The Surgeon's Apprentice - John Biggins

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It was seven o’clock in the morning aboard the Ann
Royal. As the guns ashed and thundered a mile away
divine service was being celebrated by the eet chaplain
Doctor Brundell, the seamen and soldiers drawn up in their
ranks in the waist and Sir Edward and his offi cers on the
quarterdeck above them to hear the Bible reading (Saint
Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, Chapter 7, concerning
obedience to lawful rulers) and to bellow out the psalms
with the rest, then hear the doctor’s sermon – likewise on
obedience to lawful rulers – then take communion. e
same scene was being enacted by Doctor Brundell’s curates
aboard all the king’s ships, so Cadiz Bay was lled for the
while by the sounds of an English Sunday morning as the
defenders on the ramparts gazed across the water at them:
impotently now that the English vessels had prudently
withdrawn beyond the reach of the long culverin Juanita
which had knocked a corner off their agship the previous
day. In Cadiz town too the aid of God was being invoked:
or in this case Deo, assisted by La Virgene María and her
son, and Todos los Santos for good measure. And men who
might be dead or maimed by nightfall were being assured
just like their English counterparts of the perfect divine
justice of their cause, and therefore how pleasing an off ering
to the deity their own death or mutilation would be. Down
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