‘At Newbury I saw two armies blasting and hacking each other to pieces for no obvious reason. When they’d finished, the king went back to Oxford and Essex marched on to London. All was much as it had been a few weeks earlier except that several thousand men had been killed or wounded. For such a thing to happen on an island as small and as prosperous as this would be even more absurd.’
‘No doubt you are right, Thomas,’ agreed Adam, ‘but war will not be averted by such sentiments. We need common ground and common sense. Alas, I fear that the Walronds have no interest in either.’
‘Our immediate concern is Thomas.’ Mary smiled at him. ‘And if there is to be bloodshed, the sooner he goes home the better. Have you made any progress, Adam?’
‘Not yet. I have been busy. He is safe here for the moment.’
‘Not only safe. The food is good and the company excellent. Apart from my family, I could not ask for more,’ replied Thomas, thinking that he would trade both for news of Margaret and the girls.
‘None of us will be safe if we’re attacked by runaways,’ said Charles. ‘Now let’s discuss what’s to be done. What arms have you got?’
‘Not much,’ admitted Adam. ‘A few matchlocks, powder, shot, a sword or two.’
‘Right. I shall visit a Dutch friend in Bridgetown. He will equip us.’
‘What shall I do?’ asked Mary.
‘You, my dear, shall be our quartermaster. Or should that be quartermistress?’
‘What does a quartermistress do, Charles?’
‘She lays in ample stocks of food and drink in case of a long siege. She also prepares bandages and splints for wounds and sets aside a room where the wounded can be tended.’
‘Thomas will assist me in planning our defences,’ said Adam. ‘Guard posts, lines of fire, barricades, that sort of thing. What do you think, Thomas?’
‘Of course I should be pleased to,’ replied Thomas. ‘Perhaps Patrick and I could also help Mary with the wounded, if there are any.’
‘Thank you, Thomas,’ replied Mary, ‘I should be glad of your help. Otherwise we might have to send for Sprot.’
‘Couldn’t we recommend him to the enemy?’ asked Charles. ‘He’d soon render them incapable.’
‘What about our men?’ asked Adam. ‘Who will train them?’
‘My job, I think,’ said Charles. ‘I’ll soon have them up to standard.’
‘And I will remain here until the danger has passed. The Assembly will have to manage without me.’
Preparations began immediately. Thomas and Adam surveyed the ground and Charles visited the Dutch merchant who was delighted to provide muskets, powder, shot and swords, and confided that business was brisk. So brisk, in fact, that he thought he might spend a little time in Holland until things had quietened down.
‘Wealthy is good,’ he told Charles, ‘but healthy is better. In Holland I can be both, but here in Barbados, who knows? I must have armed the whole island by now.’
What was more, he had wisely imported a consignment of new French flintlocks which were an advance on matchlocks and wheel locks. He had not been able to obtain any of the new cartridges which came already primed, so powder still had to be measured out and tipped in, but the chances of a misfire were greatly reduced.
Naturally, they were more expensive, but ‘How much is a life worth, Mr Carrington? You’d not want to take a risk for the sake of a few shillings.’ No, Mr Carrington told him, he’d not want to and happily parted with the extra shillings.
Within a week the Lytes’ storeroom was full. Not another sack of flour or salted piglet or box of eggs or churn of butter could be squeezed in. Barrels of water stood in rows in the parlour and turkeys and chickens, newly bought, scratched about in a pen beside the house. Mary had promised that ‘Muskets might kill us, but hunger won’t.’
Having thoroughly inspected the ground, Adam and Thomas worked out a strategy. They would bring in all their men and their families from their quarters and set up fortifications around the house. The men, fully armed and provisioned, would have to sleep in the open. The women and children would be quartered in the house.
While they worked, Adam and Thomas also talked of other things. They spoke of sugar and trade, of king and Parliament, of peace and war. Most of all though, they talked of people. Of men and women, some born to wealth and luxury, others to poverty, misery and an early death. And others still to slavery. ‘If I’d been taken forcibly from my home, shipped to a strange land and worked to death with no hope of ever returning to my family,’ said Thomas, emphasizing the ‘ever’, ‘I too would try to escape. I might even be driven to maim and kill. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life.’
‘I doubt our Africans are familiar with the Old Testament, Thomas,’ replied Adam, ‘and many were born here.’
‘Like Patrick, yes. Well treated, healthy and happy. And unusual. Most are not. They’re here against their will. I almost feel one of them.’
‘Would you join them, Thomas?’
‘Had I still been at the mercy of the Gibbes, I might have. My lot was not so different from theirs. And imagine, if you can, that you had been shipped to Africa to be the slave of an African merchant. What would you have done? Thanked him warmly for his kindness or done whatever you could to escape? Killed him if necessary?’
‘Thomas,’ said Adam with a sigh, ‘I cannot conceive of such a thing. Please tell me that you will help us defend ourselves against those who threaten us.’
‘I will. A man must be allowed to defend himself and his family, whatever the circumstances. And I owe you and Mary my life. That is enough to overcome my scruples.’
When they met again at the Lytes’ house for what Mary now disparagingly referred to as their ‘council of war’, Charles reported first. ‘We have a total of twenty-eight men at our disposal, including indentured servants, loyal slaves and ourselves. Not many.’
‘Twenty-eight willing men are better than a hundred pressed into service. What will they be like when you’ve trained them, Charles?’ asked Adam.
‘Oh, first class, my dear fellow. Highly trained infantrymen and excellent swordsmen, every one. The king would have been proud of them.’
‘Yes, Charles. If you say so.’
‘Oh, come, come. I’ll soon knock them into shape. One look at them and the enemy will turn and run.’
‘I have purchased enough food for fifty men for a year,’ said Mary. ‘If the enemy turn and run, you will have to tell me what to do with it.’
‘And Thomas and I have worked out a defence strategy. Let me show you.’ Adam picked up a stick and drew a square in the dirt with a semi-circle at each corner.
‘This is the house,’ he explained, pointing at the square, ‘and these marks are the redoubts. As you can see, each is in the shape of a semi-circle, giving a clear line of fire all around the house. We’ll set them twenty yards out, which will leave some thirty yards further to the tree line. Anyone trying to reach the house will have to cross open space with fire coming at them from both sides. I suggest we put four men with muskets behind each one with instructions to fire in pairs. That way the pair reloading will always be covered. We haven’t any pikemen to cover them and they wouldn’t be much use if we had.’
‘Excellent, Adam, you should have been a colonel. Or is the plan Colonel Hill’s?’ Charles was enjoying himself. ‘But that accounts for only sixteen men. What about the others?’
‘We’ll need to see how the training goes but I had thought we would keep them in reserve, with orders to fill any gaps that might appear.’
‘A good plan. Casualties have a habit of occuring in battle. Damned nuisance but there it is. We’re fully armed, thanks to my Dutch friend. And so, according to him, is everyone else. He has practically nothing left to sell. Better get on with training the infantry, then. I’ll start immediately.’ Charles sounded as if he could hardly wait.