Age: 24

Appearance: Though not exceptionally tall or well-built, Stephen has all the lean, tensile muscle of a wildcat and a certain sense of unpredictability that permeates even through the formal regalia of an officer. He wears a dark blue frock-coat and cream waist-coat with blue trousers and sturdy leather boots that keep out the spray across the deck. His face is even, perhaps handsome, but remains closed off and guarded; not a world away from the expression of the street urchins that run messages across the docks in his hometown. His dark unruly hair is reddish-tinted (betraying his mother's Irish heritage) and tied back at the nape of his neck with a piece of leather cord.

There are two things that could conclusively tell the observer that he is not an ordinary member of the Navy's officer classes. The first is his obvious Scouse accent, the second is the dozen or so tattoos that lie hidden beneath his uniform and are usually only found on regular working class sailors. They include two swallow swooping low from each collarbone towards his breastbone (each signifying 5000 miles travelled at sea), a turtle at the base of his neck (to show he has crossed the equator), a compass rose at the turtle's feet (for luck at finding his way home) next to an anchor (for having sailed the Atlantic) and finally lengths of rope that snake around each of his wrists (that, if they were not covered by his shirt sleeves, would immediately earn the derision of most gentleman officers for signalling having begun his career as a lowly deckhand).

Occupation: Royal Navy 1st Lieutenant on the Caroline

Personality: Stoic if a little unpredictable, quietly intense, fiercely loyal, determined, unexpectedly shrewd with a instinctive knack for down-and-dirty survival.

History:

Yellow water, bellowing steam ferries, white trans-atlantic liners, towers, cranes, stevedores, skiffs, shipyards, trains, smoke, chaos, hooting, ringing, hammering, puffing, the ruptured bellies of the ships, the stench of horses, the sweat, urine, and waste from all the continents of the world ... And if I heaped up words for another half an hour, I wouldn't achieve the full number, confusion and expanse which is called Liverpool.
Karel Capek, Letters from England, 1924

Unusually for a 1st Lieutenant, Stephen is not a 'gentleman', having been born and raised not far from the docks in the most important port in Great Britain. His father was a midshipman, and Stephen saw little of him; his childhood was punctuated by brief visits whenever his father returned from Kochi, Sumatra or Guangzhu in the furthest reaches of the exotic East. His mother was a seamstress and, though her income was supplemented by her husband's pay, she barely had enough to feed her five young children. Stephen, the oldest, was put to work at an early age as a messenger running the secret ways through the maze-like docks to ferry bills, summons and inventories. A neighbour; an elderly schoolteacher who had spent away his savings on gin, would tutor him in exchange for a hot meal cooked by his mother. It was this early schooling that set him apart from his peers when he first took to a ship as a deckhand at the age of thirteen. This, combined with a quiet, intense efficiency and stoic attitude to the hardships faced by men at sea, contributed to his rapid promotion.

Eight years later, as a petty officer on a frigate in the Lesser Antilles, he found himself under the command of Ulliver Hexton. The two men worked well together and Stephen was soon appointed as Hexton's first lieutenant when the older man was given the commission of his own ship. Stephen was in the crew that were marooned by Morgan and spent a month in the sweltering dry heat of that hated island. When he heard Captain Hexton was resurrecting the Caroline to hunt for the pirate's famed horde, he signed up immediately, not so much out of any hope that they would find the treasure but out of loyalty and pity towards the captain who had been laid so low by events back in England.