Your dad has a Danger 5 cross-stitch? I would love to hear more about it -- or even see it, if you were willing to share a photo!
ooooo buckle up! it's a long-ish story but it's a fun one
my dad and his college best friend are both bad/old/campy movie aficionados and have a tradition of watching one (usually bad) movie a week and they're both huge lovers of danger 5. so they did a long watch-a-thon of danger 5. which turned into Another tradition of ending every wrap-up video call with a call-and-response 'of course, as always...' '...kill hitler.' and then That turned into my dad's friend cross-stitching that phrase and framing it for him as a gift. and now that lives on his mantle
“It’s not that bad,” Tom said, and then tried to think of evidence to support that assertion. His room was narrow enough that he could stand in the middle and touch both walls at once, the window was about the size of his two hands next to each other, his fellow-lodgers were other out-of-work labourers like himself, and the house didn’t have indoor plumbing.
And some time later:
Josie landed lightly next to her on the roof, and went to the edge at once. “This is a bit harder,” she whispered. “I’ll go first, in case you need me to catch you.” Then she slipped off the edge, so all Verry could see of her was her hands, and then her hands let go as well.
Nothing for heart (yet).
Head:
“What about if I go in first?” Verry suggested. “I can just poke my head in and then say I have the wrong door and back out again."
In a flashback:
The room was clean and neat and the window was open, but he barely noticed any of that. As soon as the maid had let go of him he was on his knees by the head of the bed.
“Nursie,” he said, like a child. He tried to compose himself, drawing himself up. “Nurse Kennell.”
“Freddie!” she said. “Freddie, are you back?” Then she coughed, turning her head away from him and gasping slightly for air afterwards.
That's my silly little attempt at a modern-ish Flight of the Heron adaption, in which Keith Windham is an exasperated school teacher whose recruits, or rather, students, run off when on a hiking trip, they bump into a rather large bull, causing Keith to be left behind, and being picked up, and taken home, by, a handsome Scottish stranger, who just so happens to run a local wildlife organisation.
Have a little scene under the cut in which the injured Keith and the bull, are both found by Ewen and Lachlan...
"Lochiel told me they were talking about an escaped bull around these parts— that’s how Lachlan got the idea to check for bonny Wee Charlie here. He has a habit of breaking fences.”
And with that, he had turned away from Keith and approached his henchman who was holding the bull to give the large animal whose name surely must be some sort of bad joke a kiss on its scraggly orange forehead.
“Wee Charlie might not be quite so ‘wee’ and harmless as you suppose, sir,” Keith, enraged by the display of affection being showered upon one so undeserving as the beastly Charlie, added cuttingly, “as soon as I am back to civilisation, you can be certain the RSPCA will hear of this. And they surely will not take kindly to such a large beast roaming freely and intimidating hikers—”
When his mien had been pleasant before, it had now clouded over, and Mr. Cameron’s warning glare told him not to pursue the argument further. “The RSPCA brought him to Ardroy, in fact. He’s been kept more as a pet for most of his life, and has not a single bad bone in him. I doubt that he meant you, or your boys any harm, Mr.—?”
“Windham,” Keith added through gritted teeth, and observed yet another change in the Achillean young man’s face. “You are not, by any chance, the Mr. Windham whose class I was to welcome at three this afternoon?”, he asked, and knew the answer already.
“We lost our way. And then we met your little friend here,” Keith informed him, an angry gleam in his eyes and his tone sharp enough to turn Wee Charlie into barbecue-sized parts.
“’Tis of no matter,” the young man shook his head, his voice much too gentle for Keith’s liking. “Do you think you can mount behind me?”
Keith’s mind resisted the idea of going anywhere with these two bull-chasing madmen, one of them looking as if he had absconded from the set of yet another romantic drama, but his body was weak, and they seemed to know the whereabouts of his charges, reasons which convinced him to let necessity triumph over his pride and allowed Mr. Camron to lead him over to the quad, which surely was not intended to carry two. “You’ll have to hold on to me if you don’t want to fall down,” the young man said matter-of-factly, and reaching behind himself with one hand, grabbed Keith by the arm and wound it around his midsection, causing Keith’s face to be almost forced to bury itself into the Highlander’s strong back.
Watson's pride and joy has a puncture -- AGAIN -- and there is much "helpful commentary" from Holmes as Watson struggles to change the tyre in the rain. (Gagged and bound German spy in the back who can't believe his life has come to this, optional.)
Holmes would be the very worst help changing a tyre and I can just hear Watson’s aggravated sighing now! Poor Wilhelm would undoubtedly have preferred he’d apprehended at customs.
Get shore leave, go to a ball, lose your trousers, steal your shipmate’s trousers, and make him go back to the ship bare-arsed while you return his stolen trousers to his cabin.
Below the cut because all of these required more context.
Hotspur
A crowd had gathered by the entry port; Horatio could see William lying on a stretcher, his bloodstained pelt clutched against his chest as the surgeon bent over him. At the sight of Horatio the crowd parted, and he knelt at William’s side, mindless of the blood that stained his breeches. William turned his head to look up at Horatio, his blue eyes wide and frightened.
“Bush,” said Horatio, almost reaching for William’s hand but stopping himself at the last possible moment. “William.”
“Sir,” whispered William and Horatio glanced up at the Wallis, who shook his head gravely.
“He’s in a bad way, sir,” said Wallis, bending down to put his lips to Horatio’s ear. “As near as I can tell the bullet’s lodged itself deep in him, sir. I’ll need to examine him more closely.”
Horatio nodded, the words sounding very faint and distant. He rose to his feet, as stiff as a puppet, and gestured at the surgeon’s mates standing by. “Take him away,” he said, his stomach tight with fear. “I’ll follow along. Mr Prowse, you have the watch.”
“Aye aye, sir,” came Prowse’s voice from the crowd, but Horatio barely heard him. He watched in terrified silence as the surgeon’s mates bore William away to the cockpit, and with Wallis at his elbow he followed them into the depths of Hotspur.
--
Sutherland
It was much warmer beneath the blankets than on top of them, but an icy chill still pervaded the room as snow continued to fall outside. Hornblower pressed himself closer to Bush, seeking the warmth of another body against his, and heard Bush huff as Hornblower’s cold foot worked its way between his warm ones. How strange, to think that half a year ago this would have seemed an impossibility, to lie so close to each other that their noses nearly touched — Hornblower knew he should distance himself and not give in to the urge that compelled him to put his arm around Bush and hold him close, but he found he could not. He remembered too well those first few days after the loss of the Sutherland, the ceaseless agony of his wound, the crushing despair of having lost both his leg and his ship. His only comfort had been Bush: a steady hand for him to cling to when the pain became unbearable, a cool cloth pressed against his brow when the fever took over. Bush had never once abandoned him, never once left Hornblower to face his struggle alone, not even now, when most decent men would have turned aside to hear Hornblower speak so longingly of his own death. It seemed right, even proper, to put his arm around Bush now, and perhaps Bush felt it too, for he smiled, his eyes creased with a certain fondness that had never been bestowed upon anyone but Hornblower.
--
Lydia
“London society is full of fools,” Bush pronounced, having enough knowledge of high society to know to steer well clear of it. He looked down at the letter and frowned. “But what of you, sir? Have you withdrawn your suit?”
It was just like Bush to cut to the heart of it. Hornblower fidgeted, the question he had come to ask looming large in his mind.
“I have,” he said stiffly.
Bush was unable to hide his surprise. “But why, sir? It seemed so certain six months ago.”
Hornblower cleared his throat, conscious of Bush’s curiosity. “I value Lady Barbara very highly — indeed, I count her amongst my closest friends — but to have her for my wife would be an unwise decision for us both.” The speech was as stilted to his ears now as it had been in the carriage. “We would run the risk of scandal at the very least, given our prior history aboard the Lydia.” There was also the risk of terrible scandal should one of Barbara’s formidable brothers discover that Hornblower’s association with Bush went beyond the usual fraternal bond held between brother officers.
--
Nonsuch
But Bush was happy as captain of the Nonsuch, and there was the rub of it. Bad luck and loyalty had denied Bush promotion before; Hornblower had no doubt that had Bush chosen a better man to follow he would have been posted captain long ago — he might even, with some good fortune, have made commodore. But he had chosen to follow Hornblower, and it had cost him both his leg and any further promotion that might have otherwise been won. For all its trials, Hornblower’s commission as commodore meant he could at last bestow upon Bush the patronage he deserved.
Ship asks! Absolute favourite, most hated, overrated and underrated, please?
This is going to be a long post:
Favourite:
Don’t ask me to pick just one, but:
HMS Sovereign of the Seas (1637). A first-rate ship of the line, she carried a complement of 102 bronze cannons (at King Charles I’s request), and the cost to build her was equivalent to £11 mil. today: the gilding that covered her cost the equivalent of £1.1 million, which was the same price as your average warship.
She cost so much that Charles had to raise a special tax, called the Ship Tax, which contributed to financial crisis that caused the English Civil War.
(Which is why I love her. A ship that helped cause a war.)
Most Hated Foolish:
I don’t have one that I hate per se. The most foolish ship is undoubtedly the Vasa (Sweden, 1627). Much like the Sovereign of the Seas the Vasa was a monarch’s attempt to demonstrate naval superiority: she was built at the behest of King Gustavus Adolphus and armed with 64 cannons (all bronze, as this was the technology of the time). She was launched from Stockholm – in spite of major design flaws – an event reportedly attended by hundreds, if not thousands, of people, both Swedish and foreign. The ship was less than a mile from the harbour when a gust of wind caused her to heel over, and with a top-heavy design and her gunports open to fire a farewell salute, water rushed into the hold and sank her, in full sight of the spectators, with a loss of 30 lives.
It is possible that because the king was so heavily involved in her design and armament that no one was found guilty in the Vasa’s sinking. The blame was also shifted onto the ship’s original architect, who was by this time fortunately dead and buried.
But the Vasa is fantastic in that she was discovered in near-perfect condition in the 60s and raised from the seabed and stuck in a museum. (Her bronze cannons had been salvaged shortly after her sinking as they were valuable.)
Overrated:
Titanic. It was a tragic loss of life, but Titanic is less important in its physical remains (sorry Ballard) than it is in how it changed maritime culture, and brought about the creation of the SOLAS Convention, or Safety Of Life At Sea which enabled sweeping regulatory change in the maritime industry.
Underrated:
The Uluburun shipwreck. Sank sometime around 1200 BCE off the coast of Turkey carrying as varied a cargo as tin (likely from Afghanistan) and amber (possibly from the Baltic). She is a fantastic example of how surprisingly interconnected the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean was.
A whale!Holmes & Doctor Jona H. Watson adventure. For @sanguinarysanguinity.
Holmes had warned me before we took rooms together that he liked to sing. As I came to learn, it assisted him as he pondered the details of cases, waiting for that next inspired leap and the triumphant discovery of the solution.
What he sang during these contemplations could not really be classed as melodies, however. Nestled away in his bathroom, arbitrary notes would issue forth at the most unexpected moments and after a sequence of incidents involving my being startled whilst holding scalding hot tea, then a lit pipe, and finally a highly-strung bullpup, I began going to my club until all thinking was past and I was needed for the case’s physical aspects.
But Holmes was no stranger to the more traditional kind of tune, and in exchange for my patience was always willing to belt out a few of the latest music hall songs to make me smile or to afford me relaxation. I remember so fondly, lying on our couch during one or other exhausting case, and drifting off to the accompaniment of “I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside” or “Why Can’t We Have The Sea In London?” or his very own, poignant composition, “Oh, Bloody Hell, I Really Do Miss The Sea A Great, Great Deal.”
This kindness towards me is just one of the many things I miss, now that Holmes has at last retired to his beloved little patch of sea off the Sussex coast. I suppose it is to be expected after all this time but... I do find it a little difficult to drop off without my whale sounds.
