Caribbee - Thomas Hoover

Excerpt: ...Barbados wouldn't fight! In minutes they'd be surrounded by the militia and begging to surrender. As soon as the counterattack began, he would . . . "I think we'd best take this one back to the ship, to find out who he is and if he knows anything." It was the man standing next to the goateed commander. "It's a damned bother to have prisoners to feed, but I'll warrant this engagement's got three days at most to go before they all throw down their arms and sue for peace." "Damn your smug eyes." Jeremy reached down and seized his pike, which had been lying unnoticed against the side of the trench. He turned and faced the commander. "You'll never even get back to your ship. Men died here tonight and they didn't die in vain, by all that's holy." "What say, lad? Pray, who's to stop us?" The commander glanced at the pike, seeming to ignore it. He waved back several infantrymen who had quickly leveled their muskets at Jeremy. "Your bold militia here has taken to its heels, one and all. A bloody lot of royalist cowards." "There're braver men on Barbados than you know. You'll not take me, or any prisoners, back to the ship. You'll see Bridgetown soon enough, all right, at the point of a gun." "Perhaps that's so, lad, but not at the point of a pike. Now put it away. This little engagement's over." The man with the goatee was studying him with admiration. "You're a brave one, lad. Too brave, by my life, or too foolish. . . ." "You don't suppose there's something behind this lad's bluster." The other man turned to the commander. "Could it be their militia might've run on purpose? To thin out our lines for a counterattack?" The shouting had died down now, as strings of captured militiamen were being assembled and placed under guard. Some were joking with their captors, clearly relieved to be out of the battle. Jeremy suspected several had deliberately...