Shipboard progress
2 January 2018 07:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeFinally lurching towards the big dénouement where Erik gets Christine's address and goes off in chase of her, after a lot of issues with the chapter. I've more or less decided that I'm stuck with Raoul as lieutenant in spite of discovering that in the novel he can only just have finished his studies and would have been no more than an aspirant (no wonder Philippe had to pull strings to get him on board that expedition!) Twenty-one seems rather old to be starting out as a midshipman to me, but maybe I'm influenced by my knowledge of Nelson's day where the midshipmen arrived as boys with unbroken voices; Raoul had just graduated from the equivalent of a university education...
*checks* Well, the current entry age appears to be 16-17 minimum for a three-year course; assume seventeen, add six months' extended leave, and that takes you up to 20-21, which is Raoul's stated age at the start of the novel. This may well not reflect 19th-century practice, though: British officer cadets in the 1860s spent a year in a moored training ship at the age of fourteen or fifteen, then four years' active service in the Fleet as midshipman before they took lieutenant's exams.
Anyway, given that my plot already has Lancard using binoculars as officer of the watch, Raoul responsible for giving orders which lead to the breakage of the maintopsail yard, and Raoul and Lancard inhabiting a cabin of their own (and there's probably no historical backing for that either, since British officers at least got individual cabins, however tiny; it's as bad as fanfic writers giving Cambridge students 'room-mates', and done for the same reason of enforced conflict between opposites), I feel that trying to make him retrospectively into a midshipman at this stage just conflicts with too much of the story as conceived and written so far. I've never explicitly stated his rank, and anyone who knows enough about the French Navy to deduce that it's wrong will be able to detect all sorts of other howlers :-(
[Edit: 31 Jan 2019: Well, I have subsequently been addressing Raoul explicitly as 'lieutenant' (having forgotten all about this issue!), so that's pretty much definite now.]
I've also spent ages worrying about the ending of this chapter: originally Raoul was going to discover the empty envelope, look out of the porthole, and see Erik rowing ashore in a stolen boat. However, I really don't think Erik would be able to launch a ship's boat single-handed even if they were conveniently hanging in davits and swung out, let alone do so without someone on deck spotting what he was up to long before he got any usable results.
Fortunately I've already established that the letter was lying unattended on Raoul's berth while they were moored, so Erik could have read it and simply stepped ashore before they left. But if Raoul doesn't actually see Erik leave, how can he be so sure that his enemy has stolen a march on him by remaining behind on land and letting him be carried off helplessly to sea again?
So then I thought Raoul could find the letter mutilated, thus indicating that Erik has found it, cut out the address, and presumably acted upon the information. On the other hand, this means that Raoul actually gets to *read* Christine's letter, which feels wrong for the story -- and that Erik can't traumatise Christine by waving it at her and quoting from it. Well, I dare say he can still quote from it; offending phrases have probably burnt themselves into his brain :-(
So then I visualised Erik deliberately scribbling all over the letter so that Raoul *can't* read it, then leaving it for him to find (with the missing address) as a taunting act to proclaim what he has done -- which seemed in character, and probably enough to drive Raoul to despair even without witnessing Erik's dwindling figure rowing back towards the land. I still have a vague wistful feeling that Erik might have contrived to bring his *own* boat on board (some kind of lightweight/collapsible canoe) out of a desire to be able to leave the ship independently at any time... but launching it would remain a major issue. The Requin isn't a warship so he can't climb out through a gunport, and he can't very well just drop a canoe over the side and jump into it; it's a long way down. He could probably arrange to let it and then himself down on the end of a rope if he had to, but in any case it doesn't really make sense for Erik to delay until he has to leave by boat, given a scenario where he finds the letter while the ship is still moored. He'd be a fool not to just step onshore while he could.
I was also wondering whether I ought not to combine this new role of the snooty fellow-officer Valéry Lancard with that of the sailor whom Raoul gets heroically injured rescuing in the boat trip with d'Artois, and who then leads him to Christine in the Norwegian port; it would make an effective character arc, with hostility evolving to friendship, but Lancard really doesn't correspond with the cheery lower-deck type I'd envisaged, the sort of chap who would be happy to converse by gestures and pidgin in a foreign ale-house. And since he is senior to Raoul, surely Raoul wouldn't end up in command of the two boats after the wreck with Lancard still around?
I suppose it's possible that Lancard might have conscientiously swotted up enough Scandinavian during the Requin's preparations to be able to cope in emergencies (or gather the existence of a fellow-countrywoman in distress in a foreign port!) And if he is injured in the wreck, then he wouldn't be in any condition to take command. But then would d'Artois seek to take a seriously injured man on a desperate small-boat voyage? Might account for why he gets into trouble and needs help at Raoul's expense... though I still haven't worked out just how Raoul gets hurt, or where!
If I *don't* use Lancard, should I be introducing my eventual salt-of-the-earth character during this chapter in advance? (I've basically run out of opportunity to do that, so the sailor would have to be inserted retrospectively.) It does seem a bit silly to create two OCs on board the same ship but only have them appear consecutively -- or is this sailor in fact one of d'Artois' men? But I sort of wanted the idea of Raoul living down the reputation of 'the de Chagny curse' among the survivors of the crew, now that Erik is gone...
Still not decided.
*checks* Well, the current entry age appears to be 16-17 minimum for a three-year course; assume seventeen, add six months' extended leave, and that takes you up to 20-21, which is Raoul's stated age at the start of the novel. This may well not reflect 19th-century practice, though: British officer cadets in the 1860s spent a year in a moored training ship at the age of fourteen or fifteen, then four years' active service in the Fleet as midshipman before they took lieutenant's exams.
Anyway, given that my plot already has Lancard using binoculars as officer of the watch, Raoul responsible for giving orders which lead to the breakage of the maintopsail yard, and Raoul and Lancard inhabiting a cabin of their own (and there's probably no historical backing for that either, since British officers at least got individual cabins, however tiny; it's as bad as fanfic writers giving Cambridge students 'room-mates', and done for the same reason of enforced conflict between opposites), I feel that trying to make him retrospectively into a midshipman at this stage just conflicts with too much of the story as conceived and written so far. I've never explicitly stated his rank, and anyone who knows enough about the French Navy to deduce that it's wrong will be able to detect all sorts of other howlers :-(
[Edit: 31 Jan 2019: Well, I have subsequently been addressing Raoul explicitly as 'lieutenant' (having forgotten all about this issue!), so that's pretty much definite now.]
I've also spent ages worrying about the ending of this chapter: originally Raoul was going to discover the empty envelope, look out of the porthole, and see Erik rowing ashore in a stolen boat. However, I really don't think Erik would be able to launch a ship's boat single-handed even if they were conveniently hanging in davits and swung out, let alone do so without someone on deck spotting what he was up to long before he got any usable results.
Fortunately I've already established that the letter was lying unattended on Raoul's berth while they were moored, so Erik could have read it and simply stepped ashore before they left. But if Raoul doesn't actually see Erik leave, how can he be so sure that his enemy has stolen a march on him by remaining behind on land and letting him be carried off helplessly to sea again?
So then I thought Raoul could find the letter mutilated, thus indicating that Erik has found it, cut out the address, and presumably acted upon the information. On the other hand, this means that Raoul actually gets to *read* Christine's letter, which feels wrong for the story -- and that Erik can't traumatise Christine by waving it at her and quoting from it. Well, I dare say he can still quote from it; offending phrases have probably burnt themselves into his brain :-(
So then I visualised Erik deliberately scribbling all over the letter so that Raoul *can't* read it, then leaving it for him to find (with the missing address) as a taunting act to proclaim what he has done -- which seemed in character, and probably enough to drive Raoul to despair even without witnessing Erik's dwindling figure rowing back towards the land. I still have a vague wistful feeling that Erik might have contrived to bring his *own* boat on board (some kind of lightweight/collapsible canoe) out of a desire to be able to leave the ship independently at any time... but launching it would remain a major issue. The Requin isn't a warship so he can't climb out through a gunport, and he can't very well just drop a canoe over the side and jump into it; it's a long way down. He could probably arrange to let it and then himself down on the end of a rope if he had to, but in any case it doesn't really make sense for Erik to delay until he has to leave by boat, given a scenario where he finds the letter while the ship is still moored. He'd be a fool not to just step onshore while he could.
I was also wondering whether I ought not to combine this new role of the snooty fellow-officer Valéry Lancard with that of the sailor whom Raoul gets heroically injured rescuing in the boat trip with d'Artois, and who then leads him to Christine in the Norwegian port; it would make an effective character arc, with hostility evolving to friendship, but Lancard really doesn't correspond with the cheery lower-deck type I'd envisaged, the sort of chap who would be happy to converse by gestures and pidgin in a foreign ale-house. And since he is senior to Raoul, surely Raoul wouldn't end up in command of the two boats after the wreck with Lancard still around?
I suppose it's possible that Lancard might have conscientiously swotted up enough Scandinavian during the Requin's preparations to be able to cope in emergencies (or gather the existence of a fellow-countrywoman in distress in a foreign port!) And if he is injured in the wreck, then he wouldn't be in any condition to take command. But then would d'Artois seek to take a seriously injured man on a desperate small-boat voyage? Might account for why he gets into trouble and needs help at Raoul's expense... though I still haven't worked out just how Raoul gets hurt, or where!
If I *don't* use Lancard, should I be introducing my eventual salt-of-the-earth character during this chapter in advance? (I've basically run out of opportunity to do that, so the sailor would have to be inserted retrospectively.) It does seem a bit silly to create two OCs on board the same ship but only have them appear consecutively -- or is this sailor in fact one of d'Artois' men? But I sort of wanted the idea of Raoul living down the reputation of 'the de Chagny curse' among the survivors of the crew, now that Erik is gone...
Still not decided.