Jeremy tried to hear the rest, but Anthony's voice faded into the dark as he and Briggs moved on down the parapet.
The night was closing in again. Having drained their flask of kill-devil, the militiamen were grumbling nervously as they waited in a line down the trench, backs to the newly turned earth. Again the sounds of the dark swelled up around them— the chirps and whistles, the monotonous pendulum of surf in the distance.
War. Was it mainly waiting?
Maybe there would be no landing. How preposterous all this would seem then. Tomorrow he would wake in his featherbed, dreaming he was back in England, laughing at the absurdity of it all. Sense would prevail. The fleet would hoist sail. . . .
A volley of musket fire exploded from the direction of the breastwork.
Shouts. Then clustered points of light, the tips of burning matchcord on the infantry's muskets, suddenly appeared along the shore.
The first attackers had crept up behind the cannon and fired into the gunners with flintlocks, so there would be no smoldering ignition match on their muskets to betray them. Those in the second wave had somehow masked their lighted matchcord until their longboats pulled into the surf. Now, after the surprise attack on the gun emplacement, they were splashing ashore, holding their muskets high.
Jeremy watched as the flickering red dots spread out along
the shore in disciplined rows. For a moment he had the impression Jamestown was being attacked by strings of fireflies that had emerged from the deep Caribbean sea.
"Prepare to fire." He heard a voice giving the order, and was vaguely astonished to realize it was his own.