Navy Man
Note: Image associated is from Ironage.media, specifically their writing prompt 'The Inferno'
You see a lot of the world as a sailor. It's often the promise used to lead a young man to the service, whether for King, country or the siren song of wealth and adventure. What they didn't tell young Joseph Lefward was what would happen if war broke out while he was aboard.
He had signed on as a midshipman 3 years back, only days after his 12th birthday, eager to learn the sea merchants' trade. He had been raised in a port town close to the docks, and from the earliest days he could remember, he was fascinated by the hulking ships that floated so gracefully amidst the waves. He had once begged his mother to let him see the commissioning of the first "Ironbelly", the latest design at the time, a metal monster that many assumed would never float. Now he stood on her successor, the Merchant ship Lautilde, and had just survived his first battle at sea.
His Captain, despite his many grumblings against it, had accepted a shipping contract from their home port's governor. "I may have no desire to shed any blood, mine or others, for our dear King, but I like his money well enough." This was the reason given when the other officers were informed of the cargo to be taken on. Several objected, a Lieutenant Nathaniel Maban most vehemently, saying, "I didn't leave his damn navy to die for it all the same." He was jeered as a coward by younger officers, as the older men stayed quiet, knowing the Captain's mind was made already. Now he lay dead in the lower decks, caught and torn into pieces by the enemy corvette's guns as he organized the half-trained gun crews of the Lautilde. None dared call him a coward now nor allow it from others, least of all those men that had seen him try to stand again on nonexistent legs as he died.
Luck had seen them through at a heavy toll. 7 officers dead, 29 crew, and half again as many were injured from both, their lives forever altered, assuming they could be spared infection. Joseph had been on the upper decks, out of range of the Corvette's guns, close as it chose to stay, hiding in the shadow of the Lautilde. Their escort, HMS Semper Spectans, had been a daring sort, it seemed to him, and that daring had saved what crew remained alive. They had stayed back, trying to appear as simply being on patrol, not protecting the Lautilde, until they saw the Corvette beelining straight for her. Then it was all alarms, the thunderous roar of cannons, powder smoke stinging your eyes, and fear so thick you could touch it. The crew debated what had all happened and how long it lasted quietly as they watched the Corvette burn and sink, now being towed along by the Semper Spectans. Battle-tested they all were now, and they all knew how on their own, they would not have lived.