Drake's Venture Transcript, pt.2
[Cut to deck. Drummer summons the men to gather upon deck. Much grumbling. Vicarye and Doughty stand together at the railing.]
Vicarye: Sure?
Doughty: Certain.
Vicarye: [Looks upset.] God be with us.
Doughty: They will take it amiss, do you think?
Vicarye: Amiss? Just look at them. They’d cut your throat for an honest mistake, and never give it another thought, most of them. But to deceive them, deliberately deceive them to get them to sign on, and then call them together to tell them that that’s what you’ve done - well, if that’s what he intends, he’s not lacking in courage, that much I’ll warrant.
[Cut to inside of Drake’s cabin. Drake is at his desk with John. Brewer and Bright enter.]
Brewer: All present, captain, all arrived and waiting.
Drake: All, Master Brewer? Mariners, soldiers, gentlemen? [Drake and Brewer share a smile at this word] All?
Brewer: [Smiles] All, cap’n.
Drake: I’ll be there directly.
Brewer: [Turns to exit.] Come on, Ned.
John: You’ll tell them now, uncle?
Drake: Aye, lad, I will.
John: Exactly where we go?
Drake: Not yet a while. What I will tell them, though, is where they’re not going, which is, I fear, the very place they’ve all signed on for. They’ll thank me later though, I fancy - at least I hope so.
[Cut back to Doughty and Vicarye on deck.]
Doughty: They’ll be trouble, do you think, when they do find out?
Vicarye: Discord and division walk hand in hand on any long voyage. Magellan had to kill three of his captains, they say, and even Columbus…
[Drumroll. Drake enters.]
Drake: The voyage is well underway, and all is going as planned. Well done, my masters, well done. It is now meet that I tell you our true destination.
Pascoe: Not Alexandria? Then where are we bound? [Bright and Brewer cross their arms, looking menacing.]
Tresillian: Aye, where?
Drake: We go for exploration and for Spanish gold.
Pascoe: But where?
Tresillian: Where?
Pascoe: And wherefore you give us falsehoods at Plymouth? Why tell us lies? We’ve all signed agreements for Alexandria.
Tresillian: And with keeping secrets you’ll know…
Drake: [Cuts him off.] ‘Twas necessary. And no more can I tell you for now. But this I promise. Every man on this voyage will be rewarded with treasures in abundance. Even the least of you will return a gentleman. That I promise.
Tresillian: And what seas must us cross to find these riches, master?
Pascoe: Aye, what seas?
Drake: Fear not the sea, or where we go. With God’s good help and your best endeavors I shall lead you to riches and glory.
Pascoe: That’s no answer.
Tresillian: None.
Pascoe: What seas, master?
Tresillian: What seas?
Drake: We go wherever our exploration and the Spanish ships lead us.
Pascoe: Wherever they lead us?
Drake: [Screaming] Wherever! [Doughty looks at Drake significantly.] Like at that [unintelligible word], sirrah. [Loud grumbling amongst the crew. One of Drake’s henchmen loks down from the crow’s nest with a crossbow. Drake shakes his head no.]
Tresillian: …sign on a contract to go…
Drake: Enough, enough, I say! I am the general and you are my men! Henceforth you will obey my commands without question, or by the rood, I swear you’ll regret it, whoever you be.
[Grumbling. Cut to shots of the ship sailing through rough waters, then to Drake and Doughty in the cabin. Drake is writing. Doughty looks a little green.]
Doughty: Francis?
Drake: Aye?
Doughty: The Magellan Straits, are they truly as treacherous as men say?
Drake: Aye, Thomas, they are. Only one man has ever truly tamed them: Magellan himself, and that full sixty years ago.
Doughty Then why do we go there?
Drake: Why?
Doughty: Yes. Why risk our money and our lives on a venture which may very well founder when there are rich pickings to be had in the north for the asking?
Drake: Once we have passed Magellan’s Straits we will be among the treasure fleets of Peru, where no English ship has ever been. A wolf in the sheepfold, Thomas. What’s up in the north is but baubles to what we’ll find here in the south.
Doughty: The seas there are known to us. There are charts and directions.
Drake: Magellan went south without any charts or directions.
Doughty: Then he was fortunate.
Drake: He was bold - and a man. Where Magellan goes, there I go.
Doughty: But Francis, this is folly. We venture into regions which even the Spanish are afeared of.
Drake: Which is why we go there, Thomas. They’ll be none there to deny us. They’re all too afraid.
Doughty: Perhaps they have reason to be.
Drake: We shall find out for ourselves when we get there.
Doughty: If ever we do.
Drake: [Emphatically] I shall get there.
Doughty: But Francis…
Drake: We go south as agreed.
Doughty: But…
Drake: [Yells] South! But you’ll keep our true course to ourselves. I would that none but us know where we truly go till the time is right to tell them.
[Cut to the fleet at nightfall. Doughty is on deck ]
Doughty: We go south.
Shadowy figure: South?
Doughty: To the great south sea.
Shadowy figure: You sure?
Doughty: Yes.
Shadowy figure: But how do we get there?
Doughty: Through the Magellan straits.
Shadowy figure: This frail craft? ‘Tis madness.
Doughty: Our captain general is determined.
Shadowy figure: Well, can’t you persuade him otherwise? ‘Twill mean our deaths for sure.
Doughty: I need support - men to back me up.
Shadowy figure: The whole fleet will back you up once they know the truth.
[Doughty goes below among the men. He approaches the blue bandana guy.]
Doughty: You know who I am, sirrah?
Tresillian: You’re in charge of the soldiers.
Doughty: Not only the soldiers. This voyage, it pleases you not any longer?
Tresillian: [Throws his knife into the floorboards in anger.] I signed an agreement for Alexandria.
Doughty: So did you all.
Tresillian: Aye. So did we all.
Doughty: Are there others who are as bitter as you? [Cut to Ned Bright in the shadows, listening.] If such be the case, and I fancy that it is, tell them to come to me. This is a matter which must soon be resolved.
Tresillian: You’re with the general, under his command.
Doughty: ‘Tis not so. I am responsible for this voyage, not Drake. If you and your shipmates have any important matters to discuss, such as knowing where it is he proposes to take you, you know where to find me.
[Drake is in his cabin. John enters]
Drake: Well, lad, what is it?
John: The mariners are very restless, uncle. They’re setting forth wild rumors about where it is we go.
Drake: Aye?
John: They say we go to the great south seas by way of Magellan’s Straits.
Drake: Do they?
John: Aye. Is it so?
Drake: Perhaps.
John: In this ship?
Drake: Magellan conquered them both in a ship such as this, lad. So too shall Drake, and unlike the Portugael, I intend to return.
John: They’ll like it not, uncle, the men - as soon as they find out they will take…
Drake: [Cuts him off.] They will do just as your uncle commands - that or say farewell to life. God’s wounds, lad, I…[There is a knock at the door. It is Ned Bright.] Leave us lad. I’ll call for you when we are finished. Well, Ned?
[Cut back to Elizabeth interrogating Drake.]
Queen: This Ned Bright, he was the one whose evidence convicted Doughty of mutiny, was he not?
Drake: Aye, ma’am.
Queen: The only one to give such evidence, I believe.
Drake: Aye ma’am
Queen: Fortunate for you he was so loyal to your cause. Fortunate for him that you rewarded that loyalty so generously. You did make him master of one of your ships, did you not, after the trial was over?
Drake: A small ship ma’am.
Queen: Ship’s carpenter to ship’s master. You must have valued his seamanship highly.
Drake: I did. He was a good mariner.
Queen: Not good enough to survive, it would seem. The ship went down with all hands, did she not?
Drake: Any ship would have sunk in a tempest like that.
Queen: Yours didn’t.
Drake: God was kind.
Queen: Kinder perhaps than you realize. [Cut back to ships. Queen in V.O.] However, you kept bearing south, and on the 31st day of January, fifteen hundred and seventy-eight, when approaching one of the islands off Cape Verde…
Guy in crow’s nest: Sail port westerly! [Drum calls men.]
Drake [in armor]: Take arms for action! [Doughty draws sword. Soldiers prepare as ship approaches.]
Drake: Prepare to board! [Canon fire. Soldiers leap on the enemy ship.]
Anonymous guy: Reload! [Sounds of sword fighting, yelling and canons. Cut back to Elizabeth’s study.]
Drake: A Portuguese merchantman, your majesty, carrying timber to the Cape Verde Islands. She was lightly armed and struck her colors without a fight.
Queen: [Points at logbook.] This is she?
Drake: Aye ma’am. John, my nephew, drew her.
Queen: You quarreled here with Doughty, did you not?
Drake: [Raising his voice] Aye, ma’am, I did, and would so again with a cause even half what it was.
De Silva: Senor, [Portuguese word I can’t understand. ] [Hands Drake his sword.]
Drake: Master Bright, conduct the captain of the prize to my cabin. Make sure he has all that he needs.
Bright: Aye aye, sir.
Drake: Master Brewer?
Brewer: General?
Drake: See to it that the prisoners are well-bestowed below deck. [One of the soldiers attempts to pull a ring from the finger of one of the Portuguese sailors.] Leave him be, sir, ‘tis a personal possession. Leave him be! [Drake scrapples with the soldier and fells him with a punch to the gut.] Serve thee right, sirrah! These men are outnumbered and unarmed. Any man who molests them or tries to steal their personal possessions will answer to me. [Kicks soldier, who is curled up on the deck.] Get thee below you thieving knave. I’ll deal with you later myself. [Stalks over to Doughty, yells and shakes his finger in Doughty’s face.] Are they deaf, these soldiers of yours, or blockheads, or scoundrels, or what? They’d better mend their ways directly, I tell you, [turns to face the assembled crew] or the next time my orders are disobeyed, it won’t be my fist I shall use to correct the offender. God help him, it won’t. Off they go, John. [Turns back to Doughty, playfully tapping him on the chest, and smiling, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Doughty is sulking at his public humiliation.] You take the prize.
Drake V.O.: I myself took a much more valuable prize than I gave over to Doughty: Nuno de Silva, the prize ship’s captain, a Portugael who was indeed a most excellent pilot.
De Silva: [Says something in Portuguese.]
Drake: As I know the creeks and the coves of Devon and Cornwall, so he knew the waters that lead to the south. Like many of his countrymen, he was sea shrewd and skilled. [Scene of Drake and de Silva plotting a course together.] I liked him. He was a most modest man, wise and with much dignity. I knew he would be of much help to us in the great task that lie ahead.
Queen V.O.: The 29th day of March, fifteen hundred and seventy-eight. [Shots of the ship in calm water.]
Drake V.O.: We were becalmed then, I remember it well. [Cut to Drake in his cabin. John enters.] Nothing?
John.: No.
Drake: Where in God’s name has he gone? I make him captain of the prize ship, and he disappears.
[Drake goes out on deck. Ned Bright is looking out to sea.]
Drake: No sign of the prize ship?
Bright: No, general.
Drake: She had most of our water and vittles aboard. Provisions we have very much need of.
Bright: No sign master. ‘Tis most strange.
Drake: Most strange indeed. Think you Master Doughty a sorcerer?
Bright: Claims to be.
Drake: Aye? Wherever he goes now calamity always attends. I would to God I’d…[Notices the mariners sprawled lazily on the deck. Yells at them.] Bestir yourselves! Let’s have some honest toil! [Notices that one of them does not get up. Cut to below deck. Crewman is dying. Cut to Drake’s cabin.]
Drake: How can one ship catch the wind and not another? Why Doughty’s and not mine? There’s witchcraft in it, John.
[Cut back to crewman, who dies. Fletcher closes the dead man’s eyes. Cut to the deck, where they are performing his funeral.]
Fletcher: We therefore commit his body unto the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body when the sea shall give up her dead and the life of the world to come through our Lord Jesus Christ. [Body is slid into ocean.]
Guy in crow’s nest: Sail ho!
Drake: Tell Master Doughty I await him in my cabin. Not at his leisure.
[Cut to Drake’s cabin, where Doughty and Vicarye are reporting to Drake.]
Doughty: We drifted apart. Truly, Francis, it was a breeze where we lay, and it carried us away. [Doughty rests his hand upon a chest. He seems to be holding some sort of amulet.]
[Cut to deck. Drake is talking to John.]
Drake: There was no breeze. There’s witchcraft in it, John. He questions my authority too much, and with that polished lawyer’s tongue of his, he causes discontent where’er he goes. My own command is threatened, and with it, the whole enterprise. But why?
John: He likes it not, I think, to have to keep time to another’s beat.
Drake: Aye, that’s the cause, I doubt not.
[Cut to below deck. Doughty places his hand on Ned’s shoulder.]
Doughty: Why Ned, you are not ill.
Bright: No, sir.
Doughty: Methought that tongue of yours had worn you out. You use it overmuch, sirrah, and to the wrong end. Rest it well, you hear me? [Moves towards the men.] You are well, Master Pascoe?
Pascoe: Aye, sir.
Doughty: You sure?
Pascoe: Aye, sir.
Doughty: You would do well to wear a charm against the ague. It is most potent in these regions, and as you know, we have neither potions nor surgeon aboard, but I can help you. [Hands him an amulet.] Take it. You need no longer be in fear for your health. [Moves to another.] How like you the prospect of the Great South Sea or us going through the Straits of Magellan?
Tresillian: That where we go, sir?
Doughty: Drake did not tell you?
Tresillian: Oh no, sir.
Doughty: Where Magellan went, that is where Drake means to follow. And to what? Monsters? Whirlpools? Headless men and currents that run in only one direction? Tornadoes that smash even the stoutest ships to driftwood? While there are rich prizes to the north, there for the taking.
[Ship in rough water. Sound of thunder. Drake is in his cabin with John.]
Drake: These are dangerous seas, John. And not just from fear of tempest. Not far from here Magellan had his mutiny.
John: The crew have their mutterings, but there’s no talk of mutiny.
Drake: The storm builds. ‘Tis the right place, the right time to buy and sell a voyage.
On to the third part...
Vicarye: Sure?
Doughty: Certain.
Vicarye: [Looks upset.] God be with us.
Doughty: They will take it amiss, do you think?
Vicarye: Amiss? Just look at them. They’d cut your throat for an honest mistake, and never give it another thought, most of them. But to deceive them, deliberately deceive them to get them to sign on, and then call them together to tell them that that’s what you’ve done - well, if that’s what he intends, he’s not lacking in courage, that much I’ll warrant.
[Cut to inside of Drake’s cabin. Drake is at his desk with John. Brewer and Bright enter.]
Brewer: All present, captain, all arrived and waiting.
Drake: All, Master Brewer? Mariners, soldiers, gentlemen? [Drake and Brewer share a smile at this word] All?
Brewer: [Smiles] All, cap’n.
Drake: I’ll be there directly.
Brewer: [Turns to exit.] Come on, Ned.
John: You’ll tell them now, uncle?
Drake: Aye, lad, I will.
John: Exactly where we go?
Drake: Not yet a while. What I will tell them, though, is where they’re not going, which is, I fear, the very place they’ve all signed on for. They’ll thank me later though, I fancy - at least I hope so.
[Cut back to Doughty and Vicarye on deck.]
Doughty: They’ll be trouble, do you think, when they do find out?
Vicarye: Discord and division walk hand in hand on any long voyage. Magellan had to kill three of his captains, they say, and even Columbus…
[Drumroll. Drake enters.]
Drake: The voyage is well underway, and all is going as planned. Well done, my masters, well done. It is now meet that I tell you our true destination.
Pascoe: Not Alexandria? Then where are we bound? [Bright and Brewer cross their arms, looking menacing.]
Tresillian: Aye, where?
Drake: We go for exploration and for Spanish gold.
Pascoe: But where?
Tresillian: Where?
Pascoe: And wherefore you give us falsehoods at Plymouth? Why tell us lies? We’ve all signed agreements for Alexandria.
Tresillian: And with keeping secrets you’ll know…
Drake: [Cuts him off.] ‘Twas necessary. And no more can I tell you for now. But this I promise. Every man on this voyage will be rewarded with treasures in abundance. Even the least of you will return a gentleman. That I promise.
Tresillian: And what seas must us cross to find these riches, master?
Pascoe: Aye, what seas?
Drake: Fear not the sea, or where we go. With God’s good help and your best endeavors I shall lead you to riches and glory.
Pascoe: That’s no answer.
Tresillian: None.
Pascoe: What seas, master?
Tresillian: What seas?
Drake: We go wherever our exploration and the Spanish ships lead us.
Pascoe: Wherever they lead us?
Drake: [Screaming] Wherever! [Doughty looks at Drake significantly.] Like at that [unintelligible word], sirrah. [Loud grumbling amongst the crew. One of Drake’s henchmen loks down from the crow’s nest with a crossbow. Drake shakes his head no.]
Tresillian: …sign on a contract to go…
Drake: Enough, enough, I say! I am the general and you are my men! Henceforth you will obey my commands without question, or by the rood, I swear you’ll regret it, whoever you be.
[Grumbling. Cut to shots of the ship sailing through rough waters, then to Drake and Doughty in the cabin. Drake is writing. Doughty looks a little green.]
Doughty: Francis?
Drake: Aye?
Doughty: The Magellan Straits, are they truly as treacherous as men say?
Drake: Aye, Thomas, they are. Only one man has ever truly tamed them: Magellan himself, and that full sixty years ago.
Doughty Then why do we go there?
Drake: Why?
Doughty: Yes. Why risk our money and our lives on a venture which may very well founder when there are rich pickings to be had in the north for the asking?
Drake: Once we have passed Magellan’s Straits we will be among the treasure fleets of Peru, where no English ship has ever been. A wolf in the sheepfold, Thomas. What’s up in the north is but baubles to what we’ll find here in the south.
Doughty: The seas there are known to us. There are charts and directions.
Drake: Magellan went south without any charts or directions.
Doughty: Then he was fortunate.
Drake: He was bold - and a man. Where Magellan goes, there I go.
Doughty: But Francis, this is folly. We venture into regions which even the Spanish are afeared of.
Drake: Which is why we go there, Thomas. They’ll be none there to deny us. They’re all too afraid.
Doughty: Perhaps they have reason to be.
Drake: We shall find out for ourselves when we get there.
Doughty: If ever we do.
Drake: [Emphatically] I shall get there.
Doughty: But Francis…
Drake: We go south as agreed.
Doughty: But…
Drake: [Yells] South! But you’ll keep our true course to ourselves. I would that none but us know where we truly go till the time is right to tell them.
[Cut to the fleet at nightfall. Doughty is on deck ]
Doughty: We go south.
Shadowy figure: South?
Doughty: To the great south sea.
Shadowy figure: You sure?
Doughty: Yes.
Shadowy figure: But how do we get there?
Doughty: Through the Magellan straits.
Shadowy figure: This frail craft? ‘Tis madness.
Doughty: Our captain general is determined.
Shadowy figure: Well, can’t you persuade him otherwise? ‘Twill mean our deaths for sure.
Doughty: I need support - men to back me up.
Shadowy figure: The whole fleet will back you up once they know the truth.
[Doughty goes below among the men. He approaches the blue bandana guy.]
Doughty: You know who I am, sirrah?
Tresillian: You’re in charge of the soldiers.
Doughty: Not only the soldiers. This voyage, it pleases you not any longer?
Tresillian: [Throws his knife into the floorboards in anger.] I signed an agreement for Alexandria.
Doughty: So did you all.
Tresillian: Aye. So did we all.
Doughty: Are there others who are as bitter as you? [Cut to Ned Bright in the shadows, listening.] If such be the case, and I fancy that it is, tell them to come to me. This is a matter which must soon be resolved.
Tresillian: You’re with the general, under his command.
Doughty: ‘Tis not so. I am responsible for this voyage, not Drake. If you and your shipmates have any important matters to discuss, such as knowing where it is he proposes to take you, you know where to find me.
[Drake is in his cabin. John enters]
Drake: Well, lad, what is it?
John: The mariners are very restless, uncle. They’re setting forth wild rumors about where it is we go.
Drake: Aye?
John: They say we go to the great south seas by way of Magellan’s Straits.
Drake: Do they?
John: Aye. Is it so?
Drake: Perhaps.
John: In this ship?
Drake: Magellan conquered them both in a ship such as this, lad. So too shall Drake, and unlike the Portugael, I intend to return.
John: They’ll like it not, uncle, the men - as soon as they find out they will take…
Drake: [Cuts him off.] They will do just as your uncle commands - that or say farewell to life. God’s wounds, lad, I…[There is a knock at the door. It is Ned Bright.] Leave us lad. I’ll call for you when we are finished. Well, Ned?
[Cut back to Elizabeth interrogating Drake.]
Queen: This Ned Bright, he was the one whose evidence convicted Doughty of mutiny, was he not?
Drake: Aye, ma’am.
Queen: The only one to give such evidence, I believe.
Drake: Aye ma’am
Queen: Fortunate for you he was so loyal to your cause. Fortunate for him that you rewarded that loyalty so generously. You did make him master of one of your ships, did you not, after the trial was over?
Drake: A small ship ma’am.
Queen: Ship’s carpenter to ship’s master. You must have valued his seamanship highly.
Drake: I did. He was a good mariner.
Queen: Not good enough to survive, it would seem. The ship went down with all hands, did she not?
Drake: Any ship would have sunk in a tempest like that.
Queen: Yours didn’t.
Drake: God was kind.
Queen: Kinder perhaps than you realize. [Cut back to ships. Queen in V.O.] However, you kept bearing south, and on the 31st day of January, fifteen hundred and seventy-eight, when approaching one of the islands off Cape Verde…
Guy in crow’s nest: Sail port westerly! [Drum calls men.]
Drake [in armor]: Take arms for action! [Doughty draws sword. Soldiers prepare as ship approaches.]
Drake: Prepare to board! [Canon fire. Soldiers leap on the enemy ship.]
Anonymous guy: Reload! [Sounds of sword fighting, yelling and canons. Cut back to Elizabeth’s study.]
Drake: A Portuguese merchantman, your majesty, carrying timber to the Cape Verde Islands. She was lightly armed and struck her colors without a fight.
Queen: [Points at logbook.] This is she?
Drake: Aye ma’am. John, my nephew, drew her.
Queen: You quarreled here with Doughty, did you not?
Drake: [Raising his voice] Aye, ma’am, I did, and would so again with a cause even half what it was.
De Silva: Senor, [Portuguese word I can’t understand. ] [Hands Drake his sword.]
Drake: Master Bright, conduct the captain of the prize to my cabin. Make sure he has all that he needs.
Bright: Aye aye, sir.
Drake: Master Brewer?
Brewer: General?
Drake: See to it that the prisoners are well-bestowed below deck. [One of the soldiers attempts to pull a ring from the finger of one of the Portuguese sailors.] Leave him be, sir, ‘tis a personal possession. Leave him be! [Drake scrapples with the soldier and fells him with a punch to the gut.] Serve thee right, sirrah! These men are outnumbered and unarmed. Any man who molests them or tries to steal their personal possessions will answer to me. [Kicks soldier, who is curled up on the deck.] Get thee below you thieving knave. I’ll deal with you later myself. [Stalks over to Doughty, yells and shakes his finger in Doughty’s face.] Are they deaf, these soldiers of yours, or blockheads, or scoundrels, or what? They’d better mend their ways directly, I tell you, [turns to face the assembled crew] or the next time my orders are disobeyed, it won’t be my fist I shall use to correct the offender. God help him, it won’t. Off they go, John. [Turns back to Doughty, playfully tapping him on the chest, and smiling, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Doughty is sulking at his public humiliation.] You take the prize.
Drake V.O.: I myself took a much more valuable prize than I gave over to Doughty: Nuno de Silva, the prize ship’s captain, a Portugael who was indeed a most excellent pilot.
De Silva: [Says something in Portuguese.]
Drake: As I know the creeks and the coves of Devon and Cornwall, so he knew the waters that lead to the south. Like many of his countrymen, he was sea shrewd and skilled. [Scene of Drake and de Silva plotting a course together.] I liked him. He was a most modest man, wise and with much dignity. I knew he would be of much help to us in the great task that lie ahead.
Queen V.O.: The 29th day of March, fifteen hundred and seventy-eight. [Shots of the ship in calm water.]
Drake V.O.: We were becalmed then, I remember it well. [Cut to Drake in his cabin. John enters.] Nothing?
John.: No.
Drake: Where in God’s name has he gone? I make him captain of the prize ship, and he disappears.
[Drake goes out on deck. Ned Bright is looking out to sea.]
Drake: No sign of the prize ship?
Bright: No, general.
Drake: She had most of our water and vittles aboard. Provisions we have very much need of.
Bright: No sign master. ‘Tis most strange.
Drake: Most strange indeed. Think you Master Doughty a sorcerer?
Bright: Claims to be.
Drake: Aye? Wherever he goes now calamity always attends. I would to God I’d…[Notices the mariners sprawled lazily on the deck. Yells at them.] Bestir yourselves! Let’s have some honest toil! [Notices that one of them does not get up. Cut to below deck. Crewman is dying. Cut to Drake’s cabin.]
Drake: How can one ship catch the wind and not another? Why Doughty’s and not mine? There’s witchcraft in it, John.
[Cut back to crewman, who dies. Fletcher closes the dead man’s eyes. Cut to the deck, where they are performing his funeral.]
Fletcher: We therefore commit his body unto the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body when the sea shall give up her dead and the life of the world to come through our Lord Jesus Christ. [Body is slid into ocean.]
Guy in crow’s nest: Sail ho!
Drake: Tell Master Doughty I await him in my cabin. Not at his leisure.
[Cut to Drake’s cabin, where Doughty and Vicarye are reporting to Drake.]
Doughty: We drifted apart. Truly, Francis, it was a breeze where we lay, and it carried us away. [Doughty rests his hand upon a chest. He seems to be holding some sort of amulet.]
[Cut to deck. Drake is talking to John.]
Drake: There was no breeze. There’s witchcraft in it, John. He questions my authority too much, and with that polished lawyer’s tongue of his, he causes discontent where’er he goes. My own command is threatened, and with it, the whole enterprise. But why?
John: He likes it not, I think, to have to keep time to another’s beat.
Drake: Aye, that’s the cause, I doubt not.
[Cut to below deck. Doughty places his hand on Ned’s shoulder.]
Doughty: Why Ned, you are not ill.
Bright: No, sir.
Doughty: Methought that tongue of yours had worn you out. You use it overmuch, sirrah, and to the wrong end. Rest it well, you hear me? [Moves towards the men.] You are well, Master Pascoe?
Pascoe: Aye, sir.
Doughty: You sure?
Pascoe: Aye, sir.
Doughty: You would do well to wear a charm against the ague. It is most potent in these regions, and as you know, we have neither potions nor surgeon aboard, but I can help you. [Hands him an amulet.] Take it. You need no longer be in fear for your health. [Moves to another.] How like you the prospect of the Great South Sea or us going through the Straits of Magellan?
Tresillian: That where we go, sir?
Doughty: Drake did not tell you?
Tresillian: Oh no, sir.
Doughty: Where Magellan went, that is where Drake means to follow. And to what? Monsters? Whirlpools? Headless men and currents that run in only one direction? Tornadoes that smash even the stoutest ships to driftwood? While there are rich prizes to the north, there for the taking.
[Ship in rough water. Sound of thunder. Drake is in his cabin with John.]
Drake: These are dangerous seas, John. And not just from fear of tempest. Not far from here Magellan had his mutiny.
John: The crew have their mutterings, but there’s no talk of mutiny.
Drake: The storm builds. ‘Tis the right place, the right time to buy and sell a voyage.
On to the third part...