"We've got to see those linstocks are never used." He paused and motioned for the men to circle around him. Their flintlocks were still swathed in oilcloth. "We need to give them a little surprise, masters. So hold your fire as long as you can. Anyway, we're apt to need every musket if the Windwards realize we're there and try to counterattack."
"Do you really think we can get up there, Cap'n?" Dick Hawkins carefully set down a large brown sack holding spikes, hammers, and grapples—the last used for boarding vessels at sea. "It's damned high."
"We're going to have to circle around and try taking it from the sea side, which is even higher. But that way they won't see us. Also, we can't have bandoliers rattling, so we've got to leave them here. Just take a couple of charge-holders in each pocket. There'll not be time for more anyway." He turned and examined the heavy brick of the breastwork. "Now look lively. Before they spot us."
Hawkins silently began lifting out the grapples—heavy barbed hooks that had been swathed with sailcloth so they would land soundlessly, each with fifty feet of line. Winston picked one up and checked the wrapping on the prongs. Would it catch and hold? Maybe between the raised battlements.
He watched as Hawkins passed the other grapples among the men, eighteen of them all together. Then they moved on through the night, circling around toward the seaward wall of the fortification.
Behind them the first contingent of volunteers from the Barbados militia waited in the shadows. As soon as the gunners were overpowered by Winston's men, they would advance and help hold the breastwork while the guns were being spiked.
In the rainy dark neither Winston nor his Seamen noticed the small band of men, skin black as the night, who now edged forward silently through the shadows behind them.
They had arrived at the Defiance earlier that evening, only to discover it afloat, several yards at sea. Then they had watched in dismay as Winston led a band of seamen ashore in longboats, carrying the very muskets they had come to procure. Could it be the guns were already primed and ready to fire?
Prudently Atiba had insisted they hold back. They had followed through the rain, biding their time all the five-mile trek to Oistins. Then they had waited patiently while Winston held council with the branco chiefs. Finally they had seen the muskets being primed . . . which meant they could have been safely seized all along!
But now time was running out. How to take the guns? It must be done quickly, while there still was dark to cover their escape into hiding. Atiba watched as Winston and the men quietly positioned themselves along the seaward side of the breastwork and began uncoiling the lines of their grapples. Suddenly he sensed what was to happen next.