VI.
An Ensign Consigned
King George’s colours stir in the fog-laden air - roiling and snapping in the gust which rent the night with a chill as sharp as the keenest cutlass; slicing to the very marrow. . .
Enshrouded against the unending tirade of the Tempest’s harbingers, the waxed, enveloping fabric no bane of the steady saturation which deluged a figure of nigh-legend, whose sea-grey eye cast bitter and brooding gaze across the viscillation far below the coils and confusion of rope and sail; and offered up vengeful prayers to whatever maritime gods may pay heed. Reginald James Coram, equally drenched as the tormented ensign, cut a shadowy figure perched, as he was, high in the reaches of the Insuperable’s rigging and one that did much to belie his status as Captain of the lost and limping sea-wolf which dragged its tattered frame through unknown waters and against unknown numbers of an unknown foe...
[Captain Reginald James Coram]:
Thalassic vista from corvine promontory;
How my blood burns to see adversarial sails engulfed in flame!
Summon the storms!
Upon tumultuous waves
To Poseidon sworn -
Lend me thy rage!
The sail is trimmed
As we turn in to the wind
(Though sea-fogs abound)
Raise the ensign! Let cannon resound!
With fire and iron let us take them down!
For Britannia - She who rules the waves,
Death or Glory shall we taste this day.
Through the fog’s enveloping shroud
A black mast stark against white background
What hellish portent is this?
Incendiary doom emerges from the mist
Crimson tongues the pitched boards lick
We face the fire-ship!
For I always knew I would die at sea . . .
But by such cowardly recourse?
My pistol’s primed - I draw my sword
Ready the cannon once again!
The sea it’s own shall claim
Nine miles from the Infernal Gates,
The Green awaits,
Luscious and verdant,
Where the Ocean's tumult cannot reach
Nor Damnation penetrate.
Burning cinders caught on the wind, (searing eyes and scorching already parched throats...)
Give no quarter and steel yourselves to fear:
(We shall greet death with war-songs on our lips!)
Hail the ensign! Guns again resound!
Soon enough, these splintered decks shall drown.
Not for Britannia but our souls themselves,
If we're to perish we'll drag them down to Hell!
Such peace when damnation beckons...
Burning cinders: rise on the wind!
Destruction carried as if on Phoenix’ wing
Wolves of inclement seas
In cacophony
And violence meet
In rage collide;
A pyre alight
(To ravage the skies)
Caught between the burning decks
And ocean's depths
To which an ensign is consigned!
While the Insuperable’s legend lives on, history does not record the fate of the revered and much beleaguered vessel, much less it’s erstwhile captain; the latter of which came as something of a relief to the rigidly starched and structured ranks of the officers whose positions were gained far more by wealth than merit.
Yet, those born to wave, spray,wind and surf know well the stories of the Captain Atop the Mast, whose indistinct figure can be glimpsed in seabourne mists and fogs of cannon-smoke; whose laughter echoes as the discharge of that fearsome battery and whose fate is to be forever carried on the selfsame waves ‘neath which that heraldic blazon flies still.
