Everyman Will Do (excerpt) - A Little Drabble Do Ya!

[anamaryarmygram.livejournal.com]

My response to colonial_teapot's prompt this week ran a little long – it's a quadruple drabble, of all things – so I'm just posting a (somewhat ironic) 94-word excerpt. The whole piece is at AO3.

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Illya gestured to the bronze bas-relief of the Battle of Trafalgar that adorned the south side of the column's plinth. “Do you know why history remembers the phrase as 'England expects that every man will do his duty'?”

“No, why?”

“Nelson was going to say confides until someone told him expects was in the codebook.” Illya smiled. “It could be communicated in one hoist of the flags instead of eight, shortening the whole message by more than a third.”

“What's the moral of this story?”

“Even a great man can miss a good idea.”

Comments

[lindafishes8.livejournal.com]

Only Illya would know this. Nice.

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

Oh this just begs to be a longer story!

[katb357.livejournal.com]

I was thinking exactly the same thing Linda came up with, lol! I enjoyed this!