The Saint on the Spanish Main (14 page)

3

Mr. Mark Cuffee’s career, in many respects,
could have been cited as a shining example of the achievement pos
sible to
the emancipated negro; and Mr. Cuffee himself had scathing epithets with which
to describe those who
did not regard it with unqualified admiration.

His father had left the Maroon country to
work in a
rum
distillery soon after Mark was born, and in due
course worked himself up to the rank of foreman. With
visions of still higher employment in mind for
his son, he
sent the boy to school in
Kingston, where he proved to
be such
a brilliant student that at seventeen he won a
scholarship to Oxford. With a benevolent Sugar In
dustries Association supplying the necessary extra
funds, he went to England, where he not only won
his
degree in Law with first-class
honors, but also had time to represent his University both as an oarsman and a
cricketer, and to give a performance in the title
role of an OUDS production of
Othello
which earned such
critical acclaim that he continued it
professionally for a
six-weeks run
in London.

After this brief triumph, knowing full well
the narrow
limit to the number of starring parts available to a col
ored
actor, no matter how talented, Mr. Cuffee with ap
parent good philosophy
turned his histrionic talents
back to the Bar. He was a clever lawyer and a
born vir
tuoso in court; and since for a while he continued to
play
cricket for an exclusive amateur club, he had a social
entree
which in England opens all doors to distinguished
adepts of the
national game, provided they do not play
it for money.

Thus far, his record was entirely
praiseworthy, and all
the auspices pointed to a successful and
illustrious
future.

It is not known at exactly what moment Mr.
Cuffee
decided to turn his back on his good omens and seek
other
goals. One obvious milestone is the occasion when
he became a
Socialist candidate for Parliament in the
first post-war
election, and was soundly defeated in spite
of the general
Conservative debacle. Others would date
it from the time when
a notoriously unconventional
peeress, with whom the gossips had
frequently linked his
name, quite gracefully declined to marry him.
At any rate, within a short space of both these events, he re
signed
from his cricket club, dropped most of his society
friends, and soon
afterwards went on a visit to Moscow,
where he stayed for more than a year.

When he returned he wrote some articles in
praise of
the Soviet system for one of the pinker weeklies, and
became a
vitriolic public speaker against anything he could call reactionary, bourgeois,
capitalist, warmon
gering, or, as a convenient synonym for all sins, Ameri
can. Few
of his former legal clients came back to him, but he was regularly retained for
the defense of Com
munist spies and agitators, and in many other cases
which
could be disguised as humanitarian and used as
sounding-boards for
diatribes against anything that con
travened the current interests of the
Politburo. Although
he by no means starved, he did the dirty work of his new
masters and endured the inevitable public obloquy for several years,
with the strange uncomplaining patience
of a dedicated party
member, until at last the infinitely
elaborate card files in the Kremlin brought forth his
name as the perfect instrument for a certain task,
and he
found himself back in the
wild hills of Jamaica where he
had spent his boyhood.

He stood near the gate of the village of
Accompong,
watching a jeep bumping up the winding rocky road
which the
Government has built from the nearest mar
ket town to the
Maroon territory, a town with the mag
nificent name of Maggotty. He had been watching it
ever since it came in sight, having been warned
of its approach by signals relayed between a chain of outposts
stationed down to where the farthest sentry
commanded
the turn-off from the main
road.

Drawn up in loose formation around him were
two
dozen of his senior followers, whom he had been able to
pick a few
hours after his arrival from information sup
plied by previous
emissaries. By now he was even more
sure of them, for they were linked by
what was literally
a bond of blood. Most of them were clad in faded rags
of
incredible age, and all of these carried machetes, the all-purpose knives of
the Jamaican laborer, which are as long and heavy as a cutlass and just as
handy a weapon.

“Dey only two in de car,” said the
man nearest to
him.

This was one of the few who wore presentable
shirts
and trousers and shoes, and in addition he had on a
bandolier
and a military-style peaked cap with the insigne
of a gold crown
fastened above the brim. Instead
of a machete, he carried a large cardboard
mailing tube
like a staff of office.

“You didn’t expect a platoon of
soldiers, did you?” Cuffee said scornfully. “It’ll be a long time
before they
dare to go that far.”

He himself was dressed in riding breeches
and boots,
a khaki shirt with brass buttons, a Sam Browne belt, and
a sun helmet painted gold and topped with a red plume.
He felt slightly
ridiculous in the costume, but it was trad
itional for the
Maroon chieftain to wear some imag
inative uniform, and the inspirational
effect on at least a
majority of his disciples was too valuable
to ignore. The
pistol in the holster on his hip, however, was strictly
practical and it was loaded.

The road went only as far as the gate of the
settle
ment, and there the jeep stopped. The two men who
climbed
out did not look very formidable, and Cuffee
could feel the rising
confidence of his bodyguard as they
got a closer look at them. The
round-faced one with the
pipe, although sturdy, was quite short; and
his tall companion in the rainbow-patterned shirt was obviously a
tourist.
They were certainly unarmed, and even
Farnham did not look at all official.

“Hullo there,” the short one called
out as they ap
proached.
“May we come in?”

Cuffee stood with his thumbs hooked in his
belt,
aware that his ragamuffin elite guard was watching him
and that much depended on his
first showing.

“You’re Farnham, I believe,” he
said.

“That’s right,” Farnham said, ignoring the insolent
tone of the address and returning the form of it
with imperturbable good humor. “And I suppose you’re Cuf
fee.”

“I’m Colonel Cuffee,” was the cold reply.

In commemoration of the warrior prowess of
their
founding father, the Maroon leaders have always graded themselves by
military titles, and their supreme head is
“The
Colonel.” Farnham received the implied con
firmation of his
fears with hardly a flicker of his eye
brows.

“I’d heard rumors to that effect,”
he said. “Con
gratulations. Well, may we still come in?”

“Are you here on Government business?”

“Just a friendly visitor,” Farnham said cheerfully.
“Mr. Templar here is my guest on the island, and I
thought he ought to have a look at the Cockpit.”

“We don’t want to be gaped at by
tourists,” Cuffee
said. “And for that matter, we don’t
want any more un
invited visitors. There have been too many violations of
our Treaty
rights, and now that I’m Colonel I’m putting
a stop to it.”

Farnham sucked his pipe.

“Well, if that’s the way you want
it,” he said equably,
“I’ll have to make it formal.”

He took an envelope from his pocket and
offered it
across the gate. Cuffee almost put out a hand to accept
it, but
checked himself in time and gave a sign to his
chief subordinate.
The young man in the peaked cap and
bandolier stepped forward and took the envelope.

“Read it aloud, Major,” Cuffee said.

The letter said:

Be it known to all men by these Presents:

As Governor of Jamaica, and by virtue of the
powers
conferred upon me by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, I
hereby
appoint David Farnham, Esquire, my personal rep
resentative, will
full authority to represent me in all matters concerning the Maroons.

Given under the Royal Seal, at Government
House.

“It doesn’t mean much, ” Farnham
had confided to
the Saint, on the way up, “and His Excellency knows
it;
but it may help a bit.”

The young Major read it, haltingly and with
a strong native accent, with the result that some sense was clear both to the
ragged men with machetes and to the Oxford-accented Colonel Cuffee.

Mr. Cuffee felt reasonably confident that he
could make mincemeat of any such credentials in a court of
law, but
he saw a pretext on which to keep face with his
followers and
satisfy his curiosity at the same time.

“On that basis, the free and independent
Maroons
will receive the Ambassador of Her Britannic Majesty—
and his
friend,” he said. “Let them in.”

Farnham ambled through the gate as it
opened, look
ing about him with benevolent interest.

“You seem to be quite mobilized,”
he observed guile
lessly. “I hope you aren’t expecting any
trouble.”

“What makes you think that?” Cuffee demanded.

“I don’t see any women and kids around.
And the
Maroons aren’t usually armed.”

“They’ve always carried machetes,
Farnham. You
know that perfectly well. It’s just like a stockbroker
with
his
umbrella.”

“I was referring,” Farnham said,
“to your gun.”

Cuffee’s right hand touched the holster at
his waist,
and he
laughed.

“This? Just a part of the costume. I think a sword
would look better, but I couldn’t find a good one
on
short notice.”

They walked some distance up a steep rutted trail,
with houses multiplying around them. A few of
these
could have been classed as very
modest frame cottages
with tarpaper roofs, more were box-like unpainted
wooden huts, and many could only be called
tumbledown thatch-topped shacks. From several dark
open doorways, women and children and some men
looked out, but none came out or moved to join the
cortege. Walking beside Farnham, as the Major
walked
on the far side of Cuffee,
Simon could sense the unnatural tension and watchfulness that surrounded them
like a dark cloud.

Presently they reached a broad grassy
clearing with
the habitations set back to its perimeter, which gave it
something of the air of a parade ground. There Cuffee
raised his
hand in an imperious gesture to halt their
straggling escort,
and the four of them moved on a few
steps and stopped again.

“All right, Farnham,” Cuffee said
bluntly. “What’s
really on your mind?”

“Well,” Farnham said mildly, “the Governor thinks
he should be officially informed about who is the
re
sponsible head of the Maroons.”

“You know now. I’m the Colonel.”

“But quite recently, we heard, they
elected another
Colonel.
What happened to him?”

“He’s gone. As soon as the community
Treasury was
turned over to him, he took off and hasn’t been seen
since.”

“Dear me,” Farnham said. “And
nobody knows
where he went?”

Cuffee shrugged.

“I don’t think anyone cares very much
now. The
money was only a few pounds, as you can imagine, and
he’s probably spent it by this time. The man himself was
obviously
unfit for office, and we’re well rid of him.
There was another election, and I was
elected.”