HMS Resolute Victory

1.04

Jeremy refilled his coffee and sat back down in his usual spot in the mess, one of the two tiny tables on the edge of the room, and looked over at the captain, Archie Braddox, who was talking enthusiastically to the cook and first mate.

Archie was a young man for a ships captain, though his grey-white hair made him look much older at a distance. His name wasn’t really Archie, some thought it was Arnold, others didn’t speculate, possibly they were living under assumed names also. Archie always seemed to be awake and talking with one member of the crew or another, nearly always in his over enthusiastic tone, only on very rare occasions raising his voice and talking in the authoritative way a ships captain or army major would in an old film. These rare occasions when something had gone massively awry through the fault of one of his crew, maybe a mast hadn’t been properly secured by the cabinboy, even in these situations he was fair and seemingly cool-headed.

As Jeremy looked to where the captain and first mate were he thought to himself,

I should just go up to them and ask them if they will teach me how to navigate by the stars. They might laugh or say no, but it’s not like i’ll be made to walk the plank.. Possibly I’ll be made to peel 1000 potatoes.

Archie caught a glimpse of Jeremy staring at his party and immediately pivoted on his feet and walked fluidly over to him, he moved around on the ship like the most relaxed social butterfly would at a party with peers.

“Good job with the barrels Cabin Boy!” He said to Jeremy loud enough that the whole room could hear if they weren’t already in conversation.

“Yes Sir, Thank You Sir.” Jeremy quickly replied, a little nervous knowing that Archie had likely spotted him being sick last night.

“You can drop the formalities when we don’t have visitors lad, you know that.”

A slightly worried expression formed on Jeremy’s face.

“As you were, Cabin Boy!” The captain said once again in his elevated volume before pivoting and moving over to the two Russian deck hands who were only a year or two older than Jeremy.

“Dobroye utro!” You could hear the captain over the small crowd of people in the mess.

If I was fluent in Russian I might have a chance at making some friends of my own age here. But my conversations with Viktor and Alex have been in patchy English and haven’t extended much past: “Yes”, “The sun is here!” and “We play ball now, you play?”. At least they let me play the baffling keepy-uppy type game with them..

The ships crew was a strange one, the roles were not official military roles, Jeremy just took it for granted that everyone had a lot more experience on the sea than him and had either held their positions for years or worked up to them. That preconception started to feel a little flaky after the first few weeks aboard the Resolute Victory and now he was almost convinced the crew had no more than a years experience each, though it was very hard to tell and he couldn’t exactly accuse them of being frauds. The current roster was an 8 man crew: the captain, first mate, the navigator who was also the second mate, the cook who seemed to also have other unknown duties, two deck hands, a cabin boy (which is just a nick name for the most junior deck hand) and an electrician called Steve.