andy cannon

The Fourth Day The fever did not break. Turner made no predictions now. He moved through the surgery like a ghost in shirtsleeves, administering draughts, dampening cloths, and saying very little. The marines drifted in and out of lucidity. One of the sailors had taken to quoting Bible verses backwards. Pitt remained still except when he wasn’t. His muttering had turned rhythmic, an unbroken tide of disjointed phrases, all of them foreign, fractured, or half-swallowed by heat. On

We'll leave Pitt lingering at death's door form the fever for another chapter of two before returning to more battle adventures. As for Vane, you know he has much more mischief up his sleeve, and the mysterious letter may be the match set to the powder.

The letters between the three midshipmen and their mothers were all a labor of love and remain very close to my heart, and they capture a little of what these young men were risking their lives for. It has been a quarter century since I first heard Sullivan Ballou's letter to his wife before the battle of Bull Run in Ken Burns series Civil War, and it still chokes me up.

Under Caribbean Stars The days passed with a kind of sleepy vigilance. The Absolute, sails trimmed to the trade winds, moved in easy, wide loops between Barbados and Saint Lucia. Her coppered hull slipped through turquoise seas, charting a path of vigilance amid merchantmen, gulls, and distant squalls. Each morning brought muster on the sunlit quarterdeck; each evening, an easy reefing of sails beneath burning stars. The war, for a time, felt like it belonged to some other he

Well, it won't take 23 years or 42 chapters, for that matter, but it does take a little more time.

My brother, if you are vexed now, by the time William sorts himself out, I fear you will be apoplectic! Pitt is lucky that Jamie has a generous, forgiving nature, since otherwise his repressed behavior would only bring a cold shoulder.

Very promising start!

Lovely chapter.

Great story! Looking forward to your next magnum opus.

A very satisfying conclusion to a fantastic story!

Great chapter!

The chamber convulsed. Candles guttered, relics clattered, shadows bent as the air itself ripped open. Power surged, drowning the heat of their bodies in something vaster, unstoppable. Hadrian lunged, catching Zain as his knees gave way. They collapsed together, tangled, breath colliding—too close, too much—just before the world went dark. That is quite the cliff hanger! Can't wait for the next installment!

Yes, I see that. Blake and Pitt are restrained by legal considerations, although Pitt has hinted at a ethical issue with the difference in their ages. I don't think they see themselves as immoral or unethical, but another relationship could be complicated by those views. As an example, I'm thinking of pedophilia. It has been a while since I read Lolita, but I seem to recall that Humbert Humbert was nattering on from time to time about the ethics of his love/

Both Huxley and Avery grasp that Blake was in an impossible situation. No one else would be censured for not risking death to save Vane, but Jamie would be stained for turning away. Pitt can't see that, or more likely, won't see that.

That would be an interesting thesis for a novel... the love that can't be lived that slowly is turned into hatred or is expressed only through insanity, a rot from within as it were.

The Edge of Permission The sun stood high over the mainmast, its light turning the quarterdeck into a pale, unforgiving furnace. Even the shadows beneath the boatswain’s grating shimmered with heat. Somewhere below, the carpenter’s mates were sawing new planking for the damaged longboat. The steady rasp of blade on wood gave the only rhythm to an otherwise too-long morning. Lieutenant William Pitt stood just aft of the mizzen, spyglass in hand, scanning the southern horizon wher

Apparitions From the Cane Field The Creek – Pre-dawn, Un-named Cay The oars dipped in silence, muffled with oiled rags, barely disturbing the black mirror of the creek as the longboats slid through the mangrove choke. On either bank, thick tropical growth pressed in like a closing fist, roots clawing at the waterline, fronds glistening with dew and rot. Somewhere out in the dark, a bird shrieked once, then went still. Blake sat in the prow of the lead boat, musket across his la

He's true to form, no doubt.

That is a good comparison up to a point. Like Claggart, Vane has a free-form animosity, but I don't see Jamie Blake is as vulnerable as Billy Budd. He is more aware of Vane's antagonism and is therefore better prepared to overcome it. Pitt is not as weak and vacillating as Vere. He is a constant force in Jamie's life, just not always moving in the direction that Jamie would like.

Lieutenant Vane is a tough nut to crack. He was ambitious at one time, but now has a tendency to freeze during battle, so there may be a little PTSD going on. He certainly is envious of Jamie's talent and charisma as well as jealous of his own position on the Absolute with respect to both Pitt and Blake. He always says he acts for the right reason (here, to provide the mid an alternative model for leadership), but his true motivations are murkier, maybe hoping to drive a wedge between Pitt and Blake?

Orders and Other Motives --- Captain's Briefing – Great Cabin, HMS Absolute The great cabin was stifling with the windows battened down against the sun. The brass fittings gleamed in the heat, but no one looked at them. All eyes were on Captain Huxley, who stood behind the broad table strewn with charts and a folded dispatch in his hand. Blake stood near the stern windows, half in shadow, not summoned, not dismissed. Present, but peripheral. The senior officers were ranged

Nice summary of the troop management issues, thank you. I am reading Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series now, and have seen a number of references to the King's German Legion, seemingly a well-trained and scrappy bunch, at least from the viewpoint of these novels.

Alas! you are all too correct. In the long run we must let that pesky honesty take over and ruin a perfectly good illusion. As a cynic once observed, "It is always the best policy to speak the truth—unless, of course, you are a good liar".

Thank you! I would be interested to hear about how leadership skills were developed in this era, before military colleges were common and power point presentations were far in the future. A gentleman would purchase a commission and poof! he was a major or lieutenant. France drafted soldiers and sailors, so they had a good cross-representation of society in the ranks. The UK relied on a volunteer force, and offered petty criminals clemency in exchange for service and turned to outright kidnapping when needed, so you had unwilling recruits augmented by thieves and rapists led by officers with no other qualification than a plump purse. It's no wonder that life in the Royal Navy and the Army was so brutal. I just read that the Duke of Wellington loathed the troops that fought for him, frequently referring to them as the 'scum of the earth'.

In the chaos of close-quarter battle, the temptation to adjust the aim of a musket or pistol by a few inches and hit a hated officer rather than the enemy must have been overpowering. Or maybe that's just my vindictive streak showing.