The King's Exile (Thomas Hill Trilogy 2) (30 page)

Thomas turned away, unable to look. A day earlier and he would have got away. Now his ship could not sail. He shut his eyes and tried not to weep. He felt an arm around his shoulders.

‘Mr Carrington has gone to make enquiries, Thomas. There are only three ships. It may not be what it seems.’ There was a catch in Patrick’s voice. But Thomas knew that it was what it seemed. He knew it. And when Charles returned, there was no room for doubt.

‘They arrived last night,’ said Charles grimly. ‘Three here and four at Bridgetown. The harbour master has gone out to enquire as to their purpose. He’ll be back soon. I fear it’s certain, though. Willoughby recognizes one of the ships. It’s a Parliamentary fleet.’

‘It certainly does not look like a fleet of refugees,’ said Mary. ‘So Lord Willoughby’s information was wrong.’

‘I fear so. Either the Dutch were misinformed or Cromwell sent false information to deceive us.’

‘Perhaps he will permit Thomas’s ship to sail,’ suggested Mary. ‘It wouldn’t do him any harm.’

‘I’m afraid not,’ replied Adam. ‘Ayscue will carry out his orders to the letter and if Cromwell has ordered him to blockade the island, that is what he will do. He’s only got two harbours to block.’

‘There’s a rowing boat coming in,’ said Patrick, pointing out to sea. ‘It must be the harbour master.’

When the rowing boat tied up at the quay, however, it carried not the harbour master but a young man in the red jacket and leather breeches of an infantry officer. He stepped ashore and spoke loudly enough for everyone at the harbour to hear.

‘General Sir George Ayscue begs to inform the people of Barbados that he carries the commission of Parliament to assume the governorship of the island and that he intends to do so immediately. The harbour master will be detained on the
Rainbow
until a satisfactory response is received from Lord Willoughby.’ Before anyone thought to stop him, the young officer had jumped into the rowing boat and was on his way back to his ship.

While the watching crowd were milling about wondering what to do, Adam asked Charles to take the others home. ‘There’s nothing to be done here, Charles. I’ll stay and wait for news. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’ He was right. There was no point in their all waiting at the quay. Thomas’s ship would not be sailing that day and they might just as well go home. They climbed into the carriage and left Adam to it.

The journey home was made in silence. Not a word was spoken until they were back at the Lytes’ house. ‘Patrick,’ said Mary brightly, as they stepped out of the carriage, ‘please bring out two bottles of our best hock.’

The hock cheered Mary and Charles up enough for Mary to accept his offer of dinner and to accompany him back to his estate, but they weren’t the ones whose hopes had been dashed. No amount of wine, however good, could cheer Thomas up. He sat in silence, eyes closed, quite unable to speak. Patrick, knowing that words were the last thing Thomas needed, disappeared into the
kitchen and left him to his thoughts. A plate of chicken legs went untouched, as did the coconut biscuits. Eventually, Thomas stirred himself and went to his room. He had not spoken since they left Oistins.

Adam did not return until the next morning. He had spent the night at the governor’s house. There had been some communication between Ayscue and Willoughby and he brought news. Patrick woke Thomas gently and helped him dress. Adam and Mary were waiting for them in the parlour.

‘Charles Stuart did raise an army in Scotland,’ he told them, ‘but it was destroyed by Cromwell at Worcester in September. He escaped and is now back in France. The information the Dutch brought us was entirely wrong. When the Assembly met yesterday afternoon and Lord Willoughby called for a vote on how we should respond to Ayscue’s demand, we voted unanimously in favour of a declaration of support for Lord Willoughby and agreed to resist any attempt by Ayscue to take the island by force. The waverers were won over by Willoughby’s eloquence. He told us that Cromwell had sent his admiral to take control of our island and thereby deprive our king of his rightful dominion but that he had gravely underestimated our loyalty and determination by sending a pitiful armada of only seven ships, carrying barely a thousand men. He reminded us that our strength is much the greater and that we have improved our defences to the extent that any invader would find it impossible to land his troops in any numbers. The members cheered and we voted to authorize the governor to send an appropriate message to Ayscue.’

‘And what will happen now?’ asked Mary.

‘Ayscue will no doubt set up a blockade. Our trade may be
disrupted but the mood of the Assembly is that we will not be dictated to or cowed by the threat of attack.’ He turned to Thomas. ‘Your ship cannot sail while Ayscue’s fleet is anchored outside the harbours. It would be too dangerous. It will have to wait until they leave or an agreement is reached. I’m sorry, Thomas, it’s dreadful news. Let us hope that the delay will be short.’ Thomas did not reply. He no longer dared hope for anything. ‘The estate will carry on as usual. We will store the sugar for as long as we have to. I will be travelling to and from Bridgetown and will bring whatever news there is.’

Mary placed her hand on Thomas’s. ‘You will go home, Thomas, I promise you.’

Over the next week Adam brought more reports. Messages had been travelling to and fro between Ayscue’s ship, the
Rainbow
, and the governor’s house. Ayscue had written a long letter to Willoughby, expressing his dismay that the Assembly had refused his demands and claiming that he did not relish the thought of fighting a man who had once been his ally. Nor did he want to bring destruction to the island; control of its government and its trade were his aims, not its ruin. But if Willoughby and his Assembly stubbornly held out against him, he would have no choice but to land his troops and take over by force.

In reply, Lord Willoughby had pointed out that the island’s defences were strong, Ayscue’s force was easily outnumbered and Barbados could not be starved into submission. What he did not mention was that he had received a demand from a committee claiming to represent the island’s leading landowners that he should meet them to discuss the situation. The committee could not claim to represent all leading landowners because neither
Charles nor Adam was included. Despite this, Willoughby agreed to the meeting, which was hurriedly arranged for two days hence and would take place in the governor’s residence.

What the planters feared most was a long blockade. Sugar sitting in barrels and going nowhere would do no one any good. If they could not ship it, it would deteriorate and lose its value. And there was a problem with storage. Since the fire, they were having to store more of their cured sugar on their estates where rats and cockroaches got at it. The planters wanted action of one sort or another.

When Adam returned from the meeting he told them that the Walronds were demanding that Willoughby attack Ayscue’s fleet. With what exactly was not clear. The others would accept a truce provided they could ship their sugar without hindrance.

‘Is a truce possible?’ asked Thomas.

‘Not while the Assembly supports the governor. With Drax and Alleyne and Middleton gone, there are few voices prepared to speak against him and those that do lack authority. By the way, it seems that both Drax and Alleyne are with Ayscue’s fleet, which makes a truce even less likely. They want their estates back and I for one don’t blame them.’

‘Then what?’

‘Apart from the fact that Ayscue is an old colleague, Willoughby wants at all costs to avoid bloodshed. Nor do we have the means of destroying his fleet. All Ayscue has to do is anchor out of range of our cannon and we can’t hurt him. On the other hand, as things stand he can’t hurt us. An impasse. Is that the right word, Thomas?’

‘I fear that it is,’ replied Thomas, ‘and with no immediate solution in sight. Either Ayscue will be forced to land his troops
and there will be bloodshed or he will maintain the blockade until the landowners force Lord Willoughby to seek terms.’

‘That is true, but Willoughby believes that although Ayscue would prefer not to fight, he will be under pressure from Drax and Alleyne to do something and will try to invade. Then we shall have to defend ourselves but we will not have fired the first shots and we are confident of repelling any attack.’

‘So it’s “wait and see”.’

‘For the present, it is. I wish I had better news.’

The first shells landed in Oistins and Bridgetown four days later. Other than sinking a fishing boat in Oistins harbour and killing a pony tethered outside the Neptune, they did little damage. At the same time parties of skirmishers in longboats landed near Holetown and Speightstown. They too did little damage, concentrating on distributing leaflets to the local people.

Adam showed Thomas and Mary one of the leaflets. It urged the people of Barbados to accept the rule of Parliament and Sir George Ayscue as governor, and warned them of dire consequences if Parliament’s demands were not met. Until Lord Willoughby and the Assembly agreed to stand down the Parliamentary fleet would blockade the ports to prevent any vessels getting in or out.

Thomas waited in vain for a glimmer of hope to lift his spirits. There was none. It might be true neither Ayscue nor Willoughby wanted to fight but Cromwell and the Barbados Assembly were adamant. There would be no compromise.

When Thomas tried to read, he found himself unable to concentrate on the words; when he walked with Patrick he saw nothing; and when he ate he tasted nothing. He knew he was slipping into a deep melancholy but could do nothing about it.

Then there was more news. During the bombardment a merchant fleet of eleven Dutch and three English vessels had arrived in Carlisle Bay. They carried cargoes of horses, cattle, provisions, tools, cloth, muskets and ammunition, and were lightly armed. Ayscue had captured the fleet and taken prisoner all its officers and crew. By a stroke of fortune Ayscue was now equipped to maintain the blockade indefinitely.

Further up the coast larger groups of men were now stealing ashore, making use of the shallow water inside the reef which ran parallel to the coastline and landing on one of the island’s many small beaches. They came armed with pistols and swords, and with more leaflets. The latter they nailed to trees and houses where they were ignored or taken down and put to better use in privies, and the former they used to raid hamlets and villages from Six Mens Bay in the north to Freshwater Bay in the south.

Willoughby responded by reinforcing the garrisons at Holetown and Speightstown but left the bulk of his army further south, where large-scale landings were more likely. It was as well that he did because in the third week of November Ayscue risked a major assault and sent sixty longboats carrying three hundred men to capture Bridgetown. It was a rash move and his force was easily repulsed with the loss of fifteen men.

When the Assembly met the next day, Adam reported that Lord Willoughby had addressed them in confident mood.

‘Gentlemen,’ Willoughby said, ‘Ayscue has attacked us with cannon and sword. He has tried to undermine our spirit with threats and falsehoods. In his notices, smuggled ashore by night, he plants among our people the false idea that it is a small minority of us only who support the king, claims that we cannot resist his force and offers pardons to all who declare for Parliament.
He is preventing us from sending our sugar to our customers in Europe. And now he has attempted a full assault. In all these actions he has met with failure and his latest effort was repulsed with ease.’

But Willoughby’s confidence was not shared by all and William Byam had risen to speak. ‘My lord,’ he replied, ‘it is true that Ayscue has achieved little of lasting consequence although the incursions around Holetown and Speightstown have caused some loss of life and damage to property, and while he is so outnumbered by our forces any attempt at invasion must meet with failure. But should we not have some concern about intrigue?’ Here he had glanced at Thomas Modyford. ‘Are there not some in this Assembly who would argue for an accommodation with Ayscue? If there are, I ask you to call upon them to speak. Better by far that the truth be known than uncertainty bring misunderstanding and mistrust.’

Modyford knew that Byam’s dart was aimed at him and was quickly on his feet. He claimed that in the present circumstances he was in favour of resisting any attempt to take Barbados by force as the island’s strength was more than adequate for it to defend itself. Only if the balance were to change for any reason might it be wise to seek an alternative solution to their predicament.

‘It was typical of the shrewd Modyford,’ said Adam, ‘ruling nothing out and nothing in and giving an opponent little room for manoeuvre.’

It had satisfied the Assembly and the meeting had ended with a resolution steadfastly to continue the defence against incursion or invasion by Parliamentary forces.

Adam, however, having become through Charles’s good offices one of Lord Willoughby’s inner circle of advisers, knew that
although in public he was treating Ayscue with disdain, the governor was privately worrying about what he might do next. Ayscue would not return to England without having at least attempted an invasion and he would have to act soon. Eight weeks was a long time for soldiers to be confined to ships. So heavily outnumbered was he that Ayscue could not risk a single assault and would try to stretch their defences along the coast. And Willoughby was now receiving more representations from planters desperate to load their sugar and see it off to Europe. The blockade had become more serious than he chose to admit.

‘If I were Ayscue, I would attack at two points,’ Willoughby had told Adam. ‘His skirmishes in the north have had some limited effect and he knows where he can land larger forces near Holetown and Speightstown. He might try to take those towns while we are engaged in the south. We will strengthen our defences in the north and prepare ourselves for another assault on Bridgetown. Ayscue will want to take control of the harbour and the Assembly House.’

He decided to send five hundred men to guard the five beaches in the north where landings could be made and asked his old friend Charles Carrington to command them. ‘Put a hundred men with lookouts at each place,’ he ordered, ‘and be ready to move your troops quickly to any point of attack. You will have the advantage of prepared positions and good cover.’