"You mean us against all that bleedin' lot up there?" John Mewes squinted toward the dark rise. "There's apt to be half their militia up there, Cap'n, from the sound of it."
"Did I hear you question an order, John? You know ship's rules. They go for officers too." He turned to the other men. "Should we call a vote right here?"
"God's life." Mewes pushed forward, remembering Winston's formula for discipline on the Defiance. He didn't even own a cat-o'nine-tails, the lash used by most ship captains for punishment. He never touched an offender. He always just put trial and punishment to a show of hands by the men—whose favorite entertainment was keelhauling any seaman who disobeyed Captain's orders, lashing a line to his waist and ducking him under the hull till he was half drowned. "I wasn't doin' no questioning. Not for a minute. I must've just been mumbling in my sleep."
"Then try and stay awake. I'm going up there now, alone. But if I need you, you'd better be there, John. With the men. That's an order."
"Aye." Mewes performed what passed for a salute, then cocked his musket with a flourish.
Winston loosened the pistols in his belt, checked the packet containing the sight bills and the other papers he had brought, then headed directly up the rise. The approach to Lookout Point was deserted, but up the hill, behind a new stack of logs, he could see the shadowy outline of a crowd. The barricade, no more than fifty yards from the Assembly Room, was in the final stages of construction, as men with torches dragged logs forward. Others, militia officers, were stationed behind the logs with muskets and were returning pistol fire from the half-open doorway of the Assembly Room.
Above the din he could hear the occasional shouts of Benjamin Briggs, who appeared to be in charge. Together with him were the members of the Council and officers from their regiments. The command of the militia was restricted to major landholders: a field officer had to own at least a hundred acres, a captain fifty, a lieutenant twenty-five, and even an ensign had to have fifteen.
On the barricade were straw-hatted indentures belonging to members of the Council, armed only with pikes since the planters did not trust them with muskets. Winston recognized among them many whom he had agreed to take.
The firing was sputtering to a lull as he approached. Then Briggs spotted him and yelled out. "You'd best be gone, sir. Before someone in the Assembly Room gets a mind to put a round of pistol shot in your breeches."
"I'm not part of your little war."