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Is there a reason the bag is cold enough to make him shiver?
In any case, it seems alright, although perhaps the internal narration seems a little casual ("Oh, right. He must have seen the bandage on my forearm.") I presume that's the point, though I'll point out now that it doesn't make the attempt to brush off the enquiry sound like much of a big deal.
I normally like to play my cards close to my chest before publication, but this isn't worth bothering my beta reader over. I suspect the following passage is on the dry side
In any case, it seems alright, although perhaps the internal narration seems a little casual ("Oh, right. He must have seen the bandage on my forearm.") I presume that's the point, though I'll point out now that it doesn't make the attempt to brush off the enquiry sound like much of a big deal.
I normally like to play my cards close to my chest before publication, but this isn't worth bothering my beta reader over. I suspect the following passage is on the dry side
One Star in a Constellation
219 years ago, a man stood close to this spot, gazing out into Vermilion Bay. Tears still stained his cheeks. His blue frock coat was full of salt, but the engraved silver buttons shone proudly in the morning sun. His name was Evan Roskilly, thirty three years-old, and one of the Royal Navy’s star captains.
Evan Roskilly was the only son of a well-respected Cianwood gentleman, Edward Roskilly. In the mid-18th century Cianwood Island was one of the Middle Kingdom’s poorest counties, and indeed the Roskillies were perpetually in financial trouble despite their social status. Evan’s father had to be resourceful, marrying off his first daughter; the second became a priestess; and for his son, Edward used the last of his savings to send Evan to sea.
It was another clear, blustery morning, probably not unlike that morning 219 years ago. Today I was in neat, suburban Vermilion on the Bay – less of a jigsaw city than Chesilby, but still distinctly maritime. Speaking of maritime, it was from a little Heritage Trust shop on Long Promenade that I picked up an abridged copy of Evan Roskilly’s diary (I read through most of it later that evening). It’s funny what history ends up forgetting. Roskilly’s surviving diaries cover almost his entire career, missing only his teenage years as a ponytailed Midshipman, and later Lieutenant, aboard the 64-gun HMS Formidable. It’s an unusually vibrant insight into a gentleman’s life on the waves.
“I never saw a more wild and free a landscape as this. Our first sight of this country was a deep sea inlet sided with lofty snow-capped mountains that the Sinnovards call gjos. It was a country that affected me deeply, at once reminiscent of the Cianwood heath and something autarchic and untameable.”
In the summer of 1780 Roskilly was cruising off the western coast of Sinnoh, serving as 1st Lieutenant aboard HMS Pidgeot, a frigate of twenty eight guns. This was his first real taste of command responsibility. Pidgeot was originally posted to the Sinnovard station to provide an escort for incoming convoys, but in the spring of the following year the posting was enlivened by bloody chaos of the Bishop’s Uprising.
After the loyalist victory at the Battle of Aikenkirk, Pidgeot, along with HMS Interceptor (32) and the sloop HMS Pluto (14), was ordered into the Hailie Gjo to cut off the rebel’s escape. The squadron reached the port of Roke Cross to find the town already in loyalist hands. Seeing the violence of the rebellion first hand seems to have shocked Roskilly:
“… the rebels having taken the abominable resolution to cut their prisoners to pieces in the main square, the flagstones of which were now awash with the forlorn and clotted blood of those who, in their savage passion, the rebels had massacred in cruellest revenge the day before.”
The day would not get any less grim. About a hundred rebels had been captured when the town fell. As second-in-command of the Pidgeot, Roskilly was obliged to be present at the executions:
“There not being sufficient gallows to hang them as traitors, they were taken out by tens and destroyed by means of the Interceptor’s electabuzz. After they were dead, the rebels were stript and flung into the sea. All this was most distressing to endure, for”
Roskilly seems to have redacted his diary here, later insincerely adding:
“Not the slightest degree of pity nor concern was shown to them at their deaths, theirs was a vile and beastly act not having advanced their cause one step.”
219 years ago, a man stood close to this spot, gazing out into Vermilion Bay. Tears still stained his cheeks. His blue frock coat was full of salt, but the engraved silver buttons shone proudly in the morning sun. His name was Evan Roskilly, thirty three years-old, and one of the Royal Navy’s star captains.
Evan Roskilly was the only son of a well-respected Cianwood gentleman, Edward Roskilly. In the mid-18th century Cianwood Island was one of the Middle Kingdom’s poorest counties, and indeed the Roskillies were perpetually in financial trouble despite their social status. Evan’s father had to be resourceful, marrying off his first daughter; the second became a priestess; and for his son, Edward used the last of his savings to send Evan to sea.
It was another clear, blustery morning, probably not unlike that morning 219 years ago. Today I was in neat, suburban Vermilion on the Bay – less of a jigsaw city than Chesilby, but still distinctly maritime. Speaking of maritime, it was from a little Heritage Trust shop on Long Promenade that I picked up an abridged copy of Evan Roskilly’s diary (I read through most of it later that evening). It’s funny what history ends up forgetting. Roskilly’s surviving diaries cover almost his entire career, missing only his teenage years as a ponytailed Midshipman, and later Lieutenant, aboard the 64-gun HMS Formidable. It’s an unusually vibrant insight into a gentleman’s life on the waves.
“I never saw a more wild and free a landscape as this. Our first sight of this country was a deep sea inlet sided with lofty snow-capped mountains that the Sinnovards call gjos. It was a country that affected me deeply, at once reminiscent of the Cianwood heath and something autarchic and untameable.”
In the summer of 1780 Roskilly was cruising off the western coast of Sinnoh, serving as 1st Lieutenant aboard HMS Pidgeot, a frigate of twenty eight guns. This was his first real taste of command responsibility. Pidgeot was originally posted to the Sinnovard station to provide an escort for incoming convoys, but in the spring of the following year the posting was enlivened by bloody chaos of the Bishop’s Uprising.
After the loyalist victory at the Battle of Aikenkirk, Pidgeot, along with HMS Interceptor (32) and the sloop HMS Pluto (14), was ordered into the Hailie Gjo to cut off the rebel’s escape. The squadron reached the port of Roke Cross to find the town already in loyalist hands. Seeing the violence of the rebellion first hand seems to have shocked Roskilly:
“… the rebels having taken the abominable resolution to cut their prisoners to pieces in the main square, the flagstones of which were now awash with the forlorn and clotted blood of those who, in their savage passion, the rebels had massacred in cruellest revenge the day before.”
The day would not get any less grim. About a hundred rebels had been captured when the town fell. As second-in-command of the Pidgeot, Roskilly was obliged to be present at the executions:
“There not being sufficient gallows to hang them as traitors, they were taken out by tens and destroyed by means of the Interceptor’s electabuzz. After they were dead, the rebels were stript and flung into the sea. All this was most distressing to endure, for”
Roskilly seems to have redacted his diary here, later insincerely adding:
“Not the slightest degree of pity nor concern was shown to them at their deaths, theirs was a vile and beastly act not having advanced their cause one step.”