Cruise Ship Zeeland, temporally adrift

After his shock at the noise and clamour of the blasts, Killin emerged from a foetal position and stood up, looking over the mangled and smouldering coaming of the bridge wing into the wind and spray, where it appeared a large old-fashioned sailing ship was on a collision course with his own. The sailing ship was lit along its deck with lanterns that showed it was crawling with men, most of them crowding round cannons, busily loading them for another broadside. It was like something out of the pirate stories of Killin's youth.

As he watched, the guns were run out and another coruscating flash of light and thunder as the guns were fired again, low down this time. He saw cannon balls bouncing harmlessly off the hull with a clang that he felt through the rail under his hands.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked himself, glancing back into the Zeeland's bridge, where a scene of absolute pandemonium was being played out. It seemed a cannon ball had made its way in through the window above where Killin had been crouching, and was now rolling around, threatening ankles and smashing important equipment. Captain Brindley was roaring instructions and looking, if it were possible, even more furious than Killin had ever seen him before.

A noise behind him made him turn around just in time to glimpse a mass of rope, cordage and sailcloth before he was scooped off his feet by a spar that reached into the bridge wing as the sailing ship rolled dangerously close alongside. He found himself entangled in rope and being swayed wildly from side to side. His arms were wrapped around the spar beneath him, sail billowing and flapping below him. He instinctively gripped tighter the wood beneath him as his eyes focused on the deck seventy feet below. As the ship rolled, he was alternately looking down at the tumultuous sea, then at the deck, then sea once more. He closed his eyes.

A voice close by was hollering at him. Killin opened his eyes and looked up to where the voice was coming from. A squat figure, hair tied in a long pigtail that was tucked into his belt, was holding onto the mast, calling out and pointing. Killin took in the man's clothes which looked utterly unsuitable for the inclement weather. He even had no shoes on! No doubt this was some silly re-enactment. Oh god, a sailing ship full of pirate wannabe's! Some silly charade involving pyrotechnics to give the passengers on Zeeland a fun show no doubt. Only the fools had come out in a storm and had collided with the ship, the silly buggers. Captain Brindley would be furious!

The man at the mast was getting very insistent, gesticulating that he come in at once and shouting something indecipherable at him. Killin was having a bad day, and he was damn well not going to take any more of this! "Now look here!" he yelled. "Just you take me to your captain, this instant!"

The man at the mast was momentarily silenced at his words. He stopped gesticulating and stood up straighter. "You English, mate?" he called in a strong west country accent.

"Yes. Now, fetch me a harness so I can get down to the deck."

"You what, mate?"

Killin gave the man his best withering look. "A harness, to get me down to the deck!"

"Oh, art a landsmen! Just you wait there mate, we'll have you down in a trice."

The man called down to the deck in a powerful voice and a moment later two similarly dressed men swarmed up to the yard-arm. With unnerving agility and disregard for health and safety they came out to where Killin was clinging for dear life and passed a thin rope around his middle. "What are you doing? Where's the safety harness?"

"Never fear, mate, easy does it. Just you let go that rope there, mate. Now, best you don't look down, so they say." Killin had no intention of letting go, but with hands as calloused and strong as a scrapyard claw, the seaman prised his fingers off against his will and he found himself swinging precipitously, the thin line digging painfully into his armpits.

"Oh, my Christ!" Killin was self-aware enough to hear his own voice coming out in a high pitched shriek. He closed his mouth but a thin whine continued, fuelled entirely by fear. With a bump, he made the deck, where several powerful, swarthy, men held him up. Despite the wind and rain, Killin's senses were assaulted by the smell; a spicy body odour, like gone-off stilton, overlaid with a powerful stench of tar, damp hemp rope, and what he was starting to suspect might be actual gunpowder. He opened his mouth to demand once more to be taken to the captain when a trio of red coated marines pushed through the crowd of seamen and in a manner more rough than Killin thought absolutely necessary given the circumstances, marched him below, to the brig...

...Where the stench was so gross and thick it watched Killin enter, pulled itself together, took aim, and punched Killin full on the nose.