Part 55

‘In my own ship--but half-share was my Aunt’s. In the ANTONY OF RYE, to be sure; and not empty-handed. I’d been loadin’ her for three days with the pick of our yard. We was ballasted on cannon-shot of all three sizes; and iron rods and straps for his carpenters; and a nice passel of clean three-inch oak planking and hide breech-ropes for his cannon, and gubs of good oakum, and bolts o’ canvas, and all the sound rope in the yard. What else could I ha’ done? I knowed what he’d need most after a week’s such work. I’m a shipbuilder, little maid.

‘We’d a fair slant o’ wind off Dungeness, and we crept on till it fell light airs and puffed out. The Spanishers was all in a huddle over by Calais, and our ships was strawed about mending ‘emselves like dogs lickin’ bites. Now and then a Spanisher would fire from a low port, and the ball ‘ud troll across the flat swells, but both sides was finished fightin’ for that tide.

‘The first ship we foreslowed on, her breastworks was crushed in, an’ men was shorin’ ‘em up. She said nothing. The next was a black pinnace, his pumps clackin’ middling quick, and he said nothing. But the third, mending shot-holes, he spoke out plenty. I asked him where Mus’ Drake might be, and a shiny-suited man on the poop looked down into us, and saw what we carried.

‘“Lay alongside you!” he says. “We’ll take that all.”

‘“‘Tis for Mus’ Drake,” I says, keeping away lest his size should lee the wind out of my sails.

‘“Hi! Ho! Hither! We’re Lord High Admiral of England! Come alongside, or we’ll hang ye,” he says.

‘’Twas none of my affairs who he was if he wasn’t Frankie, and while he talked so hot I slipped behind a green-painted ship with her top-sides splintered. We was all in the middest of ‘em then.

‘“Hi! Hoi!” the green ship says. “Come alongside, honest man, and I’ll buy your load. I’m Fenner that fought the seven Portugals--clean out of shot or bullets. Frankie knows me.”

‘“Ay, but I don’t,” I says, and I slacked nothing.

‘He was a masterpiece. Seein’ I was for goin’ on, he hails a Bridport hoy beyond us and shouts, “George! Oh, George! Wing that duck. He’s fat!” An’ true as we’re all here, that squatty Bridport boat rounds to acrost our bows, intendin’ to stop us by means o’ shooting.

‘My Aunt looks over our rail. “George,” she says, “you finish with your enemies afore you begin on your friends.”

‘Him that was laying the liddle swivel-gun at us sweeps off his hat an’ calls her Queen Bess, and asks if she was selling liquor to pore dry sailors. My Aunt answered him quite a piece. She was a notable woman.

‘Then he come up--his long pennant trailing overside--his waistcloths and netting tore all to pieces where the Spanishers had grappled, and his sides black-smeared with their gun-blasts like candle-smoke in a bottle. We hooked on to a lower port and hung.

‘“Oh, Mus’ Drake! Mus’ Drake!” I calls up.

‘He stood on the great anchor cathead, his shirt open to the middle, and his face shining like the sun.

‘“Why, Sim!” he says. Just like that--after twenty year! “Sim,” he says, “what brings you?”

‘“Pudden,” I says, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

‘“You told me to bring cannon-shot next time, an’ I’ve brought ‘em.”

‘He saw we had. He ripped out a fathom and a half o’ brimstone Spanish, and he swung down on our rail, and he kissed me before all his fine young captains. His men was swarming out of the lower ports ready to unload us. When he saw how I’d considered all his likely wants, he kissed me again.

‘“Here’s a friend that sticketh closer than a brother!” he says. “Mistress,” he says to my Aunt, “all you foretold on me was true. I’ve opened that road from the East to the West, and I’ve buried my heart beside it.”

‘“I know,” she says. “That’s why I be come.”

‘“But ye never foretold this”; he points to both they great fleets.

‘“This don’t seem to me to make much odds compared to what happens to a man,” she says. “Do it?”

‘“Certain sure a man forgets to remember when he’s proper mucked up with work. Sim,” he says to me, “we must shift every living Spanisher round Dunkirk corner on to our Dutch sands before morning. The wind’ll come out of the North after this calm--same as it used--and then they’re our meat.”

‘“Amen,” says I. “I’ve brought you what I could scutchel up of odds and ends. Be you hit anywhere to signify?”

‘“Oh, our folk’ll attend to all that when we’ve time,” he says. He turns to talk to my Aunt, while his men flew the stuff out of our hold. I think I saw old Moon amongst ‘em, but he was too busy to more than nod like. Yet the Spanishers was going to prayers with their bells and candles before we’d cleaned out the ANTONY. Twenty-two ton o’ useful stuff I’d fetched him. ‘“Now, Sim,” says my Aunt, “no more devouring of Mus’ Drake’s time. He’s sending us home in the Bridport hoy. I want to speak to them young springalds again.”

‘“But here’s our ship all ready and swept,” I says.

‘“Swep’ an’ garnished,” says Frankie. “I’m going to fill her with devils in the likeness o’ pitch and sulphur. We must shift the Dons round Dunkirk corner, and if shot can’t do it, we’ll send down fireships.”