We'll rant and we'll roar like true British sailors...with a soldier

[simplestgift]

Who: Norrington (abidinglaw ), Hornblower (captainhornblower ), Sharpe (greenjacketed ), Bush (wouldntbetonit ), Kennedy (simplestgift ), and Wellard (bravelad ).
What: Officers' dinner.
When: The 23rd at four o'clock
Where: The captain's cabin of the Britannia
Summary: Archie's feeling like recapturing some of the magic officer dinners used to have when Aubrey and Maturin were here.
Rating: A is for Awkward, B is for Bonaparte, C is for Cinnamon, D is for.../shuts up

So Archie isn't Aubrey, but he's tried to make things warm and have lots of good food.  He's done pretty well, but his attempts to replace the captain of which he was so fond aren't perfect.  The beef is, perhaps, just a tad drier, the pudding a teensy bit too moist, and other such nitpicks, but hey.  One of you try it.

Comments

[abidinglaw]

Sharpe had had the opportunity to humiliate him in front of the entire table, and chose instead to defuse the tension that Norrington had been gathering around them away from either himself or the admiral. This tells Norrington as much about the man as he cares to know right now, but he feels he owes him something for the manipulation. It was for that reason that he deigned to fill his glass -- an acknowledgement of his own foul play -- and it is for that reason that he does not turn away and engage someone else, or absorb himself in his meal.

"If our battles seem slow to you, sir, you would be utterly bored by the gaps in between."

[greenjacketed]

"Aye, sir. I was."

Sharpe lied with only a quirk of a smile. The scar on his cheek tended to turn his expression sour until a smile temporarily erased it. This one, however, did not erase it for long. But Sharpe had to lie because the truth was a difficult thing indeed -- he could not simply come out and tell a whole table of men that the gaps in between had been filled by a lovely woman. A lovely, sad woman.

And even if he could tell them, he probably still wouldn't. Our Dick Sharpe doesn't kiss and tell, lads.