The young lieutenant Moore had heard the sound of steel ringing, of flints being cocked and pistols firing off into the night, long before he could force himself to move, and the room tipped and spun dangerously around him as he sat bolt upright, his vision fading in around the edges as he swung his legs from cot to floor, a firm resolve settling in to guide him. At once, his fingers groped wildly for the pistol shoved hastily beneath his pillow each night after his own duties had ended and some measure of peace was allowed him for a time, if only to keep his body in good health for the execution of the good Captain’s orders the next day. For him, it was usually an unwarranted comment or expression of displeasure and the warranting a continuous night watch, yet for this day he had somehow managed to hold his tongue...a fiery temper, he’d fast learned, had little place in His Majesty’s Navy…or had been the surprising lack of moral mishaps that had staid his tongue for him, in order to grant him this small nighttime reprieve. Either way he could not find in himself the calm enough to dwell upon the matter, or to pay it any heed at all as his fingers curled around the cold metal of his officer's pistol and he flung himself toward the doorway with the weapon in hand.

He hadn't paused to dress, there had been no time for such measures to save his dignity and his person from the sure reprimand that was to come for his ungentlemanly conduct, regardless of the outcome of his joining the fray. Were he able to help effect a more favorable outcome, he feared, it would result in the receiving of the same verbal dressing down as if his presence had been entirely ineffectually and his attempts at aiding his fellow seamen, largely unsuccessful. He thought of this in a philosophically detached manner, as was necessary whenever one was contemplating anything to do with the Captain (letting one's feelings get involved was simply far too taxing and ended up doing little good to speak of), though this too was roughly shoved from his mind as he pushed for the stairs, joining a scramble of formerly slumbering men taking up arms and making their way up the narrow stairway to the main deck. Few seemed even to notice the long-limbed, gangly man who pressed awkwardly forward against the throng of men moving topside, a sword in hand, outfitted in nothing more than his nightshirt, untucked and catching in the breeze as he finally reached the main deck, and a pair of fraying breeches almost unbefitting of an officer for their current state of disrepair, into the waistband of which, a pistol had been hastily shoved. Men roughly shoved him aside as they passed by, their arms already cocked, while more still slipped past him with cruder but no less effective weapons at the ready, and of course there came the ever vigilant soldiers who’d come aboard for transport to the colonies, bayonets being fixed as they formed rank and filed onto the deck, the only apparent order in the perfected chaos that held him momentarily spellbound as he came to it.

Shouts from both sides rang out, coinciding with the clashing of steel and firing of bullets. The Americans has snuck aboard ship and he couldn’t for the life of him, reckon how they’d managed it. The moon above, in only the second night of its waning, cast an eerie light over the whole scene, glinting off of blades and pistols alike as Moore stared in awe of it all. And then, like a tidal wave crashing over the side in a storm to strike him, his resolve returned in full measure, the need to move, to act, to fight, to do his duty to the last overtaking him, moving him forward into the fray to meet his first attacker of the night, queue unbound and fair curls flying out behind him as he went. His sword flashed before him, rising in a quick arc to cut away both arm and pistol of the man standing before him, and his eyes held no remorse for the man as another scream filled the night air, adding to the general cacophony of sound. He moved on, pressing forward, losing himself in the fray for several moments until a lull in the fighting allowed him to glimpse a familiar figure with his back to an oncoming attacker.

The word around him seemed as though it had come to an abrupt halt as Moore dashed forward, legs pumping as hard as they dared, bare feet slamming against the deck as he threw himself wholeheartedly into a race against time itself. His eyes were fixed not upon the unsuspecting Cragg, but upon the weapon of his erstwhile attacker as it rose, glinting in the moonlight. A battle cry that sounded like nothing so much as a scream of the deepest sort of anguish tore itself loose from Moore's throat and escaped into the cool night air as his own sword flashed out in front of him, his arm guiding it of its own volition, in an upward diagonal that drove it deep into the man's neck. More nearly toppled over with the enemy as the man fell onto the deck, Moore's blade still lodged deep in his neck. He'd nearly managed to take the man's head clean off with that one, desperate sweep, but had decidedly lacked in the raw physical power necessary for the deed. Instead he was slowly dragged down by the man's weight and forced to press with all his might against it until the head rolled from its place upon the man's shoulders and disappeared behind the boots of the men still caught up in the main skirmish.

Moore stared at Cragg in wonder, looking as ever out of place, like a boy trying to hold to himself the guise of a man, determination slowly fading from his dark eyes to be replaced with a manner of surprise. This was the first time he'd managed to take a man's head in battle. He'd never had a particular knack for close physical combat as so many of the others did, in fact he abhorred it...but for this man, a man who seemed to hold him in the lowest esteem, for whom he could not even begin bring himself to care, he had found the strength necessary to do his duty and preserve the life of one of the crown's own. The life of a fellow officer his mind supplied, shaking him from his stupor and allowing him to right himself as he wondered how long he had been sitting there on the deck beside the headless corpse of the enemy that he had singlehandedly felled in order to protect the older lieutenant.

Only a few precious seconds to be sure, but it seemed like an eternity to Moore, who tended to measure himself by his many faults, failings, and misgiving rather than by his considerable talents and merit as a seaman serving his majesty. Too long his mind screamed, and too late. He heard it behind him, the unmistakable crack of a shot being fired. He felt a sharp stabbing sensation as a bullet firmly lodged itself firmly and effectively in his breast and a fire began to bloom around it. Racing immediately from the affected area, it seared through his body, momentarily paralyzing him with shock, so that he stood there, his eyes widened, and a certain horrified innocence on display there within them as the man who had fired the pistol threw it down and drew a sword from his belt, running at Moore before he could even so much as conceive of whipping about to meet the attack head on with his own blade.

The blade never made it home. Instead, the young officer crumpled to the ground and lay in a heap of blood and sweat, one more to add to the pile of those lost as the battle came to an abrupt close, the leader of the raid upon their vessel having been taken, and the small force of enemies left alive having been rounded up and locked away in the brig for ‘safe keeping.’

Moore’s vision had begun to grow dim even as he felt the wood of the deck solid there beneath his body, fading around the edges he missed the stunning moment when Cragg avenged him, and he was out long before the American rabble was rounded up and locked away. Breathing dangerously slow and irregular in unconsciousness as blood continued to seep through his hastily tucked bed shirt where it was plastered against him, and eyes sealed shut with another man’s blood, he looked as one among the fallen, the lifeless, the unexpected heroes that would be just as quickly and unexpectedly forgotten as they had been made.

He did not feel the rough seamen’s hands as he was hoisted onto a board, a shroud draped over him for dignity’s sake, and verses were read to guide him to heaven in his presumed passing from one life into the next. Nor did he feel the sharp chill of the late November waters as they swallowed him whole. Though while those waters might not have been willing to part with him had they been farther from the coast (for it had presumably been a shore party that had snuck aboard their vessel in the dead of night), fortune made an exchange for him and the waters relinquished him to the shore, though even it managed to provide no loving embrace.

There upon the shore of a Viginia beach, the young lieutenant’s prone and unconscious form shivered in the cold, looking for all the world like a man on the brink of death. His skin had gained an unusual pallor and as the winds dried his loose clothing, the salt from the sea stiffened it, giving the outward appearance of a sort of rigor mortis having set upon him. However, as fortune had made an exchange upon his behalf, he yet lived, only to chance a pitiful death in what had lately become enemy territory, his breathing coming now in shallow, uneven gasps as wakefulness pulled at him from some vague, faraway place, even as death began to reach toward him with the interest of forever stifling him.

Anthony Paine had been posted to scout out the coast of Virginia beach after the fateful attack upon a British fleet the night prior. As the morning progressed there was no sign of a living body among the shore, British or American. Anthony had been relieved he was not asked to engage in combat of all things, not that he hadn't been trained but having joined the forces not more than a year ago he was not yet accustomed to bloodshed.

Regardless of his stature he had been stationed alone this day among the beach which suited his personality well. The air was cold and crisp as the waves crashed against the jagged rocks. It was near a large outcrop where he had seen a shadow of a figure that appeared to be a body from a distance. Anthony immediately broke out in a sprint eager to see what he had come across.

At closer inspection he could tell the shape was in fact a body, Anthony quickened his pace whilst pondering the fact of the man's fate. Looking down upon him now the man appeared to be beaten up badly, not necessarily due to battle, but the rocks themselves. Before he could do anything he checked the body for identification, but no uniform was not to be seen.

Unsure of whether the man had been part of his own fleet he kneeled down next to him, his ear now close to the man's mouth, a shallow breath could be felt against his skin. Anthony's hand moved quickly to injured man's wrist, a pulse was found there shortly after.

"A survivor..." he gasped before remembering his training to revive a fellow man if needed so. He pounded his chest consecutively before breathing into his mouth without hesitation, he would repeat this act until there was some movement from the man beneath him.