The Battle in Houseboat Bay
“Then, having washed the blood away, we’d little else to do Than to dance a quiet hornpipe as the old salts taught us to.”
The Amazons were the first to wake in the morning, because for some time they had been sleeping in a house, and had not grown accustomed, like the Swallows, to the early morning sunlight through the white tent walls. “Show a leg, show a leg,” they shouted to the others and soon had the whole camp astir. “Remember,” they shouted, “battle at three o’clock sharp. There’s no time to lose.” Really, in spite of bathing and fetching the milk and having breakfast and dinner, it seemed a very long time before the small hand of the chronometer crawled round past the II , and nearly as far as the III , on the chronometer face. A watched pot never boils, and a watched watch seems to lag on purpose. But at last Captain John looked at it for the last time, and gave the order. The Grand Fleet set sail.
“Shall we go in under sail or oars?” Captain John consulted with Captain Nancy, as the Amazon and the Swallow , slipping quietly along with a following wind, came near the point at the southern side of Houseboat Bay.
“More seamanlike to do it under sail,” said Captain Nancy.
“There won’t be a leeside to him,” said Captain John. “The houseboat’ll be lying head to wind. Our plan will be to reach into the bay, and then come head to wind one on each side of him. If you’ll lay yourself aboard his starboard side, I’ll bring Swallow up on his port.”