HF - 03 - The Devil's Own (31 page)

The plantation looked as if the Spaniards had landed and carried fire and sword from one end of it to the next, saving only the houses in an act of unusual magnanimity. For before grinding the canefields must be burned, to remove the possibility of snakes or noxious insects. Thus over a month earlier had the great smoke clouds rolled across the compounds, and the brilliant white sheets become dotted with black wisps of ash, which dissolved into filthy smudges whenever touched. The
house servants had been the first to find their work doubled, as they washed and scrubbed and cleaned.

The fires smouldering, the fields had been assaulted with knife and cutlass. Kit and Passmore had themselves led the van of the charge, while their slaves rolled behind like an army, shouting and cheering, marshalled by the remaining overseers, driven always by the ear-splitting crack of the whip, and followed by the squealing axles of the carts on to which the cut stalks must be placed.

Once this work had been properly commenced, Kit could leave it to Passmore and attend to the factory. For the previous six weeks this had been in preparation, with grease and polish, to take away the rust and the faults which would have accumulated during the growing season. Now it had been put to work. The selected slaves, great strong young fellows, had mounted the treadmill, the signal had been given, the whips had seared their backs, and the huge wheel had started its ponderous turn, rumbling as it did so, setting into motion the rollers and the crushers by a spindle and gear-box, to spread the creaking grind across the morning.

Then it had been time to light the fires. Special fuel had been stored for this purpose over the previous weeks, dried wood and straw. By now the first of Passmore's cartloads were already rumbling down the track from the canefields, heaped with cut stalks, already turning from green to yellow, still showing the scorch marks from the fire; the casualties, despatched from the battlefield, where the dreadful work of execution went on and on and on.

The carts were drawn by mules bred especially for this purpose, up to the raised ground behind the factory, where the giant shutes awaited. Here also there waited another regiment of slaves, controlled and marshalled by Allingham, the second overseer, and armed with spades and pitchforks. These dug into the cane stalks and tumbled them down the shute, smoothed to a treacherous perfection, into the first of the rollers, this one a system of interlocking iron teeth, which seized the cane and crackled it into firewood. This dreadful sound rose even above the whine of the treadmill and the gears, while every so often a stalk escaped, to fall over the side and arrest the process with an almost human scream of to
rtured metal. To discourage
this were four picked hands, for time was not to be lost repairing machinery during grinding. Here was a dangerous job, and Kit could still remember, at his first grinding, the truly human scream which had followed the disappearance of old Charles Arthur's hand and forearm, his fingers caught by the ceaselessly rolling drums.

That poor fellow had died from loss of blood and shock. But then, would he not have been disposed of as useless, anyway?

And soon forgotten, as the mangled cane was thrown out the far side, on to another shute, being forced through another set of rollers, these no more than drums, touching each other as they rotated, which seized the shattered stalks and compressed them, causing the first drops of the precious white liquid which would eventually be sugar to drip into the gutters beneath.

But still the cane's ordeal was unfinished, for there was yet another shute, and yet a third set of rollers to be negotiated, these so close and fine that their squealing creak against each other dominated all other sounds inside the factory. Here the last of the juice was squeezed free, and the stalks were left no more than wisps of useless wood.

Yet not so useless that they could still not be used. A sugar plantation produced its own fuel, its own energy, wherever possible. Beneath the last of the rollers was an immense pit, into which the stalks fell. But here again was a platoon of slaves with pitchforks and spades, for off the side of the pit there led a single channel, to the fires, and in this gully there were carts and sweating labourers. The stalks were loaded on to the carts, and carried along this surely accurate replica of hell to the great furnaces, and there consumed, for once the fires were started they would feed on anything combustible, even still-damp fibres.

This truly was the end of their journey, until they were belched forth to darken the sky as black smoke. But the juice had only just begun
its
travels. The gutters from beneath the rollers and crushers ran down to the vats, huge iron tubs set exactly over the never cooling furnaces beneath. Here the liquid bubbled and leapt, a witch's brew, constantly being combed through with nets at the end of long sticks held by the factory hands. Beyond were more gutters, more cauldrons, more
furnaces, and not until Reed, the factory overseer, was satisfied was the cane juice allowed to flow off into the cooling vats. These were also set over a pit, and these had perforated bottoms. For as the liquid cooled, while the precious crystals would cling to the sides of the vats, the still molten molasses would slip through the sieves and into the fresh vats waiting beneath.

The manufacture, storage, and bunging of the hogsheads was a separate industry in itself, employing another horde of slaves under the supervision of Webster, the carpenter. And always there were the book-keepers, commanded by their head, Burn, a dapper little fellow who wore spectacles, and was never to be discovered without a note pad in one hand and a pencil in the other, listing, evaluating, checking.

Nor was even the complete hogshead the end of the process, for the molasses in turn were drawn off down yet other gutt
ers to yet oth
er vats, and these were kept simmering, while the additives were carefully measured, for Green Grove, like every sugar plantation, manufactured its own rum. Here waited the chemist, Norton, a happy fellow who had to spend most of his day tasting the slowly fermenting liquid; there was more red in his nose than ever came from the sun.

But perhaps Norton was symptomatic of the whole, because, remarkably, grinding was a happy time. There was not a soul on the plantation, from Kit himself down to the smallest Negro boy or girl able to drag at the bagasse, who did not work harder in this month than throughout the rest of the year taken together. And yet, the change from the unending field labour, the making and mending of roads, the back-breaking weeding, the repairs to houses, was itself pleasant, and during the grinding season there was no daily punishment parade. The whips cracked ceaselessly, and the men and women worked until they dropped, but they knew better than to attempt any insubordination or obvious slackness, for the ships were coming, and would be in St John's on the appointed days to load, and the life of a slave, often valuable enough as part of the estate's assets, became trivial if set against any damage to the crop.

From the smallest, to Kit himself. He stood by the vats, gazing at the bubbling liquid, while the heat from t
he fires rose around him. Surely
, when he wen
t to hell, because planters
no less than buccaneers must be destined for hell and he was now astride both professions, he would find it positively cool. And scarcely less
demoniac. He would only hope th
at he found it no less exciting.

He found all of planting exciting. He wondered if, like Morgan, his people had really been farmers before politics and economics had driven them across the sea. The Warners had certainly farmed. So perhaps much of his happiness came from the obvious delight he could see on Marguerite's face, in her entire demeanour, as she watched the crop grow, as she inspected every little ratoon, the name given to the shoots cut from the older plants, which were in turn replanted to provide each successive crop. And then, the climax of grinding.

He watched her coming towards him. Was this the magnificent creature he had first loved on the hill in Tortuga, and in whose slender white arms he renewed his love night after night? She wore only a muslin gown, without a petticoat or a stocking, with no more than a single chemise beneath, and this was more sweat-soaked than the gown itself. They folded themselves together, and wrapped themselves around her legs and her thighs and her shoulders, clung to her breasts, left her all but naked to every gaze. Her hair was invisible, piled on top of her head and lost to sight beneath a bandanna which was itself concealed beneath the wide-brimmed straw hat. Yet sweat dribbled out from the kerchief, and furrowed its way down those smooth cheeks to hang from that pointed, determined chin.

Her fingers were black with dust and grease and dirt. Dirt smudged her face, streaked the skirt of her gown. But she laughed as she approached, and signalled George Frederick forward; if the house servants played no part in the actual grinding, it was their duty to care for their master and mistress. George Frederick carried the inevitable tray of iced sangaree, from which Marguerite now took two glasses, one to hand to her husband. 'The thousand,' she shouted above the grind of the machinery. 'Burn has totalled a thousand hogsheads. By Christ, but we have never reached the thousand before.'

He drank, and felt the chill liquid tracing every vein in his body. 'I promised.'

'And you deliver what you promise.' She stood close to him,
put both arms around his naked waist, as filled with sweat as her own, and hugged him. 'Aye. That you do. Did I not love you, Kit. Did I hate the very ground on which you walk, then I would still be happy that I chose you to manage my estate. Every year, without exception, the crop has grown, and grown, and grown. But a thousand ... if we add every plantation on this island together, I'd wager we shall not find that total. When Papa hears of this, he will go green.' Once again she hugged him. 'Come to the house. We shall celebrate.'

Which they did, often enough. It was part of their life, to find causes for celebration. Often enough, their mutual happiness embraced the entire island. For Marguerite, having spent four years as the wife of a man old enough to be her father, and another year as a widow, considered that she had very nearly been cheated of her true dese
rts as a woman. Now Green Grove
Great House was often enough a blaze of light and laughter and music, and dancing and love-making and scandal, over which she presided with the conscious grace of being superior to everything she overlooked. And with an indulgent eye, as well, to every young woman, such as Mary Chester, a perennial flirt, who sidled up to Kit and invited his arms around her waist. There was no waist around which his arm would stay, save hers. She was the victor. She had claimed her prize on the first morning of their married life, and renewed her claim, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

As a woman, she gratified his every whim, no doubt because whatever he desired appealed to her also. She revelled in his strength and his vitality and his enthusiasm; she loved to indulge in all aspects of her personality. Naked she would sit on his shoulders and make him carry her round their bedroom, her strong slender legs clinging to his neck. Daintily she would lie on his chest, her own body but a whisper against his own muscular frame, and squirm him into endless sexual endeavour. Arrogantly would she hold his arm as they descended the great staircase to greet their guests, or as they rode through St John's to a levee at the Ice House, or an auction at the slave warehouse. And primly would she sit at his side as he delivered judgement or offered an opinion. No one, least o
f all Kit, could doubt that
she was Marguerite Hilton, the Lady of Green Grove. But beyond that, no one could doubt that she was, and content to be, Mrs Christopher Hilton.

And devotedly did she accept her pregnancies, and their results. Anthony had all but cost her life, or so it had seemed at the time, although Haines the surgeon had been content even when her cries had filled the house, and Kit, pacing the verandah, had gazed down on the anxious slaves, who without command from their master, had yet assembled at the foot of the hill.

Praying for her survival? Or praying for her death?

But Anthony was a fine, strapping boy, at eight able to fire a pistol and wield a sword to some effect.

'Is that your determination, then?' Marguerite chided. 'To make him into a soldier?' But always her criticism was softened by that unforgettable smile. 'I agree, dearest. A man should be a soldier first, and whatever else he chooses, after."

And what of a woman, he wondered. But Rebecca was only four, separated from her brother by two miscarriages, each as disturbing as a full birth, each calculated to cause ill temper and disgust, and each, happily, forgotten with the passage of time.

So then, once he had dreamed, and perhaps, without intending or understanding, had even prayed. Once he had thought himself the most miserable and corrupt of men, the most bestial. No doubt, he was still, but if that was the case, and he had sold his soul to the devil, then hell was a long time in coming to claim him, and the interval was sweeter than ever a man had known.

Yet retribution was there, always waiting. It had already overtaken those of Morgan's men who had sought to comb the beaches of Port Royal, much as it had overtaken Port Royal itself; he could remember the horror with which they had heard of the earthquake which had sent that city of sin to the bottom of the harbour he had known so well, and carried thousands of men and women with it. Jackman and Relain, and Morgan's corpse? Poor old Harry Morgan, who had died of cirrhosis of the liver almost as soon as he had taken up his post as Deputy Governor of Jamaica. Who could tell. It had not caught Tom Modyford, who had remained in England
as a landed gentleman. And it had not yet caught Kit Hilton.