Cold All the Way Through, But Warming

A Public Confrontation

Will had to bite his tongue when leave was assigned, and he found himself confined to the docks for their brief stay to refuel while the rest of the officers, even the captain, had leave. Bligh seemed to take great pride in that, as though he was favoring Will by requiring him to oversee the bags of coal being shuttled down to the bunkers. The men hardly needed any supervision, they knew their business well enough, which meant Will had time to wander the docks and take in the various ships that had pulled in.

It also meant that Will could wear his proper uniform for once, with Bligh being gone.

However, he would have to find some way to get his letters to Ana, and get hers in return. But that was a problem for another day, for today he was back to being Commander Murdoch and walking the snow-covered docks of Rosyth. Dozens of ships were in, from destroyers like the Peterel to the battlecruisers that Admiral Beatty had recently had brought in.

The Battle of the Dogger Bank had been all the officers could talk about, how Beatty had chased the Germans back to their bases and saved the area for British fishing. Given how U-boats were doggedly pursuing any cargo ship flying a Union Jack, any source of food closer to home was a priority for protection. Beatty had come roaring out when the Germans had attempted to sweep the British fishing fleet away from the area, his battlecruisers harrying the Germans until they had sunk one German ship and sent the others running away with their tails between their legs.

In fact, Will could see the man now. Standing in front of the Lion, damaged in the battle, he was gesturing at the ship while talking to an engineer. Will could make out little about him, only noticing who he was by the rank markings on his cuffs and the staff that surrounded him. What he could make out showed the Admiral to have a square face, he was too far away to determine the man's coloring.

Will wasn't the only man staring, nor the only officer. Beatty was well known among the fleet, both for his leadership and for his personal life. Quigley, after enjoying a tot of rum one night, had regaled all of the junior officers with the legendary affair that Beatty had carried on with his wife while she had still been married to her first husband. The general consensus among the juniors had been that he shouldn't have snuck around, but came out of it looking pretty, what with his rich wife. At one point his wife had summed up the typical American in their eyes, when Beatty had been threatened with court martial after possibly damaging a ship his wife had simply replied 'I'll buy them a new ship'.

Will had neglected to explain that Ana could have done the same thing.

He wished he had her letters. It would have made being confined to the docks a bit more bearable. He would have been far warmer sitting in his cabin, reading about Moody's wedding. He hadn't seen the boy since that first packet of letters, a Dalian man simply coming up to ferry their letters after that. Will hoped whoever had come up today was at least keeping warm in a pub, having a beer and a hot meal.

Ana would be upset to not have his letters, and he pulled his coat a bit tighter around him as he moved away from the battlecruisers. Damn Bligh, and his damn smugness. Will hadn't even had a chance to beg one of the other junior officers to take the letters for him, for Bligh had called him into his office while the others had been leaving.

And now Will was cold, angry, and had nothing to distract himself with.

Aside from wandering the docks, although it was less interesting than the docks in New York or Southampton. Here there was no questioning where the ships were going, or wondering about what they were carrying. Patrol ships would go out on patrol, battlecruisers would wait for orders and ship out when they were given, and there was no question about what they would be carrying.

Shells, powder, and men.

He passed warship after warship, their names running together in his mind, until he was almost in a fog. The only thing that broke him out of it was a ship towards the end of the docks, fresh paint on her and cranes. Warships didn't have cranes like that. His step may have gotten a bit quicker, seeing a merchant ship clearly being worked on.