If a game hasn't begun yet – which we're a-coming, ain't we? The last game we played and completed was Spinning a Yarn.

New players are welcome, so feel free to contact us if you'd like to play.

pbw
Jack Aubrey sipped at his fifth cup of coffee of the morning. Now that the Surprise was in the Downs, fresh beans had come aboard, along with the mail and other provisions. Jack's temper was benign, even expansive.

He had sorted the mail packets, even begun to make sense of Sophie's chronologies, and had opened the more official seeming despatches. Working his way through miscellaneous notes from friends in the service, he suddenly snorted.

"Stephen, here's a thing! Francis Austen wants us to ship his two sisters round to Bristol next week. They are to go on to Bath for some reason".

"Bristol, Jack?---Oh, the experimental rigging trials in the Irish sea. And, pray, why should this Austen fellow be craving the favour of you?"

"Why, he's a fellow Captain, o'course. Flag of the Canopus 80. Has been since '04, and thought to be a real comer by all accounts. And anyway, we were together in Unicorn in the Spring of '96. I moved on, though he, lucky dog, was still aboard when they hammered La Tribune."

"Well Jack, then custom and----'privilege' is it?----must be observed, though the price may be steep if the sisters are mere empty-headed girls with time only for dresses and dances. Then again, is it not said that young women in possession of naval connections and travelling to Bath are inevitably in need of husbands. Perish the thought however, that we may have the dubious blessing of elderly spinsters consumed only with the gossip of village families".

Jack reflected that coffee worked less on his friend's temper than it did on his own. Though he was never comfortable with too many women aboard, and he knew nothing about Captain Austen's sisters, duty to old acquaintance, and having a coming Captain in his debt, however, would balance things out.

bab
Giving the sisters of a fellow Captain a lift, however, involved considerable inconvenience to Captain Aubrey in the matter of his accommodation. The carpenter, Mr Weston, successor to the courtly von und zu Hohenstauffen-Zimmermann, lately restored to his rightful place as heir to a German principality, supervised the usual ingenious contrivances of cots and lockers while Mrs Norris, the Gunner's wife, displayed an officious concern about the over-abundance of linen, candlesticks and soap.

Stephen fled to his cramped cabin as soon as the boat bearing the Austen sisters was within hailing distance but, even there, could not avoid hearing of them from the purser, who was so preoccupied with draughts and damp and infections of various kinds that the wonder of it was that he had ever essayed a sea voyage at all, even for his health. He was wont to track Stephen like a prey. Mr Woodhouse, it seemed, was a near-acquaintance of the ladies' apothecary and could report that, though handsome and clever enough, the younger Miss Austen, Miss *Jane* Austen that was, would be susceptible to the vapourous exhalations of the hold and would, he felt sure, welcome an early consultation with the doctor. Stephen felt even more haunted than usual.

To Jack's relief, the sisters had gone straight below and hadn't been seen since, but Killick had attended to their needs and could report that the piece in blue, the younger one, had been obligingly grateful for the coffee but had shrieked with laughter the very indentical second he had closed the cabin door behind him. "Oh, very humourous, aren't we", he muttered.

sdw
This abuse did not alter Killick's place behind the Captain's chair at dinner, however, where he consoled himself by watching the ladies deal with the weevils.
"Was you ever in Bath, Captain Aubrey", the elder sister asked, quietly covering a weevil with her napkin and dropping it on the floor. Captain Aubrey's mind, however, was deep in the rigging experiments and he did not quite attend.
"Why no, ma'am. We usually make do with the pump, or the sea if it's warm."
For once Stephen was more attentive than Jack: Miss Jane Austen had proved herself an intelligent, informed conversationalist. In the course of the dinner he had learned much about country life, and had not been corrected once.
"Will you be visiting the Pump Room, Miss Austen?"
"Oh certainly, sir. But even staying at home in Bath is quite lively for us: the clatter of pattens, the cry of the muffin man, the rumble of carts in the streets. It can be difficult, sometimes, to concentrate on one's cryptograms," she said looking directly at him. The napkin moved again and a small folded paper fell into Stephen's lap.
"La!" cried her sister. "Jane and her mosses! Tell us, Mr Aubrey: when will you fire the guns? How I long for a really big bang."