Caribee

by Christopher Nicole

  And the beach. 'By Christ,' he shouted, and ran from Brimstone Hill. Yarico came behind, more slowly. She knew what he would find.

  He stood on the lip of the hill. The beach was obliterated beneath the huge foaming breakers which still hurled themselves at the shore, ripping up the sand with horrific force, smashing it and swirling it, and sucking it back out to sea. The village remained above the high water mark. Tegramond had made them build wisely. Above the high water mark. But not above the high wind mark. There had been a village. This much was evident in the discoloured sand, the timber which lay scattered across the grass and into the field. But then, there had had been a field, and the field had contained an almost ripe tobacco crop. Now it was nothing more than a scar. Even the seed beds had disappeared, the carefully prepared earth demolished as a child might have demolished an unwanted sandcastle. He was obsessed with this relationship to childishness, to the childish fiendishness of the Caribs, and now of the weather. He wondered how any responsible adult mind could conceive of destruction on such a vast scale, and then implement such a concept.

  But there had been people here. He ran down the path, panting, amazed at his selfishness, for his soul cried out, no, I cannot be the only white person left alive in this terrible community. No love there, no feeling to Tony and Hal Ashton and Berwicke. No love such as had brought Yarico feeling her way through the darkness and the danger to find him, last night. Such as brought her behind him now, scurrying down the path, anxious for his friends because he was anxious for them, although her mind must be consumed with worry for her own people; the Carib village was much more exposed.

  He reached the foot of the hill, found the sand piled up in huge drifts much like the Suffolk snow, thrown against the grassy banks as if to protect the land beyond. But it had not protected the land beyond.

  He kicked his way through the shattered timbers. They had been so proud of their huts, of the way they had been constructed, of the wooden utensils they had carved. They were here too, and so were the remains of the wine bottles, and even one of the muskets, sticking up out of the sand.

  'Edward? By God, 'tis the boy.' Ashton came staggering out of the trees, bleary eyed and shaking.

  'Ned.' Hilton was behind them, face ashen.

  Last of all came Berwicke. How he had aged in a night. Perhaps there had always been a considerable amount of white in his hair, but it had been kept sufficiently concealed behind the remaining black. Now it was all in evidence, and his round cheeks had shrunk, and his shoulders were bowed. 'Edward,' he said. 'Thank God, for that at the least'

  'The girl saved my life,' Edward said.

  Yarico stood, some distance away, watching them, as they watched her, for in the tumult of the night she had lost her cloth, and now he, too, realized for the first time that he was naked.

  ‘It was a fierce wind,' he said, stupidly.

  'Aye,' Berwicke said. 'Well, it matters naught now. There can be no law, no discipline, where there is no colony.' He turned away from the boy. 'We were not meant to hold this pleasant land. It belongs to the wind, and the sea. And the people of blood.'

  How calm the sea. Edward paused to wipe his brow, to toss his head and scatter the sweat as did his Carib friends. And to gaze at the water. It stretched forever, a measureless blue carpet, undulating, but no more than gently. That it could have acted the angry fiend of a few weeks ago seemed incredible, looking at it now. Yet it had not been a dream. He had to do no more than walk along the beach, and look at the colony, at the empty weal which had been the tobacco plantation, at the scattered huts, at the sand still piled in huge drifts, only slowly being whittled away by the breeze, at the men, as scattered as their erstwhile belongs, lying on the sand, existing, in a tropical paradise which held within it the core of destruction.

  He could never have supposed that once these men had been his friends. More, his mentors. He had begged them to work, to make some effort to restore the buildings and replant the crop, and they had thrown stones at him. Berwicke, a man whose entire body, always overweight, had sagged into a coma, who stared at the field and muttered to himself. Ashton, a sailing master come to grief upon an endless reef, gazing at the waters and remembering rather than dreaming. Tony Hilton, strangest of all. Hilton climbed the hill every day, at the least, and looked out to sea. He would do no more. 'Plantations,' he said in disgust. 'Months of back-breaking work. To be scattered into dust whenever He feels the mood? Speak not to me of plantations.'

  No longer men, but creatures. Edward had taken himself to where men still were men. Now he discovered why the Indian village had given such an impression of flimsy impermanence. There had been storms before, hurricanes, as the Caribs called them, and it made no sense to stand before such a wind. One took shelter, and allowed one's house to scatter, and when the wind was gone, one rebuilt one's house. It was only a matter of a few hours' work.

  He had endeavoured to ask Yarico and her father if such storms were common. They had said yes, and no, which he intrepreted to mean that they were common enough in this part of the world, but that they did not invariably destroy a particular island. But as to time, he could learn nothing. The Caribs thought in moons, and it was apparently a great number of moons since the last hurricane had struck St Christopher. But as the Caribs regarded any number greater than five as enormous, he was very little further ahead.

  It did not matter. He was happy here. He was one of the young men, an important phrase. Theirs was a meaninglessly busy life. They fished, and they swam, and they wrestled, and they practised the use of their weapons, the long spear which they hurled with deadly accuracy, and the bow, with a range hardly longer, for it was a small and poorly stringed instrument, but with which again they attained great accuracy. They slept together in a larger than usual hut, as they were the unmated ones, and they acknowledged as their leader the chief designate, Wapisiane.

  This single fact had disturbed Edward, at first. But Wapisiane apparently bore no grudge, or concealed it well. There was no morality in this culture, beyond the necessity to be brave. They reminded Edward of dogs. When a boy felt the necessity he sat on the sand and masturbated, or coupled with another boy. It seldom occurred to them to seek one of the girls, for pleasure. Rather was this a duty which would follow manhood, for the perpetuation of the tribe. That their new friend found it enjoyable to trail into the woods behind Yarico they found at once amusing and contemptible. But they also soon learned to respect him. At fourteen he was a full grown man, stronger than any of the Indian boys, and he had been taught the use of his fists by Tony during the voyage from England, an art which was totally incomprehensible to them. The first time he answered a challenge, and his assailant lowered his head and shoulders to throw bodi arms around his waist, he had struck down with all his force and stretched the boy unconscious on the sand. He had, indeed, been terrified that he might have killed him, but the other Indians had been delighted, and soon enough his victim had scrambled to his feet, dazed, and quite disinclined to continue the fight.

  This total personal liberty encompassed even the adults. It was impossible to decide who belonged to whom, mother, father, child or wife. The small children were herded together, and were cared for by the older women. The younger women worked the fields, for they grew corn, and cleaned fish, and attended to all household chores, which included rebuilding the houses. Even Yarico, the chief's daughter, slept with the girls and worked with them, and possessed only as much leisure as they did. But she saved her leisure for him.

  It occurred to him that to intents and purposes he was married. But far more than that. He wore a breech clout and no tiling more, ate raw fish with is fingers, and indeed, caught them with his bare hands, for Wapisiane was a great fisherman and every morning before dawn he and Edward would scour the shallows off the village, and seldom return with empty baskets. He feared the return of this father, to interrupt this idyll which made so much nonsense of kings and their courts, of titles and towers, of the right to worship or
the right not to worship, of the inevitability of growing old, of the certainty of death. There was no death amongst the Caribs, at least, not to the visible eye. Now he learned the secret of the far north of the island, and the reason for the absence of old people; it was the custom amongst the Caribs that the moment any man or woman felt old age or infirmity approaching, they walked away from the village and took themselves to the thick forest at the north, there to die of starvation in solitude. At fourteen this seemed an admirable philosophy. Their entire religion was in this simple mould. All things, the leaves on the trees and the grains of sand on the beaches, possessed life. The more powerful the object or creature, the greater the life. Thus the sea, the wind, the clouds, and above all the sun, were dominant creatures, as near as possible to the Christian concept of God, equalled only by the solid mass of the central mountain, similarly immense, similarly immortal. Prayer consisted of a simple appeal. That there could be a life after death had not occurred to the Caribs.

  As for their other philosophy, that by eating the living flesh of an enemy a man could imbibe some of his strength and courage, the occasion had not yet recurred. What would he do should Yarico come to him with a dripping human steak in her hands or in her teeth? But this was a problem of the future, to be set alongside the return of Father, and other incalculable prospects. Life in the Carib encampment was lived from day to day; only the good or famous events from the past were remembered, and any possible sorrows or problems in the future were not considered at all.

  Yet the future must come, and in March, five months after the storm, it arrived in the shape of a small vessel, flying the cross of St George, announced by a running Hilton, showing more activity than for months past.

  They gathered on the water's edge, white men and Caribs, women, girls and boys, to watch the pinnace making for the shore. Tom Warner stood in the stern, clad in velvet and leather, new doublet and polished thigh boots, tall hat with feather, gleaming hilted rapier suspended from shining baldric, trimmed beard and a jewelled pin at his throat.

  'What?' he cried, as he approached. 'There has been some disaster here, I'll warrant.'

  'A storm, Tom,' Berwicke said. 'A storm such as you can never have imagined.' He peered into the boat. 'Mistress Warner, well thanks be to God, ma'am. But who is this strapping fellow?'

  'Philip, you old fool' Tom said. Ten years old, by God. And what think you of this, eh? Her name is Sarah.'

  The little girl clung to the gunwale, and stared at the island and the Indians with wide eyes. Like her brother, she closely resembled her father, short and sturdily built, blue eyed and dark haired.

  Tom lifted his wife ashore. 'But when happened this storm? Tegramond, you old villain.' He clasped the smiling cacique to his breast. ' Tis good to see you again. And I bring news. The storm, Ralph, you were to tell me of the storm.'

  'Some months gone,' Ashton said.

  'Months, and the village is still scattered? And no tobacco planted? Or have you changed your site?"

  'We are still at Sandy Point, Tom,' Hilton said. ‘In faith, it has not seemed worth our while to replant where it can be so easily destroyed.'

  'By God,' Tom said. 'Rebecca, I’ll have you shake hands with the chief. Now remember, girl, I have told you all of him. He is not half so fierce as he seems, and he is my friend. Perhaps my best friend in all the world. Ralph, I'm that disappointed in you, old friend. How can a colony prosper, without setbacks? Setbacks, storms, illnesses, it is the surviving of these things that makes a man better than these savages. Have we not suffered much together, and still survived, and prospered?"

  'Colony,' Hilton said in disgust?’

  Tom rounded on him. 'Aye, colony, Tony. For that is what we are.' Fom his doublet he pulled a rolled parchment. 'Here is my warrant. Thomas Warner, gentleman, the King's Lieutenant of the Caribee Isles. I have much to tell you, lads. Much. Welcomed at court, I was. Mr North is a true man, and spread nothing but honest tales of our courage, and my lord of Warwick is again in favour. The grant indeed is in his name, but transmitted through him to me and my heirs. But where is Edward?’

  'Edward?' Rebecca freed herself from the cacique's grasp, for he was staring at her with a bemused expression, taking in her padded skirt and her low-cut bodice, her combed hair and her pale skin. 'Where is Edward?"

  He stepped through the crowd. Saving his hair, he looked no different to the boys around him.

  'Edward?" Tom shouted. 'By Christ, boy, what has become of you?"

  'He is all of a savage,' Berwicke said. We call him Caribee.

  'Edward?" Rebecca whispered. 'Oh, Edward.'

  Her arms were wide. Yet he was strangely reluctant to step into them. There was too much difference here, between what he was and what he had been. It had been too long, since last he had been close to her, and in that time too much had happened. And she was still a young woman, and an attractive one.

  He went closer, felt her fingers on his skin, inhaled her scent. 'Mother. 'Tis good to see you.'

  She kissed him, held him at arms' length. 'And is that all you can say? But truly, you are not the child who went away. Now I have two men.'

  Two men that you'll be proud of,' Tom said, taking his son's hand. 'But I'll have no white Indians in my colony. I've brought you some fine clothes, boy. We're rich. Did you not know that? Ralph Merrifield, you remember Ralph? He has bought our tobacco and advanced me a sum against our next crop. Why, my return is all the talk in London. You'll get yourself dressed, boy. I have need of you, I can see that. There's work to be done.'

  'And have you also come with a shipload of colonists, Father?'

  Tom frowned. 'No,' he said. I doubt that England is yet the place it was in my youth. Now all they can speak of is the Don's habit of torturing to death intruders found in the Americas, and of the cannibalism of the Caribs. I raised six men in England. Hut they are fine fellows.'

  'Six men?' Berwicke asked.

  'Disappointing, Ralph, to be sure. So I sailed across the ocean to Virginia, to search for more.'

  'And had you success?' Ashton asked.

  'Not really. Six more. That is our force for the present.'

  'Twelve men, to found a colony?" Edward asked.

  There will be more, lad, you may rest assured on that score.'

  'Twelve men,' Tony Hilton said contemptuously. 'Warner's Empire, by God. I'll do better on my own.' He turned, and walked into the forest.

  5

  The Lovers

  'Oh, let him go,' Tom Warner said. 'Hell be back, when he's tired of living like an animal. He had always the spirit of a trouble maker. And 'tis true enough I failed him in his present. But not you, Ralph....' he waved his hand, and two of the young men brought up a large box. 'The finest beaver hat in England. Hal, there's enough beer coming ashore for you to bathe in. And Edward, your sword.'

  His eyes gleamed as he watched his son take the blade, and slowly turn it over. Caribee. But the boy was, after all, a Warner.

  Rebecca could read his mind. 'And a man,' she said softly.

  Edward raised his head. ‘It is good to see you again. So good. How are Uncle Edward and Aunt Jane?’

  'Well.' But her face was solemn. She anticipated his next question.

  'And Mother Elizabeth?'

  'Dead these two years. She was old, Edward. Old.'

  'As we shall all grow old, one day,' Tom declared. 'Meanwhile, there is work to do.'

  He had been rejuvenated. The doubts and the fears had been swept away by his reception in England. He considered it, and rightly, no more than a just reward for his efforts, for his courage and his determination, and regretted only that he had waited until the second half of his life to reveal such qualities to those in power. Now he bubbled with confidence.

  "You may be disappointed,' he told Ashton and Berwicke and Edward, ‘In these lads, but they've the backs for work, and ambition to be wealthy.'

  "This wealth you speak of,' Ashton remarked. 'You did not bring it back with your"
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  'Have you not all got new clothes? And weapons? Is there not a sufficient stock of European food, and good wine and cheese, to allow us to enjoy this heathen diet?' Tom bellowed. 'As for the rest, why, it is invested in the future of the colony. John Jefferson, you remember John Jefferson, Ralph? He will be arriving soon enough with another shipload of men. And he'll be bringing the women to make our lads wives. Then we'll see young Hilton come crawling back out of that bush. And for the meanwhile, fear not, old friends, I have made them all take the same oath as ourselves. There'll be no friction with Tegramond.'

  He paused, and again gazed at Edward. But he was not disposed to make an issue of what remained only a rumour. The boy had been lonely, and going on the evidence of his own eyes, alone. He could not be blamed for seeking some positive company. Meanwhile, it was necessary to dangle the dream always before their eyes. He at least never doubted that it would come true.

  'Aye,' he said. 'This island will be the fortune of us all. And many more besides. St Christopher? 'What rubbish. We're no papists. We have renamed it, by God. Merrifield and Warner, Mer and War, so Merwar's Hope. That's how it shall be marked on the maps forever more. Merwar's Hope. Now here's something to make your eyes gleam.'

  For another boat was approaching the shore, a noisy boat, with its barkings and yelpings, and soon two mastiffs, a dog and a bitch, came bounding through the shallows.

  'We had that trouble, to keep them apart at sea,' Tom said. 'But now, why, they'll mate and provide all the guards we shall ever need. What say you, Tegramond, old friend?"

  For the Caribs had gathered in a huddle, staring fearfully at the bounding dogs, who could sense the fear, and now bared their teeth and set their forelegs firmly in the sand; the chief had his hand on the hilt of his sword.

  'They'll not harm you, Tegramond,' Tom said. 'Unless you make them, or I tell them.'

  The cacique pointed. 'Spanish,' he said.

  ‘Aye, the Spaniards use them, to be sure. But we'll not, I promise you that, without good cause. Yet a few sharp-toothed brutes will render our numbers more equal,' he remarked to his friends. ‘I've a mind that Tegramond will not live forever, whereas this colony of ours is now planted for eternity.'