The King's Exile (Thomas Hill Trilogy 2) (35 page)

THE NEWS OF
Colonel Modyford’s declaration for Parliament was not long in coming and when it did it altered the balance of power, giving Ayscue a small advantage in numbers.

Willoughby immediately sent word to Captain Brown to hurry south with the three hundred men under his command. He did not now have the resources to split his strength and the defending army could no longer hope to hold its line in the south. It withdrew speedily to a position prepared on a plateau between two ridges above Oistins.

From the plateau, Willoughby could look out over Oistins to the sea beyond. Low hills protected his east wing and a sharp drop down to the town protected his west wing and rear. The enemy could only attack from his front. When Thomas had decrypted the message, Willoughby had made sure that he controlled the road from Bridgetown, thus preventing Modyford from cutting off his
withdrawal. Had he been trapped in the town there would have been no escape. Bridgetown and Oistins harbours had to be left undefended, enabling Ayscue to land his troops the following day. He was met by Modyford and together they marched to face Willoughby.

When both sides had assembled, a force of about eighteen hundred men and two hundred horse led by Francis, Lord Willoughby of Parham, faced another with two thousand men and three hundred horse under the command of Admiral Sir George Ayscue.

The armies were encamped in close formation, their horses and baggage trains being held in the rear. Fires burned outside tents, there was constant movement of men and animals and a continual hubbub from both camps. Nearly four thousand men and five hundred horses were making a great deal of noise. Furthermore, their preparations were not being helped by a flurry of unseasonal rainstorms which were turning the ground, already churned up by horses and artillery, into thick mud.

On the second morning, Willoughby sent for his new principal secretary, Adam Lyte and Charles Carrington. The four men met in a cottage behind the Royalist lines, where Willoughby had set up his headquarters. The owner of the cottage had obligingly abandoned it to join Sir George Ayscue, leaving his roof, bed, furniture and kitchen at the disposal of his lordship.

‘Gentlemen,’ began Willoughby, ‘I have taken the unusual step of inviting you here without other Assembly members present because I trust each of you implicitly. Regrettably, I can now trust almost no one else. Thomas is here as my secretary and will record our decisions. And, of course, we may need his particular talents again.’ Thomas, a little self-conscious in one of his lordship’s pale
blue silk shirts and a pair of his embroidered cotton breeches, inclined his head in thanks. Willoughby continued, ‘The very thing we wanted to avoid is now upon us. Modyford has acted in what he thinks are his own interests, without the inconvenience of principle. We are outnumbered and outgunned and we face a battle far out of proportion to the size of our island. There are a little above forty thousand souls in Barbados, of whom four thousand are about to start killing each other. I do believe we are mad.’

‘Put like that, Francis, I do believe we are,’ agreed Charles. ‘Everything that’s been achieved since the Powells first arrived here is about to be destroyed. Peace and prosperity are being sacrificed in the name of politics. Cromwell is determined to take the island at any cost, even that of its future.’

Willoughby looked thoughtful. ‘The question is, should we resist him or should we not? We are unlikely now to win a pitched battle but I have sworn to defend the island in the name of Charles Stuart, our rightful king.’

‘What does Walrond say?’ asked Adam. Immediately after the skirmish at Six Mens Bay, Humphrey Walrond, still licking the wounds suffered from having to relinquish his hard-won governorship, had swallowed his pride and led a troop of three hundred militiamen to support Willoughby.

‘Walrond of course wants to fight. He is not a man hampered by self-doubt or by subtlety of mind. He knows he is right and that as a consquence he will prevail. It is not a view I share.’

‘My lord,’ said Adam, ‘other than the Walronds, I doubt there is a landowner on the island who really wants to fight. Demand for our sugar has never been greater, we are learning new ways of producing it and land values are rising. The last thing we need is for it all to be put at risk.’

‘The king, however, expects me to hold the island.’

Charles looked out of the window. ‘If it goes on raining like this, we shall need ships, not cavalry. It is most unusual for January.’

‘Gentlemen,’ said Willoughby, standing up, ‘we need to think more before acting. Please remain in the camp for the present. I shall have further need of your advice.’

For another tedious day, the two armies faced each other. The rain fell steadily and both camps were rapidly becoming little more than sodden bogs. Water gushed down the hillside while officers on both sides shouted frantic orders to drenched soldiers to get muskets and powder under cover and to protect their cannon with whatever they could find. Cooking fires spluttered and died, miserable soldiers huddled in tents and under trees and horses hung their heads and turned their backs to the wind.

Charles pitched his tent at the rear of the line where the ground was a little firmer. Adam and Thomas were sharing one beside him. Other than try to keep dry and warm, they had little to do. Their sole diversion came from one of the low hills overlooking the plateau, where a group of Ranters, their numbers recently swelled by an influx of new recruits from both armies, were watching the scene unfolding below them.

Lord Willoughby’s camp had been visited by a deputation of Ranters led by Catherine. She and her helpers had used their skills to entice several dozen soldiers up the hill to their camp. The more reluctant of the men had been persuaded by a taste of what life with the Ranters had to offer.

From time to time, their leader started up on his flute and the Ranters, holding hands and singing, danced naked around him.
One of the dancers was the Reverend Simeon Strange. Both the flautist and the dancers appeared impervious to the rain and to the ribald shouts of encouragement from their audience of dripping soldiers.

After two days of rain, Thomas was sure that it could not go on and that they would wake the next morning to a cloudless sky and a blazing Caribbean sun.

But it could go on and it did. It rained all night and all the next morning. By noon, all attempts to keep men and equipment dry had been abandoned and morale had collapsed. Even Colonel Walrond’s troop had been depleted by men disappearing back to their homes and families under cover of darkness.

‘And who can blame them?’ asked Charles miserably. ‘Three days of wretchedness waiting for a battle they don’t want to fight, or a dry bed and a warm wife. Which would you choose?’

‘If this goes on,’ said Adam, ‘neither side will have any men left. Warm wives and dancing Ranters will have taken them all.’

‘I rather think that the Mermaid has also taken some,’ said Thomas. ‘I noticed a party heading down the hill yesterday.’

‘Did you now? Perhaps we should make sure that they haven’t come to any harm.’ Charles sounded more cheerful. ‘What would you advise, Adam?’

‘On such a matter, I would defer to the governor’s principal secretary.’

‘So would I.’

‘In that case, if you care to follow me, gentlemen,’ said Thomas, ‘I will show you the way.’

It’s an ill wind, thought Thomas, as they pushed their way into the Mermaid. Despite the early hour, the inn was heaving with
drinkers, too intent upon getting their mugs refilled by one of the landlord’s cheerful serving girls to notice the new arrivals.

Charles managed to catch a girl’s eye and called for a bottle of their best claret and three glasses. ‘Confusion to our enemies,’ he said, raising his glass.

Adam followed suit. ‘And prosperity to our friends.’

Thomas took a sip and looked around. He saw familiar faces to which he could not have put names and heard voices whose origins he could not have placed. He heard snatches of tales of wet clothing, leaking boots and rotten meat, and watched bedraggled men swallowing as much drink as they possibly could before having to return whence they came.

To his surprise, some of the voices were Scottish. And when he listened carefully, he realized that they belonged to men whom, only two days earlier, they might have faced in bloody battle. Ayscue’s men had also found the Mermaid. He pointed this out to his companions. ‘More Scots,’ said Charles, unconcerned that they were sharing an inn with the enemy and ordering another bottle.

Squashed together as they were, it took no more than a drink and a half before the men of Parliament and the men of the king were happily arguing, comparing conditions in their camps and cursing their respective lots. The Scots complained about the lack of whisky, the English about the lack of beer. When told about the old ‘turkey and shoat’ law, the Scots made a point of shouting Roundhead and Cavalier as often as possible. The Roundheads swore that they were treated worse by their officers than the Cavaliers were. The Cavaliers claimed to be owed months of pay. Within an hour, with but one exception, there was neither a sober nor an unhappy man in the inn.

The exception sat alone in a corner. Having spent the best
part of two days in the Mermaid waiting for news that battle had commenced, Robert Sprot looked less than his usual smiling self. No doubt he imagined that four thousand men trying to kill each other would provide plenty of lucrative work for a skilled surgeon without particular political affiliation, but judging by the mood of these men a battle was now unlikely.

Perhaps, thought Thomas, he’s hoping for a fist fight to break out, providing at least a broken bone or a bloody nose. But there was no mood that day for fighting. These were men who wanted to laugh and drink, not fight. Before long Sprot picked up his precious satchel and left.

The singing broke out soon after Sprot had gone. A tall Scot, encouraged by his comrades, hoisted himself on to a table and launched into a revolting song about the ladies of Fife. He was followed by a fat planter who used much the same words to describe his experiences in Holetown and before long the whole inn was in lusty voice. The singing continued while the serving girls sloshed drink into mugs and glasses, fended off unwelcome hands and collected whatever coins they could from the drinkers.

By two o’clock, however, the Mermaid was deserted. The landlord had run out of beer, wine, ale and rum, and Adam Lyte, Charles Carrington and Lord Willoughby’s principal secretary, none of them entirely sober, had followed grown men splashing like children through puddles in the streets of Oistins, singing as they went and for once not minding the soaking they were getting from above and below. Some walked arm in arm, others held on to each other for support.

When the party reached a fork in the road at the bottom of the hill, one of the Scots was so enamoured of his new friends that he tried to accompany them back to their lines rather than his own.
Only with great difficulty, and a clout on the head with a bottle, was he persuaded by his colleagues to stay with them.

The dripping sentries turned blind eyes to the returning soldiers. Many did not try to locate their platoons but simply lay down under the trees near the cavalry horses at the rear of the camp and went to sleep in the rain. Having reached his tent, Thomas’s last thought before passing out was that men who drank and sang together would not relish blowing each other’s heads off or sticking swords into each other’s stomachs.

The next morning, Willoughby sent for the three of them again. Heads covered, they splashed their way past artillery pieces stuck fast in the mud, abandoned muskets and sodden barrels of powder to his cottage, where they were given breakfast. His lordship had news.

A squadron of six ships had been sighted approaching from the north-east. They were too far away to be identified with certainty but from their look they might have come from Virginia. If so, they were either settlers or reinforcements for the blockading fleet. Lured by the promise of prosperity in a more agreeable climate, settlers from the American colonies were arriving in numbers to start new lives in the Caribbean. Barbados, for its society and its wealth, had become their most favoured destination. But Cromwell might have sent a fleet to take control of Virginia and having done so, it might have had orders to join Ayscue. The squadron had anchored outside Oistins harbour.

‘We must find out who they are,’ declared Willoughby. ‘If they are reinforcements, Ayscue will be even more reluctant to agree a truce. I imagine there is no risk of his being able to attack today any more than we could?’

‘None,’ replied Charles. ‘If anything, he’s even wetter than we are. Modyford’s troops came ill-prepared and have been sleeping in the open. Their rations are poor and if they haven’t drowned, they certainly won’t be up to fighting.’

‘How do you know this, Charles?’

Charles coughed lightly. ‘Information to that effect fortunately came to our notice.’