HF - 01 - Caribee (54 page)

'And will you not lack the men on this occasion, no ma
tt
er how many go with you?
’
asked someone else.

'This time we will be a
tt
acking, not defending,' Edward said. 'The
Indian
s will not anticipate such an action on o
ur part. No white people save th
e Spaniards, and then only on occasion, have assaulted the Caribs themselves.'

'Because it is too difficult,' called a voice. 'And for those of us who are taken, 'tis the stake. Long odds, Captain
Warner
.'

'We are not here to argue,' Tom bellowed. 'Who'll volunteer? What about you Antigua peop
le? Your wives were killed by th
ose savages. Will you not seek to avenge them? Who'll volunteer?
’

To save a French whore and a savage?' Someone mu
tt
ered.

'By God, sir,
I’ll
have your tongue,' shouted one of the French officers who had accompanied de Poincy.

'Save your anger, monsieur,' Tom called. 'For the Caribs. Will you volunteer?'

To save a F
r
ench lady, sir? Why, that I will. And my friend here.'

Two blades. There's a start,' Tom mu
tt
ered. 'Now, come my friends. Who'll join our force?
’

'Force?' someone shouted. 'Four madmen? You brought us this distance to grow cane, Sir Thomas. Not to be eaten by savages. Twas
that
one certain fate you promised would never be mine.'

'Aye,' someone else agreed.' Tis best we all go home to our beds.'

The crowd was already breaking up, talking and laughing amongst themselves, while Edward and Tom stared at them in impotent fury.

'Hold there,' shouted a familiar voice. Tell not lack for support from us, Ted, lad.'

'Brian Connor,' Edward yelled in delight.

The same, your honour. I came as soon
as I heard the sad news. Tis sorr
y I am to bring so few, but I could not leave my people without defence.' Connor forced his way up the sheet, clad in helmet and breastplate, and followed by five of the Irishmen.

'Six men?' Tom asked.

'Good men,' Edward said, and ran down from the porch. 'Brian.' He clasped his friend's hand. 'By God, but it is good to see you. You know our purpose?'

To rescue your lady wife, and the princess. Aye. We'll have a share in that, Ted, even if the lass did put an arrow in my thigh, and through poor Paddy O'Reilly. By Christ, it'll be good to get back to campaigning.'

'With ten men you'll storm Dominica?' Anne Warner asked contemptuously.

Edward hesitated, glancing from her to the men. 'We'll make our plans in the morning, Brian. And I'll be pleased if you two gentlemen will a
tt
end us then as well. For this night you are our guests. But once again, I thank you.'

He walked back under the sweep of the roof. De Poincy waited. 'A sad business, Mr Warner. But you can expect no more from these people. They are colonists who will, we trust, make good militiamen when the tune comes. Not soldiers playing at colonists.'

'You'll take a glass with us, monsieur,' Tom said.

The slaves,' Edward said. 'Would they not fight, if given weapons and promised their freedom?'

'Mon Dieu,' de Poincy said. 'But the young man has gone mad.'

‘I
ndeed, it sounds so,' Philip agreed. 'Arm the slaves? Promise them their freedom? Where would our lives and indeed our profit be in that event?"

'The people would not stand for it, Edward,' Tom said
. 'And to say truth I do not th
ink it would be possible. Our slaves are not yet reconciled to their fate here, and it would be idle to pretend they would fight for us.'

'So, then, admit that you are defeated, and abandon this wild scheme,' Anne Warner said. 'Surely you can see it is an impossibility, now, Edward. More, it is a dereliction of duty. While you stand here dreaming, Antigua lies deserted and undefended. Who can say what forces are already descending upon it? And what of those who survived, and who have abandoned their homes? Should you not be preparing to lead them back, suitably reinforced? I have no doubt
that
you will find volunteers for that purpose. You have been appointed governor. You must accept the responsibilities of
that
honour.'

There was a short silence, broken only by the gurgle of the liquid as Tom Warner poured the wine.

'Your stepmoth
er is right
, sir,' de Poincy observed. 'Chiv
alry is an admirable concept, but as de Camoens has so admirably illustrated, the age is dead, and our gallantry must now be tempered with that due sense of responsibility to others of which Lady Warner spoke.'

Edward drained his glas
s and went to the window. By Ch
rist, what do they know, he thought. What do
they
know of love? What did I know of love, up to yesterday morning? So will she be worth loving, when she is regained? She will have been spared nothing by Wapisiane. And no doubt not by Wapisiane alone. She will have been humiliated a dozen, a hundred times, her body made the receptacle for every insult the
Indian
s can think of. Yet will she still be alive, and living, she will prevent herself from going mad by a single thought, a single hope, that of rescue by h
er husband, by the one man in a
ll the Caribee Isles, perhaps, capable of accomplishing so much.
‘I
have built my life upon the rock which is your determination.' That hope, that dream, that belief, would maintain at once her sanity and her life. To fail such a responsibility would surely be to damn himself forever.

Tom Warner stood at his shoulder, a full glass in either hand.
‘I
'm afraid they are right, boy. We have done all we could. Now it is time to cease being husbands and fathers, and become what we are also, governors and leaders, men of responsibility. I know, and you know,
that
the task of leading involves some painful decisions. Can we truthfully balance two lives against the probable cost of regaining them? Have we the slightest justification for so doing? Have we. . . .'

He checked as the rumble of the explosion came rolling up the shallow lull, and even as they stared through the window into the darkness,
they
saw the next flash and heard the next roar.

'Cannon, by God,' Philip cried. 'We are assailed.' 'With blank shot?' Edward demanded. 'That is an empty charge.'

'But who in the name of God....' Tom led them outside, but the first boats were already ashore, and running up the street came a dozen seamen, led by a short, thickset man
with
a heavy moustache. 'John Painton.'

'None
other
, Tom Warner,' Painton shouted. 'And right glad am I to see you still here, old friend. Edward, is that you? By God, boy, I am truly grieved to hear of your trouble.'

'But how. . . .' Edward squeezed the proffered hand.

‘I
spoke with the Dandy sloop but this morning, while running south, and put all sail on to get here before your expedition left.'

'Expedition?'

Pain
ton frowned. 'You are going after those savages, are you not?'

'Why, such is my intention, certainly,' Edward said.
‘If
it can be done. I will confess I am experiencing some difficulty in recruiting an army.'

‘
You have one, Ned. And a ship. The Plymouth Belle is yours, and its crew. Why, man, I have seventy fighting men there, wh
o only want to sharpen their cutl
asses on some red devil's hide. We'll sail in the morning.'

'By God,' Tom said. 'You are the answer to a prayer, John.'

'A prayer,' Edward whispered. He had not thought to pray. But perhaps Aline had been doing that.

'The answer to a prayer,' Anne War
ner said in disgust. 'To a death
wish, you mean. You go, Tom Warner. Go and spend your life uselessly. Go and the in some fever-ridden swamp. God curse you, Edward Warner, for bringing your troubles down on our shoulders. God curse you.'

The Plymouth Belle weighed anchor at dawn. She carried eighty men, every one armed and equipped to the best standards the Warners could manage, and twelve dogs. Her guns were loaded and spare ball was piled on her decks beside each piece. The sky was clear and the breeze was light and from the north east as she slipped out of Great Road and directed herself to the passage between the Islands.

Almost every inhabitant of the two towns turned out to watch her go, and give her a cheer, even if no doubt the majority of those who stayed behind had li
tt
le faith in the success of the expedition. Yet eighty men was no mean force. Edward stood on the poop and watched
the green land slipping astern
, watched the waving flags, the cross of St George and the fleur-de-lis, flapping in the breeze, the skirts of the women and the waving arms of the men.

His father was beside him. 'Well, boy, do you remember the first morning we stood upon this poop, and watched Guyana dropping below the horizon?'

'Aye,' Edward said. 'What a long, and uneven, road lay ahead of us.'

'You have regrets?'

Edward glanced at him. 'No. I have no regrets, Father. I've done a deal with my life. Not so much as you, perhaps, but then I am somewhat younger.'

Tom Warner pulled his beard. 'Ned, you and I have not had many opportunities of speaking, as men. But these next few days will be a time for manhood, if ever it was needed.'

'Do you doubt our success?'

‘In
the field? Rather do I fear it. You are acting here from an obligation. Tis your heritage, your very manhood, drives you on. Not your heart.'

'My heart is scarcely a relevant ma
tt
er, at this moment,
Father
.'

'But if our expedition is to be truly successful, it wall be most relevant at the end.' He sighed, and pulled his beard some more.
‘It
is too easy to give advice. To admonish. I would but say this, and then I am done. This is a mighty undertaking, and although, believe me, I do not doubt its success for one instant, yet am I too aware that it must cost lives, and perhaps make the a
tt
ainment of peace between ourselves and the Caribs forever impossible. None of these dungs daunt me in the least where the wife of my son is concerned. Yet are
they
of great importance, not only to us, but to our grandchildren. They can only be tossed away to the accomplishment of some even more important end. That end is the prosperity
of you and your family, and th
rough you, your colonists. However Aline conies back to you, Edward, she is the reason for our venture, and your love for her, no less than hers for you, will be the cause of the deaths that will occur. There can be no quibbling with that point. And I will say this in conclusion: However she conies back to you, if you loved her when you married her, three years ago, and when, no doubt, you first made love to her even before that, she will be the sam
e woman now, beneath whatever sc
ars Wapisiane may have inflicted upon her. To forget that for an instant were to make a mockery of this entire expedition. Now I have done.'

He stumped for the ladder, and Edward turned back to lean on the rail and watch St Ki
tt
s dwindle. Now he could see Antigua as well, green on the eastern horizon, just as by looking to the ship's head he could see the peaks of the other islands unfolding, and perhaps, already, even, the greenest of all, the mountains of Dominica. The Caribee Isles. Thomas Warner's grant. This was their dream, to spread over all these green mid fertile isl
ets, to make the Carib ocean in
to an English lake, to succeed, where the Dons had failed, because the Dons had sought only to wring the wealth from the land mid
then
return to Seville and Madrid, where the Warners and
their
people sought new homes. There was the future, and it depended as his father had so truly said, on the quality of the families, on the love of m
an for woman, of parents for chil
dren, on their determination to succeed no ma
tt
er what the odds opposed to them. Only that way could they found a nation.

And as Tom Warner's eldest son, as heir to all this, it was above all his responsibility to lead the way down
that
domestic padi. How much of that knowledge had driven him from the beginning? How much of the certainty that Englishmen mid Frenchmen must be rivals for this paradise had caused him to select before all
oth
ers a French girl as his wife? There was nonsense, sound reasoning after the event. It took no account of flowing mahogany brown hair, of swelling breasts and thin white legs, of that echoing laugh, of the spirit which had created such a rapport with life itself. But to consider those things, now, must be to consider them as
they
were, now, spreadeagle
d before Wapisiane. Would he need four of his men to hold her down? Or would he first beat her into submission? Or would he need to do either? Christ, what a thought. So, when she came back, would there be bruises on her body? There would be bruises inside her body, where his weapon had gone questing. These would not be for the seeing, but his own weapon would know they were there, whenever it sought comfort. And what of the mind? Would he ever know whether she had wept or sighed as Wapisiane had forced her from her knees to her belly to chewing the dust? Would she ever admit that? Or worse yet, suppose with her habitual candour she admi
tt
ed it freely? What
then
? Where does honour and manhood end, and hatred begin?