A sudden wind, after days of calm, brings so much that is good.
It stirs the sails of merchant ships, makes them pregnant and potent again, powering them across the seas to the realm’s profit. It wakes Admiral Holmes aboard his flagship by the creak of his rigging, has him out of his bunk and shouting, for he knows that if he gets this easterly behind him, he will gain the weather gauge and then may fall like a fury upon the Dutch. It drives a cutter towards the English coast, bearing his intentions to his commander, the Duke of York, and to the king; while in the cutter’s hold, a captain and his ward smile at the wind’s song, and in spite of a mountainous sea.
In the fields of southern England, other sails that had drooped now fill and spin again. The longest, hottest summer in memory h
