The Night of the Rambler

by Montague Kobbé

  Hop in, gentlemen—and off they went, back toward Half Way Tree.

  Although the Morris van with the three American mercenaries and Rude Thompson and Glenallen Rawlingson was just some ten, fifteen minutes behind Alwyn Cooke and Whitford Howell, when they reached Half Way Tree The Rambler was already on its way back to the safe shores of Anguilla.

  * * *

  As soon as Alwyn was lifted onboard, he asked around if any of the others had made it back.

  You de first ones. You lucky we still here, you know: we saw dem clouds liftin’ yonder an’ we gettin’ ready to go.

  Alwyn immediately asked for the time.

  I ain’ know, but it soon be daylight. There were eight men aboard The Rambler, not one of them had a watch.

  True—but we go reach Statia in de night an’ we safe after da’. This was as good as an order from Alwyn Cooke to Gaynor Henderson to lift the anchor and leave his best friend from childhood behind, stranded in a hostile land with no way out.

  It wasn’t even five minutes later when the headlights of the van carrying Harry González and the rest of the men from the Defence Force camp flooded the dark sand of the bay at Half Way Tree. Only Walter Stewart noticed the lights, but when he informed Alwyn Cooke, all he got back was, Boy, how we know dey de oder men an’ not de police come look for we? We mus’ take we chance right now an’ hope de revenue cutter no come for we, nuh. We mus’ hope for de best.

  * * *

  Harry González could see the white foam of the wake left behind by The Rambler as he stepped out of the van at Half Way Tree. He looked at his watch. 5:02 a.m. Bastards! They must have taken off ahead of time . . . How well you know this place, Rude?

  Harry González wanted Rude Thompson to take them to the closest point to St. Eustatius, where they could steal a boat and sail across the channel.

  Le’ we go Newton Town an’ farther out so—between de village and St. Paul’s is plenty fishing bays.

  Back inside the van the five men watched the twilight illuminate the horizon, while the sky above their heads remained pitch black. Harry González drove past the imposing shadow of Mount Misery to his right, with Brimstone Hill hanging high above the other hills, and he continued along the coastal road past the ruins of Charles Fort and the slight rolling of waves along the bay at Sandy Point, before the road veered inland and took the five men through a shantytown on the edge of a long stretch of cane fields.

  Dat Newton Town a’ready, take de nex’ turn nort’ an’ we reach de beach.

  But the sun was about to rise, and slowly the sky was turning dark blue. We don’t have much time. We’re gonna have to ditch the van and find a place to hide for the day. No sooner had Harry spoken the words than he steered into the thick of a cane field and penetrated the tall rows of grass at full speed, driving the van as far as it would take them before the narrow wheels got so heavy with mud they could no longer find traction. This’ll have to do. Rude, lead the way; take us to a place where we can check out these fishing boats you’re talking about.

  Making way through the sugarcane with no tools other than a cutlass found underneath the front seat of the van was a minor torture. The sticky leaves clung to the bodies of the men, who, in the shadows of the twilight, sought a safe haven before the break of day proper. Rude Thompson opened a narrow path with blows flying from side to side, but still the grass cut through the flesh of the men behind him, stems caught between their feet, the thick sweet secretion of the plant rubbing against their legs every step of the way. The sun hung high in the sky by the time Rude found a way out of the field, his right hand bleeding profusely from his exertions with the cutlass, blisters cutting deep into his palm and dampening it with a mixture of water and blood as he climbed a steep hill that overlooked a small cove.

  Where’s the boats? And Harry González looked in utter dismay when Rude pointed at a small skiff with no engine beached on the sheltered end of the bay. You’re joking!

  But Rude Thompson was dead serious, and no matter what Harry González, Titus Brown, or Mario Gómez thought about it, he would jump on that boat as soon as it got dark again, and he was plenty sure Glenallen Rawlingson would be ready to join him.

  And what do we do until then?

  They sat in the relentless sun, with no food and little water, taking turns keeping guard, two at a time, should anyone take note of the five armed men hiding in the bushes on the northern coast of St. Kitts.

  By this time, Sol Carter and the O’Farrell cousins had already abandoned their efforts to take the police station. Sol had been misguided by the final offensive against the Defence Force camp ordered by Harry González before he signaled for his men to retreat. Sol had already decided it was time for him and the O’Farrell cousins to head back, to try to somehow make it to The Rambler on time, when the sudden flurry of shots he heard coming from the Defence Force camp made him reconsider, because Dem havin’ havoc up dere, man. Thus, emboldened by a sense of solidarity, Sol tried to deliver a message to the policemen inside the station—We in control of de military buildin’! Surrender! You defeated, nuh!

  Much like the previous hour, however, nothing came out of the station at all: not an answer, not a shot, no sign of life. Sol signaled to Dwight and Desmond to redouble their shooting, to intensify the siege, to scare de Bradshers till dey shit dem pants. In his excitement, Sol failed to notice the total silence that emanated both from the Defence Force camp and from Burt Street. Until, finally, he told the O’Farrells to stop shooting. Suddenly, the Kittitian night went totally quiet. Sol pointed his left ear to the wind and there he stood, motionless, for over a minute. Nothing. He turned in the opposite direction, curled his fingers around his right ear in the shape of a shell, and, again, nothing. He called the O’Farrells over with a wave of his right hand. Dem get de Defence camp already, or we on we own.

  Sol Carter decided they should wait a little while longer, in case the men from the Defence Force camp, presumably victorious, came to lend a helping hand with the police station. For five minutes Desmond O’Farrell looked through the sight of the M1 carbine he pointed in the direction of the station, while he waited for something, anything, to happen. Ten minutes. Fifteen.

  We by weself, boys—le’s get outta here.

  Desmond O’Farrell left his M1 carbine lying there on the ground when he got to his feet to follow Sol Carter, who chucked his into an open plot of bushland as he moved away from the station. Dwight O’Farrell discarded his a few steps farther down the road, when Sol explained he had some relatives in Tabernacle, a small town on the Atlantic coast of the island, so Drop you guns—we goin’ catch de bus an’ visit my cousin.

  It had just gone five in the morning and life began to spark up in Basseterre. Sol Carter, Dwight O’Farrell, and Desmond O’Farrell hurriedly walked up Cayon Street until they reached a large fork past Independence Street. At the crossroads, Sol Carter took the diagonal Wellington Road, which led out through the northeast corner of town, before suddenly slowing his pace. Easy, fellows, easy. He calmed his own nerves by telling his companions to keep cool, to act as if nothing had happened.

  How far we goin’ go, Sol?

  And Sol wanted to reach the sugar factory, at least, to get to the outskirts of town, where they could catch a bus that would take them through the cane fields of Cayon and Ottley’s and, finally, into Tabernacle.

  It took the three Anguillians the best part of a tense hour to walk along Wellington Road, past Manchester Avenue and outward, past Taylors Road with the large, run-down sugar factory cutting an ugly figure to the left—its galvanized roof looking strangely matte in the early-morning light, its wide, low chimney still impregnating the air with the sweet smell of molasses derived from the processed cane. Sol breathed somewhat less heavily once they left the factory behind. Le’ we wait for de bus here, man. Sure enough, the bus to Saddlers, a rural area toward the northeast end of the island, came around less than ten minutes later.

  It was now well past six in the m
orning. Sol, Desmond, and Dwight hopped onto the bus and stood in the back of it without saying a word, lest their Anguillian accents give them away. All the talk, even that early in the morning, was about what had happened the night before.

  The atmosphere was laden with an uncomfortable sense of suspicion, or at least that was what Sol Carter was thinking when he was suddenly kicked to the ground by a group of four Kittitians who were sitting behind the Anguillian men on the bus. The driver pulled over to the side of the road and a great turmoil ensued as the angry Kittitians threatened to lynch the three Anguillians. Dwight O’Farrell, fully at one with his role as rebel, had disposed of his M1 rifle when they’d left the police station; but he had not been so quick in getting rid of the automatic .25 he kept tucked in the back of his trousers, because he had grown fond of the gun, and because you could not know what lay ahead that day. So Dwight O’Farrell had lied to Sol Carter and told him he had thrown away all his guns and ammunition, when, in fact, he strolled along Wellington Road in Basseterre with an automatic .25 handgun behind his back. Until, standing on the bus, holding onto an iron bar that hung from the ceiling, Dwight’s T-shirt had crawled up slightly and there, between the black fabric of his shirt and his green trousers, the men sitting right behind him could discern the glowing black metal of the gun.

  It was only through the levelheadedness of the bus driver that the three Anguillians were spared their lives, although they weren’t spared a good beating. Before things got out of hand, the driver had risen from his seat and shouted, Out! Out! Out! Out, yer hear me. Out, I say, and he off-loaded his passengers, and the gun had been taken from Dwight O’Farrell, and one Kittitian pounded Desmond’s face hard, and Gimme dat, and taking the gun in his hands, A’right, fellows, a’right. Da’s enough, stop it now, and in the fear that the bus driver might shoot Anguillians and Kittitians alike, everything did, miraculously, stop. The bus driver paid his passengers their fares back, and he took Sol Carter, Desmond O’Farrell, and Dwight O’Farrell, escorted by the men who had jumped on them and who now salivated at the thought of a reward being paid by the government for their service to the country, toward the police station in Basseterre.

  For the second time in just a few hours, the three Anguillians were denied access to the police station through the main entrance at Cayon Street because the damaged door could still not be opened. Instead, Sol, Dwight, and Desmond were thrown straight into the jailhouse, where they would remain for months to come.

  The rest of that day was chaos in St. Kitts. The wheels of power had been set in motion to act decisively and inclemently in the face of these wanton attacks. This much was made clear by Premier Robert Bradshaw in a press conference even before Sol Carter and the O’Farrell cousins were acquainted with the penitentiary facilities of the island. Decisively and inclemently. Appropriately was never a concern. It was at this stage that the question of who had opened wide, in the wee hours of the morning of June 10, 1967, the gates of hell was cast aside and left to go down in history begging. The situation was used by the government, instead, to tighten its already watertight grip on the country’s power structure. Before the end of the day, Robert Bradshaw had declared a state of emergency across the islands of St. Kitts, Nevis, and Anguilla, even though, in the absence of a party representative, a single member of the police task force, or even a warden, the personnel available in Anguilla to enforce the measures were exactly none.

  The personnel available to enforce the measures in St. Kitts and Nevis, however, were both substantial and, in the case of St. Kitts at least, desperate to redeem themselves from the affront they had collectively been dealt the night before. The situation demanded, by all reckonings, swift and exemplary administration of the law by its letter. In this respect, both the police and the government were at one in thinking that the time and energy spent searching for the actual culprits should be minimal, because everyone knew—it was plainly evident—who had been the intellectual, if perhaps not the actual, perpetrators of the crime. At least a dozen arrest warrants were issued during the course of June 10 in St. Kitts, and another two were produced in Nevis, every single one of them to individuals who had been identified during the previous year or so as citizens who posed a threat to the stability of the country, i.e., people who challenged or questioned the views put forward by the ruling party, and who were potentially powerful enough to stir some sort of popular response.

  Within this framework of police activity, the fact that several of the Anguillians who had been directly behind the invasion of the island had been caught and delivered to the country jailhouse was not only completely accidental, it constituted almost a minor setback because it focused unwanted attention on the actual details of the night. There would be enough time, in due course, to deal with the issue of Anguilla at large, but right now priority had to be given to one thing, and one thing alone: securing the control of the island—and to that effect, the most imminent threat faced by Bradshaw came from within.

  Consequently, the five armed men hiding in the bushland toward the northern shores of St. Kitts remained unseen and unperturbed all day. By human agency, that is. Because June 10, 1967 was a damn hot day, and the five men had nothing to eat, and between them they only had the little water left in the flasks brought by the American mercenaries, dressed to penetrate this miniature version of the Vietnamese jungle with total impunity. It was not quite noon when Glenallen Rawlingson began to hear the rumblings of his own gut after Rude Thompson was slapped with a No more, fellow, when he asked for some ah da’ water, dere.

  We have about five lidfuls each, and God only knows when we’ll be able to get some more, so we’re gonna have to ration from now on.

  Rude Thompson and Glenallen Rawlingson went on a little excursion to see if they could find a well or a fruit-bearing tree to stock up for the journey back. But Glenallen was too scared to go far, and Rude would never own to it, but he, too, was as frightened as he had ever been in his life, so their pacing was hesitant and unadventurous, and their quest stopped short of being a rotund failure merely by the sighting of a small passion fruit tree. Except all the fruit was green and hard, and when Rude Thompson and Harry González, driven by hunger and boldness, opened a few of them, all that could be heard was regurgitation as Harry González spat out the bitter blend of seeds, fibrous meat, and acid nectar with a subdued Jesus!

  Far from relieving the men’s hunger, the passion fruit exacerbated their thirst and made the rest of their day even more miserable. The hours refused to pass, and the five rebels, hiding in the bush, sleeping below a tree, hopelessly waiting for the end of the day, grew in restlessness by the hour. Rude Thompson in particular found it unreasonably taxing to sit passively until the time came to move toward the bay. But whenever he or anyone else proposed an alternative plan, it was discarded for being too dangerous. In short, anything at all, other than stealing the small skiff, entailed moving in the light of day among a people who would now, no doubt, be paranoid about an invasion and obsessed with finding the invaders. If the five of them traveled together they would be picked out immediately, and neither the Anguillians nor the Americans wanted to split the group—the former because they felt comforted by the presence of someone with an idea of what they were doing, and the latter because they trusted the islanders’ instincts at sea a lot more than they did their own.

  Perhaps the most challenging moment of the long wait, however, came when the sun had finally set, and night had taken hold of the Kittitian sky. Rude Thompson jumped on his feet, tired and hungry as he was, and prompted the others, C’mon, den!

  But Harry González would not risk it yet. There might be people near the bay, still—let’s wait for another hour, and that was, quite simply, the longest hour in the life of Rude Thompson and Glenallen Rawlingson. But it passed, as most things do, and at last the five men were on their way to the skiff, and when his boots sank in the dark sand of Helden’s Bay, Titus Brown jumped into the water and opened his mouth wide and gulped a
mouthful of saltwater, opening his wild black eyes and shaking his head violently. Ahhhh . . .

  Corporal Gómez and Glenallen Rawlingson pulled the wooden boat from the beach into the water and the men began to jump into it one by one. The skiff sank deeper and deeper into the sea, completely overloaded as it was, but eventually the five men found the right distribution to keep it both afloat and balanced, and Rude, sitting at the aft, instructed the men what to do as they faced the small waves rolling in from the channel that separated them from freedom. Titus Brown sat facing backward—facing St. Kitts—to the left of Rude Thompson, such that in due course he could use his one arm to row; next to him sat Harry González, M16 in hand, looking paler, altogether rougher, than he had all day. At the front sat Glenallen Rawlingson and Corporal Gómez, rowing at the pace set by Rude, who steered the skiff flat against the waves to avoid toppling over, and told the men to Row, row, row, row, row, every fifteen seconds or so, with each new wave that approached.

  Just how the men escaped Helden’s Bay under these circumstances and with that boat is hard to imagine. But the fact remains that they did, that after rowing against the waves for nearly an hour, they made it past the breaking point and then it was only a matter of time until they reached St. Eustatius. And luck, of course. But the famous Lady had already made it sufficiently clear that she was on the side of the rebels that night, so St. Kitts’s revenue cutter was absolutely nowhere to be seen until the following morning, when a certain fisherman from the town of St. Paul’s headed toward Helden’s Bay at half past five in the morning, just like every other morning for the past twenty-five years, only to find that, for the first time ever, his boat was no longer there. He made his way back to St. Paul’s (by foot) and reported the incident to the police, who put two and two together and instructed the revenue cutter to search the area for the boat. Which it did, successfully.