The Ioanna Incident

Writer’s Note: Oh wow, it’s been a while. I’ve been deep in editing the novel I’m currently working on, hoping to start querying it sometime after the New Year. So, I actually wrote this one a few months ago, soon after finishing the first draft of that novel, and just kept putting off uploading this one. I think more can be expected — blog posts if not fiction — but for obvious reason the novel is still first priority. Anyway, this is my favourite I’ve written yet. A bit of Patrick O’Brian inspired naval fiction, about 5,000 words long

 The Ioanna Incident

Antonio didn’t want to start a war, but he had orders to the contrary.

The idea made him shudder. Well, that and the sea spray – he had never quite gotten used to it, even after so many years. From the extended, xebec forecastle of his beloved Princess Lucia – the Lucy, to her besotted crew – and with a spyglass to his eye, he could see his quarry grow ever larger. A plodding little two-mast merchantman. One of three that had broken through the blockade of their port in the confusion of last night’s storm.

His orders were to hunt down and capture one of those merchantmen. Fire on her if necessary. And, by extension, escalate the blockade into all-out war. Antonio’s native Grand Principality of Thema would, of course, have nothing to fear from war with the Principality of Atkorini. But the war wouldn’t stop there. No, it would bring in every other city-state in the Gulf Islands. Perhaps even the great powers of the continent. He didn’t even want to consider it.

‘Captain Garzzini?’

Antonio turned at his name.

‘The long guns will be in range within the hour, sir,’ said Lieutenant Desore, striding towards him. The man was only recently arrived aboard the Lucy. From first impressions, Antonio found himself missing his previous first officer.

‘When they are, you have permission to fire,’ the captain said, lowering his glass. ‘But to her leeward. Warning shots, no more. We shall bring her to heel and ask her to return to port without further incident.’

‘Sir!’ Desore stared wide eyed and open mouthed at his superior. ‘But surely we’ll capture her! Think on the prize money, sir. That’s a fortune we’d be throwing away.’

‘Thank you for your opinion, Lieutenant. But you shall find that we are not at war, so that ship is not currently flying an enemy flag. Whether we would get any share of the prize money is hence a question for the admiral. And I hear he’s planning to buy up some estates in the hinterland.’

Antonio waited a few moments for his subordinate to leave. It took a while, but the man got the hint.

Without the spyglass, the merchantman was a smudge of wood and sail. The Ioanna, she was called. She would have a few guns, just enough to warn off the marauding pirates of Yienfranar, but nothing to the Lucy’s two-and-twenty cannons – nine a side, with two more fore and aft. In a fight, the outcome was unquestionable. A sensible captain would surrender before the first broadside. But then, a sensible captain wouldn’t have braved a gale to slip between the fingers of the disrupted Theman fleet and then ran from his pursuers.

The gain was imperceptible moment to moment. But Antonio knew that his Lucy was dancing across the water at eleven knots, while they estimated that the Ioanna was barely making eight. They were a few points off of his ship’s best sailing position, but the wind was mild and true – the kind of weather where the advantage went to the ship that could put on the greatest mass of canvas – and the Lucy was making the most of every gust. That they would overtake the merchantman, and soon, was an inevitability. Antonio willed away that moment with all his heart. That moment and the decision that would come with it.

Lieutenant Desore’s opinion on the matter disgusted him. They were sailors sworn to the prince’s service, not mercenaries selling their loyalty and their blood to the highest bidder. Yet the lieutenant’s were opinions embarrassingly common in His Serenity’s navy.

Desore, of course, had never seen real action. His service had been so far limited to anti-piracy patrols, escort duties, and exercises. He had never sat huddled below-decks as his ship was pounded again and again and again by some great monster of a ship-of-the-line. Never seen blood and saltwater churning through the decks: too much by far to be soaked up by the sand scattered underfoot. Never watched fragments of iron and wood pass within inches, only to imbed in a crewmate, knowing that pure impotent luck was the only difference between life and death.

Antonio rubbed his beard where it covered the scar his daughter would otherwise recoil from. The daughter he hadn’t seen these last four months and wouldn’t for many more if Thema went to war. No, there was much the lieutenant hadn’t seen.

Still consumed by his reverie, Antonio returned to his cabin and tried to busy himself with administrative tasks but felt his mind wander back in every unguarded moment to the Ioanna. It was no use. Instead, he found himself re-reading his orders. He had insisted on them being put in writing before he left, well knowing that these were the kind of commands that could otherwise be quietly forgotten, painted as entirely his own initiative, and see him dragged before a court martial, if they reflected poorly on the admiralty after the fact.

The orders were clear. He saw no room for creative interpretation. Even giving the Ioanna the chance to return to port peacefully was in tacit conflict with the bellicose words. It had been made as transparent as possible before he left, without actually saying the words: the admiralty wanted a war. It was his job to give them one, and be responsible for all that followed.

A gun fired, reverberating through the ship. Antonio returned to the deck.

Another went off as the captain took his place on the forecastle, beside his lieutenant. The ball hit the water behind the fleeing merchantman but skimmed and crashed into the waves again just to her fore and perhaps fifty paces leeward, exactly where the gun crew had been ordered to strike. The kind of disciplined, competent gunnery that Antonio had cultivated over his three years as the Lucy’s captain.

The Ioanna had lurched closer into view since he had left the deck. Antonio withdrew his spyglass from where it was tucked into his sash and put it to his eye. He couldn’t make out faces, but, holding it steady and compensating for the movement of the deck underfoot, he could see figures clambering like so many ants across the fleeing ship.

‘Do you wish to continue with warning shots, sir?’ Desore asked. One glance at the man showed what he would rather be doing.

‘Hold fire. He knows the danger, now. The question is how he responds to it.’

‘He, sir?’

‘Her captain. Let’s drum all hands to dinner, shall we. And then clear for action. No point being caught unprepared.’

The lieutenant acknowledged his orders and, around Antonio, the deck grew lonelier as sailors rushed down to eat. The captain was nervous as he never had been before – the very idea of food made him want to spew his guts over the side like a landsman. The lead up to battle usually left him with a tranquility and acceptance of his fate that made physical courage not just possible but natural.

But this wasn’t battle. It was a decision. A decision he had not let his mind wander to since the moment he received his orders. A decision he still could not even consider, for considering it meant thinking of his orders as merely a suggestion regarding his conduct, rather than settled law. Orders were orders. There was no decision to be made. There wasn’t.

On the pursued ship, activity increased. More canvas was piled on, a frankly reckless amount, especially without reinforcement to the mast. And then, unmistakably, something went overboard with an almighty splash.

Antonio focused his magnified gaze to the Ioanna’s larboard and caught it the next time it happened. One of her guns. Well, at least her captain accepted that actually trying to fight the Lucy was folly, and that the guns were mere dead weight. He wondered if and when cargo would follow them.

With the extra canvas and reduced weight, the Ioanna put on speed. But not enough to outrun the Lucy – and Antonio didn’t need his sailing master’s calculations to tell him that. It merely delayed the inevitable. Antonio tutted at that attempt. All in all, it was not the reaction he had been hoping for from the Ioanna’s captain. Well, clearly the man would need a push.

‘Pass word,’ Antonio demanded of the most senior sailor in his immediate vicinity. ‘I want the lieutenant and two gun crews on the forecastle immediately.’

A traitorous thought wormed its way into Antonio’s mind as he watched the man leave. He could let the Ioanna gain its speed and find some reason why the Lucy had to take down sail and lose a few knots.

The idea horrified the captain and he was glad he had already issued the order. He was committed. The gun crews were coming and that was that. He had not made a decision for there was no decision to be made, he reminded himself.

The requested men assembled.

‘The Ioanna has decided not to take us seriously,’ Antonio began.

‘We shall need to fire on her, then.’ Desore nodded as he said it, like he was agreeing with his captain. Perhaps the man thought he was, but it was dangerously insubordinate to assume he knew his superior’s mind.

‘Two more warning shots,’ Antonio ordered. ‘One to her lee, the other to her windward. We’ll let her know we have her in our jaws.’

He had expected the look of dismay across Desore’s visage. What stabbed Antonio sharper than any sword was to see a similar expression on the faces of the gun crews. Did they think him lily-livered? Surely not his own sailors, so many of whom had been with him for as long as the Lucy had.

‘As you wish, sir,’ said the lieutenant bitterly. ‘You heard the captain: get to your stations.’

Desore stepped in close as the crew manned their guns.

‘Of course,’ he murmured, ‘firing to windward can be a difficult science. So easy for the breeze to brush the shot closer until, entirely by accident, it strikes true.’

Antonio couldn’t fail to hear what wasn’t being said.

‘No,’ he replied.

‘Of course, sir. Not with the kind of gunnery the Lucy is renowned for. I wasn’t thinking.’

‘Command them to proceed and we’ll say no more about it.’

The order was given and the first gun went off, a beautifully placed shot to the Ioanna’s lee. Antonio breathed in the acrid smoke and closed his eyes. He had always hated the smell. More than the rarely washed crew or livestock below decks, it felt a far too human, almost impious, imposition on the King of the Sea’s wild and untameable domain. He released his breath.

At another command, the second forward gun fired, aiming to their prey’s windward. Even after making clear that he would allow no wandering shots, Antonio struggled to contain his fear as he watched the ball fly, trying and failing to track its progress.

It landed a little behind the Ioanna, directly to her stern. If it had skimmed, it could well have hit her. But it didn’t. The fleeing ship was left unharmed. Whether by accident or design on the part of the Lucys, the Ioanna’s captain could surely only guess. Antonio was left with the same question with respect to his crewmen, though he hated doubting his sailors. Still, there it was. And, with it, the fear that they doubted him too.

‘Very good,’ Antonio said. ‘But a poor showing on the larboard gun: we expect better on the Princess Lucia.’

‘As you say, sir,’ Desore replied. ‘Poor gunnery can hardly be tolerated with a war so imminent.’

Antonio barely let himself listen to his first officer’s words. His eyes were aboard the Ioanna, searching out her captain and the orders he would give. Yet, he saw no captain. One figure gesticulating wildly might have been the bosun, and another might have been a sailing master. But no-one with the authoritative air of a captain.

Had the man lost his mind, to stay away from the deck at so critical a moment? Had his crew mutinied against his recklessness? It made no sense, and Antonio could not fight, nor hunt, that which he could not understand. Still, he had his orders. He had made his position clear and waited for the Ioannas to respond.

Slowly, almost uncertainly, the Ioanna took in sail and dropped her speed. As an acknowledgement of defeat, and plea not to actualise the threat, it was obvious. Finally, some sense. Antonio smiled.

His hand rested on the hilt of his sword and he wondered if he would soon need it. A boarding action could be the most humane approach – providing the Ioanna’s crew was disinclined to contest the point. Otherwise, it could throw away his sailors’ lives unnecessarily. No, he had to begin with diplomacy, and hope to all the gods that he wasn’t forced to go further.

He hardly left the prow as the chasm between the two ships narrowed into a mere gap and the sun reached its zenith. When he judged the distance close enough, he asked for the bosun’s speaking horn and put it to his lips.

‘This is Captain Garzzini of the Princess Lucia,’ he called, the horn amplifying his voice. ‘Ioanna’s captain, I invite you over to discuss terms.’

Still, he saw no-one who could be that captain, neither in dress nor bearing. Of the many sailors who were not the Ioanna’s captain, one leaned over her stern and shouted into his own bosun’s horn.

‘Captain Varidis invites you aboard.’

Antonio cocked his head. ‘Is he surrendering the ship to me? Asking me to take control of her?’

‘No,’ came the answer. ‘He wishes to speak to you.’

Lieutenant Desore stepped up next to his captain, quite uninvited.

‘A trap,’ he declared. ‘A ploy to take you hostage and buy their liberty with your life. I suggest we rake them until they surrender.’

‘And risk sinking them? Imagine, Desore, all your prize money sitting at the bottom of the Gulf.’ Antonio wondered if mercenary reasoning would control the man, where principle and humanity clearly failed. He put the horn back to his mouth.

‘I shall bring marines,’ he shouted. ‘And expect you to send us your sailing master and pilot, as a show of good faith.’

‘I’ll ask the captain,’ called the Ioanna’s spokesman, whoever he was. The ship’s first officer, perhaps. Regardless of the man’s position, he spoke to someone next to him, who ran off the poop.

Antonio slowed his beating heart with long, slow breaths. He had to talk the Ioanna’s captain into ending the whole foolish venture and returning to port. It would be to ignore the spirit of his orders, in favour of their letter, but then Antonio had always found spirits to be a matter best left to priests and after dinner revelry. They had no place in respectable military orders.

Yet, if he could not. If he could not.

The runner returned and said something to the speaker, who shouted, ‘The captain agrees.’ That, for the moment, was all that needed to be said.

A great deal of activity followed, as the captain’s barge was ordered into the water and a half dozen marines, in their blue vests over burgundy jackets, selected to accompany the captain.

‘You have the ship, Lieutenant,’ Antonio said before swinging over her side. ‘You are ordered not to fire upon the Ioanna unless she attempts to flee and, even then, only after she fails to heed, within a reasonable time, a verbal command and warning shot. Is that understood?’

‘I understand your order, sir,’ Desore replied levelly.

Antonio had never in his life had to give such an order to another officer: one issued with the understanding that it would be circumvented if any loophole was offered. Quite like, he realised, he was doing with respect to his own orders.

Still, it didn’t do. Distrust between captain and lieutenant. Antonio resolved, if it were at all possible, to rid himself of Desore at the earliest convenience.

The barge made a smooth crossing between the two ships. They had launched only when they saw a boat come down from the Ioanna, and a few men clamber into it. Antonio hoped that the Ioannas were true to their word and it truly was their sailing master and pilot aboard. Without them, the ship’s navigation would be crippled. The two boats passed each other at the midpoint in the crossing and made polite greetings before continuing on their way.

With the skill expected from any Islander on the seas, be he sailor or marine, the captain’s barge was manoeuvred alongside the Ioanna and Antonio was the first to climb up to the foreign deck. He was greeted by the man he had spoken to and invited, with his marines, down to the stateroom.

From first impressions, the Ioanna was a trim ship. Not, of course, to a military standard. But one that a civilian Islander sailor could be proud of, and any continentals would be jealous to see. Sailors looked lively, the deck was swabbed to near enough a mirror finish, and not an inch of rope was out of place. The impression continued as Antonio was led into the ship itself, to the stateroom in the rear. He told the marines to return to the deck, while he entered alone.

Two people awaited him, a man and woman. The man, in an outfit of stark white from fustanella to cap, stopped mid-pace to face Antonio. It was an unfortunate colour, for how all the sweat soaked through. His complexion, probably olive in other circumstances, was more tomato.

The woman sat behind a grand oak desk. It was the desk that initially drew attention, for its ostentatious material. The Islanders, everyone knew, were the greatest shipbuilders in the world. Yet, the five main islands boasted of little space for forests and so the kind of good hardwood required to build those ships was tightly controlled. For anyone other than a shipwright to buy it was either exorbitantly expensive or outright illegal, depending on the city it hailed from. A desk of pure diamond would have made less of a statement.

Comparatively, the woman herself was nondescript. Short, with clothing and hair that boasted functionality over style. Her mouth was a determined line and her eyes hard stones.

Antonio removed his cap and bowed his head to each of them in turn. It was the man who approached.

‘Captain Varidis,’ he said by way of introduction.

‘Captain Garzzini,’ Antonio replied. They shook hands. The woman cleared her throat.

‘And may I introduce my employer, Mistress Ioanna Skrekis,’ Varidis continued, gesturing towards her.

‘How do you do, ma’am?’ Antonio wondered at the name. Had she named her ship after herself? And why did she own one in the first place?

‘Rather better if you would leave my ship in peace, Captain.’

No seat was offered. Antonio bristled under her gaze. It was like standing before the admiral.

‘It may have escaped your notice, but you ran a blockade,’ he said.

Mistress Skrekis shrugged. ‘An illegal one.’

‘I am ordered to escort you back to Atkorini. And to take any measures necessary to avoid the alternative. Any measures necessary, you understand?’

‘Gods!’ Varidis exclaimed. ‘Please, Ioanna, see reason, finally. Let me turn this ship around while we still can.’

Skrekis gazed death in his direction. ‘Control yourself in front of our guest.’

She stood and turned her back to the men, looking outside of the grand aft window. The Lucy loomed large. If she fired her chaser guns again, the occupants of the stateroom would be the first to know. Antonio wondered if Mistress Skrekis had been watching when that last warning shot flew directly towards it.

‘You won’t take us by force,’ she said, her voice firm. ‘Your admiralty, your lesser council, and your prince all know that would mean war, and that war with Atkorini means war with Xhodesi too. You wouldn’t risk it. You just want trade concessions. War isn’t worth it.’

‘I wish you were right,’ Antonio said.

She turned back, surprise in her eyes. ‘But you would lose! Against the combined might of two fleets, even Thema could not emerge victorious. And what if the great powers of the continent decide to have their say? We all know they weary of your attempts to monopolise Gulf Sea trade.’

Antonio weighed his options. If he was frank, perhaps he could reason with her, though it would require him to divulge that which he should not.

‘There is a secret treaty,’ he said. ‘When Xhodesi declares war on Thema, Thasionos is obligated to join us. And the continentals have been approached. In the event of war, they will maintain joint non-intervention.’

‘This has been planned, then,’ she said.

‘It has,’ he confirmed.

‘Do your masters desire war?’

‘They do.’

‘And this could be the trigger?’

‘I hope not.’

‘Ioanna,’ Captain Varidis said, moving to join her. ‘Please. We tried. But we cannot risk the ship, your husband’s ship, being captured or, gods forbid it, sunk. Nor can we be responsible for dragging our city into war. I only regret that I let you talk me into slipping the blockade in the first place.’

‘You know I have no choice,’ she said. ‘I would lose the ship anyway. At least this is an approach Stephanos would have been proud of.’

‘Your husband would have put your own safety above all else. Including the ship.’

‘Ma’am,’ said Antonio, ‘I do not understand your reticence, but may I add my own urging to your captain’s.’

‘Do you not? Perhaps this will help. The Ioanna is and always has been a ship of merchant adventure. My husband’s, passed to me. I am her namesake, after all, and long managed the financial side of our business. I have a hold full of cargo but have been stuck in port these past two months. I have debts to pay and contracts to fulfil. The ship herself is my collateral.’

A merchant adventurer. Increasingly uncommon, these days. Most ships were owned by the great merchant companies, who split their wares across their many vessels. Others might merely rent out their hold space, and act purely as transports.

The true merchant adventurer captain owned his own ship and his own wares, making his money trading from port to port. The profits could be enormous, but so could the losses, especially if anything happened to his ship, leaving him with no means to continue plying his trade.

For all that, the merchant adventurer life was a romantic one that appealed to any Islander sailor – either becoming or serving under one. Many were the naval captains who had left the service to buy a merchantman with their prize money and make their fortune. Few were the successes. But then, that only heightened the romance of the thing.

‘I can only say that continuing on your current path will not help put you back in the black,’ Antonio said.

‘You mean that you truly shall take the Ioanna?’ asked the woman of the same name. ‘Good. At least then I shall receive the insurance.’

‘You’re insured against being taken as a prize?’

‘Against piracy.’

The word was a slap to the face. Worse was that he had little response to it.

‘You think they would pay out? Surely not when you put yourself is such danger unnecessarily. At least if you return to port without being taken, you will retain your cargo. That’s something.’

‘It’s not enough,’ Mistress Skrekis said.

‘But it is better than nothing,’ Varidis intervened.

‘A morsel in the mouth of a starving man would strike me as a cruel jest more than a kindness,’ she said.

‘Ma’am,’ said Antonio, ‘we are talking about war. Where is your loyalty to your city, that you would risk it on the off-chance – the no chance, really – of saving your own enterprise?’

‘Where’s yours? You clearly do not wish to fight. So let us go.’

Antonio was beginning to regret letting his true colours show.

‘I cannot,’ he said. ‘I have orders.’

‘And the sword cannot be blamed for how it is used. Except, the sword has no say in the matter. You do.’

‘This is not about me, ma’am.’

‘How comforting that must be, to have superiors. And they, of course, have superiors above them. Even our princes defer to the gods. I, alas, must take the weight of my decisions upon my own shoulders.’

‘If not for patriotism, do it for family. You must still have some. Do you wish for them to live through war?’

‘I have a daughter,’ said Mistress Skrekis. ‘What will become of her future, if I am left destitute?’

‘How old?’

‘Nine.’

‘Mine is six. I would like to see her again soon.’

‘Then it sounds as though you are the one who should change course,’ Skrekis countered.

‘There is one path, and one alone, if we wish to avoid conflict. Take your ship back to port, so I needn’t capture her. I beg of you, Mistress Skrekis: let us pull together.’

‘I can’t. I won’t.’

A pause. Antonio glared past Mistress Skrekis, through the grand window and at the Lucy. Which is why he alone in the stateroom saw the shot – the smoke from it, at any rate – before they heard it.

Heads turned and Antonio watched in open horror as a ball of iron thrown with the fury of the gods flew between the ships, hardly visible. It passed above the window. Directly above, or near enough. Antonio’s first thought, what would surely be all of their thoughts, was for the masts.

‘What is this ploy?’ Skrekis demanded. ‘You ask to talk, then attack us?’

‘My lieutenant was asked to demonstrate our determination,’ lied Antonio. ‘To remind you that, should I fail to convince, the roar of guns can continue the conversation.’

‘Consider it noted, Captain,’ replied Varidis. ‘And let me stress that a second reminder would be entirely superfluous.’

‘If you have struck us, I consider all words already over,’ said Mistress Skrekis. She marched out of the stateroom, leaving the men to hurry after her. Antonio composed his face, fearful that his adversaries would see his own surprise and anger, before following.

They emerged onto the deck. The tension and fear hung thick in the air. Sailors looked all around, surely knowing full well there was little they could do to prevent attack. That they were entirely powerless. Antonio knew well the feeling.

He lifted his gaze to the sails but could make out no damage. The shot hadn’t hit, then. He hoped that had been the intention, but for the second time could not be sure.

‘I shall return to my ship,’ Antonio said, to take the initiate. ‘You have another half hour to turn about. If you do, I shall escort you back without a shot fired. If you do not, I will capture the Ioanna.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Skrekis.

Back in his barge, making the return crossing between the ships, Antonio let himself feel his anger at being disobeyed. He was up the side the moment his barge touched the Lucy’s flank.

‘I should drag you before the admiral and a court martial,’ he said to Desore before the other man could speak. His voice was low enough not to travel on the busy deck.

‘What for, sir?’

‘Why did you give the order to fire? You were explicitly told not to.’

‘No, Captain, I was not. You gave me permission to issue another warning shot if I thought they were attempting to flee. I judged they may be.’

‘I told you to warn them before firing,’ Antonio said.

‘As I understood my orders, you told me to issue my warning verbally and though cannon before firing upon them with intention to hit. But you did not specify a sequence. I decided that another shot would be most effective before telling them it was coming.’

‘I was with their captain. He issued no commands.’

‘I was not. I couldn’t be sure, sir. And I thought that a shot over their deck, after we fired previously to either side, would drive home the threat.’

Antonio knew what he had meant by his order. Desore had betrayed his intentions, and knew it.

The captain’s righteous fury was forgotten, or, at the least, set to the side, as he went about his next task. The Ioanna, ship and woman, had to feel her hunter breathing down her neck. He used the time he had given her to manoeuvre the Lucy abreast of the Ioanna on her windward side, so they were broadside to broadside and he held the weather gauge. The Lucy’s nine starboard guns faced three, of some pitiful poundage, on the Ioanna’s larboard. A beautiful display of seamanship on the part of his crew. It filled him with pride in his command.

‘Sir, they’ve had their half hour,’ said Lieutenant Desore, bringing Antonio back to the moment.

‘Not quite,’ Antonio replied in a disdainful growl. ‘There’s movement on their deck. They could still tack to starboard.’

‘To run, perhaps.’

‘Thank you, Lieutenant. If you could make a round of the guns.’

‘Yes, sir.’

There were crews at each of those nine pieces facing the Ioanna, with shot and powder enough to smash the other ship into driftwood. It wouldn’t come to that.

There truly was movement on the other deck. They couldn’t be preparing to run again: they knew they would not succeed. At least, they knew a determined captain could take them before they managed it. But did they think him a determined captain? Antonio feared they did not. Worse, he was beginning to share those doubts.

On the Ioanna, rope was heaved and sail went up. Antonio cursed. Any sailor could see it. They were trying to escape.

‘Captain!’ Desore shouted, running up to Antonio with a smile on his face. ‘They’ve done it, though you granted them every chance. Give the order!’

The captain breathed heavily, his hand clutching the orders in his pocket. Was that all he was, a conduit for transcribing orders from the admiralty to his sailors?

‘Sir? You must—’

‘Be quiet, Desore.’

The gods pulled him in every direction, damming him whatever he did. He took control of himself. He was a father, and a husband, and a citizen. And a sailor and an officer. Forgive me, he thought, not knowing to whom he prayed.

‘Fire.’