captainhornblower | Eleventh Dispatch

Eleventh Dispatch - [written]

Wednesday, January 11th

The absence of need here will never cease to amaze me.

It has a price, of course, but food and housing are provided. No one risks starving, no one goes without shelter or clothes, no one need fear the bailiffs or prison for debt.

No one has cause to work here save a want to do so.

I do not think I shall ever be used to it.

By the by, I suppose it cannot hurt to ask. I am not suited for idleness, yet there is little I can do save my work for His Majesty's Royal Navy. I should like to know, though, if any places here are in need of an extra person. I cannot promise to accept, but I should like to know what is requested.

One can, after all, do only so much work on a ship that was nearly perfect from her birth.

Hornblower

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I'll be there presently.

[It's only after that statement that he hopes Sparrow is sincere in this much. His luck, he's walked right into something... But the risk not attending might pose is too great.

Just in case.]

[Since the pirate is coming from Cullen House, Horatio will probably reach the bridge before him. But eventually he does approach, striding forward purposefully with that familiar swagger in his step - and armed with his sword and both pistols. Loaded.]

Hornblower.

[And Hornblower has his sword at his side... but more because it never is anywhere else than for any other reason.]

Sparrow.

I've been mulling over many...things. Thinkin' of the future, like. Of what you said that day after Jilly were kidnapped.

[He means your plans for mutiny, Horatio.]

[A pause. It takes a long time for the words to form and get out, Sparrow. But...]

I was unduly hard, Captain Sparrow. I ask your pardon.

Right. You've got it, my pardon, or whathaveyou. [He scratches the tip of his nose. Forgiving Hornblower is an uncomfortable thing at best.]

Now, about your mutiny. I want in. Throw a sharp sword in my hand and show me the enemy's machinations and I shall sabotage them thoroughly.

[Hornblower can't help but stare for a moment. ...Still, he needs all the help he can get, and there are several in this village who like the pirate. Why still evades Hornblower.

He manages to be polite, though.]

Thank you.

There's... little [nothing] to be done yet, but I fear we've time enough to think.

Plot, you mean? When it's a mutiny it's plotting, not thinking. Need you help in that quarter?

[He hates saying it. But:]

Yes.

We'll need help. All of us... will have to work together. At least on this.

It... can't be one or two making decisions for the whole. Not with these stakes.

And when you say "all of us," who are the other conspirators?

At present?

Mister Kennedy and Miss Jilly. [He is quick to hold up a hand. He isn't going to be fully blamed for dragging her into this.] She sparked the idea, and I was fool enough to think on it around her.

She won't be swayed. God knows I've tried.

Tried, have you?

I'll sway her.

[He bites back a remark. Instead, he nods.]

At worst, if you can't, we'll keep her out of the most dangerous parts. If they catch us... they'll only want the ones in charge.

[He frowns.] Unrest if they handle everyone involved. More effective to take the heads and make examples. [So much personal baggage wrapped up in that, but it makes for a startling clarity in his eyes when he looks at Sparrow.]

She won't fall foul of them. I'll make sure of it.

And I'll make sure that you do.

[A thought strikes him.

Sparrow is, without a doubt, one of the people he trusts least in this place. And yet...

...And yet he is the only one he can likely trust with this.]

If we get caught, they'll want the one in charge.

[He isn't going to make the same mistakes now that he did on the Renown.]

If that happens, Sparrow. Let the blame fall to me. I'll take full responsibility and let them do as they will to me.

They'll be satisfied with one life.

And that doesn't set right by me, Hornblower.

[Jack's no one has to die policy notwithstanding. He's had to watch one man be sent to his death after a failed mutiny. Watching that scenario unfold again is not a future he is prepared to entertain.]

I'm not going to lever the blame onto you, if that's what you're asking.

You don't have to. You just have to not argue if they find out.

[His voice is low, a solemnity that is remarkable even for him.]

It will be my fault-- I've pulled others into this. The consequences need only fall on me.

Sounds to me as though Jilly's pulled you in, actually.

[And that raises a complicated array of feelings toward the young woman, to say the least.]

It's not my habit anymore to make a sacrificial lamb out of any man. That time is past, for me.

If she did, it was by accident. A chance remark. There was no intent.

You really believe that? That there was no intent? [Well.] I can sort that out when I have my chat with her.

Wholeheartedly.

She did not mean to spark a... [neither word sits well with him-- "mutiny" or "revolution", both go against everything he is supposed to believe in] She did not mean to start this.

The fault there lies with me.

Another thing I shall sort with her. [She's overdo for sword training anyhow.]

If we're to speak of this in future, what is to be our means of referring to it?

We don't refer to it.

Find another reason to call. It's spoken of in person only, with every Journal safely in another room.

I've no other reason to call you. Very well, though. We don't speak of it.

[And he turns to leave, with Jilly heavy on his mind.]

Then call on Archie.

[He raises his hand, to touch the hat that has not been there for months. But it's an old, ingrained, polite habit.]

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Eleventh Dispatch - [written]

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[Private] /faaaails for having just gotten back to this

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