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| Henry "Jecks" Falstaff | |
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| Topic Started: 22 Nov 2008, 09:38 PM (295 Views) | |
| Aztec Gold | 22 Nov 2008, 09:38 PM Post #1 |
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OOC Info Username: Henry Jecks, DeathBlow How did you find out about AG: from a friend Have you read the rules and agree to abide by them? Yes. Character Biography Given Name: Henry Surname: Falstaff Nickname: Jecks Age: 26 Sex: male Ethnicity: English Country of Birth: England Current Whereabouts: Port Royal Occupation: none Former Occupation(s): student, loblolly boy, 'surgeon' Parents: Henry (deceased) and Jacqueline Falstaff (missing, presumed dead) Siblings: Henry (deceased), Silas (29, missing, presumed dead), Emily (deceased), Katherine (deceased), Saufeia (22), Samuel (deceased) Children: none Avatar: Joe Anderson Description: Henry is a thin man with a light build and average height. His bearing is tense and somewhat uncertain, a condition due largely, but not entirely to the fact that his life has lost almost all definition. He takes refuge in his work, finding security in the routine (when it exists) and relief in the opportunity to focus completely on something outside of himself and his circumstances. And so it is in his work and only there that his manner reflects confidence, for it is only there that he feels able to retain some shred of identity. His serious, blue-green eyes are expressive. He has difficulty keeping his feelings out of his eyes and for this reason is an abysmal liar. On occasion, he can mask one emotion with another (fear with anger, for example), but a good liar can always tell the difference. He has a pale face, framed by dark brown hair. In better times, he let his hair grow long enough to tie back in a queue, but since then has cut it short out of convenience. Overshadowing his eyes are dark brows which are often knit together in the worried frown which has become his typical expression. In personality Henry is reserved, even shy. He is an earnest young man and from an early age has been regarded as being excessively serious. His emotions, for the most part, are very much internalized. This sometimes gives the impression that he is intentionally veiling his feelings, when in fact he simply has difficulty expressing them. In better times his wardrobe consisted primarily of simple but well tailored clothes, preferably with a military cut. Currently, however, he is garbed in the battered, ill fitting set of clothes (consisting of a pair of baggy trousers, a shirt and a thin, grey, moth eaten coat several sizes too large) provided to him by captain of the slaver. Strengths & Weaknesses: Privileged Upbringing: As a result of his family's (initial) wealth, Henry was given a first rate education. It was lovely while it lasted, but proved nearly useless once Henry hit society's bottom rung. He was semi-qualified to be a surgeon and overqualified to be a surgeon's mate; after a few years doing amputations aboard the Antigone, he might have been able to find work at a butcher's. Other than that, he has no marketable skills. However he still retains his upper class dialect and this, in and of itself, is an asset in certain circumstances, for, depending upon a person's dialectal and social prejudices, his way of speaking can make him seem alternately trustworthy or pretentious. Education: Never one for social events, Henry devoted himself to his studies, particularly the classics. He reads both Latin and Greek fluently and has read the great authors and poets of those languages extensively. Besides Latin and Greek, he also speaks fluent French (a skill which proved vital during his time aboard L'Herisson) and has a rough grasp of Italian at the reading level.. As his studies progressed, he developed an interest in medicine and later went on to study it at the University of Edinburgh. Awkward: Henry has always been a naturally quiet fellow; however polite conversation is one of the things expected of a gentleman in civilized society and so Henry was introduced to the art of speaking when one has absolutely nothing to say. He was a failure at small talk from the very first and for this reason finds most casual conversation stressful. He is incredibly self conscious while speaking, overly aware of his own mistakes and easily embarrassed by them. In order to avoid such situations, he tends to forego speaking altogether unless spoken to directly. Thin Skinned Perfectionist: Henry is experienced enough to know not to expect perfection from others, but still naive enough to expect it from himself and while this drives him to excel, it is not without consequences. When he fails, which is often, he takes each failure personally, an unhealthy practice which leads to continual frustration and eventually, if he is allowed to dwell on them, to depression. Trigger Discipline: Or lack thereof. Beyond the basic notion of point and click, Henry has no idea of how to properly handle a firearm. In this particular case, ignorance is not bliss and in fact proves to be quite disastrous. History: Henry Falstaff (the elder) was a wealthy businessman, a wine merchant out of Liverpool who was coasting on the successes of his forbears. This is not to say that Henry Falstaff was a poor businessman; he could satisfactorily maintain the status quo, but he had no head for gambling or investment and could never have raised the business to its current standing on his own. He was a well liked man though, respected by both superiors and subordinates alike. He loved strong wine, younger women and good company. Conversely, he loathed his wife, was estranged from his children (with the exception of his eldest son, Silas, whom he was grooming to take over the family business) and rarely came home if he could avoid doing so. Jacqueline Falstaff had been a beauty in her early days, but quickly lost her shape after seven children and an extravagant lifestyle. She was self absorbed and locked inside her own head, living in a reality of her own, where she was the epitome of feminine perfection, an ideal mother and a wife who could do no wrong, enduring an insufferable husband with grace befitting a saint. The world outside, however, was quite a different matter. Unlike her husband, Jacqueline Falstaff was not well regarded by the community. She was artificial, shallow and carried herself with such extraordinary airs that one would think she was a member of the high aristocracy rather than the wife of a merchant. Her sole ambition at social gatherings was to appear better than everyone else. The four Falstaff children to survive to adulthood were as follows: Silas. Being the eldest, with his father's easy manner and his mother's appetite for advancement, Silas was the obvious choice for the future head of the family business. The attention given him by their father and his natural aloofness separated him from his younger siblings from a young age and once he was old enough to work for his father, he jumped at the chance to further distance himself from his mother (and consequently his siblings). Henry. A great disappointment to both parents. He was the namesake (the second attempt at a namesake) and his father had held high hopes for him to continue in the business like his brother, or at the very least purchase a commission in the army and ride his uncle's coattails to a respectable rank. However none of these alternatives appealed to Henry. He had no interest in business whatsoever and, though the army had always held a fascination for him, he knew that he could never take himself seriously as an officer and that consequently no one else would. His mother, having been by and large, deprived of Silas, turned to Henry as her newest plaything, a boy whom she could play matchmaker with and give advice to on the various 'needs' of women. And so she was understandably aghast when, as soon as he was old enough to exercise some measure of independence, Henry chose to shun the social circles of his family and peers as much as possible, preferring the company of Sophocles and Tacitus to the prattle of the dance hall. As his studies progressed, he began, much to his father's further disgust, to develop an interest in medicine and after numerous arguments and a tedious amount of bargaining, he finally procured his father's permission (and more importantly his financial support) to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He loved Edinburgh and did exceptionally well in his studies; however his education was ended prematurely and he was forced to return to Liverpool for urgent, but at the time, unspecified reasons. Katherine. Kate had inherited her mother's wild streak, but with none of her pretensions or masks. Many young men chased her, but none would dream of marrying her; there were too many scandals circulating for her to make a respectable wife. But Kate didn't seem to care. She was having fun and that was all the mattered at the time. Jacqueline Falstaff, though feigning displeasure at the scandal which constantly followed in her daughter's wake, grew increasingly jealous of Katherine, attempting to insinuate herself into the company of her daughter and her friends and flirt with Katherine's young men (to the horror of all present), but her daughter quickly learned to take her company elsewhere and Jacqueline Falstaff was left to salve her envy with vicious snubs and derisive remarks to Katherine whenever the chance presented itself. Katherine frequently quarreled with Henry who thoroughly disapproved of her behavior. However, they always reconciled before long. With the estrangement of their father and the emotional absence of their mother, it was left to Henry and Kate (largely aided by the various servants and slaves) to raise themselves and the younger children. As a result the two had become incredibly close, though one wouldn't have guessed it from their constant bickering. Saufeia. The youngest of the four, Saufeia was the image of a perfect lady. She enjoyed the social scene, but was equally happy curled up in the library with a volume of poetry or practicing her needlepoint or her music. Although she was the youngest, Saufeia seemed old for her years. Gentle yet firm, she was always the peacemaker between Henry and Kate. In public she was carefully demure, but amongst friends she would occasionally reveal a playful, mischievous side. She had many offers of marriage, but at the age of 15, she became engaged to a young naval lievtenant. However, the wedding was postponed because her father did not believe the young man to be adequately secure financially. And so Saufeia waited. She waited faithfully for 3 years with only the occasional letter and one brief visit for comfort until shortly after she turned 18 she received word that her fiance's ship and all hands had perished in a storm somewhere off the coast of South America. Saufeia was, understandably, devastated. Despite her parents' increasingly persistent suggestions that she reconsider her many still standing marriage proposals, Saufeia began to withdraw from society. She spent more and more time in the library with her poems and her music. *** The night Henry arrived home was deceptively mundane. Dinner was unpleasant as usual as were the mandatory few hours spent listening to his mother chat about absolutely nothing After their parents had gone to bed, the three siblings had a somber, private reunion of their own, speculating upon what urgent matter had caused their father to summon Henry back so suddenly. Unable to sort out the mystery they eventually retired with the intention of confronting their father the next day. In the small hours of the morning, Henry was roused from sleep by a servant who informed him that his father wished to speak with him in the study. He followed the servant out of his room and down the corridor but hesitated before Kate's door. He was inexplicably afraid. He did not get on with his father, but he had never feared him. He did not fear him now, but for whatever reason, that night, he could not bring himself to stand before him alone. Before he could knock, however, the door opened and Kate emerged. She gave no explanation and he asked for none; they silently followed the servant to the study. When they entered the study, they saw their father hunched over in an armchair. He was very, very drunk, but still somehow coherent. He informed them about that, two years go, he had been blackmailed ("Never mind why. Suffice it to say that refusing to comply would have meant immediate financial ruin," he had snapped at them when they asked.) for an enormous sum of money. The loss would have been obvious and so he took out several loans and began what was to become a series of reckless investments in order to make up the lost funds. The investments were failures (including the one which involved sending Silas to the West Indies. Silas had written over two years ago to report the venture's collapse and they had not heard from him since) and he was heavily in debt. Finally, he had managed to squeeze a favor from a friend who was in the lending business and withdraw a loan for far more than was normally allowed to someone in his circumstances. He put this as well as all his remaining assets together to finance one last venture which, if successful would more than make up for his debts. But Fortune did not smile on him and he had received word several days ago that he has lost his final gamble. He then proceeded to inform them quite calmly that the creditors would be there by the end of the week to collect everything. They would be turned out into the street and would receive no help from their friends because by that time rumors of the blackmail and the reasons for it would be circulating and they would be twice disgraced. Equally calmly, he had pulled a loaded pistol from the drawer beside him, placed it to his head and —before either of his aghast children could react— pulled the trigger. And so, Henry Falstaff the senior left his family with a dead body and a mountain of debt. A quick glance through his father's books, showed Henry that even if the creditors took the clothes off their backs it would not be enough to break even. If they stayed, they could spend the rest of their lives rotting in a debtors' prison. So they ran. Taking what money they had with them and a few valuable yet portable items, they left that very night. They managed to make it to London and find lodging in a decently priced boarding house. However, they were not used to living within such limited means and their money was soon nearly gone. They managed to squeeze another week out of their dwindling supply of coins by moving into the cheapest boarding house they could find. These poor living conditions proved too much for Jacqueline Falstaff. She had been berating her children for days on their failure to care for her properly, demanding to be allowed to go home, whimpering and whining, refusing to contribute in any way. She threatened to leave them, to report them to the authorities, to tell their father (refusing to accept the fact that he was dead). And then one afternoon the three of them returned to the room they were sharing and Jacqueline was gone. They hadn't actually expected her to make good on her threats of running away, but none of them believed for a moment that this was a permanent development. It was just another of her cries for attention. She'd been doing things like this since they could remember and they weren't having any of it. She would come back that night or the next day and the whole circus act would start all over again. But she never did come back. Whether she was struck by a carriage or found some well meaning idiot to help her, they would never know. After two days had passed they began to search the surrounding area for her, but to no avail. There were three of them left now, and it was necessary for them to find some means of supporting themselves. Kate found work remarkably quickly. She made excuses at first, but eventually claimed that she was getting odd jobs at a bakery. Saufeia also managed to find some employment, working for a seamstress. However, try as he might, Henry could not find work. At least that is what he told his sisters. In fact, Henry had had several, albeit unsavoury, opportunities for employment, but could not bring himself to stoop to performing such menial labour. He salved his conscience with the thought that he was really holding out for a job with better pay which would allow him to provide for Saufeia and Kate. But the truth was far more selfish. It was in the middle of yet another fruitless search for employment that he came across Kate leaning languidly against the side of a building which was painted as gaudily and absurdly as the faces of the women outside it. Confused he started to approach her. But before he reached Kate, a uniformed man brushed up to her, grabbed her most indecently and attempted to drag her inside. Instead of being outraged or striking him as Henry would have expected, she laughed coquettishly and would have followed him inside had Henry not at that moment irately interposed himself between them. Impatient at this interruption, the officer roughly pinned Henry against the side of the building and it would have come to blows had Kate not tactfully intervened. With a promise that she would meet him inside and a whispered suggestion of what lay in store for him, she persuaded the man to leave them. Furious with himself for his failure to provide for his family and that his selfishness had forced his sister to demean herself so, Henry instead lashed out at Kate. They quarreled briefly and heatedly and the row ended with Henry stalking away. He wandered aimlessly, lost in thought for a time, but was abruptly brought back to reality when he suddenly found himself surrounded by a gang of unsavoury looking individuals. They roughed him up, stole his coat and shoes and might have taken more had the arrival of a party of sailors not caused them to disperse. Struggling to his feet, Henry addressed himself to the officer who appeared to be in charge, urging him to go after the thieves and recover what they had stolen. To Henry's utter bewilderment, the officer laughed and ordered the men there to seize Henry. When he struggled, one of the tars knocked him unconscious and the next thing he knew, he woke up vomiting in the belly of a ship to learn that he had just ‘volunteered’ to serve in His Majesty’s Royal Navy aboard HMS Antigone. When asked to sign his name to the books, Henry listed his middle name—Jacques (an unfortunate whim of his mother’s)—as his last name for fear that someone might recognize his surname and report him to the authorities. The bored warrant officer, who could apparently read a little, glanced suspiciously from him to the name he had scrawled, “Henry….Jecks?” And so Henry Jacques Falstaff became Henry Jecks. At one time he might have cringed at this butchered pronunciation, but he was suddenly past caring. His last conversation with Kate replayed itself over and over in his head. His sisters would think he had abandoned them. Kate would think he had left because he was ashamed of her. Enjoyable would not be a word to describe Henry’s introduction to maritime life. The warrant officer in charge of designating duties assigned Henry as a loblolly boy to the ship’s doctor, more as a joke than from any belief in his qualifications. And Henry’s initial relief soon dissolved when he realized just how much of a joke it was. The man claiming to be the ship’s surgeon was nothing like the physicians he had known at Edinburgh. The self styled ‘Doc’ was an alcoholic who considered himself to be a realist, his job to be that of a glorified butcher, and comfort and decency to be medical myths. It was his habit to ensure he was half in his cups before every battle, a practice which he performed with all the ritualistic solemnity of a priest. His name was Fletcher, but no one called him by it. Instead he was known as ‘Doc’ by those he liked, ‘Sir’ by those he didn’t and simply ‘Doctor’ by those who neither liked him nor were liked by him and whose rank protected them from any repercussions. The first several months at sea were bad for Henry. He was not exactly a bold man, but he could be stubborn when it came to the treatment of those he considered himself responsible for. His fresh-from-medical-school ideals clashed markedly with Fletcher's experience and the result was far from pleasant. Fortunately (if one can call it that), rather than report it to a higher authority, Fletcher considered it his prerogative to deal personally with Henry’s insubordination (i.e. the beatings will continue until morale improves). As the months passed, however, life began to fall into a pattern Henry could recognize and he took refuge that. The surgeon’s crusade to re-educate Henry began to rely more upon verbal lessons than physical abuse. And while Henry was still dubious about many of his superior’s methods, he was grudgingly beginning to see the practicality behind many of them, even the man’s drinking habit. As the months progressed, Henry's duties began to resemble less those of a loblolly boy and more those of surgeon's mate. It was the better part of 3 years before Henry saw England again. He disembarked at Spithead for a several week shore leave and began the journey to London on foot. He was not sure what he had been expecting when he arrived, certainly not what he found. There was no trace left of the tumbledown boarding house where he and his sisters had stayed; it had been torn down (or perhaps it had finally given in to gravity and fallen of its own accord) and had been replaced by a new building, a tavern whose proprietors knew nothing of two young women who had lived in the previous establishment. Next in line was the brothel where he had seen Kate working. He couldn’t remember exactly where it was or what it was called and when, after much searching, he finally found it, he had to walk past it several times before he could summon the resolution to step inside. But here too the story was much the same. No one knew or remembered any girl by the name of Kate who answered to his description. Apparently the turnover rate there was rather high and if anyone did know something they weren’t talking. It was growing dark by the time Henry found the home of the seamstress Saufeia had been working for. She informed him that there was a girl, Sophy, who worked for her every now and then. And, though it took a full week's pay to jog her memory, she eventually she told him where to find the girl. By the time Henry reached the cooper’s house, where the woman told him Sophy could be found, it was quite late. The house was dark and Henry couldn’t quite bring himself to knock. Tired, hungry and feeling completely lost, he sank to the ground, leaning against the door jam. Whatever lay behind that door, he could face it in the morning. In the morning he found out that, against all hope, this was indeed Saufeia’s house. But she was not the girl he remembered. She had grown harder and looked far older than she was. She was married with 2 young children and another on the way. It had been a marriage of necessity: the cooper had been newly widowed and needed a wife to look after his young son, she had needed food and a roof over her head. Henry and Saufeia talked quietly for a short while with awkward bursts of conversation and far more awkward spaces of silence. From Saufeia he learned that Kate had died in childbirth only the month before. He didn't stay long. Everything was so foreign that, though he was ashamed to admit it, he was relieved to depart. Most of what was left of his money had gone to Saufeia. She had tried to refuse it, but in the end he had persuaded her to keep it and promised to arrange for her to receive half his pay. With what was left, he began the long trek back to Spithead, staying in a cheap inn by the docks for the final few days of his leave. It was not until he was alone that the news of Kate's death really sunk in, and he had many long, solitary days of walking in which to fully process everything which that entailed. Long buried guilt resurfaced with a sudden intensity and he seemed to crumple under the weight of it. Back aboard the Antigone, life took on a bleakly permanent feel. He had not realized until now just how desperately he had been clinging to the hope of 'making things right', of restoring Kate and Saufeia, perhaps not to their former status, but at least to a decent standard of living. With this hope gone, he felt even more lost than before. He blamed himself for Kate's death, and the guilt made him want to lash out at everything. Obviously this was unacceptable aboard a military vessel, and Henry did his best to keep his frustration in check, though even Fletcher (who did his best to remain emotionally oblivious) noticed how on edge he was. The spark that finally set Henry off came in form of the ship's junior lievtenant. The man came into the infirmary one morning when Fletcher was elsewhere. The officer was in a hurry and Henry was in the middle of treating another patient. The atmosphere of the infirmary made the officer uneasy and he was impatient to leave, but when he demanded priority because of his rank, Henry's pent up anger finally found a target. It wasn't until after the verbal altercation, however, that Henry's mind caught up to his mouth and he realized just how grave an error he had made. He was sentenced to 30 lashes for "gross insubordination". It was several months later that the Antigone took a prize: the French pirate sloop, L'Herisson. The captain of the Antigone selected a skeleton crew to man the prize, and per suggestion of Fletcher, Henry was sent aboard as well to deal with the wounded French prisoners and any other potential casualties. However, four days later the prisoners led a revolt during which they sustained heavy losses but still managed to re-take the ship. It was now the Antigone's men who were forced into the brig, with the exception of Henry who was kept under guard in the infirmary. The fate of L'Herisson's prisoners was a subject of heated debate, but it was eventually decided to set them adrift in one of L'Herisson's long boats and let them fend for themselves—again, with the exception of Henry who was still under guard in the infirmary. The sloop's carpenter/surgeon had recently died of Yellow Fever, and with a large percentage of his crew now wounded, L'Herisson's captain decided to keep Henry on board at least until the current casualties had died or recovered. There were still several of Antigone's wounded in the infirmary, but Henry managed to persuade the captain of L'Herisson to let them live as leverage for his (Henry's) good behavior since, for all the French captain knew, Henry was capable of subtly killing off L'Herisson's wounded one by one in retribution for the lives of his comrades. This was a new low for Henry. Being pressed into service by one's own government was one thing. Being pressed into the service of a Frog pirate was quite another. What’s more, a Frog pirate who wouldn’t know a screw tourniquet if it was strangling him (a course of action to which Henry would have been sorely tempted had he been thus equipped). However, Henry’s initial resentment of his captors soon faded to resignation. Aside from a lack of supplies and harsher treatment, his job on L’Herisson was no different than it had been aboard the Antigone. Men were men; they all suffered from the same ailments and they all died; it didn’t make much difference who was paying their wages. Despite its incongruous name, L’Herisson was doing well for itself. So well, in fact, that it attracted more unwanted attention than usual. This particular unwanted attention took the form of HMS Fury, which finally ran them down nearly a year after they found Henry floating in the ocean. Henry was in the makeshift surgery, tending to the first wave of wounded when L’Herisson was boarded. He had expected the boarding party to come crashing into the surgery. What he hadn’t expected was for one of his patients to pull a pistol from god knows where and train it on the intruders. A well aimed shot buried itself in the man’s skull and several less well aimed shots lodged in the far wall. The man in the lead, a naval lievtenant, drew his sword and began advancing, followed by two marines. Fearing the situation would escalate into a mass execution, Henry grabbed the un-fired pistol from the dead man’s hand and pointed it at the officer. More surprised by the fact that Henry was shouting in ‘un-accented’ English than by the pistol in his hand, the officer checked momentarily. An explosion on the deck above them caused Henry to start. The pistol in his hand leapt up and back, clocking him in the face. He recovered in time to see the officer’s head disappear below his line of sight and then there were two sharp cracks and the next thing he knew he was lying flat on his back, his own blood soaking through his shirt. One musket ball had passed through his right side. The other had shattered his left collarbone. The surgeon aboard the Fury pulled the musket ball out of his shoulder, stopped the bleeding and slapped a few bandages on him, but beyond that did nothing more than what was absolutely necessary to keep him alive. He was a traitor to the Crown and was only alive now so that he could be tried and hanged. Once his condition was deemed to be no longer critical, he was brought before the captain and officers for an ad hoc trial. It was an empty gesture, purely for the sake of formality, but for Henry it was twenty-five minutes of hell. He wanted to disappear, but the watery sensation in his legs offered only the possibility of falling onto the floor boards, not through them as he would have liked. One of the marines standing behind him had to reach forward and grab the back of his shirt collar from time to time to keep him from pitching forward. The inevitable verdict of guilty was reached and the date for the hanging set for the next day. The officer whom Henry had killed had been a popular one, however, and there were those among the crew who believed hanging to be too clean a death for a traitor. He was woken roughly in the middle of the night, taken out of the brig and dragged to a remote corner of the ship. A filthy rag was stuffed in his mouth to muffle his cries. That done, the men in question proceeded to exact their vengeance. They beat Henry half to death before they finally decided finish the job. They tied his wrist to an empty keg, sliced a shallow gash in his leg and tossed him over the side, confident that he would soon be shark bait. It took Henry several moments to regain consciousness after he hit the water. But with the help of the rope still fastened to his wrist, he managed to claw his way to the surface and cling to the bobbing keg. When the sun rose the next morning, he was still there, but the Fury was nowhere in sight. Henry wasn't sure if he felt relieved by this or not. He knew there was no hope of being rescued by another ship, but somehow the prospect of drowning was even less appealing than death by dehydration or exposure (death by shark had not yet occurred to him) and so he continued to cling to the keg. It was three days later that he noticed a sail on the horizon. He assumed it was a hallucination and tried to ignore it. However, the hallucination continued to grow in size until it was nearly on top of him and rather difficult to ignore. Someone on board had spotted him. He didn't remember much else after being hauled from the water, not for several days. When he did regain full consciousness, he learned that he was on a slaver, fresh from Africa heading to the Caribbean. Henry saw little of how the slaves were treated aboard ship. But the smells and the sounds he could hear when he lay awake at night more than compensated for a lack of visual images. He began to feel as though he were living in the outskirts of a waking nightmare, like Alighieri before the gates of hell. He glimpsed the world behind the gate only once, when one of the seamen brought him down to show him the hold. The grisliest scene on the surgeon's table could not have prepared him for what he witnessed there. Dante had been an amateur in the conception of human suffering. The horror he felt then stayed with him for a long while after and he was only too glad when the ship finally put into port. The ship was headed to Kingston, Jamaica but the captain was making a stop in Port Royal to try to sell off some of the sickest slaves to one of his contacts at a discount price. Otherwise some business man in Kinston would buy them for an even lower price and sell them himself, assuming they survived, to the Port Royal market for an obscene profit. Kingston would, perhaps, have been a better disembarkation point than Port Royal, but without any money, it didn't really matter; Henry simply wanted to get off the ship. So, taking his leave of the captain, he disembarked and went ashore, joining the ranks of the penniless strays who wandered the streets, invisible, for the most part, to the rest of society. |
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7:46 AM Feb 9
