What a Log Leaves Out
Weather can be entered. A man’s private worry may not be. Put a working record beside its human margin.
The ship’s business
Invented teaching example · Not a historical transcription
- Wind
- Westerly
- Sea
- A long swell
- Work
- Two lengths of chafed line replaced
- Observation
- Hands called to the braces
The other kind of weather.
The line was replaced. But who had been awake all night? Who distrusted the man handing it to him? An entry can be accurate without containing the whole experience.
A minute by the rail
He had promised himself a dry shirt at the change of watch. The spare was folded under his blanket, with the little parcel he had not opened since Portsmouth. He could picture the knot his sister had tied. She always left one end longer, to be found by fingers in a hurry.
By the time he came below, another man had set a wet coat on the blanket. Water had reached the parcel.
He untied it sitting on the edge of his chest. The cake had broken into three pieces. He ate the smallest first, holding the paper under his chin to catch what fell.
Then he took the remaining pieces to the man with the wet coat, who was trying to thread a needle in the poor light.
A new, self-contained companion vignette. No named character or event in the novels is altered.
Different books, different purposes.
The National Archives identifies location, movement, weather, signals and orders as common subjects in naval logs. Work, discipline and damage to stores also appear, less consistently. Personal detail is comparatively uncommon.
Captains’ logs were compiled from masters’ logs, with additions. Medical officers kept separate journals on the company’s health. For a search around 1798, the guide points towards captains’ logs in ADM 51 and masters’ logs in ADM 52; later ships’ logs are a different record series.
The National Archives · Royal Navy ships’ log books (opens in a new tab)
This note summarises an archive research guide. It does not claim that Wyrmouth’s fictional papers are held there.
What can absence prove?
The spare shirt does not appear in the working entry. What follows?