Naval Officer

From a distance

I had picked up a Naval Brigade Gardner gun with some HAT figures last year, but they'd sat in a corner unused for the last while.  Our Afghan adventures do not have much call for Naval Brigades.  But I needed some extra officers and managed to pick this fella up without realising.

Up close

Having started him and realised that he was not the infantry officer I was looking for, it seemed a shame not to finish him. So the latest addition to the Crown forces is this naval looking character from Hat Gardner gun set. And what is he exactly, well I'm not sure.  I think I shall leave it to no less an authority than H Rider Haggard, describing his first encounter with Captain Good in "King Solomon's Mines", to explain. 

"The other man, who stood talking to Sir Henry, was stout and dark, and of quite a different cut. I suspected at once that he was a naval officer; I don't know why, but it is difficult to mistake a navy man. I have gone shooting trips with several of them in the course of my life, and they have always proved themselves the best and bravest and nicest fellows I ever met, though sadly given, some of them, to the use of profane language. I asked a page or two back, what is a gentleman? I'll answer the question now: A Royal Naval officer is, in a general sort of way, though of course there may be a black sheep among them here and there. I fancy it is just the wide seas and the breath of God's winds that wash their hearts and blow the bitterness out of their minds and make them what men ought to be."

From the rear

I shall have to wait until we reach the Sudan, before I make much use of him - but in the mean time, painting him was a pleasent way to spend an hour. 

And who wouldn't want to make the acquaintance of one of Natures Gentlemen?