Caribee

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘I am not mad.' Her hands left his body, and her arms outstretched. She lay beneath him, crucified on the rock, sucking air into her lungs. ‘I learned to think, under those lashes, under Mr Hilton's body, and I learned that there is no greater pleasure than thought’

  'You did not share, with him.'

  Her eyes were only inches from his face, very bright. 'No. This hurts him. I see it in his face. He loves me. In him, I can see and understand love.'

  'But you love me.'

  She gazed at him. ‘I wished to know that.'

  He rolled off her, and sat up. ‘I would like, one day, to know a woman who would seek nothing from me. Who would lie in my arms because she has no wish to be anywhere else on the face of this earth. Because she has no wish even to be in Heaven, when she can lie in my arms’

  To accomplish that’ Susan said, 'you would have to be an altogether exceptional man, yourself. You have much talent, within you. But it is restricted, by fear.'

  'Still? Of what would you say I am afraid, now?’

  'Many things, Edward. Your father. Mr Hilton. Hurricanes. Caribs. Death. Perhaps even of life. And of yourself. You fear your instincts. They say you are a coward, a man who will not fight, for anything. Because you did not fight for me. Because you did not take part in the raid on the Caribs.

  Because now you drink. We hear these things, even on windward. Mr Hilton is troubled by them. He remembers that you are not a coward. He has told me of you in the hold of his ship, when you were just a child. That is why I think you are afraid of yourself. You feel something tremendous stirring in your belly, and you fear that should you ever follow the dictates of your belly rather than your head you would uncover something that you do not know how to control, that you will never know how to control.'

  He gazed at her. An Irish whore, Father had said of her. Who had spent three years thinking, and now wished to love again. 'And if I did that, you'd leave Tony? For me?"

  'We were married in the church.' Slowly she got up and picked up her nightdress. But he is a Protestant'

  Tom Warner and the militia from Sandy Point had put out the last of the fire. They stood in a group gazing at the shattered remains of the plantation. With them was Tony Hilton and his three labourers.

  'Edward, by God,' Tom cried. 'Where in the name of Heaven have you been?"

  ‘I found no one when I arrived here,' Edward said. 'And so I went hunting in the woods, and found Susan. Mistress Hilton.'

  'But....' Tom gazed from his son to Tony.

  They could not have heard our gunshots, Tom,' Hilton said. 'But I am right glad to see you again, sweetheart, safe and sound. I would you had stayed where I placed you.'

  She allowed herself into his arms for a kiss on the forehead.

  ‘I became afraid,' she murmured. And flushed. Tony was frowning as he released her.

  'Aye, well,' Tom said, suddenly in a bustle. 'You'd best return to Sandy Point with us. There is naught you can do here. And those devils may come again. Fortunate we are that we have suffered no human loss. If only..' he pulled at his lip. 'We have lived here now for four years, with no trouble from the neighbouring islands. What can have brought this venture?"

  They may have learned that there are no longer any of their own people living here,' Hilton suggested.

  ‘But how?" Tom demanded. 'There has been no embassy, no investigation of our affairs.'

  By Christ, Edward thought: Wapisiane. He had all but forgotten, Wapisiane. Three years since the massacre. Three years for Wapisiane to make his way from empty Nevis to Dominica or one of the other populated islands. Three years to survive the stake which would have been waiting for him there. Now, how had he done that? But if he had, it could only have been by rising amongst his people. So, three years in which he had become a leader, the cacique, as he had been selected by Tegramond. And thus, after three years, he was in a position to begin his campaign of vengeance. By Christ. If these people knew that, they would hang him on the instant.

  'However it came about,' Hilton said, ‘It has done so. But I do not agree, firstly, that they will return in a hurry. It can scarce be even a Carib's idea of pleasure to paddle up and down these waters all day and all night. In the second place, if we are to be subjected to visitations like these, I think it all the more important for me to remain on this coast, at least to give you warning of their next appearance. But spare me some of your Irish people to rebuild my house, and be sure that this time it shall be intended to withstand a siege.'

  'By God, Tony, but I bless the day you elected to follow me,' Tom said. 'Of course you are right, and of course you shall have all the labour you require. I only wish I had others of your stomach in my colony.' He glanced at Edward. ‘I’ll requisition from amongst my planters. But you're sure you'll be able to keep order amongst the rascals? Had I not better also send you some able-bodied men to maintain discipline?'

  Hilton smiled; the huge mouth became the gash which could be so terrifying. ‘I'll manage, Tom. But leave me Edward. He's a likely lad. And it's about tune he entered upon his manhood's duties, would you not say?"

  Edward opened his mouth, glanced at Susan, and closed it again. He felt he was acting hi a play, in which everyone on the stage save himself knew plot and lines, and yet in which he was the leading character.

  'Aye,' Tom said. ‘It would be better than lying about the beach drunk, to the detriment of discipline and my reputation. You'll stay and overseer Mr Hilton's works, Edward, for as long as he requires your services. It would be best for all if that period does not end until my return from England.' He hesitated, and then held out his hand. ‘I’ll say goodbye, boy; I'm truly sorry it has to be this way, but we'll put our trust in the future.'

  "We'll not rebuild on this ruin.' Hilton stood on the high land overlooking the beach, hands on hips. 'Well let that scar remain there to remind us and keep us watchful. There's our site.'

  The men turned their heads to look at the thick grove of trees a hunched yards to their right, standing on a shallow bluff, and then trooped across the beach towards it, behind their leader.

  'From here well command the sweep of the beach in both directions,' Hilton said. 'And this is going to be a fortress, lads. Solid wooden walls, with loopholes, and when we're ready, the Governor will let as have a cannon. The ships will put it ashore here before they return to England. We're to be more than just a plantation, lads. We're to be the windward bastion of Merwar's Hope. Now fall to. The first thing I want done is that copse reduced to logs.'

  The twenty Irishmen exchanged glances. 'There's a lot of work, Mr Hilton,' Paddy O'Reilly remarked, softly. 'Are ye and Mr Warner going to give us a hand?"

  'Me and Mr Warner have things to do,' Hilton said. 'We've the future plantation to plan, and some talking to do. So they're a lot of logs, Paddy. You're fortunate in having your building materials close at hand. Is there a man amongst you'd rather go back to Sandy Point? I promise you this, lads: work well for me from sun up to sun down, and you'll have all the liquor you can drink. You'll eat what we eat, too. You've my word on that. My wife will seat you round our own camp fire. There'll be no stocks and no whip, but so help me God, any man who wants to question my authority can get down on that sand and put up his fists, now.'

  He stood above them, tall and broad and filled with strength. His beard remained thin, and thus did nothing to hide the power of his face, the strange attraction of the pock marks and the deep set eyes. It occurred to Edward that in calling him a would-be buccaneer Roger North had shown a shrewd judgement of character. He glanced at the forest, into which his father and the militia had disappeared but an hour earlier. Was he afraid? He looked down at the beach. Susan stood there, watching the men. She still wore nothing more than her nightdress. She possessed nothing more, at the moment, although no doubt the women of Sandy Point would come to her aid with a few spare garments. Now the breeze stretched the linen sheer against her flesh. Twenty men, one lover, and one husband. She did not look the least
apprehensive. But then, neither did her husband.

  O'Reilly spat on his hands. ‘I'm thinking that's a fair proposition, Mr Hilton. Well build your fort, if ye'll promise not to return a man jack of us to Sandy Point. We've no mind to stifle.'

  'Aye, Mr. Hilton,' Connor said. 'Yell need a lot of labour, to plant your tobacco all over again. For a long time.'

  'You'd have me get into debt, you rascals?’

  'Sure, and ye're a gentleman, Mr Hilton,' O'Reilly pointed out. 'Gentlemen are ever in debt.'

  'You've a mind to practise your popery in private, I reckon,' Hilton said. 'Build me a fortress, O'Reilly, and I'll be prepared to consider the rest. But by Christ I'm offering no haven for layabouts. Work, God damn you, and then we'll talk. You're overseer, O'Reilly. See to it.'

  'Ye're a fair man, Mr Hilton. I'll see to it.' O'Reilly picked up the axe, looked at it for a moment, and swung it against the bole of the first tree. His followers gave a whoop, and seized their tools with the avidity of children seeking their toys.

  ‘You have a way with you, Tony,' Edward said. "You'd make a good governor. A better governor than Father.'

  ‘I doubt I quite possess his purpose,' Hilton said. 'But then, you could say that I also lack his years. You'll follow me?' 'Where?'

  'Why, Ned, we must choose a site for the planting. I'm superstitious. I'll not return to that mangled field.'

  'And you'll leave Susan alone with those Irish vagabonds?'

  Hilton smiled. 'You've forgotten she's one herself. Oh, they're to be trusted, Ned. They only want to be allowed to live their own lives. The promise of that will keep them at work.'

  He stamped through the earth and the trees, away from the sound of the axes and the rasp of the saws. 'When last were you on the windward side?"

  'But once in my life. During the spell I lived with the Caribs.'

  'Caribee. And so you took no part in the slaughter.' ‘You criticize me for that?"

  ‘I envy your courage, to be a coward, on such an occasion.' He went down a slope; the trees thinned and they re-emerged onto the beach. The sea pounded the shore in front of them in an unceasing roar, and they had to shout to make themselves heard. ‘I have no regrets that I was on my way back here when it happened. I only wish the Caribs were themselves aware of that fact.'

  'You think this raid was a reprisal? How could they know?’ And how his heart pounded. Wapisiane. Wapisiane. Wapisiane. What was it Bloody Mary had said of Calais?

  'Now that I do not know,' Hilton confessed. 'But it would be appropriate.'

  'And would you have ordered it differently, had you been governor?'

  'Probably not. When you undertake grave responsibility, you must needs undertake all the unpleasant tasks that go with it. You'll have to strengthen that stomach of yours, Ned, if you'd rule.'

  'Me?’

  Hilton glanced at him, and continued on his way, down the beach toward the water, while Edward followed, and wondered; surely he could not mean to plant tobacco here.

  ‘It will be your responsibility, one day, no matter what decision he has made this time. My only quarrel with your father is his admittance of the French, and in such numbers. But then, no doubt he is born under a lucky star, or there was some arrangement of which the rest of us know nothing. As Monsieur Belain has sailed away with the most of his men, having paid two good cannon and his good name for the privilege of settling here. It makes a man wonder, indeed it does.' He stood before the sea, hands on hips. 'Over here life is different, Ned. You feel it every morning when you awaken. The breeze has a bite to it, the sea a roar. And when the wind blows, lad, 'tis that hurricane all over again. And we have not yet been hit by a proper storm. I see, in time, this island, small as it is, breeding two separate races of people, the leeward settlers and the windward. Much as your Yorkshireman differs from your man of Kent.'

  'And then there are those,' Edward said. 'Who are able to span the pair. Like the men of Suffolk.'

  To be sure. You wear a sword. Have you any knowledge of its use?’

  It came so suddenly that he jumped backwards in alarm. And yet, he had never doubted that Hilton had an ulterior motive in bringing him here.

  'You're nervous,' Hilton remarked. ‘I thought I'd made myself clear, why, two years ago.'

  Edward licked his lips. Was dissimulation possible? Was it what he wanted? Was he afraid? Yes. But incredibly, not of facing Tony Hilton with a sword in his hand. They were much of the same size, and there was no difference in muscle. Nor, he was sure, had Hilton ever received any fencing lessons. The difference, if it existed, lay in the mind, in the determination to kill. He had never killed. He had never done a great number of things. As Susan had said, so shrewdly, he had never shaken off the protecting, smothering cloak of boyhood, of being Tom Warner's son, however much he hated his father.

  ‘It was my doing,' he said. 'She was alone on the beach when I came, and I remembered too much about four years ago.'

  'By God,' Hilton remarked at large. ‘You have all the instincts of a gentleman.' He drew his sword, thumbed the point. 'And yet she neither resisted you nor screamed rape. Indeed, as we searched long and hard and found nothing, nor obtained a reply to our signals, and by your own admission you are a stranger over here, it would seem drat she certainly played her part, to some extent.'

  'And you'd revenge yourself on a mind already weakened by adversity?'

  Hilton smiled, but there was no amusement in his eyes. ‘In due course, Ned. Unless you'd stop me.'

  Edward dragged the blade from his scabbard, thrust his right leg forward and swung, right to left and then back again, the sword scything through the air with an audible whistle, such was the force of the sweeps. But Hilton was back out of range, although now he thrust forward to meet Edward's third swing, and the blades clanged together with an echo which rang across the beach.

  'Spirit, by God,' Hliton said. 'Now that I like. I'd thought you were beyond it.'

  Edward panted for breath, looked along the sword. Did he want to kill his friend? If he did not, he must stop now. There was no point in fighting, except to the death. Age against experience. Only quite different to what he had once feared. And did Tony have any experience?

  He moved forward, point drifting from side to side. Hilton watched him, and then brought up his own blade. They touched with the faintest ping, and then slithered against each other; when Edward moved his blade to the right Hilton went with it, forcing his right arm wide, and then whipping back towards Edward's unprotected chest. Now it was his turn to leap backwards, but not before a sliver of flesh was removed from his breast, to bring blood rolling down his belly and into his breeches.

  'Stop it. Stop it, ye silly men.'

  Susan ran across the sand, hair flying, and nightdress too, feet scuffling sand into the breeze.

  Hilton lowered his sword, still gazing at Edward. ‘I did not mean to scar you.'

  "You....' Edward looked down at the blood, and then rushed forward. But Hilton was not there to meet him; he had skipped aside and there was only Susan, tangling up his legs to bring them both tumbling to the ground.

  'Now put up your sword,' Hilton said, standing above them. 'And Susan, you'll tend to his chest'

  They stared at the great smiling gash of a mouth. Then the woman crawled away from Edward and rose to her knees.

  Hilton sheathed his sword, extended his hand. 'Come, Ned.'

  Edward got up. 'You were but waiting her coming. I do not understand. Christ, my head is in a whirl.'

  'And you, Susan.' Hilton took her hand as well. "You'd not know the light in your eye, girl. I have seen nothing like it these three years.'

  She bit her lip, and then pulled hair from her eyes. 'Last night, this morning, I wished to live again.'

  He nodded. ‘I'd never supposed your brain was dead. Only asleep. Can you stop that blood?’

  She hesitated, then stooped to tear a strip from her nightdress, winch she took down to the water to soak, while Edward cleaned sa
nd from his blade. 'Then we have a problem, still, Tony. Or were you playing a game?’

  'A game?" Hilton sat down. 'Oh, we have a problem, Ned. But 'tis only a symptom of the whole. There is a problem, here on Merwar's Hope. A problem of freedom. I would be free.'

  'My father has granted you that.'

  'You think so? Provided I practise Christian morality. Suppose I chose not to? Would he not set his militia at my throat?'

  'Christian morality?’

  ‘You've never considered the matter.' He pointed, at his wife coming up the beach. ‘I love that girl, Ned. I love the feel of her. I love to lie on her, and I love to feel her lying on me. Without her I doubt I'd stay here. I'd go to sea and become a pirate. And hang, within a year, as they all do. And I have known nothing from her save passive obedience. You have known the fire in her eyes, felt the fire in her belly.'

  Susan came up to them, knelt before Edward, cleaned the already drying blood from the scratch on his chest.

  'A good reason for you to hate me,' Edward said.

  'Oh, indeed. Were I a Christian gentleman. ‘But then, I am not, in my heart. Are you a Christian lady, Susan?"

  She glanced at him. Colour hovered in her sunbrowned cheeks, threatening to overwhelm them and then fading again. She was uncertain and a little frightened. But then, Edward realized, so was he. 'You know me, sir," she said. ‘I do not understand your drift.'

  'Would yon thud your belly against mine, girl, if Edward possessed your lips?"

  'By Christ," Edward said. 'That is....'

  'A heathen point of view. Oh, certainly. But I make no claim to so much virtue."

  'You'd take me, sir, on those terms?' Susan muttered.