To get my brain back in gear, I looked up words from Dark Frigate (1923) by Charles Boardman Hawes. Lanthorn for lantern was easy enough, but the fun fact was that lantern inserts were made from thinly-sliced sheets of horn. Younker for youngster was easy. Rhomb was a lozenge-shaped object. Pinter was the olden version of three-martini. I checked. Sailors didn’t relieve themselves from the poop deck – a deck at the stern with an elevated roof. Capstan was a cylinder for winding rope. A jade was a disreputable person; barton, a farmyard; eright, invest a right; and yaffle, a green woodpecker.

All of that reminded me of a riveting scene in Frigate in which the young man, Philip Marsham, hid all day in the garret of a cottage to avoid enemy soldiers. From a distance, he watched as thousands of stern foot soldiers, drummers and cavalry, trudged past long into the night. But before dark he saw five men, one of whom he later confirmed was none other than Oliver Cromwell. Had he been discovered, he would surely have been tortured and killed.

Cromwell’s brutal campaign brought to mind the thousands of soldiers in Germany’s wartime economy and of course, current such economies around the world. The other morning I woke up with a dream/thought that all the soldiers around the Ukraine decided to sit down. I offer a moment of silence for all who hunger and thirst for justice and peace.

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