‘Oh, my God,’ she gasped. ‘Oh, my God.’ She ran back to Rafael. ‘Rafael, please, please abandon this idea.’
‘You are becoming hysterical,’ he told her. ‘And starting to anger me. Jack, I am placing my wife in your care until I return. She is not to leave the camp under any circumstances. Indeed, I do not wish her out of your sight. I no longer feel she can be trusted.’
That night, to show his displeasure, he slept with Incarna instead of her. For that Toni was grateful, but her terrified misery still threatened to overwhelm her, as next morning Rafael and his little band of desperadoes, dressed as peons and with their weapons concealed, loaded their torpedo on to the back of their mules, hidden behind several huge hands of bananas, and set off. She sat on a crag and watched them winding their way down into the tree-clad valley below, and wanted to weep.
‘I thought you were the commanding general,’ she said bitterly, when Jack came to sit beside her.
‘Not any more. I lost too many battles in the beginning.’
She turned her head to look at him. ‘You can just accept that?’
He shrugged. ‘Life is a matter of accepting one’s failures, and making the best of one’s successes, would you not say? I had assumed I was going to command a part of General Gomez’s army, and that Gomez and Josef Marti were going to be the generals. Marti was killed in our very first skirmish, and Gomez proved himself to be incompetent. Garcia, the other so-called general, pulled back into the hills where he had already maintained himself for ten years. And I was left with a tiny field force to do what I could. Perhaps the manoeuvres I attempted were too elaborate. Anyway, they failed. Then when the war degenerated into large scale banditry, I tried to stop the atrocities which were committed. The men resented that. So they deposed me and elected Rafael instead.’
‘But you are still here.’
‘I have nowhere else to go.’
They sat in silence for a few minutes, while she tried to understand what that simple statement connotated. Then she said, ‘I am glad you tried to stop the atrocities.’
‘I didn’t succeed,’ he pointed out. ‘Because Rafael wanted them to happen. Is that not true?’
‘You’ll have to ask him that.’
She gazed at him. ‘Why are you so loyal, still?’
‘There are many reasons. Perhaps because the Diaz de Obrigar family is the nearest thing to a family I have ever had.’
‘Do you love Christina?’
He looked away. ‘No.’
‘You mean, not now, because of what has happened to her?’
‘If you believe that, senora, then we really do not have anything more to say to each other.’
She rested her hand on his arm. ‘I am sorry. Truly.’
‘I do not love anybody,’ he said, and walked away.
*
He avoided her for the rest of the day, although she presumed he was obeying Rafael and keeping an eye on her. With that in mind she went down to the stream to bathe in the afternoon, kneeling in the clear, cool water and scooping it over her shoulders, wondering if he was watching now. Did she know what she was doing? Half of her did. It was the half which was realising that far from no longer being in love with Rafael, she was on the point of actively hating her husband. And that after all, she was still in love with Jack.
The other half of her conscious mind was a jumble of emotions, dominated by apprehension. She was afraid for Christina, and for Joe, she was afraid to consider the future, because there did not seem to be one. Only the presence of this strong, tragic man gave her existence any stability. And she was afraid for him too, if she continued on this path.
Yet she knew she was going to. It was the only path she knew.
They sat together to eat the evening meal, as the sun sank into the Caribbean sea to the west, and the lights of Havana began to glow. Down there, only twenty odd miles away, were boulevards and cafes, people, laughing and drinking, looking forward to the greatest fiesta of the year. There would undoubtedly be liberty men from the Maine searching for fun and girls. There could be Joe, probably staring up at the mountains, wondering where she was, because the news of her escape would certainly by now be known to the people of Havana.
And mingling with them would be Rafael and his deadly band, carrying their torpedo through the streets in the guise of a tinker’s wares, gazing at the harbour, and the ship, and waiting for the appointed night.
Jack seemed able to read her thoughts. ‘It’s entirely possible that she will be so well guarded that he won’t be able to get near her.’
‘Will she maintain guards at all, in a friendly harbour?’
‘All warships maintain guards, at all times,’ he assured her.
She finished her meal, and got up to return to the crag from which she could look down the valley. After a moment he joined her, smoking a hand-rolled cigar. ‘Are you afraid I will try to escape?’ she asked.
‘You might,’ he agreed. ‘Besides, yours is the first civilised company I’ve enjoyed for three years.’
She looked at him in the gloom, at the smoke wreathing above his head. ‘I think I can say the same thing.’ She leaned across, took the cigar from his mouth, and kissed his lips.
He carefully extinguished the cigar, placed it on the ground to be retrieved at a later date. ‘You are married to a very fierce, brutal, and possessive man,’ he remarked.
‘Of whom you are afraid?’
He considered the matter with apparent seriousness for a moment. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I am not afraid. For myself. But you are his wife.’
‘That was my mistake,’ she said. ‘I can cope with that, when the time comes.’
‘You have changed, quite a lot, in the past three years,’ he commented.
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘I have had to change, or die. I am not going to die, Jack Lisle, before my allotted time. But I have a lot of memories that need to be exorcised, by the right man. Before I can begin to live again.’
*
The carriage rumbled along the streets of Havana, and on to the Arsenal Dock, which had been reserved for the use of the United States Navy. From here the men disembarking could look out of the natural, land-locked harbour, so well protected by its forts, dotted with the riding lights of the myriad craft anchored some distance from the shore, and closer at hand, only five hundred yards off the dock on which they stood, the huge bulk and gleaming electric fights of the USS Maine. In February the sun had long set, although it was only just eight o’clock, but the harbour was still ringed with fight, from the bars and houses surrounding the water, and still alive with noise and laughter, for this was Tuesday, the fifteenth of the month, the last night of the pre-Lent carnival, and even martial law had been relaxed for the past two days. The parade of floats had already passed through the cheering crowds, and now, as darkness fell, on a calm, still evening, it was time for drinking and joking, flirting and lovemaking. All would come to a sudden full stop at midnight.
The officers of the Maine had enjoyed the fiesta to the full, the gay processions, the laughing senoritas, the stomping bands, the parades — it had been impossible for them to believe that only a few miles away in the mountains, by all accounts, a band of desperate men were still holding out and declaring themselves to be fighting for a free Cuba. But Captain Sigsbee had determined that all liberty would end at eight pm. He was well aware that when the fiesta officially ceased, an underground celebration continued for some time afterwards, in which women were more readily available than they had been during the proceedings two days, but during which the licence accepted before midnight was withdrawn. He had no wish for any of his people, officers or men, to become involved in a knife fight with a jealous husband; there had already been too many fracas between liberty men, well read in the anti-Spanish American press, and the Spanish soldiers, sailors, and policemen. The courtesy visit to Havana had turned out to be anything but relaxing.
Joe McGann had taken little part in the festivities. He had
been shocked to learn of Toni’s escape from the internment camp, and of the horrific assault she had launched upon Colonel Lumbrera. That she had not been charged with murder was entirely because of the colonel’s thick skull, which, however gashed and concussed by Toni’s violent assault, had survived. But the fact remained that his sister had proven herself, as the Spanish authorities had always claimed, to be as vicious and violent a revolutionary as her husband. As Vice-Consul Walkshott had written, ‘I am afraid there is nothing more I, or anyone else, can do for her now.’
Equally damning was the evidence that she had prostituted herself to achieve her end. Lumbrera had tried to deny this, apparently, for his own protection. But the assault had taken place in the bedroom of his own villa, outside the internment camp, and there could be no other explanation. Lumbrera would undoubtedly be disciplined, when he was released from hospital. But Toni … and yet, no matter what she had done, how much of a criminal she had made herself, had she not acted as any McGann woman would have done, to gain her freedom, and avenge the wrong things that had been done her and Christina? If only she had been able to take Christina with her.
He had in fact tried to obtain permission to go down to Santiago and visit Christina, but this had been refused. The Spanish authorities might be pleased to see the Maine, as evidence that America remained friendly, and might even, possibly, become an ally if the insurgents held out much longer, but Christina Diaz remained the sister of the wanted outlaw Rafael Diaz, and the sister-in-law of the other wanted outlaw Antoinette Diaz — while as Toni’s brother he was himself regarded with suspicion by the government.
At least he knew she was alive.
He had therefore been in a mood to enjoy a fiesta or flirt with any other dark haired young woman. This evening was in fact his first visit ashore since the carnival had begun, as he had volunteered to take a shore patrol to make certain every seaman caught the last boat back to the ship. This he had done, successfully, and now it was simply a matter of returning to the ship himself, and sitting down in his cabin to write Ma and Pa another dismal letter. Try to explain how difficult the situation was, and how he could not snap his fingers and make everything come right. But they would not understand. The Cuban situation, and Toni’s involvement in it, had gone beyond the understanding of ordinary human beings.
The steam launch puffed into the dock, the boathooks were presented, and the warrant officer in command saluted the officers. Joe, as the senior, saluted in return and boarded the launch; the two junior lieutenants, both slightly drunk, he thought, kept to themselves in the stem. In any event, the Maine's Executive Officer was well known as a taciturn fellow, with whom it was dangerous to crack a joke.
The liberty men boarded forward, and the launch puffed into the night. It took only a few minutes to reach the gangway leading up the white hull of the battleship. Joe went on board, saluted the marine guard, and climbed up to the bridge, where Captain Sigsbee was in his day cabin, writing up the log. ‘Trouble?’ The captain smoked a pipe.
‘No. All present and correct,’ Joe told him.
‘I never doubted that, with you in charge,’ Sigsbee said. ‘The Chief wanted a word.’
Joe nodded. ‘I’ll see him. And then turn in, I guess.’
Sigsbee raised his eyebrows. ‘No dinner?’
‘I had a bite ashore. It’s all happening, over there.’
‘I can hear it,’ Sigsbee agreed. ‘Well, good night, Joe.’
Joe saluted, left the cabin, returned on to the bridge and used the speaking tube to the engine room. ‘Chief down there?’
‘Yes, sir, I’ll get him.’
‘Morrissey,’ said the deep Irish voice a few moments later.
‘You’ve something on your mind, Chief.’
‘Ah, Joe. Can you come down for a moment?’
‘Surely.’ Joe slid down the ladders, past the various store rooms, the mess decks, and reached the upper catwalk of the engine room, from where he looked down on the huge steam boilers, the condensers, the pistons, which provided the power for the ship. All the machinery was presently still, save for the electric generator, which hummed away constantly, day and night.
He continued his descent, reached the steel deck of the engine room itself, where Morrissey waited for him. Here they were below the waterline, with only the bilges between them and the keel.
‘Come along here.’ Morrissey opened a bulkhead door and led him down a small alleyway between the skin of the ship and the engine room, to arrive at another bulkhead. Here he rested his hand on the steel. ‘Try it.’
Joe did so. ‘Warm.’
‘The temperature’s up, at the last reading, six o’clock this afternoon. So I reckon there’s some combustion in there; that’s Number Five bunker. That’s the trouble with just sitting in port for a fortnight.’
‘You think it’s serious?’ Joe asked.
‘Not at the moment, according to my readings. But any bunker fire could become serious. There’s always a build up of gas, you know, and that’s highly inflammable. It can even explode. With your permission, I’d like to empty that bunker tomorrow, and hose it down. It’ll mean transferring the coal to Number Four. That’s a dirty business, but it has to be done.’ He grinned. ‘So you’ll be eating off sloping plates for an hour or two; that extra coal to starboard will careen her some.’
‘Permission granted,’ Joe said. ‘You don’t reckon any of the coal gas could have seeped into the bilges?’
‘Could be. But that’s only dangerous if someone strikes a match. I’ve forbidden smoking down here just in case. That bunker is adjacent to the forward magazine, remember. But I’ll have the entire bilges hosed down and pumped out tomorrow, when we’ve finished with the bunker.’
‘Okay. I’d like you to commence at dawn, and I want a full report by ten. You need extra hands, just shout. Right?’
‘You got it.’
Joe returned to the bridge. ‘Seems there’s a small fire in Number Five Bunker,’ he told Sigsbee. ‘Nothing serious, but the Chief wants to damp it down tomorrow morning.’ Sigsbee nodded. ‘I’ll record it. You gave him the go ahead?’
‘I did. It’ll mean a certain amount of careening.’
Sigsbee grinned. ‘So we’ll lean sideways. Carry on, Joe.’
‘Yes, sir. Good night.’ Joe went aft, to his cabin, sat at his desk and wrote that letter to his parents. He was not unduly concerned about the fire, which was an occupational hazard in coal burning ships, the fuel having tendency to spontaneous combustion. But each bunker had an air tube, made of metal, which stretched the entire depths, and containing a thermometer, thus as long as the engineer took regular readings, he could tell instantly, as Morrissey had done, when there was trouble. Morrissey must have located the fire within a few minutes of it starting; there was little chance of it becoming serious before six o’clock tomorrow morning.
Morgan, his marine orderly, brought in a cup of cocoa and said good night. It was just nine o’clock, and as the letter was finished, Joe went up the after ladder to the quarterdeck for a last stroll. The noise from the shore, as the fiesta gathered pace for its final three hours, was tremendous. He thought he would have to sleep with his scuttle closed, and use the electric fan. But it was interesting to listen to the cacophony for just a few minutes. He stood at the rail and looked down into the harbour. There was no moon, and the water was contrastingly dark beneath the streams of light. It was a dirty harbour, too, owing to the habits of the residents of Havana of using it as a vast garbage dump. Even now he saw a miniature log jam of pieces of wood and various other rubbish which had gathered together, and was drifting slowly towards the ship. It could even have been a raft, were there any possible reason for someone to be manning a raft in the middle of Havana Harbour on the last night of the fiesta.
The watch had seen it too, and the deck officer was commanding the searchlight to be switched on. The beam cut through the night, played directly on to the accumulation of wood, and Joe also inspected it
carefully. But it was only an accumulation of wood; certainly there was no one on it. The light faded.
And Joe went to bed. He undressed, lay down gazing at the deck head above him, trying not to think about either Toni or Christina, and as a result, found himself thinking about them both. Toni, up in the mountains, presumably reunited with her outlaw husband … and probably with Jack Lisle as well, he realised, as he recalled his suspicions that there was something odd there when he had first visited Obrigar. But that was a long time ago. Anyway, he felt pretty sure Toni could take care of herself — providing she wasn’t caught and hanged. If only the silly girl would get out.
But there was no prospect of Christina getting out. The thought of her being raped by Lumbrera haunted him. That she had also been tortured, obscenely, with a lighted candle made his blood boil. If he could feel shock at his sister taking on Lumbrera, one of his dearest dreams was to have the little scoundrel at the end of his fist.
He sighed, and looked at his watch. It was twenty-five minutes to ten. He switched out the light, closed his eyes, and found himself thinking about that flotsam floating in the harbour. Because there had been something odd about it. Not about it, perhaps, but about what it was doing. Because … he sat bolt upright. There was not a great deal of tide in Havana Harbour, but what there was had been making. Yet the raft had been drifting from the shore to the battleship. Drifting against the tide.
‘Great God in Heaven,’ he snapped, switched on the light, and leapt out of bed. He pulled on his pants, reached for his tunic, and in that instant the ship exploded.
Chapter 12
Key West — 1898
Here was a quality of lovemaking Toni had never expected to find. Because while Jack Lisle was as knowledgeable and as anxious as ever Lumbrera had been, and as aggressive as Rafael, he took her with a gentleness, a persistent determination to satisfy her as much as himself, which left her breathless. So now she was a criminal on several counts, and an adulteress into the bargain — she had not really counted Lumbrera as adultery — but lying on the side of a Cuban hill beneath a single blanket she had for the first time in her life discovered what sexual happiness, sexual unity, can truly mean. Without it, she now knew, life had no purpose.
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