Anthony Walrond reined in his dun mare and stared dumbly toward the shore as he and Briggs emerged from the trees. The night before it had been a melee of muskets, commands, screams; now it was a smoky landscape strewn with lost helmets and bandoliers, and stained with dark splotches where men had fallen. In its peacefulness it made the battle seem scarcely more than a violent dream, a lost episode that existed only in man's flawed memory, not in time.
Battles, he reflected, were always a matter of chance. You plan strategies for days, devise elaborate tactics, try to guess what you would do if you were the foe. But in the end little of it really matters. A man panics, or a horse stumbles, or your musket fails to fire, and suddenly nothing happens the way you thought. It becomes a contest of bravery, luck, happenstance. Whether you win or lose, it's likely as not for reasons you never envisioned.
In a way, last night's episode was no different. Dick Morris and his Roundheads lost more men than they should have. Since they only expected militia at the breastwork, the parapet caught them by surprise. Also, they seemed deceived at first by the feigned retreat, the bird limping and flopping away from her nest to lure the fox.
Except this time the fox suddenly grew wise. The limping bird somehow bungled its part, caused the fox to smell a trap. Which left no recourse but to launch a bloody counterattack directly on the breastwork.
Jeremy. They claimed he was surrounded and taken while reloading his musket. Holding his position. But why? He knew the orders. He disobeyed.
He disobeyed.
Anthony was still gripping the reins, his knuckles white, when Briggs broke the silence. "As usual, it's a good thing I rode over to check. Where're the men? Is that them drinking in the shade, whilst the breastwork is left unattended?" He drew his horse alongside Anthony's and squinted against the sun. "Winston has a peculiar idea of discipline, by my life."
"These men are not a gang of your African cane cutters. He's got enough sense to know he can't work them all day in the sun. I'll wager full half of them would just as soon not be here at all."
"Now you're beginning to sound like him." Briggs spotted the tall seaman walking up the shore and reined around. "And in truth, sir, I'm starting to question whether either of you should be kept in charge of this breastwork."
"Well, after last night, I propose you could just as well put a scullery wench in command here at Jamestown, for all the difference it would make." Walrond was studying the breastwork as they neared the shore. "There's not likely to be another attempt at a landing along here. It'd be too costly and Morris knows it. No commander in the English army would be that foolhardy. Doubtless he thought he'd managed to spike all our ordnance, and he just planned to sit back and shell the settlement here all day today. It looks as if they took a few rounds of shot this morning, but the shelling seems over. I'd guess Winston's lads managed to hold their own."