Kings of the Sea

by Van Every Frost, Joan

  He was very glad to see Stephen, for all that, and they reminisced far into the night, since they were supercargo with no watches to stand. Stephen had been on patrol around the Canary Islands during the Cuban action, and he was now looking forward to meeting the Spaniards at last in the Pacific.

  “Mark my words, David,” he said cheerfully, “we’ll both be full lieutenants and maybe even lieutenant commanders before this is over. Promotions come fast in wartime.”

  What David never knew was that no one in the official naval hierarchy had noticed or cared about David’s Spanish; rather it was Commodore Dewey who remembered a well-constructed plan for the reorganization of the San Diego Naval Supply Depot and asked to have the young ensign responsible promoted to lieutenant junior grade and sent out to his command.

  Though both sets of parents objected, Janice and the children remained in San Diego to await David’s return. “After all,” Janice wrote Katharine, “this is the life that I as well as David have chosen, and I have no intention of running home every time he goes to sea.”

  Chapter II

  “General Aguinaldo, may I present Lieutenant David Hand. I am assigning Lieutenant Hand to you as a permanent liaison officer to aid in the coordination of your forces with ours in the expulsion of the Spanish from Manila and the Philippine Islands.”

  Emilio Aguinaldo, leader of the insurrectionist forces against the Spanish regime in the Philippines, was a slight man with large eyes in a youthful face and a short military haircut. He looked more like a young poet than a revolutionary. His smile was charming. “Am I to understand then, Commodore Dewey, that your naval forces will aid us in the capture of Manila? You defeated their navy so handily that it shouldn’t be so difficult to push them out of Manila.” His English was good, his accent faintly British as a result of his long enforced exile in Hong Kong.

  There was an uncharacteristic hint of hesitation in Dewey’s reply. “As you are well aware, general, it was the United States that brought you back from exile, and we are of course in sympathy with your cause, which is so close to our own, to break forever the Spanish hold upon your country. However, as I have told you before, I am powerless to act in the matter of committing my force to the capture of Manila until the arrival of army troops from the United States. It is now the end of May, and my primary task at present is to blockade Manila until such time as it can be taken and occupied.”

  Aguinaldo looked confused. “But you destroyed the Spanish fleet — with your help we can take and occupy the city immediately. Why must we wait for additional forces? After all, the sooner I set up a legitimate government for the islands, the better.”

  Dewey fell back on a military man’s built-in excuse. “Those are my orders, general, and I have been given no discretion to exceed them.” His tone became persuasive. “Such a delay is not to your disadvantage, after all. If you and we jointly take Manila, the city’s surrender will be almost bloodless, while if you attempt it alone now, the Spanish will fight to the last man and possibly delay you until our troops arrive in any event. This way you lose few men, and the result is assured.”

  Aguinaldo’s confusion turned to simple doubt, but all he said was, “I hope you are right, commodore.” He turned to David suddenly and said in rapid Spanish, “What do you think of all of this? What do you think I should do?”

  David recognized the question as a test. “You should do what you think is in the best interests of your people,” he answered carefully in Spanish.

  Aguinaldo nodded and turned back to Dewey. “What a pleasant and unexpected surprise to find an American who can speak Spanish, commodore. You are to be commended upon your choice.”

  Dewey’s expression relaxed. “After all,” he remarked jovially, “we are not all barbarians.”

  Aguinaldo’s rebel forces were officially encamped at Cavite, but it didn’t take David long to discover that they had in actuality practically surrounded Manila. Day by day they brought in Spanish prisoners captured outside the city until they had imprisoned some twenty-five hundred of them. David himself the rebels made much of, considering the Americans their partners in the liberation of the country.

  “When we take over the church land and divide it among the people, you must be my guest,” Victoriano Marquez, a lieutenant of Aguinaldo’s assigned to David as an aide, was fond of saying. David realized with a wry smile that the people referred to in this context probably meant Aguinaldo’s followers.

  Though he carefully concealed his attitude, David was secretly rather contemptuous of the Filipinos. To him they seemed like careless children, quick to laughter and quick to take offense. He didn’t like the feeling they gave him of being a large, hairy, clumsy giant in the Land of the Lilliputians. Part of the reason they might have seemed so childlike was that they looked like children: small, slender, light-boned. They were full of gestures and drama; if they thought you were angry or put out or disappointed about something, they took your hand and actually patted it comfortingly, which infuriated David, who didn’t like to be touched by anyone.

  Now in late May the heat in the daytime was like a blow. For David, who wasn’t used to it, the climate was especially cruel, for he hated sweating, hated the strong odor of his body. Fortunately there was a beach not too far away where he could bathe in the waters of the bay, for water in the camp was in short supply. He found himself unable to do more than sit quietly in the shade, without energy or ambition, and simply endure the heated humid air that threatened to boil the brains in his head.

  The sun would rise quickly in the morning — no lingering dawns there — and shortly became a brassy disc radiating fierce heat onto the parched paddy fields and drooping coconut palms, yellowing the twelve-foot-high stands of cogon grass, reflecting painfully even from the broad leaves of the banyan trees. The streambeds were cracked dry mud, only the largest still with a trickle of brown water down the middle. In the afternoons the wind came up, a hot, dirty wind laden with dust off the sere fields, drying and cracking the lips, laying a film of dirt everywhere. The nights were cooler, only in the eighties, but the air became infested with all manner of flying, crawling, stinging insects that banished what little sleep the steamy air allowed, and sometimes he would waken in sheets wringing wet with his sweat — no one used blankets. It wasn’t long before David gave up his uniform with its heavy cloth and high stiff collar for the loose shirts and thin cotton pants that Victoriano had made for him.

  Victoriano questioned him tactfully one day as to whether he would like to have a woman.

  “I have never bought a woman, and I’m not going to start now,” David said shortly. As a matter of fact, he had been surprised to discover that even the desultory lovemaking he and Janice had shared left an empty place now that he couldn’t have it, and several times he had wakened in disgust to find himself wet and sticky with semen as well as sweat.

  “Oh no, this lady is not for sale, David.” That was another characteristic of these people David could do without, to become very informal and friendly upon quite short acquaintance. Victoriano pronounced his name “Dah-veed,” of course. “She was for a time the mistress of a previous British consul, and until recently was kept by a Spanish general. You are fortunate, for she has declared herself curious about the Americans.”

  “Well, I’m not curious about her,” David snapped. “I am a happily married man and have no intention of taking a mistress.”

  “Ah, but you don’t understand,” Victoriano said unhappily. “She does not want to be paid, she only wishes to serve you. She has more money now than she knows what to do with. And she is very beautiful,” he added slyly.

  “I don’t care to discuss it further.”

  Victoriano protested, “Continence for too long a period of time is very bad for a man’s constitution. It is likely to make you not only sterile but constipated as well.” He took David’s hand and patted it.

  David had to laugh, though he pulled his hand away. “Surely this paragon doesn’t liv
e here in the camp.”

  Victoriano brightened. His fish was nibbling at the bait. “Of course not. She has a gracious country house not far from here. Emilio sees to it that she is protected, for when she was still kept by the Spanish general she passed on to us a great deal of information.”

  David laughed again. “And you hope that she will do the same with me?”

  Victoriano put on an expression of injured innocence. “How could you suggest such a thing? It is only that you are a valued ally and we wish you to be happy and content with us.” He shrugged. “And how can a man be happy and content if he has no woman?”

  David was curious now, he had to admit. He would hardly be committing himself if he merely met the lady. He had an idea that she would look like so many of the other Filipino women he had seen, small, brown, birdlike, their constant grinning exposing a mouthful of red, betel-stained teeth. “All right, Victoriano, whenever you like I am ready to meet her, but I’m not agreeing to anything more, is that understood?”

  Victoriano nodded eagerly. “That is all I ask, that you meet her. What you and she do after that is none of my business,” he said piously.

  Late that afternoon they mounted two of the little native ponies and rode out of camp. The sun was making its quick tropical disappearance as they finally rode down a drive lined with coconut palms. The wind had dropped as usual just before sunset, and the air was hot, moist, and so still they might have been riding underwater. The orange globes of fruit on a grove just beyond the palms glowed almost luminously in the falling dusk. Around a bend they came on a straight drive that led to a large white house gleaming under the darkening sky. Victoriano pulled up.

  “Here is where I leave you.”

  “Wait a minute! You didn’t say you weren’t coming with me. What if I don’t like her?”

  “You can always leave,” Victoriano said simply. “You know the way back.”

  David felt panicked and angry. He had the choice of losing face by admitting he was afraid and turning back with Victoriano, or going ahead to a meeting that would be very awkward to leave. With a muttered oath and no farewell to Victoriano, who grinned and waved anyway, he dug his heels into his pony’s sides and trotted the rest of the way up the drive. He looped the horse’s reins over a brass hitching post and noisily mounted the wooden steps.

  As he approached the door, it opened to reveal a Filipino girl so young that he was sure she couldn’t be the lady in question. He hesitated. Damm it, Victoriano hadn’t even told him the woman’s name. “Is the senora in?” he asked in Spanish. “Tell her it is Lieutenant Hand of the American navy calling.”

  The girl gave him a quick, shy smile and beckoned him in. The entrance hall reminded him of some of the houses he had seen in Virginia and Maryland, all golden polished wood and a broad stairway to the second floor. The girl opened another door and silently motioned for him to enter.

  Seated on a sofa in front of a dark fireplace was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Her skin was palest coffee, her eyes dark glistening pools under their plucked eyebrows, her nose impossibly straight, her mouth sensual, her teeth perfect. The hair that swept up off her brow and was caught high behind before cascading down nearly to her waist was blue-black. When she rose to greet him, he saw that she was dressed in a stunning long blue-green sheath slit up one side in the style of the Chinese such as he had seen in Hong Kong. The sheath had a high neck but clung to the outline of breasts and thighs belonging to a small but perfect figure. She was barefoot, and came only to his chest.

  “Good evening, Lieutenant Hand,” she said in very good English. “I am so glad you came.”

  “You have the advantage of me, I’m afraid,” he answered ruefully. “Victoriano never told me your name.”

  She smiled. “May I present myself then? Meet Senora Ofelia Velasquez de Martinez. My husband fought alongside Jose Rizal’s brother Pasciano when he wrested Laguna Province from the Spaniards. Pasciano survived, but my husband, Enrique, did not. I have been partial to the rebel cause ever since.”

  David bowed. He felt as if he were in some kind of dream. The beautiful woman with the romantic, tragic past, the graceful house, the summons to him of all people. “I am honored,” he said helplessly, not having the faintest idea where to go from there.

  “Did you know you are a very handsome man, lieutenant? Come, sit down here and talk to me.” She sat down again on the sofa. The light from the oil lamp gave a warm glow to her skin.

  He smiled. “What am I supposed to say to that? If I say I didn’t know I was a handsome man, you would accuse me of false modesty, and if I said I did, you would think I was vain.” He sat down gingerly.

  This time she laughed. “You’ve got something of a sense of humor, anyway. Victoriano said you were very serious.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be serious with Victoriano? He’s not a beautiful woman.”

  “You surprise me. I thought all Americans were supposed to be rude clods.”

  “I thought all Filipino ladies chewed betel nut.”

  “Touché. I deserved that. Tell me, David — I may call you David, mayn’t I? — why has your admiral sent you to Emilio Aguinaldo?”

  “Because we are on the same side and it helps to have a liaison between the rebels and the Americans. I’m surprised Aguinaldo didn’t leave one of his men on the Olympia Dewey is a commodore, by the way, not an admiral.”

  “Not anymore. Your president made him an admiral.”

  “Perhaps you have more liaison with the fleet than I thought.”

  She looked at him steadily. “Perhaps I do.”

  She clapped her hands then, and almost immediately a slender Filipino boy came in with a tray containing two exotic-looking drinks, apricot-colored with sprigs of green mint leaves nodding over the brim. When David tasted his he found that it was made of fruit juices unfamiliar to him and some kind of liquor.

  At his questioning glance, Ofelia said, “We grow mangos, oranges, papayas, and pineapples right here on the estate. This is a mixture of these juices with a base of rum. Do you like it?”

  He nodded enthusiastically. The constant heat wrung liquid out of him by the pint, and he was thirsty all the time. The cool fruit juice seemed to him the sweetest drink he had ever tasted, and he was sorry when it was finished. He found himself chatting away to Ofelia as if he had known her for years, quite unlike his usual taciturn self. Somehow another drink was in his hand, and when that was gone, yet a third. Then he was sitting at a candlelit table eating pork roasted with a delicious sweet-sour sauce, sweet potatoes, and small delicate green squashes stuffed with onion and tomato. For dessert the boy brought in a dish of bananas baked in sugar, lemon juice, and rum. He touched a lighted match to the dish, which burst into flickering blue-and-orange flame. The coffee they had with it was superb.

  Reluctantly he finally stood up, realizing with surprise that he had a little difficulty doing so. “I’m afraid I’ll have to start back,” he said regretfully. “It’s a long way to go, and it’s late already.”

  Her eyebrows raised. “But surely you are going to spend the night? Your horse is unsaddled and in the stable. It isn’t safe to ride at night alone — with all of the unrest there are many bandits about. Besides, it will likely rain.”

  “I don’t know what to say. I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed an evening more, but I hardly think it proper —”

  “Proper! My dear young man, surely Victoriano told you enough about me that you would know I was long past worrying about what is proper.” She poured him another brandy. “Cigar?”

  She held out a box of cigars to him, and when he automatically took one, she picked up one for herself and to his astonishment lit it after lighting his. With a sigh of appreciation she blew out a cloud of aromatic blue smoke. He was shocked at the idea of a woman smoking, and yet … and yet what? Yet she managed to look so damnably natural doing it. More than natural — alluring. He suddenly wanted so badly to touch her that the brandy in th
e glass in his hand trembled.

  She smiled at him then, a slow sensual smile that raised the hair on the back of his neck and made him uncomfortably conscious of his groin. “Come along.” She stood and reached out a hand to him. “Bring your brandy and cigar, and we’ll get comfortable.”

  They went down a corridor and into a large bedroom with an enormous double bed under a tent of mosquito netting. She turned to him when she had put down her brandy and cigar on a table by the bed and put her arms around his neck. “Kiss me, David.”

  He took her unashamedly in his arms, aware suddenly that she was far smaller and more delicately made than Janice. As his mouth met hers, he stopped thinking about Janice entirely. He broke away and walked over to blow out the oil lamp.

  “What are you doing?” Her voice had a sharp note.

  “Blowing out the light, of course. Aren’t we going to bed?” he replied boldly. She obviously wanted him and he certainly wanted her, so of course they would go to bed.

  “Leave the light on.”

  “What?” He was confused.

  “I said, leave the light on. I prefer to see what I’m about.” She began to remove her dress.

  David stood dumbfounded, a tide of hot blood staining his face. He had never seen a woman entirely naked, not even his wife. Even his mother that terrible time had been covered where it counted by his father. Nor had he ever undressed entirely in the light in front of a woman. He was shocked into absolute immobility, helplessly watching her take off the Chinese dress, seeing that she had absolutely nothing on under it, his eyes flicking briefly to her breasts with their large tan nipples and then riveting themselves between her legs, where he knew by feel even if not by sight there should have been hair. Instead she had two smooth hairless mounds with a cleft between them. He swallowed dryly, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. He could feel his heart pounding hard against the wall of his chest.