And now, to appease Cromwell, I've got to bludgeon them into submission. May God help me.
The admiral of the fleet was a short stocky Lincolnshire man, who wore the obligatory ensemble of England's new Puritan leadership: black doublet with wide white collar and cuffs. A trim line of gray hair circled his bald pate, and his face was dominated by a heavy nose too large for his sagging cheeks. In the dull light of the lantern his thin goatee and moustache looked like a growth of pale foliage against his sallow skin.
His father, George Calvert, had once held office in the Court of King Charles, and for that reason he had himself, many years past, received a knighthood from the monarch. But Edmond Calvert had gone to sea early, had risen through merit, and had never supported the king. In fact, he was one of the few captains who kept his ship loyal to Parliament when the navy defected to the side of Charles during the war. In recognition of that, he had been given charge of transporting Cromwell's army to Ireland, to suppress the rebellion there, and he bore the unmistakably resigned air of a man weary of wars and fighting.
The voyage out had been hard, for him as well as for the men, and already he longed to have its business over and done, to settle down to a table covered not with contentious proclamations but spilling over with rabbit pies, blood puddings, honeyed ham. Alas, it would not soon be. Not from the sound of the island's Declaration.
He lowered the wick of the lantern, darkening the shadows across the center table of the Great Cabin, and carefully rolled the document back into a scroll. Then he rose and moved toward the shattered windows of the stern to catch a last look at the island before it was mantled in the quick tropical night.
As he strode across the wide flooring-planks of the cabin, he carefully avoided the remaining shards of glass, mingled with gilded splinters, that lay strewn near the windows. Since all able-bodied seamen were still needed to man the pumps and patch the hull along the waterline, he had prudently postponed the repairs of his own quarters. As he looked about the cabin, he reminded himself how lucky he was to have been on the quarterdeck, away from the flying splinters, when the shelling began.
The first volley from the Point had scored five direct hits along the portside. One English seaman had been killed outright, and eleven others wounded, some gravely. With time only for one answering round, he had exposed the Rainbowe' s stern to a second volley from the breastwork on the Point while bringing her about and making for open sea. That had slammed into the ship's gilded poop, destroying the ornate quartergallery just aft of the Great Cabin, together with all the leaded glass windows.
The island was considerably better prepared than he had been led to believe. Lord Cromwell, he found himself thinking, will not be pleased when he learns of the wanton damage Barbados' rebels have wreaked on the finest frigate in the English navy.
Through the ragged opening he could look out unobstructed onto the rising swells of the Caribbean. A storm was brewing out to sea, to add to the political storm already underway on the island. High, dark thunderheads had risen up in the south, and already spatters of heavy tropical rain ricocheted off the shattered railing of the quartergallery. The very air seemed to almost drip with wetness. He inhaled deeply and asked himself again why he had agreed to come out to the Americas. He might just as easily have retired his command and stayed home. He had earned the rest.
Edmond Calvert had served the Puritan side in the war faithfully for a decade, and over the past five years he had been at the forefront of the fighting. In reward he had been granted the command of the boldest English military campaign in history.