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Jeeves And The Rummy Affair At Cruxton

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Top-Cat said:
John Paul Jones was the bassist and keyboardist for the best Rock and Roll band that existed: LED ZEPPELIN

Top-Cat
Click to expand...
Wrong one try this one:-
The Yankee Man-of-War

'Tis of a gallant Yankee ship
That flew the stripes and stars,
And the whistling wind from the west nor'west
Blew through the pitchpine spars,
With her starboard tacks aboard, my boys,
She hung upon the gale; on an autumn night
We raised the light on the old head of Kinsale.

It was a clear and cloudless night,
And the wind blew steady and strong,
As fairly over the sparkling deep
Our good ship bowled along;
With the foaming seas beneath her bow
The fiery waves she spread,
And bending low her bosom of snow,
She buried her lee, cat-head.

There was no talk of short'ning sail,
by him who walked the poop,
And under the press of her pond'ring jib
The boom bent like a hoop!
And the groaning waterways told the strain
That held her stout main tack,
But he only laughed as he glanced aloft
At a white and silv'ry track.

The nightly robes our good ship wore
Were her own topsails three,
Her spanker and her standing jib,
The courses being free;
Now lay aloft! my heroes bold,
Let not a moment pass!
And royals and topgallant sails
Were quickly on each mast.

What looms upon our starboard bow?
What hangs upon the breeze?
'Tis time our good ship hauled her wind
Abreast of the old saltee's.
For by her ponderous press of sail
And by her escorts four,
We saw our morning visitor
Was a British man-of-war.

Up spoke our noble captain then,
And a short ahead of us passed,
Haul snug your flowing courses!
Lay your topsail to the mast!
Those Englishmen gave three loud hurrahs
From the deck of their covered ark
And we answered by a solid broadside
From the deck of our patriot bark.

Out booms! Out booms! our skipper cried,
Out booms! and give her sheet,
And the swiftest keel that ever was launched
Shot ahead of the British fleet,
And amidst a thundering shower of shot
With the stun-sails hoisting away,
Down the north channel Paul Jones did steer
Just at the break of day.
 
Chapter 4

“On your marks…..BANG!”

We were off! Blaire did indeed shoot off ahead but I pedalled as fast as ever I could, and the first straight was on solid tarmac, which wasn’t too bad. But then the course veered left onto grass, and the going became distinctly soft. The back wheel skidded left and right on the soft grass, and the vibration! The whole thing shook like the dickens, and I was certain that I would be rattled off the dashed thing. By now I really was tail end Charlie, but the girls kept looking around to see if I was keeping up, Blaire was about fifty yards ahead.

Then we hit mud.

The front wheel simply stopped, buried up to the axle in soft, brown mud.

Bertram did not stop, but flew gracefully for two or three yards before landing with a splat!

Yupar and Roxie were laughing fit to bust. It was only then that I noticed that all the girls had dismounted and were in fact carrying their bikes on their backs.

I wiped mud out of my eyes, and returned to mine, still standing upright in the mud. I hauled it up, and it came out with a gentle ‘plop.’

All the girls were standing and laughing. In the distance I could hear Sir Roderick: “OI! Get moving, this is a serious race – do you all want another thrashing?”

Siss said “Promises, promises…”

Barb added, “Oooh, he’s such a sweetie, he really knows how to give a girl a good time.”

Blaire was still laughing. “You’re going to have to take that jacket to the dry cleaners, Bertie!”

“I don’t know,” said PK, “I think it’s a great improvement!”

At that moment, I noticed two things, neither of which pleased me greatly. The first was that the barking hounds sounded much more excited, and the second was that they sounded much closer.

“I say, girls, the rotters have set the dogs onto us! I suggest we’d better run along, what?”

I copied Barb and slung the bike across my back as we all staggered through the mud and rain making the best speed possible in the quagmire. Blaire, ahead reached drier grass and remounted. The others and myself followed swiftly, but I was only just quick enough to prevent one of the dogs from taking a lump out of Bertram’s backside.

Blaire, as always, led the way for another mile, but those beastly dogs rather focused my mind, and I wasn’t that far behind her as we reached the furthest corner from the Abbey. At this point the trail went up and over a wooden bridge and back down into a tunnel. I had maybe five seconds on the dogs and I was going faster than I’d ever travelled on a bike in my life.

Blaire went down the ramp off the bridge and into the tunnel like an express train, with PK in hot pursuit. I heard a thump from ahead, Blaire’s voice saying ‘what the hell….?” Yupar, Roxie, Barb, and Siss went flying into the dark and in I went about two seconds later. Half a second after that I crashed into a huge heap of bikes and girls. Then there was a loud ‘CRASH’ as a door was shut behind us. Two or three of the dogs yelped as they collided with the closed door at full speed.
I heard a heavy motor start up and we felt ourselves moving. I realised, with a start, that we’d all ridden into the back of a well-disguised truck.

A voice came over a loudspeaker. “Bonjour Mesdames! Bonjour Monsieur! Welcome to Team Messaline! My assistant Connie will now attend to your needs.

The lights came on. We were still a bit of a sorry sight, although they’d put in some foam to absorb the worst of the impact. A young lady, dressed in green, and with flaming red hair, helped us to sort ourselves out. Nobody was hurt, Blaire said that she’d extracted herself from worse crashes dozens of times.

The truck was picking up speed now as it sped away from Cruxton. Connie slid back some covers over some windows so that we could see out. I was dismayed to see a large 4x4 beside us on the dual carriageway, clearly containing Bull, Gunner, Tree and Sir Roderick, none of whom looked friendly.

“By Jove!” I called, “Sir Roderick and his cronies appear to have caught us up!”

“Don’t worry!” called Connie, “I think your man, Jeeves, has a plan!”

I rolled my eyes. He would. How could I be even slightly surprised when the 4x4 gave a cough, and began belching out black smoke, falling rapidly behind the speeding truck. I have no idea what Jeeves had put into the fuel tank, but it very clearly hadn’t done the vehicle any good.
 
A few hours later, I was back at home, very much the better for a hot bath and a brandy and soda. Pongo had indeed been delighted to see Blaire and her team mates, and had even contained his feelings when Blaire informed him that all six were en route to Paris to join team Messaline. Messalines’ stated aim was world domination, but fortunately only in the field of cyclocross.

My place at the Drones Club was assured.

“Jeeves, you are a marvel.”

“It is very gratifying that you think so, sir.”

“But how…..”

“I was aware of Miss Twistleton’s plight at an early point, sir. My cousin looks after Miss Messalines’ London flat. Miss Messaline was furious that Sir Roderick had abducted the team; she was on the point of signing them up herself. I merely took the liberty of telephoning to Miss Messaline and suggesting to her that a suitably disguised truck placed upon the cyclocross track might be an effective way of recapturing the team. I was aware from my knowledge of Cruxton that there is a dip in the landscape there which would enable such an operation to be carried out undetected.

A latex glove filled with a mixture of Seagrams and water, pushed into the gasoline tank, was all that was required to render pursuit ineffective. The gasoline rapidly destroyed the latex, and let us just say that Mr Tree’s car enjoys Seagrams rather less than Mr Tree does.”

“So….I never needed to go to Cruxton?”

“No, sir. I did have matters in hand.”

“Well, I’ll be……”

“While I must say that your plan was more robust than many, sir, in your place I would not have inflicted that jacket upon nervous young ladies at dead of night.”

I nodded. The truth of his remarks could not really be denied.

“But you did add considerable entertainment to the cyclocross race, sir.”

I pondered for a while. It struck me that my Uncle had been such a bounder throughout this whole rummy affair that I might be justified in using the nuclear option.

“Jeeves, do you think I should write to Aunt Eulalia about what’s happened?”

“I should be disposed to imagine that her Ladyship would find such a communication extremely diverting, sir.”

I grinned. I suspected that she’d divert to Cruxton Abbey. I’d like to be a fly on the wall during that conversation! I headed towards the writing desk. “Oh, and Jeeves?”

“Sir?”

“That new sports jacket…..”

“Sir?”

“Throw it away, give it to the poor, do what you like with it.”

“Thank you, sir. The council refuse collectors took it away while you were in your bath.”
 
cruxlover said:
Wrong one try this one:-
The Yankee Man-of-War

'Tis of a gallant Yankee ship
That flew the stripes and stars,
And the whistling wind from the west nor'west
Blew through the pitchpine spars,
With her starboard tacks aboard, my boys,
She hung upon the gale; on an autumn night
We raised the light on the old head of Kinsale.

It was a clear and cloudless night,
And the wind blew steady and strong,
As fairly over the sparkling deep
Our good ship bowled along;
With the foaming seas beneath her bow
The fiery waves she spread,
And bending low her bosom of snow,
She buried her lee, cat-head.

There was no talk of short'ning sail,
by him who walked the poop,
And under the press of her pond'ring jib
The boom bent like a hoop!
And the groaning waterways told the strain
That held her stout main tack,
But he only laughed as he glanced aloft
At a white and silv'ry track.

The nightly robes our good ship wore
Were her own topsails three,
Her spanker and her standing jib,
The courses being free;
Now lay aloft! my heroes bold,
Let not a moment pass!
And royals and topgallant sails
Were quickly on each mast.

What looms upon our starboard bow?
What hangs upon the breeze?
'Tis time our good ship hauled her wind
Abreast of the old saltee's.
For by her ponderous press of sail
And by her escorts four,
We saw our morning visitor
Was a British man-of-war.

Up spoke our noble captain then,
And a short ahead of us passed,
Haul snug your flowing courses!
Lay your topsail to the mast!
Those Englishmen gave three loud hurrahs
From the deck of their covered ark
And we answered by a solid broadside
From the deck of our patriot bark.

Out booms! Out booms! our skipper cried,
Out booms! and give her sheet,
And the swiftest keel that ever was launched
Shot ahead of the British fleet,
And amidst a thundering shower of shot
With the stun-sails hoisting away,
Down the north channel Paul Jones did steer
Just at the break of day.
Click to expand...


Cruxlover sorry, not even know this Mr.

Top-Cat
 
Top-Cat said:
Cruxlover sorry, not even know this Mr.

Top-Cat
Click to expand...
Blame Eulalia, she brought up the other Mr John Paul Jones, I just remembered him. See :-
"I think there was some Anglo-American do at Arbigland
down on the Solway coast, where John Paul Jones
('Father' of the US Navy) was born."

CENTER]
 
cruxlover said:
Blame Eulalia, she brought up the other Mr John Paul Jones, I just remembered him. See :-
"I think there was some Anglo-American do at Arbigland
down on the Solway coast, where John Paul Jones
('Father' of the US Navy) was born."

CENTER]
Click to expand...

It is now clear, Cruxlover.

This is Mr. Father of the American Navy, is no small thing.

Turns out I'm Brazilian, and in Brazil the Father of the Navy is Admiral Tamandaré.

I know you've also never heard of Admiral Tamandaré.

These gentlemen are objects of study in their respective countries.

So I do not know Mr. John Paul Jones, and you do not know Admiral Tamandaré.

Greetings to you and Mr. John Paul Jones.

Top-Cat
 
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