Chapter Two: Where A Captain's Paranoia is Actually Put to Good Narrative Use

Archie and Horatio stood staring at each other for quite some time before a distant voice jarred

them from their horrified contemplations.

"Sam! Samwise Gamgee, you get back here or I'll tan your hide! What do you think you're

doing, running off like that? Sam! I say, Sam!"

As one, both officers turned to look at the angry figure approaching on the road. The man

(rather, Hobbit) was short, and dressed similarly to Archie. He was also carrying a garden spade

which he waved in a threatening manner. Horatio had never considered the offensive uses of a

gardening tool before, and now didn't seem like a good time to start.

The old Hobbit came closer, and they could hear his angry voice more clearly: "What, are you too

good to plant taters with your old gaffer, running off without a word, and now idling, wasting

good Mr. Baggins' time! Why I'll..."

Horatio felt remarkably calm, under the circumstances. "He appears quite angry."

Archie nodded. "I think he is, in fact, talking to me," he replied, his voice perhaps a bit *too*

steady.

"Hmm. That spade also looks quite heavy, and will quite probably hurt if he bashes it over your

head. I suggest we adjourn to the inside of this lovely dwelling, and perhaps lock the door."

"I agree."

A moment later, they had slammed the door, mercifully cutting off the gaffer's irascible ranting.

"Well now," Horatio dusted off his hands and moved with exaggerated care towards the kitchen.

Archie followed and they sat in chairs, that while appearing ridiculously small, seemed to fit them

perfectly. "Suppose you'd like to tell me why that apparently crazy old man wanted to beat the

tar out of you?"

Archie shrugged, a slightly manic grin beginning to break through his calm facade. "I'm not sure.

The last thing I knew, I was in the wardroom on the Renown. Then, all of a sudden, I'm kneeling

in the dirt with that old man planting potatoes. Potatoes, Horatio. Can you imagine it?" A

slightly hysterical giggle followed this, and Horatio felt the urge to giggle himself.

The two naval-officers-turned-hobbits might have dissolved into fits of insane laughter at this

point, had a new danger not suddenly presented itself. More specifically, a danger in the form of a

looming, raving lunatic in shabby grey robes...

"It's a plot! They'll try to take it away, I tell you. Sneaking, whispering, spying! A plot of

Sauron, I tell you!"

Horatio and Archie were distracted from their own respective mental breakdowns by the timely

appearance of Captain James Sawyer, lately of HMS Renown. He seemed very little changed

from the last time they'd seen him (wild eyes, incoherent babble, sloppy dressing habits) but he'd

traded in his straight jacket for a robe, a long wooden staff and a pointed hat.

Now, what must be understood is that Captain Sawyer, upon landing in this bizarre world, did no

soul-searching, nor did he wonder what the hell was going on, as his lieutenants did. No, Captain

Sawyer was fortunately not cursed with that which we call 'sanity', and therefore, unlike his

lieutenants, he understood his position immediately, and very well.

"Captain Sawyer," Horatio breathed a sigh of relief to see another familiar face, even if it was the

mad captain.

Sawyer stood before them, and for the first time, Horatio and Archie realized *exactly* how short

they were. The old man seemed overjoyed with his newfound looming abilities, less so with the

fact that he kept smacking his head off the rafters of the house.

Archie decided privately that the incessant smacking was probably scrambling the captain's brain

still further, so he quickly escorted Sawyer down to the largest chair in the room. Even there, it

was a tight fit, and the legs creaked ominously.

"Ah, lads," Sawyer said enthusiastically, apparently noticing them for the first time. "We're off

for a grand adventure, I say! Just grab that ring from your pocket and we'll be on our way, Mr.

Hornblower, or might I call you Frodo Baggins."

"Sir..." Horatio began uncertainly. He glanced at Archie, who shrugged and rolled his eyes, then

his glance fell on the hearth, and inspiration struck. "Would you like some tea, sir?" he asked in

his best placatingly-non-confrontational-humour-the-old-bat voice (and you all know the one I'm

talking about).

"Tea? No time for tea, boy, there are plots afoot. You must get out of the Shire straight away,

or there'll be nasty buggers after you, and no mistake."

Horatio, not for the first time, felt completely out of his league in dealing with the crazed good

humour of the captain. He stood, taking a step towards Sawyer, mindful of the fact that he was

now apparently three feet tall. He was silently weighing his chances of successfully kicking the

captain in the shin and escaping through the front door with Archie. He judged that they would

have better luck fighting off the old man with the shovel than Sawyer in his current mood, and

could at least run over the gaffer without being guilty of gross insubordination.

But then Sawyer began waving that heavy wooden staff he carried, and Horatio glanced down at

the puny iron poker he still unconsciously held. He decided that he had far less than an even

chance, and also concluded that discretion was the better part of valour here and sat back down,

dropping the poker with a clatter. Naturally, using his superior Horatio-smartness, he'd weighed

all the options in the space of a few moments, and the captain was still talking expansively about

his 'mission'.

As previously mentioned, Sawyer was unburdened by sanity, and consequently understood their

purpose in Middle-Earth very well. Archie decided that since his morning had begun face-first in

the dirt, planting potatoes, it certainly couldn't get any worse, and risked a direct question. "Sir,

you seem to understand our situation well enough. Perhaps you could explain it to Mr.

Hornblower and myself?" It made a warped kind of sense, he felt, that this crazy world should be

explained by a lunatic.

"Glad you asked, Mr. Kennedy," the captain beamed. "You see, Mr. Hornblower is in possession

of a golden ring, forged by the Dark Lord Sauron in the fires of the Cracks of Doom, and our

mission is..."

As Sawyer slowly cranked up to full explanatory speed, Archie instinctively decided that he'd

been wrong. His day was about to get a *lot* worse.