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had only a bit of rotten mizzen that the wind tore at. Cavendish spoke.
"We have a deal of work to do this morning, but first you'll get a good hot meal." He smiled, and the men smiled back at him, tentatively.
"I have examined the mainmast," he went on, "and it was weakened last night. Also, you know well enough we have no sails." He paused, and they looked up at his face, intently.
"We shall have to cut new," he said.
Pretty's eyes were startled. They had no canvas to cut. There wasn't any, and yet—Pretty felt the tense hope rise in him as it was rising in the men whose faces were upturned to his as he stood on the quarterdeck with Cavendish. He heard Cavendish's voice go on, and each single word came like a promise.
"In the hold," the Captain said, "we stowed chests of very heavy silk damask."
Pretty wanted to shout aloud and he had difficulty remembering to restrain the words that tumbled to his lips, for Cavendish was still speaking.
"After your meal, we shall set to work to cut new sails from the silk, and we will wrap the mainmast in the cloth of gold, like a heavy bandage." He frowned a little, wondering just how he was going to do it, and then he realized that the men were staring up at him with a sort of reverential awe. Master Pretty was remembering the day in San Lucas when Cavendish had warned him not to let the damask get wet, and he had a wonderful smile on his face because he had not been able to think of the damask himself. But Cavendish had.
Cavendish said, "Master Pretty knows where the damask was stored."
"Aye, aye, sir!" said Pretty.
There was a moment's silence; the crew looked very different after his few words. They looked at him with unspoken love, and Cavendish felt the blood beat in his temples as his emotions rose. They were his crew, and they had been with him through every kind of disaster, every kind of stormy sea; they had mourned with him when he had buried Havers. The kinship between them was at this moment so strongly evident that he found himself completely speechless, and a little shy.
"All hands will help cut the new sail," he said, inadequately.
Master Pretty dismissed the crew for mess. ... By evening the
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new sails were up. The mainmast was bandaged in cloth of gold, and the sunset gleamed on the wind-filled silk. The wind was large for England. . . .
Four days later they spied a sail off the starboard bow. The Desire overtook her, proving to Cavendish that the Desire was still swift and alive. She was beautiful in her new dress. As they bore down on her, Cavendish said to Pretty, "By God, she's a good sailer!"
Pretty said, "She's not Spanish!"
"No," said Cavendish, "she's within hailing distance, sir." He lifted the trumpet.
He hailed her, his voice ringing out over the choppy water, the words evenly spaced. "Ahoy there! What ship are you?"
She was Flemish, she called back. "What ship are you?"
"The Desire.'" Cavendish shouted back. "Out of Plymouth two years!" He could not help adding this.
"Two years!"
"Aye!" shouted Cavendish. "What news?"
The Flemish ship's master could not believe his ears. But he had news for the Englishman. "You sank the Spanish Armada," he yelled. "The great fleet was sunk. And a tempest finished it!"
The Desires crew let out a long hard yell; cheers echoed over her decks; it was incredible, but it must be true.
"You English sank the Spanish fleet!" the Flemish repeated. "Where are you from now?"
"The Cape of Good Hope," Cavendish shouted back, "by the Indian Ocean, the Pacific, and the Straits of Magellan!"
The crew of the Flemish vessel waved their caps and cheered. "Good luck! Good luck!" they chorused.
The Desire dipped her flags in salute. Cavendish ordered extra wine for the crew to celebrate the defeat of the Spanish Armada. The sea turned gray and choppy.
The wind held good. It was just wind enough for the Desire to carry all Her canvas, and the next morning, England was sighted off the larboard bow.
It was so lovely a sight that the men stood transfixed on deck, and Moon had to shout orders twice. Tyler was at the helm. Moon threatened to confine him, and Tyler nodded and smiled.
"Aye, sir," he said, happily.
All sails were trimmed. The Desire was seaborn and beautiful; her silken sails gleamed, and news of her coming went ahead of her into Plymouth. When she came proudly into the roadway, the
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third ship ever to circumnavigate the globe, the city bells were already ringing. The men were aloft, straining their eyes to see an English town. The bells rang steadily. The Desire's flags flew bravely, and the gun ports opened, the guns were run out.
The heaviest cannons were fired in a salute to Plymouth. The crew cheered wildly. Master Fuller roared orders.
"In the togannels'ls!"
The men gave the old yells as they heaved on the ropes. The tops furled.
The lateen mizzen held the Desire into the wind as the great mainsail was reefed and made fast. The anchors splashed overboard.
Pretty was beside himself with excitement. "I cannot credit it!" he exclaimed to Cavendish.
Cavendish laughed. "I cannot myself," he said. Pretty glanced at him. Cavendish was smiling, the brilliant smile that let the boyish eagerness and tenderness free. "I cannot credit that that-—" he waved his hand—"is Plymouth!"
"It is, though, sir," Pretty said. "It is!"
The ship's bells struck five times. "Two-thirty," Cavendish said, just as the lookout in the fo'castle head repeated the helmsman's strokes.
The Desire rode at anchor in Plymouth harbor. The bells of the city kept on ringing. An Englishman had come home again, from the far corners of the earth. A man called Captain Cavendish had sailed a ship around the world and sailed her home again.
"We're in port, Master Pretty," Cavendish said, with finality. "We're in port."
"Aye, sir," said Pretty. "What are you going to do, sir?"
"Do?" asked Cavendish. He didn't speak further, he looked toward shore, not half seeing the sun shining on the city's roofs, her docks, her shipping. The day was colder than the day when he had left, for this was September ninth, and the last time he had seen Plymouth had been a July day. Incredibly, the task begun that summer day was done. Off his shoulders now came the responsibilities that had been carried for two long years and three months. Incredibly, there was nothing much to do. And yet he said, almost defensively, "Do, sir? I've a deal to do. I'm going below."
He went to his cabin. He got out pen and paper. He dipped the pen in the ink. Now, in a few short words, he must write what could never be written to make it understandable to one who had never been a part of a ship at sea. He must write to Lord Hunsdon,
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the Lord Chamberlain—a letter for Her Majesty. He dipped the pen in the ink again, and stared at the wet point.
The paper lay before him. "Right Honorable," he wrote, and then he paused. Just to one side on his table lay a part of his notes; he had been studying them last night. His eyes read, "A note of the varying of our winds." He pushed at the paper, lifted it. Underneath it was another. "A note on the winds which we found between the coast of New Spain and the Islands of the Philippinas." His writing, heavy and deliberate, went on. He knew the night he had written of. He could remember clearly that night of mist. When he had left Catherine and David at San Lucas.
"The 19th day of November," he had written, "in the year of our Lord 1587, we departed from the cape of California, and we found the winds to be between the east and the east northeast, until the 29th day of January, being then in the latitude of 9 degrees."
He shoved the notes away, his mind changed, gathered them neatly, and stowed them in the right place. They were valuable, these notes on the prevailing winds. He dipped the pen again and began to write.