During the forenoon watch he had personally visited each of the troop ships and picked some two hundred of the fittest infantry for the invasion. He had organized them into attack squadrons, appointed field commanders, and held a briefing for the officers. Then the men had been transferred in equal numbers to the Rainbowe, the Marston Moor, and the Gloucester, where the captains had immediately ordered them down to the already-crowded gun decks to await nightfall.
"We'll issue no arms till it's closer to time." Morris squinted at Powlett through the waning moonlight. "I'll not have some recruit light a matchcord in the dark down there between decks and maybe set off a powder keg. Though I'd scarcely fault any man who did, considering the conditions you've placed my infantry under."
"In truth, sir, I think we're all a trifle weary of hearing your complaints about how the navy has been required to garrison your men." Powlett scowled. "May I remind you that while you've seen fit to occupy yourself grumbling, the navy has arranged to replenish our water and provisions, courtesy of all the Butterboxes who were anchored in the bay. In fact, I only just this afternoon finished inventorying the last Dutch fluyt and securing her hatches."
Powlett paused to watch as the Rainbowe began to come about, her bow turning north. She would lead the way along the coast, the other two warships following astern and steering by a single lantern hanging from her maintopmast. Their destination was the small bay off the settlement at Jamestown, up the coast from Carlisle Bay.
"What this navy has done, sir," Morris' voice was rising, "is to seize and pilfer the merchantmen of a nation England has not declared war on."
"We don't need Letters of Marque to clear our American settlements of these Dutchmen," Powlett continued. "They've grown so insolent and presumptuous they're not to be suffered more. If we don't put a stop to them, they'll soon make claim to all the Americas, so that no nation can trade here but themselves. Besides, it's thanks to these interloping Hollanders that we've now got fresh water and meat enough to last for weeks."
"Aye, so I'm told, though my men have yet to see a sliver of this Dutch meat we hear about."
"There's been time needed to inventory, sir. I've had the beef we took cut into quarter pieces and pickled and put aboard the provision ships. And the pork and mutton cut into half pieces and salted. We've got enough in hand now to sit and watch this island starve, if it comes to that."
Morris chewed on his lip and thought bitterly of the noonday Council of War called aboard the Rainbowe. All the fleet captains had gorged themselves on fresh pork and fat mutton, washing it down with fine brandy and sack—all taken from the captain's larder of the Kostverloren. "The treatment of my men on this voyage has been nothing short of a crime." He continued angrily, "It cries to heaven, I swear it."
The infantrymen had been confined to the hold for the entire trip, on dungeonlike gun decks illuminated by only a few dim candles. Since naval vessels required a far larger crew than merchant ships, owing to the men needed for the gun crews, there was actually less space for extra personnel than an ordinary merchantman would have afforded. A frigate the size of the Rainbowe already had two watches of approximately thirty men each, together with twenty-five or more specialists—carpenters, cooks, gunnery mates. How, Morris wondered, could they expect anything save sickness and misery on a ship when they took aboard an additional hundred or two hundred landsmen sure to be seasick for the whole of the voyage? Need anyone be surprised when his soldiers were soon lying in their own vomit, surrounded by sloshing buckets of excrement and too sick to make their way to the head up by the bowsprit, where the seamen squatted to relieve themselves. Scarce wonder more men died every day.