Free A Trail of Fire by Diana Gabaldon Page B

Shrapnel of the Royal Artillery, who took the original ‘bomb’ concept and developed the ‘shrapnel shell’, a debris-filled bomb filled also with gunpowder and designed to explode in mid-air after being fired from a cannon. Unfortunately, he did this in 1784, which was inconvenient, as ‘shrapnel’ is a pretty good word to have when writing about warfare).
    Among the other bits of interesting trivia, though, I was struck by a brief description of the procedure for courts-martial: ‘The custom of the army is that a court-martial be presided over by a senior officer and such a number of other officers as he shall think fit to serve as council, these being generally four in number, but can be more but not generally less than three . . . The person accused shall have the right to call witnesses in his support, and the council shall question these, as well as any other persons whom they may wish, and shall thus determine the circumstances, and if conviction ensue, the sentence to be imposed.’
    And that was it. No elaborate procedures for the introduction of evidence, no standards for conviction, no sentencing guidelines, no requirements for who could or should serve as ‘council’ to a court-martial, just ‘the custom of the army’. The phrase – rather obviously – stuck in my head.

 
     
     
     
    The Custom of the Army

     
     
     
    All things considered, it was probably the fault of the electric eel. John Grey could – and for a time, did – blame the Honourable Caroline Woodford as well. And the surgeon. And certainly that blasted poet. Still . . . no, it was the eel’s fault.
    The party had been at Lucinda Joffrey’s house. Sir Richard was absent; a diplomat of his stature could not have countenanced something so frivolous. Electric eel parties were a mania in London just now, but owing to the scarcity of the creatures, a private party was a rare occasion. Most such parties were held at public theatres, with the fortunate few selected for encounter with the eel summoned onstage, there to be shocked and sent reeling like nine-pins for the entertainment of the audience.
    ‘The record is forty-two at once!’ Caroline had told him, her eyes wide and shining as she looked up from the creature in its tank.
    ‘Really?’ It was one of the most peculiar things he’d seen, though not very striking. Nearly three feet long, it had a heavy, squarish body with a blunt head that looked to have been inexpertly moulded out of sculptor’s clay, and tiny eyes like dull glass beads. It had little in common with the lashing, lithesome eels of the fish-market – and certainly did not seem capable of felling forty-two people at once.
    The thing had no grace at all, save for a small thin ruffle of a fin that ran the length of its lower body, undulating as a gauze curtain does in the wind. Lord John expressed this observation to the Honourable Caroline, and was accused in consequence of being poetic.
    ‘Poetic?’ said an amused voice behind him. ‘Is there no end to our gallant major’s talents?’
    Lord John turned, with an inward grimace and an outward smile and bowed to Edwin Nicholls.
    ‘I should not think of trespassing upon your province, Mr Nicholls,’ he said politely.
    Nicholls wrote execrable verse, mostly upon the subject of love, and was much admired by young women of a certain turn of mind. The Honourable Caroline wasn’t one of them; she’d written a very clever parody of his style, though Grey thought Nicholls had not heard about it. He hoped not.
    ‘Oh, don’t you?’ Nicholls raised one honey-coloured brow at him, and glanced briefly but meaningfully at Miss Woodford. His tone was jocular, but his look was not, and Grey wondered just how much Mr Nicholls had had to drink. Nicholls was flushed of cheek and glittering of eye, but that might be only the heat of the room, which was considerable, and the excitement of the party.
    ‘Do you think of composing an ode to our friend?’ Grey asked,