Senor Nice: Straight Life From Wales to South America

by Howard Marks

  Henry Morgan was ceremoniously welcomed when he sailed into Port Royal with his treasure, but he had broken the 1670 Treaty of Madrid by which England and Spain had agreed to respect each other’s territories in the Americas. This had been signed just before he sacked Old Panama and Spain demanded the death penalty. Despite Henry suffering from a heavy fever, the authorities arrested him and put him on a leaky ship bound for London to face charges of treason. On arrival in England, he was immediately released on bail. At his trial there was no judge or jury, nor a single witness. Henry proved he could not have known about the peace treaty with Spain, apologised for his ignorance and left the court a free man.

  Henry Morgan drank at the inns, smoked tobacco in the coffee houses, gambled at the races, attended the theatre and journeyed to Wales. Nobility welcomed him at their homes, where he entertained them with swashbuckling tales of adventure and romance. King Charles II and Henry became great friends. The king assisted Henry’s wenching with court beauties, while Henry’s street credibility enabled the king to engage in clandestine orgies at dockside taverns, grog shops and brothels. Henry introduced the king to His Majesty’s best-known mistress, the Welsh actress Nell Gwyn. Henry’s health improved and he begged the king to let him return to Jamaica, the island he loved. Charles II responded by knighting Henry and appointing him lieutenant-governor of Jamaica.

  On his return to Port Royal, Henry formed his own political party, and became judge-admiral of the customs, dishing out fines and confiscating selected spoils. He was the official first citizen of Port Royal and was acting governor – effectively dictator – of Jamaica for two years.

  Port Royal was now the richest city in the world, and dedicated to the disposal of plunder and providing a good time. Wearing London fashion as they strolled down paved walkways, residents lived in luxuriously furnished cut-stone homes with fully stocked wine cellars, tiled roofs and sash windows. A synagogue, Quaker meeting house, Roman Catholic chapel, Presbyterian and Anglican churches evidenced Port Royal’s toleration of all religions.

  It was also the wickedest city in the world, whatever criterion you used. There were more taverns per head, more brothels per square yard and more stolen goods than anywhere else before or since. Along the dockside narrow alleys were lined with dirty houses offering every brand of vice ever invented. Rations were frugal aboard ship, so their clients ate like horses and drank like fish. Gamblers engaged in cockfighting, bull- and bear-baiting, dominoes and games of billiards. Taverns burned to the ground during orgies of dancing, swordplay and nakedness. Fornicating took place on an unprecedented scale, encouraged by the ‘House of Correction for Lazy Strumpets’ situated at the water’s edge. Tales of Port Royal’s decadence, drunkenness and wantonness circulated the world, and prophets warned of the town being razed by God as punishment for its wickedness.

  Highly sexed, Henry had his own harem and saw nothing immoral in taking full advantage of attractive young women of all races, preferably virgins. As for buccaneering, although he made secret deals with pirates and occasionally got them out of trouble, Henry didn’t join their escapades. His offices ruled out undertaking any piracy, privateering or aggression against Spain. Deprived of Morgan’s leadership, the Brethren of the Coast were giving way to a new breed of pirate – rogues, cutthroats and other seafaring trash. Henry had no time for them. They had shown him their true colours in Panama: they were scum who couldn’t take losses or show gratitude for sharing in someone else’s good fortune. Henry was now getting into real crime by running a colony with the help of his mate the king of England. He took it easy and lay in his hammock on one of his plantations, drinking rum and inventing more cocktails.

  One Front-end Loader might make you horny, but three or four just gets you blind pissed. I staggered drunkenly from Sir Henry’s Restaurant through reception, where Henry’s face smiled down at me, mocking my drunken gait, and went to my room. I lay on the bed listening to an orchestra of flies playing a symphony of boredom as they described labyrinthine circles and engaged in intricate airy dance formations, occasionally flying into my flushed face and cannoning off. In my alcoholic haze the flies seemed to dart and wheel around, performing three-dimensional figures which turned into thin black lines, crossing and recrossing in every direction. I lit up Beano’s spliff, and the flies’ collective mind started writing a series of strange characters in the air, forming an elusive sentence – the secret of all secrets. Feeling like I had been sliced in two with only one half of me present, looking for something that did not exist, I fell asleep dreaming of James Bond’s spider and the last days of Henry Morgan.

  Henry stamped out the use of Jamaica as a base for pirates and buccaneers, closing Port Royal to illegal craft, whether foreign or British, and imposed stringent checks on ships flying the flags of potential enemies of Great Britain. He issued an ultimatum to captains: seek pardon for your previous misdemeanours, promise never to indulge in such practices again, and buy cheap land in Jamaica – as he had done. Believing that Henry Morgan would take such a course only if there was money to be made by it, the pirates became plantation owners, Jamaica’s landed gentry. Roman Catholic James II succeeded Protestant Charles II. Despite James’s affection for Spain, he was an avid fan of Henry and continued to support him. A Dutch attempt to discredit Henry by exposing him as a former criminal ended, as Eddie Evans had pointed out in Kenfig Hill, with Henry Morgan the first person ever to be awarded monetary damages in a libel case. He had now reached the peak of his power but the challenges had run out. The thrill had gone. He developed swollen legs, a huge paunch, puffy eyes and yellow skin. He lost his appetite. Age brought nothing with it but a restless waiting, a wish for peace and a dull expectancy of a state that could not be imagined. On 25 August 1685, Henry Morgan died of alcoholic poisoning and tuberculosis.

  My sleep lasted only a few hours. I woke up feeling more disoriented than ever before in my life. The wind had risen and was now accompanied by high-pitched howls. I opened the wooden shutters and confronted a grey disc with black lines like spokes radiating from a beak which snapped and clicked. Two wide-open bright orange eyes studded a wheel-like face. The eyes blazed with wrath and a tail spread out like a fan.

  The owl, symbol of wisdom in the West, symbol of foolishness in the East, and an omen of evil and portent of family death in the Caribbean, screeched horribly and flapped away above the choppy harbour water. Bats flitted in the dark, gnashing their tiny teeth. Mice and rats screamed and glared at me from their obscurity with small mean eyes. A pale luminous exhalation rose from the sea, assumed a human shape, floated slowly towards the hotel and roamed about the great trees. Terrified, I went downstairs into the garden. I gazed at the huge deep harbour, collected my thoughts and concentrated on its past.

  On 7 June 1692, dawn penetrated Port Royal’s hot and sultry atmosphere. There was no wind, and the sea lay unruffled, flat like oil, clogged with weed. Ships filled the harbour, ready to unload their cargoes into the already overflowing storehouses. Revellers with heads throbbing from rum were ending a night of carousing and staggering to their beds. To them, dawn was the end of the day, not the beginning.

  A thunderous noise sounded from the mountains to the north, and three shocks increasing in severity rocked the port. The land tilted, wharves and warehouses crumbled, a church collapsed to the ground, its bells jangling madly, and the cemetery, including Henry Morgan’s grave, slipped into the sea. People slipped from upper storeys and were crushed beneath tons of falling masonry. Trapped beneath falling walls and beams, they were suffocated by dense clouds of dust. Others fell into chasms that suddenly yawned out of the ground and were squeezed to death as the cracks closed like the pincers of a giant crab. Dogs ate the flesh of the faces of the partially swallowed, leaving shiny skulls grinning at the sky. Blood-spattered and broken-boned people crawled out of disappearing buildings. Looting started immediately. Slaves thanked providence or God and began killing their white masters. Gigantic waves tore vessels from t
heir moorings and swept them over the sunken ruins, masts mingling with roofs. One ship ended up perched on houses like Noah’s Ark.

  In two minutes 2,000 people had died, rivers had changed their courses, old springs had vanished and new ones appeared, hills had slid into valleys burying plantations, and mountains had been distorted and bared. One of the earth’s biggest quakes had wiped out Henry’s Sodom and Gomorrah and taken his body away.

  An event such as this is bound to leave a paranormal hangover. If Port Royal had no ghosts, then they didn’t exist anywhere. Calmed by my cold rationalisation of the irrational, I sat on an overturned boat, relit my spliff, and without any fear watched several more apparitions of smoke and vapour spout from the depths, hearing African, Spanish and Welsh whispers until dawn broke and swallowed them all. A thick silence hung in the salty air.

  I walked out of the hotel, turned right and found myself in Port Royal’s deserted main square. A gleaming white church stood in the corner. The gates were locked, but most of the cemetery’s graves were clearly visible. One housed the body of one Lewis Galdy, a Huguenot born in Montpellier who fled from France to Jamaica to escape religious persecution. He became a successful Port Royal merchant and cockfight promoter. On the day of the earthquake Galdy ran out of his office as it keeled over and sank into the ground in clouds of dust, powdered lime and mortar. A great hole opened under his feet, swallowed him and closed. A minute later a second quake catapulted him out of the ground. Galdy soared through the air like a cannonball and splashed into the sea, from where he was rescued by a passing boat. His experience was unique and remains so. Predictably, Lewis Galdy became more religious and spent the rest of his days as a churchwarden.

  Beyond the church was an old parade ground lined with barrack buildings and the historic Fort Charles, once commanded by Nelson. After an hour’s walking through streets with names such as Gaol Alley and Love Lane, I had visited every corner of today’s Port Royal, a tranquil fishing community. But there are two Port Royals: this diminished community and the city that slid beneath the sea. It is not easy to escape this other city, which preserves a sometimes tangible presence. Fishermen listen above the sound of the sea for the whispering chimes of church bells, some of which have been recovered and rest in Jamaica’s museums. The tops of buildings are visible above the seabed. Treasure seekers continually bring up bottles, tiles, pipes, wheels, pewter spoons, brass candlesticks, ceramics, guns and pieces of eight. Divers claim to have walked through the submerged streets of the old city and seen skeletons holding tankards sitting on stools around tables. There is a report of a cathedral with a mound of treasure on its altar, guarded by a ten-foot giant crab.

  The noise of people preparing breakfast and coughing outboard motors mingled with reggae tunes as I walked back into the bar of Morgan’s Harbour Hotel and Beach Club. I drank a jug of freezing fruit juice. Prescot, every bit as well-dressed as the night before, joined me.

  ‘Sleep well, Niceman?’

  ‘A bit disturbed. I think the buccaneers must still be around. Has anyone else felt haunted here?’

  ‘Ah huh. I don’t think there’s anyone who has been here who hasn’t. Now you know why Leroy will never stay the night here. The place is full of duppies. Nothing else can scare that brother. He just called me to say he will be here in an hour or so.’

  ‘Duppy’ is a Bantu word meaning ghost. Duppies are part of everyday Jamaican life, and their reality is not questioned. Each person has two souls after death; one goes to heaven while the other, the duppy, stays on earth. Spanish colonists sometimes supposedly hid valuables and money in pottery jars buried under roots of trees. The African slave who dug the hole was killed, and his duppy would stay on guard for eternity. Obeah, the belief that spirits can be used to harm the living by using spells and amulets, accords with the belief in duppies. Henry Morgan regularly consulted obeah practitioners during his dying days.

  I ordered a breakfast of ackee and saltfish, finishing it just as Leroy walked up to my table.

  ‘Sleep good, mon?’

  ‘Sure. I’m not scared of duppies.’

  ‘Yo afi be careful round dem duppies, yah. Dem can control yo body and yo mind.’

  ‘Do they only come out at night?’

  ‘Dem duppy come out anytime dem feel like. Dem live ina cotton tree and look like man or animal. An dem laugh like witch and talk ina dem nose. Dem only count to three. When duppy ride donkey, dem sidown backway.’

  This was too much. I started laughing.

  Leroy gave me a look intended to kill. I could sense his blood boiling so changed the subject.

  ‘So what’s the plan for today, Big Man?’

  ‘Wi ago dong a Trench Town, den wi a go Nine Mile. Yo afi go pay respect to Bob Marley pilgrimage. Yo shoulda listen Bob Marley album, Duppy Conqueror. Dat wi teach yo someting. Learn about Old Hige Annie Palmer, white witch of Rosehall who leave her skin anight and drink baby blood. Learn about Rolling Calf – dat is when a butcher dead, im turn ina Rolling Calf. Dat is de worse duppy yo wan fi deal with. Learn about di Three-Foot Horse, and di Whistling Cowboy. Yo wa fi talk an laugh about more duppy. Den wi ago look fi where Henry Morgan im live. A di same part a di island. Wi no af a whole heap of time if yo ago leave Jamaica tomorrow.’

  ‘How the hell do you know I am leaving tomorrow?’ I had told no one of my travel plans.

  ‘Mi know wen yo come and go. A fi mi town dis. Mi know everyting wa go on in a dis country. Mi friend dem always keep mi up to date. Mi af connection everywhere, mon, in a di police, an custom, an Air Jamaica, you name it. Mi hav it. If mi no know it, mi know a man who can.’

  ‘Cool.’

  Leroy deliberately placed the car’s no smoking sign in a more prominent position and sporadically polished the dashboard as we drove on the Palasidoes back towards Michael Manley International Airport and Kingston.

  ‘Look de si di smoke over deso, mon?’

  On the right-hand side, between us and the sea, police were watching and feeding a bonfire. White smoke rose into the sky.

  ‘A deso dem bun di weed that dem tek from people.’

  ‘They burn all of it?’

  ‘Shit! No.’ Leroy laughed.

  We were soon in the centre of Kingston, then in Trench Town, so named because of a large sewer trench from Old Kingston running through it to the sea.

  ‘Dis where everyting start, from di ghetto. Now reggae music cover di world from man like Bob Marley, Toots Hibbert, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, Ken Booth, Leroy Sibbles, the Heptones and Jimmy Cliff.’

  We passed the Queen’s Theatre where Bob Marley – known locally as Tuff Gong – and the Wailers first played. The streets smelled of piss. People were living in shipping crates, fish barrels, oil drums and on the ground. Pit latrines provided less than basic sanitation, and collective yard kitchens produced the food. There was little evidence of plumbing or electricity, and the area reeked of overpopulation, disease, malnutrition and infant mortality. Bob Marley and Elvis Presley might share many qualities, but this place could never become Graceland. Just minutes away by car lay tropical paradises, beaches and cliffs, waterfalls spouting out of hills, clear streams and organic free food on trees everywhere. It made no sense.

  Three miles from Trench Town at 55 Hope Road is the Bob Marley Museum, a wooden plantation house bought by Chris Blackwell – who was once saved by a Rasta from a near-fatal boating accident – as a home for Bob Marley. Tour buses crammed the recently paved parking lot. Leroy stayed in the car while I went for the guided tour. Marijuana plants grew in the herb garden; a rehearsal room sported holes from bullets meant for Bob.

  Despite being feared by the government for his influence and militance, and his promotion of black pride, Bob Marley has become part of the collective consciousness of the nation. Of mixed parentage, he was acceptable to both races and could speak about exploitation from the moral high ground. His life was short and bright.

  We left Kingston and drove west on the Sir Alexander Busta
mente Highway through Spanish Town to May Pen, where Leroy stopped at a coconut stall.

  ‘Cold jelly, mon.’

  Cold jelly is chilled coconut. The stallholder trimmed two coconut shells with a machete, deftly opening a hole at the top of each. The milk was instantly refreshing and tasted healthy. When we had finished drinking, the coconut man hacked out a scoop from each shell and broke the nuts in two. We used the scoops to dig out the soft coconut flesh.

  At May Pen we headed inland through Morgans, Morgans Pass and Arthur’s Seat.

  ‘Leroy, this is one of the places where Henry Morgan must have lived. Can we get out and have a look round?’

  ‘Noting no de, yah, mon. Believe mi, mi check everyting and knock pon every door ask a whole heap of questions just two day ago.’

  A quick drive around confirmed Leroy’s description. We carried on inland to the Bob Marley Mausoleum, a tasteful extension of Marley’s birthplace, at Nine Mile, where I dutifully paid my respects while Leroy again stayed in the car park. When I returned, he had been joined on a bench by a Rasta whom he obviously knew. I smiled at the Rasta. He smiled at me, took two joints from his pocket and gave me one.

  ‘Peace, Niceman. Mi name Mo.’

  Mo and I simultaneously lit our joints and took slow deliberate lungfuls of ganja. I could tell that Mo, like me, was marvelling at a herb that could make you feel so good about yourself and others with just one breath. We held the precious breath inside us. Mo breathed out, sighing ‘Jah’ with reverence. I did the same. We both felt the warmth and fullness of our open hearts and surrendered control.

  Reggae, ganja and Rastafarianism are tightly interwoven in today’s Jamaica, but their beginnings were independent. Back in around 1,000 BC wise King Solomon lived with 700 wives and made love to a further 400 queens and 600 concubines. His sexual skills and spiritual strength attracted beautiful women from all over the Middle East and Africa, including Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, who bore Solomon his favourite son, Menelik. For many years father and son lived in Jerusalem, where Solomon built the First Temple to house the Ark of the Covenant, the holy of holies which has inspired so many religious poets and Hollywood film directors. Almost all accounts agree the Ark contained the original stone tablets of the Ten Commandments as given by God to Moses as well as some manna from heaven. It is believed to be the resting-place of the spirit of God and to exist simultaneously both in heaven and on earth.