The Surgeon's Apprentice - John Biggins

hit the longboat in which I now sat.
“So,” Doctor Reael remarked (who was surely no
novice as regards the enemy’s re), “Jan Spek has drawn rst
blood. Your Highness must urge these English blockheads
to cease their dithering and decide whether they wish to
take the town, or enter the bay, or take Puerto Santa María,
or go home instead. For I see that the Spanish ships which
lay here when we arrived are now well beyond our reach.”
“And what of that, Doctor Reael?” the Jonker Willem
answered. “Surely we have them trapped in the bay and
therefore hors de combat?”
“Indeed, Your Highness,” he said, “but we still have
them at our backs to bother us. From my questioning of
the Spanish shermen we took this morning I learned that
the ships here are mostly Neapolitans, while the Spanish
main eet lies either at Gibraltar or at Cartagena. If they
come against us, then we might nd ourselves caught
between two res: the Naples ships inside the bay and the
Spanish ones outside it. Your Highness must be rm with
Sir Edward, or Viscount Wimbledon or whatever he now
calls himself, and insist that he makes his mind up, because
as matters stand we are likely to nd ourselves – if Your
Higness will pardon the expression – with our arse between
two stools and sitting on neither.”
Our stay aboard the Ann Royal was but a short one, it
having already been decided by Sir Edward since the last
council that, contrary to what we thought had been agreed
there, Puerto Santa María was too shallow a haven to be
useful to us (which I thought he might easily have
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