The storm is very exciting! I don't remember if it was in the original, but if this is part of your rewriting to make things more challenging for the characters, you're off to a roaring start! I love the way Jack figures out how to put the engines 'in reverse'. :D
There was a crunch and a jerk like a hand shoving him forward in the seat
If he is going speedily backwards, when the hull hits the sand and decelerates drastically the momentum should keep him travelling backwards, therefore into the back of his seat. (Think of riding a train in a backwards-facing seat and when it comes into a station.) This isn’t nearly as exciting as being thrown forwards, of course, so you could have some fun with the impact throwing him up (the croquet ball principle) and the straps holding him in – it would still be quite dramatic.
Darwin was an exile town, far-off from any major habitation, and not a place where tramps and wanderers tended to travel.
Aren’t tramps and wanderers ... kind of exiles? What do you mean by ‘exile town’ if not ‘the sort of place where the loose ends of civilisation end up’? Is it an official designation – Australia’s Australia, in a way?
Port Darwin's a military garrison
Oh, okay, that answers that question. I think it’s the wording of the previous description then ...
"It's pretty wet," she said. "It might take a while." "Here," he offered, leaning forward and plucking up one of the bark-chips, absently picturing it alight. "Try just lighting one -- " he broke off as the tip of the bark flared to life. Clare looked at him through the flame. He frowned. "Did you do that?" "No," she said. "Did you?"
I struggled a bit to remember who ‘he’ was and had to go back and puzzle it out ... I might be reading too fast, or the shift of attention from Jack to Ellis could be clearer and/or reinforced somehow.
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There was a crunch and a jerk like a hand shoving him forward in the seat
If he is going speedily backwards, when the hull hits the sand and decelerates drastically the momentum should keep him travelling backwards, therefore into the back of his seat. (Think of riding a train in a backwards-facing seat and when it comes into a station.) This isn’t nearly as exciting as being thrown forwards, of course, so you could have some fun with the impact throwing him up (the croquet ball principle) and the straps holding him in – it would still be quite dramatic.
Darwin was an exile town, far-off from any major habitation, and not a place where tramps and wanderers tended to travel.
Aren’t tramps and wanderers ... kind of exiles? What do you mean by ‘exile town’ if not ‘the sort of place where the loose ends of civilisation end up’? Is it an official designation – Australia’s Australia, in a way?
Port Darwin's a military garrison
Oh, okay, that answers that question. I think it’s the wording of the previous description then ...
"It's pretty wet," she said. "It might take a while."
"Here," he offered, leaning forward and plucking up one of the bark-chips, absently picturing it alight. "Try just lighting one -- " he broke off as the tip of the bark flared to life.
Clare looked at him through the flame. He frowned. "Did you do that?"
"No," she said. "Did you?"
I struggled a bit to remember who ‘he’ was and had to go back and puzzle it out ... I might be reading too fast, or the shift of attention from Jack to Ellis could be clearer and/or reinforced somehow.