HF - 01 - Caribee (25 page)

Edward walked up the beach to Tegramond's hut, for there he saw his father. Tom had dropped his sword, or lost it in the melee. He stood by the hammock which contained the remains of his friend. A sad end for a warrior chieftain. Tegramond had been killed before he could even leave his bed. At the least he had fallen to a bullet wound, and he had not been mutilated. His tooth necklace still clung to his throat.

Belain stood on the other side.
‘It
is done, Captain Warner. We have not lost a man.'

Tom gazed at Tegramond. Perhaps, Edward thought, he recalled the day of their landing, the firm fingers on his shoulders, the uplifted hands pointing at the sun.

Now he felt the presence of his son. His head half turned, and then checked, and instead he gazed at Belain. 'This day will not be forgo
tt
en.'

'Nor should it,' Belain declared. 'This day we have made this island, your island, Captain Warner, a fit place for Europeans to inhabit. Now come, let us rid ourselves of even the memory of these people, saving their women. We shall accumulate all the dead, here in the village, pull down these useless shelters, and pile them on top, and create a funeral pyre which will be seen for miles.'

'And a
tt
ract other Caribs to vengeance,' Tom mu
tt
ered.

'And frighten away other Caribs for al
l eternity,' Belain insisted. 'M
on Dieu, we must look upon this day as a victory. It should be a holiday in our annals, forever more.'

‘In
yours,' Tom said.
‘In
ours it will be a day of mourning.' He looked down at the dead chieftain. Even in his death Tegramond appeared to smile. 'He was a happy fellow.'

'Tom.' Ashton hurried up the beach. 'Ralph has fallen. I would have you come, quickly.'

Tom glanced at Belain. 'You told me we had suffered no casualties.'

'Nor did we. He has been taken ill.'

'Aye,' Ashton said. 'No doubt the heat, and the excitement.'

They ran down the beach kicking their way through the bleeding bodies and blood-caked sand, disturbing mosquitoes rising in clouds above them, and Edward followed. He wondered if he was dreaming, experiencing the most horrible of nightmares.

Berwicke lay on the sand by the water. He had been rolled on his back, and Jarring pillowed his head on his knees. There was blood on Jarring's hands, where he had thrust his weapon clear through the savage who had resisted him. But with these same hands he smoothed the greying hair from Berwicke's brow, and a
tt
empted to fan some air over the dying nostrils. Berwicke's face was no less the colour of blood, and he breathed, but slowly.

'Just the heat, old friend,' Tom said, kneeling beside him.
‘
We shall get you to shelter, and a cooling drink, and you will be well again.'

Berwicke stared at him, his face suffusing even more, until Edward thought it would burst with effort. But he could manage no words, not even a tremor of his lips.

‘It
is a seizure,' Belain said. 'We must bleed him. I will do
it.'

But Berwicke's face turned ever more purple, even as they watched, and the staring eyes grew ever more fixed, and suddenly he was all veins, swollen and still, in his cheeks and forehead.

'By Christ,' Jarring said. 'He is gone.'

'He was an old man,' Belain said.
‘I
am sorry, Captain Warner, I had looked for no such death, today.'

'He was an old friend.' Tom slowly straightened. 'Tegramond was an old friend. They say these things travel in threes.' He glanced at Ashton.

The sailing master chuckled.
‘I
am not yet done, Tom, you may be sure of that' He pointed. 'Someone had best stop the women.'

The men watched the flu
tt
ering skirts coming along the beach. A terrifying awakening, for the women of Sandy Point to discover their men gone. But how much more terrifying for them to come here.

'Edward, you'll send them back,' Tom said
. ‘I’l
l not have your mother see what has happened.'

Edward gazed at the skirts, the drifting hair, and felt his stomach rising into his chest. 'You stop them,' he mu
tt
ered, and ran up the beach, away from the blood and the stench, and the pitiful helpless bodies. He reached the coolness and the shelter of the trees, and checked. Wapisiane knelt there, staring at the village, his face expressionless.

Edward crouched beside him. 'You cannot stay here,' he whispered. 'You must get away, into the interior of the island. Tonight you must come back to the beach. I will have a canoe for you, and you will get away to Nevis. There are no
Indian
s on Nevis, to our knowledge.' Wapisiane stared at the white man.

'Can you not understand me?' Edward asked.
‘I
am sorry for what happened. Sorry. By Christ, there is a profound statement. I would not have had it so. They were afraid. But it is done, now. Nothing can make your uncle and his people come back to life. I would have warned them, but I was too late. Now you must think of your own life. You are the only survivor. They have kept some of the girls, but you are the only male.'

Wapisiane's head remained still, but his eyes seemed to have spread, until his face seemed nothing but eyes.

'Say you will take care,' Edward begged. 'Say you will make your escape tonight.'

'Wapisiane take care.'

'Thank God for that,' Edward said. "We have had our differences, Wapisiane. But I would remain your friend. Perhaps we shall meet again, one day. Until then, here is my hand.'

Wapisiane looked down at the outstretched fingers. 'Wapisiane take care,' he said. 'Wapisiane live. Wapisiane return. War-nah.. . .' he drew his finger across his throat. 'Belain. ...' again the gesture. 'Ber-wicke, Ash-ton, Hil-ton. ...' the finger moved to and fro. 'Gal-ante, and women. Rebecca. Susan.' Now his hands came together, and then moved apart with hurried, brutal strength.

Edward started to protest, and then thought be
tt
er of it
. 'Aye,' he said. 'You are entitl
ed to be bi
tt
er, Wapisiane. Time is our best course.'

Wapisiane stood up, looked down on the white man. 'Edward,' he said. And once again the finger travelled across his throat, but this time very slowly. Then he was gone into the forest.

The fire blazed over the
Indian
village. Additional dry wood had been brought from the forest, and the smoke from the funeral pyre billowed high into the air, up and ever up, for with the rising of the sun the breeze had dropped, and there was nothing to disperse the smoke. And so it rose, in a long column, hundreds of feet into the air, certainly visible from Nevis and Antigua and Montserrat, and perhaps even farther away than that, a signal of the catastrophe which had happened on Merwar's Hope.

Farther down the beach, the white people prepared to bury the first of
them to di
e on the island. They moved in silence, still burdened by the guilt of what they had clone. For how long, how many years, would they carry that weight around their necks?

The grave had been dug by the Irish labourers, who now gathered in a whispering group by the houses, their habitual jollity quite forgo
tt
en. The Irish women were also grouped, gazing at their husbands with new eyes; they had not suspected that the fathers of their children would be men of blood. Rebecca stood by herself, dressed, at her husband's command, in her best gown, the one she had worn to the feast, not a week ago, beneath the broad-brimmed hat which she used to keep the sun from her complexion. It was a man's hat, and served several purposes. Today it kept the tears and
the horr
or which vied for supremacy in her face from being revealed to the crowd. Sarah stood beside her, fingers clutching her mother's skirt. Both women shook, but this day it might easily have been emotion rather
than
the fever which was their habitual companion.

Philip and Edward stood together, close by the grave, and in front of the assembled Frenchmen. Like their mother, the boys had put on what they could find in the way of decent clothing. Edward's shoulders had not been covered in months, and the material felt uncomfortable against his skin. He listened to his father reading the service, in slow and sonorous tones. But Father had spoken no service over Tegramond. He had hurried away from that funeral. He glanced at his brother. Philip had not been present at the massacre, and he watched his father with admiration. Father was a man of steel. And Philip admired steel.

As no doubt did Monsieur Belain, wearing all the lace he could muster, and with his garters dripping jewels of silken splendour from each knee. Monsieur Galante affected a more fi
tt
ing black. But then, Monsieur Galante never wore anything else. And Hal Ashton? He stood by himself, at the foot of the grave. Of them all, saving perhaps Tom, he had been closest to Ralph Berwicke. They had lived next door to each other for several years, and had laughed together, when there had been anything to laugh at, and drunk together, when there had be
en anything to drink, and, to th
eir discredit, despaired together whenever there had been the slightest reason to do so. Now, despite his promise to Tom, he suddenly looked the oldest man present.

Tom closed his Bible, and nodded. The burial party withdrew their ropes, and picked up their spades. Tom remained standing at the head of the grave while the first shovelfuls of earth were thrown onto the silent body wrapped in its hammock. Then he moved forward, to stand in the midst of his people.

'Ralph left a will,' he said. 'Which he entrusted into my keeping.' Slowly he unrolled the parchment.
‘It
is very brief He says, to my oldest friend and faithful employer, Thomas Warner, gentleman, King's Lieutenant in the Caribee Isles, I leave my new hat, that it may shelter him from the tropical sun. All other of my effects that may be worth having I leave to my other old friend, Henry Ashton, Esquire.' He looked up.
‘It
is a good hat. And we have lost a faithful supporter.' He hesitated, staring into their faces, one to the other, slowly, hurrying only when he came to his wife and eldest son. 'This day will long be remembered in the annals of our island,' he said. 'Truly, it is not an event which any of us present may ever forget, nor would I have it so. It was a necessary event. The Sieur d'Esnambuc and myself received information that the Caribs, grown afraid of our too rapidly increasing numbers, had resolved to strike when we slept this coming night, and massacre us, saving perhaps only those they kept for the stake. We chose to anticipate that horror. We are white men
and women, and we are Christian
s. We have a duty, to ourselves, our wives and families, to our descendants, to hold this land, and to preserve our portion in it. It will be said that we acted without honour. I will say to you that we acted wisely. There can be no honour in fighting savages. There is seldom much honour of any sort to be gained in war. I speak now as a soldier, and I have seen my share of bloodshed and suffering. The Sieur d'Esnambuc and myself could not risk the lives of a single one of you, for we are responsible for all of those lives. Thus we acted as we did. But I say this to you. A deed like ours today were indeed criminal, and wasted, and horrible, should we ever discard the fruits we seek. There must be no more enmity on this island, no more bloodshed. Let it be our claim that heat and old age are the only causes of death amongst us, as t
hey were the causes of the death
of my friend here. Let this colony grow, and let Frenchman and Englishman live i
n harmony, here. And let this is
land be the most fertile, as its inhabitants must be the most envied, of any in the world. Thus may we justify our actions for all eternity. For as the Bible truly tells us, out of evil may yet come great good.'

He paused, but he had already lost their a
tt
ention. They gazed not at him, but past him to the left, in twos and threes, and then in increasing numbers, until every head faced the forest, above which the smoke rose in a long column of memory.

Yarico stood there, her hands hanging at her sides, her hair a black shawl on her neck.

'Mon Dieu,' Belain mu
tt
ered.
‘I
had forgot the princess.' -

They watched her move, slowly, down the beach. Then one of the Frenchmen gave a yell and
they
surged forward, reaching for her with hands still hungry in their lust.

'Avast there,' Ashton bellowed.

'Wait,' Tom shouted.

'Arre
tez-vous,' Belain bawled.

Edward drew the undischarged pistol from his belt and fired it into the air. The report brought them up, and they looked over their shoulders, their leader's fingers already at the girl's breast.

'There will be no more of that,' Tom said. 'Of these women, you may take your pick. You will have to draw lots, to be sure, but it is the only way. I'll have no promiscuity. One woman, one man.'

Belain translated for him, and then glanced at him. 'You include the princess in that, Captain Warner?'

The girl had ignored the men who would have a
tt
acked her, and had continued to walk forward. Now she was only a few feet away.

'She must make her own choice,' Tom said. 'She has that right, for the service she has rendered us, for the great loss she has suffered.' He gazed at her. 'Yarico,' he said. 'You must take a man. And live by our laws, now. And be sure of our respect and honour.'

She smiled. Or did she merely show her teeth? Edward watched her in fascination as she approached. Approached? But she ignored him, we
nt up to Tom Warner, and held h
is hand.

'War-nah,' she said.
‘
Yarico.'

Tom flushed, although he was obviously fla
tt
ered. 'You mistake the situation, my dear,' he said.
‘I
already have a woman. Rebecca.'

Yarico glanced at the white woman with total scorn.
‘
War-nah,' she said again. 'Yarico.' She interlocked her fingers and held them to her belly, and then slowly carried them away from her to her arm's length. 'War-nah. Yarico. Son.'

7

The Revolution

There will be a headstone,' Tom Warner said.
‘I
would have you bring marble from England, John. I will give you an inscription.'

John Jefferson fanned himself with the hat he had originally removed out of respect.
‘It
will be my pleasure, Tom. But she scarce needs one. This entire hill shall be her monument. You see it, almost before you see the island itself, at least when approaching from the west. The first lady of Merwar's Hope could scarce wish a be
tt
er memorial.'

The first lady,' Tom said. 'When she died, John, she was the only lady on Merwar's Hope.'

'No doubt. You'd not say that now. She'd have been proud to see thus sight.' Jefferson walked from the grave, across the smoothed earth of the courtyard, past the two great cannon which stared westward over the Caribbean Sea, and rested his hand on the earthen breastworks as he looked down from the fortress at Sandy Point. This was his third visit. He recalled the eager, almost desperate faces which had greeted his first arrival, and the equal hunger for news and food and reassurance which had met his second, two years ago. The colony had been struggling then, and no doubt the trouble with the Caribs had taken its toll of spirit as w
ell as ambition. This was someth
ing he meant to investigate. So many rumours had filtered back to England, not all of them believable. But now... Sandy Point was no longer merely a se
tt
lement. It was not even merely a village. He looked down on a street, stretching back from the beach, unpaved and dusty, to be sure, but none the less a street, lined with houses on either side. These too were in
the main modest, but curtains fl
uttered at the windows, and lines of washing in the back yards, and there were other, larger buildings: Jarring's General Store, half way up the right hand block, with its overhanging porch which was a refuge for thirsty planters on a hot day, and close by, the church, with its bell tower rising above all others; it faced the courthouse—this and the solid, window-less gaolhouse beside it were evidences that there was more lawlessness than religion as yet, but also evidences
that
Tom Warner and his officers were capable of dealing with it. The gaolhouse was seldom empty, although its inmates were mainly the Irish labourers who worked hard, driven to it by the lashes of their employers, and drank and fought amongst each other with equal spirit.

Set at the inland end of the town, where the land rose slightly, was the Governor's House. This was the only two-storeyed dwelling on the island, or at any rate, in Sandy Point. Its floors were fronted by a huge porch, really a continuation of the sloping roof, extending outwards and held in place by six great pillars, small tree trunks in themselves, to give the seaward facing windows shelter at once from sun and rain. The others, like all the houses in the town, were protected by shu
tt
ers, but these were only needed when the hurricane winds blew, and this was seldom enough. The Governor's House was a suitably imposing building; it required suitably imposing inmates. Something else to be investigated.

But the town was only an aspect of Merwar's Hope. The corn fields and tobacco fields spreading away on either side, the ships riding
to their anchors in Old Road, th
ese, too, were no more than aspects of the current prosperity which shrouded the island. Its future lay in the manner in which it had pushed its tentacles farther inland. Hal Ashton had been one of those who had taken advantage of Tom's law that a
ny man who had proved his worth
by three years of labour for the community could go and claim himself a plantation removed from the town. Hal now lived and farmed tobacco five miles up the coast, with his own two-storeyed house and his own fields of corn; he had never married, but he maintained a thriving establishment, with half a dozen Irish labourers and three serving girls, and two overseers to look after the whole;
a small colony in itself. Even more independent was Tony Hilton's plantation on the windward coast, where he held sway
with
his beautiful, silent, red-haired wife. Hilton did not welcome visitors, and indeed it was a full day's journey through the forest and the mountain passes from Sandy Point to the other side. But even Hilton acknowledged the authority of the King's Lieutenant.

Jefferson glanced at his friend. 'Aye,' he said again. 'She would have been proud.'

‘I
doubt that,' Tom said. 'Once....' he sighed. "You'll dine with me, of course, John.'

‘I
was but waiting for your invitation, Tom.' He followed the Governor down the steep slope. 'You do not mount a permanent guard in your fortress?"

Tom shook his head. "We should see an enemy fleet approaching long before they could come within range, and have all the time we need to man our defences. But there are no such things as fleets in the Leewards.'

'Aye. There is too much bloodshed in Europe for even the most vicious stomach; they say that Germany is reduced to nothing be
tt
er than a desert. And the French? You'll have heard our countries are again at war, even if our queen does come from Paris?"

'Harriman told me things were shaping that way. But in Europe. Here we have a treaty with them," Tom
said over his shoulder. 'But trul
y, John, I wonder what Belain was at. They lay around the place
for a year, and then, their sh
ip repaired, they sailed for home."

'All of them?"

Tom shrugged. 'There are some half a dozen, eking out a precarious existence amongst the crabs and the fishes. I have seen no tobacco planted."

'Yet
they
were useful, once,' Jefferson observed.

They were half way down the hill, a good place to pause for a rest. Tom took two rolled leaves from the pocket of his coat, and bent low to escape the breeze as he scraped his flint against his tinderbox. 'Our prosperity. The greatest comfort a man may know."

‘I
'd not argue with that." Jefferson drew the scented smoke into his lungs, expelled it again with a long sigh. 'You'll not find a
gentleman in England without hi
s pipe or his leaf. If he would be a
gentle
man.'

'England,' Tom said, and glanced at his friend. "You'll have been hearing rumours, John. Thus these guarded investigations.'

'When Harriman returned he spoke much rubbish.'

Tom nodded. 'Or much truth. I would know what they say of me in Whitehall.'

"You are very well regarded there, Tom. When you are regarded at all. No doubt you have also heard rumours.'

'Only what you tell me now. But Harriman at least informed me that His Majesty is not in the least like his father, and this can mean nothing but good.'

'You think so
?
’
Jefferson got up, walked to the edge of the path, and looked down on the town once again.
‘I
wish I knew. His Majesty is the most blameless of men, the most affable, too, in his private life. And yet . . . you know that Buckingham is dead?"

'Steenie
? Great God.'
Tom flicked ash from his leaf. ‘I’
d not whisper
this to any man, but you, Joh
n, but I cannot regard that either as bad for the nation.'

'You think so? He was at least a nobleman born, an instrument the King could use for the channelling of popular hatred and discontent. As indeed he was used, and thus murdered.'