Protected: Time Wasting at Work

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Time Wasting at Work

Burgled from and because I have time on my hands –

Rules:
*bold those you’ve read
*italicise started-but-never-finished
*add three of your own
*post to your livejournal

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. 1984, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Susskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George’s Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O’Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte’s Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie’s World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Gross-mith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews
201. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
202. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
203. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan
204. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan
205. Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan
206. Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan
207. Winter’s Heart, Robert Jordan
208. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan
209. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
210. A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan
211. As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto
212. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
213. The Married Man, Edmund White
214. Winter’s Tale, Mark Helprin
215. The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault
216. Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice
217. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell
218. Equus, Peter Shaffer
219. The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten
220. Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
221. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn
222. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice
223. Anthem, Ayn Rand
224. The Bridge To Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
225. Tartuffe, Moliere
226. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
227. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
228. The Trial, Franz Kafka
229. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
230. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles
231. Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther
232. A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen
233. Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
234. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
235. A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
236. ALIVE!, Piers Paul Read
237. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono
238. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde
240. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
241. Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson
242. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
242. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
243. Summerland, Michael Chabon
244. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
245. Candide, Voltaire
246. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl
247. Ringworld, Larry Niven
248. The King Must Die, Mary Renault
249. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
250. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle
251. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
252. The House Of The Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
253. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
254. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
255. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson
256. Chocolate Fever, Robert Kimmel Smith
257. Xanth: The Quest for Magic, Piers Anthony
258. The Lost Princess of Oz, L. Frank Baum
259. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
260. Lost In A Good Book, Jasper Fforde
261. Well Of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde
261. Life Of Pi, Yann Martel
263. The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver
264. A Yellow Raft In Blue Water, Michael Dorris
265. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
267. Where The Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
268. Griffin & Sabine, Nick Bantock
269. Witch of Black Bird Pond, Joyce Friedland
270. Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, Robert C. O’Brien
271. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
272. The Cay, Theodore Taylor
273. From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
274. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Jester
275. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
276. The Kitchen God’s Wife, Amy Tan
277. The Bone Setter’s Daughter, Amy Tan
278. Relic, Duglas Preston & Lincolon Child
279. Wicked, Gregory Maguire
280. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
281. Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
282. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum
283. Haunted, Judith St. George
284. Singularity, William Sleator
285. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
286. Different Seasons, Stephen King
287. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
288. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
289. The Bookman’s Wake, John Dunning
290. The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns
291. Illusions, Richard Bach
292. Magic’s Pawn, Mercedes Lackey
293. Magic’s Promise, Mercedes Lackey
294. Magic’s Price, Mercedes Lackey
295. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav
296. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Jack L. Chalker
297. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
298. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, Brenda Love
299. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace.
300. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison.
301. The Cider House Rules, John Irving.
302. Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
303. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland
304. The Lion’s Game, Nelson Demille
305. The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, Stephen Brust
306. Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh
307. Foucault’s Pendulum, Umberto Eco
308. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
309. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk
310. Camber of Culdi, Kathryn Kurtz
311. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
312. War and Rememberance, Herman Wouk
313. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
314. The Giver, Lois Lowry
315. The Telling, Ursula Le Guin
316. Xenogenesis (or Lilith’s Brood), Octavia Butler (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago)
317. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold
318. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
319. The Aeneid, Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil)
320. Hanta Yo, Ruth Beebe Hill
321. The Princess Bride, S. Morganstern (or William Goldman)
322. Beowulf, Anonymous
323. The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell
324. Deerskin, Robin McKinley
325. Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey
326. Passage, Connie Willis
327. Otherland, Tad Williams
328. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
329. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
330. Beloved, Toni Morrison
331. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore
332. The mysterious disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel, Ellen Raskin
333. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
334. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
335. The Island on Bird Street, Uri Orlev
336. Midnight in the Dollhouse, Marjorie Filley Stover
337. The Miracle Worker, William Gibson
338. The Genesis Code, John Case
339. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevensen
340. Paradise Lost, John Milton
341. Phantom, Susan Kay
342. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice
343. Anno Dracula, Kim Newman
344: The Dresden Files: Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
345: Tokyo Suckerpunch, Issac Adamson
346: The Winter of Magic’s Return, Pamela Service
347: The Oddkins, Dean R. Koontz
348. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
349. The Last Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
350. At Swim, Two Boys, Jaime O’Neill
351. Othello, by William Shakespeare
352. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
353. The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats
354. Sati, Christopher Pike
355. The Inferno, Dante
356. The Apology, Plato
357. The Small Rain, Madeline L’Engle
358. The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard E Cytowick
359. 5 Novels, Daniel Pinkwater
360. The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Juliet Marillier
361. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
362. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
363. Our Town, Thorton Wilder
364. Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King
335. The Interpreter, Suzanne Glass
336. The Moor’s Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie
337. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson
338. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
339. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
340. The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
341. Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg
342. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy
343. Howl’s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
344. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
345. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo
346. Shosha, Isaac Bashevis Singer
347. Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck
348. The Diving-bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
349. The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer Clouston
350. Time for bed by David Baddiel
351. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
352. Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre
353. The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley
354. Sewer, Gas, and Eletric by Matt Ruff
355. Jhereg by Steven Brust
356. So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane
357. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
358. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
359. Road-side Dog, Czeslaw Milosz
360. Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
361. The Bible
362. The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter
363. The Dumas Club-Arturo P?rez Reverte
364. Neither Here Nor There-Bill Bryson
365. Around the World In Eighty Day-Jules Verne
366. Asterix, Goscinny and Uderzo
367. Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
368. A Streetcar Named Desire, Tenneessee Williams
369. The Iliad, Homer
370. The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas
371. Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson
372. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
373. A Fare well to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
374. Tithe, Holly Black
375. Insomnia, Stephen King
376. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
377. Smoke and Mirrors, Neil Gaiman
378. Tiger Eyes, Judy Blume
379. The Thief of Always, Clive Barker
380. The Egypt Game, Zilpha Keatley Snyder
381. Watchers Out Of Time and Other Stories, H.P. Lovecraft
382. Dragonlance Chronicles, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
383. The Fat Girl’s Guide to Life, Wendy Shanker
384. Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
385. The Queen Of The Damned, Anne Rice
386. Head On, Julian Cope
387. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland
388. Down and Out in Paris and London, George Orwell
389. The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides
390. The Far Side of the World, Patrick O’Brian
391. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence
392. Baudolino, Umberto Eco

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Protected: Conspiracy Theorists’ Paranoia or True Evil

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Conspiracy Theorists’ Paranoia or True Evil

Read this article in the newspaper this morning. It is probably just a bunch of conspiracy theorists getting all hot and bothered, but it was very convenient in it’s release and as Al Qaeda usually seem to release their stuff on an Arabic TV Network Not sure even Dubya and his cronies are capable of this though –

Who killed Nick Berg?
May 29, 2004

Conspiracy theories about how the kidnapped American died in Iraq are flying around the world. Richard Neville explores the explanations.

Iraq in flames, Washington an object of disgust. What to do? At this pivotal moment, CNN and Fox News are tipped off to a clip of an American citizen being beheaded. The victim is a 26-year-old idealist from Pennsylvania, Nick Berg. Despite the perpetrators being masked, the vile deed is deemed the work of al-Qaeda.

The clip was first “discovered” on an Islamic website in Malaysia. Its Arabic title reads “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American”. al-Zarqawi is a 38-year-old Jordanian militant who fled to Iraq in 2001 after reportedly losing a leg in a US missile strike. al-Zarqawi’s face is widely known and he credits himself with the deed, so why a mask?

The timing of the video was brilliant for the West. Media pundits judged the crime a deeper evil than the systemic torture of innocent Iraqis. But some people sensed a rat. But if it was not al-Qaeda, who? Surely not Uncle Sam. That’s too dark, even for the CIA.

While this video shows a human body having its head chopped off, it does not necessarily portray an act of murder. Berg’s headless body was found dumped on a Baghdad roadside on Saturday, May 8.

Three days later, the “live beheading” clip was uploaded from London to the Malaysian website http://www.al-ansar.biz. The statement in the video is signed with al-Zarqawi’s name, dated May 11. After Fox News and CNN had downloaded the video, it disappeared from the site.

As no autopsy is available, little is known about the state of the body. No time of death, no forensic analysis. On April 6, a month before the discovery of the corpse, Berg had been released from custody. But whose custody?

Dan Senor, adviser to the US Presidential Envoy in Iraq, has said Berg was never held by the Americans. Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, the Coalition’s deputy head of operations, claimed he was in the custody of Iraqi police from March 24 to April 6. However, the Iraqi police chief, Major-General Mohammed Khair al-Barhawi, told Associated Press “the Iraqi police never arrested the slain American”.

Berg’s family are certain his jailers were the US military. His father, Michael, had been told so by the FBI. He has produced an email from a US consular official in Baghdad, Beth Payne, confirming that his son was in the hands of the US. (Later, another official said this was an error.) On April 5 in the Philadelphia office of the US Supreme Court, the Berg family had launched an action against the US military for false imprisonment. The following day, Berg was released.

The issue of custody is significant; in his final moments on screen Berg is wearing an orange jumpsuit of the kind familiar from Guantanamo Bay. The official reasons for Berg’s arrest were “lack of documentation” and “suspicious activities”. He carried sensitive electronic equipment for which he lacked documents. In custody, he was visited three times by the FBI. Such interviews are bound to have been recorded but no transcripts have been produced.

After his release, Berg travelled to Baghdad and the $30-a-night Al-Fanar Hotel. A fellow hotel guest told Newsday that Berg recounted how Iraqi police had quickly handed him to US authorities in Mosul and that he had been held the entire time in a jail where his guards were US soldiers.

Berg was in Baghdad to win contracts for his family firm, Prometheus Methods Tower Service, a provider of communications facilities. He often “worked at night on a tower in the neighbourhood of Abu Ghraib”, according to The New York Times.

The family last heard from him on April 9, when he said he was planning to leave Iraq via Kuwait as soon as it was safe. Berg was last seen walking with his bags the following day, apparently hoping to find his way through the turmoil engulfing the city and make it to the border.

On March 7, 2004, two weeks before his arrest in Mosul, an “enemies list” had been posted on a conservative website, FreeRepublic.com. The list was compiled from signatories to an anti-war petition, and its implied purpose was to encourage readers to harass those it named.

Berg’s father was on that list, as was the family firm, Prometheus. This information may well have triggered the arrest of Berg in Iraq.

Berg’s politics are not clear. His father, Michael, has described his son as a “staunch supporter” of US President George Bush. Friends said Nick believed he could help rebuild Iraq “one radio tower at a time”. According to The New York Times, he was attracted to the Hebrew concept of tikkun olam – healing the world through social action.

The first few seconds of the video shows Berg sitting on a white plastic chair in an orange jumpsuit. He speaks directly to the camera in a relaxed way: “My name is Nick Berg … I have a brother and sister, David and Sara. I live in Philadelphia.” His white chair is identical to those in the photographs of the Abu Ghraib prison tortures, but such chairs are probably common in Iraq. It is highly likely that this segment is edited from the interrogation of Berg during his 13 days of custody.

In the next scene, Berg is sitting on the floor with five masked figures standing behind him. We do not see the figures enter. Berg looks lifeless, though his body appears to make slight movements. A man reads a lengthy Arabic statement in a passionless monotone. He is identified as “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi”, a Jordanian associate of Osama bin Laden who is tied to dozens of terrorist acts.

Yet a leaflet recently circulated in Falluja, by no means a reliable source, claims that al-Zarqawi was killed in the Sulaimaniya mountains of northern Iraq during a US bombing. A US military report last month has claimed al-Zarqawi was killed in the bombing of Falluja.

Also, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has said that al-Zarqawi was fitted with a prosthetic leg in a Baghdad hospital, yet the tape shows no evidence of a limp. CNN staff familiar with al-Zarqawi’s voice have been quoted as saying the voice does not sound like his.

Among the many curiosities raised on the web about the fanatical five are:

· They are well-fed, fidgety, and reveal glimpses of white skin.

· Their Arabic is heavily accented (Russian, Jordanian, Egyptian).

· An aside in Russian had been translated as “do it quickly”.

· One character wears wears bulky white tennis shoes.

· The man on the far left stands in the familiar “at ease” military posture.

· The men’s scarves are worn and tied by people who “haven’t a clue”, says conspiracy theorist Hector Carreon, like actors in Hollywood movies.

· There is even a voice at the end that seems to ask in English, “How will it be done?” [http://www.aztlan.net/nick_berg_how_done.htm]

None of this proves a grand conspiracy, but it does raise questions. In the final segment of the tape, Berg is thrown to the ground, but doesn’t move. During the decapitation, starting at the front of the throat, there is little sign of blood. The scream is wildly out of sync, sounds female, and is obviously dubbed.

Dr John Simpson, executive director for surgical affairs at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, told Ritt Goldstein of the Asia Times, “I would have thought that all the people in the vicinity would have been covered in blood, in a matter of seconds … if it [the video] was genuine”.

Simpson agrees with other experts who find it highly probable that Berg had died before his decapitation.

But there is still the problem of Berg’s slight body movements while sitting on the floor, before the beheading. According to a blogger (internet diarist), Nick Possum, “this footage was subsequently modified frame by frame to make Berg’s body move very occasionally”. Apparently, this can be achieved with “commonly available software”. [http://www.brushtail.com.au/nick_berg_hypothesis.html]

Possum believes “the available evidence surrounding the case suggests that it was a ‘black operation’ by US psychological warfare specialists … to provide the media with a moral relativity argument to counter the adverse publicity over torture at Abu Ghraib”. The use of FBI footage in the opening sequence, if confirmed, suggests the involvement of high-level US Government operatives.

I do not know who killed Nick Berg, or how he died. But there’s something fishy about this video.

In the end, the question is: who killed Nick Berg, and why?

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Protected: A Friendship Dissected – Chapter 14 – Deadly Games – Part 2

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A Friendship Dissected – Chapter 14 – Deadly Games – Part 2

Title:A Friendship Dissected – Chapter 14 – Deadly Games – Part 2 Characters: Stephen, Jack, Bonden, Fox, Killick, Amos Rating: NC-17 Spoilers for The Thirteen-Gun Salute Disclaimer: Characters borrowed from Patrick O’Brian & his heirs on a non-profit basis Warning: Violence against much loved character, read at your peril. A Friendship Dissected Chapter 14 – Deadly Games – Part 2 He stood and walked to the rail to look ahead, searching the ocean and smiled as he saw the spout of a whale and the fluke of the creature now above the water as if waving to him. He smiled and thought, ‘Yes, there were good times on that cruise I do remember them. The unpleasantness with Fox was minor in comparison with the joy I experienced then.’ ‘Yes, off Tristan da Cunha what a day? There was Jack’s emergency of course, the danger of being smashed on to the cliffs, but Jack saw to that with his usual efficiency. Do I take for granted his competency as a commander? Perhaps I do. Would many other men have been able to save the Diane from the danger she was in? Very few, I expect, but then I never felt at any time that he would not find a way to save us from the danger. I must try to attend more closely when he explains nautical things to me, perhaps then I will understand and appreciate his skills more readily and not just accept them, take them for granted. No, but my mind was not on the horrid dangers of a lee shore, no I was totally absorbed by the sheer abundance of the ocean that surrounded us. I would never take that for granted. The Port Egmont hens, Cape pigeons and the four kinds of petrel and boobies and prions and terns and outnumbering them all penguins that were diving in and out of those blue glassy walls of waters rising to towering peaks above me. Penguins and seals and fishes could all be observed as we rose and fell on the prodigious swell, encased in the living water. Then the most gratifying, most exciting sight of all, a whale, a sperm whale and its calf swimming through that same wall of water, so clear I could see the speckles of barnacles on her body and flippers and flukes and see both of the creatures’ swimming action clearly. I felt lifted up out of myself, a great spurt of joy suffusing and invigorating me. The one thing in my head was to go get Jack, to tell him of the wonder of it, wanting to share my joy with him, but it was not to be, he was deep into the very serious business of saving us and all I could do was nod my head in obedience and go below to do his bidding.’ Stephen heard the noon observation called and then the running of feet as the men went to their dinner and soon heard the Hearts of Oak announcing the gunroom’s meal. He was concentrating hard trying to work out how much to tell Jack, how much to keep to himself. Jack didn’t need to know everything, Stephen was feeling not a professional but an emotional resistance to telling Jack the extent to which Fox had degraded him. His own pride would not allow him to tell everything. “I will tell him some things, less shameful things and if I can bear it I will tell him all. Yes that might be for the best.” Someone was tugging at his sleeve to gain his attention. “Mr Wells how are you today?” “Very good sir, Admiral’s compliments but it’s almost dinner time sir. He asked me to remind you, if you wished to shift your coat, sir.” “Thank you, I think my coat will do as it is, but I shall be along directly.” He followed Mr Wells aft and went down to the cabin where on his entrance was pounced on by Killick whose opinion on the suitability of Stephen’s coat for dinner with Jack was markedly different. “Sir, hurry sir, you must take off that tatty old coat. The shirt will do but not the breeches. You’ll have to change them too. A grown man needing to be told how to dress proper, pitiful.” Killick shook his grizzled head with disgust. “All right, all right Killick, that’s enough. I’m perfectly capable of dressing myself,” Stephen protested as he was dragged into the sleeping cabin to be redressed to Killick’s exacting standards. He returned to the coach part of the cabin and Jack, seeing his mutinous expression greeted him with a knowing smile. “There you are Stephen, properly scrubbed and brushed, I find.” “Well some people seem to find it necessary to impose their dress preferences on others, but in obedience to my commitment to maintain a proper standard of dress I have acceded to Killick’s bullying. I swear that man grows more bold and domineering every day.” Stephen replied fiercely. “But Stephen he regards you as his to look after and cannot bear to see you dressed in a manner or fashion that does not reflect your proper rank. He is only doing his duty by seeking to maintain your honour as an officer by ensuring your appearance is respectable.” Jack replied in a mild and reasonable tone, trying to soothe his friend’s outrage. “Hmmph! If that is the way you interpret it, I must bow to your greater knowledge of naval protocol.” Stephen sniffed, still unconvinced but indicating his willingness to be placated. “Come sit down by me and have a taste of this Madeira before Mr Hanson and Mr Harding arrive. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.” Jack added and poured the wine with one hand, the other hand giving Stephen’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze. The dinner was a quiet but cheerful affair. Mr Hanson was an intelligent young man and Mr Harding was still floating in the pleasurable emotions experienced by all those who had attained the status of captain. They were both more than happy to converse cheerily with Jack with less restraint than was usual at most Admirals’ tables and as Stephen had never known any restraint whatsoever, Jack enjoyed his dinner at his ease, not feeling any pressure to inspire conviviality among his fellow diners. Harding and Hanson left in a warm glow induced by the effect of drinking Jack’s wines with a hearty enthusiasm. Jack was in an equally beneficent mood and also hopeful that the warmth and cheeriness of the meal had the hoped for effect of mellowing Stephen, so that he might persuade him to remain with him this afternoon. Stephen stood up and turned to leave as well. “Stephen I thought you might wish to stay with me. You have no urgent business down in the sick berth?” Jack asked sounding disappointed. Stephen turned back and bent to kiss Jack’s forehead and said, “I need time to think and I know if I stay with you this afternoon there would be not too much thinking done.” Jack put his hands around Stephen’s waist and pulled him down onto his lap and returned the kiss with some warmth, his tongue seeking entry to Stephen’s mouth. Stephen permitted this for a little while and then pulled back and shook his head and smiled as he said, “No Jack, be patient, I will be happy to continue this tonight my love. Surely you can wait till then?” Jack let him go reluctantly, “You will tell me everything then, won’t you Stephen?” Stephen nodded and left as Killick came in to clear the table. Jack looked at him sharply; remembering what he had said about Killick knowing what Fox had done to offend Stephen. He waited till Killick had finished and then called for him from the main part of the great cabin. Killick stumped back into the cabin, “Yes sir.” “Killick sit down on the locker seat, please.” Jack ordered. Killick looked at Jack suspiciously but obeyed. Jack was staring out the stern windows and turned back to Killick and demanded, “What do you know about what Mr Fox did to Dr Maturin at Pulo Prabang. You know something of it, I know because Stephen told me you were aware of it. Tell me now.” Killick looked uncomfortable now and looked down and fidgeted and then cleared his throat, “Well, sir I’m not sure I can. I did promise the doctor not to say anything to you about it sir. I did promise him, sir.” “I know you did, but Fox is dead now and Stephen has told me he will tell me this evening what happened, but I want to hear what happened from you, first.” Jack’s voice was now harder, a tinge of impatience evident. “Well I didn’t see anything, sir. Bonden told me what he saw, that’s all sir and he ain’t around which he is dead, sir. It is like what you would call at second-hand sir.” Killick equivocated. “Killick get on with it, tell me, tell me now.” Jack snapped. “Well Bonden told me that he went to the knocking shop where the doctor was staying to give him a message, sir. He was downstairs talking to the owner sir and one of the girls came down and urged him to go up and help the doctor. He was in trouble. Bonden went upstairs and walked out on the balcony. Fox and the doctor were there. The doctor was trussed up sir with some rags it looked like sir. He was naked and was struggling against Fox and he backhanded him sir to quiet him so he could do what he was trying to … umm.” Killick stopped and looked down clearly nervous. “Go on,” Jack’s voice was now quivering with rage, his imagination providing the answer, but he wanted Killick to tell him. “Damn it man, tell me. What was he doing to Stephen?” “He was pushing his fingers into him sir, getting him ready to …” Killick stopped again. “Fuck him? Rape him?” Jack demanded. “Yes, sir.” Killick answered, his head now so low it almost touched his knees, not daring to look at Jack who was now seething, ready to explode, his blue eyes sparking dangerously, his hands clenched into fists that shook with his rage. “But Bonden stopped him sir, grabbed that damned Fox and pulled him away and would have pounded him into nothing if the doctor hadn’t told him to stop.” He was now looking up into Jack’s face, trying to placate him. “Fox left then, after threatening the doctor about exposing him and you sir, ratting on you to the Admiralty. Bonden then cleaned the doctor up and brought him back to the ship. He stayed close to the doctor all the time after that while he was on the Diane, sir and when Bonden wasn’t there I made sure that damned sodomite didn’t get near enough to touch him again, sir.” Jack looked down at him, considering and then turned from him sharply. “Get out Killick. I can’t be disturbed this afternoon.” Killick scuttled quickly from the room glad to be out of range of Jack’s fury. Jack flung himself down on the locker seat and bit his fist and looked up frustrated, angry, not knowing what to do. The time was long past for any action to be taken and what hurt him was Stephen’s refusal to trust him. This had nothing to do with state secrets. ‘What did he think I would do? I know what I would have done. Fox would have been dead. I would have shredded him with my bare hands. I suppose that’s the answer isn’t it? Did he care so much about that goddamned treaty that he would put up with being treated like that by that arrogant pig of a man? Maybe he thought Fox would carry through with the threat against me. Was he trying to protect me?’ Jack looked down, now more sad than angry, wondering how much Stephen would tell him this time. He leaned back, closed his eyes and put his arm across his eyes. ‘Was there anything I could have done about this? I knew the man was an arrogant, touchy individual, very attentive to his own sense of importance, an overdeveloped sense of precedence over everyone on board, but capable of this? What did Stephen do to make him even consider behaving that way? Stephen is hardly promiscuous or in any way inclined to flirt with any individual, male or female. No it was to do with power and a desire to humiliate. Why did he want to humiliate Stephen? From what I know it was Stephen who provided him with all the intelligence he needed and influence too to get the treaty signed in our favour? Did he hate being so beholden to anyone else? Had to make sure whatever glory attained was his alone? He was mad, I’m sure of it now. Stephen said something like it, later I remember. His strange, violent outbursts against Ledward and Wray from the very beginning, that were so gross and certainly not the behaviour of a gentleman.’ Jack lay there trying to calm himself. He knew he must not reveal to Stephen he already knew, if he was to get his account of what happened. If he knew he had heard Killick’s story he would refuse to say any more. He may also be highly insulted, knowing that Jack had used his rank to force the confession from Killick. Jack now felt ashamed that he hadn’t waited, that he had done just that. He hoped Stephen did not see Killick before he came back to the cabin, he would know straight away, just from the look on Killick’s face. Meanwhile Stephen was below avoiding thinking about the same incident himself. In preference he looked back with relief on the beauty, the peace and joy he had discovered at Kumai. ‘If not for Jack, maybe I would never have come back to England and I would have stayed at Kumai forever. It seemed so much saner, calmer than this world. The gentleness and innocence of all these creatures, living in harmony with each other, it seemed so much more preferable to the bitterness, strife and ugly personalities of the protagonists fighting over who would get the Sultan to sign their treaty. I think I could live quite happily for many years with orang-utans, so much more gentle and sane than human beings. It was like an Eden to me. What I would not give to go back there. It would yield so much knowledge. The ability to study these animals, untouched by fear of man, what a bounty of knowledge it would yield about animal behaviour, if not anatomy. Or has it already disappeared? Taken over, invaded by human greed. I can only hope some European power does not decide to colonise Pulo Prabang, for then it will be doomed indeed.’ Stephen sighed and forced his thoughts back to Fox and the slow disintegration of his sanity. ‘I doubt now that Fox had, even in London been wholly sane. I remember his vile language, the utterly rabid nature of his rage towards Ledward and Wray at our first meeting. At first, I thought the incident just an over-emphatic expression of outrage at their treason, a strange sort of theatrical performance to impress us of his loyalty, but having the reverse effect. I had not linked it with any personal connection that he may have had with either of the traitors. The closest supposition I could have come to, up to the time we arrived at Pulo Prabang, was that Ledward, being an equally intelligent and competitive man had beaten Fox to a plum position or appointment that he perceived should have been his. But such hatred, based on professional jealousy was hardly likely. Maybe I should have surmised his true reasons when he approached me so often on the voyage out to Pulo Prabang. I thought him merely to be a lonely man, isolated by his own behaviour of arrogant disdain to his fellow man. I felt sorry for him but must have been obtuse not to realise he was approaching me not just for conversation. Did he think that I understood the nature of his approaches to me? I certainly did not, for even up to the point when he was ill and I made that unfortunate comment about self-hatred, I had not realised he was a paederast. I must have wounded him badly and he would have seen it as utter and contemptuous rejection, such a slight to a man with such an ego would be unforgivable. But I can’t believe I was so unaware of his true desires. He touched my thigh, my upper arm and my chest on a number of occasions but being used to such physical contact with Jack, perhaps it did not stand out in my mind, as it would in others and I did not connect it with a subtle invitation for more intimate contact.’ Stephen sighed and got up from the table and climbed into his hammock. As he was gently rocked, he thought back trying to piece together the clues he should have picked up on. Up till now Stephen had not cared to think much about Fox or anything about him, dismissing him from his mind along with his violence. ‘I prided myself in being able to successfully evaluate individuals with a fair degree of accuracy. I underestimated the dangerousness and cunning of this man. I studied him and compared him with Jack, but then that has become habitual. Every man I meet I compare them with Jack. No one seems to come near him in my opinion, but then I am besotted with the man, have been for years. Fox recognised that certainly and must have seen it as clearly as the looks that he could not have failed to notice that passed between us when we were aroused by the sight of each other. The same look of sexual complicity that passed between the Sultan’s cupbearer, Abdul and Ledward and how it must have burned him in the light of my unconscious rejection of him. When I compared him with Jack, Fox appeared to me as paltry as Clonfert was, a man playing a part, never sure of himself, lacking in integrity, unlike Jack who never played a part in his life and who was whole and complete and a man of genuine integrity. Fox was shadowy and insubstantial to me, his behaviour absurd on occasions, but then he was playing a part, desperately playing a part to deceive everyone of his true sexual nature as well as playing the part of ‘the great man’ in preparation for the man he would soon be, in truth, once he had the treaty signed, sealed and delivered and not just in his fevered ambitions.’ Stephen closed his eyes, ‘Yes, he waited to the last minute just before the final stage when he knew for certain that victory was within his grasp. Up till then he treated me with respect, relying on me for my money to bribe the officials in our favour and my contacts and knowledge that allowed him to outflank the French at every turn and in the end sink his opponents. When he was confident of victory he stole into my room and … it is difficult to remember …I don’t really want to remember. I was sitting there on my balcony at the bordello and then …my head…pain…another blow…blackness.’ My head is aching, I try to get up, I can’t and then I hear his laugh. “Wake up Maturin you dog, I didn’t hit you that hard. I’m impatient to experience you, but conscious this time. It’s not much fun fucking an unconscious body believe me, but you know the unconscious body reacts the same way to stimulus. Your nipples were round and red and stiff when I licked them, your lips were quite pleasant and your cock responded well to pumping and that sweet arse of yours, is so tight. I wouldn’t think it would be after that blonde ape has been at you for years but I came twice in that delicious arse and I intend to have you again tonight. So I can enjoy the experience completely.” I lay there as still as I could, it was true, my cock was limp but I could feel the stickiness on my thighs, my nipples were erect and he was pinching them now to maintain the stimulation and I felt his cum trickling from me. He’d bitten my lips, they were sore and my ribs felt as if they were stoved in. Had he kicked me, as I lay there unconscious? My thighs and arms, stomach and chest felt bruised and sore too. Had he been pummelling me with rage in between stimulating my body as I lay there? He slapped me with stunning force and I opened my eyes. I struggled to get up, enraged. I couldn’t he had me tied up. My legs and arms spread wide, unable to move. He leant down and kissed me and patted my cheek, “There, there Maturin, I knew you were awake. Now lie back and enjoy this because I’m going to. You could have had this months ago, but you chose to reject me for that blonde ape of a sea captain. A man of your taste and intelligence, it is absurd. What do you see in that brute? Do you like it rough, hmm, do you? I can oblige you and I will.” With that he bent and bit my lips and then my neck and began sucking and biting my nipples as his other hand pumped my cock. I turned my head and looked away and he slapped me again, “Look at me you fool. Now I’m going to tell you what you are going to do. You my dear Maturin will certainly not tell anyone of this night of pleasure or perhaps pain for you. No one, do you hear me? If you breathe a word of this to your captain I will ensure that a report of the acts he has performed on your body is delivered to the Admiralty. I will be of course, a shocked and innocent passenger who was totally unaware of the nature of the corrupt sodomite who commanded the ship until I walked into the cabin and witnessed him committing the vile sin of sodomy on your oh so willing body. But then within the Admiralty there always have been a few rumours about your attachment to him. I will just be confirming them.” He saw the look of contempt in my eyes and punched me in the stomach. “Now you must listen Maturin, there is one other service you will provide me with, other than the use of your body. You will eliminate Wray and Ledward for me. I know you are a good shot.” He grabbed my hair and pulled my head up and showed me the weapon he had leant against the wall. “You will take the rifle there and you will shoot them for me. I will have them both dead. Ledward left me for that stupid ninny, Wray and has been threatening me with blackmail ever since. I will have you eliminate him for me. There will be no trace left of the bodies, do you understand?” “Why don’t you kill them yourself, if you hate them so much?” I spat at him. “Oh no, my dear doctor, see it as part of your punishment. You will kill them whether you like it or not. The King’s envoy cannot be seen committing such a low act, while you a slinking spy, the same type as those two scum, that is definitely more in your line of work. Oh come now, doctor did you really think you would get away with rejecting me so cruelly, scot-free? There is one other thing you may care to know. I have seen your file in the home office. There is one and it is quite substantial too. I thought I ought to research the background of all my subordinates before I agreed to work with them and your’s was perfect for my purposes. You are a United Irishman who could be hung for treason and all your assets stripped from you, leaving your wife and child destitute. You are Catholic, another mark against your name and a foreigner, yet another and of course a bastard, a man of no name and no account. All these factors combined with your revolutionary history, if revealed and presented in the proper places with the right degree of influence will ensure your execution. I think you now see your proper position, so I would advise you to lie quietly now and enjoy this while you can and obey me in all things or I will destroy you.” He laughed at this point seeing my look of absolute despair. “Yes my dear you are trapped, but if you’re a good boy, you might get away from this with your life at least.” He pinched the skin on the inside of my thighs and gently cradled my balls, squeezing now a warning of impending pain if I thought of resisting him in any way. He smiled and brushed my hair, “Good boy, you’re resigned to your fate. Very wise doctor, I like compliance in all things.” He then bent to my cock sucking it hard and fast and slipped his fingers inside me, massaging me, knowing just where to stimulate, my body responded to the stimulation and I groaned with frustration and rage and he laughed and sat up again and started a more thorough massage, “I will have you well and truly begging me for it. Your captain must love such a responsive body.” He bent to kiss me and I turned my head, “No Doctor, that won’t do.” With one hand he continued the internal massage and he pulled back the other and slapped me again and then grabbed my cock and reefed on it hard. “You fucking bastard, get off the doctor, you fucking pig. By god I’ll kill you.” Then he was hauled away and with relief I saw Bonden who began to pummel him. I called out, “Stop, stop Bonden, he mustn’t be marked.” Bonden turned to me with surprise, “But he was trying to rape you sir? The bastard deserves to be dead.” “He is our King’s representative and he must be alive and unmarked to do the honours at the treaty signing. Let him go.” Bonden let him go. Fox put his cock back in his breeches and buttoned himself. “Doctor I knew I could rely on your good sense. You will carry out your other little tasks. If you don’t, well I would hate to see your dear Captain swing for sodomy and you, well I’ll make the charge of treason stick and you will hang, I assure you. Sir Joseph will not be able to help you.” He glared at Bonden and stalked out. Bonden knelt and undid the ties, “Oh Lord, Doctor what has he done to you? Your face and body, it’s all bruised.” He touched my ribs and I drew back hissing, “Has he broken your ribs sir?” “Perhaps,” I wondered how I could distract Bonden from looking too closely at my body, but I saw where he was looking and I knew that he was aware of what had really happened to me. “Listen Bonden, this, this attack, you must not mention it. You must not tell the Captain. You heard his threats!” “Well he can hardly speak, look what he’s done to you, sir.” Bonden was angry with me now. “I’ll stand witness to his crimes.” “Please, please Bonden, listen to me. Who do you think a court would believe when it came to it? You or a very cunning lawyer and the King’s official envoy to boot, I know who they would choose to believe, unfair, as it might seem. It doesn’t matter what he did. What matters is the treaty and it must be signed. Please don’t tell the Captain, promise me, please don’t tell him.” “All right sir, but it’s not right, not right.” “I need to wash. Can you get me some water? I need to dress.” The girl brought some water, dressings and salve. “Thank you my dear. Is it you I have to thank for bringing Bonden to my rescue?” She smiled shyly at me, urging me to lie down. “I’ll wait in the next room sir. We’ll go back to the ship. You’ll be safe there.” The delicate young creature tended my wounds and washed me gently and I dressed and went back to the ship, but I knew I could not escape the task Fox had set me. Such a vindictive man would carry out his threats and his anger was still great, having been deprived of the satisfaction of degrading me totally. I also wanted to concentrate on killing Ledward and Wray; it meant that I didn’t have to think about what he’d done to me. I had to do this, this vile assassination. I had no choice if I were to keep Jack safe. I had to draw them away, somewhere out in the jungle. I sent a note to them, offering them in Sir Joseph’s name a pardon for their cooperation in revealing the other member of the spy ring. They were desperate; they took the bait. I saw them stumble into the clearing still arguing and I lifted the rifle and aimed at his heart. Ledward dropped immediately, I walked out from my hiding place and reloaded and I lifted the rifle again and aimed at Wray’s heart, he stood like a deer startled into utter stillness by the shock of Ledward’s instant death and I dropped him just as coldly. You would have thought that I would have felt some satisfaction, but all I felt was cold contempt for them and the man on whose orders I had performed these sordid murders. I felt unclean. I felt as if I would never be clean again. I arranged for the bodies to be sent to Van Buren’s and that night we dissected them, as we would any other animal’s body. What was left over was left out for the ants to consume. It was as if they never existed and yet the evil they brought into being still plagued us for years to come. In the mean time I spent many days avoiding Jack and his cot. I could not let him see the bruises on my body. He was growing impatient and wanted to be with me, before Fox came back on board, but I provided plausible excuses and spent as much time as I could away from his pleading eyes and away from the sympathy of the men. I knew Bonden had kept his promise not to tell Jack, but I knew most of the men now knew what had happened to me. It was in the way they looked at me and treated me, like I was some kind of delicate porcelain that would break with the slightest of pressure. Perhaps that was true, I did feel fragile, for if I had been placed under any pressure I would have cracked wide open. I had to draw on all my resources to keep going. I dreaded seeing Fox again. I raged inside. I wanted to kill him. I pondered it for a short time. Could I provide another English spleen for Van Buren? And oh, what a spleen that would have been. These thoughts were there for a few minutes but I dismissed them as illogical and I dressed in my red robe to attend his victory dinner but I left early, sickened by Fox and his bunch of boobies. Once back on board and sailing away from Pulo Prabang and our rendezvous with the Surprise my mood lifted as did Jack’s at the thought of going home to her. Killick and Bonden acted like a tandem team of bodyguards, keeping Fox away from me. I saw the look in his eyes and knew he wouldn’t be satisfied, he had been thwarted in his revenge on me, but he masked his antagonism to me in public, but his triumphal madness was growing in leaps and bounds and he attempted, foolish man to force Jack to change course. The men’s behaviour towards him on occasion became dangerous. He had enough sense to realise his position and kept to his half of the cabin. Even his bunch of boobies noted his strangeness and disaffection set in. A day or so after he managed to corner me in the cabin. He closed the door and sat down in front of me and pretended that nothing had happened, plastered a smile across his face and tried to wheedle out of me information relating to our intended course. I told him I did not know, that he should ask Jack directly. He then ranted and raved about how insulted he was by Jack’s slight to him, a deliberate slight. When I explained that he was under a misapprehension and that Jack had certainly not meant any insult and explained why a ship was dressed and that in his circumstances it was not appropriate. He chose not to believe me and stood up and away from me, as soon as Killick entered the room. He glared at Fox and walked quickly across to me. I think if the man had made a false move, Killick would have struck him down on the spot. “Are you all right Doctor?” Killick asked, looking concerned. The past and the present merged into one. Killick had asked that question then with the same look of concern. Stephen blinked and wiped the tears from his face. “Quite all right Killick.” “Sir, the Admiral is wondering if you will join him in the cabin.” “Yes, yes I will come. Just let me wash my face.” Killick hurried away and brought a bowl of water and a towel. “Thank you, thank you.” Killick stood there as Stephen bent over and splashed the water on his face and then stepped forward and gently wiped Stephen’s face as if he were a child. Stephen looked at him curiously, “Are you all right Killick?” “You were the one crying sir.” “Ah, yes, thank you. You are kind.” “Doing my duty sir.” Stephen knocked on the door and heard Jack call out, “Come in.” And then, “Stephen why on earth did you knock? This is your cabin too you know?” “Just a little distracted Jack, that’s all.” Stephen looked down nervously. Jack got up and came over and wrapped his arms around him and kissed him gently and then rocked him, comforting him. “It’s all right Stephen, you don’t have to talk about this, if you don’t want to.” “No, no I will tell you, but both you and Killick are behaving in the same way, why? A few minutes ago he was treating me like you are now, as if I was a child in need of comfort.” Jack knew he had to think fast and for once he came up with something plausible. “Maybe you are at the moment, Stephen and Killick could see it, just as clearly as I can. He has been around us long enough that he knows us, and our moods well. He does care for you, in his odd sort of way. We are the only family he has really. Is it that surprising?” “No, I suppose not.” “Come sit down with me,” Jack pulled him across to the locker seat and held Stephen close to him again, kissing his face and neck gently, stroking his hair and rocking him again. Stephen luxuriated in the comfort of this and sighed and wriggled closer into the embrace. “Mmm, but I’m getting distracted and if I’m not careful, you’ll get me so distracted I won’t get to hear what you are going to tell me about Fox.” Jack pulled back and held Stephen from him. “Will you tell it to me, Stephen?” Stephen stared at him for a few seconds and nodded. “All right. You won’t like it Jack, it isn’t pleasant and in some ways it wasn’t his fault. I think at the end Jack, he was mad, mad for revenge, for power and for some glory that he believed was his due and all too ready to be aggrieved at any imaginary slight and repay that perceived slight with astonishing brutality. I unwittingly slighted him on the voyage out to Pulo Prabang.” “How Stephen? You were unfailingly polite and attentive. You were always willing to go and see him and tend to his imaginary aches and pains and at the most damned inconvenient hours I recall. What could you have possibly done to offend him?” “The basis of it was that I preferred to spend my time with you rather than him.” Jack frowned, “What do you mean? How could he be jealous of me? He knew we were long standing friends and that we sailed together for years. Why would he believe that you should suddenly find him to be so attractive you would wish to abandon me and spend your time with him?” “He knew or suspected our feelings for one another and I get the impression he may have heard us the few times that we indulged in the cabin in the Diane. The bulkheads are not that thick and maybe he was listening for us. I don’t know. He knew at least there was a sexual attraction between us. I misunderstood his approaches to me and I inadvertently rejected his sexual advances. I didn’t even realise they were at the time; I merely thought he was seeking companionship and misunderstood the occasional touching as a desire for contact. I did not respond to him the way he expected or wanted me too. He could not understand my attraction to you and was affronted by my lack of response to him.” “I’m still puzzled Stephen. Why should he believe that you would instantly desire him that way? The man had an ego, but that is ridiculous.” “As I said Jack, he was mad. He always was, from the very beginning. Do you know Ledward was Fox’s lover, before he threw him over for Wray? It explained the ravings that the mere mention of their names induced, but I also suspect that Fox had inadvertently given some information to Ledward he shouldn’t have. Information that would assist the French cause. He wanted Ledward dead for that reason, as well and Wray merely out of his sexual jealousy.” “Yes that explains that strangeness when we first met at Black’s. Go on Stephen. This still doesn’t explain to me how he offended you?” “After we had revealed Abdul’s duplicity and sexual betrayal with Ledward and Wray, the French case collapsed. At that point Fox knew he did not have to maintain cordial relations with me to ensure my cooperation and so he took his revenge and attacked me. He approached me quietly from behind and smashed something, a rifle butt, I think, over my head, knocking me unconscious. He stripped me and tied my hands and feet so I could not move. While I was unconscious he …” Stephen stopped and looked down and took another breath, “He used my body. He told me so and I knew from how my body felt what he’d done. He waited for me to wake so he could pleasure himself, using my body, to taunt me, to degrade me while I was conscious. It was his revenge. He had beaten me too. He broke three of my ribs and I had bruises on my face and most of my body where he kicked and punched me. Bite marks too, he was like some rabid dog.” Stephen had spoken quickly, nervously the speed of his speech increasing as he went on. He fell silent, his head bent. In almost a whisper he continued, “He threatened me Jack, he threatened that you would hang and that he would testify against you for committing sodomy with me and that he would have me hung for treason if I told anyone. He meant it Jack and he had the means of attaining those prosecutions. He had access to files on me that revealed me as a member of the United Irishmen and knew enough people of influence to have me brought up on a capital charge and I believe that he might have succeeded with you too. I couldn’t risk that, so when Bonden saved me from further abuse at his hands I told Bonden to leave him and made him promise not to tell you what had happened. But I did acquiesce to one demand from him. I murdered Ledward and Wray and made sure that their bodies disappeared without a trace. It was a cold, merciless execution; I did not waver, I carefully aimed and shot each with one bullet to the heart and I dissected their bodies in an equally cold and efficient manner. It is the most morally reprehensible thing I have done. I try to tell myself that they were dead men anyway. If the Sultan’s men did not eliminate them, those to whom they owed money would soon finish them off and that their deaths at my hand were reasonably quick and painless, in comparison to the hapless Abdul. But I know that I was morally compromised in my actions. I should have stood up to Fox, but I did not. My fear for you was too great.” Stephen looked up and saw Jack’s rage clearly expressed on his face and in the jerky movements of his body. “Why didn’t you tell me Stephen, why? We could have done something. I would have gladly eliminated him myself.” Stephen reached forward and gently caressed his clenched fist, quivering as the rest of him with that overwhelming rage that had not really left Jack since his conversation with Killick and was now re-ignited if not strengthened by the other details Stephen had told him. “Jack how would it have changed anything? What was done was done and he is dead, but even then I was ashamed, so ashamed. I couldn’t tell you and it didn’t seem to matter. We were together. That incident was a painful and disgusting memory I tried to erase. I had the occasional nightmare, now and then, but then they too went away and there was no time or reason to dwell on that unpleasantness. I pushed it from my mind.” Jack stood up abruptly and paced the floor looking at Stephen, “The bruising and the injuries that was why you were avoiding me all that time.” “Yes, if you saw them or the extent of them you would keep at me, as to who had inflicted them until you got your answer. I had to make sure that the bruising and evidence of the assault had healed by the time you saw me. When you told me that Fox was wanting to sail off in the pinnace I was so relieved that he would be gone and when we were forced ashore, the ship broken up in the storm, taking Fox along with it, I was free of him and all I wanted was to feel your body pressed against me. I wanted you to erase those memories with the pleasure your body gave me. I’m afraid I was a little demanding those first few nights on shore on that island.” Jack laughed, “Well it was a pleasant surprise when you were pursuing me, rather than the other way around Stephen. I was extremely frustrated. I was thinking that if you had attempted one more explanation to get out of sleeping in my cot I was going to grab you, lock the cabin door, tie you into my cot and ravish you. Thank god that idiot Elliott grounded her or I might have acted upon that thought which would have been a disaster considering Fox’s behaviour towards you.” “I am sorry Jack. I know you feel hurt that I did not confide in you at the time, but all I can say in my defence is that it would have changed nothing and as you see, I am fine and everything has worked out well in the end. Do we have to talk about this any more?” “No, my dear, do you feel hungry? Have some supper with me and then we shall play and if you are willing my dear we shall retire to my cot.” Jack kissed Stephen. “Do I have a choice?” Stephen asked smiling. “Yes, I suppose you do. I don’t intend to strap you into my cot. I’m not like Fox. It was only a silly idea.” Jack looked defensive. “You are nothing like Fox and yes my dear I will come to your cot. I need to feel you inside me again to banish all those foul memories of Fox.” Stephen bent and kissed Jack thoroughly, lingering to extract as much pleasure as he could from the feel of Jack’s lips against his. “Mmm, perhaps we’ll have supper and then go straight to your cot.” Go to Chapter 15

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A Friendship Dissected – Chapter 14 – Deadly Games – Part 1

Title:A Friendship Dissected – Chapter 14 – Deadly Games – Part 1
Characters: Stephen, Jack, Bonden, Fox, Killick,Amos
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers for The Thirteen-Gun Salute
Disclaimer: Characters borrowed from Patrick O’Brian & his heirs on a non-profit basis
Warning: Violence against much loved character, read at your peril.

A Friendship Dissected

Chapter 14 – Deadly Games – Part 1
Jack opened the cabin door and nearly ran into Dr Jacob, as he was about to knock. “Good morning Amos. You’re looking for Stephen? He was still asleep earlier but he has started to stir a little. You might be in luck. Just go in and see.”

“Good morning to you, sir. Yes, thank you I’ll go and see if he is awake.”

Stephen was indeed stirring but as he was invariably slow and a little muddled on first waking, he hadn’t got further than considering opening his eyes when he heard Amos’ tap at the sleeping cabin door. “Whoever it is, go away! I shall not be rising from my cot until I smell coffee or you were to tell me that the ship is sinking. Is a soul to get no rest?”

“Esteban it is Amos, I’ve come to see you. May I come in?”

“Come in, come in.” Stephen called as he rolled out of his hammock and stood there in his nightshirt stretching and yawning and rubbing his eyes.

“Good morning to you Esteban. How are you this morning?”

“Sorely in need of coffee I find.” Stephen eyed Amos’ medical bag. “Otherwise I’m perfectly healthy though the stitches are starting to itch. Perhaps they should be removed.”

“I was thinking that. Stand close to the lantern for the light and lift your nightshirt and I will examine you.” Amos touched the area lightly and added, “It looks fine Esteban. It has healed quite quickly, I’ll remove the stitches.”

Amos had just finished cutting the final stitch and stood up to see Killick standing at the door, stooping a little, his eyes narrowed and peering at both of them curiously. He stood straight and said in a louder than necessary voice, “Do you need some water for washing and shaving Doctor?”

Stephen straightened and turned to face the door, “Yes Killick thank you, please bring me some water and set an extra place for Dr Jacob at table as well.” Killick left and Stephen shook his head and walked over to his sea chest where Killick had laid out his clothes for the day. “I wonder what he was thinking. He certainly looked very suspicious of your activities. It’s as Jack said years ago, the man believes I am his property. It has been this way ever since he took over as my servant on board, after Padeen had his unfortunate encounter with the law.”

“I hope he was not thinking I was doing anything improper?” Amos looked uneasy.

“I have always found it difficult to understand Killick, so it is possible that he may think that. But then you are a doctor in his eyes and he would probably not ascribe any improper motive to your actions. So maybe it was just his insatiable curiosity to know what was afoot. He likes to believe he knows everything that passes in the cabin. For such an awkward slab-sided creature he is quite adept at secreting himself in odd places to listen in on conversations. He has managed to do it quite often, regardless of the precautions I have taken.” Stephen stepped into his breeches and was buttoning them as Killick came in with the water and a towel. “Thank you Killick that will be all.”

Killick left but stayed close to the door to attempt to listen in but was stymied by the fact that both continued their conversation in Catalan and so, frustrated he retreated to prepare the coffee.

“Esteban I would warn you to be careful in your activities for a few weeks, the skin has just healed and it might rip again with any awkward movement or force exerted on the area.”

“Of course I will, don’t fuss Amos.” Stephen spoke as he wiped his face dry and looked up at Amos, “And what? I see you have a question? Ask me?”

“You say Killick likes to know what happens in the cabin. Does he Esteban? Does he know what happens between you and the Admiral?”

“Yes of course he knows. There are mornings I have woken up in the great cabin naked with Jack, a blanket spread over us, I assume by Killick. He has walked in on numerous occasions when we were somewhat taken up with each other. Killick is very protective of Jack and would do nothing that would bring him harm. He may spread some outrageous gossip but never anything that would compromise us. We can rely upon his discretion, I’m sure of it.”

“What if either of you should lose his good will?”

“No, as long as he retains his place with Jack, Killick will be content. Where else could he indulge himself with so much polishing of silverware? The man has an absolute mania for polishing and tending to the Admiral’s plate as well as his uniforms. He takes a rather distressing interest in my apparel as well, encouraged by Jack no doubt. Just when a piece of clothing becomes well worn in and comfortable, he will attempt to throw it out. There is many a shirt or coat with another year or two’s good wear that the villain has removed from my sea chest.”

“The Admiral likes to see you looking your best, I am sure.”

Stephen gave Amos a baleful glare and walked out into the cabin, “Come hopefully the coffee is ready.”

“I am hoping to discourage both Jack and Killick, but I fear I shall be dragged to every tailor in Buenos Aires to outfit me in the uniform appropriate to my current rank. They will not be satisfied till I am decked out in shiny buttons and gold lace and other totally unnecessary gewgaws and furbelows.” Stephen muttered as he poured the coffee.

Jack had entered the cabin quietly during Stephen’s tirade and was standing behind Stephen and smiled at Amos as he placed his hands on Stephen’s shoulders and bent down as if to kiss him and then drew back a little to greet him. “Good morning to you Stephen and as for gewgaws and whatnot, I will have you properly dressed if it is the last thing I do believe me. I expect you to obey me in this. There is a strict standard of dress that is observed on all flagships and I will not have you ignore it and put the ship and me to shame.”

“Good morning Jack. I swear you seamen are peacocks, strutting around in all your finery. Finery I find quite unsuited to me, being a modest man who prefers plain and sober garments. It is quite understandable for you as Admiral to stun your opponents with the beauty of your garb, if not the thunder of your cannon, but totally unnecessary for me as a physician.”

“But Stephen you are an officer on my ship and as such a part of my retinue and I would have you stun the enemy with your beauty. I see it not so much as vanity but as an extra weapon in my armoury. Have you ever considered that I might like seeing you dressed in fine clothes? I would ask you to do it for my pleasure alone, rather than as an order from your commanding officer.” Jack smiled at him as he sat down beside him and held out his cup for some coffee.

“There is little chance of me stunning anyone with my non-existent beauty. I would far prefer to overwhelm them with my intellect.” Stephen replied as he poured coffee for Jack and Amos and more for himself.

Seeing he was not going to win this argument Jack turned to Amos to ask, “Dr Jacob you’ve seen Stephen. His wound is healed?”

Amos flicked a glance at Stephen and replied, “Yes it has healed quite well but as I told Esteban I would advise, over the next few weeks at least, extreme care.”

Jack looked down at his plate, “Yes, of course, of course.”

Stephen touched his hand, “It is all right Jack, no permanent damage, just a little weakness there now, until it has healed completely. Don’t worry.”

Killick walked in with toast and salvers of sausages and eggs. “Wittles is up, sirs.” He placed the toast rack and salvers on the table and bent down to check the pot, removing it to refill it.

“Thank you Killick and some more toast with the coffee,” Jack called to him as Killick swept out, coffee pot in hand.

“Well Stephen you will be pleased to know we made good speed during the night and we should reach Porto Deseado before the end of the forenoon watch tomorrow. What are your plans?”

“I have read that there is a very rare geological feature in the area. It seems that in some remote geological age the river there stopped flowing into the ocean and this has permitted the sea to invade this ancient river bed far into the land. There are now hundreds of small narrow, flooded canyons and dozens of islands within the Ría Deseado and as the water is a mixture of salt and fresh I believe it must support a unique array of species. I’m most eager to explore the whole area, if you can give me a boat and some men.” Stephen replied eagerly.

Jack smiled at him, “Of course Stephen and I shall come too. How long do you think you will want to stay?”

“I should think all of tomorrow, at the very least Jack, if not into the next day. Are you very eager to be on your way?” Stephen asked.

“I promised you time to explore and I’ll keep it. I must consider tasks to set the men while we are paddling around this Ría and if I know how long you wish to be there I can determine which ones that best suit the time we are to be moored there. They must be getting restless. They long for shore leave but there is no settlement along this barren coast for them to be given liberty. Surprising as it may seem to you Stephen, the men don’t quite have the same fervour for cormorants and penguins and porpoises. They take a greater delight in ale houses and knocking shops, to spend their money and well and truly kick-up Bob’s a-dying.”

Jack laughed at Stephen who was shaking his head. “A pity they do not take a greater interest in the natural world. It would be of greater profit to them than wasting their wages on grog and sluts. All they will gain from that is an empty pocket and a dose of the pox, which they will expect me to cure.”

“You are a fellow Stephen. You would have the Navy run like a type of sea-going, natural philosophical monastery, no grog, no loose women and the only relief from duty, bird and beetle collecting. There would be a mutiny within the month. You do have a bit of a reputation with the women yourself. I do remember you taking up residence in the local brothel for the length of our visit to Pulo Prabang.”

Amos looked up startled and stared at Stephen in disbelief. Stephen seeing the look remonstrated, “Jack, you know that was just a ruse to disguise my official activities there. I may have hired a girl from the house as my companion for the duration but I certainly did not extract any services for my fee. I knew the particular virulence of the pox that the men acquired there and had no intention of contracting it myself.”

“But the men don’t know that. As far as they are concerned you spent the whole time there drinking, gambling, smoking tobacco and opium and whoring like the very devil. The Surprises weren’t there, but I’m sure Bonden and Killick gossiped about you to them when we rejoined her. You did somewhat startle poor little Reade at the time when you discovered him and that other midshipman drinking, smoking and ogling the dancers there. Mr Blythe, the purser was quite concerned for your reputation I recall.” Jack laughed heartily and Stephen just shook his head.

“I can always rely on Killick at least to spread some strangely distorted version of the truth, if I ever need to disguise my activities.”

Killick appeared with the new pot of coffee and some more toast, looking offended and muttered under his breath, “Well maybe there are some which need to keep their goings-on a secret.”

“Shame on you Stephen, you have offended Killick.” Jack whispered.

“Aah! I have reverted to black sheep status then.” Stephen stretched out his fork to stab the last sausage. “Amos, Jack?”

Amos shook his head and Jack motioned him to have it. They finished their breakfast in comparative silence, only broken by requests to pass the jam or the honey.

“I must go down with Amos and check on my patients in the sick berth. I will join you on deck after I visit them.” Amos and Stephen stood and left and Killick came in to clear the table. Jack went back on deck to consult with Harding about the routine maintenance tasks to be completed. Jack was eager to start on some of them before they reached Buenos Aires. He wanted everything shipshape so that she could sail for England as soon as possible.

After arranging the work programme for the coming days Jack retreated to the taff rail to think. He was feeling low and could not for the life of him determine why. He was being promoted and he was to join his flagship, everything he dreamed of, so why did he have this feeling of loss. He sat on the bench and began to search for the cause of these feelings and then suddenly he realised. ‘Of course, it was to do with leaving the Surprise, giving her up to someone else. I remember only too well how that felt last time, in Lisbon. I was happy about going back to England to be reinstated but I felt guilty and miserable leaving the ship and the men, disappointing them. I trusted Tom to look after her but it still was a hard wrench to leave her. It’s the same now. I’m sure Harding will get her home and back to the Cape in perfect order but it’s not only the ship itself, it’s the people I shall miss. Even though quite a few have passed on, I think my first loyalty will always be to these men. A fair few of them were willing to sail with me when I was at my lowest ebb, disgraced and removed from the Navy. I won’t, can’t forget their loyalty. I don’t say that it was in part motivated by monetary gain. They saw me as a safe bet for making their fortunes, but many already have and are still sailing with me.’

‘But there was something else then that made me wonder whether I belonged in the Navy or at least supported it to the extent I would have before my dismissal. I know when we joined the Diane I felt stifled. I was thinking back always not to HMS Surprise but to Surprise, as a letter of marque. The freedom to sail wherever and whenever I chose with a company of picked hands. It was more like sailing with a group of old friends, but all of them first-rate seamen. There was an easiness of mind, a sense of trust between us that could not be duplicated on the Diane or any other King’s ship. In comparison life on board a King’s ship I found to be too formal, too obsessed with rank and privilege and yes, too cruel at times. Perhaps Stephen has changed me after all or having suffered injustice I started to see it more clearly when it was inflicted on others. I never really liked the pressing of men but I never questioned it, but I was beginning to now. I was coming around to Stephen’s point of view to seeing it as not just a necessary evil, but something cruel and starting to question its efficacy. If you need a squadron of Marines to keep your crew in check what does that say of your leadership. I can’t help but question the Navy’s acceptance of the sometimes harsh and severe treatment of the men by officers, as a matter of course, as being necessary. It is only necessary if the officers in charge don’t command the respect of their men. While promotion of officers is dependent on privilege and class we’ll always have the cat and other cruel punishments used on the men, to beat them into submission.’

Jack sat back, surprised and muttered to himself, “My God, Stephen have you affected me so much I’m now starting to accept your arguments concerning Naval discipline and impressment. I’ll soon start spouting some of your damned democratic principles. When did I change so much? I can’t remember a specific time. Maybe it was just Stephen wearing me down with his arguments. He expresses them often enough.”

‘Stephen, yes there was something damned odd about him at the beginning of that cruise on the Surprise. Damned snappish, even with poor Martin I recall, though he had been a bit odd for a while, out of sorts and contrary, though lord knows why he should have been. Maybe he was just tired after all his efforts on my behalf, his broken leg may have troubled him, but he had won Diana back. I would have thought that would have pleased him, even persuaded her to marry him in a Popish church. Those months on shore though with him laid up and recuperating were difficult with them sharing Ashgrove with us. If they were not arguing, they were making love. The arguments were ripsnorters too, plates smashed, yelling and oaths from Diana that shocked Sophie I could tell. She blushed and if it was during the day sent the children out to play. Then when they made up, it was just as embarrassing. There I was lying in bed beside Sophie, both of us awake and both listening to them moaning and carrying on so. It was damned frustrating too. I wished Sophie would have taken the hint. She could hear Diana enjoying herself, I thought she might have relented a little, but no, it was once a week on a Friday night and hardly voluntary. She would lay there, her body rigid and still, submitting to me as if it was some kind of punishment. I don’t know what I was doing wrong but she hated it and sometimes I just gave up, didn’t even ask, went outside, relieved the pressure with my hand, thinking about making love to Stephen as I came.’

‘But then there was the odd way Stephen behaved in our pursuit of that snow. Bonden noticed how upset he seemed. He stood out in all weathers to follow the chase. Something he ordinarily wouldn’t do. I eventually had do go out and get him from the bows. Wet through he was, standing there in his slippers. I picked him up and carried him back to the cabin to undress and towel him down and make him have some hot soup and rest for a little while, but later when I told him I had made a cock of it, he seemed relieved. I shall ask him about it this evening. But it was good to be back at sea again. After Stephen had suggested that I set sail, I needed no urging. I wanted to get back to sea, Sophie being the way she was with me. I know she loves me, her tears whenever I leave and her heart-felt happiness and eagerness to see me when I come home is proof of that, but I need more than just a few gentle kisses, I need more and once at sea on the Surprise, I had Stephen and his passionate response to my lovemaking. Actually more passionate than usual, along with an increased fierceness of temper there was certainly an added fire in his desire for me, most satisfying indeed. Yes that was another reason I wasn’t as happy to return to sea on the Diane. With an unknown crew and on a Navy ship, we had to be more circumspect, and there was Fox and his retinue on the other side of the bulkhead. Stephen spent a lot more time down in his cabin below than I would have liked.’

Jack frowned now as he thought of Fox. ‘He seemed all right when we first met him, but he didn’t improve on closer acquaintance and it got more painful being cooped up with him at close quarters. He succeeded, with his arrogant and disdainful attitude in alienating everyone on board from the youngsters to all the ship’s officers and even his secretary, Mr Edwards who sought the company of the officers’ mess to escape the man’s overbearing manner. Stephen and I managed to maintain a reasonably cordial relationship for form’s sake and for the sake of the mission, but even that broke down in Pulo Prabang. Stephen refused to have anything more to do with him after we left Pulo Prabang and I don’t think it was just that Fox and his attendant group of boobies were so damned rude, it was something else, something that had happened on shore. Stephen wouldn’t tell me at the time and I didn’t press him but I think Bonden knew. Whenever Fox got anywhere near Stephen on board, Bonden was there like he was guarding him from Fox. I asked Bonden about it and the bruising that was on Stephen’s face and how he had come by it, but as usual he remained mum, not a word. The other men disliked Fox even more after that too. I remember that last reading of the Articles of War, them all giving Fox pointed looks when I got to Article XXIX. Did he abuse one of the youngsters? Did Stephen acquire those bruises in attempting to protect one of them from Fox’s advances? Stephen also stayed away from me, slept down below every night till we had to abandon ship. What was he keeping from me about what happened between him and Fox? Perhaps he thought it would anger me beyond my limits and I would say something that would create another enemy willing to harm my career. He warned me before I had that unpleasant interview with Fox about the cuffing of the young midshipman on the quarterdeck to be careful with my words with Fox. It was somewhat a relief when Fox took off in the pinnace with his boobies for Batavia after the ship was grounded on that reef. He was lost in the storm that broke up the Diane but I doubt anyone grieved for his passing. He is dead, so will Stephen tell me even now?’

Jack looked up and smiled as he saw Stephen walk towards him, “There you are Stephen. You have been quite a while in the sick berth tending to your patients. Is there a problem?”

“No, Jack not a major problem, just some unexpected symptoms with one of the men. I just needed to check to ensure that the original diagnosis was accurate. He will be fine. You, though look thoroughly discontented?” Stephen sat beside him on the taff rail bench turning his body toward him to look fixedly at Jack’s face.

“Oh not really, just some unpleasant memories about that scrub, Fox.”

Stephen stiffened slightly, his face now severe, “Yes, he was not a pleasant individual.”

Jack leant forward and touched Stephen’s hand, “Will you tell me now Stephen? Will you tell me how he offended you? I did not understand at the time what happened between you. I knew you were upset about it at the time, so I didn’t press you about it. Can you tell me now?”

Stephen looked down, “Maybe, not here. Let me think about it today Jack. We’ll talk tonight, perhaps I can give you an answer then.” He looked overwhelmed again, overwhelmed by his memories. His body shook. Shook with suppressed rage.

Jack looked at him, now concerned and touched Stephen’s shoulder gently. “Stephen if it is too painful to remember I won’t press you, but I would like to know. If you tell me maybe it will seem less awful, whatever it is.”

Stephen shrugged and hung his head, looking at his feet and murmured, “I’m not sure anything will change how I feel about that man.”

“Well I’m sure there must have been some more pleasant memories from that time then. Perhaps we’ll talk about them instead. We’ll do whatever you want Stephen, but I thought … Well, I thought … there wouldn’t be any secrets between us any more.”

“I’m sorry Jack, yes I promised to be more open with you. It’s just difficult. Let me have this afternoon to think about it and we’ll talk. I’ll talk to you about it this evening.” Stephen looked up at Jack.

“Come down to the cabin and I’ll tell you what I was thinking about this morning, if you want to hear it.” Jack stood and held his hand out to Stephen and pulled him to his feet.

“No, can’t we just go up to the bows and sit there. I’ve been below decks all morning. I need some fresh air and sunlight at the moment.”

“Then come along. Have you got your glass? I’ll get Mr Daniel to go down and get mine for you to use.” Jack called. “Mr Daniel please get my glass from the cabin? Can we have some studdingsails at the bows as well?”

“Yes, sir,” Mr Daniel replied and hurried to obey and the studdingsails were at the bows before Stephen and Jack walked forward. Jack took Stephen’s hand to help him across some of the obstacles in the gangway. The men had some of the sails that were usually stowed below up on deck checking them, airing them and making repairs.

“There is one advantage with being in command of a hired vessel of the Royal Navy or a King’s ship, your orders are obeyed with at times a pleasing degree of alacrity, Stephen.” Jack laughed and stepped toward the rail to look forward, pleased to feel the fresh sea air and the spray on his face and to see the small rainbows created by the refraction of the bright sunlight through the spray. “You know Stephen, days like this, perfect days for sailing I feel alive, more alive then ever. I feel like the midshipman I once was on her. Don’t laugh Stephen or comment. I know you can be Dr Humorous Droll with your remarks especially concerning my size or the breadth of my girth.”

Stephen stepped up to stand beside Jack, looked back to see that no one was watching and patted Jack’s buttocks. “Did I mention the extreme and most unhealthy amount of padding to be found on your gluteus maximus?” Stephen laughed and looked out to sea as Jack playfully attempted to cuff him.

“Well Dr Maturin you will cease those comments forthwith as soon as we are aboard my flagship or I shall have to determine which of the Articles of War you have transgressed and formulate an appropriate form of discipline to be administered by me personally.” Then in a lower voice, “Perhaps some punishment applied by hand to your puny gluteus maximus might be the most suitable. Then of course I shall have to apply the soothing salve to the appropriate parts. You will also certainly not pat my behind in front of anyone, I repeat, anyone on the flagship, ever.”

Stephen turned and moved closer to him and looked at Jack who could see Stephen’s desire to kiss him restrained as he pulled his head back and smiled, “Well my dear I have been warned and I shall attempt at all times to maintain your dignity as an Admiral, though I think that perhaps the application of the salve after the punishment may tempt me into the occasional transgression.”

Jack threw his head back and laughed. “What shall I do with you? You are absolutely incorrigible at times.”

“I will leave that up to you Jack. I’m sure you will discover some appropriate activity to exorcise that particular quality.” Stephen murmured, his eyes now sparkling with the suppressed laughter that was threatening to break out.

“Stephen, Stephen I’m free now. On the Surprise I’m free. I can be and act and say what I want. No one is shocked, no one is here to look reproachful or scandalised, no stuffy protocol. It will be so different when we reach the Implacable. I’ll be imprisoned in my rank, stuffed to the gills with paperwork and kept in my place entertaining, cajoling, handling and generally placating the egos of touchy, jealous and cantankerous Captains. How shall I bear it? Have I made a mistake?”

“Jack you shall bear it and yes you shall enjoy it. Yes, there will be limitations placed on you by your rank and the role you must play, but you would always regret it, if you did not do this, take this challenge. If you need amusement, fun even, I think I maybe able to supply that, along with other more personal services. Come, there will be times that we can go off on the Surprise. You did mention that in the hurricane season the fleet might be limited to the Cape for maintenance and that we could sail on expeditions dedicated to natural philosophy, did you not?”

“So for a month or two I get to sail away with you. But what if I like it so much I don’t ever want to come back?”

“Jack they can’t write ‘R’ for run against the name of an admiral can they? That would be a first, but I would not advise it Jack. Not good policy I find.”

“Then I can’t run away with you then?”

“Most definitely not! As your closest adviser I would suggest you remain in your position and leave at a time that is most convenient for you and if at all possible congenial to the service. There would be no benefit in putting them out or leaving them with a sense of your ingratitude. Jack. What has brought this on?” Stephen looked at him curiously.

“Oh, it was just some of my thoughts this morning. I was remembering how I felt when I was on the Diane. I was regretting the Surprise then too. I was happy to be back in the Navy and commanding a King’s Ship, but I was feeling stifled by the stuffiness, the protocol and regard for rank and the lack of freedom of conversation between the men and me. The Surprise when she was a letter of marque, you know for me she was perfect. The crew were handpicked, all able seamen and there was an easiness and freedom from the cruelties, the sometimes unavoidable cruelties that you find on a King’s ship.”

Stephen smiled and looked down again, “I see my little discourses on these subjects has born some fruit.”

“Yes you have got into my ear by sheer persistence and I won’t say I have changed my mind but you have at least made me rethink some things about Naval discipline and recruitment procedures.” Jack replied. “But don’t get it into your head that if you nag me continually that I will give in on other things.”

“No, Jack, of course not, I would never dream of it. All I can ask is you consider my arguments fairly, reasonably and don’t dismiss them out of hand, merely because they conflict with naval tradition. For as you are aware, no institution survives for very long if it does not change its ways now and then, for those institutions that do not are doomed to extinction by slow atrophy.”

Stephen had switched to discourse mode and seeking to divert him from giving some lecture on some aspect of Naval life, Jack asked, “There was something else I wanted to ask you about that time. It was about you. When you were recovering with your broken leg and the first few weeks back on the Surprise you were damned snappish. I remember Tom Pullings telling me how you roared like an enraged bull at Mr Martin. Quite out of character for you in most circumstances. You can be contrary and argumentative if the mood takes you, but during that time you could hardly be described as sweet tempered.”

“I thought I explained that to you at the time, but then perhaps I did not make myself clear. I had stopped taking a course of physic, which had a detrimental effect on my health. Unfortunately the effect of ceasing the physic was to induce symptoms both physical and mental that made me somewhat bad tempered and intolerant of my fellow man. Poor Martin had unfortunately disordered all my papers, a task that took me many hours’ work and my response was somewhat unconsidered and aggressive, not the behaviour of a gentleman and I regretted it most intensely.” Stephen shook his head.

“It did seem to have one effect I liked Stephen. As well as increased fieriness of your temper, you were much more passionate in other ways.” Jack spoke almost in a whisper.

“That too was a symptom of withdrawing the laudanum. My animal spirits were somewhat suppressed by the physic and when I stopped taking it on a regular basis, they returned to their natural levels. At the time, my dreams were very intense, very erotic. I despaired that I had become a satyr, a veritable satyr.”

“I certainly didn’t mind Stephen. I recall now that very pleasant night we spent in that monastery on the way to Corunna.” Jack’s smile broadened as he recalled the details of that night.

“Most disgraceful, I can only pray that such goings on had not happened there in the past. I can at least plead the excuse that my activities were a result of physical symptoms induced by withdrawal of my physic at the time. You have no such excuse.” Stephen harrumphed and tried to look disapproving but from the occasional smile that appeared on his lips it was obvious that he too recalled that heated, passionate night.

“Stephen don’t be so holier than thou, you enjoyed it as much as I did and I did not need to persuade you very much to get you into my bed that I recall. I’m sure there must have been some monks who were less than careful of their vows of chastity in that monastery at some time in the past.”

“Now you are being blasphemous and I would ask you to desist.”

Jack smiled at Stephen again, but decided not to test his tolerance further and his smile turned to a frown as he recalled the effect of Fox on all such activities on board the Diane. “But that damned Fox on the Diane put an end to that. You spent more time down below than with me in the cabin and I missed you and when we did get to Batavia and Pulo Prabang you spent all your time ashore. It wasn’t till we were cast upon that island and I could share a tent with you that I had you to myself.”

“My poor Jack, you were feeling deprived?” Stephen smiled mockingly at him.

“Yes I was if you want to know.” Jack replied tartly. Then his expression changed as he remembered the other point he wanted to discuss with Stephen. “There was another instance of strangeness on your part that I’m curious about. It was while we were on board the Surprise, the pursuit of that snow off Ireland. You seemed very concerned, nervous and tense and I was worried to tell you that I had made a cock of it, when she got away, but then you weren’t upset at all. It seemed very odd at the time.” Jack looked at Stephen a puzzled expression clear on his face.

Stephen stiffened again and Jack thought, ‘He’s not going to tell me,’ and his face expressed his disappointment. Stephen was looking at him and saw the rapid flux of expressions across Jack’s face and looked down biting his lip and then looked up again at Jack, anxious and unsure now. “Come Jack let’s sit down. This is difficult. I need to think. Will you be patient for a little longer? I will tell you, but you may not think well of me, once you hear what I have to say.”

Jack sat on the folded studdingsails and pulled Stephen down. At first attempting to pull him onto his lap but then remembering where they were he seated Stephen beside him. “Stephen nothing you can tell me would change how I feel about you.”

Stephen sat, his head down, considering what he could say, how he could explain what he felt. “Jack perhaps I should explain this in the frame of my Irishness and my allegiance to other Irishmen. I was caught in a bind, caught like James Dillon, between two duties, two loyalties, two codes. Caught between my duty as an Irishman to protect another Irishman from capture and perhaps death at the hands of the English and my duty as an officer in the Royal Navy to ensure the arrest of a perceived traitor; caught between my loyalty to Ireland and my loyalty to you; caught between the code that despises and rejects informers and all their vile personal treacheries and that which encourages those same personal betrayals to protect and maintain the dominance of England over Ireland. Do you know why Dillon hated you and hated himself even more before his death? He hated you because he had to betray you because he could not live as an informer and betray a fellow countryman and yield him up for certain torture and death at the hands of the English. He hated himself for that betrayal of you and his own self-hatred fed his hostility to you and made his life so unbearable he accepted death gladly, feeling it somehow expunged that betrayal and restored his honour.”

“How did he betray me? How did he betray the service and England?” Jack asked.

“You remember the orders you received to board and search the American ship to look for the Irish traitors while I was wandering in Catalunya? You sent Dillon to board her. He knew them straight away but could not, would not betray them, even though he despised both of them. He would not be an informer, though one of the vile creatures was quite willing to betray him as a United Irishman. It was not cowardice that prevented him from identifying them, I am sure. So it was with me. When we were close enough to the snow and you handed me your glass, I saw a man, an Irishman I knew, Robert Gough standing at the taff rail of the snow we were pursuing. He was a fellow United Irishman but that was the only thing which bound us. We disagreed on everything of importance. He was for warfare and bloodshed to attain Irish freedom; I was for a parliamentary and legislative solution. He was a supporter of Napoleon and for French intervention; I was not. But for all that I did not want to be associated with his arrest.”

“Why did this distress you so? It would not have been your fault. You were on the ship as its owner and its physician, nothing more. If he were to be arrested it would be my responsibility, not yours and even then I was not a Naval officer. It was not a King’s ship. He would have been arrested, if at all when we offloaded the crew at the nearest port for the head money. It would have had nothing to do with you.” Jack took Stephen’s hand and pressed it, puzzled why Stephen had got into such a dither about this.

“No, no Jack, you don’t understand. He would know my face and not only Gough but others would think I had informed against him. I would have lost my honour among all my fellow Irishmen. I’m not sure I could have lived with being considered a traitor by my countrymen. I was desperate and I was looking for a way to deprive you of your prize, to betray you Jack. You would consider it a betrayal wouldn’t you? I thought of everything I could possibly do to impede the chase and yet as I had no practical nautical skills I could really do nothing. All I could do is pace the deck and pray that she would get away and all saw my distress, they thought its basis was the desperate desire for the prize when all I could think of was how I was caught in a trap of conflicting loyalties. Betray my country or betray you, Jack. Not a good choice, I found.” Stephen looked down, distressed.

“Ah, that explains your relief. Stephen it was never that important to me to catch that snow and no I do not consider it a personal betrayal. It was a chance encounter; we could have so easily missed it. What bothers me more was that you did not choose to tell me what bothered you? I remember carrying you back to the cabin, soaking wet and shivering and drying you and taking you to my cot and holding you to me to warm you. Couldn’t you have told me then? Couldn’t you trust me, even then Stephen?” Jack pressed Stephen’s hand and touched his chin to make him look up at him.

“I also thought you would see me as a traitor to England, if you knew I would try to seek the escape of such a man. This man in league with Napoleon and who would do anything to foment revolution in Ireland. I knew he wouldn’t be successful but I didn’t know whether that would ameliorate my guilt in your eyes.”

“Stephen, if you thought there was no harm in his escape, who am I to question that? You who know more than I will ever know of these things. What I knew then and what I know now was that you were totally true to your mission of defeating Napoleon? You wouldn’t have endangered that. I know that you had to keep things from me then, but you don’t now. What I do want to know is whether you trust me now Stephen? Do you?”

“Yes I do. Jack, trust is difficult for me after all those years of secrets and the keeping of secrets. It is a hard task to learn to be so careful, to continually monitor and control everything you say, do and reveal in your expression, for fear you will give yourself or someone else away. To unlearn this skill seems to be even more difficult than the learning because for it to be properly learnt, it must be second nature, so that you don’t make mistakes, you don’t get people killed. I’m sorry I hurt you with my lack of trust but it is hard, very hard. Please be patient with me, Jack. I am trying and yes I will talk to you tonight about what happened with Fox. It will anger you Jack. I know it. Anger you because I didn’t tell you, or Killick or Bonden didn’t. But you mustn’t blame them. I made them promise not to tell you. It would have made no difference to what happened, if you had known.”

“I understand or I’m trying to. I won’t press you now. I’ll wait.” Jack looked up at the sun. “Stephen I must be on my way, the noon observation is almost due. I shall see you at dinner? Harding and Hanson are dining with us today.”

“Of course Jack,” Stephen nodded to Jack as he got up and walked aft.
A Friendship Dissected, Chapter 14 – Part 2

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Protected: Another Myth in the Making

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Another Myth in the Making

I liked this opinion piece today in The Age. I’m just waiting for the propaganda to start rolling out from Dubya’s cheer squad to support the next myth to explain the US presence in Iraq –

The myth of the reluctant occupier
May 24, 2004

Iraq is a strategic prize in the Arab world with huge reserves of oil. America will stay put, writes Scott Burchill.

First there was the “grave danger” (in the words of President Bush) posed by Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, which failed to materialise.

Then there were the Baghdad/al-Qaeda links that couldn’t be established.

Then along came the democratisation rationale. To replace the threat of non-existent weapons of mass destruction, a humanitarian argument was invoked that proved difficult to sustain with more than 10,000 innocent civilians killed by invading and occupying forces.

And far from confronting terrorists in situ as promised, Iraq has became a recruiting ground for a proliferating collection of anti-Western militants.

Now a new orthodoxy is shaping comment and analysis about events in Iraq. Let’s call it the “reluctant occupier myth”.

Having removed Saddam and his cohorts from power and set Iraq on a path towards democracy, the US is now preparing to leave – the “Vietnamisation” of Iraq. It will find a smooth way out by returning sovereignty to a new Iraqi administration, initially on July 1 through the auspices of the UN and then early next year through democratic elections. Coalition forces, which don’t want to be in Iraq a day longer than is necessary to “finish the job”, will stay on for a time to “maintain” security, but only at the pleasure of a new interim government in Baghdad.

Like the earlier myths, this one is also a fabrication.

It is difficult to see what could be more obvious than that the US is desperately trying to stay in Iraq – and specifically, in charge in Iraq.

Despite disingenuous claims that coalition troops would leave if asked to by a new Iraqi authority after July 1, US Secretary of State Colin Powell got closer to the truth when he stated on April 26 that “I hope they (the Iraqi people) will understand that in order for this government to get up and running – to be effective – some of its sovereignty will have to be given back (to Washington)”.

So, coalition troops will stay on regardless. After all, what was the point of invading in the first place if they were going to get out?

Washington wants others (the United Nations) to share the burden of political reconstruction and rebuilding infrastructure, but it has no intention of relinquishing real control of the country to anyone, including New York or the Iraqi people.

As a strategic prize in the heart of the Arab world with the world’s second-largest known reserves of oil, a client regime in Baghdad would be of inestimable value to the US.

However, it is having difficulty finding a Vichy government willing to follow Washington’s orders, because of the domestic risks that collaborators always face.

The US is keen to hand over the “nasties”, such as local policing and law and order to indigenous control, because this will reduce coalition losses.

On the other hand, the lucrative gains of economic sovereignty – including control of the oil industry, the privatisation of state-owned enterprises, and opening up the economy to foreign investment and ownership – will not be matters for the discretion of a post-Saddam administration.

The world’s largest embassy, which Washington intends to build in Baghdad, would not be necessary if Iraqis were going to genuinely regain control of their country. It will be a constant reminder that full sovereignty, including economic and political independence, will not be returned to them.

The US has lost the war politically. Its occupation of Iraq is the cause of regional instability and unremitting violence. Its preference for unilateralism and contempt for the UN, its reluctance to consult with long-standing friends, and its failure to reconcile its global ambitions with the limits of its power has undermined the alliance system upon which its foreign policy has rested since 1947.

According to the war historian Gabriel Kolko, the strength and influence of the US in the post-World War II period has “largely rested on its ability to convince other nations that it was to their vital interests to see America prevail in its global role”.

The false pretexts used to justify the war in Iraq and the revelations of prison brutality have cost Washington considerable moral authority among its allies in Europe and friends in the Middle East.

America has never been more militarily powerful but has also never felt less secure. It now confronts this paradox in a much less friendly and respectful world.

Dr Scott Burchill is a lecturer in international relations at Deakin University.
burchill@deakin.edu.au

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