With every step Jeremy took, the wooded trail leading inland from
Oistins Bay felt more perilous, more alien. Why did the rows of stumps,
once so familiar, no longer seem right? Why had he forgotten the spots
in the path where the puddles never dried between rains, only congealed
to turgid glue? He had ridden it horseback many a time, but now as he
trudged up the slope, his boots still wet from the surf, he found he
could remember almost nothing at all. This dark tangle of palms and
bramble could scarcely be the direction home.
But the way home it was. The upland plantation of Anthony Walrond was a
wooded, hundred and eighty acre tract that lay one mile inland from the
settlement around Oistins Bay--itself a haphazard collection of
clapboard taverns and hewn-log tobacco sheds on the southern, windward
side of the island. The small harbor at Oistins was host to an
occasional Dutch frigate or a small merchant vessel from Virginia or
New England, but there was not enough tobacco or cotton to justify a
major landing. It was, however, the ideal place to run a small shallop
ashore from a ship of the fleet.
He reached a familiar arch of palms and turned right, starting the long
climb along the weed-clogged path between the trees that led up to the
house. As he gripped his flintlock and listened to the warbling of
night birds and the menacing clatter of land crabs, he reflected sadly
that he was the only man on Barbados who knew precisely what lay in
store. He had received a full briefing from the admiral of the fleet
aboard the _Rainbowe_. What would Anthony do when he heard?
He tried to sort out once more what had happened, beginning with that
evening, now only two days past, when Admiral Calvert had passed him
the first tankard. . . .
"If I may presume to say, it's a genuine honor to share a cup with you,
Master Walrond." Calvert's dark eyes had seemed to burn with
determination as he eased back into his sea chair and absently adjusted
his long white cuffs. He'd been wearing a black doublet with wide white
epaulettes and a pristine bib collar, all fairly crackling with starch.
"And to finally have a word with a man of breeding from this infernal
settlement."
Jeremy remembered taking a gingerly sip of the brandy, hoping perhaps
it might somehow ease the pain of his humiliation. Still ringing in his
ears were the screams of dying men, the volleys of musket fire, the
curses of the Roundhead infantry in the longboat. But the liquor only
served to sharpen his horrifying memory of the man he had killed less
than an hour before, his finger on the trigger of the ornate flintlock
now resting so innocently on the oak table between them.
"The question we all have to ask ourselves is how long this damnable
state of affairs can be allowed to go on. Englishmen killing their own
kind." Calvert had posed the question more to the air than to the
others in the room. Colonel Morris, his face still smeared with powder
smoke, had shifted his glance back and forth between them and said
nothing. He clearly was impatient at being summoned to the Great Cabin
when there were wounded to attend. Why, Jeremy had found himself
wondering, was Morris present at all? Where was the brash vice admiral,
the man who had wanted him imprisoned below decks? What was the hidden
threat behind Calvert's too-cordial smiles? But the admiral betrayed
nothing as he continued. "The Civil War is over, may Almighty God
forgive us for it, and I say it's past time we started healing the
wounds."
Jeremy had listened as the silence once more settled around them. For
the first time he'd become aware of the creaking of the boards as the
_Rainbowe _groaned at anchor. After so much death, he'd found himself
thinking, you begin to notice the quietness more. Your senses are
honed. Could it be even creatures of the field are the same; does the
lowly hare feel life more exquisitely when, hounds baying on its scent,
it hovers quivering in the grass?
He wondered what he would do if the musket on the table were primed and
in his hands. Would he raise it up and destroy this man who had come to
conquer the last safe place on earth left for him? As he tried to still
the painful throb in his temples, Calvert continued.
"I'm a plain-speaking seaman, Master Walrond, nothing more. Though my
father served in your late king's court, watching his Catholic queen
prance amongst her half-dressed Jezebels, I never had any part of it.
But I've seen dead men enough whose spilled blood is on that king's
head, for all his curls and silks."
Calvert had suddenly seemed to remember himself and rose to pour a
tankard for Morris. He took another sip from his own, then turned back.
"And there's apt to be more killing now, here in the Americas, before
this affair's finished. But to what purpose, sirrah? I ask you. We both
know the island can't hold out forever. We've got her bottled now with
this blockade, and the bottle's corked. What's more, I know for a fact
you're all but out of meat and bread, whilst we've made free with all
the victuals these interloping Hollanders in Carlisle Bay kindly had
waiting to supply us. So my men'll be feasting on capon and port whilst
your planters are starving, with nothing in the larder save tobacco and
cane. You've never troubled to grow enough edibles here, since you
could always buy from these Hollanders, and now it's going to be your
downfall." Calvert's eyes had flashed grimly in the lantern light. When
Morris had stirred, as though to speak, he'd silenced the commander
with a brisk wave of his hand, then continued.
"But we're not planning just to wait and watch, that I can promise you.
Colonel Morris here will tell you he's not going to sleep easy till
this island is his. At the break of day he'll commence his first
shelling, right here at Jamestown where he's spiked the ordnance.
You'll see that spot, breastwork and the rest, turned to rubble by
nightfall tomorrow. No, Colonel Morris is not of my mind; he's not a
country angler who'd sit and wait for his line to bob. He's a man
who'll wade in and take his perch with both hands." Calvert had sighed
and risen to open the windows at the stern. Cool air washed over them,
bringing with it the moans of wounded men from the deck above. Jeremy
noted the windows had been severely damaged by cannon fire and
temporarily repaired with wood rather than leaded glass. Calvert
listened glumly for a moment, then shoved the windows closed and turned
back. "But what's the point of it, Master Walrond, by all that's holy?"
"You'll never take Barbados, blockade or no." Jeremy had tried to meet
the glare in Calvert's eyes. "We'll never surrender to Cromwell and
this rabble army."
"Ah, but take you we will, sir, or I'm not a Christian. The only
question is when." He had paused to frown. "And how? Am I to be forced
to humble this place till there's nothing left, to shell her ports,
burn her crops? I daresay you're not fully aware what's in store for
this island. But it's time somebody heard, and listened. I came here
with peace in mind, praying your governor and Assembly would have the
sense to recognize the Commonwealth. If I was met with defiance, my
orders were to bring Barbados to its knees, man and boy. To see every
pocket of resistance ferreted out. More than that, you'd best know I'll
not be staying here forever. There'll be others to follow, and that
young stalwart you met out on decks, my vice admiral, may well claim
the only way to keep the island cooperative is to install a permanent
garrison. Believe me when I tell you he'd as soon hang a royalist as
bag a partridge. Think on that, what it's apt to be like here if you
force me to give him free rein."
Jeremy had felt Calvert's eyes bore into him. "But, Master Walrond, I
think Barbados, the Americas, deserve better." He glanced toward
Morris. "And I'll warrant our commander here feels much the same.
Neither of us wants fire and sword for this place. Nor, I feel safe in
thinking, does anyone on this island. But someone here has got to
understand our purpose and harken to reason, or it's going to be
damnation for your settlement and for the rest of the Americas."
"Then that's what it'll be, if you think you've got the means to
attempt it." Jeremy had pulled himself upright in the chair. "But you
try landing on this island again and we'll meet you on the beaches with
twice the men you've got, just like tonight."
"But why be so foolhardy, lad? I'll grant there're those on this island
who have no brief for the Commonwealth, well and good, but know this--
all we need from the Americas is cooperation, plain as that; we don't
ask servitude." He lowered his voice. "In God's name, sir, this island
need merely put an end to its rebellious talk, agree to recognize
Parliament, and we can dispense with any more bloodletting."
Then Calvert had proceeded to outline a new offer. Its terms were more
generous--he'd hammered home time and again--than anyone on the island
had any cause to expect. The point he had emphasized most strongly was
that Jeremy Walrond stood at the watershed of history. On one side was
war, starvation, ignominy; on the other, moderation. And a new future.
. . .
Ahead the log gables of the Walrond plantation house rose out of the
darkness. On his left, through the trees, were the thatched lean-to's
of the indentures. A scattering of smoky fires told him some of the
servants or their women were still about, frying corn mush for supper.
The indentures' few remaining turkeys and pigs were penned now and the
pathway was mostly quiet. The only sounds came from clouds of stinging
gnats, those pernicious merrywings whose bite could raise a welt for a
whole day, their tiny bugles sending a chorus through the dark. In the
evening stillness the faint stench of rotting corn husks wafted from a
pile in which pigs rooted behind the indentures' quarters, while the
more pungent odor of human wastes emanated from the small vegetable
patches farther back.
He heard occasional voices in the dark, curses from the men and the
Irish singsong of women, but no one in the indenture compound saw or
heard him pass. Ahead the half-shuttered windows of the plantation
house glimmered with the light of candles. It meant, he realized with
relief, that Anthony was home, that he'd lit the pewter candelabra
hanging over their pine dining table.
He stopped for a moment to think and to catch his breath, then moved on
past the front portico, toward the servants' entrance at the rear of
the house. There was good reason not to announce his arrival publicly.
What he had to say was for Anthony, and Anthony alone.
As he passed one of the windows he could just make out a figure seated
at the table, tankard in hand. The man wore a white kerchief around his
neck and a doublet of brown silk, puffed at the shoulders. His dark
brown hat rested next to him on the table, its white plume glistening
in the dull light.
As he pushed on, he noticed that the chimney of the log cookroom in
back of the house gave off no smoke, meaning Anthony's servants had
already been dismissed for the night.
Good. The time could not have been better.