Crispin Reynolds finally produced the small red folder he had kept inside the larger folder all this time, and spread out the blueprints of a yet-uncommitted crime. A group of fifteen to twenty Anguillians would be in charge of jump-starting the operation with their arrival, late one night, into a safe port where they would be able to distribute guns and ammunition among a large crowd of Kittitians. From that point forward, the idea was to split the rebels into three separate groups, which would all arrive in the capital, Baseterre, simultaneously. At this stage the groups would take different paths, one positioning itself by the main police station, another covering the grounds of the Defence Force (the name chosen by the government for its makeshift army), and a third heading toward the town’s main fuel depot. The coordinated attack would begin at the Defence Force camp, where dynamite sticks would blow a hole into the building, allowing access to the rebels. As soon as the blast was heard, the group deployed by the police station would lay siege on it, using to its advantage the chaos produced by the explosion of the fuel depot, which would also be set alight as soon as the Defence Force camp was taken. The combination of speed with the element of surprise would allow the rebels to take control of the military forces on the island with minimal resistance. Subsequently, the group in charge of blowing up the fuel depot would move toward the sole radio station of the country, where it would announce the victory of the revolt. At the same time, a select group would head toward the government house in the company of Crispin Reynolds, while Robert Bradshaw and Paul Southwell would be arrested in their respective homes. Before the break of dawn the entire country would be secured, and a new administration would be in place—one that would look at the idea of secession for Anguilla from the tri-island state with sympathetic eyes.
Deep into the night did Crispin Reynolds and Alwyn Cooke sit by the light powered by the small diesel generator at the back of the house, carving the details of an intricate plan to invade the island of St. Kitts and topple its government, to finally seal the triumph of the revolution and install Dr. Reynolds in power. Alwyn Cooke would not get another minute’s rest for many days to follow, and it became his wife’s job to see to him lying down for half an hour here, a full hour there, to keep him from collapsing from exhaustion. That morning Ylaria force-fed her husband fish and cakes before he announced gravely, Gotta go, nuh—don’ wait for me for dinner. He had not yet made a decision about the sinister plan that Crispin Reynolds had laid before him just hours before; indeed, he had cut short his prayers that morning and asked only for clarity of vision, My Lord, da’ I may distinguish de right pat’ from de wrong for my people.
But even with divine assistance, Alwyn Cooke felt this was just a tad too much for him to handle on his own. Despite the unspoken pledge to secrecy with which he had comforted Dr. Reynolds, Alwyn felt the need to consult, if not with the peacekeeping committee, at least with someone whose judgment would be sufficiently cool to consider the option with an open mind. Alwyn didn’t think twice: it was still early in the morning when he parked his white 1962 4x4 Ford pickup truck just outside Solomon Carter’s residence.
Sol’s only comment when he heard the plan was: Who else you tell ’bout dis?
Nobody.
You make sure you keep it dat way. If we go do dis, we mus’ do it hush-hush.
To an extent, Alwyn agreed with Sol, although he knew the secret could not be absolute. While it would be reckless to bring this up with the entire peacekeeping committee, he still felt it was necessary to get the approval of someone within it. That’s when he brought Rude Thompson, the most hotheaded person on the committee, into the equation. He was certain Rude would find the idea appealing, and somewhere in between Sol’s sobriety, Rude’s volatility, and his own instinct could lie the answer to Anguilla’s problems.
Then came the call to Harry González, from a public phone in a bistro in French St. Martin. We need t’ talk. No—I wan’ do dis face to face. Then came the next trip to St. Thomas, the rendezvous with Harry González, and a hasty deal—With this short notice I can only get you four machine guns and a whole bunch of automatic pistols.
Wha’ ’bout men? We need trainin’, an’ a helpin’ han’.
Ten thousand dollars in advance, plus ten thousand more when it’s done. I’ll bring two soldiers. Come pick us up tomorrow, first thing in the morning—and bring some money with you.
When Alwyn Cooke landed, first thing in the morning on June 6, 1967, at the Harry S. Truman Airport of St. Thomas, Harry González, Mario Gómez, and Titus Brown were already waiting near the runway, on the outside of the fence that encircled the airfield. Alwyn’s nerves showed, despite his most deliberate effort to look cool.
Ready?
The men didn’t move, they didn’t speak, they looked like mannequins discarded against the fence. Then Harry González bounced himself gently against the wire and approached Alwyn Cooke, whispering to his ear, Got the money? A moment of inspiration led to Alwyn answering with a relevant question: How you goin’ get dem bags past customs? Harry González smiled. That’s where your money comes to play. Gimme three hundred bucks over the ten grand, and customs will never see the bags. Candidly, Alwyn gestured toward the right pocket of his pressed gray trousers. Not here—let’s go somewhere safe.
Despite Alwyn’s inexperience in the underworld of criminal activity, he had enough sense in him not to trust three mercenaries for company in a “safe place” when he had ten thousand dollars in his pocket. You gettin’ de money when we in de plane. I have a t’ousand dollars wit’ me, to avoid complications. His right hand finally landed in his right pocket, he counted three hundred dollars and handed it to Harry González. Only then did Alwyn notice that one of the men was missing most of his left arm. Wha’s dis s’posed t’ mean? When you say two soldiers, I t’ought you mean two whole soldiers.
Leaning against the fence, Titus Brown’s size was disguised. As soon as he heard Alwyn Cooke’s derisive comment he lifted his big round face and gave him a fierce look. Erect, Titus Brown towered well over six feet high. His shoulders were wide as a wall, his biceps bulged out in all directions, and his square torso seemed taken out of a comic book. Just a souvenir from the war, brother.
Titus Brown was a man of few, very few, words. He was neither good at nor fond of talking. Titus held too much rage, too much anger, too much frustration inside to vent it out in words. His natural form of expression was through actions—generally violent actions. So when Alwyn Cooke, somewhat intimidated, let out a pitiful You mean Vietnam? Titus Brown felt a burning urge to hurt him badly. But this was a professional job, and it was well paid, and Titus Brown could certainly use the dough, so he made one, and only one, exception, and his deep, grave voice came out loaded with so much aggression it was clear he would not explain again that I been places you don’t even wanna know about, bitch. I been to hell, and guess what: they wouldn’t have me there. His arms opened wide, as if to showcase his maimed body, but in the absence of symmetry the gesture got lost somewhere between horror and ridicule. It couldn’t kill me, brother. You want help, or you think you can lead a revolution just by asking stupid questions? Before Alwyn Cooke had a chance to answer, Harry González stepped up to calm the tempers and explain, If any of your men in Anguilla was half the shot my brother Titus here is, you wouldn’t have asked me for training. Let’s cut the crap and get going.
Then came three days of training at a makeshift shooting range by Junks Hole Beach, on the uninhabited eastern point of Anguilla, where bottles survived far too long as targets and blasts got lost in the roar of the ocean. Then came The Rambler, drifting off the coast of Tintamarre, “The Lord Is My Shepherd,” and, finally, Too many people goin’ dead.
CHAPTER I REVISITED
THE BITTER ARGUMENT
Put da’ away an’ save your aggression for de Bradshers. Alwyn Cooke spoke authoritatively, full of confidence, to the man whom, just a week before, he had not known how to address. In the previous ten days he had gone from being
a charismatic rich man to becoming an efficient leader. He walked into the scene and, without making a big fuss, defused the situation. We all tense, nuh, but we mus’ take it easy. Gaynor—watcha doin’ shouting nonsense like dat for? And Gaynor, half ashamed but steadfast in his resolve not to yield, almost got started again. And Harry González, Think very well what you’re gonna say, the hammer of his gun still cocked, no longer looking into Gaynor Henderson’s nose but directed at the stars.
Yet at this point, it wasn’t only Gaynor Henderson who had to choose his words carefully, because all of a sudden just about every person on The Rambler, except for Sol and Rude, had something to say about the plan. All of a sudden it was as if the words that had not been spoken had to be retrieved, rescued, from the previous silence. All at once, unsuspecting friends and family members faced the imminent danger of a blaze of fire spreading uncontrolled through the slums of Baseterre, which was all one big slum. Meanwhile, others who until now had seemed too neutral or perplexed to make any kind of statement displayed a vicious vein and condemned to death by fire all of those who had conspired against the rightful development of their homeland, even if it was only by omission. And then there were those standing between the rifles and the dynamite who claimed they had not come along to send anybody to the stake, for it was no one’s business other than God Almighty’s to decide who’s to live and who’s to die, and when and how, and there is no greater sin than to play God, and there ain’ no cause, no matter how righteous, wort’ da soul of a single one of God’s children. Amen! And in no time at all the back of The Rambler became a franchise of Babel, where nothing was being erected and no languages were being spoken, other than English, but where everyone addressed everyone else, and no one addressed anyone in particular, and consequently no one heard what anyone said, and words came and went and mixed and jumbled and rose over, above, on top of one another, forming this unintelligible gobble that got lost in the endless darkness of the sea.
Fellows, stop it already. Leave it alone! But the words had taken their toll, and this bedlam was not about to be sorted out by the sober, understated reprimands of Alwyn Cooke. Leave it alone, I say! And he turned to the man whom he thought was stirring all the trouble, but he found Harry González sitting back in his place, hammer uncocked, gun back in its holster, head in both hands, looking at the floor, thinking, What the hell have I got myself into? and most likely making calculations, trying to figure out whether twenty grand split between three would be enough to account for all this shit.
Out of nowhere, Solomon Carter suddenly roared with intimidating vigor over the yapping crowd, Yo Rude! If dem lights to de west Statia and dem lights dead ahead St. Kitts, you wanna tell me wha’ dem lights over dere be? As soon as he rose to his feet, it seemed like Sol stood on higher ground, and everyone aboard The Rambler fell silent. You go tell me is Barbuda, nuh? The question was rhetorical, but Sol Carter had been insulted, and he felt aggrieved, and he would not stop until Rude Thompson knew exactly what he thought of him. Because it was one thing to be inexperienced—none of the men aboard The Rambler, at least none of the ones who mattered, the Anguillians, were used to sailing between the islands; none of them had ever taken part in a rebellion, organized a revolution, or been in a military operation. But it was altogether a different thing to be proud—so proud that you would not see, would not accept, your mistakes, putting in jeopardy the success of an operation in which every single man was risking his life. Or you t’ink you de only one riskin’ somet’in’ tonight? Tell me, nuh—wha dat light yonder be, if it ain’ St. Kitts?
As soon as Rude Thompson spotted the lights he pulled back the handles of the throttle, letting the engines idle. For a moment, all that could be heard was the empty thump of a wayward wave or ripple crashing against the underside of the hull, as the calm Caribbean waters rocked the boat melodiously, intensely, in the middle of the night. The Rambler drifted helplessly in no particular direction and Rude Thompson had the perfect chance to acknowledge his mistake, to humbly concede Sol’s point, to steer the boat in the right direction and get on with it. He had the chance—Sol had purposely played his cards that way. Except, if Rude had been the kind of fellow with the temperment necessary to take such option, then he wouldn’t have been called Rude: then his nickname would have been Rudy, or Rat, or he would have had no nickname and been plain Rudolf. But he wasn’t; he was called Rude Thompson and he was called Rude Thompson for a reason. So when Sol Carter talked up Rude Thompson’s mistake and made him look like a fool, he didn’t take to it nicely. Who you t’ink you be, Sol? You t’ink you de boss? You t’ink you de leader? You ain’ not’in’—not’in’ but a drunkard, a t’ief, and a failure. They were the first words that came to Rude’s mind—he might have called him anything else he could think of, had he been able to think of anything at all. As he pronounced the words he approached with his fists balled shut, thumbs outside his fingers, ready to pounce on the fifty-year-old man who had spotted his shortcomings as captain and made him lose his cool.
Alwyn Cooke recognized this as the perfect opportunity to assert himself as the natural, undisputed leader of the revolution. Without thinking, he stepped between the two men and instructed Rude to Go back to your post, captain. In an instant, Alwyn had elevated himself to a rank superior to that of the captain of a boat at sea. Alwyn became the moral, the spiritual, the intellectual leader of a motley bunch with one dubious, unprepared gesture. Who the hell you two t’ink you be? And that was the very first time most of the men aboard The Rambler ever heard Alwyn speak about hell. Wha’ you t’ink you doin’? Another mention of hell might have rendered the first one banal, so Alwyn stopped himself short of stepping too far into the realm of the common. His mien was severe, and all of a sudden renewed confidence could be seen in the way he carried himself. Dis ain’ no joke, gentlemen—dis serious, serious business. But Alwyn knew nobody on that boat was really in the mood for scolding, so he did not remind anyone that they had all come along on this adventure willingly, and they had all known well in advance what the plan was. Instead, he turned toward the bridge of The Rambler to study the situation with his captain.
It was well past eleven p.m. when the resolution was made to keep heading toward St. Eustatius, to pass it on its western side and then tack toward the southeast, thus taking a safer route into Sandy Hill Point, avoiding the channel between St. Kitts and St. Eustatius for the most part.
When you t’ink we reach Sandy Hill Point?
Is still awhile was not exactly what Alwyn Cooke wanted to hear from Rude Thompson at that point.
Full t’rottle all de way, nuh.
With the logistical problems surrounding the arrival in St. Kitts having been discussed and resolved, Alwyn now had to address the more pressing question of how to handle things once they landed at Half Way Tree. Gaynor Henderson had raised an issue out of turn, but the reaction Alwyn Cooke had witnessed in the men aboard The Rambler told him that the matter was more troubling than anyone organizing the coup would have liked to think. So Alwyn approached Solomon Carter and, without any discernible trace of alarm or panic, Wha’ we goin’ do, Sol?
Solomon Carter might have sulked at this point. He could have made yet another scene, forced a power struggle, disturbed the morale of the group further; he might even have sought to put his name forward on the list of popular leaders of a revolution that was just ten days old. But Solomon Carter was not Rude Thompson—that was not his temperament, nor was it his ambition. When Alwyn Cooke approached him, looking for advice, Solomon Carter did not turn around and walk away, he did not rub his anger in Alwyn’s face, he did nothing other than provide his sober point of view. I ain’ like it.
Solomon was a pacifist. He was as unlikely a protagonist of a revolution as anyone could have found in the annals of Caribbean history, and yet he was wholeheartedly committed to the cause by a curious sense of fate that made him believe there was a particular purpose to his life, that God had placed him at a particular juncture in tim
e, in a particular place, all for a good reason. I ain’ like it from de start, yet his voice was low and discrete, and his muttering was less conclusive than the words he spoke. If we do our job wit’ de Defence Force, we no need to blow up no fuel depot or not’in’. A long silence ensued, before: You don’ t’ink?
Alwyn Cooke was thinking, all right—he was thinking about the people-goin’-dead nonsense which Gaynor had started, and he was thinking whether it really was nonsense, or if, indeed, too many people were going to die in vain. But Solomon Carter’s question gave back perspective to his wandering thoughts, and helped him to focus again on the real question, which was not how many people would die in the exercise, but what was required for the operation to be a success. Could an army of a hundred-odd people take Baseterre by storm and depose the tyrannical government of Robert Bradshaw without creating the havoc that would follow the explosion of the fuel depot, right there on the edge of the urban area?
The sad reality of the affair, however, was that, posed with the million-dollar question, Alwyn Cooke could not provide an educated guess as to whether or not Baseterre could be taken without blowing up the fuel depot. The only man vaguely qualified to make an assessment on that situation was Harry González, and Alwyn Cooke had seen enough of his temper already to understand that he was not the right person to turn to at that moment. Alwyn Cooke sat in silence next to Solomon Carter for a long time. Not a word came from either of the two, as they both considered what was best for the day, what was best for the country. Then the next crisis arrived.
The Night of the Rambler Page 4