Caribbee

by Thomas Hoover

CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Jeremy Walrond slid his hand down the long steel barrel of the flintlock, letting his fingers play across the Latin motto engraved along the top, Ante ferit quam flamma micet. "It strikes before the flash is seen."

  The piece had been given to him on his twelfth birthday by his brother Anthony, and it was superb—crafted in Hol­land, with a fine Flemish lock and carved ivory insets of hunting scenes in the stock. With it he had once, in a stroke of rare luck, brought down a partridge in flight. Now through a dismaying and improbable chain of events he must turn this work of artistry against a fellow human being.

  It was true he had been part of the royalist cause in the Civil War, a clerk helping direct the transport of supplies, but he had never been near enough to the lines to fire a mus­ket. Or to have a musket fired at him. The thought of battle brought a moistness to his palms and a dull, hollow ache in his gut.

  While the men around him in the trench—all now under his command—reinforced their courage with a large onion-flask of homemade kill-devil, he gazed over the newly mounded earth and out to sea, ashamed at his relief there was as yet no flash of lantern, no telltale red dots of burning matchcord.

  The only moving lights were the darting trails of fireflies, those strange night creatures that so terrified newcomers to the Caribbees. In a few more moments the last of the moon, now a thin lantern, would drop beneath the western horizon, causing the coast and the sea to be swallowed in blackness. After that happened, he told himself, he might see nothing more, hear nothing more, till the first musket ball slammed home.

  War, he meditated, was man's greatest folly. Excused in the name of abstractions like "liberty" and "country" and "dignity." But what dignity was there for those who died with a musket ball in their chest? No beast of the earth will­fully killed its own kind. Only man, who then styled himself the noblest of God's creatures.

  He loosened his hot lace collar, hoping to catch some of the on-again, off-again breeze that had risen in the south and now swept the pungent smell of Bridgetown's harbor up along the coast. Aside from the rattle of militiamen's bandoliers and occasional bursts of gallows laughter, the only sounds were night noises—the clack of foraging land crabs, the chirps and whistles of crickets and toads, the distant batter of surf and spray against the sand. Inland, the green hills of Barba­dos towered in dark silence.

  He looked out to sea once more and realized the surf was beginning to rise, as wave after frothy wave chased up the crystalline sand of the shore, now bleached pale in the last waning moonlight. The ships were out there, he knew, wait­ing. He could almost feel their presence.

  Both the trench and the breastwork were back away from the shore—back where the sand merged with brown clay and the first groves of palms, heralds of the hardwood thickets farther upland. Through the palms he could barely discern the silhouettes of the gunners as they loitered alongside the heavy ordnance, holding lighted linstocks. Fifteen cannon were there tonight, ranging in gauge from nine to eighteen-pound shot, shielded on the sea side by a head-high masonry wall cut with battlements for the guns.

  Though the original Jamestown gun emplacement had been built two decades earlier, as a precaution against Spanish at­tack, that threat had faded over the years, and gradually the planters of Barbados had grown complacent. They had per­mitted the fort to slowly decay, its guns to clog with rust from the salt air.

  How ironic, he thought, that now an English attack, not Spanish, had finally occasioned its first repairs. Over the past fortnight the old cannon had been cleaned of rust and primed; and new Dutch guns, all brass, had been hauled up by oxcart from Carlisle Bay and set in place. Now six of these, small demi-culverin, had just been removed from the breastwork and hauled to safety inland at first word of the invasion.

  He heard the murmur of approaching voices and looked up to see two shadowy figures moving along the dirt parapet that protected the trench. One was tall and strode with a pur­poseful elegance; the other lumbered.

  "It'll be a cursed dark night once we've lost the moon, and that's when they're apt to start launching the longboats. Damn Winston if he's not in place by then. Are his men over where they're supposed to be?" The hard voice of Benjamin Briggs drifted down. The silhouette that was Anthony Wal­rond merely nodded silently in reply.

  Jeremy rose and began climbing up the parapet, his ban­dolier rattling. Anthony turned at the noise, recognized him, and motioned him forward.

  "Are your men ready?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Anthony studied him thoughtfully a moment. "Watch yourself tonight, lad." He paused, then looked away. "Do remember to take care."

  "That I will." Jeremy broke the silence between them. "But I'm not afraid, truly." He patted his bandolier for em­phasis, causing the charge holders to clank one against the other. He knew he owed his assignment of the rank of en­sign—which normally required holdings of at least fifteen acres—and the leadership of a squad solely to the influence of his older brother, who commanded the vital Jamestown defenses by unanimous consent of the Assembly.

  Jeremy's militiamen—eight in number—were all small freeholders with rusty matchlocks and no battle experience. He had been too ashamed to tell Anthony he didn't desire the honor of being an officer. It was time to prove he was a Walrond.

  "Jeremy, we all know fear, but we learn to rise above it. You'll make me proud tonight, I'll lay odds." He reached and adjusted the buckle of the shoulder strap holding Jere­my's sword. "Now have your men light their matchcord and ready the prime on their muskets."

  Jeremy gave his brother a stiff salute and passed the order into the trench. A burning taper was handed slowly down the line of men, and each touched it to the tip of his matchcord, then threaded the glowing fuse through the serpentine cock of his musket. He secretly rejoiced he had a new-style flint­lock; at least there would be no lighted matchcord to betray his own whereabouts in the dark. He stood for a moment watching his men prepare, then glanced back at the squat outline of Benjamin Briggs. What, he wondered, was he doing here tonight?

  Briggs was gazing down at the parapet now, critically scuff­ing his boots against the soft earth. "This trench of yours will do damned little to protect these lads from cannon fire if somebody in the fleet takes a mind to shell the breastwork. I pray to God it was worth the time and trouble."

  A crew of indentures, as well as many of Winston's new men, had worked around-the-clock for three days digging the trench. The idea had come from Anthony Walrond.

  "I'm betting on an invasion, not an artillery duel." Antho­ny nodded toward Jeremy one last time, a light farewell, then turned back to Briggs. "An open shelling with their big ord­nance would be foolhardy; right now it's too dark to try and fire on our emplacements. Add to that, we have word the commander in charge of the army is a Roundhead rogue named Dick Morris. I know him all too well. He doesn't believe in a lot of cannon fire, when a few men can achieve what he wants. He'll just try to land enough men to overrun and disable our guns."

  "Well and all, may Almighty God damn our luck that it's come down to this. The last thing we need is war with Eng­land. But if it's fight we must, then I say give them our all. And don't let them catch us short." Briggs gazed past Jer­emy, down the trench. "Do all these men have enough matchrope, powder, and shot?"

  Anthony felt himself nearing his limit of tolerance for ci­vilians. All the planter had found to do since arriving was denigrate their readiness. "We've managed to get bandoliers, and 'the twelve apostles,' for all the men"—he deliberately used the irreverent battlefield nickname for the dozen charge-holders of musket powder on a standard bandolier—"and there's plenty of matchcord, with what we got from the Dutchmen before they were seized." He tightened his eye-patch and surveyed the line of ragged planters and indentures marshalled down the trench, trying to envision them under attack. The picture was discouraging, at the very least.

  How many here have ever taken musket fire, he wondered. This bunker will likely be overrun by the
first wave of Mor­ris' infantry. God curse Cromwell for sending him. He's te­nacious as an English bulldog. And crafty as a fox. He'll land the pick of his troops, and the minute they open fire, it's odds this line of farmers will panic and run for those green hills. We've got superiority of numbers, but it doesn't mean a thing. What we need, and don't have, is nerve, ex­perience, and most of all, the will to fight. I'll wager not one man in ten here tonight has all three.

  "I'd like to know, sir, what's your true opinion of the plan that's been worked out." Briggs turned to Walrond, hating the man's arrogance and his royalist politics, yet respecting his military experience. He had led a royalist attack at the battle of Marsten Moor that was still remembered as one of the most daring maneuvers of the Civil War. "Do you think we can catch their landing force in a bind, the way we're hoping?"

  Anthony moved away from the edge of the trench. "Taken all for all, it's about the best we can do. If it succeeds, well and good, but if it fails, we're apt to end up . . ."

  Jeremy tried to hear the rest, but Anthony's voice faded into the dark as he and Briggs moved on down the parapet.

  The night was closing in again. Having drained their flask of kill-devil, the militiamen were grumbling nervously as they waited in a line down the trench, backs to the newly turned earth. Again the sounds of the dark swelled up around them— the chirps and whistles, the monotonous pendulum of surf in the distance.

  War. Was it mainly waiting?

  Maybe there would be no landing. How preposterous all this would seem then. Tomorrow he would wake in his feath­erbed, dreaming he was back in England, laughing at the absurdity of it all. Sense would prevail. The fleet would hoist sail. . . .

  A volley of musket fire exploded from the direction of the breastwork.

  Shouts. Then clustered points of light, the tips of burning matchcord on the infantry's muskets, suddenly appeared along the shore.

  The first attackers had crept up behind the cannon and fired into the gunners with flintlocks, so there would be no smol­dering ignition match on their muskets to betray them. Those in the second wave had somehow masked their lighted match­cord until their longboats pulled into the surf. Now, after the surprise attack on the gun emplacement, they were splashing ashore, holding their muskets high.

  Jeremy watched as the flickering red dots spread out along the shore in disciplined rows. For a moment he had the impression Jamestown was being attacked by strings of fire­flies that had emerged from the deep Caribbean sea.

  "Prepare to fire." He heard a voice giving the order, and was vaguely astonished to realize it was his own.

  The trench sounded with the clicks of powder pans being opened and hammers being readied.

  "Take aim." That was the phrase; he had started practic­ing it five days before, when he was assigned the command. But now, what next? Aim where? The fireflies were inching up the shore in deadly rows. There looked to be hundreds. They would spew lead shot the moment the militia's trench was revealed.

  He knew that the order to fire the first round must come from Anthony. Why was he waiting? The Roundhead infantry must be no more than fifty yards down the shore. He felt his palm grow moist against the ivory of the stock, and for a moment he thought he smelled an acrid stench of fear down the trench.

  More muskets blazed from the rear of the brick fortress, followed by screams and shouts of surrender. In the jumble of musket fire and lanterns he could tell that the Jamestown breastwork had been circled and seized: its gunners over­whelmed, its cannon still directed impotently out toward the dark sea. Only two culverin had been fired. He watched heartsick as the invading infantrymen, breastplates shining in the lantern light, swarmed over the guns.

  The militia manning the cannons had been sacrificed. Deliberately. To draw in the rest of the invading force. He felt his anger welling up. In war the men who actually fought counted for nothing.

  Where was the rest of the militia? Were they waiting at the right perimeter, as they were supposed to be?

  He knew that the plan all along had been to let the guns be seized. But now that it had happened, he felt a demoral­izing pang of loss and defeat. Why should the gunners be exposed to a musket attack? Surely there was some other way. . . .

  “Give fire!”

  He heard Anthony's command and felt his heart jump. The infantry was practically in pistol range. This was going to be near to murder. The trigger felt cold against his finger as he sighted into the dark, directly toward one of the approaching tips of fire.

  The gun flashed and kicked upward. The parapet was suddenly bathed in light as the long line of muskets around him discharged. He gasped for breath as the air in the trench turned to smoke—burning charcoal and saltpeter. The points of light danced in chaos, and then he heard screams.

  The man next to him, a grizzled, frightened freeholder, had clambered up the loose dirt of the parapet to gain a better view of the fighting at the breastwork. Jeremy realized that this man, too, had never witnessed a battle before.

  Then came a row of flashes from where the red dots had been, like the long string of exploding rockets fired over the Thames on St. George's Day. The freeholder beside him suddenly groaned and pitched backward, his smoking matchlock plowing into the soft dirt of the parapet as he sprawled down­ward into the trench. Then another man, farther down, screamed and doubled over his gun.

  "Half-cock your muskets, disengage your match," Jeremy heard himself shouting. "Prepare to recharge."

  Anthony had coached him that one of the primary duties of a field officer was to call out orders for priming and load­ing, since men in battle often forgot crucial steps. With a live matchcord attached to the hammer, it was all too easy to set off a musket while you were ramming in the charge.

  "Prime your pan." He tried to bellow above the din as he began pouring priming powder from a flask on his bandolier into the flintlock's powder pan. "Close your pan. Prepare to scour."

  As he and the men quickly cleaned the barrels of their muskets, then began to ram in more powder and shot, he kept glancing toward the approaching infantry. They too had paused to reload. He could see the outlines of the men now, and hear the shouts of officers.

  Which men were officers?

  At the end of one row of infantrymen stood a tall man in a silver helmet who seemed to be issuing the commands for reloading. He must be one, Jeremy realized. He's faster at reloading than the others. He's almost ready.

  That man, tall and comely, would make a passing good companion to share a hunt, afield and stalking grouse on a dew-laden morning. If we were both back in England now . . .

  Except . . . he's here to kill me.

  "You!" He shouted a challenge as he climbed up the par­apet, readying his flintlock. There were shouts from the mi­litiamen behind him, warning him to come down, but he did not hear, did not want to hear.

  The officer in the silver helmet looked up and spotted the outline of the brash youth standing atop the parapet, bran­dishing a musket. He knew.

  Jeremy watched as the man drew up his musket and took aim. He waited a moment in fascination, savoring what it was like to face death, then drew up his own flintlock and sighted the man's chest down the barrel.

  There was a flash of light and a whistle past his ear, the sound of a hurried horsefly.

  Then he squeezed the trigger.

  The Roundhead officer opened his mouth noiselessly and seemed to wilt backward. He fumbled for his musket as it clattered against a jagged lump of coral beside him, then sprawled onto the sand, still as death, his helmet circling in drunken arcs down the slope toward the surf.

  "Sir, mind you take cover!"

  In the flush sweeping over him, he scarcely felt the hands tugging at his boots. He was still gripping his flintlock, knuckles white, as the other militiamen dragged him back into the trench.

  He lay panting, at once dazed and exhilarated, astonished at the sensations of his own mind and body. The most curious thing of all was his marvelous new awar
eness of being alive; he was adrift in a new realm of the spirit, untroubled by the cacophony of musket discharges from all sides.

  "We're turnin' the whoresons back." There were more shouts now, even some cheers. Finally the din of battle cut through his reverie.

  "Prepare to reload." He was shouting again, almost more to himself than to the others, trying to be heard above the crack of musket fire that sounded down the length of the shoreline. Everywhere there were flashes, yells, screams. The air in the trench was rancid and opaque with black smoke.

  As he began reloading his musket he suddenly felt a new closeness, almost a mystical union, with the ragged planters around him. They were a fraternity of men, standing to­gether, defending their land. Why had Anthony never told him that war could be like this? Could teach you brotherhood as well as hate?

  He was priming his powder pan again, trying to control the shake of his hands as he tilted the powder flask, when he looked up to see that more red tips were emerging from the darkness of the sea. Another wave of Roundhead infantry had landed in longboats.

  There was no longer any purpose in calling out a loading sequence. Some men were priming now, some ramming in powder and shot, some threading their matchcord into the hammer, some firing again. All the discipline he had been taught so carefully by Anthony was irrelevant.

  Most frightening of all, while the first wave of infantry had dropped back to reload, a fresh line of musketmen was ad­vancing toward the parapet, guns primed and ready.

  “Fire and fall back. In orderly fashion.''

  It was the voice of Anthony. The call to abandon the trench meant that all the Roundhead infantry had landed. Now they were to be drawn inland with a feigned retreat.

  The plan worked out was to resist strongly until all the infantry were ashore, to damage them as much as possible using the protection of the parapet, and then to fall back into the trees, luring them away from their longboats. When their lines were thinned, Hugh Winston would lead a cavalry charge that would drive a wedge along the shore, between the infan­try and the sea, cutting off their escape. Next the longboats would be driven off, and the invading infantry slowly sur­rounded. They would be harassed by irregular fire and, with luck, soon lose heart. Cut off from their escape route, the demoralized invaders would have no choice but to surrender. Then, so the strategy went, Commander Morris and the ad­miral of the fleet would seek to negotiate.

  Jeremy fired blindly into the dark, then reached down for his pike. As he touched it, his eyes met those of the dying freeholder lying beside him. Blood now streamed from a gash in the man's tattered jerkin, while a red rivulet flowed in pulses from the corner of his mouth. The sight flooded him with anger.

  "No!" He heard himself yelling as he groped down his bandolier for another charge-holder. "No retreat." He turned to the startled men around him. "Reload. I say no retreat!"

  "But that's the orders, Yor Worship." A bearded militia­man had already begun to scramble up the back side of the trench.

  "Devil take the orders. Look." He seized the militiaman's jerkin and yanked him back, then pointed to the dying free­holder at their feet.

  "Aye, that's Roland Jenkins, may God rest his soul. I'm like to be the one tellin' his wife." The freeholder gave a quick glance. "But there's nothin' to be done, Yor Worship. Orders are to retreat."

  "And I say damn the orders." He was yelling to all the men now. "There are men here, wounded and dying. I'm staying with them. What kind of soldiers are we, to leave these men to die? It's wrong. There're higher orders to be obeyed. I say no."

  "An' we'll all end up like this poor sod, Yor Worship. There's no helpin' a man who's gone to meet his God." The man threw his musket onto the fresh dirt at the bottom of the trench and turned to begin clambering to safety. "For my own part, I can do just as well not greetin' the Almighty for a few years more."

  Jeremy seized his pike and marched down the trench. "I'll gut any man who tries to run. I'm in command here and I say we stand and fight. Now reload."

  The men stared at him in disbelief.

  "Do it, I say." He brandished the pike once more for emphasis, then flung it down and seized a charge-holder on his bandolier. Without so much as a glance at the other men, he began pouring the grainy black powder into the barrel of his musket.

  The world was suddenly a white, deafening roar.

  Later he remembered mainly the flash, how as the smoke seared his eyes he recalled his own negligence, that he had forgotten to scour the barrel. It was a fool's mistake, a child's mistake. He was still wiping his eyes, seared and powder-burned, when he felt the musket being ripped from his hands. As he groped to seize it back, rough hands shoved him sprawling against the soft dirt of the trench. His face plowed into the earth, which still smelled fresh, musky and ripe, full of budding life.

  "We've got another one, sor." A brash voice sounded near his ear. "A right coxcomb, this rebel."

  "Damn you." Jeremy struck out, only half aware of the cluster of infantrymen surrounding him.

  "Just hold yourself, lad." There were shouts as several of the wounded militiamen were disarmed. He tried to struggle, but more hands brusquely wrestled him down. "This one's not taken any shot. He's lively as a colt. Let's have some of that rope."

  He felt his arms being pulled behind him and a rough cord lashed around his wrists. There were sounds of a brief conference, then a voice came, kindly, almost at his ear.

  "This is a first-class fowling piece you're carrying. I'll wager you've brought down many a plump woodcock with it, haven't you lad?" A pause, then again the gentle voice. "What's your name, son?"

  "Damned to you. What's your name?" There was a sick­ening hollowness in his gut again. The fear, and now hatred—for them, and for himself.

  "It's better, for the time, if I ask the questions and you answer them." The voice emanated from a man wearing a silver helmet and sporting a short goatee. "Why didn't you run, like the rest of the rebels?" He laughed lightly as he moved closer. Jeremy felt a palm cup beneath his chin and felt his head being twisted upward. "By my word, I think your musket misfired. Your face is black as a Moor's. I'll warrant you'd have run too, if you could have seen the way. Could it be you're naught but a coward too, lad, like all the rest?"

  The speaker turned to a young, blue-eyed man standing nearby. "Well, sir, who'd have reckoned it'd be this easy? You can tell Admiral Calvert this island's as good as his for the taking. This militia of theirs is nothing but a batch of scared planters, who scatter like rabbits the minute they hear a gunshot. And a few young gallants like this one, who scarcely know how to prime a musket. There's no reason to fall back and hold this position. We'd as well just go on after them, chase them back to Bridgetown, and have done with it."

  Jeremy felt a flush of victory. They had fallen into the trap. They thought Barbados wouldn't fight! In minutes they'd be surrounded by the militia and begging to surrender. As soon as the counterattack began, he would . . .

  "I think we'd best take this one back to the ship, to find out who he is and if he knows anything." It was the man standing next to the goateed commander. "It's a damned bother to have prisoners to feed, but I'll warrant this en­gagement's got three days at most to go before they all throw down their arms and sue for peace."

  "Damn your smug eyes." Jeremy reached down and seized his pike, which had been lying unnoticed against the side of the trench. He turned and faced the commander. "You'll never even get back to your ship. Men died here tonight and they didn't die in vain, by all that's holy."

  "What say, lad? Pray, who's to stop us?" The commander glanced at the pike, seeming to ignore it. He waved back several infantrymen who had quickly leveled their muskets at Jeremy. "Your bold militia here has taken to its heels, one and all. A bloody lot of royalist cowards."

  "There're braver men on Barbados than you know. You'll not take me, or any prisoners, back to the ship. You'll see Bridgetown soon enough, all right, at the point of a gun."

  "Perhaps tha
t's so, lad, but not at the point of a pike. Now put it away. This little engagement's over." The man with the goatee was studying him with admiration. "You're a brave one, lad. Too brave, by my life, or too foolish. . . ."

  "You don't suppose there's something behind this lad's bluster." The other man turned to the commander. "Could it be their militia might've run on purpose? To thin out our lines for a counterattack?"

  The shouting had died down now, as strings of captured militiamen were being assembled and placed under guard. Some were joking with their captors, clearly relieved to be out of the battle. Jeremy suspected several had deliberately surrendered—small freeholders who didn't care a damn whether Cromwell's fleet took the island or not. As he watched them with contempt, he felt ashamed to be one of them. Suddenly the horror of it all swept over him and he flung down the pike in disgust.

  "Now that's a good lad." The commander nodded, then turned to the other man. "Vice Admiral Powlett, for once you may be right. In truth, I was beginning to wonder the same thing. This could all have been too easy by half."

  "With your permission, sor, I'll put the young gallant here in with the rest of the rebels." One of the infantrymen had seized Jeremy's arms.

  "No, leave him here a minute." The commander was pointing toward Jeremy. "The lad's no planter. He doubtless knows more of what's going on than these others do. Some­thing he said just now troubles me."

  "Should I bring up the men and start to move in, sir?" A captain of the infantry appeared out of the smoky haze that now enveloped the shoreline.

  "Hold a while and keep your lines together. It's too quiet."

  Jeremy looked up and saw the goatee next to his face. "Now tell me, lad. There's been enough killing here for one night, as I'm a Christian. Is there going to have to be more? If you don't tell me, it'll be on your head, I swear it."

  "This night is on your head, sir, and the Roundhead rebels who've stolen the Crown of England. And now would try to steal Barbados too."

  The man waved the words aside. "Lad, I'm too old for that. Let your royalist rhetoric lie dead, where it deserves to be. My name is Morris, and if you know anything, you'll know I've seen my time fighting your royalists in the damned Civil War. But that's over, thank God, and I have no wish to start it up again. Now give me your name."

  "My name is for men I respect."

  "A sprightly answer, lad, on my honor. There's spark about you."

  "The name on this musket looks to be Walrond, sor, if I make it out right." One of the infantrymen was handing the flintlock to Morris.

  "Walrond?" Morris reached for the gun and examined it closely, running his hand along the stock and studying the name etched on the lock. "A fine royalist name. By chance any kin to Sir Anthony Walrond?"

  "My brother, and he's . . ."

  "Your brother! You don't mean it." Morris' goatee twitched with surprise as he moved next to Jeremy and stud­ied his face. "God is my witness, it's scarcely a name you need blush to give out. England never bred a braver, finer soldier, royalist or no. Is he your commander here tonight? You couldn't have one better."

  "I have never heard my brother speak well of you, sir."

  "Anthony Walrond? Speak well of a man who'd rid Eng­land of his precious king?" Morris laughed. "He'd sooner have God strike him dead. He's never had a good word to say for a Puritan in his life. But he's a worthy gentleman, for it all, and an honorable soldier in the field." He turned to an officer standing nearby. "Essex, regroup the men. I think we'd best just hold this breastwork for now. It could well be Anthony Walrond's in command of this militia. If he is, you can wager he'd not countenance a retreat unless he planned to counterattack. I know his modus operandi. And his pride."

  "Aye sir. As you will." The captain turned and shouted, "Men, fall back and regroup! Form lines at the breastwork and reload."

  "Now if you like. Master Walrond, I still can order all these men to march off into the dark and let your militia ambush and kill half of them—likely losing a hundred of their own in the trade. Would you really have me do it? Is this damned little island worth that much blood, over and above what's already been spilt here tonight?"

  Jeremy gazed down at the line of dead militiamen, bodies torn by musket balls. Beyond them the Roundhead infantry was collecting its own dead, among them the man he himself had killed. Now it all seemed so pointless.

  A blaze of musket fire flared from a position just north of the breastwork, and a phalanx of whooping and yelling mi­litiamen opened a charge down the north side of the beach. Jeremy watched Morris' eyes click. The kindly man was sud­denly gone. With an oath, he yelled for the prisoners to be hurried to the longboats, and the devil take the wounded.

  The infantry at the breastwork was returning the fire of the attacking militia, but they were now badly outnumbered. Jer­emy made out what could have been the tall form of Anthony, wielding a musket as he urged the militia forward. Then he was passed by a wall of men on horseback. The cavalry. The lead horse, a bay gelding, was ridden by a tall man holding a pistol in each hand.

  The infantry holding the breastwork began retreating down the south steps, on the side opposite the attackers. Jeremy could make out Morris now, ordering his men to make for the longboats.

  "Get along with you, rebel." A pike punched him in the back and he was shoved in with the other prisoners. Now they were being hurried, stumbling and confused, in the di­rection of the water.