HEARD AT SEA.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 14185, 30 December 1916, Page 2

HEARD AT SEA.

THE DI&AMETI AND THE DRUM

(From a correspondent.) Drake is fighting for England again, Pinnaoe and Galleon are- at it amain.

In foul weather and flying, scud There's reek of powder and smell of blood. • , . Hear creak of yards and. crack of sheet, Thel patter oh, decile of unshod feet. Day or night you can hear a fight; , . Lie by the cliff and it's just as if The Don and El Draque were at .it amain — It's Drake fighting for .England again.

As it is ;my own' particular --village J will ndt give you explicit directions how to get there,* but you caniiof'get to it by train and the roads forbid the "motor-cnr. It is % little half -moon, village -with a stone quay edging the cluster of brown houses. -There are red-sailed JaQata and brown-faced fisher-folk. There is :a: rtiiniature ale-house, the .sign ; o'£sthe Dragon, riamed'; fdr. El Draque ofc Sir ? .Francis, whiohever you please to cair.himY. You go. down into the village by a steps, past drying , nets and /. piled. roars;, and masts from "the little; craft:. in .^fte bay. . Turn to, your left and skift, the crescent . until .you come to where, the stone quay ends and the beach begins, "there is a. scant hundred yai<ds oi-thig, and then the path rises, fringing the cliffs. 'Qlinib up and on until you getbo a little green mound with a stone set atop of- it. Then" sit down, and, fill a pipe. If you, do not smoke, 'then you wilt miss much, for tobacWis at' its best up thei'e in' the fresh,' sweet -air.' This. is how I went to the place a few days ago. . ■ ■ I liact not been, 'sitting! long when i heard a voice behind me, and, turning", saw an oldish man standing back of the mound. He liad a. thin 'grey beard that showed up on hi&' brown face Hike white orchard moss , on brown applo bark. He had heavy gold ear-rings m his ears arid he smoked a small-bowled, thin clay pipey black and. shiny, which" he fondled lovingly. ... "A pood morning to yon, sir," he said as he sat near me. •"Good' morning," I said. "Are you from the village?'-' , , , "Onei time I was," he answered, . "but t . live up there away now," and he pointed to thfe;little church which now standsi . allone on the dbwh. but; which was once- the- centre of iv village like We bnp below. ■ "D'ye hear it?" said the old fellow suddenly. "You can hear, the roll of it. It's just as he told us 'twould be, and it means r what he said, too." ' "Those are' • the' guns m France," I feaid, for you could hear them muttering ceagietlesslv over the. water.

i "G\ins ?" he , said smilingly ,;„ ."they'te not gvlns. It's, the t dVum rollingr— Frankie's' as he saicf.it would. He's afloat and away up Channel." He carefully knocked ' the s ashes from his. pipe »nd 1 pas^ed/hini- my ;pouch,,;jwluob.-'h& had sonic difficulty m opening." He "filled his pipe and .'pressed >ruie* vifecUliot. dott!e jfrom the ashes of ihia^ast fill ion the top. "This is a ■'quaint" weed, surely," he jaid. "Tis soft; '.in .flaffoy /ri -bjat..^yeet smoking.. This of mine'jiow "is not, as hew as it might, have _;be,en- once,' but it jjvas brought to this ;' 'courttry m the Heart's Deske. on her last run from Virginia Benj,{imin Capel, mastev mariner, \s as good a judge of tobacco as he is Liilor or fighter. Many a packet of good brown leaf he's /brought me, and once Frankie himself smoked some of it with me he lay at the Dragon. There's the driyn again ! Listen to it, listen. It's a sign for all of England's enemies, but it's mostly a sign for us, so I take it. SThat's as* he meant it, I think. When y?s hear it wei are to Remember all we fight for. Some say: fight for, the present, 'some for., the years that come. B6th. be right, but. I have, a mind we fight for, the past as, well. : It is not pyery nation that .can say so, for .'many p| them. bf|. upstarts. .. -Inisiten here b nights and you will hear it all, There's the sound of cariqn and the crash of shot through oak timbers. I've heard it, with the eries 'of the dyinjr and tha maimed. I've passed the shot m a chain of hands from the locker to the gun& .. Sees that old iron there ?"-i— and he kiplvedrai rib 6f iron m the stone slab by his f eetr-r ''that's part of the .basket of Cliff Beacon that I, lit with these hands night of Armada's' coming. Then I got mo down and joined Frarikie. ■ Yes, that's Drake, his -drum sounding — there arle'" ■ no ."two ways about it. It's ritot the guns m France, And it moan's 'we win as Drake Avon." ' .-:..-,.■

Saying this, he turned and bade me ?ood-bye. "What's your name ?" I,called after him as he wei\t down the far slope bf, the mounds ''Jdhn Treadwell," he called back. • '; ■•/•'■

;. I got, up jt'vom the mound, for it; was time to go, and I. thought* I .mi'^it-as. well, walk b^ck with jny acquaintance, But when I wents to the other side pi ) the knoll there was no one m view, and that was strange, foiv the country M'jisJ flat &ncj tho jtath stretched away towai'ds tho chiivch. : , ' ,-,• - - j ■I walked' under the little lycli'gate and "thvpuch |tho c/liiUi\ch>'a;r!gL. .I .< jo not ,knowj what led me asi4p, but'^stopped to read/ the.wyjting on .a-.gi?ey : headstone :— , ; j • H®o^ye& the of - JOHNNY ' TRfi^BWELL, - ■ ' Of Thyfe Pavfeh, Who Died on Hys Bhippe "'.When Fightiqg tho Spaniard;,^ A y s jl -went- back" the village the innkeeper 'grejefed" '■: rh'fV;. ' 1 -"G'ufl4 be ndi-w this " ttibrni-h&'j :.^J v,\' '• hp Raid . l - ' "Thoso aj-en'fc &*}%*' ' t r-hiUd."-:, "Tliat's^ Drake's ■drum.'* 'And' I left; him gapmk after me ■perplepai^ 1 as I ! cllTHbed the! ateep atone steps". '.. ; ■