There was "Britons, Strike Home!" for instance, and
"The Padstow Hobby-horse," and "The Rout it is out for the Blues,"
slightly amended for the occasion:
"As I was a-walking on Downderry sands,
Some dainty fine sport for to view,
The maidens were wailing and wringing their hands--
Oh, the Rout it is out for the Looes,
For the Looes,
Oh, the Rout it is out for the Looes."
The very urchins whistled and sang it about the streets. On the
other hand, the Major's chivalrous proposal to hymn _The George of
Looe_ came to nothing, since Captain Pond could supply him with
neither the words nor the air.
"Notwithstanding all my researches," he wrote, "the utmost I can
discover is the following stanza which Gunner Israel Spettigew--
vulgarly termed Uncle Issy--one of my halest veterans, remembers to
have heard sung in his youth:
"'Oh, the _George of Looe_ sank Number One;
She then sank Number Two;
She finished up with Number Three:
And hooray for the _George of Looe_'!"
"Dammy!" said the Major, "and I dare say that passes for invention
over at Looe."
We in Troy were no paupers of invention, at any rate. Take, for
example, the Major's plan of campaign. First of all you must figure
to yourself a _terrain_ shaped like a triangle--almost an equilateral
triangle--with its base resting on the sea. At the western extremity
of this base stands Troy; at the eastern, Looe, with Talland Cove a
little to this side of it.
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