Fletcher's Fortune Quotes

“clubhaul,”
― J.C. Edwards, Fletcher's Fortune

“In addition, to fetch cartridges up from the magazine, we had a shrivelled child of uncertain age, by the name of “Nimmo”. He was one of about twenty ship’s boys that lived in dank corners of the vessel down below the water-line. Phiandra’s boys were all street urchins that had been “saved” by the Marine Society, who caught them, cleaned them, fed them a bit, gave them the scrapings of an education and parcelled them off in batches to serve afloat. Captain Bollington approved of this scheme and took his ship’s boys from no other source.”
― John Drake, Fletcher's Fortune

“action, Mr Seymour always had our guns laid point blank. Contrary to what I thought, this does not mean “very close” but to level the gun at zero elevation so the shot would skim flatly across the water to its target. That way there was no need to judge distance. Within its point blank range, what a gun pointed at, got hit - in theory, at least. And for our eighteen pounders, that range was 300 yards.”
― John Drake, Fletcher's Fortune

“So if ever you’re on a ship where they rig the hand-lines, then take my advice: go below, get the largest bucket you can find, and stand by to heave.”
― John Drake, Fletcher's Fortune