D Cornish - Factotum

With a final flourish of music, and a "Hurrah!" from the throng and a splash of sour wine on its sharp ram, the iron-clad man-of-war slid stern first with surprisingly little noise into the Grume, the workers on its deck riding the motion with practiced ease. A great swirl of milky green waves and the half-done vessel was free, all the pent potential of its gastrines in their element at last, the shackled beast set free. Soon they would be turning, taking the weight of the screw and the vast bulk of wood and iron for the first time.

The former longing to serve a'sea beat a weak memorial in Rossamund's bosom, making time with the drumming. Yet his enthusiasm for a life in the Senior Service was surprisingly diminished, a memory of hope. Bidding mute farewell to this old dream, he watched sheer-drudges come to tow the new-launched ram to a watery berth where masts, cannon and all the appurtenances of a fighting vessel would be added.

The elephantines were wheeled away through doors in the stone at the back of the balcony, the band packed instruments in carriages and trundled away, and the multitude dispersed until Rossamund was one of the few still watching on the sand.Wishing to hear the soft lapping of the vinegar removed from the pounding of industry, he decided to take an amble south, away from the slipways and the piers and the sheer mill-side walls. With great expectation he took off his boots and, for the first time ever, walked unshod upon an ocean shore. He squeezed the swarthy sand with his toes in delight, grinning unselfconsciously at the cool air puffing against his cheeks. Insensible in his glee to the filth and kelp-rot, he walked about the many slight curves and bays in the seaside and through the high leg-frames holding aloft the cable housings of tidal millwheels. He jumped over the faucetlike openings of creeks and drains, stopping to examine the ooze and the rippling filament algae in their effluent while swallows darted overhead, dashing to and from modest nests poked into rotten stonework cavities and under eaves, soft clicks in the sky as they snapped at near-invisible bugs.

Farther yet he went until the throb of gastrine enginry became muted to something almost tuneful. In quiet joy he watched the stocky red crabs that diddled jaunty sideways dances, waving cheerfully at him with their singular large claws. With a twist of iron he found half entombed in the silt he prodded at the kelp, washed from the coastal deeps where great forests of the weed grew and made the inshore waters less caustic. A hiss of flight caused him to look up and see a blue heron, neck bent back on itself, swoop in to harry a crab. With a mighty whoop, Rossamund danced down the strand, waving his hat and driving the bird off before it could make a meal of the pitiable critter. He laughed for pure delight as the heron flapped a quick retreat, winging past him with a single croak and a glare of wounded dignity. This, he decided, would have to be the best Domesday vigil of his brief span in the world.

With a hungry lurch in his innards, Rossamund chewed an insubstantial morsel-a crust end from the Dogget amp; Block-and pressed on south. Enjoying the lack of urgency beyond his own empty innards, he watched a row of weed-bunts and their diligent kelp-gathering crews draw about the sagging frame of a disused cofferdam and pass a wallowing prison hulk, ugly, black and rusting. He could not help but imagine the poor souls-deser ving and undeserving together-mouldering in its dark holds: souls like those miserable shackled people he had seen in the spokes.

A mute fluttering dart and a Tweet! above him drew Rossamund's attention. He looked up to find his little sparrow-spy hopping along the stone arch of the gateway to another flight of steps. It peered down at him in turn, beadily unafraid. In a kindly, thoughtless gesture, the young factotum offered his last morsel of crust to nibble. To his amazement the diminutive bird landed boldly in a bluster of nervous wings on the knuckle of his thumb and pecked with remarkable strength at the morsel, black defiant eyes regarding him closely.

Marveling at this plucky bird, Rossamund suddenly declared, "You need a name!"

The sparrow blinked at him.

Nothing clever came to mind.

He is brown, I suppose…, the young factotum observed rather obviously. And he dashes and darts about, he pondered a little lamely, sooo… Darter… Brown?

"Darter Brown." He spoke it out.

It was an odd name, yet the self-important little creature chirruped brightly as if in approval.With something akin to excitement it leaped up to perch on Rossamund's hat brim, causing the thrice-high to list over his eyes.

Rossamund drew his coat collar about his neck and continued his little seaside adventure. Back on the sand he walked farther south, following the meager convex strand, Darter Brown flitting along before him, chasing fat, lazy maritime flies. Going about an outward kink in the shore, they came across a boneyard of vessels left rib-exposed in the tidal muds, stripped of iron, masts and cordage. Their chines protruded corpselike from the silt, skeleton wrecks wallowing unwanted to rot in the shallows, sheltering wading flocks of dappled sandpipers and red-legged stilts.

Maybe a hundred yards away on the inward bend of the kink, a group of well-dressed gentlemen were loitering on the sand, looking powerfully out of place in their urban finery. Something oddly furtive in their manner gave the young factotum pause, and one striking fellow caught his particular attention. Standing maybe forty yards apart from the main group, this gent was resplendent in a long frock coat of slick carmine with black longshanks and high bright-blacked boots; his hair-tied in a whip-stock-was of the most surprising milk-white. Though he knew of white-blond hair, Rossamund had never seen such a thing, and its singularity was magnified by the peculiar location in which it was discovered. Words he did not catch were traded between this white-tressed gallant and the group. A second individual stepped from their midst, his baton-tailed hair a more ordinary brown but his attire of iridescent forest green no less splendid. There was a shout and the group stood away, scaling the begrimed sea wall by a long, jointed ladder that they must have brought themselves, leaving White-hair and Brown alone on the black strip. Another call and the two were suddenly flourishing pistols, one in each hand, brought out quick like true pistoleroes testing their speed. The quadruple hiss-CRACK! of their discharge came as a single stuttering report, their flashes of smoke whipped away by the rising winds.

At the sound Rossamund naturally ducked as if a mere bundle of drying kelp could protect him, hands fumbling for his potives in their unfamiliarly new digitals.

Darter Brown took wing and vanished over the wall.

Both had shot, yet only White-hair went down, folding in on himself like the closing of a well-made test-barrow. With a kick of sand in his foe's direction, Brown-hair sprang laughing up the ladder, his chums peering down from above sharing the joke. Once he was safely at the top, the ladder was hauled away and the white-haired duelist left writhing on the shore alone.

The cold, tingling touch of the encroaching tide on his toes brought Rossamund to sense. Running as quickly as only partly firm sand will permit, the young factotum approached the man, calling as he got close, "Ahoy, sir! Are you well? Ahoy!" Skidding as he stopped a few cautious feet from the double-bent fellow, Rossamund bent down himself. "Are you badly done in, sir? Where are you shot?"

"I'm not shot," came the muffled reply, filled as much with impatience as pain.

"Pardon?" The young factotum craned further, trying to see the fellow's face, still buried in the huddle of his arms.

White-hair suddenly sat back and in a fright Rossamund did the same.