Scene: The Siege of Londonderry
Date: 1689
Extract from: A Simple Mistake, Book 3 in The Dorset Chronicles, the drama and history behind the emergence of our modern nation.
Bridget Browne asked a boy to cup his hands together to
make a platform for her feet. The ragged boy obliged,
delighting in the view it gave him of her ankles. Once, when
she squirmed to get a better view, her plain cotton dress, the
only one she had left to wear, caught on a knob of stone and
rode up a little, giving the boy a perfect view of both lightly
stockinged calves, glorious in their shapeliness. He wavered
slightly in his stance as he forgot the perpetual hunger,
replaced briefly with another hunger.
“Careful, boy, don’t let me fall.” Which address was a cheek
for Bridget, at nineteen, was maybe a year or two older than the
boy.
“What can you see?” the boy asked, hoping he had the
strength to continue holding her forever, shifting his body to
lean against the parapet.
“I see ships, lots of ships. Well, not exactly the ships
themselves but masts and sails. The sails are coming down, I
think.”
“They are anchoring below Culmore Point,” a nearby soldier
told the pair. “They must be the relief fleet.”
Suddenly, all around were cries of, “It’s the relief fleet!” and
then, as the news passed along the wall and down into
Londonderry, the implications were voiced. “Food is coming.
We are saved. We are saved.”
“Don’t believe it,” the soldier said.
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