by Robin Lloyd
“Eleanor, I am afraid I had an unpleasant encounter.”
“Yes, indeed,” she said as she examined the bruises on his haggard face. “I would say you did have a bit of unpleasantry. What on earth happened?”
He didn’t answer, and instead continued, now speaking in a louder, more formal voice.
“Allow me, Mrs. Carpenter, to introduce you to my young companion, Everett Townsend, an American ship captain. He has just arrived here in Cuba. He has kindly come to my assistance.”
Townsend bowed slightly as he’d been taught at the Naval Academy.
“Delighted to make your acquaintance, ma’am.”
She acknowledged Townsend with a nod, and a warm smile. She turned back to Abbott. “I am afraid we had to give up your room, Mr. Abbott. You were gone so long. I hope you understand.”
Abbott didn’t reply. The violin seemed to grow louder as Townsend listened. It sounded like Mozart, his mother’s favorite composer. When would it be appropriate for him to bid his farewell? He had done the right thing.
“We have no rooms available, Mr. Abbott. Otherwise I would certainly offer you one. We could, however, provide you with some basic accommodation in the storage area. It would just be for one night until you can find other suitable lodging.”
“No, I must go. I just need a small bag of clothes. I do not wish to trouble you further.”
“Are you certain?” she asked softly. Townsend couldn’t tell if she was sincere or not.
The Englishman nodded.
“Alright then,” she said, “let me have Emma show you where your belongings are being kept. She is entertaining some of the guests at present.” She called out Emma’s name and Townsend heard the sweet sound of the violin abruptly stop. He was about to take his leave when he spotted the young woman gracefully walking through the library. She was a slim brunette, her long, wavy hair slightly pulled back to reveal a high forehead and a thin neck. Her brown eyes were framed by high cheekbones and arched eyebrows. She smiled shyly at Townsend, and he allowed his gaze to linger on her. She was clearly Mrs. Carpenter’s daughter, a much slimmer and prettier version than her mother, but she shared that same purposeful stride and look of determination.
Emma appeared shocked to see the Englishman. She looked at Abbott, and their eyes met. It was just a glance, a momentary gesture made between them. To Townsend, it appeared almost as if they shared a secret. Mrs. Carpenter introduced her daughter to Townsend, and then instructed her to take Mr. Abbott to his belongings.
Townsend was left with the older lady, who led him out onto the veranda where there was more privacy. At first, he was reluctant to say much of anything about himself, but she was persistent. He told her a little bit about his story, his arrival in Havana, how he saved Michael Abbott from sharks off El Morro, their close call on the boat. At the mention of El Morro, Mrs. Carpenter grasped at her necklace, shifting uncomfortably. Her voice was now reduced to a hushed whisper and she leaned closer to him.
“Michael Abbott stayed with us for a month. He’s been missing now for some two weeks. We didn’t know what had happened. Usually bad news travels fast in this city, but we never heard anything. It never occurred to me he would be imprisoned in El Morro.”
Townsend nodded. “That’s what he said.”
“Oh Lord, have mercy. Poor Mr. Abbott. It is probably best that I not hear more of this story. The less I know the better. To tell you the truth, I feared something like this might happen. I was afraid to make any inquiries. I hope you understand, Captain, as a foreigner living in Havana I must be very careful. The Spanish government hears all.”
Pausing for a moment, she then leaned in closer to his ear. “Tell me, am I to believe then that Mr. Abbott is now a fugitive?”
Townsend didn’t reply. He had already said too much. But his face must have given him away.
“Oh, Merciful heaven,” she sighed. “This indeed is disturbing news.” She again fingered her necklace and then turned away to speak quickly to one of the maids. Abbott reappeared shortly afterward. He was carrying a small bundle.
“Shall we go, Captain Townsend?”
Townsend hesitated. Didn’t the man understand he would be heading back to the docks now? He’d fulfilled his promise. Before he could say anything, Mrs. Carpenter spoke up.
“Mr. Abbott, have you considered seeking help from the British consul general? Given your circumstances, it might be . . .”
“No,” Abbott replied tersely. “I cannot do that. I should not say more, but that is not advisable. Thank you, Mrs. Carpenter. I will contact you with a forwarding address. Come, Captain Townsend. We must go.”
A dark cloud came over Townsend as they left the house. Something snapped. He felt he had done enough to help this man.
“See there now, I told you I would get you to your boarding house,” Townsend said, stopping Abbott to look him squarely in the eye. “I have done that. This is as far as I go.”
Abbott’s eyes fell to the ground. Townsend wavered as he looked at the man’s pained face. He started to walk away, but stopped at the sound of running footsteps. He wheeled around to come face-to-face with Emma, who stole a quick glance at him before turning toward Michael Abbott.
“I am so glad I caught you, Mr. Abbott. I wanted to say goodbye. I apologize for my mother. If it were up to me, I would insist you stay. There would be no question. Where will you go?”
“Some of my colleagues in London gave me an address of a safe haven. They may have a bed for me. Thank you for your hospitality, Miss Carpenter. I will always remember you kindly.”
Emma nodded, her eyes lingering on Abbott for a moment before she looked over at Townsend.
“Mr. Abbott is so fortunate, Captain to have you helping him.”
“Well, not really,” the young captain mumbled. “I’m actually just—”
“You are truly a good Samaritan,” she said with a faint smile.
Townsend bit his lip. He almost said he was going back to his ship, but as he looked at Emma he choked back the words, his eyes drawn to her. Her lustrous brown hair and clear olive complexion glowed in the mottled light from the street lamps. Her brown eyes sparkled like river stones, and her smile disarmed him.
She wished them both a good night and went back inside.
Abbott made a gesture to Townsend.
“We need to go!”
Townsend shook his head at first, but then took Abbott’s arm to help him down the steps.
He could hear in the distance the steady beat of rhythmic drums, along with chanting and singing. It was unsettling. He was pleased when they turned away from the drumming, and the music faded in the distance. Townsend kept looking over his shoulder to see if they were being followed. After walking for a half an hour, they arrived outside a looming stone church with a high belfry tower. Even in the shadowy light from the street lamps, Townsend could tell that there was something ancient about it.
“What is this place?” he asked Abbott.
“It is the Church of St. Augustine, a centuries-old monastery now run by the Order of St. Francis. I have the name of a monk I must see. Wait for me.”
Abbott walked into the front door of the church. Townsend was left standing in the shadows of the towering building, staring at the thick arched wooden door framed by ornate stone medieval frieze carvings on the building’s façade. Dusky figures with heavily laden yokes around their necks passed by in silence, the water pails on ropes swinging back and forth like off-tempo pendulums. Dogs barked in the distance. The clanking of wheels on stone announced the arrival of a donkey cart followed by the ghostly shapes of hooded monks. It seemed like he had stepped back into the dark ages.
Then suddenly he heard a crowd chanting in Spanish. He darted to the side and hid as a group ran by. They were all Negroes. He tried to listen. “Avanza, Lincoln, avanza, tú eres nuestra esperanza.”
He translated to himself, “Forward, Lincoln, forward, you are our hope.” He jumped at the sound of someone whispering in his ear in Spanish, “Tell Mr. Lincoln to come free us.” He wheeled around to see who it was, but it was too dark, and the figure had run away. He heard whistles and heavy footsteps running down the street, and he ducked back out of sight to wait for Abbott in the safety of the gloomy walls.
When Abbott reemerged from the wooden door, he looked worried. He shook his head. He leaned against the wall of the dark stone building. Townsend could tell the man needed a doctor.
“What happened?” Townsend asked.
“I was turned away. The man I was looking for was not there. He was out in the community, I was told. I asked if I could wait for him.” Abbott’s voice cracked. “But the padre prior, who was in charge, told me I would have to come back tomorrow. I told him I needed a place to stay, but he just shook his head.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Townsend caught a glimpse of a ghostly bearded face with sharp features looking at them intently through a barred window. Townsend beckoned him, but the mysterious onlooker pulled a brown hood over his head and disappeared back into the darkness behind the barred window.
Abbott groaned, “So thirsty. Need to rest.” Townsend walked with him to a tavern. An awkward silence enveloped the room as they entered. The place was full of a lower class of rough Spaniards, who clearly weren’t accustomed to newcomers. Townsend could feel the cold, furtive stares, and hear the unfriendly whispers in Spanish about los perros Yanquis, Yankee dogs. Once again he heard the disquieting sound of drums.
“What is that infernal drumming?” Townsend asked.
“Slaves, dockworkers,” the Englishman replied. “Around New Years the Spanish allow them to practice their rituals.”
They ordered a bottle of cheap wine from the Canary Islands that proved to be so bitter and brown that Townsend only sipped at it. Abbott downed several glasses. Townsend gave him what was left of the Dover’s Powders from the ship’s medicine kit, and they sat together without speaking until the wine had settled their nerves.
“Mr. Abbott, I would like to know why are you here in Cuba?”
“I told you. I have come as part of an investigation.”
“Of what? Surely you can tell me more? Are you a policeman?”
Abbott paused and fidgeted with his empty glass. Finally he looked earnestly at Townsend.
“Never mind what I am. I have come here at the request of an English widow to investigate the murder of her husband. He was brutally stabbed to death in their house in Havana eight years ago under mysterious circumstances. This poor woman has suffered ever since. Every year for the last eight years on the 31st of August, the day her husband was killed, she goes to our church to pray on what she calls her day of sorrow. Suffice to say, the mission I am on is a righteous cause.”
Townsend said nothing. Abbott almost sounded like a missionary, zealous and principled.
“Eight years. That was a long time ago.”
“Yes, but there is new evidence. Possibly a witness. She begged me to help. She said she is desperate to put this to rest.”
“Presumably the Spanish authorities would want to hear that new evidence.”
“I don’t believe the Spanish want to hear anything.”
“Why?”
The Englishman laughed darkly.
“How can you ask that, Captain, after what you’ve seen already? There is no justice on this island. I have told you enough, Captain Townsend. More than enough.”
Abbott averted his eyes and downed a last drop in his empty glass. They could hear the beat of drums now coming closer.
“Perhaps it would be best to accept Mrs. Carpenter’s offer to stay in her storage area, at least for the night,” Townsend said. Abbott only nodded. The two of them walked out of the tavern to a chaotic scene. Crowds of dancers were leaping in circles, moving like marionettes to the beat of drums. The street was swirling with dark people, lost in a wild frenzy, chanting something in an African language. The warlike drumming was hypnotic, and Townsend was mesmerized as men with conical-shaped hoods over their heads moved toward them menacingly, beating drums made from logs, snapping whisks, and shaking rattles. He thought he heard a shot behind him, but it was only the echoes off the old walls. When he turned back around, he had no time to think before he was swallowed by a mass of muscular arms and bare torsos sweeping him down the street like a fast-moving, outgoing tide.
Townsend looked frantically for Abbott and spotted him trying to push away a man with an African mask. Suddenly Townsend saw the glint of a knife. The hand holding the knife was white. Townsend’s warning shout was too late. Abbott grimaced in pain, and fell to the ground. Another hand grabbed his bag. And then Townsend felt a crushing pain in his head and felt himself falling.
When he woke it was still dark and he was staring up at a sea of concerned faces. The air was thick and ripe with the dusty smells of the unwashed street. Someone was throwing cold water over him. He lifted himself up, and winced at a sharp pain in his head. He was confused. And then he remembered.
“Abbott, where is . . .” he muttered. He looked around and noticed he was surrounded by a pool of blood. He touched his head. It hurt but there was no wound, just a large bump. He touched his stomach, his legs. No sign that he had been knifed. It must be Abbott’s blood he was sitting in. He tried speaking in Spanish. “Mi amigo. ¿Dónde está mi amigo?”
He heard someone call him un borracho Yanqui, a drunk Yankee. A pair of black boots in stirrups came into view in front of him. A uniformed man on a dapple-gray horse blotted out the sky. He heard the shaking and clanking of iron chains.
“¡Póngale grilletes y cadenas!”
“Sí, Capitán.”
Unseen hands picked him up from behind and began shackling his wrists and his ankles.
“Wait . . . What are you doing? What in blazes—” Townsend cried out in alarm. “You have no right!” he shouted as he struggled to free himself. “I am an American. Soy Americano. Capitán de barco. A ship captain. I demand to speak to the American consul general. I have done nothing wrong!”
He felt a blow to the temple. “¡Cállate cabrón!” They put a hood over his head and threw him in the back of a horse cart. His arms and legs were shackled together so tightly he couldn’t move.
“Llévalo a la cárcel,” he heard.
They were taking him to a prison.
4
Dark, stagnant air filled Townsend’s lungs as he paced the floor of his small cell like a caged wild animal. The only window was a grated hole twenty feet above his head. He was what the prison guards called an incommunicado, locked up in solitary confinement. He had no chair, no bed, just the stone floor to sleep on. It had been over a week, although it already seemed like an eternity. He had no way to get word to the crew, or anyone else for that matter. All around he could hear the cries of other inmates, the cursing, and the fighting.
All he knew about his prison was that the soldiers called it the Cárcel Real, the Royal Prison. It was Havana’s main prison. All week the rank smell of raw sewage assaulted his nose. He spit out the rancid food, a yellow starchy mush that had the flavor of mold and made him gag. He cursed the Spanish and lamented his decision to help the Englishman. He started beating the wall with the palm of his hand. He had been a fool. He should have listened to Hendricks when he warned him the man was trouble. It was unbearably hot, and he lay down shirtless on the stone floor to try to sleep. His unsettled mind refused to grant him an escape into the welcome oblivion of sleep. All he could think of were the beads of sweat that meandered down his spine like sap from a tree.
Townsend had demanded to see the US consul general, but the prison officials had laughed and told him he was a filibustero Yanqui, a Yankee filibusterer, sent to Cuba to plot another military expedition, and as a result had no rights. His interr
ogators wanted to know about the Englishman named Abbott, the man he’d helped to escape. At first, they had just asked him questions, but the interrogations had gotten more intense. Every day his handlers tied him to a chair, naked and exposed. They prodded and taunted him, and one of them kept asking him questions. The prison official’s black eyes seemed to seethe with resentment. They wanted to know, what was the Englishman doing in Cuba? Who did he meet with? Who were his contacts? Frightened and disheartened, Townsend told them what he knew, or most of it. He continued to pretend he didn’t speak the language. He lied and said he had no idea what had brought Abbott to Cuba. He could tell they were suspicious. From listening to some of their private conversations in Spanish, he kept hearing the word for liar, mentiroso. It was clear they were referring to him.
To escape the horrors inside the prison walls, he had come to recognize the sounds of life he heard from the outside. In the morning and the evening, a symphony of church bells rang from every part of town, calling people to mass. Even the firing of the cannons from El Morro, marking the beginning and end of each day, had become welcome. But then he would hear the soldiers marching outside, the roll of drums and the firing of guns, and his throat would tighten and he would struggle for breath.
“Listen for the drums,” the chief interrogator told him, his voice full of menace. “When you hear the braying of the trumpets you will know there is one less prisoner on death row.” They reminded him that the Spanish had executed scores of filibusteros Americanos who had invaded the island in 1851, led by the Spanish traitor, Narciso López. “Spain will defend herself against all her enemies, and Cuba will remain siempre fiel a España, forever faithful to Spain.”
To further heighten his unease, his prison handlers seemed to take delight in explaining the other form of capital punishment, death by the garrote. Those sentenced to death were placed in chairs with an iron collar around the throat. A screw is slowly turned from behind, which chokes the person and finally crushes the spinal cord. Townsend tried to shake away these thoughts, but he couldn’t. His palms were moist with fear. He desperately needed to sleep, but like a sudden gust of wind his tangled mind instead took him where it wanted to go.