| Drakes Drumby Malcolm Cowen
The Port of Heaven - by Malcolm Cowen (2008 words)
(The verse quoted in the text is from “Drake’s Drum”, by Henry John Newbolt, 1862- 1938)
“It’s an invitation from Andre and Lisa in Dartmouth” said my wife, “They’ve had their house redecorated in a traditional Victorian style, or at least what they think is traditional Victorian.”
Knowing Andre and Lisa I had a fair idea of what that might be. As Susan once put it with fine wifely wit, they combine the artistic taste of Ludwig of Bavaria with the simplicity and lack of ostentation of Louis XIV of France. Add to that a complete ignorance of history over 30 years old - say before 2100 - and you have some idea of the result. They probably didn’t even know that Victoria ruled over 200 years ago in the late 1800’s.
Nonetheless we went. I was under strict instructions from Susan not to try to dodge out of the inevitable guided tour. She was under strict instructions from me not to giggle at the artistic taste of our hosts.
Fortunately there were other guests invited to the soirée. This gave us the minor pleasure of trying to guess which ones were as culturally naive as our hosts and which were merely trying desperately to be polite. After a surprisingly reasonable meal (cooked so Lisa assured us to a genuine Victorian recipe) we were taken round to admire the newly decorated house including the Victorian Kitchen, complete with “genuine” Victorian-style microwave and other similar chronoclasmic disasters. This was followed by the four-poster beds and, much to my surprise, a truly genuine period dresser, except that it was Jacobean, 200 years older.
Finally Andre settled us down in the “genuine Victorian parlour” complete with equally “genuine” wooden-surround period TV, and suggested a typical Victorian evening telling each other ghost stories. This turned out to be a bad move. There was a dismayed silence as everyone tried to think how they could possibly get out of having to be a contributor.
The slightly panicy atmosphere finally was broken by a small man in a huge winged armchair in the corner. I’d noticed him earlier and put him down as one of the desperately polite brigade.
“Well actually I do have a story,” he said, “and it does have a ghost, but it’s hardly Victorian, more late 21st Century, and it’s about the European Space Force.”
There was a general air of relaxation at this. Chronological accuracy, it was felt, was less important than evading an embarrassing situation. One or two faces I it seemed to me actually enjoyed the incongruity of discussing the ESF in a pseudo old-fashioned setting, in the hope that it might embarrass our hosts. Faces turned expectantly towards the small man, as he continued.
“It happened about 40 years ago, when I was a young boy. “I was brought up here in the South West, in one of those old terraced houses in Wallingford Rd in Kingsbridge. I suppose like most young lads I got into a certain amount of trouble.”
That did seem a little less likely I had to admit. Whatever his youthful sins he now looked as respectable as a lawyer.
“I remember once my best friend, Peter from Plymouth, found a pair of old skates in an attic. We thought they were a wonderful invention, especially on the hills. Eventually we got into trouble when we used them to skate down the long hill outside Aveton Gifford. We broke the speed limit going down the hill, and carried on breaking it right across the bridge and through the village. We eventually found we’d been caught by the traffic cameras at the roundabout.
“After that we were banned from anything that might be enjoyable, and sentenced to being let out only to visit places that our parents considered educational or otherwise improving.
“That’s how we ended up at the historical exhibition on the Hoe in Plymouth. It was the year that they signed the Treaty of Plymouth setting up the Joint European Defence Force in response to the threat from the nations of the newly formed Southern Block. The whole town was due to be crawling with kings, presidents, prime ministers and so on, all up for the signing ceremony, complete with massive TV coverage and of course the new Commander in Chief of the EDF.
“Naturally the City Council wanted to show off their past glories, with of course a little airbrushing to avoid reminding anyone that most of those glories consisted of military and naval prowess in beating up the ancestors of the various honoured guests.
“Peter and I were disappointed. We’d hoped to see something about the great battles of the past. Drake in the Channel defeating the Great Armada, or Drake at Cadiz sinking the Spanish fleet. Preferably with lots of blood of course, but all the pictures they had were of ships just sailing about not shooting at anyone and no-one being killed at all.
“The only thing we did find worth looking at was Drake’s Drum. The Council hadn’t been able to avoid including it, but they had put it in a corner, where the Spanish guests would hopefully not notice, or at least pretend they hadn’t noticed it. Peter found it, and proceeded to recite the whole of a poem about it, to his mother’s embarrassment.
“I can remember only a few of the words:
Take my drum to England,
Hang it by the shore
Strike it when your powder’s runnin’ low
If the Dons sight Devon
I’ll quit the port o’ heaven
An’ drum them up the Channel
As we drummed them long ago.
“I thought it was a fine performance, and I suggested an even better one to follow. We were staying at his parents’ house that week, so I proposed that after the noble guests had all arrived for the signing, we should sneak into the exhibition after dark, and strike Drake’s Drum to celebrate the arrival of the Spanish delegation. If we could manage to turn on the PA system beforehand, then all the better of course.
“So we went to bed at his parents’ house like good little boys, then sneaked out of the window as soon as we heard Peter’s parents lock up and go to bed.
“They lived in one of those town flats built near the Hoe, so it wasn’t far. Our luck seemed to be in as well, and we managed to avoid the security, who seemed to be having a quiet brew in their little office.
“Our first stop was the PA system. We should have started to worry when we found the main office open, but we were only young lads, and I suppose we just didn’t think. The PA control system was by the main door, just near to the entrance to the exhibition, and Peter found the main switch and turned it on, while I tried the exhibition door.
“That was open as well, and I slipped into the entrance lobby.
“As I said the drum was in a corner. Peter had found a microphone, and some cable, but it wouldn’t reach into the corner where the drum was, so I lifted it up, on its stand, and carried it out to the lobby. That’s the point where I began to realise something was very badly wrong.
“From the lobby I could see straight into the Security hut, and the guards. But I could see now that they weren’t having a brew: there was only one guard visible, and he was slumped out across a desk, with something red coming from his head.
“I froze with shock for a moment, then ran back to Peter.
“ ‘Peter, there’s a dead man in the guard hut,’ I began, then stopped as I saw what Peter was staring wide-eyed at.
“Outside the window we could see a long sleek craft dropping down toward the Hoe. It was one of the new silent drive models, and the silence made its arrival even more eerie. It slowed and paused over the Hoe, and we saw the markings on it clearly for the first time, and gasped together to see the flag of the Southern Block.
“Peter pointed urgently at the gun ports. Closed while in high-speed flight, they were now opening, and pointing directly at the hotels where all the assorted VIPs were sleeping.
“ ‘Turn the PA on,’ he said, and ran past me toward the lobby. I turned the switch, and suddenly heard the sound of a drum beating across the loudspeakers. I turned the volume up as high as I could, and lights began to come on across the town. Then I heard voices shouting in alarm, the sound of explosions crashed out from the darkness and I heard the glass in the lobby doors shatter, but the drum beats still rolled on, getting even louder if possible.
“It seemed an eternity. I stood there watching while the drum rolled, and the enemy craft hung there, gun ports halfopen, yet doing nothing.
“ ‘Why haven’t they fired?’ I wondered, and ‘Where are our forces?’
“Then help arrived. I saw the huge shapes of the Santa Maria and the Empress Catherine lifting into view above the town, behind them the Bismark and other ships of the new Defence Force, with Military Police flitters moving forward.
“Then the huge turrets of the Santa Maria opened. The enemy turned, but a mass of other vehicles had surrounded him behind and above. His gun ports closed and he sank down to the grass of the Hoe.
“I realised that the drum beats had stopped, so I ran to the lobby, and found Peter lying near the drum, unconscious. A bullet or a piece of debris had grazed him and left a long scar in his scalp. I knelt down by him crying, convinced he was dead, and that’s how they found us a few minutes later.
“You probably know the rest, the Plymouth Incursion as it was called helped solidify the Alliance, and the fiasco as seen from their side helped weaken the Southern Block for several critical months. In so far as you can be sure of anything, I think we did help save our peoples.”
The little man settled back, his account was obviously ended.
“That’s all a good story,” said Andre, in his rather supercilious tones that suggested the exact opposite, “But it’s hardly a real ghost story is it?”
“Maybe not, although you might ask how come the drum carried on beating after the firing and explosions that left Peter unconscious.”
The man paused a moment before continuing, “There is more though. Perhaps partly because of that incident I joined the Defence Force, and I ended up serving a term in the records section there. I managed to get hold of the official records from that night.
“You remember that there was that long pause when the Southern Block craft just hung there with its gun ports halfopen, doing nothing. They asked the enemy commander afterwards why he didn’t fire.”
“His answer was simple, he said he couldn’t because of the other warship.
“You mean the Santa Maria and the Empress Catherine?” they asked.
“ ‘No not the Spaniard or the Russian,’ he replied, ‘I mean the big one, the one that had been between us and the town. It had a red cross for a flag, and an image of a yellow deer on the front.’ ”
“Yellow deer?” Andre’s claims to historical knowledge were as shaky as ever. He looked baffled for a moment, until Lisa nudged him and whispered “Golden Hind, Drake’s ship” in a voice she apparently thought other people wouldn’t hear.
“But that can’t be true.” he said, though not with much assurance, “If it were, why didn’t it all get announced publicly at the time?”
The little man raised his eyebrow, “Well that was also in the documents I read, but it should be obvious anyway. Just how was anyone going to tell a story like that to the new Commander in Chief of the combined armed forces of Europe, Admiral Gonzales of Cadiz.”
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