The Haitian Trilogy: Plays: Henri Christophe, Drums and Colours, and The Haytian Earth
Page 12
RALEIGH (Rises angrily.)
Very well then, to be considered a beast!
Issue this order to the captains, Keymis.
Despite the orders of the King of England,
Despite the hypocrisy of this cunning Spaniard,
Raleigh now risks his life, his soldiers’ lives,
His son’s, and all the weight, experience
Of his life, to find this fool’s gold and be King of it!
Burn down the Spanish fort and find Manoa,
And now, señor, I wish you a good night.
(He exits.)
KEYMIS
I have not seen him so angry for some time.
He has a tongue that wounds his friends.
BERRIO
He is a sensitive but a dangerous man.
If he is your friend, then I say, look again.
He uses people.
KEYMIS
And you know nothing?
BERRIO
Oh, you persistent English, I know nothing.
I should like some rest. I wish him luck.
But I know this will bring some terrible price.
SON
My father is no coward, Señor de Berrio.
BERRIO
Sí, niño. No coward. But a frightened man. Good night.
(Exit BERRIO, KEYMIS.)
SON (Picks up lute and sings.)
Gather ye money while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying,
And that same price you raised today
Tomorrow will be dying.
That yellow coin of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting.
Pursue him still and you may run
A profit ere his setting.
So be you wise and be you bold
But let this keep you bonny.
Joy is a thing that’s bought and sold.
So sing hey money, money.
(RALEIGH, cloaked, enters above, listens to end of song, and descends.)
RALEIGH
Go, get to bed, boy, there’s soldier’s work at sunrise.
Excuse my anger. Know I love you. Now get to bed.
SON
How is your fever? You should rest, Father.
RALEIGH
I have the fever and I cannot rest,
I think of my responsibility, and each man’s life,
Of your sweet mother, of how greed makes men mad,
And that dull ache of absence called a wife.
(Lights fade as RALEIGH exits. Slow drumbeats start. Trumpet calls. To suggest passage of time—spot on CHORUS at left and spot on RALEIGH motionless. Enter CHORUS.)
CHORUS
The lanterns of the fleet die one by one,
The wandering moon rides through a foam of clouds,
As Raleigh walks the deadened deck alone.
The false grey of daylight fills the east.
He waits with a few soldiers, alone, aboard,
(Spot on RALEIGH.)
Through morning to the dead dial of noon.
The hours pass, till a far drum is heard.
(Lights up slowly.)
SAILOR
Smoke, sir! It’s the fort, they’ve burnt the fort.
RALEIGH (Wearily)
And that drum’s pulse means failure and defeat.
Lower the longboat there for Captain Keymis.
Can you shout what you see there, fellow?
SAILOR
Aye, aye, sir. It’s the expedition, they’re launching the skiffs, and it seems they’ve got a couple wounded, though I can’t make out who, sir. They’re down to the brown shallows of the river, and there’s some getting into the boats by the jungle’s edge.
RALEIGH
Get ready to brace them aboard. I’m coming down.
SAILOR
It’s Captain Keymis’s boat, sir, and there’s two dead.
RALEIGH
Who are they?
SAILOR
I can’t rightly tell, sir. They’re dead is all I know.
RALEIGH
Give them a shout again!
(BERRIO enters below.)
SAILOR
Allo there! Alloa off there!
(Silence.)
CHORUS
Now the hot wind haunts the abandoned armour,
The wild bees build in the rusting Spanish helms,
The armoured cricket nests in the empty shield.
SAILOR
Allo, allo there? Who got it this time, mate?
VOICE OFF
Jeremy Ford, carpenter. Walter Raleigh, squire.
BERRIO (Moving forward.)
Señor!
RALEIGH
What is it now, man? Do you come to mock me?
SAILOR
It’s the boy, sir. They’re coming aboard.
(The PATROL boards, KEYMIS enters; behind, SAILORS bearing SON’s body.)
SAILOR
Come, rest him on the table, I’ll shift the lute.
KEYMIS
Your son is dead, my lord.
RALEIGH
And gold outlasts the wearer. Remain here, Keymis.
(All exit but BERRIO and KEYMIS.)
Will you not go into your quarters?
BERRIO
Suffering binds men together, Excellency.
Not long ago I mourned my nephew’s death.
RALEIGH
How did this happen?
KEYMIS
He fell in the skirmish with another sailor
When we attacked the fort of San Thome.
RALEIGH
I placed the boy in your particular care.
(Over body)
So late I heard thee playing on the lute;
Now these poor fingers, that should pluck a viol,
Are cold as this sword that I place in them.
There he lies, on the unknown world, my son.
KEYMIS
We must return to England now, Sir Walter.
RALEIGH
I weigh this body of my finished son
Against, sweet Christ, a little mound of gold,
But God, who sacrificed Thy Son Thyself,
Temper my grief, rib me with fortitude.
O death that takes a little piece of me,
When one man dies, the only empire is yours.
All mockery carved in that marble stiffness
Wrapped in the reputation of a shroud,
A mirror clouded by the breath of time.
A broken sword laid at the foot of war,
A cold meat for the whimsy of a king
(Pause.)
—Keymis!
KEYMIS
I share your sorrow, Walter, I am with you.
RALEIGH (Turning on him.)
With me? I wish you were with him there dead.
KEYMIS
And I. Believe me, as his friend and captain.
RALEIGH
Or to speak the truth, his captain and his butcher.
KEYMIS
Butcher? I know the quantity of your suffering,
But I was his friend when he lived. You know it.
RALEIGH
Take him away, the lute, map, everything; but Keymis,
If you are as honest as you say you are, then look,
And take his murder as your own negligence.
(The body is borne away.)
Come back here, man!
KEYMIS
Do you call me back to abuse me, then, Sir Walter,
Here in the full view of the common sailors,
To the contempt and pity of the enemy?
RALEIGH
Yes, yes, and more, death is a common thing,
And it is you who are the enemy.
KEYMIS
Your mind is feverish.
RALEIGH
It was you, with your cupidinous, common fawning,
Who drew me by the sleeve away from God
When I was locked in darkness in the tower,
And wh
ispered gold and empire in this ear.
KEYMIS
Whatever fever you may have, Sir Walter, I tell you,
That is a weak and cowardly lie, sweet Christ. Remember,
We searched for Guiana many times before this.
Then it was dear Laurence, friend, exchanger of my love.
It was your fever that infected mine. We have failed,
And execution waits for us in England. But God,
I had preferred to slaughter Indians uselessly
Than to endure this malice from a gentleman.
BERRIO
Gentlemen, señores. I lost a nephew to your soldiers.
RALEIGH
I’ll tell you, de Berrio, the contagion of madness
Makes snakes of friends when profit is involved
(Points.)
There is the leech Keymis who fed on me,
Who crawled on green Guiana like a leaf,
Murdering men’s sons and fattening on my friendship.
Do not cross my sight till we return to England.
(He exits.)
KEYMIS
O God, pluck down the star of selfish men!
Break the proud shaft on which they hoist their colours.
The man has burst my heart. I loved them both.
I could not hold the boy back, I swear to God.
I roll the map up, where the stain of his life
Marks red for conquest. I will not live with this.
(He exits.)
BERRIO
Again and again, the plot of conquest follows
The hollow carcass of the drum of reputation,
Who weeps for Jeremy Ford?
(Enter two SAILORS.)
FIRST SAILOR
If you please, sir. Come, mate, give us a hand.
BERRIO
What is the matter now?
SECOND SAILOR
If you please, sir. Captain Keymis has just killed hisself.
FIRST SAILOR
There’s some takes things too hard. Excuse us, Governor.
(BERRIO bends his head over the table. The SAILORS wait. Slow fade-out. Drum.)
Interlude
POMPEY (Rushing out onstage.)
Mano! Hey, Mano. Where this man gone now?
I bet you he with them big shot in the five-dollar seat.
MANO (Emerging.)
What happen now, pardner? You ain’t tired harass me?
POMPEY
You know what I wanted to tell you, pardner?
MANO
I don’t want to hear nothing.
POMPEY
Don’t vex nuh, pal. Is this. That last sailor there who carry off the table, the second one.
MANO
You mean the squinge-faced fellow?
POMPEY
Yeah, heself, well—
MANO
Well, what?
POMPEY
You ain’t find he talk like a Bajan?
MANO
Oh God, is that you call a man out here for, and people looking?
POMPEY (Sitting on barrel.)
Looking at this feller, you know, remind me of a old joke once about a Barbadian.
MANO
Look nuh, man, we ain’t have time for that now.
POMPEY
This joke happen way back in about 1618 or so, the year Raleigh dead. Or some time around there. (MANO moves away.) Wait nuh, man, I sure you going enjoy this joke. It have history in it. (MANO comes back.) They had this Bajan feller during the early days of slavery, when some of the British islands was being settled, you know, like St. Kitts, Antigua, St. Lucia, and so on and so on.
MANO
I gone, yes.
POMPEY
Well, this feller, he get a work. This wasn’t no ordinary kind a work, you know. He wasn’t no Nègre jardin, no plantation nigger. He was a wine steward on a big estate.
MANO
You ever give a short joke yet?
POMPEY
Well, one night he bounce up wid a drunken sailor.
MANO (Moving away.)
Look, nuh, like you planning to sleep here tonight?
POMPEY
All right, all right. But stop! You think I was lying? Look the two of them there! You going see if I was lying.
(They exit.)
Scene 7
Night. A wharf—enter a SAILOR, jug in hand—Barbados.
SAILOR
It’s midnight, and I can’t find the way to the ship, and I wouldn’t like to be stuck in the Barbados for nothing. It’s pitch black and I’ve too much rum in me drum to move farther. Hup, boys, hup, boys! It’s no use, me legs is buckling below me like a shivered keel. Perhaps, and I’m lucky, I’ll get a passerby to pick me up. It’s a pitch-dark alley. Ah!
(A prim NEGRO STEWARD passes with a small crate, sees the SAILOR, sneers; then passes on. SAILOR rises.)
SAILOR
Hey you, nigger! give us a hand there, mate.
Hey, you, come back here. You, buck, give us a hand.
STEWARD (Long pause, sneers.)
Talking to me?
SAILOR
Yes, mate. I’m on me way to the ship, aren’t you a nigger?
I can’t hardly make out complexions in this obscurity.
STEWARD
Give you a hand? You should be ashamed of yourself.
(Moves off.)
SAILOR
Hey, you can’t go off, I compel you to give me a hand.
STEWARD (Setting down the cask carefully.)
Now look. You see here yourself, mister man! If you can’t ack like a gentleman in a respectable British colony, then all I could say to you is you should be ashamed of yourself. A sailor of His Majesty’s navy, a Englishman, and drunk as a lord on the demon rum. And look here, too, besides, friend. I not one of these common nigger men you see working down by the carenage hauling spiders and getting on like they ain’t got self-respeck for their owners, yuh! I works at Sir George Somers’s cousin’s as house, food, and wine steward, so hence the uniform which I intends to respeck! A Englishman like you cavorting in this public alley on a Sunday night!
(The SAILOR recoils from the outburst.)
SAILOR
Look, mate, it’s late and I’m due aboard.
STEWARD
I don’t care what time it is, this is the year 1618, and this is a British colony, and Barbados is not one of them loose-living other colonies in these islands with their riotous living, like Jamaica and the buccaneers, and the other places, this is a decent self-respecking colony with a sense of justice and decency. You not in St. Kitts, Antigua, or St. Lucia, or one of them nasty French places, and I consider you should be ashamed of yourself! You have a responsibility to protect these British colonies with vessels, and so discharge them according to your service, before I take your name and number! Imagine, shouting my name out in the middle of the night like some bewildered alley cat. I am a steward, in a decent conducted plantation, and house-proud. Why, you getting on like one of them convicts and indentured Englishmen that they send out to work in the colonies. Now get up and march. You villain. Get up, I say, and remember the flag you fly under, you wicked thing you, and give me that bottle. On, get on. You villainous thing you. The ship is yonder. Now garn, garn. (Pushes SAILOR off.) A sailor of His Majesty and drunk! (He exits.)
Scene 8
The Death of Raleigh
1618. Cold dawn. The Tower of London. Enter RALEIGH. Behind him a PRIEST and an EXECUTIONER. Drumbeat.
RALEIGH
The wind is sharp, keen as an axe’s edge.
PRIEST
Sir Walter, now is the time
When you must fit your vessel for that fatal sea,
To that Virginian voyage, death’s New Found Land.
Yet Christ shall guard you.
RALEIGH
Do you hear that, executioner?
Make no arrangements for my supper tonight.
Come, lead me to the summit of all endeavour.
>
PRIEST
God keep you on that long voyage, Sir Walter.
RALEIGH
I had forgotten God too long, my age is finished,
Just as de Berrio said, as the old sailor warned
At my son’s cost, and broken Laurence Keymis.
I’ll tell you this, Father, although my hermit’s voice
Will be drowned in the roar of wars and politics,
The only wisdom, whether of single man or nation,
Is to study the brevity of this life and love it.
That’s the poor wisdom I bequeath to soldiers.
If I sound unreasonable, sir, it is because, again,
I have lost my head. Look, I get not even a dry laugh.
EXECUTIONER
Come.
(They climb the steps. RALEIGH places his head on the block. Drums to crescendo. Blackout.)
(Enter CHORUS in single spot.)
CHORUS
The blood that jets from Raleigh’s severed head
Lopped like a rose when England’s strength was green,
Spreads on the map its bright imperial red
To close the stain of conquest on our scene.
So Time turns now from Europe and the sea,
Revolves its gaze and shows the land itself,
Hundreds of battles past the discovery,
To the slaves’ suffering and the settlers’ wealth,
Until an exiled people find release,
Through revolutions of despair and love,
As human suffering presages peace.
How shall we love, till we have known love’s cost,
How praise our liberty, so lately earned,
How shall our brothers love, till we forgive?
And so to Haiti now our theme is turned.
How shall we live, till these ghosts bid us live?
(Fade-out. Music.)
Scene 9
Haiti. GENERAL LECLERC’s mansion. M. ARMAND CALIXTE-BREDA; his nephew, ANTON, apart. GENERAL LECLERC, GENERAL and MADAME DE ROUVRAY. Liveried NEGRO LACKEYS. Night. The garden. Wine is served.
LECLERC
It’s not quite as terrible as one had imagined,
This heat, I mean, General. In France one had heard
That Haiti was a plague of fevers and sweltering heat,