Longitude
1706- Plymouth
“Bloody idiot!”
His father tossed the file on the desk with a contemptuous snort. He’d been lying on the floor by the fire, copy book open in front of him. His mother said mildly,
“Language, Charles.” Then, having looked up from her reading and seen the fury in his face, frowned, “What is it?
He waved a hand at the papers, “Six ships lost off Scilly and God knows how many men all because the man in charge was too bloody minded to countenance he might be wrong.”
They’d been out by two days and fifteen degrees, and the admiral had hanged the man who knew it and said so, for undermining his command. Two hours later and they’d torn apart every ship in the fleet against the jagged coastline.
His father’s scorn not with-standing, they’d gone to the funeral, of course. There was open, palpable mourning. Somehow, that man had been loved, by the papers, by his community, by his colleagues.
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