Enric

ch7: seems again to me that Georgie is wrestling with the ages-old dilemma of males generally being somewhat polygamous... which leads to this sort of troubled conscience about 'fidelity'

well, historical circumstances of any historical fiction are usually worth discussion in opinion of those who read historical fiction because it is historical. From your comment, I gather your interest likely is not in the historical element of these. do you have rat recipes ? I should have guessed. I do not have rat recipes. In my best recollection, I have never eaten any ratmeat. if you have eaten such, could you please tell about that experience. I think it is morbidly curiosity-intriguing. --- I ave heard that some people have rats as pets. does anybody here ? (when I heard, a decade and more ago, about pet rats, I remember I though it was morbid...)

so, 1) one of the main reasons was that after some time in sea, the worms have eaten the nutritional value out from the ship's flour, and thusly neither the sea biscuit nor worms themselves, offered nutrition, which in turn left much of the crew really starving 2) since they had to eat worms in the flour, the ratmeat was no longer essentially repugnant - at least, not more repugnant than the worm-lived flour and the worms themselves 3) seafood was desired in those conditions, and seemingly eaten with more acceptance and desire than possibly rats. Rats were eaten if no fish has been caught, right? 4) officers ate different stores. Meat, and better overall. I am thinking that midshipmen belonged to the officer corps in a certain way - they had their own gunroom mess, right. My thoughts are that Lennox and Fitzwilliam have not been on sea earlier. This is their first voyage. and began only some week or so earlier. Surely the ship's stores were not yet eaten out of nutritional value by worms, right ? and they had simply not had earlier voyages, when to develop a ratmeat eating habit. And they were belonging to the class of officers. They as persons happen to be from wealthy families - they would have had some food of their own, would they not? For these reasons, I find it somewhat a dilemma (and possibly implausible) that the simple seamen (adults...) were liking the dog, and giving to it snacks... instead of those seamen resenting the dog as it devoured the rats, which seamen would have wanted to have as their food. and the same builds another implausibility that in such a situation, the young and wealthy midshipmen were in need of ratmeat, and that precisely them (somewhat opposed to simple seamen) were dismayed by the dog....

1) not all regard ratmeat, snails, or meat of shitfish (or even rotten meat), as repugnant. Those are people who are not usual, but they exist, and they hold such as delicacies. Remember, delicacy. 2) some people are starving, and have no alternative (seafood is an alternartive on an ocean ship) despite of ratmeat being repugnant. Remember, starving people. Groups 1) and 2) are such which eat ratmeat. however, I am having a difficulty in seeing these midshipmen (or, ship boys) in Georgie's ship as starving. They certainly were served their regular meals. So, since they were not starving, they had not such a primal hunger which would make to do desperate things.... they may desire a bit more to eat, but they are not experiencing any desperacy-making hunger. So, I find the desire for ratmeat somewhat implausible. To eat something very repugnant, is not somethingwhich would happen just in order to have a bit more to eat in additionto regular meals.

I thought you had the idea that eating ratmeat is gross.... so, your defense of the need of these to have been dismayed over being obstacled from getting much ratmeat because of a ratter dog, is touching and, this most emphatically is not a question of accuracy. It is not even a question of plausibility. Namely, whatever were usual in navies of thise days, does not need to hold fully the same as to each ship. Some ships may well have been in an unusual position of being able to feed their people from their stores. And, although the contrary may be usual, still it is however plausible that these did not yet need to ear ratmeat. So, when you check the meaning of the term 'accuracy', you'll find that you cannot require that accuracy to been something which was merely usual in those days.

Oh, NOW he gets all bothered about historical accuracy..... ) ) (* after his those several earlier responses that such details do not really matter...) Besides, because history never has said anything whether in Granger's ship Intrepid, young sailors had or had not to eat ratmeat, this really is not a question of accuracy. About eating ratmeat in ships, the most the history can offer us, is that such either was usual or rare...... but still one ship could have been an exception to that. And history, it really cannot say anything whether a rare or usual thing occurred on a ship (and to a crew) which is (and who are) invented.....such as Granger's crew and Intrepid...

I still think that my reconstruction is better come on, it is just like boys and young men on a ship: youngest ones (who are gullible) are teased that because of their huge appetite, their meat portion has had to be augmented with ratmeat.... as to the choice between rats and seafood: surely, if these boys really have an aversion against fish, they generally would also have an aversion against making private meals out of rats. Seafood may, in such a situation, find its supporters..... rather than hunting and cooking rats. Granger surely is such a nice and generous captain that he has commanded to serve enough good food (from the stores of the ship) even to these boys - so, no need for the boys to prowl in rat hunt of their own, to have enough to eat.... Besides, because they in any case are served food regular food, they are not exactly primally hungry - as in, famine. At the most, the situation is like they were on a diet to lose a bit weight..... They may feel that they would want a bit more, but they are not left totally without, not even much without. So, they are imo not on brink of making gross things (or to eat gross things) because of primal hunger - that's not something which would happen just in order to have a bit more to eat in addition to regular meals. So, this is how I pondered the 'primal hunger' and the reality on a ship which has regular meals. about hunt of rats: the dog, isn't he bringing some of the rats he hunted down, to the staff ? I thought that ratter dogs are just like hunt dogs generally, they bring their prey to the masters.... If this were a female cat, with kittens, then the kittens get the prey.... but this is a male dog. A different thing in behavior, I believe.

firstly I thought the same. However, soon, in half a minute, i figured another angle: the teenage boys who are by necessity always hungry, are put to eat rat meat, if rats have been caught. They would not like to, but if there are rats caught, it's their fate. And they are angry towards the one who caught the rats.... all this under the condition that someone has told them that they eat rats. If they are not told, ignorance is bliss. * and that brings us to totally another angle: rat meat is probably not actually given to the boys, but they are successfully teased that their hunger means that the cooks have to put rats to their saucers as augment food, because nothing else is available for such a vast appetite. guess it's some slightly senior staff (Humphreys!!! Winkler!!! and some NCOs) who make that sort of teasing jokes. and because the boys are gullible, they believe it, and are angry towards (and resent) the rat-catcher always when it is known that rats were caught. I would guess that actually, rat meat is put to food for incarcerated persons, and to some cattle fodder... or somewhere... but not to food of officers, even officer-trainees. All that said, ignorance is bliss. In a ship with few resources, everybody would perhaps sometimes get to eat rat meat (among other meat), and usually as long as they do not know it, everything goes passably well. If meat is scarce, and they are a bit hungry, and do much work, I believe the rat meat goes down the throats pretty easily and without any great recognition of what it was. Really, at times, navy are even in a worse food situation - practically NO meat, not even rats....

Mark, could you include a character who ends up bondaged to some dungeon in the benighted Spain ? uups, and if that already is Mr Carmody's fate, I did not intend to snerk....

do I see some catfights coming up ??

ch6: surprising. so much decency, on part of dons...... amazing. Saint Helena in a map: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/LocationSaintHelena.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Ascension_Island_Location2.jpg so, it is not only a few days, but....

speaking about impossibilities in terms of 'dramatic necessity', I think we can trust that Mark will not ever kill George Granger nor John Travers. right, Mark ?

I gather Sidney Smith was not really a high-born aristocrat, instead rather only some sort of originally-modest-born celebrity of his epoch. Surely an intriguing character, with odd life and adventures already from his youth, but his birth, that really wasn't such a noble nor high... The name 'smith' should actually be a clue enough... I cannot imagine that yet in the 1700s, anyone surnamed Smith actually could be from a real aristocratic family.

in modern (land) warfare, such as WWII, the death rate renownedly was highest among the army's young ensigns - those young men who just completed their reserve officer training and were posted to their first assignment on the front, to lead infantrymen in trences. A not-statistically-confirmed joke assesses that it was within half a minute when they were usually shot down after they -for the first time in their lives- emerged from the trench in head of their platoons.... Seemingly all other officers and men had a somewhat longer predicted span of life there - and the odds improved in some correlation with front-line experience. ------ if it's true how you assessed the role of captain, then I find certain similarities with the position of the Emperor in the Centauri republic .... wasn't it a certain Londo Mollari who once posited that to be proclaimed as emperor, was equivalent of declaring one as target head....

let me guess what happens with the Spanish treasure: Granger is wise enough, to require provisions of good-quality food and other stuff, in Tenerife, before he actually executes the real return of that valuable metals pile. And, he also gets -even after provisions received- to keep some percentage of those gold and such as salvager's share. that's the optimistic scenario. and; pessimistic one - if Granger is not wise, but only honorable: after they have had lots of unlucky experiences in sea regarding that treasury (it takes too much space particularly now that they have plenty of people too, is risky and harmful in bad weather which they happen to face, and some skurks try to pilfer some from its storeroom), and after the rescued spanish sailors and military have eaten them out of food, and caused some harm, they land to Tenerife; where Georgie too honorably returns immediately all the spanish treasury to a bunch of spanish officials who probably embezzle a lot of it to their own pockets, [George is even too nice and foregoes the salvager's fees and portion] and then they face adversary provisioning types, pretty similar as in Portuguese islands, requiring over-payment of mostly rotten stuff... ------ btw, map about locations of Madeira and Canarians.... Canary Islands (which include Tenerife) is the bunch of islands in the focal area of the map; and, as far as I gather, madeira is that lone place clearly north from those. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Localizaci%C3%B3n_de_Canarias.png ------ btw, always when some French and some Spanish are rescued to the English ship, there SHOULD be a couple of good-looking sailors from them to join the crew of Granger's ship [not returning to their own country], - in those days, still a number of foreigners were among navies of a nation....and crews were somewhat of a mixed ethnical composition [heck, there might even be Scots among these now... ]. they just need an offer thet won't refuse. Such as, a nice English sailor for a bunkmate....

this really should not be so impossible to overcome. Although it is rare, still. Two guys who were at the rank of being captains of their ships, should in some scenario however be possible to be close each other.... Let's see: one of easier: their ships could be sent to the same place, parts of the same squadron or whatever. Then, the guys *could* spend pretty much time together.... one of uneasy: two captains for one big and exceptional ship. Some plausible reason why a ship would need a commander of some part of crew (Travers) and a captain over him Granger)... Such as, a big ship of line, with exceptional weaponry - travers could get the commission to 'captain' the new and experimental weaponry, while Granger gets to captain the basic ship... a special arrangement: George is made post and gets to be captain, but he is assigned as envoy and advisor to a foreign ruler who is at naval war, while Travers gets the task to captain the said envoy's base ship. This is actually somewhat plausible: high-born aristocrats -even if they held a military commission- were put to diplomatic tasks all the time. A grunt (like Travers) is unlikely to get such, but the well-pedigreed Georgie is more than likely. And such was precisely because foreign monarchs tended to feel insulted if some *parvenu* was foisted upon them, but a man with noble princes in their pedigree were palatable... A foreign place is not getting convinced by merots usually, they rather take a look on basis of how it reflects their own status... one of the nicest situations: the two ships are sent together for some task, for a long time, and pretty apart from the main navies themselves. Guess two times whether these two captains wouuld find all sorts of reasons daily to have negotiations and such with each other... any other ideas how they could spend more of their days and nights together, while still doing their fulfilling careers ??

ch5: I guess it is the old question of polygamy.... But, of course, men by nature generally are polygamists, or at least serial monogamists which would amount to almost the same.

ch4: there's something rotten in.... I predicted that we'll not hear about Carmody this soon. btw, Georgie found once again another natural-born bottom

Hopefully none of those *all* will go to try track me down.... Besides, I believe the precise tracking is anyway not easy...

oh. I have also visited most of those. And, of course, I have a residence in one....

where (= which towns?) did you visit ?

uh huh. Does this mean what I think it means.... did you count how many guys .... ? ---- empress Catherine still reigns at St.Petersburg. Which, I'm sure, you recall in in the coast of Baltic, there... Finnish lands in the eastern coast, westward up to the mouth of the river Kymi, belong to overlordship of Russians - though, a duke of Wurttemberg is governor-general there, it being an almost autonomous skimpy principality. And, most of the Finnish coast belongs to Sweden - whose king (the mad one) is still a boy (now perhaps 15), but he was a hetero (is there correlation. madness - heterosexuality). The curious point is that the young king's late and by-him-admired father almost certainly was a gay. And, you are welcome to have Axel von Fersen (now about 39 yo) a gay man.... (I have long believed that the late Marie-Antoinette's virtue was in no danger, instead she was a fag hag)

I should have guessed...... when doing that, hopefully you are in good company I was rather thinking that the prize ship and Carmody will get into some difficulty or other, and never make it to England (or at least not alive).... Such as, the squad of those about 10 men being trouble individuals, there'd be a successful mutiny against them, or against Carmody, ...... plus, they could end up as pirates to Caribbean or Azores or whatnot... ....or, they can always sail to a rock and drown... Guess the subsequent chapter would reveal, if anything immediate on that front... still, my bet is that only after the year-long stint in East India, they'll get any idea about the prize and if it disappeared... surely this was still an epoch when news did not travel faster to India than a ship... --------------- Mark - have you thought to put Georgie and his ship to have any adventures in the Baltic Sea ? To catch nice-arsed Russian noble boys....

well, it looks like the fact this boy was tied, and the man exploited that, is a factor in this assessment...

oh, the way to let the clump out of its misery...