Recoil
Carriage trucks strike the rear chocks. Breeching ropes take the remaining force and hold three tons of iron within the deck.
FORCE
H.M.S. Resolute · Orlop to Upper Works
Hold fast.
The sea rolls six degrees to larboard. Forty-four guns wait behind closed ports. On the third beat, the deck becomes an instrument.
Descend to the battery↓
11:36 Ports opened
11:38 Quoins set
11:40 Await the cut
01 / THE MACHINE
Lower gun deck · starboard battery
Not a cannon.
A crew of fourteen.
A 32-pounder is three tons of iron made mobile by oak trucks, tackles and men. Its violence is brief. The labour around it is continuous: searching the bore, wetting sparks, lifting cartridge, ramming shot, hauling the piece home.
In this fictional watch bill, No. 7 gun is captained by Able Seaman Elias Rook. His crew have practised until every hand arrives half a second before it is needed.
- Piece
- 32-pdr long gun
- Weight
- 55 cwt
- Crew
- 14 hands
- Clearance
- 6 ft 2 in
“Run out together. Let the ship feel one blow, not forty-four quarrels.”— Lt. Silas Vale, battery order book
Gun No. 7 · interactive drill
Six motions.
One concussion.
0106
WORM
The wormer twists a double corkscrew through the bore, drawing out cloth and cartridge fragments that might conceal a living spark.
02 / THE REAL WEAPON
Battery returns · noon exercise
Victory belongs
to the interval.
Weight of shot impresses the shore. At sea, rate of fire decides who can still see, hear and answer. These fictional drill returns record the human system behind the iron.
| Gun crew | Piece | First round | Sustained | State |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. 7 · RookLower deck, starboard | 32-pdr | 1′ 18″ | 1 / 94″ | READY |
| No. 9 · CleeveLower deck, starboard | 32-pdr | 1′ 27″ | 1 / 101″ | READY |
| No. 12 · MerrinMiddle deck, larboard | 24-pdr | 1′ 09″ | 1 / 82″ | TEND BREECHING |
| No. 18 · PikeUpper deck, larboard | 12-pdr | 0′ 58″ | 1 / 71″ | READY |
Best sustained interval71 SEC
Speed is never permitted to outrun the sponge. One missed ember can pass flame to the cartridge in the loader’s hands.
03 / THE HOIST
Telegraph signal · 11:40
A sentence
climbs the mizzen.
Signal Lieutenant Mara Venn reads nine coded groups through her glass. Each is a number from a secret vocabulary, made visible by flags rising in pairs and trios. Across the fictional fleet, answering pennants break from the yards.
The historical signal used Sir Home Popham’s numeric code, not a letter-by-letter alphabet. This interpretation preserves that mechanism while giving each hoist a visual identity.
Signal book · selected group 253
ENGLAND The fleet named as one body; origin of the order.04 / AFTER THE FLASH
Thirty seconds
without a horizon.
Powder smoke rolls inward when the wind fails. Men work by memory and the pressure of shoulders beside them. Orders become gestures. The deck tilts beneath guns that can no longer see their mark.
Blind deck
Ventilation stalls. The muzzle is a pale circle in a white room; each crew closes on its own tackle by touch.
VISIBILITYReturn
Air enters the ports. The enemy line resolves in fragments. Rook raises two fingers: sponge, cartridge, shot.
MEMORY05 / BELOW WATERLINE
Surgeon’s cockpit · 13:17
The thunder arrives
through the beams.
Here there are no gunports and no view of the action, only the repeated flex of the hull and dust shaken from the deckhead. Surgeon Ansel Grey records names before injuries; identity can disappear faster than blood.
- 13:17
- John Pell, splinter wound, conscious
- 13:24
- Unknown topman, brought below
- 13:31
- Thomas Errant, powder burn, both hands
- 13:46
- Elias Rook, returned to station
A broadside lasts seconds. Its consequences keep a different time.
When the smoke thins, the sea is still blue.
— Extract from the fictional log of H.M.S. Resolute