The time: Morning.
The location: Liverpool Wharfs.
The place: The HMS Elysium, a British Warship currently taking on troops and supplies bound across the Atlantic.
The persons: Captain Noah Doyle, Lieutenant Solomon Culver, Midshipman Ezra Frood.
The morning mist clung to the Liverpool docks like damp gauze, shrouding the bustle of soldiers, sailors, and stevedores in a haze that smelt of tar, salt, and sweat. Captain Noah Doyle of Her Majesty’s Ship Elysium stood firmly on the quarterdeck, hands clasped behind his back, his eyes fixed upon the slow procession of red-coated Marines and blue-coated artillerymen tramping up the gangplank - grizzled veterans mingling uneasily with wide-eyed recruits, filed aboard in a stream of discipline and weary resignation. Doyle’s sharp eyes missed nothing.. Their boots struck the worn planks in heavy rhythm, muffled by the gulls’ cries and the groaning of rigging above. Crates of powder, cannon shot, and provisions followed, hoisted and stowed by the ship’s company with a mixture of seasoned ease and impatient grumbling.
The Elysium lay anchored in the bustling port of Liverpool, her sails furled, her rigging creaking gently in the spring breeze. By evening tide, if the tide and winds did not conspire against him, the Elysium would leave the safety of the Mersey and point her prow towards Dublin, where fresh supplies and cargo awaited before she braved the Atlantic’s vast uncertainty.
Her course: the West Indies, and the crown colony of St. Albion—a speck of English soil in waters thick with enemies; an outpost too often forgotten by London, where the garrison clung to duty with too few men, too little powder, and half the rations required to sustain them. Doyle needed no reminding that the garrison there was starved of men and material, that each day the thin red line of soldiers held ground against hunger, fever, and the constant threat of foreign sails on the horizon. Doyle knew well enough the importance of this voyage: if Elysium faltered, the colony itself might soon fly a foreign flag.
The Captain’s brow furrowed as his gaze drifted beyond the docks, to the horizon that lay beyond English waters. Out there, French and Spanish sails prowled like wolves on the hunt. Even the Dutch, allies by treaty, could not be trusted at sea, for a prize-rich English transport might tempt even the most righteous skipper to "forget" his oaths. Doyle knew the sea was governed by appetite as much as by law and the Dutch, though sworn allies, had captains who valued prize-money more than treaties, and would not hesitate to “mistake” an English ship for legitimate bounty. He knew too well the language of privateers and opportunists for he himself had had many opportunities for the same things in the past.
And yet it was not only the dangers of the ocean that troubled him. His earlier introduction to Lieutenant Roger Harburne—the Marine commander assigned to this detachment—had left a sour taste as bitter as cheap rum. The introduction, had been brief and brusque. Doyle, who prided himself on the discipline of his ship and the quiet competence of his crew, found little to admire in a man who carried himself with such evident vanity. Harburne bore himself with a bit of what Doyle felt was too much of an overconfident swagger that leaned too far into arrogance, his words dripping with the certainty of a man who believed he was owed obedience by birthright rather than earned respect.
Nearby, Doyle’s officers whispered their own doubts. Lieutenant Solomon Culver, weather-beaten and steady, leaned toward the youthful Midshipman Ezra Frood, who stood as stiff as the mast itself in his eagerness to prove himself.
“Aye,” muttered Lieutenant Solomon Culver at his side, his face turned just enough to catch Doyle’s eye. “Lieutenant Harburne of the Marines.” He let the name hang in the air like smoke from a bad pipe. “Seems to think rather highly capable of himself. Too cocky by half, if you’ll forgive me, sir.” Midshipman Ezra Frood, standing awkwardly on the deck, nodded with youthful eagerness, though the lad’s eyes betrayed the anxious energy of one who had yet to taste the full bite of an ocean crossing. He shifted his hat nervously.
Doyle allowed himself the faintest sigh. He had seen many men undone not by shot or storm, but by their own arrogance. He prayed Harburne’s pride would not prove another hazard on a voyage already laden with them. Doyle turned his head just enough for his voice to carry, though his eyes remained fixed upon the troops boarding. “Even so,” he said evenly, “you do not earn a Marine’s commission by sitting at a desk, nor by scratching your name upon documents, nor by marching men around a parade ground every afternoon at three o’clock.”
His tone was calm, but Culver and Frood knew a reprimand when they heard one. Both nodded quickly, understanding that their Captain had chastised them without spectacle, maintaining their dignity before the crew. That, too, was Doyle’s way.
Still, as the last crates of powder were hoisted aboard and the Marines’ polished muskets gleamed faintly in the lowering sun, Doyle murmured almost to himself, “Let this voyage be swift, steady, and uneventful.”
He did not truly believe it would be.
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