Caribbee Part 85

"Katy, it's over." Winston beckoned her to him and and boxed ceremoniously. "Jamaica is . . ."

The yard erupted as the copestone of the turret at the corner exploded, raining chips of hard limestone around them.

"Great G.o.d, we're taking fire from down below." He stood a moment in disbelief. Around him startled seamen began to scurry for cover.

Even as he spoke, another round of cannon shot slammed into the front of the breastwork, shaking the flagstone under their feet.

"Who the h.e.l.l's in charge down there? There were no orders to fire on the fort ..."

Another round of cannon shot crashed into the stone facing above them.

"Masters, take cover. There'll be h.e.l.l to pay for this, I promise you."

He suddenly recalled that Mewes had been left in command down below.

"If John's ordered the ships into the bay and opened fire, I'll skin him alive."

"Aye, and with this commotion, I'll wager their d.a.m.ned cavalry lancers will be on their way soon enough to give us a welcome." Bartholomew was standing alongside him. "I'd say we'd best secure that door back there and make ready to stand them off."

"Order it done." Winston moved past the gunners and headed toward the front of the breastwork, Katherine at his side. As they approached the Spanish commander, he backed away, then bowed nervously and addressed them in broken English.

"You may receive my sword, senor, in return for the lives of my men. I am Capitan Juan Vicente de Padilla, and I offer you unconditional surrender. Please run up your flag and signal your gunships."

"We've got no flag." Winston stared at him. "Yet. But we will soon enough."

"What do you mean, _mi capitan_? You are Ingles." His dark eyes acquired a puzzled expression. "Of course you have a flag. It is the one on your ships, down in the bay."

"Hugh, what's he talking about? Has John run up English colors?"

Katherine strode quickly past the smoking cannon to the edge of the breastwork and leaned over the side.

Below, the bay was lightening in the early dawn. She stood a moment, then turned back and motioned Winston to join her. Her face was in shock. He shoved his pistol into his belt and walked to her side.

Headed across the bay, guns run out, was a long line of warships.

Nearest the sh.o.r.e, and already launching longboats of Roundhead infantry, were the _Rainbowe_ and the _Marsten Moor_--the red and white Cross of St. George fluttering from their mizzenmasts.

Chapter Twenty-three

"Heaven help us. To think the Lord Protector's proud Western Design has been reduced to a.s.saulting this worthless backwater." Edmond Calvert's voice trailed off gloomily as he examined the blue-green mountains of Jamaica. Then he turned to face Colonel Richard Morris, standing beside him on the quarterdeck. "No silver mines, no plantations, doubtless nothing save wild hogs and crocodiles."

"Well, sir, at least this time the navy has landed my men where we'd planned." Morris was studying the Pa.s.sage Fort that loomed above them.

Amidships, moored longboats were being loaded with helmeted infantry, muskets at the ready. "Their culverin seem to have quieted. If the town's no better defended, there should be scant difficulty making this place ours."

"That, sir, was precisely what you were saying when we first sighted Santo Domingo, scarcely more than a fortnight past--before those craven stalwarts you'd call an army were chased back into the sea."

Morris' eyes narrowed. "When the accounting for Hispaniola is finish'd, sir, that debacle will be credited to the incompetence of the English navy."

"All the same, you'd best take your stouthearted band of cowards and see what you can manage here." Calvert dismissed the commander with a perfunctory salute. Rancor no longer served any end; what was lost was lost.

What had been forfeited, he knew, was England's best chance ever to seize a portion of Spain's vast New World wealth. Oliver Cromwell's ambitious Western Design had foundered hopelessly on the sun-scorched sh.o.r.es of Hispaniola.

He reflected again on the confident instructions in his secret commission, authorized by the Lord Protector himself and approved by his new Council of State only four months earlier.

_"The Western Design of His Highness is intended to gain for England that part of the West Indies now in the possession of the Spaniard, for the effecting thereof we shall communicate to you what hath been under our Consideration.

Your first objective is to seize certain of the Spaniards' Islands, and particularly Hispaniola. Said Island hath no considerable place in the South part thereof but the City of Santo Domingo, and that not being heavily fortified may doubtless be possest without much difficulty, which being done, that whole Island will be brought under Obedience.

From thence, after your Landing there, send force for the taking of Havana, which lies in the Island of Cuba, which is the back door of the West Indies, and will obstruct the pa.s.sing of the Spaniards' Plate Fleet into Europe.

Having secured these Islands, proceed immediately to Cartegena, which we would make the Seat of the intended Design, and from which England will be Master of the Spaniards' Treasure which comes from Peru by the way of Panama in the South Seas to Porto Bello or Nombre de Dios in the North Sea . . ."

_

How presumptuous it all seemed from this vantage. Worse still, the Council of State had not even bothered taking notice of Jamaica, an under-defended wilderness now their only chance to seize _anything_ held by the Spaniards.

Most depressing of all, Cromwell would surely be loath to spend a shilling on the men and arms needed to hold such a dubious prize.

Meaning the Spaniards would simply come and reclaim it the minute the fleet set sail.

Surely, he told himself, Cromwell was aware they had shipped out without nearly enough trained men to attack Spanish holdings. Even his Council of State realized as much. But they had nourished the delusion that, once Barbados was bludgeoned back into the Commonwealth, its planters would dutifully offer up whatever first-rate men, arms, and cavalry were needed for the campaign.

What the Council of State had not conceived was how indifferent those islanders would be to the territorial ambitions of Oliver Cromwell.

Barbados' planters, it turned out, wanted nothing to do with a conquest of the Spanish Americas; to them, more English-held lands in the New World only meant the likelihood of more acres planted in sugar one day, to compete with the trade they hoped to monopolize. Consequently, Morris' Barbados recruits consisted almost wholly of runaway indentures eluding their owners and their creditors, a collection of profane, debauched rogues whose only boldness lay in doing mischief.

Sugar and slaves. They might well have undermined Barbados' brief try for independence; but they also meant there would be no more English lands in the Americas.

Calvert's heart grew heavy as he remembered how their careful strategy for taking Hispaniola had been wrecked. They had decided to avoid the uncharted harbor of Santo Domingo and land five miles down the coast.

But by a mischance of wind on their stern, it was thirty. Then Morris had disembarked his troops with scarcely any water or victuals. All the first day, however, he had marched unopposed, his Puritan infantrymen even pausing to vandalize Papist churches along the way, using idols of the Virgin for musket practice.

The Spaniards, however, had a plan of their own. They had been busy burning all the savannahs farther ahead to drive away the cattle, leaving a path of scorched ground. Soon Morris' supplies were exhausted and hunger began to set in; whereupon his infantry started stealing the horses of the cavalry, roasting and devouring them so ravenously the Spaniards reportedly thought horsemeat must be some kind of English delicacy.

Then came another catastrophe. For sport, the army burned some thatched huts belonging to Hispaniola's notorious Cow-Killers. Soon a gang of vengeful hunters had ma.s.sed in the woods along the army's path and begun sniping with their long-barrelled muskets. After that, whenever fireflies appeared in the evenings, the English sentries, never before having seen such creatures, mistook them for the burning matchcord of the Cow-Killers' muskets and began firing into the night, causing general panic and men trampled to death in flight. Also, the rattling claws of the night-foraging Caribbean land crabs would sound to the nervous English infantry like the clank of the Cow-Killers' bandoliers.

An alarm would raise--"the Cow-Killers"--and soldiers would run blindly into the forests and deadly swamps trying to flee.

When they finally reached Santo Domingo, Morris and his demoralized men gamely tried to rush and scale the walls, whereupon the Spaniards simply fired down with cannon and slew hundreds. Driven back, Morris claimed his retreat was merely "tactical." But when he tried again, the Spanish cavalry rode out and lanced countless more in a general rout, only turning back when they tired of killing. It was the most humiliating defeat any English army had ever received--suffered at the hands of the supposedly craven Spaniards, and the wandering Cow- Killers, of Hispaniola.

Back at sea, they realized the foolhardiness of an attempt on Havana or Cartegena, so the choice they were confronted with was to return to England empty-handed and face Cromwell's outrage, or perhaps try some easier Spanish prize. That was when they hit on the idea of Jamaica-- admittedly a smaller island than Hispaniola and of scant consequence to Spain, but a place known for its slight defenses. They immediately weighed anchor and made sail for Jamaica Bay. . . .

"Well, sir, I take it the shooting's over for now. Mayhaps this time your rabble army will see fit to stand and fight like Englishmen."

Edging his way cautiously up the smoky companionway, in black hat and cotton doublet, was one of the few Barbados planters who had offered to join the expedition. He glanced at the sunlit fortress, then stared at the green hills beyond. "Though from the looks of the place, I'd judge it's scarcely worth the waste of a round of shot. 'Twould seem to be d.a.m.n'd near as wild as Barbados the day I first set foot on her."

"I think Colonel Morris knows his duty, sir." Calvert's tone grew official. "And I presume some of this land could readily be put into cultivation."

Why, Calvert puzzled, had the planter come? He'd not offered to a.s.sist the infantry. No, most probably he volunteered in hopes of commandeering the choicest Spanish plantations on Hispaniola all for himself. Or perhaps he merely couldn't countenance the thought he'd been denied a seat on Barbados' new Council. Yes, that was more likely the case. Why else would a sugar grower as notoriously successful as Benjamin Briggs have decided to come with them?

"Cultivation!" Briggs turned on him. "I see you know little enough about running a plantation, sir. Where's the labor you'd need?"