Old Glory

by Christopher Nicole

  Harry found himself at a sudden precipice, shallow enough — hardly more than twenty feet — but overlooking a huge area where the trees and bushes had suddenly stopped, and instead there was barren ground interspersed with streams of what appeared to be water, save that each stream was smoking as it trickled through the earth, while the stench of sulphur was almost stifling. And beyond the valley, set somewhat to one side, there was a huge cloud of steam and smoke rising some fifty feet into the air in repeated gushes of violence, in which Harry was sure there was also leaping water spouts — or were they actually sulphur spouts?

  The heat was like nothing he had ever known, and reawakened his captive. The man screamed again, and begged, for something Harry could not understand. But the man he had been following could be seen crossing the desolated valley beneath him, carefully hopping the streams. Harry sat down without hesitation, slid down the slope, and followed, while the man he was carrying continued to wail and moan. Now the heat was even more intense, although it was nearly dusk, but now was no time to stop. Harry hurried on, keeping his eyes on the distant man, once stepping into one of the boiling streams and giving a scream himself as the sulphur scorched his skin, and then suddenly emerging into clear air at the far end of the valley, where the ground sloped upwards again, and where there were some thirty Carib warriors standing watching him.

  *

  The man Harry had been following had already climbed the slope and dropped to his knees before the waiting braves, gasping out his story, pointing back at the huge figure behind him. But Harry never slackened his pace. The man to whom the story was principally being told was clearly a chieftain, for although he was as naked as his fellows, he wore a head-dress, consisting of a vine-rope similar to that round his waist, into which had been thrust a single feather. He was certainly the man to be conquered or killed, although, like his followers, he was obviously momentarily bemused at the tale he had been told, and which was now being verified by the huge figure in front of him, carrying one of his people on each shoulder.

  Harry reached the foot of the slope, drawing great breaths of clean air to clear the sulphur from his lungs, looking up at the men. The chieftain recovered himself, glanced from left to right, and then issued a command, and one of the other Caribs stepped forward. This was a man at once taller and more heavily muscled than his fellows; clearly a champion. He came slowly down the slope, somewhat apprehensively to be sure, but determined to obey his instructions, to disprove the legend the fleeing man had blurted.

  Harry heaved his right shoulder, and the dead man hit the ground with a crunch, and lay still. Then he heaved his left shoulder, and the still living man also hit the ground, to utter another scream of terror. The Indians on the slope drew closer together round their chieftain, their spears thrust forward, while the man sent to do battle checked, also holding his spear at full stretch.

  Once again, Harry knew, there was no time for half measures. ‘Ha ha!’ he bellowed, and leapt forward. The Indian brought up his spear and thrust; Harry twisted sideways and closed his hand on the wood, jerking it, and the Indian, for he retained his grasp, foward with tremendous force, then swinging the spear sideways. This sudden change of direction and increase in velocity proved too much for the man, who released his hold and flew through the air to crash into a bush. Harry swung the spear back to present the point to his remaining enemies, and continued his charge up the slope. The Caribs gazed at him for one terrified second, and then broke and fled. The chieftain was the last to move, and he left it too late, but Harry would have overtaken him anyway, as he was his target. He grasped the man’s shoulder with his free hand and struck him smartly across the head with the haft of the spear. The chieftain grunted and sagged, dropping his own weapon. Harry prudently pulled the knife from his belt and threw it into the bushes, drew a long breath, thrust his iron fingers into the chieftain’s waist, and then, exerting all his strength, raised the man above his head, with one hand, holding him there as he advanced behind the other warriors, the spear now in his left hand, his victim’s legs and arms dangling above his head. The chieftain promptly recovered consciousness, took in his situation at a glance, and gave a scream of terror, but there was nothing he could do with Harry’s fingers biting into his stomach, and with the ground now some nine feet beneath him.

  Harry advanced, sweat running down his arms and face, and pain too, for the chief was no light weight. But he was not as heavy as that anchor. And in front of him now was a collection of huts, or rather uprights, unwalled but thatched with palm leaves, accumulated around a central clearing, in which there glowed a fire, while to one side was a large stake cut from the branch of a tree. This stake had been forked at the upper end, and from this fork, suspended by a rope vine, was quite the most ghastly sight Harry had ever seen, for it was the skeleton of a man, who had obviously been secured there while still living, by the rope-vine round his neck. His wrists had been bound behind him, but the rest of him had been left free, no doubt to twist and writhe as the living flesh had been cut from his bones; pieces of rotten skin still hung in tatters from his shoulder blades, and worst of all, his head had been untouched. Here too the flesh was rotting away from the scalp, but the expression of horrible fear and torment which remained on his face was terrifying.

  Harry swallowed, and looked beyond the stake at the women and children of the tribe, as naked as their menfolk, and in an even greater state of terror as they gazed at the apparition stalking towards them, bearing their chieftain aloft like a flag. Harry gazed at them for several seconds, then at the warriors, facing him from behind their spears, to either side of their womenfolk, but afraid to move, both from apprehension of what he might do next and for fear of harming their leader.

  Harry drew another long breath. Now he must make his conquest both real and permanent; obviously he could not kill them all. But his memory of Raleigh’s tales came back to him. These savages were not Christians, nor did they have any understanding of anything outside their own experience. They worshipped visible objects like the sun and the moon, the trees and the hurricane winds, things they could not explain, but which were there, because they could see them. And of all these visible objects beyond their understanding, the sun was the greatest — and the sun was slowly setting behind him now, sinking into the sea, and huge round ball.

  But he was also at once visible, and beyond their understanding, in his angry strength and power. They would worship him as well, especially if they thought he might emanate from that sun.

  Carefully he set the chieftain on the ground. The man’s knees gave way and Harry had to catch him again and hold him up, until his strength returned and he stood straight, drawing great breaths, clearly uncertain whether to run or stand his ground.

  Harry stepped away from him, raised his spear, then turned and pointed it at the sun, actually turning his back on the assembled warriors. ‘Peace!’ he bellowed, as loudly as he could, sending his voice reverberating through the hills. ‘I come from the Great Sun, in Peace. As I now demonstrate.’ He raised the spear again, held it in both hands, and with a twist of his wrists broke it into two pieces. Then he offered the two halves to the chieftain.

  The people behind him shuffled their feet. They might not have understood what he was saying, but they understood his gesture.

  As did the chieftain, although for several seconds he seemed afraid to move. Then he slowly took the broken spear and gazed at it, staring at the thickness of the wood which had been so easily snapped. Then he stepped forward, close to Harry, and gazed more closely at the white skin and the immense muscles, and more closely yet at Harry’s genitals, which were about twice the size of his own.

  Then he spoke, while Harry waited, scarce daring to draw breath. This was surely a crucial moment.

  The Chieftain turned away, and walked towards his people, while Harry tensed his muscles and prepared to die in battle; he certainly had no intention of being tied living to a stake. He watched the chieftain walk up to the
women, and address them. There was a moment’s hesitation, almost a universal shudder, then a girl — she could hardly have been fifteen, Harry supposed, stepped out of the throng. Small and slim, with almost non existent breasts and no pubic hair that he could see, he yet understood that he was being offered something in return, as the chieftain took her by the hand, and led her to where he stood.

  CHAPTER 5 – The Caribbean and New York 1770-75

  ‘Show me this man,’ John Paul commanded.

  The Frenchman shrugged. ‘You understand that there is little likelihood of anything he claims being true, monsieur. Survived the Caribs, indeed. Lived with them for a year. No white man has ever done this. And the other tales he tells, actually living in a volcano, a place he calls the Valley of Desolation … He has the imagination of a madman.’

  ‘If he’s the man I’m thinking about,’ Paul said, ‘then he could just be telling the absolute truth. A real giant, you say?’

  ‘Oh, enormous, monsieur.’

  ‘Then take me to him.’

  ‘As you wish.’ The Frenchman led him away from the huge, palm fringed natural harbour of Fort-de-France. As was a natural concomitant of the French character, here in Martinique there was an elegance, both of dress and architecture and even landscaping, which it had never occurred to their British rivals to cultivate. Fort-de-France was a beautiful place, and was filled with beautiful things, from the marble statuary which decorated the gardens of the houses John Paul passed, to the people themselves, for the French were also different from the British in their treatment of their out-children; in a British colony, any child of colour was automatically a slave, regardless of his or her antecedents, but in the French colonies, any child born of a white father was automatically free, even if the mother might have stepped off a slaver from the Bight of Benin only nine months previously. The girls in particular were entrancing, with soft brown skins and liquid eyes, carefully coiffured hair and the flimsiest of muslin gowns worn over hardly a petticoat.

  But Paul had eyes only for the little square he and his guide were approaching, where there was a small crowd gathered to watch a sideshow, for in the centre a huge man was balancing a block of stone on his chin, and as Paul watched, another, even larger block, was lifted by those immense arms to be placed on top of the first.

  ‘You will scarce credit this, monsieur,’ the Fenchman said. ‘But each of those stones is more than the average man can lift.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll credit it,’ Paul said. The man wore only a loin cloth, allowing his magnificent muscles to ripple in everyone’s view, and his skin was so burned he might almost have been a Negro, or at least an Indian, himself. But there was no doubting who he was. ‘Harry McGann!’ Paul cried. ‘Large as life and twice as beautiful.’

  Harry stiffened, and the rocks lost their balance. He caught them easily enough, one in each hand, while the spectators applauded, supposing it all a part of the trick, and one or two threw coins at his feet.

  Harry set the rocks on the ground beside the coins, and straightened. ‘John Paul?’ he asked. ‘Can I believe it?’

  Paul embraced him. ‘You can and will believe it. I have been hearing some strange things about you. But the strangest is the evidence of my eyes, that you are alive.’

  ‘Aye, well, it’s a long story.’

  ‘One I am eager to hear. You’ll take a cup of wine?’

  ‘Wine …’ Harry licked his lips. ‘They’d not allow me through the door.’

  ‘Then I will bring one out to you.’

  The crowd was melting away now, unable to understand what the two men were saying. The Frenchman who had escorted Paul remained. ‘Is this your friend, monsieur?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Paul said. ‘Oh, yes, this is my friend. Risen from the dead.’

  *

  Harry sat on the ground, and leaned his back against a tree, sipping the red liquid. ‘That tastes so good. So very good. So there you are. I am afraid I lost my temper with them. But it was the only way to survive.’

  John Paul sat in a chair, above him, close by the door of the pension. Passersby cast the pair curious glances, for if the naked giant was a familiar sight in Fort-de-France, it was not supposed he had any friends, and the nattily dressed sailor was a surprise.

  ‘That is the best tale I have heard in many a year,’ Paul declared. ‘Or will ever hear again, I swear. And is there really a valley scoured by sulphur streams and a constantly bubbling volcano in the midst of those dark green forests?’

  ‘I have walked that valley, John, and stood on the edge of that volcano, and felt the heat on my face. The Indians call it the Boiling Lake.’

  ‘Above the Valley of Desolation,’ Paul mused. ‘Names to stir the imagination, to be sure. And you say you lived with the Indians for a year?’

  Harry shrugged. ‘I was considered a god. The chief … they call him a cacique … gave me his own daughter to bed. I imagine he supposed we would produce another god, to whom he would be related.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘There was no evidence of it, at least as regards size. The babe would have had to be a goddess, anyway.’

  ‘And so you left?’

  ‘It had long been in my mind. You can see Martinique from Dominica. It was a matter of taking the decision. But I reckoned they might turn hostile again if they felt I was not quite so omnipotent as they supposed. So I took one of their canoes and came across the passage. It was no great feat.’

  ‘Abandoning your wife and daughter.’ Harry turned his head to look at his friend. ‘Do you really suppose I could look on them in such a civilised manner? By God, John, I have seen that girl tear a living man to pieces, and suck his severed prick. I’ll not pretend she did not warm my bed magnificently. But …’

  ‘You felt you were bedding a wild animal. Buggery, by God!’

  ‘In more ways than one,’ Harry agreed. ‘You know the Indian way of sex?’

  ‘I have heard of it,’ Paul said carefully. ‘Was all their life on such a plane?’

  Harry considered. ‘I would have to say yes to that,’ he said at last. ‘They live only for battle and conquest. They fish for food, but tend no fields — the women do that. They have no morals, no compunction, and no compassion, either. Anyone who grows old, or too sick to play his part, is sent into the forest to starve to death.’

  ‘Not eaten?’

  ‘No, no. They never eat their own. That is reserved for the strongest and bravest of their enemies taken in battle.’

  ‘No bad habit.’

  ‘Maybe, in the abstract. But they are animals, John, in every way. They have not the slightest culture, beyond the ability to sharpen a spear, carve a canoe, or plait a hammock. I have said, they have no morals. They copulate as they choose, men and women, men and men, women and women, or they spill their seed upon the ground, like dogs. They do everything like dogs.’

  Paul gazed at him for some moments. Then he said, ‘And so, Martinique. Maybe surviving here has been even more difficult. You look as if you could do with a square meal.’

  ‘That I could,’ Harry agreed. ‘But here at least I am amongst Christians. And I happen to speak the language, somewhat.’

  ‘Do you? You have more secrets than I supposed, Harry.’

  ‘Then where did you suppose we Irish obtained our smuggled goods?’ Harry asked. ‘France is closer than Holland.’

  ‘I had forgotten that. And so you have eked out a living by performing feats of strength and telling tales no one is prepared to believe. Well, old friend, I would say you have lived more than any man I have ever known, and you are barely twenty years of age. Are you ready to resume a more settled way of life?’

  ‘Such as brings you to Martinique?’

  ‘Ah,’ Paul said. ‘That was not deliberate, I do assure you. But I’ve a captain at death’s door, and I could not risk a long incarceration in an English port, just in case my ship was recognised as a smuggler.’

  Harry frowned. ‘Dowding is ill?’ Paul no
dded. ‘He has some contagion. I’m damned if I know what it is, and I’m not sure the local surgeon has much idea either. So here we are, and here we stay, until he recovers or dies. Although the surgeon says the latter is the more likely occurrence. Harry, if that happens, indeed, whether or not it happens, I need you back at my side. I’ll tell you straight, things have changed, for the worse. The six men that cursed Cormorant took out of us were the best we had, both in loyalty and experience. And when we regained Norfolk, four more good men quit the West Indian trade, for fear of being impressed themselves on another voyage. I have the sweepings of Virginia and the Carolinas on board now, boy. Abner seems able to deal with them. He has an easy going streak I lack. I need a strong right arm to support my own.’ He gave one of his savage grins. ‘And a strong left arm, too.’

  Harry finished his wine. ‘Then let me tell you straight, John Paul: no man is ever, if I live to be a hundred, again going to put a shackle on my wrist or take a rope to my back. You’ll have to understand that.’

  ‘God, man, you’ll ship as mate. No fear of that.’

  ‘I was thinking of encountering another frigate.’

  Paul gazed at him, then nodded. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Never again. You’ve my word, Fighting Harry McGann; I’ll not let you down again, if I swing for it.’

  Harry squeezed his hand.

  *

  ‘This man is dead,’ the French surgeon said, straightening, his head brushing the deck beams in the great cabin of the Carolina Wind. ‘He has been dead for several hours.’

  John Paul nodded. ‘I feared as much. What must we do?’

  ‘Legally, or sensibly, monsieur?’

  ‘One at a time.’

  ‘Legally, the death should be reported ashore, and the body taken there for burial. This may well prove unfortunate for you, however. You observe the colour of his face?’

  ‘Yellow,’ Paul said.