: The admiral's walk by Merwin Sam Kiemle H W Henry William Illustrator - Science fiction; Short stories; War stories; Time travel Fiction; Ships Fiction; Nelson Horatio Nelson Viscount 1758-1805 Fiction

@FreeBooksThu 08 Jun, 2023

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THE ADMIRAL'S WALK

The thin little man in the blue coat with the tarnished gold braid sat at the desk in his cabin and wished for fatigue to overwhelm him. He was tired, tired with a fatigue which had been creeping slowly upon him in recent years--and had come on apace in the past few months. Now it was in his very bones.

It was the cold fatigue of an old man--and he was far from old as the world counted years.

He eyed the gleaming bottle of black West Indian rum that stood in its barricaded tray on the table to his left, and his blue eyes lit with a gleam of purpose. Forgetfulness, even sleep, lay in its turbid depths.

But such sleep was not for him with the night already so far spent. The morrow lay close upon him, the morrow toward which his every faculty had been sternly impelled for so many long and unrewarding months. And behind those months lay the many weary years.

Actually, until the issue was joined, there was little he could do. To show himself on deck would reveal a nervousness that might result in a disastrous echo among the men who relied upon him for victory.

His senses hyper-acute, he heard the slap of brine against the waterline, its rhythm never twice the same, yet never varied, so that a man could pick out the difference. He watched idly as the swaying cabin lamp made the shadow of the bottle on the table dance a minuet.

All around him was the wakeful dormancy of a mighty ship asleep--as other ships lay in similar unreal quiescence fore and aft, ships whose commanders were bound by oath to obey his every whim, bound by oath and the fealty his reputation inspired.

It was terrible to hold supreme command on the eve of battle; terrible and frightening. The light supper he had eaten lay heavy on his stomach.

Despite the battles he had fought, the victories he had won, such malaise had never failed to visit him when action loomed close. It was twenty-five years since he had first felt it.

Then he had led a malaria-ridden crew against the well-fortified defenses of San Juan in Nicaragua. It was a comparatively minor mission, one suited to a twenty-two-year-old commander on his first independent assignment. He had thought never again to be troubled with it once the victory was won.

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