Horatio Hornblower Fanfiction: Innocence Drowned by Sharpeslass

"So, Mr. Kennedy, where do you hail from?" Archie stood on the deck of the Justinian and faced forward as Acting Lieutenant Jack Simpson addressed him with an air of seeming carelessness.

"My father and mother reside in Scotland, sir," Archie replied.

"You don’t sound like a Scot," Simpson challenged.

"No, Sir. I received my education in England, Sir. London mostly."

"Ah. A Laird’s son I’ve no doubt," Midshipman Kennedy detected the sneer behind Simpson’s words. The Acting Lieutenant was old for his rank and Archie suspected he would doubtless resent a mere midshipman born to privilege.

Bearing this in mind, he tried to make his reply suitably self-deprecating. "Third son, sir," he conceded with a tight smile. "I fear my brother is to inherit the title."

"And so you’ve been shipped off like so much useless baggage, eh, Mr. Kennedy?"

Simpson’s words and tone took Archie aback.

"No, sir," he protested. "It has always been my greatest ambition to make a career for myself in His Majesty’s Royal Navy, sir."

"Well," Simpson drew the corners of his mouth down almost imperceptibly in an affected frown of speculation. "We shall see. I imagine we shall find out… I shall find out… exactly what manner of man you are in the days to come… boy."

Archie’s forward gaze slipped slightly as he perceived the thinly veiled threat in Simpson’s softly spoken words. His glance at the acting lieutenant did nothing to allay his sudden discomfort. Simpson now wore a benign smile, which clashed eerily with the anticipatory gleam in his cold blue eyes.

"I trust I shall do my best to be found worthy, sir," Archie replied, managing to keep his tone even as he shifted his eyes forward again. He was uncertain what he had said or done to garner Jack Simpson’s dislike, but resolved to keep well out of the man’s way in the future.

Unfortunately his resolution was doomed to failure.

In the weeks that followed, Simpson dogged Archie’s steps with malicious glee. Punishments for mistakes, real or imagined, landed him across the cannon and hung him in the riggings. In every case Jack Simpson looked on with relish, and no one stepped in to impede him.

At the end of Archie’s first month on the still-anchored Justinian, he had begun to develop a marked tendency to flinch at the sound of Simpson’s voice. But he had also nearly perfected an ability to remove his mind from the present during some of his more physically painful experiences. At such times, he would appear to those who watched to be nearly a blank slate; his blue eyes unfocused, their brightness muted, and their expression quite vacant, as his body jerked under a succession of brutal blows.

Surprisingly, in spite of this Midshipman Kennedy was not thoroughly dispirited. The other midshipmen truly liked him. Of course they were careful not to show it in Jack’s presence, for Archie was not Simpson’s first victim by a long shot, and most were as daunted by the man’s tireless cruelty as Archie was becoming himself. Additionally, most of Mr. Kennedy’s superiors found little fault in him. Certainly his mathematics needed some work, but in spite of his public and private punishments, Archie was still able to command the respect of the ratings under his supervision – to such an extent as was possible on as unruly a ship as the Justinian.

Serena wrote regularly, and he to she – leaving out the more unpleasant details of his life on board the Justinian and revealing no disappointment to his expectations. Her letters were warm and friendly and very occasionally just a bit more. In spite of the fact that he had left her with few promises, he had little doubt that he was to her nearly all that she was to him.

Foremost though, he still took pleasure in serving on a ship – either standing on the rolling deck or climbing amid the footholds of the towering masts. So Archie, aided by a naturally cheerful disposition, held himself from despair.

A warning from a kindly senior midshipman named Clayton indicated that this was perhaps the root of Simpson’s apparent obsession with tormenting Archie.

"You are too happy," he warned, as he tended his young friend after a particularly nasty beating. Archie, who felt quite mistakenly that he could not be more miserable, snorted in derision at Clayton’s proclamation. The older man continued nonetheless. "He likes his men broken and you don’t seem to break. The man is capable of far worse than this Archie. Go carefully."

"It doesn’t seem to make a difference how carefully I go," retorted Archie, easing his aching body into his hammock. "If Simpson is determined to beat me to death, then I don’t suppose I can stop him." He shut his eyes and did not observe Clayton’s expression of concern as it deepened the lines on his already-drawn face.

Clayton was right, of course. Jack Simpson was not a man of great intellectual powers but had years of experience in the fine art of brutality. His fledgling childhood atrocities, committed against insects, family pets and finally other children were honed to an art in his adult years upon his helpless underlings. His soul had been brought to a ripened, ruined bitterness as year after year those same underlings had outstripped him, outranked him and moved on out of range of his limited authority.

The current crew of midshipmen aboard the Justinian represented the towering pinnacle of Simpson’s achievement; men so truly beaten and daunted that they dared not outshine his mediocre best, and who therefore stranded themselves under his tyrannical command.

Jack Simpson saw in Mr. Kennedy a spark that might carry the young man from his grasp and so encourage such aspirations in the men who were now little more than his slaves. He resolved to extinguish that spark and with all the power of his twisted talents, struck on a means of nearly doing just that.

Archie sat in the midshipman’s mess, penning a letter to Serena. The noise around him was nearly deafening. Sailors and their whores… There were so many women here. He had not expected that… and all to be had for a fair price. He knew some midshipmen indulged, but the officers did not, or were far more discreet. So he made some excuse of advancement in his mind but truthfully thought only of Serena.

He had chosen an isolated corner in which to write. He now had an empty table and a candle stub to himself as he leaned against a bulkhead and wrote.

"My dear miss Thompson," he etched. " I am well." His hand shook alarmingly as he lowered his quill into the inkpot. As he wrote he felt the presence of others encroaching on his solitary space. He shifted slightly to make way for M’man Heather, and then further as Cleveland moved to join them.

The close press of humanity was something he’d gotten used to. But he felt a palpable shadow on his consciousness when Jack Simpson entered the midshipman’s mess. He reached instinctively to conceal his parchment but a long-boned hand slapped his own down. Archie did not struggle. Instead his eyes went vacant as that hand removed the barely-begun letter from his slackened grasp.

"My dear Miss Thompson," the voice came in a clear inquisitive drawl. Archie flinched slightly, then returned to his unseeing contemplation of the wooden tabletop as Jack Simpson shouldered in beside him. "Friends," Simpson continued in only slightly louder tones. Simpson rarely had need to shout, and when he did so it was only for effect. "Our young shipmate has been holding back on us." Jack waved the parchment casually before him. "For it seems our Mr. Kennedy has a lady friend." The assembled midshipmen issued a few muted jeers.

Every man among them had been tensed for the violence now presaged by Simpson’s mild tone. The Acting Lieutenant had been dressed down severely by a senior officer of the Justinian earlier that day, an event witnessed by several of his supposed underlings. Each of them had felt that dressing-down keenly, knowing that ultimately it was to be on one of their own heads that the true punishment would fall. More than a little relief was evident on the assembled faces now that the lottery had been drawn.

"What is the lady’s given name, Mr. Kennedy?" Simpson asked. "Mr. Kennedy!" he barked more sharply when no answer was forthcoming. The shout jolted Archie out of his seeming paralysis.

"Maria." Archie lied, unwilling to give over Serena’s name to the man he quite correctly regarded as his enemy.

"Maria," Simpson rolled the name over on his tongue. "We must know more about this young lady." He put a companionable arm over Archie’s shoulder. "For are we not all here shipmates… and friends," he looked about him, gathering the expected support in the cowed glances of the others. "Hether!" his voice again cracked out in sharp report. "Fetch Mr. Kennedy’s sea chest." At this order Archie made to rise, but the tightening pressure of Mr. Simpson’s cold fingers on his shoulder kept him to his seat upon the hard wooden bench.

With all due haste the chest was dragged forward from Archie’s berth and on Simpson’s command rough fingers rifled through its contents. Archie had few possessions. Within seconds Serena’s letters and portrait were produced and handed over to Acting Lieutenant Simpson.

"Not Maria at all, I see," Simpson frowned as he perused a finely penned parchment. His face wore an expression of mock injury. "You wound us, Archie. Are we not all in your confidence? I see here letters from a Miss Serena Thompson. Is this her portrait?" Simpson rested his elbows upon the table and held the small oval frame loosely in his long fingers. Archie nodded mutely, still not looking up, but feeling his blood begin to pound in his temples. Jack pursed his lips speculatively as he gazed at the image before him. "A comely enough wench."

"Sir…" the honorable protest fought its way through Archie’s instincts for self-preservation and surfaced sounding far weaker than he’d intended. In a sudden move which caused Archie to recoil, Jack swung up from the trestle and stood behind him, now resting his arms on the younger man’s shoulders. One hand held Serena’s portrait before Archie’s flushed face, another traced, with light fingers, the exposed skin at his open neckline. Simpson leaned in and in a stage whisper full of innuendo breathed into Archie’s ear.

"Have you had her, boy?"

Archie pushed himself up with the full strength of his anger and, turning, lashed out at the older man.

Jack had been expecting the move - had deliberately provoked it - and was prepared. He quickly danced out of range. His eyes now flashed with delighted rage. "Hold him, you dogs!" he snapped. His ‘dogs’ sprang to obey. Within instants, Archie was flat on his back. He struggled to no effect as his fellows held him down and Simpson moved over him, straddling Archie’s pinioned form atop the rough table. His knees pressed in on either side of Kennedy’s heaving chest as he rested his full weight on his struggling victim. It took the efforts of both Hether and Cleveland to hold the young man’s straining arms above his head.

"Is it an accurate image, Archie?" wondered Simpson aloud, tearing open Archie’s shirt and resting Serena’s picture against the bared and glistening flesh he’d revealed. "If so," he continued. "I can see that the little whore has much to recommend her." Simpson stroked the back of one hand almost tenderly along the strong line of Archie’s clenched jaw and with the other Jack grasped the now apparent bulge in his own trousers. He rubbed at his burgeoning erection, facing Archie with an unblinking stare as the boy squirmed helplessly beneath his weight.

"You shall have to arrange an introduction Archie. No doubt she would prefer to be ridden by a real man than by a little boy… even one so pretty as yourself." As he spoke he slipped loose a hook at the top of his breeches. He leaned forward so that his nose was scant centimeters from Archie’s own.

Archie twisted his face away and felt the older man’s fine hair brush against his cheek. The strong scents of rum, sweat and male arousal assaulted his senses. Along with his rising terror he fought down the urge to vomit. Jack slid a hand into his now open breeches and stroked himself, the purple tip of his swollen cock just visible to Archie as Simpson rocked slightly against his immobilized form. His voice came thick in Archie’s ear. "What would your little whore think if she could see you now, boy?" He flicked out his tongue and lashed Archie’s ear with a wet caress. A deep and welcome blackness began to press in at the edges of Archie’s vision. But just as suddenly he felt Simpson’s weight lifted from him.

"Take him to the cable tiers." Simpson’s voice seemed to Archie to come to him from a long distance off. Archie had barely the presence of mind to fight as Hether and Cleveland dragged him from the mess. But fight he did and he continued to do so with desperate might, as the men bent him over a thigh-high coil of ropes in the bowels of the Justinian and lashed him firmly in place.

"Leave us," Simpson said when the business of binding was complete.

"Cleveland!" Archie entreated. "Hether. Please, man!" Neither of the midshipmen could meet Archie’s tortured gaze. Instead they slunk from the room like two chastised hounds, leaving Archie alone in hell with his own personal devil.

Simpson crouched down before Archie. Grasping his chin, he forced the flushed face of the midshipman up to his own. Two pairs of blue eyes made contact. Archie’s fevered and pleading, shining with unshed tears, met with Jack’s cold, dead regard.

"Shall I show you what I would do to your little slut?" Jack asked with a slight smile.

"Please, Mr. Simpson," Archie strove for a reasoning tone, but his voice cracked around the words. "Please. I’ll do whatever you ask of me. I’ll…" Every stammered syllable dripped with Archie’s fear. "Anything. I… Just… Please. For God’s sake, sir!"

Simpson rocked back on his heels and watched with amusement as Archie struggled to wrap his mind around what he clearly knew was to come. Kennedy was, Jack thought, a beautiful boy. To Jack’s mind the fear and exertion only made him more so. His gold burnished hair had long since fallen free of its restraints and curled loosely about his terror-stricken face.

Simpson stilled Archie’s tumbling words, pressing a slender finger to the boy’s lips.

"Quiet, boy. There’s no use in opposing me. What Jack wants, Jack gets. It’s high time you learned as much. Stop fighting me and I think that we will be very good friends indeed." With that Jack rose and moved out of Archie’s limited line of vision.

For long moments Archie heard nothing. What felt to him like hours passed in an agony of tense, exhausted muscles and screaming nerves. At every moment he expected a kick, a blow or the grasp of cruel hands. Yet when the stroke finally fell he still cried out in alarm.

Jack was suddenly behind him, his rough hands clutching at Archie’s hips. Archie could feel Simpson’s engorged sex pressing against his backside even through the fabric of his breeches. An involuntary shudder ran through him and he heard Jack’s breath catch in a gasp of apparent pleasure. The thought that his own unconscious actions had caused that sound made Archie sick to his very soul.

He could not stem the babbling tide of protests and pleas as it poured forth, barely coherent, from his lips. In the shameful memory that lingered afterward Archie dimly recalled offering up Serena in his place, panicking as Simpson roughly jerked down his trousers and bared his flesh. Archie’s shirt was pushed high over his shoulders and light fingers traced his sweat-slicked skin from the nape of his neck to the very base of his spine – then traveled lower. Less gently, those same unseen fingers began to probe and invade.

What followed was a seemingly endless descent into both searing pain and burning shame.

When it started, Archie’s screaming was quickly muffled by means of a makeshift gag. His own sounds muted, he was forced to listen to Jack’s noises; the small grunts of pleasure the man released upon each brutal, violating thrust into Archie’s torn body. Archie felt sure he would die from the agony - and wanted nothing more than to do so. Hot tears ran down his cheeks and splashed unheeded onto the wooden planking below as Simpson spilled into him with a triumphant cry of release.

Jack collapsed for a moment onto Archie’s back. He clutched at sweat-sticky flesh, as he spasmed repeatedly within the tight confines of the young body beneath him. The sobs wracking that body created grasping convulsions, milking him and drawing out his climax.

Lust and violence appeased, Simpson straightened and stood over the now limp form of Mr. Kennedy. He fastened his trousers with haste and cut Archie’s bonds with his pocketknife. Archie slid to the deck and coiled in upon himself, half naked, bleeding and shaking uncontrollably.

"What a picture," sneered Simpson. "What a fine picture indeed. If only your little Serena could see her brave sailor now." Simpson tossed the portrait onto the deck beside the shivering midshipman and brought one heel down upon it crushing the glass covering the fair features.

"Pull yourself together, boy," he spat. "You’ll be wanted above deck within the hour and I’ll make no excuses for you." With that Jack Simpson turned and left Archie alone with his pain.

***

END.

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