THE LAST FIGHT OF THE "REVENGE".
Once, indeed, in the course of the fight, an English ship appeared,
brave and willing to offer her small help.
Towards sunset, during a momentary lull in the storm of battle, while
one of the broken and battered Spanish ships was being cleared away from
the ceaseless fury of the English guns, Jacob Hartop left the little
brass falcon gun on the forecastle, at which he had stood for four
terrible hours, and went down for a drink of water. A musket-shot had
struck him in the thigh, and he was somewhat faint. He limped within the
doorway of the seamen's quarters. A dozen men were in this shelter, some
binding up their wounds, some resting and gathering breath before going
out again upon the decks, others patiently waiting for their turn with
the water-dipper.
Jacob's eyes surveyed them, passing slowly from one face to another. He
nodded to one, gave a cheering smile to another, and helped a third to
tie a knot in the kerchief which he was binding over his arm.
"What say you, my masters?" said he. "This be life, eh? This be tasting
glory!"
"Ah--h!" breathed Jeff Dimsdale, the man who was taking the dipper from
young Robin Redfern. "'Tis such glory as might fill many of our friends
at home with envy. May I taste more on't ere I be like Tom Wilson that's
down below on the ballast with a bullet in his honest heart!" He raised
the water to his pale lips. "Tom would ha' given a deal for this drop o'
water, I reckon," he said. Then, still hesitating to drink, he added:
"Here's to Queen Bess, God bless her!"
Drinking the water at one long draught, he silently handed the dipper
back to Robin and passed out into the open.
"'Tis men such as Jeff that have won England her glory on the main,"
declared Hartop, as he watched the man striding along the deck. Even as
his eyes rested upon him, he saw Dimsdale stagger and fall, with an
arrow, fired from the tops of one of the Spaniards, piercing his temple.
A youth, hastening forward, stumbled over the fallen man, rose to his
feet, looked into Dimsdale's face and passed on. The youth was Gilbert
Oglander, who with grimy, powder-stained countenance, had come up on
deck, utterly tired out by his hard work below. He entered the
forecastle and waited his turn for a drink of water.
"What, art stationed below decks, Master Oglander?" questioned Jacob
Hartop. "Methinks your better place were up here where there be boarders
to repel. There be many who can carry powder on board, but few who have
the skill to wield a sword or shoot an arrow as thou hast, my master."
"In truth, 'twas that very thought that brought me hither," said
Gilbert. "And with the more reason, in that the powder is not now so
plentiful or the gunners so many that those I have left below cannot be
quickly enough served by the ship's boys. Hast seen aught of Timothy
Trollope, Master Hartop?"
Jacob shook his head, but Robin Redfern, hearing the question, answered,
as he pointed outward along the upper deck to where, under the larboard
bulwarks, a half-dozen of Sir Richard Grenville's men were fighting amid
a clash of arms with some score of Spaniards who had made an entrance
upon the _Revenge_:
"So please you, sir, he is yonder, where, as I have seen with my own
eyes, he hath slain a full dozen Spaniards."
Without waiting for his much-needed drink of water, Gilbert snatched up
a morion that lay at his feet, clapped it upon his bare head, unsheathed
his sword, and ran out to join in the fray. Jacob Hartop, smiling at the
lad's impetuous eagerness, turned to the water-butt and took the
proffered dipper from Robin Redfern's hand.
Robin's face was very pale, and there was a strange light in his grave,
gray eyes. He glanced quickly round the cabin, and presently darted into
the further corner, went down upon his knees in the dark, and after a
moment emerged gripping a little sword in his right hand, and strode to
the door. Jacob Hartop stretched out his hand to stop the boy, guessing
his purpose, but Robin escaped him and ran out, mingling with the
fighting crowd.
Very soon afterwards Hartop was again at his gun on the starboard side
of the forecastle deck. At the moment there was a slight lull in the
battle. A galleon that had been grappled to this side of the _Revenge_
for an hour or more, and was now almost a total wreck, was being drawn
off to give place to a mighty ship which had stood by from the time of
the opening of the battle, and whose decks were crowded with soldiers.
Glancing out through the gap thus made, Hartop saw at some distance away
a little ship flying the flag of St. George. She seemed to be hovering
near, either to see the success of the fight, or else, which was more
probable, to do what she might to rescue the _Revenge_ from the grip of
her overpowering enemies. Hartop knew the little ship. He had seen her
many times during the voyage out from England and also at the anchorage
at Flores. It was Jacob Whiddon's _Pilgrim_.
The great galleon which now closed in to the attack was the _St. Paul_,
the flag-ship of Don Alonzo de Bassan, a brother of the renowned Marquis
of Santa Cruz, and King Philip's chosen admiral. Already the
_Revenge's_ bowsprit had been shot away, her foremast had fallen by the
board, and her main topmast was lying across her main-deck with two
Englishmen and seven Spaniards crashed under its weight. Her sails were
in ribbons, and her riggings were in a hopeless tangle of broken rope;
her bulwarks had great yawning gaps in them, yet still her gallant flag
waved gloriously, albeit with many shot-holes in it, over her poop. And
now the _St. Paul_ opened fire upon her, first from her chase-guns that
shot out their great stone balls, and then, as she swung round, from her
full broadside. Sir Richard Granville's mizzen-mast, which had
beforetime been sorely hacked and splintered, fell with a crash. And now
she lay heaving lazily on the swell of the ocean, with but the ragged
stumps of her three masts showing above the level of her shattered hull,
and her ship's company in their sadly reduced numbers showing still a
sturdy and dauntless front, and ever persistently fighting on. The sea
round about her was so strewn with wreckage that the galleons could not
now come close to her as they had done at the first, but lay round her
in a ring, firing into her or sending out their boats crowded with
soldiers to board her, the beams of the setting sun shining on their
morions and body armour, and glancing on the blades of their drawn
swords.
As Don Alonzo's ship hove near, and when the cloud of smoke from her
discharged guns had lifted, the archers in her fighting-tops fired down
their arrow shafts in the endeavour to pick off such of the English
officers as presented themselves on the poop-deck. Sir Richard Grenville
was struck many times, but his body armour was well forged, and although
he indeed had received many slight wounds on hands and neck and face,
yet he was practically unhurt, and his hoarse voice could be heard amid
the battle's thunder cheering his men and bidding them fight on.
His son Roland had been wounded by a musket-shot in his right arm, but,
like Sir Richard, he cared not so long as he had breath in him to fight;
so he took his sword in his left hand, and ever when any Spaniards
attempted to make an entrance upon the decks he was ready to repel them,
with Timothy Trollope and Gilbert Oglander shoulder to shoulder with
him, forming a human barrier through which no Don, howsoever bold, might
pass.
Gilbert Oglander became conscious that as Don Alonzo's galleon came
near, there was one archer in her mizzen-top who had, as it seemed,
singled him out from among his companions. Arrow after arrow struck with
a sharp ring upon his breastplate; and as he moved along the deck to
encounter new foes, again and again an arrow would buzz past him, always
from the same direction.
The Spaniards, secure in the knowledge that the _Revenge_ was helpless,
went about the fighting more slowly as evening drew upon them. It was as
if they thought to prolong their victim's life, and wished only to see
for how much time the little _Revenge_ would hold out against them.
During a lull in the fight Sir Richard Grenville ordered his men to
clear the decks of wreckage, and to cast overboard the bodies of the
slain. Water was served round, together with bread and onions. As
Gilbert Oglander was carrying a flagon of water to one of his wounded
comrades who lay in the scuppers, an arrow struck the flagon and dashed
it from his grasp. He picked the empty vessel up and returned to the
water-butt to refill it. Again as he passed aft an arrow struck him,
this time making a deep dent in his morion. And at that moment young
Robin Redfern, with a kerchief bound round his bleeding head, came up to
him and touched him on the arm.
"Master," the lad cried, "I pray you have a care how you expose yourself
to the aim of the archer who hath just fired at you. His arrows have
pursued you this long while past. And--and--prithee, Master Gilbert,
dost know who 'tis?"
"Nay, how should I know one Spaniard from another?" Gilbert asked,
passing on towards the wounded man. But Robin held him.
"Hark you, my master," cried the lad, "I have seen his face. I saw it
but a few moments ago, and, as I live, 'tis the face of your own cousin,
Master Philip Oglander!"
Now Gilbert, despite the excitement of the battle had not forgotten
Drusilla's letter that was nestling within his doublet under the
protection of his breastplate. His thoughts had gone more than once to
his home and to the remembrance of his uncle's trickery, and this had
increased by an hundredfold his hatred of all friends of Spain, and he
had fought with a spirit of personal vengeance as well as with the
desire to help his fellow-countrymen and his Queen in this battle
against their dread enemy. For an instant he doubted the truth of what
Robin had told him, and when he had served the wounded man with his
drink of water, and helped him down to the crowded cockpit, he looked
out through one of the portholes in search of his cousin in the
galleon's tops. But the place where his enemy had stood was now cleared
of men, and Philip Oglander was nowhere to be seen.
As he was mounting the ladder-stairs to regain the deck, he came upon a
man climbing painfully upward with a sword between his teeth. Putting
his arm about the man's body to assist him, he said:
"Art wounded, my master?"
The man looked round at him. It was Red Bob.
"Not I," he answered. "But I can no longer lie and listen to the groans
of my friends down there, nor to the booming of the guns, and think
that, ill though I am, I have not yet fired a shot or drawn a weapon in
defence of this good ship. A score of the sick men have already gone up
to fight, Master Oglander, and 'tis my intention to join them, and do
what little I can."
"May the good God put strength into your arm, then!" returned Gilbert,
and, stepping upon the deck, he drew the man with him, and gave him a
loaded pistol and a bag of powder and shot. Jacob Hartop encountered
them as they moved aft.
"My good gun hath been dismounted at last," said he. "Yet 'tis of little
account, methinks, for I do hear that the powder hath well-nigh given
out." A cheer from the after-deck broke in upon his words. "Ah, here be
work for us!" he added, snatching his sword from his side and limping
towards the quarter-deck, followed by Gilbert and Red Bob.
A boat-load of Spanish soldiers had put out from the admiral's galleon,
and had come alongside the _Revenge_. Fresh and eager they clambered up
from her chains and over her broken bulwarks--two score of them at the
least. Sir Richard Grenville and Captain Robinson rallied their men to
their sides. They quickly drew together in a line, a gallant little
company of twelve, not one of whom was without a wound, saving three who
had come up from their hard beds on the ballast, and these were so weak
that it was a labour even to raise their swords.
They met their foes with a rattle of pistol-shots and then with a clash
of steel. Sir Richard Grenville closed with a tall Don, whose gay
clothing and sparkling rings proclaimed him a man of consequence.
Whatever Grenville may have been as a seamen, he was certainly no mean
swordsman. He parried the Spaniard's fierce thrust, and with a quick
movement of his strong wrist and an alert lunge forward sent the point
of his weapon deep into the other's bare throat. The Spaniard fell, and
Sir Richard stepped over his inert body to encounter the man who had
taken his leader's place. Four Spaniards did he vanquish with his own
hand within the few minutes during which this engagement on his
quarter-deck lasted. And by his side--the least with the
greatest--fought little Robin Redfern.
Robin, indeed, seemed to have abandoned all sense of fear or thought of
danger, and he fought valiantly in his own boyish fashion. At one moment
he rushed forward into the very midst of the Spaniards, and engaged hand
to hand with one whom he seemed to have singled out. Gilbert, seeing him
thus expose himself, pressed in to his rescue, caught him by the
shoulder and dragged him back, parrying on his own blade the
sword-thrust that must else have ended the boy's life. Gilbert now
crossed swords with Robin's antagonist, and in the fading evening light
caught sight of his face, recognizing it as the face of his own cousin,
Philip. For a moment Gilbert drew back, appalled at the thought of
fighting with one of his own flesh and blood. But Philip, with a
scornful laugh on his lips, pressed him to the duel. It was thrust and
cut and parry, parry and cut and thrust, for many moments. The two were
equally matched in skill, albeit Gilbert had already been fighting for
five hours without a rest, while his cousin was full fresh and active.
Back and ever back, foot by foot, Gilbert was forced, and at last a
fierce thrust delivered with all the strength in Philip's right arm,
backed by all the weight in his body, brought Gilbert to his knees. The
sword's point struck against his breast-plate, doing no real injury, but
by its sheer force it disturbed his balance. He rolled over on the deck,
and his own weapon fell from his hand.
"Now will I do for thee at last!" cried Philip Oglander savagely between
his teeth, speaking in English. He held his sword in air for a moment as
if in deliberation where to strike. In that moment his weapon hand was
struck a tremendous blow by a pistol flung at it by Red Bob, and Red Bob
himself sprang forward, crying "Traitorous hound! I know ye!" and
clutched him round the body in a wrestling embrace. The two swayed to
and fro for an instant, and then Red Bob dropped on the deck with Philip
Oglander's dagger in his heart.
When Gilbert rose to his feet to continue the duel with his cousin he
saw Philip climbing back over the bulwark in haste to regain the
galleon's boat. Others of the Spaniards occupied Gilbert now, and
Ambrose Pennington and one of the yeomen of the sheets coming up to
help, they were soon overpowered or driven over the side. Some fell into
the sea; five-and-twenty of them had been slain; and the boat returned
to Don Alonzo's ship with but seven out of the forty men who had set
out in her, less than half an hour earlier.
[Illustration: THE GREAT FIGHT ON BOARD THE _REVENGE_]
Darkness had now spread across the sea, the stars peeped out through the
overhanging mist of smoke, and in a wide ring about the _Revenge_ the
galleons stood, ceaselessly firing upon her. Their guns flashed out
their fire into the black night. Many of the shots flew wide; some
passed over the low-lying wreck and struck the galleons lying beyond,
yet many thundered against the sides of the English ship, burying
themselves in her stout timbers or rebounding with a hiss into the sea.
Hour after hour throughout the night the battle continued, and if not
many of Sir Richard Grenville's men were killed or wounded it was
because so few remained alive to be wounded or killed. An hour before
midnight there were but a dozen men and boys at Sir Richard's side upon
his decks, and these were all so weary and bruised and hungry that they
scarce could stand. Yet they hovered about their chief, seldom speaking,
but only exchanging strange glances one with another, binding up each
other's hurts, or gazing about them at the flashing of the cannon. At
times one would take up a musket, and, if he could find powder and shot
wherewith to load it, would fire into a crowd of soldiers upon one of
the Spaniard's decks.
Sir Richard strode to and fro, sword in hand, with a staggering gait,
now pausing behind the shelter of some yet unbroken piece of bulwark and
watching the movements of the enemy. And once he caught at Gilbert
Oglander's arm, gripping it tightly as though to support himself.
"I pray thee tell me, Sir Richard," cried the lad. "Art wounded? Wilt go
below to the cabin?"
"Nay, nay," returned Grenville quickly, breathing hard nevertheless, "I
would but ask thee to hasten below and discover wherefore our guns be
silent. Od's life, boy, must we lie here and not give them shot for
shot! Go, bid the gunners maintain their firing!"
And Gilbert obeyed, coming back some minutes afterwards, saying:
"Good my master, the last barrel of powder hath been broached, and there
is scarce enough for another round."
Then Sir Richard took off the casque from his head and wiped his brow,
answering:
"Go below yet again and bid them sweep up the boards of the magazine,
and scrape out a handful of powder wheresoever it may be found. And you,
boy," he added to young Robin Redfern, who stood trembling near him
under the light of one of the deck lanterns, "hie you to one of the
water-butts and bring me a drink of water."
His voice was weak, and Ambrose Pennington, who had seated himself on
the thick end of a dismounted cannon, heard it and quickly rose to his
feet.
"Y'are hurt, Sir Richard," said he. "I know it, though you do bear it
so bravely. I beg you let me help you to your cabin, where the surgeon
will attend you."
Sir Richard shook his head.
"Wherefore should I leave the deck now," said he,--"now when there be so
few to defend it?"
"Nay, I implore you," urged Pennington, and putting his arm about the
admiral's body he gently drew him towards the stairs. And Grenville went
with him. The surgeon was brought, and he speedily took off Sir
Richard's body-armour, and laid bare the many wounds that he had
received. These he washed and bound up with bandages. The two stood
under a little hanging lamp that was near the open porthole. Their
movements, or their flitting shadows, must have been observed upon one
of the galleons, for even as they were nearly ready to quit the cabin a
musket-shot struck Sir Richard on his shoulder. A second bullet struck
him on the head, and at the same moment a third shot killed the surgeon
at his side.
Taking up a fragment of linen Sir Richard bound it about his head and
staggered to the door. Severe as his injuries were, it was not in him to
stand aside in the hour of peril. He crept up to the deck. At the top of
the stairs he was met by Robin Redfern, who had patiently stood there
with the flagon of water that he had been sent for.
"God bless thee, my lad!" said Sir Richard, taking the cup from the
boy's hand. "And may you live to serve your Queen and country as I have
tried to serve them!"
The words had but left his lips when a cannon-ball whizzed past him. He
turned to look for the boy, and found Robin lying dead at his feet. Then
a full broadside of his own ship's guns was fired.
"Fight on! Fight on!" he cried, although indeed none was near him to
hear his encouraging words.
That was the last discharge of his heavy guns; for now there was not
sufficient powder on board with which to fire them, and even the smaller
cannons, the falconets and demi-culverins, could be but sparingly used.
Yet so long as there was a handful of powder to be found it was
carefully employed. Not only had the ammunition run short, but all the
pikes were broken in hand-to-hand fight, and of Grenville's men that had
gone into action forty lay dead, and the most part of the rest severely
wounded. The ship herself was almost a wreck, her tackle all cut
asunder, her upper works altogether rased. During the fifteen hours,
from three o'clock in the afternoon, when the battle had begun, until
daybreak on the next morning, she had been closely assailed by fifteen
several galleons, in addition to those that had fired upon her from a
distance.
Just before dawn, Edward Webbe and the few remaining gunners who had
been at work between decks appeared above the hatchway. They had used up
the powder to the last grain, and there was no more fighting to be
done. Webbe was as black as a coalman, his clothing was torn to tatters,
and he was covered with wounds. He went up to Captain Robinson and told
him the condition of the ship. The captain then held colloquy with the
sailing-master, and both approached Sir Richard Grenville.
"Our powder hath been spent, even to the last corn," said the captain.
"We have six feet of water in the hold," added the sailing-master, "and
three great shot-holes below the water-line which are so weakly plugged
that with the first working of the sea we must needs sink."
Sir Richard Grenville took a turn to and fro, meditating. Then he looked
at the master-gunner, whom he knew to be a most resolute man, and said
in a tone of command:
"Blow up the ship, then! Blow her up! Split her and sink her, that
naught may remain of glory or victory to our enemies. As for ourselves,
let us yield ourselves unto God, and to the mercy of none else!"
"Nay," returned the master. "Have we not told ye that there is no
gunpowder on board wherewith to fire a gun, much less to blow up the
ship?"
"Why, then," cried Grenville, "split her up with your hatchets, pull out
the plugs from the shot-holes. But sink her, sink her how you will. For
while we have, like valiant men, repulsed so many of our enemies, it
were folly now to shorten the honour of our nation by prolonging our
lives for a few hours or a few days. So let sink her, I say. Sink her,
in God's name."
To this Edward Webbe and divers others who were with him readily
assented. But Captain Robinson and Pennington were of another opinion,
and they besought Sir Richard to have care of them, declaring that the
Spaniards would doubtless be as ready to accept a composition as they
themselves were ready to offer the same. "There be many able and valiant
men in our company yet living," said the captain, "whose wounds are not
mortal, and who may yet do their country and Queen acceptable service
hereafter."
But Sir Richard refused to hearken to this pleading, and he moved away
and stood for a while looking over the sea that was now clearer under
the approaching light of dawn. And beyond the galleons he caught sight
of Jacob Whiddon's ship, the _Pilgrim_, bearing away to the leeward with
two great galleons in pursuit of her.
Meanwhile, Captain Robinson held speech with his fellows and won many of
them to his side, and he besought Ambrose Pennington to leave the ship
and go on board the _St. Paul_ and parley with Don Alonzo de Bassan for
conditions. So Pennington and Jacob Hartop and some three others, all of
them sorely wounded and looking strangely ill-conditioned, went down
into an empty boat that was alongside, and holding up a white flag in
their bow they crossed the intervening space of sea to the admiral.
They found Don Alonzo in no great haste to make another entry upon the
_Revenge_, for his men had had enough of her, and even still feared her.
Pennington told him that Sir Richard Grenville had a mind to blow up his
ship with himself and all his ship's company.
"And wherefore should he resort to a measure so extreme?" questioned Don
Alonzo. "Since his disposition is so dangerous, return to him, I beg
you, and let him know that I am willing to put an end to this battle,
and that I have already lost more men and more ships than I had ever
thought to lose at the hands of one small English man-of-war. Bid him
understand that I yield to him his life, and that the lives of all his
ship's company shall be spared and sent home to England. For the better
sort, such reasonable ransom shall be paid as their estates may bear.
But I do aver, and swear by the Holy Mother, that all of you shall be
free from the galleys and from imprisonment. I care not to expose myself
and my fleet to further loss and mischief. Also, 'tis my great desire to
rescue your Sir Richard Grenville, whom for his most notable valour I do
greatly honour and admire."
With this answer Pennington returned to the _Revenge_, and since safety
of life was promised, the larger number of the men, feeling themselves
to be now at the end of their peril, stood up against Sir Richard and
Edward Webbe, and declared their willingness to surrender.
"What!" cried Edward Webbe with bitter scorn and contempt in his voice.
"Do you ask me to surrender to a Spaniard? Me who have borne so much of
horror and torture and cruelty at their hands, and at the hands of their
accursed Inquisition? God forbid! No, I will not surrender. Rather would
I die now at this moment where I stand!"
And thus saying he whipped out his sword, and resting its hilt upon the
deck, held its point towards his body with intent to throw himself upon
it. But the captain arrested him in the act, kicking the sword away.
Webbe struggled to regain his weapon, and, failing, was about to rush to
the ship's side and fling himself into the sea, when Ambrose Pennington
and another caught him and carried him down to his cabin and there
locked him in, making sure that he had no weapon within reach.
Sir Richard Grenville stood alone, not attempting to dissuade his men
from their resolve, and presently in the silence Jacob Hartop spoke.
"Ned was right," said he, stepping to Sir Richard's side. "An English
ship, even though she be a poor battered hulk, were ever a better home
than a galleon of Spain." He glanced aft to the flag-staff upon which a
tattered remnant of the honoured flag still fluttered in the morning
air, and baring his head he added: "God bless Queen Elizabeth!"
Gilbert Oglander and Timothy Trollops had taken no part in this little
scene. They were at the time both below in the cockpit attending to
their wounds and giving what small help was in their power to their sick
and dying companions. Here, too, was Roland Grenville. But in good time
the death-like silence of the abated battle brought the three up on
deck. As they came to the stair-head they glanced upon the water, which
rippled and glanced in the morning light; for there were now no
intervening bulwarks to shield it from their sight. And they saw some
six gaily-furnished boats approaching. The boats were brought alongside,
and the boys at their bows threw up coils of rope as they touched,
which, falling upon the blood-stained deck, were taken by certain of Sir
Richard's men and secured to such balks of timber as could be found.
Then one by one the men stole away into the boats and were taken aboard
Don Alonzo's ship and others of the galleons.
Sir Richard Grenville, thus overmatched, agreed after much persuasion to
leave the _Revenge_, which was indeed an unsavoury resting-place for any
man, her decks being covered with blood and strewn with the bodies of
dead and wounded men, as if it had been a slaughter-house.
"Well, an you will, let it be so," said Sir Richard as he turned to
descend into the boat that the Spanish admiral had sent for him. "He may
do with my body what he listeth, for I esteem it not." And grasping the
hand of Gilbert Oglander, who was helping him, he added, "Pray for me,
Gilbert, my lad. And bid the others of our company pray for me also."
Then he swooned, reviving only when he was laid upon a couch in the
cabin of one of the Spanish officers on board the _St Paul_.
Don Alonzo himself would neither see him nor speak with him. But the
other captains and gentlemen received him with gracious courtesy,
treated him with humanity and kindness, and left nothing unattempted
that might contribute to his comfort or tend to his recovery. They
wondered at his courage and his stout heart, for he now showed no sign
of faintness nor change of colour.
Gilbert Oglander remained at his side throughout that day, and was
relieved at night by Sir Richard's son Roland. Early in the morning the
galleons anchored in the roadstead of Terceira. Sir Richard Grenville
was too weak to be removed upon the island, and Gilbert and Roland sat
with him until he died on the morning of the third day after the battle.
His last words were worthy of his life. Two of the Spanish captains were
present as he spoke them in their own tongue.
"Here die I, Richard Grenville," he murmured as he held his son's hand.
"Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind, for that I
have ended my life as a true soldier ought to do that hath fought for
his country, Queen, religion, and honour, whereby my soul most joyful
departeth out of this body, and shall always leave behind it an
everlasting fame of a valiant and true soldier that hath done his duty
as he was bound to do."