping into silty sand on the other side.
“Excellent,” Lieutenant Milligan said from Ashdown’s side, smiling a little maliciously-the soldiers on board were loading the cannons obediently and pushing them through the slots, the sun sending blinding gleams reflecting from their heartily polished sides. On board la Cirque, Ashdown could make out the scurrying men. He glanced along the deck at his own men getting ready to deliver the final blow.
The self-congratulatory feeling was short-lived, which Ashdown seemed to have suspected: there was a sudden shrieking whine, a series of crunches and then the entire deck jerked beneath their polished boots.
Bollocks, Ashdown thought, though he would never say such a thing out loud.
They were grounded-and still in range of some of the pirate vessel’s cannons. The ships were alongside one another and just about overlapping; the front of la Cirque and the rear of the Truthseeker were in line to fire. Milligan was instantly rushing among his men, whiskers trembling as he bellowed. Ashdown’s reaction was as serene as always.
“It seems we are caught in a cleft stick,” he mused. Next to him, Prowse raised his eyebrows slightly. The pirates were loading their cannons with shots; the battlefield had now become immobile but that didn’t mean they couldn’t see it out. The fashionably pale lord, bewigged and slender in build, examined the situation for a moment longer as Milligan reappeared at his side.
“Ready for orders to fire, sir!” he snapped out in typical military fashion. Ashdown’s wheat-brown eyebrows flicked upwards a fraction and he turned to face the man.
“Hold fire,” he said. Behind him, the pirates were nearly done loading. The lieutenant spluttered and seemed about to interrupt when Ashdown repeated himself with sudden throat-grabbing steel in his refined voice: “Hold fire, Lieutenant.”
A brief cry cut across the ocean air and then the cannons on la Cirque fired. With a toothless whistle and a thunder of splintery blasts, the cannonballs bit holes into the Truthseeker and sent large chunks of banister, hull and general timber flying. The red-coated men scattered across the deck and towards the prow of the ship-where Ashdown, Prowse and Milligan were stood, avoiding the blasts.
The pirates on la Cirque were dragging the used cannons away to the opposite side of the deck and replacing them with ones from the side not facing the Truthseeker-already loaded in the interim. Next to the lord, Prowse tensed.
“Sir…”
“We are out of range here, Mr Prowse,” Ashdown’s voice ran over his smoothly. True, the men stood at the prow were far out of the limited range of la Cirque’s shots, but the rear hull of the Truthseeker was being utterly obliterated.
Then, the sound drifting over the cutting zephyrs of the sea, there was a long, painful, creaking groan from the opposing vessel, like the dying groans of some enormous sea beast. This followed by another cry from the pirate crew and another round of blasts from their black cannons.
As they fired, the weighty cannons shot back across the deck once more. There was another long groan from la Cirque as she-slowly but surely-began to keel backwards. The pitch of the pirates’ cries changed audibly.
Magnificently, gloriously slowly, la Cirque-caught on the reef-began leaning away from them. Cannons, craters and crewmen alike slid across the deck, only feeding more weight to the momentum. It finally rolled onto its side with a ripping crackle from the snapping mast, sending bouncing ripples racing over the shallow, turquoise water, waves engulfing some of the closer sand spits. Its barnacle-crusted belly, black and streaming with water, was presented to them as it finally crashed onto its side.
“Good grief,” Ashdown muttered.
There were a few jeers on board the Truthseeker but most men watched in silence. What next? seemed to be everyone’s thought.
“I doubt that killed most of them, sir,” Milligan said after a pause. Ashdown nodded curtly.
“I am quite sure if it, Lieutenant,” he responded. La Cirque was not far away, perhaps one-hundred and fifty feet. “It would be to our advantage to take Captain Graham alive, in any case. He is worth more that way.” Silvery blue eyes calmly searching the stilling sea, he nodded. “Prepare a dinghy and send some of your men over. Mr Prowse-,” instantly dismissing Milligan, he turned to his aide, “-go to retrieve the captain, if you will.”
“Sir,” Prowse responded politely, pulling off his leather gloves. The Truthseeker gave a sudden creak and all of the men on board momentarily hesitated.
“I will be in the captain’s cabin,” Ashdown said tartly, before turning to heel, striding across the deck and letting himself into said cabin. Nobody was sure why he felt the need to close the door behind him, or indeed even use the door; the walls surrounding the door had been decimated by the earlier cannon shots.
Prowse turned and strode away to the dinghy being filled with red-coated soldiers, reaching under his camel-coloured coat to pull a dainty, ivory-handled throwing knife from the straps of a large bandolier belt that he wore, crossing his torso from one shoulder to the opposite hip.
-----
Captain Jacob Graham blinked a few times in an attempt to retrieve full function of his throbbing mind. After a short while, he decided that he was in good enough a state to begin working out where he was. Sitting up, the pirate captain ran a hand through his messy, tumbling hair and glanced around.
He was somehow in the brig of la Cirque-actually, he was on the wall of the brig of la Cirque. His guess was that he had fallen through the grid hatch when the vessel had keeled over.
“My ship!” he sudden exclaimed, crashing to his feet with some wet slaps from his clothes and a few splatters from the layer of seawater collecting in the barrel-shaped under-decks of la Cirque. Splashing across the splintered wood, he heaved himself up the vertical floor and managed to drag himself out onto the deck.
The sun beat down onto the fallen ship and he heard a gull give an indifferent squawk from somewhere far off. Graham clambered over the edge of the rail and fell down the slippery deck, which was lying at a steep angle, landing with a splash in the water. A few moments of wading brought him to a sand spit which he stood upon, gazing critically at his vessel.
“Bugger it,” he sighed.
Some way behind him was Grand Bahama Island’s emerald-bright tropical forestry. Graham couldn’t help but wonder how long he’d been in the brig for-there weren’t many of his crew around, and the ones that were around looked rather unhelpful and dead. He assumed that they had made for the shore: Ashdown’s men would be coming to clean up soon. He should probably make his own way-
A knife thudded into the deck in front of him, flying clean over his left shoulder. He knew that the miss was on purpose, because the man that had doubtlessly thrown the knife did not miss.
This day was just getting worse and worse.
“Look what yer’ve done to me bloody ship!” he exclaimed, spinning around to face Isaac Prowse. The gentleman’s assistant surveyed him steadily through dark eyes.
“You did that yourself,” he responded with a hint of a smirk.
Graham considered for a few moments and then spotted something just under the two inches of water next to his foot-one of the many swords they kept on board. This one was a cutlass, a little heavy on the defence for the situation, but who was he to argue with Fate? He reached down, snatched it up and merrily ran for it.
“Oh, for God’s sake…”
Determinedly, Prowse plunged after him-the footing was unstable, with the sand spits constantly plunging in and out of the deeper ocean, meaning he had to keep an eye on the ground. It didn’t help that everything that had been on the deck of la Cirque had fallen into the ocean at his feet, meaning he was crunching over a slew of bottles, weapons, buckets, barrels and every kind of miscellaneous object. He even had to wind his way around the cannons that had caused the vessel’s demise, embedded nose-first into the sand in most cases. The deck stretched up like an angled wall to one side of him, blocking his view of the Truthseeker.
With a jumping leap, Graham spun back to face him, slashing his sword.
“Not goin’ ter fight, Prowse?” he called jauntily. He held both his arms open and grinned broadly, skipping backwards. “That’s our usual game, innit? A bit o’ sparrin’, a bit o’ banter…”
“You,” Prowse said, “are nothing more than a royal pain in the arse.”
“Aw, a bit swordplay never hurt anybody,” Graham said, before hesitating. “Well, prob’ly some people, but yer know what I mean…”
Glancing through the water, Prowse discovered a likely sword and plucked it out from beneath the salty-warm waves, testing its weight slightly. He was always far more at home with his knives than large, ungainly swords-but one did not succeed as a bodyguard without some skill with a sword.
“After I cut your arm off,” Prowse said stoically, “you will come quietly. Agreed?”
“Can’t really imagine meself bein’ that quiet with me arm bleedin’ out, but I’ll give it a try,” Graham said brightly.
Closing the distance between them with a few deft strides, kicking foamy laps of water with every step in his black oilskin boots and raising his sword, the two men were just about ready to begin their duel when-
There was another deep, resounding, dying sea-monster sound that raced to them across the clear sea. Having passed the overturned shell of la Cirque, the two men had a very clear view. As they watched, the Truthseeker creaked, wobbled, and finally fell, landing with a dull splatter and a crunch.
“Christ,” Prowse muttered, and suddenly became aware of the sound of splashing.
He turned in time to see Jacob Graham beating a hasty retreat, arms flapping as he raced for the shore of Grand Bahama Island. After looking from the flailing figure back to the still-crackling ship, Prowse heaved a sigh and flung his sword into the water.
Might as well make this count, he thought, and pulled out another throwing-knife from the many attached to his bandolier belt. Holding it by the flashing blade between finger and thumb, he aimed very briefly and hurled it as fast as he could, whipping his arm down in a severe arc from over his shoulder to under it. He had been ordered not to kill Graham, so with great reluctance he aimed for the arm.
Not even that disappointing blow landed, because as he threw it Jacob Graham vanished with a splash and a surprised shout. It seemed he had run out of sand spit. The knife flew directly through the spot his arm would have been, flew still further, and then was lost to the ocean.
I hope you drown, Prowse thought bad-temperedly. Then he turned back towards the Truthseeker.
-----
Lord Ashdown was quite glad that nobody had been in the office with him because it would have been far too undignified for someone to have seen him being thrown across the room like a doll and tangled amongst the furniture. After steadying his wig, he pushed a wicker chair off of himself and carefully got to his feet.
Padding carefully across the floor-which had once been a wall-and avoiding standing on a portrait of his wife, watching interestedly as the curtains on the windows above his head flapped towards him like banners, he arrived at one of the holes that la Cirque had blasted into his cabin and stared down at the ocean.
“Not again,” he sighed quietly to himself.