Tapping The Admiral Liner Notes 3
Liner Notes 3
The historical lieutenants examination is actually something of a mystery. In order to qualify for the rank of lieutenant one needed six years of sea time on a naval ship, and two years as a midshipman or master’s mate (or a master though usually becoming the senior warrant officer on a ship was the final stage for an older man, especially one whose experience was mostly outside the navy). Having been recommended, an examination board of three captains would be appointed and they would question the prospective officer. Usually it was a lengthy and involved process, though in some cases where the candidate had influential patrons and was known to have the minimum skills they could get an easy ride. The reason for this was that the questions were formulated by the captains on the spot, and it was entirely up to their discretion as to what an acceptable answer might be.
As they were oral examinations, we don’t have lists of actual questions, though some lieutenants did make records. What we do have is a list of practice questions in The New Practical Navigator by John Hamilton Moore, which appears in this story disguised as The Efficient Navigator. If you read only one primary source for sailing ships of the late 18th and early 19th century, I recommend this one. As well as the questions, it has essays on tide and wind, details of how to locate your position while approaching the British Isles without being able to calculate your longitude, lots of hints for sailing to and from various places (including nearby landmarks, many of which are still here), a glossary of nautical terms, and a useful introduction to how to fight a naval battle.
You can probably skip the trigonometric tables.
Patronage was how almost everything got done in 18th century England. Someone would sponsor you to your place and in return you would support them. The difference with the Navy (and to a lesser extent the Army) was that your client needed to actually be able to do the job. It’s no good appointing a friend’s son as an officer and then finding he can’t sail the ship. If the Admiral had lived, he would have been able to find the promising John Toris a lieutenant’s berth on one of the ships under his command. Masterman, being only a captain and his own ship fully officered, is able to find him a place, but on a hardship cruise. So Toris gets his place, and the Navy gets a good man on a difficult voyage.
It doesn’t always work out so well.
Although we start still only a few weeks after the battle of Cape Laurel in the first story, we then fast forward through the war. It’s a little simplified in places, and made stranger in others but essentially it’s following the course of the Napoleonic Wars. The Empire, standing in for Spain, tumbles into the hands of their ally, the Generalissimo and he... grasps tight hold of it. But it doesn’t work out as he hopes. With central authority weakened, local warlords spring up, both in the heartland, and in the overseas possessions. The equivalent of American and Mediterranean colonies erupt into their own private fights.
Toris finds himself on the edges of these fights, first across the Thalassan Ocean in the west, then carrying supplies east into the Tideless Sea. Local rivals are taking advantage of supplies and advisory missions from one or other great power to pursue their own agendas. Ras-Al-Ghar finds itself under siege by Catabassia, another tiny parochial struggle, except that Whitland is allied the former as it is a useful base in the east. Hence the Generalissimo’s supplies and officers arriving to defeat them.
Oh right, there’s an Ice Witch and he curses the crew.
This is a faux-18th Century. People are still trying to get the scientific method together. Half the world is a mysterious blank on the maps. I haven’t nailed down how the magic works in either a few pithy equations, or in a giant tome that categorises every phenomenon in detail. I do have some outline notes, so let’s note here that the extraordinary power of the Ice Witch’s curse comes from his dying breath. It will come back again and again, fuelled by the death. (Toris would have done better to have stabbed him in the throat, or better yet the eye, preventing it being consciously focused).
The good news is that everyone who was on the Triumph after the battle has magic protection. Dunn is correct; that doesn’t prevent the curse from occurring. The magic of the Ice Witch has to go somewhere.
Sorry about making the dogs cursed as well. The Ice Witch was really annoyed.
So to recap, Toris got promoted, cursed, his own ship. Meanwhile the war has got bigger, more expansive, more complicated, and even a little stranger. Time, I feel, to bring it to a climax.
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