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    The Spanish Dagger
    The Spanish Dagger
    The Spanish Dagger
    Ebook128 pages1 hour

    The Spanish Dagger

    By William Bertram

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Our Play is set in the Elizabethan period, the time of Drake, Frobisher and Grenville. This play follows the account of Richard who is a bitter old man at start of our play. Unfortunately, he has been reduced to poverty, forced by circumstances to return to his family, penniless and definitely resenting it. There he is induced to tell his story and what a story, he was a young man at the time of the Armada and served with Drake. After many adventures, in which he amasses a small fortune only to have it stolen by his so-called friend. He comes under the command of Sir Richard Grenville who is as mad as a March hare. Richard is then involved in the great sea fight off the Azores. After that debacle, they managed to get home where a grateful Queen did not even pay them their wages. However, our bitter and twisted old Richard is due for a surprise from the Spanish, but, will it change Richard?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWilliam Bertram
    Release dateJun 22, 2013
    ISBN9781301212996
    The Spanish Dagger
    Author

    William Bertram

    Bill Bertram has for the last forty years researched Britain’s late 18th and early 19th century Merchant and Royal Navy ships. At University, he specialised in the design and performance of wooden warships. He is now a maritime historian and writer living near Devonport Royal Naval Base, England.Bill’s work has been coloured by his historical knowledge and experience of seamanship, he has an unique approach to maritime history and has developed a dramatic style of writing that explores the brass tacks of historic maritime fiction. For him a good story must explain what is going on around the subject, it is extremely important that the background of the story is factually correct.Bill attended Plymouth University for his degree in Maritime History and Marine Technology. His dissertation on the sailing qualities of 19th century warships was rapidly accepted and broadcast on Television and Radio as well as being published in the New Scientist and in journals all around the world. During his time at University, he satisfied his academic curiosity and his need to eat, by becoming a guide at Plymouth Naval Base Museum and a receptionist at Fort Bovisand.For several years, he pursued this speciality further. The next years were fulfilling as a teacher, but retirement threatened and so Bill returned to his major academic love, maritime history, luckily he was in a city steeped in the past glories of her relationship with the sea. Now free from a profession, Bill again returned to his first love, the sea and writing historic novels. As a teenager, Bill loved the Hornblower novels by C. S. Forester and had always dreamed of writing books in that genre.It was at this point in Bill’s history that he decided to write books based on the history of Plymouth and its seafaring people. Resolving to write a mixture of factual and fiction books, his first three books progressed through several generations of the same family, he centred his rags to riches stories around the Brown family. Using factual evidence, he interwove the characters around Plymouth’s 18th century history and streets. This clearly involved many long days of research and fact-finding, however, eventually he wrote his first novel and swiftly followed it with two more in rapid succession. The first three books that Bill wrote are indeed based on an 18th century Plymouthian family who are clearly fictional, however, this can never be said of his novel’s backgrounds, here Bill has meticulously used old maps, drawings and records to build up an historic environment for his characters to exist in.Similarly with the three plays that have been also been composed, these also revolve about the same family, but are set in different centuries, but all involve the Plymouth Brown family and all deal with a period of historical significance.Bill Bertram has since published six books, He lives and writes from his home in Plymouth, for relaxation, Bill visits the sea daily and he is currently the owner of an Edwardian Steamboat in which he potters about.

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      Book preview

      The Spanish Dagger - William Bertram

      The Spanish Dagger.

      a

      Play.

      by

      William Bertram

      Published by William Bertram at Smashwords

      Copyright 2013 William Bertram

      Discover other titles by William Bertram at Smashwords.com

      Scene One. INT Day

      The year is 1620. Place; a poor fisherman's cottage in Plymouth.

      (Sound of a toddler getting ready to cry in the background, fire crackling)

      MARY

      (Chopping food Angry)

      I care not Mother; we just cannot have his Father here

      ALICE

      (Comforting toddler who is moaning Low voice.)

      There there, Robert. You know young men don't cry. Take this bit of apple lad.

      (Loud & Firm)

      Look Mary, the old man will be seventy soon, he cannot last much longer in this world and after all, tis thy husband's duty to take him in and thy duty to support him in that task.

      MARY

      (Stopping for a second)

      (Placing cut vegetables in pot. Lowers voice)

      I know I know, but look around Mother; I have three children and another on the way, where in God's name is he going to sleep in this hovel.

      (Louder and firmer)

      For Christ's sake, we only have two rooms.

      ALICE

      (Loudly)

      Do not blaspheme daughter.

      MARY

      Why can he not sleep in thy house Mother?

      ALICE

      (Sound of child now happy and running around in background)

      (Slight pause)

      (Alice angrily pokes the fire Angry)

      Oh, so would you make thy mother a harlot? What would my neighbours say? A poor widow woman with a widower living in the same room. That would give the fishwives food for their gossip for nie on half a year, I shouldn't wonder.

      MARY

      (Joking)

      Ben's father is nearly seventy and an old sailor.

      (Pause)

      Yet maybe there will be a miracle mother, perhaps you will still be able to plead thy belly to the parish.

      ALICE

      Perhaps the parish will take you for a mad woman.

      ELIZABETH

      (Throwing door open and rushing in. Excited)

      Father is coming home with Grandfather.

      MARY

      (Sounds of shuffling towards the door)

      Where?

      ALICE

      (Rising from seat and walking to window.)

      Coming along the Quayside. Look and see. Your husband's Father has all his belongings on a barrow.

      MARY

      (Desperate voice)

      God save us.

      (Slight pause)

      Where are we going to put all that?

      ALICE

      (Intrigued)

      Twish, Mary. It will be thine soon enough. Look, he has good furniture.

      (Slight pause)

      What else?

      MARY

      Truly, that man was well off once, he had his share of many a prize when he was with Drake. Nevertheless, what old seadog hast not pissed up the wall, he has squander and sold to pay his debts.

      ALICE

      (Sad)

      Aye, there is a shame. Just like the rest of his kind. But he looks well enough.

      MARY

      (Cynical)

      Aye, yet he is healthy enough for his age and up to nine months ago, he was employed as a watchman in the dockyard in London, but the man is so argumentative and although he swears different, I believe he was dismissed the service.

      (Slight pause)

      Then God help us, after his old shipmate died, he returned home to be near his only son.

      (Slight pause)

      Oh, Thank you Lord.

      (Slight pause)

      I dare say would still be in his lodgings in old town, were he not behind in the rent and argued with the landlord.

      (Slight pause, sounds of shuffling. Door closing.)

      Still my Ben has arranged for his Father to help him crew the Plymouth Maid, for the pilchard season is nearly upon us.

      ALICE

      (Calls)

      Don’t close the door Elizabeth, thy Father is nearly here.

      (Slightly annoyed but resigned)

      Is it that time of year again. I expect Master Peddler will be rubbing his hands at the thought of all the money he will make out of men the like of your Ben.

      (Slight pause, distant cartwheels rumble outside.)

      Still it will be a bit of extra money for our household.

      MARY

      Door sneck lifts and door creaks opens

      (Child runs forward, more shuffling)

      Aye, there is always that compensation.

      Come on Mother, let us meet them.

      (Calls)

      Robert. Attend on thy Mother lad.

      Scene Two. INT Day

      (Same place two days later. Fade up of preparing dinner noises.)

      MARY

      (Ladling food from pot)

      Ben where's thy Father?

      BEN

      Gone to the privy.

      MARY

      (Dish placed noisily on table, whispering)

      You will have to ask him for some extra money, he eats like a horse.

      BEN

      (Starts to eat. Resigned)

      I will wife, now stop thy nagging.

      (Slight pause)

      Anyway, we sail after the pilchards tomorrow. God willing and a good catch you will have thy money.

      MARY

      Aye, I pray it be so husband, else none of us will eat until Michaelmas.

      (Door opens, Dick enters.)

      DICK

      Thy stew smells delicious Mary.

      MARY

      (Sound of spoons working. Cynical)

      Aye that it does for those with no money.

      Make the most of it Father, for without a good catch tomorrow, it may be last meal we all have.

      BEN

      (In between mouthfuls Embarrassed)

      Halt thy mouth wife.

      DICK

      (Sitting down, sounds of chair being moved. Sad voice)

      Nay she's right Ben, I Know I be a burden, but if the fish are missing tomorrow, I will sell my dagger.

      BEN

      (Firmly)

      No. Not thy Spanish dagger Father.

      FRANCIS

      (Intrigued)

      Spanish dagger Grandfather?

      BEN

      (Putting spoon down Proud)

      Aye. It is a dagger thy Grandfather won in mortal contest with a Spanish Captain, whilst he and Sir Francis Drake was boarding the Don's ship.

      DICK

      (Embarrassed)

      Truly, it was not quite like that Ben; It was not exactly mortal combat.

      BEN

      You always told me, that you won it in mortal combat.

      DICK

      (Mumbling)

      Erm, perhaps it wasn't quite a Spanish Captain.

      FRANCES

      (Interrupting)

      Can, I see it Grandfather?

      ELIZABETH

      Yes Grandfather, show us please.

      MARY

      (Interrupting. Stresses firmly)

      After dinner Francis. Perhaps, one day your grandfather will also tell you the true story.

      FRANCIS

      (Slight pause, sounds of eating)

      Am I to come fishing with you tomorrow, Father?

      (Silence)

      Please Father, can I.

      (Silence)

      I be of age. Peter Skinner is going with his Father.

      BEN

      (Puts spoon down. Proudly)

      Aye. I had thought it be time, son.

      (Slight Pause)

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