The King's Exile (Thomas Hill Trilogy 2) (24 page)

It was the first time he had visited Bridgetown, which that morning was bustling. They approached the harbour along the coast road from the north, crossing an ancient bridge over the narrow river which emptied into the port, and entering the main square in which the Assembly House stood. The bridge was a crude construction, originally built by the native Indians who had once inhabited the island and reinforced with stout timbers.

Built of dressed pink coral stone, roofed with grey slate tiles and with tall latticed windows, the Assembly House was by far the most impressive building on the island. A flight of wide stone steps led up to the entrance where four armed guards stood watch. Governor Walrond was taking no chances.

Planters and merchants milled about in the square, exchanging news and concluding business. The Dutch merchants would be negotiating prices for the sugar they had agreed in advance to buy and the planters would be demanding lower charges for its transport to London or Amsterdam. As the little procession of carts followed the road around the harbour to a jetty at the southern end, two or three raised their hands in greeting to Adam.

The harbour was a natural semi-circle with a stone wall built around it and unlike Oistins harbour the water was deep enough for a frigate or trading ship to tie up at the jetty. That morning, a squat vessel was being loaded with hogsheads of sugar. Looking out into Carlisle Bay into which the harbour opened, Thomas saw
three more ships waiting their turn to come in. Down in their holds, frightened men, both black and white, would be waiting to discover their fate. The lucky ones would work for Charles Carrington, Adam Lyte or another like them. The unlucky ones would end up at the Gibbes’s, or worse. Once they were ashore, the men would be replaced by hogsheads of sugar and barrels of rum and the ship would set off back across the Atlantic. Sugar, slaves and convicts were making planters and their suppliers very rich men.

Thomas pointed to the ship at the jetty. ‘There’s a likely vessel, Adam. When you are not looking, I could slip on board and hide.’

‘I wouldn’t recommend it,’ replied Adam. ‘I have met the captain of that ship, who might well be descended from Barbary pirates. He’d steal the shirt off your back and toss you overboard the moment he found you.’

Between the harbour wall and a row of harbour buildings they weaved their way slowly through and around heaps of rope, stacks of timber, barrels, canvas and boxes of provisions. Screeching gulls swooped and fought over scraps of food, spilled sugar and the catch being unloaded from a small fishing boat tied to the wall.

The harbour buildings were mostly wooden and in need of paint. Wedged conveniently between a brothel and the Francis Drake inn, the harbour master’s house stood out as the grandest, with an overhanging upper storey, glazed windows and rendered walls.

The Drake was busy, with noisy drinkers overflowing into the street. Outside the brothel an enormous woman with a red cloth tied around her head and skin the colour of coal sat on a low stool, watching the passers-by. Although its door was closed and its
windows shuttered, the brothel would also be busy. A ship in port would keep both establishments hard at work and with three more waiting to come in, the landlord and the brothel owner would be doing very handsomely.

Thomas’s sensitive nose wrinkled. He smelled sweat, sugar, ale, salt and heat. Barbados had a smell all of its own – thick, sweet and heady. He had noticed it on his very first day on the island and it had never left him. At the Gibbes’s and at the Lytes’ he had grown used to it but here it was different, enriched with the smells of the sea and of a busy port about its business. Thomas closed his eyes and inhaled. The mixture was not unpleasant but he would rather be breathing the cool, salty air of Southampton.

Near the jetty stood two large timber warehouses in which planters stored their barrels of sugar until they were loaded on board ship. It was more practical to do as Adam had done and bring the hogsheads down regularly in manageable numbers than to keep them on the estate.

Gangs of slaves were rolling the barrels out of one warehouse to the edge of the jetty, where they were attached to a hoist and lifted on to the ship. It was work for big, strong men and, glistening with sweat, the slaves were stretching and straining their muscles with the effort. An overseer with a whip stood over them, occasionally encouraging a man to greater endeavour with a flick of its tongue. It was the sugar trade at work. Tons and tons of sugar, free labour and a ready market. Even the Gibbes could do it.

They drew the carts up to one side of the warehouses while Adam went to make the necessary arrangements to have their load stored. He was not long in returning. ‘We’ll have to wait a while,’ he told the men. ‘Stay here and watch the carts. We’ll be in the Drake. Come on, Thomas.’

Thomas jumped down and followed Adam back around the harbour to the inn. They were soon sitting at a table inside with wooden tankards of ale in their hands. Among the drinkers Thomas noticed Robert Sprot. As ever, immaculately turned out and with his battered satchel to hand, Sprot sat alone in one corner, politely tipping his straw hat to any customer or potential customer he recognized. With sailors in port and heavy barrels being carted about, it was as good a place as any to do business. A crushed foot or a broken head and Sprot would be ready with his tools.

‘At least it has not dawned on the Gibbes where you might be. A little surprising considering that I offered to buy you,’ said Adam.

‘Indeed. It would be awkward for you if they did discover where I have been hiding. I should not want you or Mary to be embarrassed.’

Adam laughed. ‘Embarrassed we could manage. Violence would be more unpleasant. And they are a violent pair.’

‘I kept a list of adjectives when I was there. Every ten days I wrote down a new one to describe them. I remember filthy, repulsive and carnivorous. I don’t remember violent but it would have occurred to me eventually.’

‘I do hope you’re not keeping a list about us, Thomas. That too would be embarrassing.’

‘No, no list about the Lytes.’ Thomas paused. ‘Adam, what do you think will happen if Lord Willoughby does arrive?’

‘It’s hard to be sure. Willoughby, by all accounts, is a formidable man and if he carries the commission of Charles Stuart, he will insist on discharging his responsibility. But Walrond won’t go easily. Having swept Bell aside, he won’t be easy to shift.’

‘And Cromwell won’t turn a blind eye either. Until the king
was executed, the island enjoyed peace and prosperity, now nothing but fear and danger. If only—’

There was a cry of alarm from the harbour and at almost the same moment Thomas smelt smoke. Every man in the inn jumped up and rushed outside. The smoke was billowing towards them from one of the warehouses and they saw flames playing around its timber walls.

In the short time it took them to run around the harbour the flames had stretched up to the roof. Several men ran out of the warehouse, their arms over their faces to protect them from the heat and their clothes and hair on fire. Some jumped into the water, others collapsed to the ground screaming. Two quick-thinking sailors found buckets, filled them with seawater and threw them over the burning bodies. Still screaming, the burned men were dragged away.

In seconds the whole warehouse was ablaze and the heat had forced everyone back. Timber walls, timber barrels, rum and sugar fed the flames. There was little anyone could do but watch and hope the fire did not spread to the other warehouse.

Having sensibly driven their carts well away from the fire, Adam’s men returned to join the watching crowd. He and Thomas stood with them. ‘Did everyone get out?’ Thomas asked the man beside him.

The man shook his head. ‘Don’t know, sir. Perhaps not.’

‘How did it start, do you think?’

‘Runaways, I should say, sir.’

At that moment a blazing figure emerged from the inferno and staggered towards them. More torch than man, he stumbled and fell. Thomas jumped forward and threw himself on top of him, trying to smother the flames. It was a vain effort and he would
soon have caught fire himself had Adam not stepped forward with a pail of water and thrown it over them. It was enough to extinguish the flames, and Thomas rolled off.

Adam bent to examine the man, then shook his head. ‘Dead. His face and body burned to cinders. Take him away.’ Two of his men stepped forward, picked up the corpse and carried it off. The coroner would do the rest.

The warehouse was still burning. A gang of men had formed a line to the water and were passing buckets up and down as fast as they could. The man at the top of the line threw the water over the flames but to very little avail. Thomas hauled himself to his feet, checked that the burns on his hands were no more than superficial and wiped his face with his sleeve.

‘Wouldn’t it be wiser to use the water on the other warehouse?’ he asked Adam. ‘This one’s beyond saving but if we dampen the walls of the other, it might prevent them catching.’

Adam nodded, strode up to the man at the head of the line and shouted above the flames. The man immediately moved over to the second warehouse and the line followed him. He threw the water over the walls, heaving it up as high as he could. Soon water was dripping down as if there had been a sudden rainstorm and when a tongue of flame did leap across from the fire, it spluttered and died without doing any damage.

The line kept up its work until the fire had burned itself out. The timber had been so dry and the fire so fierce that it did not take long. A black heap of charred wood and ashes was all that remained of the warehouse; everything in it had been destroyed and at least one man had died. Among those who had thrown themselves into the water there might have been more deaths and gruesome evidence of others might yet be found in the ashes.

Adam and Thomas sat on the harbour wall and gazed at the scene. ‘Are you injured, Thomas?’ asked Adam.

Thomas held his hands out for inspection. In places they were red and raw but nothing worse. ‘Nothing one of Patrick’s salves won’t cure.’

‘It was brave of you to try to save the man.’

‘Brave? Not really. More instinct than courage. Thank God more men were not killed and we saved the second warehouse. Who will bear the cost of the other one?’

‘The Dutchman who owns the warehouses will have to rebuild at his own expense and replace the lost sugar. He will be insured, I expect. Fortunately, I had no more than a few hogsheads in the one that burned.’

‘I wonder if the Dutchman will rebuild in stone.’

‘He will have to after this. His customers will not want to risk another fire, especially with bands of runaways on the loose. No fools, the Dutch. While we strive and strain to plant and grow, pausing only to fight each other, they provide finance, buy our sugar cheaply, warehouse it, ship it, sell it to eager buyers in Europe and pocket the profits. While England has been tearing itself to pieces, Holland has grown fat and prosperous.’

‘What shall we do with the sugar, Adam?’ asked Thomas.

‘I think we’ll take it home and thank God we did not come yesterday.’

They rose and walked towards the waiting carts. As they did so, the black-clad figure of Sprot appeared from the Drake, satchel over his shoulder and making for the group of men who had jumped into the water. Sprot, at least, would be happy. A burned finger or two to remove, perhaps an arm or a leg and he would have had a good day’s work.

The journey back to the estate was sad and silent. Only Thomas had suffered any injury but all were affected. The cost in life and money was great. Indentured man or slave, they were better off with peace and trade than death and destruction, and they knew it.

Mary saw the loaded carts returning and came out to discover what had happened. Adam asked her first to fetch Patrick to tend to Thomas’s hands, ordered the placing of the muscovado back in their own store and then sat down with her to tell the story.

When it was done and Thomas’s hands had been anointed with a thick salve and bandaged with clean cloths, Mary said only, ‘I thank God you are all safe. But we are in danger. If runaways will do this, who knows what else they are capable of?’

‘Where is Charles?’ asked Adam.

Mary blushed. ‘He is asleep. The heat, I fancy, was too much for him.’

THE ATTACK CAME
just before dawn. A sentry in the woods to the north was found with his head dangling by shreds of skin. His terrified replacement took one look, then turned and ran, yelling loudly enough to wake the household and rouse the men.

While sleep was being rubbed from bleary eyes and shaken from fuddled minds, Adam forced some sense out of the man and began calling out instructions. Despite the urgency in his voice the men moved slowly, perhaps suspecting another false alarm. His orders for all weapons to be checked and ready were largely ignored until he and Charles booted the slowest backsides and cuffed the dullest heads into action. By the time the other sentries had returned, red and green platoons were more or less armed and in position and Charles had marshalled black platoon around him in the parlour, where they crouched behind a heap of upturned tables and chairs. Each man with a sword looked eager to put its edge to the test. Charles cautioned them to keep quiet and stay out of sight. Adam took the place of the dead sentry behind a red
platoon redoubt. Mary sat inside with the women and children, huddled together away from the door, while Patrick and Thomas kept watch out of the windows. Thomas’s hands were not up to reloading muskets.