A Soldier's Paybook

by CommanderDuck14

While not so advertised as the son of a backdoors prominent military leader, Samuel Sherman Jackson still has to push himself to protect those he deems important. What better way to document the young soldier's actions than to use something never intended for personal scribbles, much less a piece outdated by a little more than a generation. Accompanies Allies and some future works.

4. January 8th, 1907

January 8th, 1907.

In my excitement to board the ship, I completely forgot where we were steaming for. I know we're headed for the strand, but ships can't steam on land, can they?

Before dawn was scheduled to rise, we could see the bustling country towns from the portholes along the stoned seawalls lit up by harsh electric lamp posts that I've never been fond of. The beige buildings of limestone gently glinted in the rising sun, lamps cutting out in a series of executions to save money on electricity.

Unfortunately, the gangplank wasn't scheduled to lower until after breakfast, something about international customs and foreign affairs. During that waiting period though, they brought two plates of American breakfast to us since they knew I wouldn't leave ma because I love her and everyone aboard knows that dad lost a bet. I'm surprised that word of mouth traveled fast among the sea industry, especially since the crew was British and a few other types of island English that I can't quite identify due to the hard accent they speak–I was expecting porridge and potato mash for breakfast.

Once breakfast was done, the signal for passengers to disembark was sounded. I had to help Ma through the labyrinth of metal hallways that I certainly did not memorize. As if a switch had been flipped, ma quickly lost her seasickness when her favorite dusty slippers made contact with the ground. Pops found a little cart that we could put our cases on, three for ma, and even found us one of those new spangled taxis that could shuttle us to the train station where Pop's new boss will meet us.

As it stands, we won't be taking the train until tomorrow because the train we need to take left station a few minutes ago according to the local taxi guy. We had a lot of time to waste, so Ma took me fishing on the docks while Pops secured a room for the night. By the time we had caught one dinky little cod, Pops hauled me away from my fishing expenditure into the room we were staying for the night.

The cod I caught tasted nicely once Pops cooked it.