Liner Notes for In At The Kill
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So let’s be clear on this. In the 18th century women couldn’t be doctors (though see James Barry for an exceptional story so extraordinary that I would hesitate to use it even in my fantastic version). But then again, neither could most men. Most medical practitioners had not studied at medical school. Lizzie O’Leary is quite over-qualified to be the surgeon on a Royal Naval ship.
My version of the Napoleonic Wars has gone on so long and swept up so many men that, like in WW1 and WW2, women have had to take up the slack. This did take place in reality, though mostly at the bottom end of society, which was still agrarian in nature. Women whose husbands were serving away from home and widows did take over businesses and households, yet this was a change in degree, not kind from pre-war practices.
Treatment for venereal disease was stopped out of sailors’ pay, so we have good data on the rate in the Royal Navy. At the time it was considered an indication of the happiness of a ship.
Finally we have the arrival on stage of The Generalissimo, The Lord Protector etc. The fantasy equivalent of Napoleon in this world. And, despite his magic pistols, I immediately take him off the board. Because this isn’t supposed to be a fantasy Napoleonic War saga; the war has frankly gone on too long already. It’s time to send my characters further out into the world, to find some of the strangeness that lurks on the far side.
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