The Surgeon's Apprentice - John Biggins

made ready in the surgeon’s cockpit, so our captain bade me
come up on deck to convey his instructions to Mister
Neades and his archers if the need should arise. e
Englishmen were (he confessed to me) a great nuisance to
him since we were the only ship of our squadron that was
carrying land soldiers, there having been no opportunity yet
to put them ashore. He had most earnestly counselled
Captain Neades to keep his men below in the hold
throughout the coming action, there being no advantage
whatever in having them on deck, for if we were beyond
musket shot what use would bows and arrows be against a
fortress? But that gallant gentleman had insisted most
vehemently that his men should be on deck to face the
enemy’s shot instead of skulking below like caitiff s while
their Dutch hosts hazarded themselves to the Spaniard’s
re. So with a sigh Captain Loodgieter had consented at
last that if it pleased them so, and it did not hinder the
working of the ship, then they should all stand drawn up in
their ranks in the waist like so many skittles outside a
tavern and have their foolish old heads knocked off to no
purpose.
So as we sailed up towards Puntal in the rst light of
morning our pikemen-archers stood in the waist, drawn up
in ranks in their corselets and gleaming helmets, with their
pikes dressed with perfect perpendicularity and each of
them as uniform and martial as though they had all been
cast in green wax from the same mould. Mister Neades told
me that it would be good for them and harden them, to
face the enemy’s re even though they had no means of
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