Caribbee Part 31

"But if they do try landing in some spot where we've got no cannon, what then, sir?" Briggs' voice projected above the howl of the storm.

"You've got ordnance in all the locations where they can safely put in with a frigate. Any other spot would mean a slow, dangerous approach.

But if they try it, your militia should be able to meet them at the water's edge and turn them back. That is, if you can keep your men mustered." He straightened his pistols and pulled his cloak about him.

"Now if it's all the same, I think I'll leave you to your deliberations. I've finished what it was I'd offered to do."

"One moment. Captain, if you please." Anthony Walrond stepped in front of him as the crowd began to part. "I think you've done considerably more than you proposed. Unless it included basely betraying the island."

Winston stopped and looked at him. "I'm tired enough to let that pa.s.s."

"Are you indeed, sir?" Walrond turned toward the table. "We haven't yet thanked Captain Winston for his other service, that being whilst he was making a show of helping deploy the Dutchmen's ordnance, he ordered a good fifty of his new men, those Irish indentures he's taken, to swim out to the ships of the fleet and offer their services to the Roundheads." He turned to the room. "It was base treachery. And reason enough for a hempen collar . . . if more was required."

"You, sir, can go straight to h.e.l.l." Winston turned and started pushing through the planters, angrily proceeding toward the door.

Katherine stared at him, disbelieving. Before he could reach the exit, she elbowed her way through the crowd and confronted him. "Is what he said true?"

He pushed back his hair and looked down at her. "It's really not your concern. Miss Bedford."

"Then you've much to explain, if not to me, to the men in this room."

"I didn't come down here tonight to start explaining." He gestured toward the door. "If you want to hear about it, then why not call in some of the men who swam out to the ships. They're back now and they're outside in the rain, or were. I'm sure they'll be pleased to confess the full details. I have no intention of responding to Master Walrond's inquisition."

"Then we most certainly will call them in." She pushed her way briskly to the doorway. Outside a crowd of indentures stood huddled in the sheets of rain. Timothy Farrell, who had appointed himself leader, was by the door waiting for Winston. The planters watched as Katherine motioned him in.

He stepped uncertainly through the doorway, bowing, and then he removed his straw hat deferentially. "Can I be of service to Yor Ladyship?"

"You can explain yourself, sir." She seized his arm and escorted him to the head of the table. "Is it true Captain Winston ordered you and those men out there to swim out to the ships and offer to consort with their forces?"

"We wasn't offerin' to consort, beggin' Yor Ladyship's pardon. Not at all. That's not our inclination, as I'm a Christian." Farrell grinned.

"No, by the Holy Virgin, what we did was offer to help them." He glanced toward Winston, puzzling. "An' whilst they were mullin' that over, we got a good look below decks. An' like I reported to His Worship, I'd say they've not got provision left to last more'n a fortnight. An' a good half the men sailin' with them are so rotted with scurvy they'd be pressed to carry a half-pike across this room. Aye, between decks they're all cursin' the admiral an' sayin' he's brought 'em out here to starve in the middle o' this plagued, sun-cooked wilderness."

She turned slowly toward Winston. "You sent these men out as spies?"

"Who else were we going to send?" He started again toward the door.

"Well, you could have told us, sir."

"So some of the Puritan sympathizers on this island could have swum out after them and seen to it that my men were shot, or hanged from a yardarm. Pox on it."

"But this changes everything," Briggs interjected, his face flooding with pleasure. "This man's saying the fleet's not got the force to try a landing."

"You only believe half of what you hear." Winston paused to look around the room. "Even if it's true, it probably just means they'll have to attack sooner. Before their supplies get lower and they lose even more men." He pushed on toward the door. "Desperate men do desperate things.

There'll be an attempt on the island, you can count on it. And you'll fight best if you're desperate too." Suddenly he stopped again and glanced back at Briggs. "By the way, I don't know exactly who your speech on the docile slaves was intended to fool. Your Africans just may have some plans afoot. I doubt they care overmuch who wins this war, you or Cromwell. So look to it and good night." He turned and gestured for Farrell to follow as he walked out into the blowing night rain.

Katherine watched him leave, recoiling once more against his insolence.

Or maybe admiring him for it. She moved quickly through the milling crowd to the side of Dalby Bedford, bent over and whispered something to him, then turned and slipped out the door.

The burst of rain struck her in the face, and the wind blew her hair across her eyes. Winston had already started off down the hill, the crowd of indentures trailing after. Like puppy dogs, she found herself thinking. He certainly has a way with his men. She caught up her long skirts and pushed through the crowd, their straw hats and shoes now bedraggled by the downpour.

"Captain, I suppose we owe you an apology, and I've come to offer it."

She finally reached his side. "No one else thought of having some men swim out to spy on the fleet."

"Katherine, no one else in there has thought of a lot of things.

They're too busy arguing about who can spare a draft horse."

"What do you mean?" She looked up. "Thought of what?"

"First, they should be off-loading what's left of the food and supplies on those Dutch merchantmen blockaded in the bay. Ruyters agreed just now to put his men on it tonight, but I'm afraid it's too late." He stared through the rain, toward the bay. "Something tells me the fleet's likely to move in tomorrow and commandeer whatever ships they can get their hands on. It's exactly what any good commander would do."

He continued bitterly. "There're enough supplies on those merchantmen, flour and dried corn, to feed the island for weeks. Particularly on the ships that made port the last few days and haven't finished unlading.

Believe me, you're going to need it, unless you expect to start living on sugar cane and horsemeat. But this island's too busy fighting with itself right now to listen to anybody." He turned and headed on through the cl.u.s.ter of indentures. "I'm going down to try and off-load my own supplies tonight, before it's too late."

She seized her skirts and pushed after him. "Well, I still want to thank you . . . Hugh. For what you've done for us."

He met her gaze, smiled through the rain, and raised his hand to stop her. "Wait a minute. Before you go any further--and maybe say something foolish--you'd better know I'm not doing it for your little island of Barbados."

"But you're helping us fight to stay a free state. If we can stand up to the fleet, then we can secure home rule, the first in the Americas.

After us, maybe Virginia will do the same. Who knows, then some of the other settlements will probably . . ."

"A free state?" He seemed to snort. "Free for who? These greedy planters? n.o.body else here'll be free." He pulled his cloak tighter about him. "Just so you'll understand, let me a.s.sure you I'm not fighting to help make Barbados anything. I'm just trying to make sure I keep my frigate. Besides, Barbados'll never be 'free,' to use that word you seem to like so much. The most that'll ever happen here is it'll change masters. Look around you. It's going to be a settlement of slaves and slaveholders forever, owned and squeezed by a Council, or a Parliament, or a king, or a somebody. From now on."

"You're wrong." Why did he try so hard to be infuriating? "Home rule here is just a start. Someday there'll be no more indentures, and who knows, maybe one day they'll even decide to let the slaves be free."

She wanted to grab him and shake him, he was so shortsighted. "You just refuse to try and understand. Isn't there anything you care about?"

"I care about living life my own way. It may not sound like much of a cause, but it's taken me long enough to get around to it. I've given up thinking that one day I'll go back home and work for the honor of the Winston name, or settle down and grow fat on some sugar plantation in the Caribbees." He turned on her, almost shouting against the storm.

"Let me tell you something. I'm through living by somebody else's rules. Right now I just want to get out. Out to a place I'll make for myself. So if getting there means I first have to fight alongside the likes of Briggs and Walrond to escape Barbados, then that's what it'll be. And when I fight, make no mistake, I don't plan to lose."

"That's quite a speech. How long have you been practicing it?" She seized his arm. "And the point, I take it, is that you like to run away from difficulties?"

"That's exactly right, and I wish you'd be good enough to have a brief word with the admiral of the fleet out there about it." He was smiling again, his face almost impish in the rain. "Tell him there's a well- known American smuggler who'd be pleased to sail out of here if he'd just open up the blockade for an hour or so."

"Well, why not ask him yourself? He might be relieved, if only to be rid of you and your gunners." She waited till a roll of thunder died away. "And after you've sailed away? What then?"

"I plan to make my own way. Just as I said. I'm heading west by northwest, to maybe turn around a few things here in the Caribbean. But right now I've got more pressing matters, namely keeping my provisions, and those of the Dutchmen, out of the hands of the fleet." He turned and continued toward the sh.o.r.e, a dim expanse of sand shrouded in dark and rain. "So you'd best go on back to the a.s.sembly Room, Katherine, unless you plan to gather up those petticoats and lend me a hand."

"Perhaps I just will." She caught up with him, matching his stride.

"What?"

"Since you think I'm so useless, you might be surprised to know I can carry tubs of Hollander cheese as well as you can." She was holding her skirts out of the mud. "Why shouldn't I? We both want the same thing, to starve the Roundheads. We just want it for different reasons."

"It's no place for a woman down here."

"You said that to me once before. When we were going out to Briggs'

sugarworks. Frankly I'm a little weary of hearing it, so why don't you find another excuse to try telling me what to do."

He stopped and looked down again. Waves of rain battered against the creases in his face. "All right, Katherine. Or Katy, as I've heard your father call you. If you want to help, then come on. But you've got to get into some breeches if you don't want to drown." His dour expression melted into a smile. "I'll try and find you a pair on the _Defiance_.

It'll be a long night's work."

"You can tell everyone I'm one of your seamen. Or one of the indentures."