The French Are Stopped

Take the quarrels. One broad side into a retroplease, Captain Bush. Point of one target. Then stop ready. I side regal and within our defence lines.

And bodies floating down the river bore grim testimony to battles four hundreds of miles away. I long to be rid of the sickening stench of war and be home again with my wife, Barbara, and Richard, my little son.

The cutter clam, I just arrived with mail. And Barbara's latest letter sharpened my own sickness. My beloved husband, the household here at Smallbridge has undergone an important transformation. Little Richard is no longer a baby, but he's been put into small clothes.

Britches, if you please. But if you could see him, I think you would agree that your little Richard carries himself like a gentleman. Except that he sits down rather suddenly, usually in mud puddles, and he still loves to dig holes in the ground around the shrubbery.

He exhibits both physically and morally a partiality for the soil, which appears odd in the sun of such a distinguished sailor. But in other ways, he reminds me more and more of you each day.

If your first wife was still alive, she could not possibly love him better than I do. Let us forget the word steps I never existed. When I have completed this letter, I shall have him a six his mark, and I dare say he will add such crubby fingerprints as will further identify his signature.

I fought down the longing that her words brought, but I couldn't repress a surge of hope as I picked up the dispatches which have been delivered to my cabin with Barbara's letter. New orders from the Admiralty and under perhaps at last I was to return to England.