Winston nodded, then motioned toward Edwin Spurre. "Have the men here carry five barrels on down to the Point, so the gunnery mates can start priming the culverin. Be sure they check all the touch holes for rust."
"Aye." Spurre signaled four of the seamen to follow him as he started off toward the powder magazine. Suddenly he was surrounded and halted by a group of Irish indentures.
Timothy Farrell approached Winston and bowed. "So please Yor Worship, we'd like to be doin' any carryin' you need here. An' we'd like to be the ones meetin' them on the beaches."
"You don't have to involve yourself, Farrell. I'd say you've got little enough here to risk your life for."
"Aye, Yor Worship, that's as it may be. But are we to understand that fleet out there's been sent by that whoreson archfiend Oliver Cromwell?"
"That's what we think now."
"Then beggin' Yor Worship's pardon, we'd like to be the men
to gut every scum on board. Has Yor Worship heard what he did at Drogheda?"
"I heard he sent the army."
"Aye. When Ireland refused to bow to his Parliament, he claimed we were Papists who had no rights. He led his Puritan troops to Irish soil, Yor Worship, and laid siege to our garrison- city of Drogheda. Then he let his soldiers slaughter our people. Three thousand men, women, and children. An' for it, he was praised from the Puritan pulpits in England." Farrell paused to collect himself. "My cousin died there, Yor Worship, wi' his Meggie. An' one of Cromwell's brave Puritan soldiers used their little daughter as a shield when he helped storm an' burn the church, so they could murder the priests. Maybe that heretic bastard thinks we've not heard about it here." He bowed again. "We don't know enough about primin' and firin' cannon, but wi' Yor Worship's leave, we'd like to be the ones carryin' all the powder and shot for you."