Caribbee

by Thomas Hoover

CHAPTER TEN

  As the bell on the Rainbowe struck the beginning of the first watch, Edmond Calvert stood on the quarterdeck study­ing the thin cup of crescent moon that hung suspended in the west. In another hour it would be gone and the dense tropical dark would descend. The time had arrived to commence the operation.

  He reflected grimly on how it had come to this. The ulti­mate responsibility, he knew, must be laid at the door of a greedy Parliament. Before the monarchy was abolished, the American settlements had been the personal domain of the king, and they had suffered little interference from Com­mons. Scarce wonder Parliament's execution of Charles was received with so much trepidation and anger here—yesterday he'd heard that in Virginia the Assembly had just voted to hang anyone heard defending the recent "traitorous proceed­ings" in England. What these Americans feared, naturally enough, was that Parliament would move to try and take them over. They were right. And the richest prize of all was not Virginia, not Massachusetts, but the sugar island of Barba­dos. Why else had he been sent here first?

  How could Oliver Cromwell have so misjudged these colonists? He thought all they needed was intimidation, and expected the fleet to manage that handily. What he'd failed to understand was the strong streak of independence that had developed here over the years, especially in Barbados. In­stead of acting sensibly, the islanders had met the fleet with a cannon barrage and a Declaration stating that they would fight to the death for their liberty. What was worse, they had steadfastly refused to budge.

  Even so, he had tried every means possible to negotiate a surrender. He'd started a propaganda campaign, sending ashore letters and posters warning that resistance was fool­hardy, that they needed the protection of England. But Dalby Bedford's reply was to demand that the island be allowed to continue governing itself by its own elected Assembly, when everyone knew Parliament would never agree. Yet for a fort­night they had continued their fruitless exchange of letters, cajolery, threats—neither side willing to relent.

  What else, he asked himself, was left to do now? Add to that, invasion fever was becoming rife in the fleet. This morning he had hung out the Flag of Council, summoning the captains of all the ships aboard the Rainbowe for a final parlay, and over a luncheon table groaning with meat and drink from the fourteen captured Dutch merchant fluyts, the men had done little else save brag of victory. Finally, his last hope of avoiding bloodshed gone, he had reluctantly issued orders. It had come to this—England and her most populous American colony were going to war.

  He then spent the afternoon watch on the quarterdeck, alone, pensively studying the flying fish that glided across the surface of the tranquil blue Caribbean. Hardest to repress was his own anguish at the prospect of sending English infantry against a settlement in the Americas. These New World ven­turers were not rebel Papist Irishmen, against whom Crom­well might well be justified in dispatching his army. They were fellow Protestants.

  As he turned and ordered the anchor weighed, he experienced yet another disquieting reflection—unless there was some weakness in the island he did not yet know, it could win.

  "Are we ready to issue muskets now, and bandoliers of powder and shot?" Vice Admiral James Powlett was coming up the companionway with a purposeful stride.

  He heard Powlett's question and decided to pass the deci­sion on issuing of arms to the invasion commander, Colonel Richard Morris, now waiting beside him wearing breastplate and helmet.

  Deep wrinkles from fifty years of life were set in Morris' brow, and the descending dark did not entirely obscure the worry in his blue eyes or the occasional nervous twitch in his Dutch-style goatee. A seasoned army officer, he had chafed for days waiting to take his men ashore. On board the ships, he and his infantry were under naval command. On land, he would be in total charge. His impatience could not have been greater.

  During the forenoon watch he had personally visited each of the troop ships and picked some two hundred of the fittest infantry for the invasion. He had organized them into attack squadrons, appointed field commanders, and held a briefing for the officers. Then the men had been transferred in equal numbers to the Rainbowe, the Marston Moor, and the Gloucester, where the captains had immediately ordered them down to the already-crowded gun decks to await nightfall.

  "We'll issue no arms till it's closer to time." Morris squinted at Powlett through the waning moonlight. "I'll not have some recruit light a matchcord in the dark down there between decks and maybe set off a powder keg. Though I'd scarcely fault any man who did, considering the conditions you've placed my infantry under."

  "In truth, sir, I think we're all a trifle weary of hearing your complaints about how the navy has been required to garrison your men." Powlett scowled. "May I remind you that while you've seen fit to occupy yourself grumbling, the navy has arranged to replenish our water and provisions, courtesy of all the Butterboxes who were anchored in the bay. In fact, I only just this afternoon finished inventorying the last Dutch fluyt and securing her hatches."

  Powlett paused to watch as the Rainbowe began to come about, her bow turning north. She would lead the way along the coast, the other two warships following astern and steer­ing by a single lantern hanging from her maintopmast. Their destination was the small bay off the settlement at James­town, up the coast from Carlisle Bay.

  "What this navy has done, sir," Morris' voice was rising, "is to seize and pilfer the merchantmen of a nation England has not declared war on."

  "We don't need Letters of Marque to clear our American settlements of these Dutchmen," Powlett continued. "They've grown so insolent and presumptuous they're not to be suffered more. If we don't put a stop to them, they'll soon make claim to all the Americas, so that no nation can trade here but themselves. Besides, it's thanks to these interloping Hollanders that we've now got fresh water and meat enough to last for weeks."

  "Aye, so I'm told, though my men have yet to see a sliver of this Dutch meat we hear about."

  "There's been time needed to inventory, sir. I've had the beef we took cut into quarter pieces and pickled and put aboard the provision ships. And the pork and mutton cut into half pieces and salted. We've got enough in hand now to sit and watch this island starve, if it comes to that."

  Morris chewed on his lip and thought bitterly of the noon­day Council of War called aboard the Rainbowe. All the fleet captains had gorged themselves on fresh pork and fat mutton, washing it down with fine brandy and sack—all taken from the captain's larder of the Kostverloren. "The treatment of my men on this voyage has been nothing short of a crime." He continued angrily, "It cries to heaven, I swear it."

  The infantrymen had been confined to the hold for the entire trip, on dungeonlike gun decks illuminated by only a few dim candles. Since naval vessels required a far larger crew than merchant ships, owing to the men needed for the gun crews, there was actually less space for extra personnel than an ordinary merchantman would have afforded. A frig­ate the size of the Rainbowe already had two watches of ap­proximately thirty men each, together with twenty-five or more specialists—carpenters, cooks, gunnery mates. How, Morris wondered, could they expect anything save sickness and misery on a ship when they took aboard an additional hundred or two hundred landsmen sure to be seasick for the whole of the voyage? Need anyone be surprised when his soldiers were soon lying in their own vomit, surrounded by sloshing buckets of excrement and too sick to make their way to the head up by the bowsprit, where the seamen squatted to relieve themselves. Scarce wonder more men died every day.

  "What's your latest estimate of their strength here on this side of the island?" Morris turned back to Powlett, trying to ignore the stench that wafted up out of the scuttles. "Assum­ing the intelligence you've been getting is worth anything."

  "I can do without your tone, sir," the vice admiral snapped. "We have it on authority that the rebels have man­aged to raise some six thousand foot and four hundred horse. But their militia's strung out the length of the coast. Any place we make a landing—unless it's
bungled—we should have the advantage of surprise and numbers. All you have to do is storm the breastwork and spike their ordnance. It should be a passing easy night's work."

  "Nothing's easy. The trick'll be to land the men before they can alert the entire island." Morris turned back to Cal­vert. "I'll need flintlocks for the first wave, not matchlocks, if we're to have the benefit of surprise. And I've got a feeling we'll need every advantage we can muster."

  "We can manage that easily enough. I'd guess we've got nearly two hundred flintlocks. And about six hundred match­locks. So I can issue every man you have a musket and pike, and a bandolier with twelve rounds of powder and shot. As well as six yards of matchcord for the matchlocks."

  "So what you're saying is, we've got mostly matchlocks?" Morris' voice was grim.

  "That's all their militia'll have, depend on it."

  That was doubtless true, Morris told himself. It would be an oldstyle war, but plenty deadly, for it all.

  From the time some two centuries earlier when the musket came into general use, the most common means for firing had been to ignite a small amount of powder in an external container, the "powder pan," which then directed a flash through a tiny hole in the side of the barrel, igniting the powder of the main charge. The powder pan of a matchlock was set off using a burning "matchcord," a powder-impreg­nated length of cotton twine kept lit in readiness for firing the gun. The technique differed very little from the way a cannon was fired. A smoldering end of the matchcord was attached to the hammer or "cock" of the gun, which shoved it into the powder pan whenever the trigger was pulled. An infantryman using a matchlock musket carried several yards of matchcord, prudently burning at both ends. Matchlocks were cheap and simple and the mainstay of regular infantry throughout Europe.

  There was, however, an improved type of firing mecha­nism recently come into use, called the flintlock, much pre­ferred by sportsmen and anyone wealthy enough to afford it. The flintlock musket ignited the powder in the external pan by striking flint against steel when the trigger was pulled, and it was a concealable weapon which could also be used in rainy weather, since it did not require a burning cord. A flintlock cost three or four times as much as a matchlock and required almost constant maintenance by a skilled gunsmith. Morris suspected that whereas a few of the rich royalist exiles on Barbados might own flintlocks, most of the poorer plant­ers probably had nothing more than cheap matchlocks.

  "We'd also be advised to off-load some provisions once we get ashore, in case we get pinned down." Morris looked coldly at Powlett. "I'm thinking a few quarters of that pick­led beef you took from the Dutchmen wouldn't be amiss."

  "In time, sir. For now I can let you have twenty hogsheads of water, and I'll set ashore some salt pork from our regular stores."

  "What if I offered to trade all that for just a few kegs of brandy?" Morris appealed to Calvert. "I warrant the men'd sooner have it."

  Calvert glanced at Powlett, knowing the vice admiral had hinted at their noonday Council he preferred keeping all the Dutch brandy for the navy's men. "I'd say we can spare you a couple of kegs. It should be enough for a day or two's supply. But I'll not send it ashore till the breastwork is fully secured. . . ."

  Now the Rainbowe was entering the outer perimeter of the small bay at Jamestown, and the admiral excused himself to begin giving orders for reefing the mainsail. Through the dark they could see the outline of the torch-lit breastwork, a low brick fortress outlined against the palms.

  It's all but certain to be bristling with ordnance, Morris thought. And what if their militia's waiting for us somewhere in those damned trees? How many men will I lose before daylight?

  He inhaled the humid night air, then turned to Powlett. "We should start bringing the men up on deck. We've got to launch the longboats as soon as we drop anchor. Before the militia in the breastwork has time to summon reinforce­ments."

  Powlett nodded and passed the order to the quartermaster. "Then I'll unlock the fo'c'sle, so we can begin issuing mus­kets and bandoliers."

  The infantrymen emerged from the hold in companies, each led by an officer. The general mismatch of body armor, the "breast" and "back," bespoke what a ragtag army it was. Also, the helmets, or "pots," for those fortunate enough to have one, were a mixture of all the age had produced: some with flat brims, some that curled upward front and back. Some were too large for their wearers, others too small. Doublets too were a rainbow of colors, many with old-fash­ioned ruffs—taken from dead or captured royalists during the Civil War—and the rest plain and patched with rough country cloth.

  The night perfume of the tropical shore and the sea was obliterated by the stench of the emerging soldiers. Their faces were smeared with soot from the beams of the gun decks where they had been quartered, and they smelled strongly of sweat and the rankness of the hold. As they set grimly to work readying their weapons, a row of longboats along mid­ships was unlashed and quietly lowered over the side. The two other warships, which had anchored astern of the Rain­bowe, also began launching their invasion craft. Kegs of water, salt pork, and black powder were assembled on deck and readied to be landed after the first wave of the assault.

  The guns of the warships were already primed and run out, set to provide artillery support if necessary when the long­boats neared the beach. But with luck the breastwork could be overrun and its gun emplacements seized before the mi­litia had a chance to set and fire its ordnance. Once the Jamestown fortress was disabled, there would be a permanent breach in the island's defenses, a chink not easily repaired.

  The longboats had all been lowered now, and they bobbed in a line along the port side of the Rainbowe. Next, rope ladders were dropped and the infantrymen ordered to form ranks at the gunwales. Those assigned to lead the attack, all armed with flintlocks, were ordered over the side first. They dropped down the dangling ladders one by one, grumbling to mask their fear. The second wave, men with matchlocks, were being issued lighted matchcord, which they now stood coiling about their waists as they waited to disembark.

  Edmond Calvert watched silently from the quarterdeck, heartsick. With them went his last hope for negotiation. Now it was a state of war, England against her own settlements in the New World.