Why, t'other day
at Budge Budge--they ought to call it Fudge Fudge now, seems to me--the
Jack tars went ashore about nightfall to help the lobsters storm the fort
in the dark. But Colonel Clive he was dog tired, an' went to his bed,
sayin' as how he'd lead a boardin' party in the mornin'. That warn't
exactly beans an' bacon; nary a man but would ha' took a big dose o'
fever if they'd laid out on the fields all night.
"Anyways, somewhere about eleven, an' pitch dark, a Jack which his name
is Strahan--a Scotchman, by what they say--went off all alone by himself,
to have a sort of private peep at that there fort. He was pretty well
filled up wi' grog, or pr'aps he wouldn't ha' been quite so venturesome.
Well, he waded up to his chin in a ditch o' mud what goes round the fort,
with his pistols above his head. When he gets over, bang goes one pistol,
an' he sets up a shout: 'One and all, my boys! one and all,
hurray!'--a-dreamin' I s'pose as he was captain of a boardin' party an a
crew o' swabs behind him. Up he goes, up the bastion; bang goes t'other
pistol; then he outs with his cutlass, a-roarin' hurray with a voice like
a twelve pounder; down goes three o' them Moors; another breaks Jack's
cutlass with his simitar; bless you, what's he care? don't care a straw,
which his name is Strahan; he've got a fist, he have, an' he dashes it in
the Moor's face, collars his simitar, cuts his throat and sings out, 'Ho,
mateys! this 'ere fort's mine!'
"Up comes three or four of his mates what heard his voice; they swings
round the cannon on the bastion an' turns it on the enemy; bang! bang!
and bless your heart, the Moors cut and run, an' the fort was ourn.
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