Christopher McIntyre

Kit McIntyre is a Royal Marine private aboard HMS Terpsichore. He is a Player Characer who belongs to Keiju.

History
Despite having been born in Chatham, the fact that both of his parents are Irish means McIntyre regards himself as an Irishman. He grew up rough, out on the streets as often as he was working in his father's smithy. That stopped quickly after his older brother saved him from a gang of boys intent on staving McIntyre's skull in. From then on, it was seen to that the youngster worked in the smithy until he dropped, and went hardly anywhere without a companion. Nightly reading lessons, begun when he was young, eventually evolved into writing lessons and continued unti the lad could copy sizable tracts from the Bible and certain other books in a clear, neat hand.

His father had been a Marine in the last war and his stories were innumerable and widely varied. As a test of his budding skill with a pen, young McIntyre wrote down his father's tales when the mood took the old man to recount one or two, and kept the loose papers in a bundle. This bundle mysteriously disappeared shortly after the outbreak of a new war with France. Within two months of war being declared, his father was gone away to the Army. He had tried to rejoin the Marines but was refused because of his age. The Army was less discriminating. McIntyre's brother moved seamlessly to fill the gap, though running the smithy was no great challenge to him.

McIntyre himself had to wait several years before he was old enough to enlist. He was going for a Marine. That was a foregone conclusion. All of his father's stories fired his longing for no other life. Opposition to his choice was stiffest from his mother, understandably. Neither his brother nor his sister were much bothered. McIntyre left home late one night by sneaking out through the smithy with only the clothes on his back to see him along. By the end of the next day, he had been examined, sworn, and accepted as a recruit to the Chatham Division. His training was part farce, part nightmare, due to the cruelty of his section's drill-sergeant. It was a great blessing to move on from being a mere recruit to being a Marine fit for sea-duty.

His first ship, a sloop called Dasher, was part of the Channel Fleet, doing nothing more exciting than blockade duty. This was his lot for some months before the ship was detached to the Portugal squadron. McIntyre's first taste of action was during a fierce contest with a French brig which captured Dasher after the sloop's quarterdeck was swept clear by a lucky swath of grapeshot. Captivity was short, for the brig was in turn captured by a British frigate, Terpsichore of 32 guns. McIntyre and his healthy comrades - the wounded having been sent back to France in Dasher - were happy to be rescued.

Personality
McIntyre is young and keen. He is determined to prove himself a good Marine, but lacks the wisdom of experience. Impetuous good intention best describes his general outlook. He means well but tends to land himself in scrapes and difficulties as a result of not knowing how best to apply his energies. While he has had the benefit of his father's tales of life as a Marine, these experiences are not his own and he can only draw partial lessons from them.

One thing he did take to heart was his father's belief that a good Marine should put his mates before all, with duty the only exception. Nothing was so vital as loyalty on the messdeck. His father was adamant on that point and also on the matter of a Marine needing to be able to think for himself. His insistence that his sons learn to read and write is one result of that. Another result is McIntyre's not being one to back down from anything. Especially authority. It's rare when he genuinely intends disrespect or even insolence, but his tendency to stick to a story, whatever it might be, is bound to land him in some pretty hot water some day.