"The Americans!"
He stood rooted to the spot. More horsemen rounded the curve and attained the level heights of the top of the island. He saw the figures of men, running.
"The Americans!" he repeated. He crossed the room fast, seizing his wife by the hand. "We'll greet them!"
Lady de Graaf gathered her skirts in one hand and ran too, at his side. He passed the great front doors which already stood open, and were flanked as usual by the liveried slaves. He went past them, and around and up the great state stairway, to its landing.
On the landing were latticed doors opening out onto a curved balcony. De Graaf led his wife to the rail, between the white columns that rose on past and up. By the time they reached there, Joshua and de Bouille were galloping down the drive. Slowly de Graaf took his watch from his pocket. Then he replaced it.
"We have ten minutes, m'lady," he said quietly.
She had no notion of what he was going to do. At his side was his dress sword. As Joshua and de Bouille stopped under the balcony, still ahorse, he bowed to them.
"Good morning, gentlemen."
Both men slid to the ground. Both bowed to the Governor and his wife. Then Joshua's Virginia accent said breathlessly:
"We have come to help defend the island!"
"There are more of us, m'lord, m'lady," said de Bouille, catching his breath.
"So I see, m'lord," de Graaf rephed. The men were coming across the lawns; the running men had left the road and cut through the fields of sugar cane, the lawns of other homes. They were streaming fast, leaping hedges, while down the drive pounded the horsemen.
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De Graaf stood silent and motionless, unable to speak. He glanced at his wife and saw she was biting her lip, and that there were tears in her eyes. "Don't do that, my dear," he whispered.
She turned toward him and smiled, putting her hand on his arm. But she still refrained from asking him what he was going to do. Surely there could not be any time left!
But there was. Only five minutes had passed. And about fifteen hundred men were massed in the gardens, and down the driveway Captain Black came, ahorse.
He brought his mare to a flying stop under the balcony. "I've garrisoned the fort," he cried. "With three hundred seamen!"
De Graaf reckoned quickly; there were eighteen hundred to two thousand Americans on the island, and most of them here. They would fall into British hands. And it was his fault. He looked past the garden, to the road. The sun shone now, on the marching marines, who were coming for his answer.
He raised his voice. "Yanks."
Cheering interrupted him, as the men waved their muskets, or whatever weapon they had managed to seize in their mad flight to the mansion.
De Graaf raised his hand for quiet. In a moment the men would spot the British marines, coming inexorably onward.
He said, "First I must tell your Captain Black that Amsterdam Fort is completely indefensible. Its guns cannot be fired." From three days ago de Graaf could hear Barney saying, "The visibility is five yards. The guns would crash through to Lower Town."
There was a swelling murmur from the massed men; then it died away, but one voice had said clearly, "Let us try it!"
De Graaf answered this. "I cannot! There are women and children in the towns, the islands. Fort Oranje could not hold out against the heavy guns of the fleet. The British have asked surrender of St. Eustatious and all its possessions, goods, inhabitants. It shall be surrendered to them."
The British marines swung smartly into the drive. The Americans saw them. And de Graaf roared:
"Hold your fire!"
Lady de Graaf held tight onto the balcony rail, watching this curious scene with incredulous eyes.
De Graaf shouted: "They cannot be harmed; they bring a summons!"
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Slowly the Americans moved aside to let twenty Redcoats march solemnly onward, looking neither to left nor right, sun glinting on their shouldered muskets; in perfect formation they came steadily toward the mansion.
American trigger fingers itched. The three British officers walked easily through the press of men.
The officers stood beneath de Graaf, with Joshua on one side and de Bouille on the other. Silence prevailed, as the marines were halted by a sharp command from their sergeant. In the silence de Graaf's voice came again.
"I accept your terms," he said evenly. "As the Governor of St. Eustatious, Saba and St. Maarten, I hereby surrender these islands with everything in and belonging thereto, in accordance with the summons received this morning, one hour ago. Fort Oranje and Foit Amsterdam have been notified."
His voice died away. Then he said, "Now, Yanks! Do what you will! Get going! And remember, though we were friends before, now we are allies!"
De Bouille and Joshua acted instantly, "Rush 'em!" yelled Joshua, hurling himself forward at the first marine, his pistol raised as a club. Before the marine could shoulder his musket, he was felled. Joshua grabbed the weapon.
The twenty marines, engulfed, went down in a matter of minutes. De Bouille had knocked one officer to the ground. He put his foot on his stomach and leaned down to draw the sword from the scabbard. "We always were at war, sir," he reminded, jabbing the Englishman with the point of the weapon. Then de Bouille grinned. He released his prisoner. All the British were disarmed now; a couple lay face down. De Bouille raised the sword high:
"Every man on his own!"
It was exactly seven o'clock. At Fort Oranje, in accordance with instructions sent thirty minutes before by de Graaf, the flag came down. At Fort Amsterdam it came down, too. The Americans within essayed the streets, spreading out through Lower Town, entering taverns, bawdy houses, shops, warehouses. And the first detachments of British marines marched up from the beaches.
What happened next in Lower Town was to make Admiral Rodney livid with rage. His troops, supposedly, were under order to seize and padlock all stores, shops, warehouses, of this surrendered
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island. His marines and the overseas regiments were well-seasoned troops and the first file of marines passed smartly up from the beach. A musket shot felled one of their number, and their lieutenant whirled. The shot had come from the tavern he stood before. He spoke to a sergeant, motioning him to take ten men.
The sergeant approached the door of the tavern and threw it open. A bottle of whiskey caught him full on the head. He dropped. After the bottle came a heavy bar chair.
One of the marines grabbed the chair and heaved it through the window, taking frame and glass with it. The next second it flew back out the door again, and the marine went cautiously to the window and fired. He hit a barrel of beer, and it started to flow forth.
"Free beer, free beer," jeered the Americans within. "Come in and get it!" This was followed by another bottle.
The marines formed a line to rush the door. They pounded into the tavern amid flying bottles and chairs. Tables fell over. Glass littered the floors. There was no time to load muskets; the marines used them like clubs, the sailors used chairs and bottles.
From the Governor's mansion, through Upper Town, more Americans had come, slipping down into the maze of Lower Town before the British could stop them. Only a brief half hour had passed, and it was but seven-thirty, but there were eighteen hundred sailors hiding out in Lower Town. Fifteen minutes later, as more marines landed, the whole of Lower Town was involved in a savage battling brawl, into which all parties plunged with vigor, aided by flowing whiskey, beer and rum, by the screams of the women in the fancy bawdy houses, where whole cases of champagne bubbled and fizzed off British or American heads. It was to last all day and into the night, and the damage ran into thousands of pounds. Not a window was left unbroken. It raged through the streets, the alleys, the houses, the bars. British officers lost control of their men within forty minutes. The brigs were not going to be large enough to hold the culprits. Nobody was going to know what to do with them. They made away with enough liquor to keep the fleet in rum for years. And nothing could stop it; like wild conflagration, five thousand men turned Lower Town into a mad barroom brawl. All that could be said later was: the Yanks started it.