William Brand

William closed the door, going first to the surgery to fetch some salves and a cloth or two. He made no report of the Steward, but being so direct about what he required, Maeve simply guessed that it was for the care of some wounded fellow. She gave over everything that he asked for, though some of it came from the floor and under tables, as they were still collecting all the fallen and smashed things about the surgery. He next went to the galley and finding a man there that was not the cook, but he ordered him to have the cook prepare some dish to which the man was not familiar, though of which William was certain that Mister Gage would provide. When he returned to the cabin he noticed, but made no outward mention of the sudden way she seemed to change as he entered the cabin. He laid the small bottles and the cloth on the table and fetched up the bowl he used for shaving from his own quarters off the room. As he set it upon the table which served for a desk and dining, he noted the crack in the porcelain. Just one more battered victim of recent events. He poured a generous amount of water and seemed satisfied that he had all that he required. Then he threw off his oilskins and the wet waistcoat that had failed to shield. He did this with no care for either garment, but tossed them were he would. Then he performed an act not often afforded him. He played the servant. Taking up a three legged stool which lay on it's side nearby, he placed it and himself in front, and at the foot of Tudor. Drawing the bowl from beside the table he placed it at his right and took up one cloth and soaked it. He did this wordlessly. His face was calm, even gentle, but he said nothing. He simply wrung the cloth and began the careful task of wiping a wound here and gently sponging a bruise there. Despite being taller than her, he was seated low enough to make eye contact, though she made none. Occasionally his brow would wrinkle with the empathy or sympathy each wound called for, much has he had done when he was only a servant in a bygone house, two decades removed. The water in the basin slowly turned from clear to pink to red as he worked and he was further reminded of his Egyptian captivity. Then once, amidst it all, he kissed her forehead. Just that. He found one soft, unblemished part of her head, tucked back a wet lock and kissed it. Under the circumstances, and in a place so private, it might have seemed intimate, but of a kind which only friends know. "I'm reminded a brave and worthy Steward…" William began then as he wrung a fresh cloth. He wiped blood from her hair as he continued. "She was a woman of small stature and of a station neither too high or too low, but of such a carriage of dignity and loyalty, that she set aside her mortal fears to strike the flag of my enemies." He smiled then a little and plucked a splinter deftly.

William despised men who beat women. He despised them thoroughly, and without forgiveness. Nevertheless, his face did not change much. As his Steward spoke, he looked less moved rather than more, and knew it would appear so, but in fact, this was the slow, placid, almost stoic outward look of a very inward hatred. The black shell of the grenado hiding the potential. Vandevender was William's opposite in every way. His face curled, and uncurled in surprise, sympathy and understanding more than once and he shot glances in the direction of Saltash, William and Tudor respectively. William simply nodded as she explained, saying nothing until she was finished. "Mister Vandevender, you may inform those men at work below that I have their report. They may send for what supplies and men they have need of at their leisure. Nothing is to be spared above or below to get us underway." "Aye, sah." Vandevender returned and rushed off again. Several things were happening at once. Robert Thatcher, too fond of Tudor not to notice her passage at the best of times and her visage as it was now, was reprimanded for taking his eyes and hands of the task at hand, and Mister Light was giving him an earful for his troubles. Harry Saltash had found the only solace that he could, throwing himself into work among many, if only to escape notice and the dog which had chased him bristling out of lower confines. No one noticed his wounds, mistaking them for injuries by ship and the collision. Mistress Tribbinani, having caught up with the loose Argus, was kneeling beside him, trying to assess what he had done, how it touched Saltash and what should be done about either of them. The prisoners at the space below the foredecks were watching all of this with a mixture of boredom and opportunity. Jim Warren, too observant a man not to see almost all, had crossed to the Captain and Steward. "Mister Warren. The men below have staved off the flooding aft, but may require some additional men. Please send any man below who may be of service, then have the marines clap irons on Mister Saltash." William said all of this, almost conversationally, removed. Mister Warren simply nodded, business like and made no questions. "Aye,Sah." "You have the deck, Mister Warren." Then, stepping away from the commotion of all things, William opened the companionway door and held it waiting. "Mistress Smith."

Welcome aboard!

Alexander Sparshott and Tobias Vandevender were coming from two different directions when they came upon Tudor almost simultaneously. Alexander was bent for places below and aft, and brought with him as much rain as a man might carry in his clothes. He was half way down the ladderway when he saw Tudor bearing Dash, but misunderstood the scene completely. "Have you need of me?" he asked, thinking that the young Dash and the Steward had come to some accident in relation to the ship and all her troubles. Tobias was coming forward to bring the carpenters' reports to the Captain, even as Alexander voiced his offer of help. He passed so near to Saltash, that the man might have killed Tobias, but Saltash had shrunk back as far as the space would allow. Tobias too was quick to call out. "Wat is dit? Een ongeluk...?" Tobias called, failing to notice his own lapse into native Dutch.

Yeah, we have horseflies here too, and we never have them. Nasty little bastards. Congrats on the job!

I slacked. Hangs head in shame.

Not until now. Fascinating read.

The only pipe I own is a broken one, which is so period appropriate. Please keep posting images. They're wonderful.

Wool.

Welcome back again!

This would be just one of many rapes committed by Harry Saltash. He thought of them as adventures, but only an animal like Saltash would. In fact, his entire vocabulary was on the slant, for he thought of nothing correctly, at least compared with anyone but other brutes. For Harry, abuse, assault and the act of rape were matters of course now, having learned them from a very early age. His father, a farmer by day and a drunkard by night, had carved and fashioned Harry with tools verbally sharp or blunt as boots. Harry had repaid the cosmos in kind by beating his sister, and when older, visiting her. The first of his true 'adventures'. Now, here in the half lit spaces of the 'Dog was a plaything for sport. One that could kick and hit in need of breaking. Here was an 'upstart' as his father would have said. Harry might have use of his knife before he was done. . . . On deck, everything was noise. Everything was chaos held in control. No one heard a thing below decks to send them running. The storm raged and so did the officers, so the world went on, but for one sailor who went below unbid. . . . William Dash was not a coward to be sure, but he was young. The storm was just too much. He had reasoned with himself that no one would miss a boy of thirteen if he just found a place to rest, to maybe even sleep. It wasn't the act of a selfish lad, just a very mortal and very tired one. Because of this, young Dash found himself standing at a sort of crossroads between the waiting promise of sleep forward and the discovery from those working aft to repair the sprung timbers of the frigate. It was here where, his earlier resolve and his loyalty to ship and sailors gave him pause, and in that pause he heard something he did not expect. A struggle? Carpentry? Dull thuds and scrambling that seemed too clumsy for work. Sometimes loud and then soft by degrees, so that he couldn't be certain what he heard. It roused him from his fatigue and his choices to some third course. William Dash found Harry Saltash in the very act of…what? At first, he didn't know. The huge man was half crouched half lying on someone that young Dash first took for another sailor. But then he saw something that woke him up more than the men he found there. It was something that Harry had removed from his clothing that was not a knife. Dash was shocked. "I…" young Dash began, thinking an apology might be in order, because here was some business unspeakable playing out before him. His young brain whirled a bit at the idea of two men so engaged, and at such a time, and… William Dash stopped just as he meant to retreat. That was no man spread out beneath the hulk of Saltash. It was the Captain's Steward. Her face was full of confusion, terror, and something else. Was it rage? Was it all the violence she wished to inflict upon her attacker, but couldn't for the fault of being smaller. It didn't matter. Young William Dash, formally of the merchant ship Red Helen and formally of no other place of importance all his life; a once messmate and now a yonker of the lowest place aboard ship, stood up to his full height. He was five foot nothing and still coming into a frame that wouldn't be great until years from now. He was slight, almost scrawny in the door frame, and not a third the size of Saltash, but his face of thirteen went cold. "You there. Get way from her." His voice cracked a little, belying his youth. Saltash, who had turned at the first sound uttered by Dash, smiled a little and pointed a meaty, mocking finger. "You can have her after." Dash's lip trembled. His guts went all sickly, partly due to trepidation, but in truth, it was mostly anger. Anger that such a man as this should be down here doing unspeakable things while men above toiled to save lives, to save everything. Dash was also trembling for the shame that he should be in such company, but he checked this thought, knowing his earlier weakness had led him here, now, where he alone could save someone. He almost vomited. "Back off boy. This is men's work." Saltash turned away from Dash with such indifference to him that the young man was suddenly enraged. Also, in truth, Dash might have loved Tudor just a little bit, as boys do, so he launched himself at Saltash. Now, an older man would have dared the field of Saltash with more care, and perhaps more reinforcements, but William Dash did not. Satlash caught him on the fly and struck him hard enough across the face to break his cheek in two places. William Dash went sprawling, completely unconscious before he hit the floor. Saltash only laughed, momentarily distracted by the fun of it all. It was then that Tudor blinked, surprised to find that she had taken Harry's knife from off his belt without knowing it. Suddenly everything was reduced to animal survival.

More pictures! ...please.

Are there any photos of this event?

The boats on deck are sometimes elevated on spare spars resting on a cross post or deck or an elevated post with a cross bar for this purpose. I have also seen evidence that they were stored perpendicular to the weather deck aft against a wall formed by the next rising deck, so that a small boat might sit on the main deck, just below the quarter deck, but this seems to be a rare exception.

Welcome back, mate! It's always good to see a familiar face.

Matty Bottles wants to go as well, so make him welcome!

I wish most versions of Treasure Island would slow down and keep the meat of the characters intact. For example, they always make short work of blind Pew. I mean, here's a frail, skeleton of a beggar, who is blind to boot, but manages to be one creepy, sinister fellow. Easily one of my favorite characters.

Sorry to hear it, Bo. It's hitting the hobby on many fronts, but we'll see you again. Meanwhile, fair winds and may you discover unexplainable bars of gold when you garden next.

I have seen some tooling, but it tends towards minimalist borders and blind tooling. Most of these are on leather bindings for books, but I've seen some on the flaps of hunting bags and other forms of leather bags.

Welcome aboard. You'll find yourself in the company of many writers here on the Pub.

Yeah, it's no Pub. And speaking of pubs, we must all agree to meet at the Prospect of Whitby in London some day. The place was a pub back when my forefathers were still in England.

I know it well. Speaking of authenticity...

Black Sails is still in the advertising stages, but I see it everywhere.

Aboard the Watch Dog Words went back and forth between the frigate and cutter. It was all reports of men lost and damages taken. William wasn't sure yet if he had lost more of the Company against the snow or the Navarra. He was so angry that his heard hurt on one side and he was trying not to lash out at each lagging sailor or task before him. Andrew Light was in an altogether different state, which like the Captain, effected his thinking. His head didn't hurt, but it floated a bit about him as he did his best to fill Badger's place. He chanced to laugh once. It was a short, report of a laugh, almost a hiccup, and no one heard it but himself. Just a nervous little sound as the shock of his appointment continued to sink in. It sank in better than he could imagine, for when one sailor refused his order in the confusion, Andrew thumped below the shoulder and spat angry correction into his face with words that Badger would have understood. Two men went down then as a low line parted and whipped across the deck diagonally. It caught Jean Dorleac across the shoulder and left ear as he was reaching out to grab Alexander Sparshott. Jean went down like a boy kicked by a horse, but Alexander caught the rope in the throat and it carried him backwards. One moment he was upright, and the next his head whipped back and his legs went straight out in from of him like a man that had run upon a stretched line at a sprint. He fell spread eagle on the deck, which probably saved his back and limbs, having landed so equally distributed, but the wind was twice knocked from him, so that he gasped for air some two full minutes. William spotted Tudor in the fray and pushed his way aft along what remained of the Starboard rail. He shouted over a rush of wind that filled a few of the sails that the Navarra had loosed. This caused the Watch Dog to heal over again at a weird angle as she fell into the trough of the first large wave they'd see over the next few hours. A man caught William's elbow as the frigate fell forward, and William almost shook off the hand in anger, realizing at the last that Jannes Kampaert had done so only to teary his Captain. William managed a nod as did Jannes and the two passed going to different task. When William reached the Steward his eye caught that of Mistress O'Treasaigh. She was braced in the doorway of the surgery wrestling for the handle of the loose door. "How there!?" William managed as a wind buffeted the weather decks again. Maeve had already seen enough of the decks and damage to know what the Captain faced, so she put on a face that she imagined courageous and returned, "We shall manage here." She managed to close the door then, which strengthened her remarks. William, finding himself with Tudor, suddenly realized that he knew not where to send her. He frowned more than once and then collected himself. "See yourself below. The carpenters may have need of you."