John Masefield

On the Spanish Main John Masefield

Book Excerpt: ...not to leave "before he had built his Pinnaces," and therefore, as soon as the ships were moored, he ordered the pieces to be brought ashore "for the Carpenters to set up." The rest of the company was set to the building of a fort upon the beach by the cutting down of trees, "and haling them together with great Pullies and halsers." The fort was built in the form of a pentagon, with a sort of sea-gate opening on the bay, for the easy launching of the pinnaces. This gate could be closed at night by the drawing of a log across the opening. They dug no trench, but cleared the ground instead, so that for twenty yards all round the stockhouse there was nothing to hinder a marksman or afford cover to an enemy. Beyond that twenty yards the forest closed in, with its wall of living greenery, with trees "of a marvellous height" tangled over with the brilliant blossoms of many creepers. The writer of the account seems to have been one of the building party that sweated the logs into position. "The wood of those trees, ...