Day 5 - Favourite Patriot + ficlet (Leave Her, Johnny, Leave Her)
“Oh, leave her, Johnny, leave her… Oh, leave her, Johnny, leave her… The voyage is done and the winds don’t blow and it’s time for us to leave her…”
“What’s that, lieutenant?”
Caleb glances up, away from the tall, helmeted figure talking amidst the other officers in the distance. “Hmm?”
“You were singing, sir.” An ensign is speaking to him. Damn, he should know the man’s name. Hodgkin? His head has been elsewhere lately. At times it felt like the war would never end. Now, at its unravelling, it feels all those years are being compressed into just a few days. He’s pretty sure it’s Hodgkin.
“It’s a seaman’s song,” he says, returning to his watch. “It’s about things ending. We sing it on a ship’s last voyage.”
“It’s lovely, sir,” the ensign ventures, a little timidly. Perhaps it’s too soon for lovely things again. Caleb snorts.
“It’s about how the pay’s shite and you’re glad to see the last of it,” he says.
The parade is dispersing now. It was fun, at first. Sitting high above all the folk who were cheering and gawking, feeling like a proper hero for once, relieved and sore and alive. Now, the square feels restless, soldiers milling with civilians, bounties ending and futures spinning out like cartwheels pinging free from their mounts. Caleb can feel the listlessness, can see it in the enlisted men.
None of it in Ben, of course, already chatting away amidst a crowd of well-dressed politicians. No doubt there.
“She would not wear and she would not stay…”
“What will you do, lieutenant?”
“Hmm?” It seems the ensign is determined to make conversation, if the unmoored look in his eye is anything to go by. Caleb sighs. “Dunno. Always come back to the water, me.” He waits. “And yourself?”
“An apprenticeship, sir. With any luck they’ll have me.”
“Good man,” Caleb says, vaguely.
“Would you teach me, sir? The song, sir,” the ensign adds, colouring a little.
“It’s a seaman’s song. You planning to be a sailor?”
Caleb throws one last look toward Ben–deeply entrenched, shoulders relaxed, oblivious. Wouldn’t be needing Caleb any time soon. The thought churns a little. Decision made, Caleb swings an arm around the young man’s shoulders.
“Alright. Yeah, alright. Don’t look so happy, it costs an ale. Right now, listen. Oh, the times were hard and the wages low…”
Listen here: “Leave her, Johnny, Leave her” by the Longest Johns (Mass choir version)
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