Will Hawkins

Okay. Sam, you asked for comment. Your characterizations are great. I can feel Cal's frustrations through the print on the screen and Davey, the gentle giant, is such a contrast to the smart-ass kid that the characters are very easy to recognize. The story is developing nicely and leaves the reader looking forward to the next chapter. First rant: Watch your pronouns -- there are nominative pronouns and objective pronouns and if the wrong kind is used it upsets the thread of the story. Let me give you an example with a quote from the story: 'there was just him and me in it' The verb, in this case, a 'to be' verb does not take an object, so the pronoun should be in the nominative case. The phrase should read: 'there was just he and I in it. I know, that sounds stuffy and out of character for Cal to speak that way, but perhaps you could rephrase the entire sentence to make the language more correct without Cal stepping out of character. 'Suddenly there was just Davey and Cal in the world.' You made the point in the first chapter that Cal speaks in complete sentences (usually) so maybe a little better word usage would be appropriate. End of rant. I still love the storyline and will continue reading for sure. Misterwill

Speaking as a man presently in a relationship with one born in Portugal and who has therefore studied the history of that country to a small extent, the remarks in this chapter about 'liberating French wines with British gold'' are most apt. It was at this time or perhaps a little later in the history of the Napoleonic wars that Port wines augmented as they were with brandy and therefore good sailers, began to replace blockaded French wines as standard fare aboard British ships. For the benefit of your American readers, who may be unfamiliar with traditions aboard ships, I will remark that the meals described here as 'dinner' and 'supper' would very likely be similar to those familiar to them as farm meals with dinner, the largest meal of the day, being served at mid-day and supper, a much lighter meal, served in the evening. The fact that Granger serves his officers a large meal in the evening would take the form of a celebration of his new position.

As an old-timer who was weaned on the Hornblower books, it is a trip back over many years to see his name in print again. I do not remember much about those books except that they cultivated an affair d'amour with the sea which has lasted to this late point in my life.

A wonderful start to the latest in the Bridgeport series and starting with w 'rogue wave' too. I have been following the adventures and misadventures of Granger through the series as I am isolated from the outside by living in Brazil in retirement and have been fascinated by his adventures. Thanks for a great read.

Thanks for your prompt reply Puppi. If GA will accept stories written in MS Word that relieves my mind. Misterwill

I am a recent member who has been lurking on the site reading stories and series for enjoyment. I am considering submitting a story. I have been brought up in the computer world using MS Word. In a communication with a member, I was instructed to use Google. Am I confined to using a word processor program with which I have no familiarity or may I submit a story using Word with which I am familiar?

All this discussion of segregation and the era in which it took place -- I remember it well. I was living in Florida at the time and followed the desegregation of the schools with great interest. We should remember that this era was almost exactly 100 years after the end of the Civil War and note how very little has changed even in the years since then.

'that was nine years older than him' This construction is one of the most controversial in English writing. Firstly, you are totally correct in the pronoun use you have made, but it still feels awkward to me. I would suggest such awkwardness could be avoided by not using any pronoun -- 'that was nine years older.' Would be perfectly correct and would eliminate the question of 'him or he (was), using the assumed verb construction.

All night I dosed in and out. Do you mean 'dozed'? Dosed means 'to take a pill'. First rant. Misterwill

'in case it wasn’t him'. Okay, final rant--once again wrong pronoun. 'Him' is in the objective case and cannot be used with a 'to be' verb as that would require a pronoun in the nominative case. The correct sentence would be: 'in case it wasn't he'.

This process of separation of those wounded in battle into separate categories became known as 'triage' during the Napoleonic Wars though it did not come into universal practice until the 1930's. While in cases of extremity it was necessary its lack of popularity was a result of the attitude of the medical profession that divided those injured in battle into categories based on the severity of their wounds. Thos who were only slightly injured and could with minimal care return to battle effectiveness were placed in the highest category, those whose injuries were more severe were placed in a lower category and would receive care after the first category had been treated and those whose injuries were the most severe were placed in the lowest category and were treated only to the extent of reducing their pain to a minimum and allowed to die peacefully. By the way, if you wish to make any comment on my remarks, it would be best to email me at misterwill2@live.com as I cannot go back to check on previous remarks to enjoy your reactions to my nit-picking.

Twilight--the word twilight is an interesting one in English--its roots are from the Germanic and translate as 'two-light'. However, the meaning of the word has gradually been modified to mean 'half-light' and it refers to a period both before true sunrise or after true sunset when the sun is not yet (or still, in the case of evening twilight, close enough to the horizon to illuminate the landscape to a sufficient degree to permit moving about freely. We are accustomed to referring to this period as 'Twilight' in the evening hours, though it is infrequently referenced, correctly, in the morning hours as well. Authors often refer to the morning period as 'false dawn' or 'cocklight'. Cocklight referring to the period of morning twilight when roosters begin to crow to establish their territories.

1. A Rule of Punctuation in English with which you may not be familiar is called "the reported question". A simple example might be, "What time is it? , she asked. In that case, the question reported requires a question mark, but the reporting sentence ends with a period (or full stop as our British friends would say). 2. The rule about ending a sentence with a preposition is much cloudier. Generally, it is avoided unless the reconstruction makes the sentence so awkward as to be uncomfortable. Remember the famous quotation from the pen of Winston Churchill, "A preposition is something you never end a sentence with." He said it in that way to be humorous I am sure because the absolutely correct way of stating that thought would be, "A preposition is something with which you never end a sentence." Admittedly a very awkward construction. I have no ironclad guidance on absolute perfection is cases such as this. Perhaps some simple restructuring of the thought would be the best solution. End of a rant for today. Misterwill

Okay, the first rant: the correct word to use for a raised place is berm, not burm. Your Editor should have caught this; tch, tch.

I just noticed that one of the comments on this story was responded to on 19 March 2017. That means to me that the author is seeing comments posted earlier this year (as you will see by the date of posting, this comment is made in September of 2017). So I will enter into the lists as a commentator on this story from time to time with the hope that the author is still reading them. Just for your information, Bill, I have just finished reading your extended story The Castaway Hotel through all the parts including "Second Generation, Part 2", but unfortunately was not able to comment on it as the publication dates never got more recent than 2015. This story is starting out in a very promising fashion and I will make comments along the way. I know that reader's comments are very encouraging to an author whether negative or positive as they mean that at least somebody is reading his work. As an elderly man isolated in retirement in the wilds of Brazil, reading these stories is what keeps my mind alert so the least I can do is provide encouragement. Misterwill

Mister Arbour, Please excuse the somewhat formal manner of addressing you. Even though I feel I know you well as I have, over the last few months, been following your stories, so, while I feel I know you well, I have not been able to introduce myself to you before. I am sure that you would not check into any comments added to previous books in this tale. Just so that you will know me better, I am a retired College Professor currently living in Brazil with my life partner Jose who is of Portuguese (continental) birth and living here in retirement much as am I. Over the years (since 2008) he, being much younger than am I, is building a home for us here and each passing month finds us more and more comfortably situated. At an age of just a few days short of my eighty-fifth birthday, I find myself relying on him for his excellent care. Now I am known to several gay authors as a nitpicker, but I have been somewhat frustrated by being unable to find grammatical or historical errors in your works. You are an excellent writer and a craftsman as well. In this saga, we are just entering into a time in the history of the Napoleonic Wars with which I am somewhat familiar having followed, because of my relationship with my partner, with the effects that these conflicts had upon Portugal and Brazil on the one hand and Spain on the other. Because of that interest in history, I am aware that shortly in your saga we will come upon the time when France, hiding behind the skirts of her ally, Spain, turned her interests to attacking Portugal and the Spanish attempted three times to defeat her by attacking Lisbon. It was at the time of one of these attacks that the entire government of Portugal fled to Brazil, loading men, women, and children as well as horses, carriages, etc. aboard ships and sailing (under the protection of the British fleet) to move the Portuguese government.(Everything but the castle, is the humorous way in which the hegira was described at the time) to Brazil, making that former colony into the seat of the government of Portugal as well as increasing its status to that of a kingdom. Having familiarized me with the Portuguese version of that story, I am interested to see if and if so, how, you interject that flight into your saga. Congratulations on your authorship skills and as well upon your command of history. Misterwill (Will Hawkins, currently, residing in Bahia, Brazil)

Because this comment is being added almost exactly three years after the last one, I doubt if it will be read by the author, but just as a sidelight the name of the native Arana, in Spanish translates as spider. Which makes me wonder if there isn't some hidden meaning to tha Author's selection of a name?

As a person who has a very superficial knowledge, just a smattering, of several Romance languages, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, I have to caution an author who claims that they are easy to acquire. My problem has been that they are similar in sentence construction, but the endings for masculine and feminine are confusing and to use a Spanish construction in Portuguese, for example, would upset a native speaker. Portugal is such a proud country and is small in comparison with its neighbor Spain and they have resisted dominance by Spain for hundreds of years.

Oh Bill, "say your peace". Now you know better than that. I'll just have to give you a piece of my mind!

I have an idea about how the families in this story are feeling. I have had my Grandparents o both sides of my family, my Mother, Father, Brother and a Nephew die, as well as a Sister, Brother and Sister in Law. And not least a wife of twenty-five years who collapsed from an exacerbated asthma attack at three o.clock in the morning had to be driven to the Emergency Room at the local hospital where she was put into a medical coma for a week after which I had to make the decision to 'pull the plug' on the life maintenance equipment, for which her daughter still blames me many years later. Then a boyfriend with whom I lived for a number of years finally gave into the effects of AIDS and was taken to a hospital in a coma where he died several days later. I literally have withstood the demise of my entire family over a period of years, now leaving me as the sole remaining member. Believe me, "It ain't easy."

Misterwill Of course, I enjoyed the new chapter, but what intrigued me the most was your response to The previous comment. As an author myself from time to time, I can well understand how a character can take over the story line with his responses.

I have been reading Castaway for just a few days--I want to catch up with further sections. Bily, I think your command of the youth mind is fantastic, now I realize that things in a story have to move right along so the boy's responses are probably faster than they might be in real life, but for content, they are right on,I just wish I had a mentor like you when I was their age. Unfortunately, I had to stay in the closet for many years and consider those to be wasted years. But now that I am an OLD man, I enjoy reading about youth coming out. Keep up the good work.