"Wait until after dinner," was all he would say. "I need a good meal under my belt and some coffee and a cigar before this one."
The rest of us looked at one another rather like boys who have been promised a treat, as indeed we had. Williams grunted something, but made no objection. His denunciations of the British always came after Ffellowes' stories, I noticed.
When we were settled in our leather chairs in an alcove of the huge library, with cigars drawing and coffee and brandy beside us, Ffellowes began.
"Did any of you ever sail the Caribbean in the pre-War period? I don't mean on a cruise ship, although that's fun. I mean actually sailed, in a small boat or yacht, touching here and there, calling at ports when you felt like it and then moving on? If not, you've missed something.
"The dawns were fantastic and the sunsets better. The food from the galley, fresh fish we'd caught ourselves usually, was superb, and the salt got into our skin, baked there by the sun. "Islands rose up out of the sea, sometimes green and mountainous like Jamaica, sometimes low and hidden by mangroves and reefs like the Caymans or Inagua.
"We called at funny little ports and gave drinks to local officials who came aboard and got tight and friendly and told us astonishing scandals and implausible state secrets, and finally staggered off, swearing eternal friendship.
"And then at dawn, we hoisted anchor, set sail and checked our charts, and off we went to see what was over the next horizon, because there was always another island."
He paused and sipped his coffee, while we waited in silence.
"I had three months leave on half pay at the time due to a mixup; so Joe Chapin and I (he's dead a long time, poor fellow, killed at Kohima) chartered an island schooner at Nassau and hired two colored men to help us work her and cook. They were from Barbados and wanted to get back there, and that suited us. Badians are good seamen and good men, too. One, the older, was called Maxton, the other, Oswald, and I've forgotten their last names. We told them to call us Joe and Don, but it was always 'Mistah Don, Sah' to me, and 'Cap'n' to Joe, because he was officially captain on the papers.
"Well, we sailed along south for a month or so, calling here and there, picking up news and having fun at this port or that, until we got to Basse-Terre on Gualdeloupe. We were ashore having a few rums in the bar with the port officials when we first heard of Soldier Key.
"Any of you ever hear of it? Well, you won't now because it's gone. The people are anyway. The big hurricane of 1935 smashed it more than flat, and I'm told the few people left were moved by the British government. I checked up later on and found they went first to Dominica and then elsewhere, but there weren't many left.
"At any rate, the French customs officer we were drinking with suggested we look in at Soldier Key if we wanted an unusual, what you call 'offbeat,' place to visit.
" 'Messieurs,' he told us, 'this is a very strange place. You will not, I think, call twice, because few do, but I do not think you will be bored. These people are British like yourselves, and yet the island has no British official in residence, which is odd. They have an agreement with the government of Dominica that they govern themselves. Twice a year comes an inspection, but otherwise they are alone, with none to disturb them. Curious, is it not?
"We agreed it sounded mildly strange, but asked why we should bother going at all?
" 'As to that,' he said, 'you must suit yourselves. But you English always seek new things, and this place is a strange one. The people are, how you say it, forgot by everyone. They trade little, selling only langouste (the spiny lobster) and the meat of green turtle. They are good seamen, but they call at few ports and avoid other fishing boats. For some reason, they never sell the turtle shell, although they could catch all the shell turtles they wish. I cannot tell you more, except I once called there for water when on a cruise and the place made me feel discomfortable.' He paused and tried to convey what he meant. 'Look, these Key of the Soldier people all belong to one church, not mine or yours either. To them, all who are not of this communion are damned eternally, and when they look at you, you feel they wish to speed the process. A funny place, Messieurs, but interesting.'
"He finished his rum and stood up to go. 'And another thing, Messieurs,' he said, 'all people of color dislike this place, and there are none of them who live there. Again, interesting, eh? Why not try it? You may be amused.'
"Well, after we got back to the boat, we hauled out our charts and looked for Soldier Key. It was there all right, but it was quite easy to see how one could miss it. It lay about two days sail west by northwest of Dominica, and it looked like a pretty small place indeed. The copy of the Mariner's Guide we had wasn't really new, and it gave the population as five hundred (approximately) with exports limited to lobster and imports nil. A footnote said it was settled in 1881 by the Church of the New Revelation. This, of course, must be the church to which our little customs official had been referring, but I'd never heard of it, nor had Joe. Still, there are millions of sects all over the place; so that meant nothing, really.
"Finally, before we turned in, Joe had an idea. 'I'm certain someone has some reference books in town,' he said. 'I'll have a dekko tomorrow morning, first thing, shall I?'
"Well, he did, and about noon, when I was considering the day's first drink in the same waterfront bar as the night before, he came in with a small volume, very worn-looking, in his hand.
" 'Look at this,' he said, 'I found it in the local library; been there forever, I should think.'
"What he had in his hand was a slim, black book, written in English, cheaply bound and very tattered, with brown pages crumbling at the edges. It was dated London, 1864, and was written by someone who called himself the Opener of the Gate, Brother A. Poole. The title of the book was The New Revelation Revealed to the Elect.
" 'One of those island people must have left it here on their way through,' I said, 'or perhaps some fisherman lost it. Have you looked at it?'
"We read it aloud in turn, as much as we could stand, that is, because it was heavy going, and it was really a very boring book. A good bit of it came from Revelation and also the nastier bits of the Old Testament, and practically all of it was aimed at warning Those Who Transgressed.
"But there were stranger parts of it, based apparently on Darwin, of all people, and even some Jeremy Bentham. All in all, a weirder hodgepodge was never assembled, even by your Aimee Semple McPherson or our own Muggletonians.
"The final summing up of the hundred pages or so was a caution, or rather summons, to the Faithful, to withdraw from the world to a Secluded Spot at the first opportunity. Judging from what we had heard, Soldier Key was the Secluded Spot.
" 'It would be fascinating to find out what a gang like this has done in seventy years of isolation, don't you think?' said Joe. I agreed. It sounded like giving a new twist to our trip.
"Well, we weighed anchor that afternoon, after a farewell drink with our customs friend, and his last words intrigued us still more.
" 'Have you any weapons on board?'
"I answered that we had a shark rifle, a .30-30 Winchester carbine, and a Colt's .45 automatic pistol.
" 'Good. I think less well today than I did last night of having directed you to this place. There are strange rumors among les Noirs of Soldier Key. Send me a card from your next port, as a favor, eh'?'
"We promised and then said goodbye. Once clear of the harbor, we plotted a course and then told the two crewmen where we were going. The reaction was intriguing.
"Maxton, the older, looked rather glum, but Oswald, who was a six-foot black Hercules, actually forgot his usual respectful terms of address.
" 'Mon, what you go theah fo'? They not good people theah; wery bad people on Soljah Cay, Mon!'
"When Joe and 1 pressed them to say why exactly they disliked the place, they could not, or would not, give us any answers, except that no one went there from other islands and that the folk were unfriendly, especially to colored people.
" 'Come, come, Oswald,' said J
oe finally, 'there surely must be something you are not telling us.'
"The man stared at the deck and finally mumbled something about 'Duppies.'
"Well, you know, this made us laugh and that was an error. Duppies are West Indian ghosts, evil spirits, and are objects of fear among all British West Indian Negroes from Jamaica to Trinidad. When we joshed these two men about them, they shut up like oysters! Not one further word could we get out of them about Soldier Key. No, that's not right. I got one more thing a day later.
"Oswald was fishing with a hand line from the stern at a time when I had the helm. I had asked him idly what he was using for bait.
"He reached into a metal pail beside him and pulled out a huge black and grey snail's shell about six inches across. 'Soljah, Mistah Don, Sah.' I noticed he held it gingerly, and I suddenly saw why. The owner of the shell was not the original snail at all, but a weird-looking crab, with great orange and purple claws, too large for its size, beady eyes on stalks and a mass of red spiky legs. In fact, it was the northern hermit crab, simply grown huge and aggressive in the tropics. Its claws snapped and clicked as it tried to reach his fingers, and then he dropped it back into the pail.
" 'They are many of them where we go, Mistah Don, Sah, wery many of the Soljahs.'
"So here was the reason for the name of the island! I had been speculating to myself as to whether the British had ever had a fort there, but the explanation was much simpler. Hermit Crab Island! Under this new name, it made all the vague warnings of our French friend seem quite silly, and when I told Joe about it later when we changed watch, he rather agreed.
"We made our landfall in a trifle under three days, due mostly to light airs, you know. The island was flat, only about seven miles long and two wide; so it would not have been a hard place to miss, actually. We came steadily in from the East, took down sail and started the auxiliary engine, because there was a circular reef marked on the charts as extending almost completely around the island and it only had a few navigable openings.
"It was evening, and the sun was on the horizon when we saw the first lights of the island's only town. There was a hundred-yard passage through the reef, marked clearly as showing seven fathoms opposite the town; so we brought the schooner in until we were no more than fifty or so yards off-shore.
"The town lay in a semicircle about a shallow bay. There was a broken beach, with bits of low cliff about five feet above the water, which we could just dimly make out. I say dimly because it was now completely dark and there was no moon, only Caribbean starlight, although that's pretty bright.
"We switched off the engine, anchored and watched the town, because it was the oddest-appearing port we had ever seen. There wasn't a sound. A few dimmish lights, perhaps half a dozen, burned in windows at wide intervals, but no dogs barked, no rooster crowed, no noise of voices came over the water. There was a gentle breeze in our rigging and the lapping of wavelets on the hull, and that was all.
"Against the sky at one point to the left, we could see the loom of some tall building, and we thought that this might be a church, but what we were to make of this silence baffled us. Night, especially the evening, is a lively time in the tropics, in fact the liveliest. Where were the people?
"We debated going ashore and decided against it. I say 'we,' but I assure you our crew wasn't debating. They had made it quite plain earlier that they were not going even if ordered, not even in daylight.
" 'This is a bod place, Cap'n,' said Oswald to Joe. 'We do not wish to discommode you, Sah, but we don't go on thot land, at all, Sah, no!'
"And that was that. So, we set anchor watch and turned in. A few mosquitoes came out from shore but not many, and we fell asleep with no trouble at all, determined to solve the mystery of the quiet in the morning.
"I was awakened by a hand on my arm. I blinked because it was still pitch-black out, and I looked at my watch. It was two in the morning. Against the stars I could see Joe's head as he stooped over me.
" 'Come on deck, Don,' he said, 'and listen.' Even as he spoke, I was conscious that the night was no longer completely quiet.
"On deck, the four of us, for the two crewmen were up too, crouched in the cockpit, and we all strained our ears.
"The sound we were hearing was quite far off, a mile at the very least from the volume, but it was unmistakably the sound of many human voices singing. To us, it sounded like a hymn, but the tune was not a familiar one.
"After what seemed about twenty-three stanzas, it stopped, and we listened in the silent night again. Then, there came a distant shout, somewhat sustained and again silence for a moment. Then the rhythmic mass cry again, but longer this time and seeming to go up and down. It went on this way for about ten minutes, first the silence and then the noise of human voices, and I tried without success to make out what was going on. Joe got the clue first.
" 'Responses,' he said, and of course, that was it. We were listening to something very like a psalm, chanted by a lot of people, a long way off, and naturally we couldn't hear the minister at all, but only the antiphony.
"After a bit, it stopped, and after fifteen minutes or so we turned in again. Now we knew why the town was quiet. All the people, apparently including the babies, were celebrating a church service somewhere inland. The Church of the New Revelation seemed to go in for midnight services.
"Well, we woke at six to a typical blazing Caribbean morning and also to a visitor. Standing on the edge of the deck coaming was the hatless figure of a man, staring down at Joe and myself out of pale blue eyes.
"He was about sixty from his looks, clean-shaven and sallow, with thick white hair and a gaunt, peaked face. Not especially impressive until you studied the eyes. Ice blue they were, and so cold they gave me a chill even in the ninety-plus heat on deck.
" 'What do you want here?' he said, with no other introduction at all. 'We seek no visitors. This island is dedicated to the Lord.'
"I introduced Joe and myself, but he paid no attention. I noticed his shabby but clean white suit, shirt and tieless stiff collar, as he stepped down into the cockpit. Behind him, I saw a little skiff tied to the stern in which he had rowed himself out.
" 'Look!' he said suddenly, an expression of disgust crossing his features. 'You are bringing pollution with you. You slay the helpless creatures of the Lord!' With that he reached down and seized the bait bucket and emptied Oswald's bait, three of the big purple hermit crabs, over the side in one convulsive heave.
" 'Now, I say, just a moment, now,' said Joe, letting annoyance show through. 'Exactly who are you, and what's this all about? We've tried to be polite, but there are limits ...'
"The cold eyes swept over us again, and their nasty glint deepened. '1 am Brother Poole, son of the Founder. You would call me the Pastor, I suppose. The government of this blessed place is in my keeping. Once again, I say, who are you and what do you want?'
"Joe answered peaceably enough and re-introduced us, but he had obviously been doing some thinking while he listened to Poole.
" 'We just wanted to get some water and a little food,' said Joe, 'and some fresh fruit, before we go to Dominica. No law against going ashore on your island, is there?' He added, 'Isn't this British territory? Doesn't the Dominican governor ever allow people ashore here?'
"It was quite obvious that he had given Brother Poole something to chew on, you know. Whatever Poole's powers were on the island, he wasn't used to having them challenged. And it was evident from his hesitation that he didn't care for the remarks about the British or Crown government. You could see his bony face working as he grappled with the problem. Finally, something he must have thought was a smile struggled to get through. Frankly, I preferred his previous expression. A sanctimonious whine also crept into his hard voice.
" 'I regret my sharpness, gentlemen. We have so few visitors, mostly fishermen of loose morals. I am the guardian of our little Eden here, and I have to think of my flock. Of course, you may come ashore, and buy what you need. I only ask tha
t you kill nothing, do no fishing while here, out of respect to our law.'
"We stated we had no intention of killing anything and said we'd come ashore after we cleaned up and had breakfast. He climbed back into his boat, but before he cast off, turned back to us.
" 'Please see that those two black heathen stay on your schooner. Their presence is not wanted on our island, where they might corrupt our people.' A good share of the original venom had come back in his speech.
"As he pulled away, I turned to Maxton and Oswald to apologize, but it was unnecessary. Their faces were immobile, but also, it seemed to me, a shade paler under their natural darkness. Before I could say anything, Maxton spoke.
" 'Don't worry about us, Sah. We hov no desiah to enter in thot place. It is of the utmost dislike to us, I ossuah you, Sah.'
"Well, Joe and I shaved, and put on clean clothes, and then rowed our dinghy into the empty dock. There was only one, and that one small. A lot of fishing boats, all under twenty feet, were moored to buoys and also pulled up on the sloping beach—where it existed, that is.
The Peculiar Exploits of Brigadier Ffellowes Page 15